EPTfast roaches, counter everything terran can do early game
Designated Balance Discussion Thread - Page 945
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MiCroLiFe
Norway264 Posts
fast roaches, counter everything terran can do early game | ||
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Hider
Denmark9342 Posts
On April 23 2014 12:22 plogamer wrote: As I wrote in my earlier post, early to mid, yes, Protoss warp-tech based attacks absolutely negate defender's advantage. Least mobile army is pushing it - Terran mech is the least mobile. With somewhat recent buffs (Warp Prism speed, Observer build-time, Hallucination research) a Protoss that can only move in a ball and not make multi-pronged aggression; or being a race with map control/scouting issues are a relic of the past. Anyway, you still haven't defended why making defender's advantage apply to Warp-tech be would suddenly make Protoss play any more passive than Terrans or Zergs. You can still design the games around abilities that provide defenders advantage (widow mine/creep spread) and make timing attacks more fun to play against. The real problem for protoss here is that playing against Blink, Timewarp and Forcefields are so !@#$%^&* antimicro that it makes protoss allins/timing attacks incredibly boring. But tweaking/redesigning those abilities and you suddenly don't have any balance issues nor design issues with protoss being able to make timing attacks through warp tech. For instance, just look at a standard PvZ game from Starbow. Atm. it severely suffers from no actual defenders advantage despite warptech not being a part of the early game. Instead, protoss players are forced into massing cannons and zerg need to turtle behind building walloffs in order to survive against many protoss timings. This has occured as Starbow buffed twilight tech relative to BW. So when toss didn't neccesarily have to play very tech-based (with stargate + tier 3 AOE) they could suddenly become a lot more aggressive against zerg --> leads to very volatile gameplay (like 80% of all pvz's end within the first 15 minutes). The truth here is that Sc2 zerg actually has a much higher defenders advantage due to creep-spread which too a large extent nullifies with the warp-tech defenders advantage. So basically Sc2 is designed in such a way that it's actually fine that warptech nullifies traveldistance as the opponents have the neccesary tools to deal with that. And think about it this way: Most players complain about protoss being to deathball'ish and having poorly designed units/abilities. Making protoss worse offensively is only gonna reward even more passive play, esp if you compensate them with a stronger maxed out army. Having no warptech for Z and T, especially in their mirrors, don't mean that they don't use aggressive play. You still see aggressive styles in non-Protoss matchups. Introducing a mechanic where the cooldown is affected by the warp location's distance to the Warpgate (Except on a Nexus) - means that warp-ins defensively are untouched, while their offensive capacity is now affected by a