Designated Balance Discussion Thread - Page 933

On March 23 2014 00:18 submarine wrote:


This is 2010 WoL beta talk. As you know, the game is a bit more complex. I have seen far more games ended by pure gateway units then by pure bio. Gateway units are not bad. The idea that gateway units are somehow bad or not costeffective was created back in the beta, when some guys did random tests with equal cost or equal supply armies in the unit tester. This has nothing to do with the in game situation. Due to warpgate, toss can have far more expensive armies in the early game.

On March 23 2014 00:30 ETisME wrote:

of cause each unit and tech have their own timing when it is strong.
even scvs are strong in a lot of situation.

but how strong is strong and how weak is weak, it's all personal opinion.

I certainly won't put off protoss gateway unit is weak as a myth.

On March 23 2014 01:04 Big J wrote:


but what do you want? Typical Protoss ground armies consist of mass stalker and mass zealot. And then a few hightech units. Do you only consider a unit good if it is nearly a standalone combat composition?
Protoss players make those units en mass, so either all of their other units are also bad, or those stalkers and zealots are actually good units which means they fill extremly important roles very well.

I mean, if it was as easy as "Colossus more costefficient than Stalker --> slam down 5robos and only make Colossi" then people would do it, but a unit is much more than its costefficiency. It has its roles, it has its timings and it has its place in composition. Be it that Stalkers are too a large part only the antiair and meatshields for Colossi in certain scenarios, that's still an extremly important role and without them Protoss would be fucked. Sure in a theoretical world you may rather want to build marine/medivac/Colossus instead, and when you play against roaches you'd much rather have marauder/immortal than stalker/immortal against it. But that's not the case, you gotta work with what your race offers.

You can't just call a unit bad because some other race has some unit at that tech that you'd rather have for a particular scenario. Then we would all be playing marine/medivac/mutalisk/templar with an MsC and larvamechanics or something like that, because compared to those things a lot of stuff is pretty bad.

On March 23 2014 01:26 ETisME wrote:

When people say gateway unit is bad, they mean it sucks in direct engagement because how poorly they scale and almost every protoss gateway unit is to provide some sort of protection for high tech unit.
It doesnt matter how many gateway units you have, once you have no aoe, your army will get rolled.

This is why people who are discussing here is talking about when the timing of gateway unit is strong fight toe to toe with bio etc.

That's why people call gateway army sucks because they have to rely on aoe or else they get crushed.

Just same as why people say hydra sucks yet hydra plays a big part in swarmhost composition

On March 23 2014 01:26 ETisME wrote:

When people say gateway unit is bad, they mean it sucks in direct engagement because how poorly they scale and almost every protoss gateway unit is to provide some sort of protection for high tech unit.
It doesnt matter how many gateway units you have, once you have no aoe, your army will get rolled.

This is why people who are discussing here is talking about when the timing of gateway unit is strong fight toe to toe with bio etc.

That's why people call gateway army sucks because they have to rely on aoe or else they get crushed.

Just same as why people say hydra sucks yet hydra plays a big part in swarmhost composition

On March 23 2014 01:26 ETisME wrote:

When people say gateway unit is bad, they mean it sucks in direct engagement because how poorly they scale and almost every protoss gateway unit is to provide some sort of protection for high tech unit.
It doesnt matter how many gateway units you have, once you have no aoe, your army will get rolled.

This is why people who are discussing here is talking about when the timing of gateway unit is strong fight toe to toe with bio etc.

That's why people call gateway army sucks because they have to rely on aoe or else they get crushed.

Just same as why people say hydra sucks yet hydra plays a big part in swarmhost composition

On March 23 2014 01:35 imrusty269 wrote:


Terran bio is only better than gateway (minus templar archon) with medivac support. Gatewayarmies are more than capable of dealing with naked MM.

On March 23 2014 01:46 Big J wrote:


yes, and marines have to rely on units that take out splash damage. Do they suck because of that too?

And of course it depends on how many gateway units you have. Mass zealot reinforcments to overrun a weakened bioball, mass blinkstalker reinforcement once the Protoss goes roughly to equal supply against a zerg. Those strategies are a thing. Yes, stalker vs roach or hydra+buffer or MM is not costefficient. Neither is roach vs immortal, that doesn't make the roach suck generally, it just happens to fight an uphill battle in that scenario.
Just like stalkers vs roaches, because stalkers have a thousand and one extra utility compared to roaches. How in the world would it be fair if stalkers had the slightest chance in a cost for cost combat vs roaches, when blink+shield is so much more powerful than what roaches have as regeneration? When stalkers shoot air and move roughly at the same speed as roaches without a speedupgrade?

If you want to judge units only by deathball costefficiency like you do here, then every unit in the game is plainly bad because marines and zerglings are awesome cost for cost against anything "without splash support".
Take the mutalisk. It is much less costefficient in combat than stalkers. So are mutalisks also bad units?

I guess what I want to tell you is, you need a better way to measure "bad unit" than costefficiency in a cost-for-cost test map. And if you use a such, you will come to the conclusion that stalkers aren't that bad. Not to mention that Zealots costinefficiency is massively exaggerated. They are very good units cost for cost, because 100/0 is very little money and they only fall cost for cost vs lings. Else you already need big amounts of ranged units to counter them.

Edit: And hydras aren't a big part of SH compositions. There is a lot of players that don't play any hydralisks with their swarmhosts, since they rely on Corruptors/spores/mutalisks/infestors for antiair and roaches/zerglings for support. Hydralisks are a possibility in that composition. Not even a bad one, but none that is required or even far spread.

On March 23 2014 02:07 ETisME wrote:

I am not the one who is using that as indicator why gateway unit sucks.
It's how everyone had been judging gateway sucks because they scale poorly hence all the talk about the timing widow between bio vs gateway unit.

Marine sucks at mid late to late game pvt.
That's why terran switch to marauders and ghosts in late game.
But the timing window for Marines are far longer than gateways since until protoss get enough aoe, left over Marines provide a great dps due to upgrade scaling.

Also to those who said gateway unit doesn't suck because blink stalker, it called a timing.
MsC and blink tech is above your terran pre medivac tech, of cause it is stronger.
It's the strength of the build, not the unit.

Like I said with scv marine either scv pull or proxy, it doesn't make scv strong overall

On March 23 2014 02:10 Sabu113 wrote:
For having watched as long as you have, it's shocking how poor your understanding of the race is J. You would think watching for the life of SC2 you'd be capable of a more nuanced opinion.

On March 23 2014 02:22 ETisME wrote:
Like I said, it's all relative timing.

Blink build hits before cs stim marauder and medivac, gateway strength is when bio count is low and no medivac and other tech, of cause it will be strong.

Just like how you labeled roro lost to mkp due to late baneling nest.

On March 23 2014 02:27 TheDwf wrote:

I really don't get your logic. The reason Blink can prevail at this time is indeed because of the timing, not because Protoss has unlocked a higher technology per se (you can proxy Tempest at the same time, but the even higher tech won't help you; same as Terran can be on Marines/Tanks/Medivac tech when the Blink attack hits and still gets rolled); so I just state that higher tech doesn't necessarily translate to an advantage, and you answer with what I said about a Proleague game? What's the link...

On March 23 2014 02:56 submarine wrote:
Forgetting your banenest is something else then seeing an "timing attack" coming 3 minutes ahead and reacting to it with 4 bunkers, scv cut, and prepulled scvs. The problem is that even when terran does all the right things, the toss still comes out ahead when he has the appropriate response to the appropriate response. Thats why blink was op and stills seems to be.

On March 23 2014 02:42 ETisME wrote:

I used your example to show timings are strong when there are no appropriate respond, be it mistake or its just how strong it is on the map.

I meant that the higher tech of blink and msc support hits before the counter tech is out, of cause it is strong.
It's a timing, not a random higher tech advantage like marine getting cs.

Of cause I know a higher tech doesn't always transfer to an advantage but I think you know blink isn't gotten just for the sake of having higher tech...

It's a higher tech that requires you to have marauder stim medivac and enough unit and the build use this timing gap to hit before these tech are out.

On March 23 2014 03:18 vthree wrote:


But isn't this true for pretty much every unit/comp in the game except for maybe the super late game comps? Ultralisks are great until enough marauders or immortals are out. Colossus is great until enough Vikings, corruptors, vipers and so forth. Almost every unit had a window where they are most effective due to not too many counters are on the field.

Rating a unit just by its performace in toe to toe battles without other units is way too simplistic. Or we could say the medivac is actually the worse unit in game. Any unit with air attack can kill an infinite number of medivacs.

No unit is that strong in a vacuum since they all have counters. I think the best way to judge a unit's strength throughout the game is how often they are made in various stages of the games. Like someone already pointed out, if gateway units were so bad, why are they getting made in most late game P armies (except for sky toss in PvZ, and even then, they are wrapped in for harass)

On March 23 2014 03:34 Grumbels wrote:

Sometimes a unit is so strong it never gets made, because no opponent would even bother with the unit it counters.

On March 23 2014 03:18 vthree wrote:


But isn't this true for pretty much every unit/comp in the game except for maybe the super late game comps? Ultralisks are great until enough marauders or immortals are out. Colossus is great until enough Vikings, corruptors, vipers and so forth. Almost every unit had a window where they are most effective due to not too many counters are on the field.

Rating a unit just by its performace in toe to toe battles without other units is way to simplistic. Or we could say the medivac is actually the worse unit in game. Any unit with air attack can kill an infinite number of medivacs.

No unit is that strong in a vacuum since they all have counters. I think the best way to judge a unit's strength throughout the game is how often they are made in various stages of the games. Like someone already pointed out, if gateway units were so bad, why are they getting made in most late game P armies (except for sky toss in PvZ, and even then, they are wrapped in for harass)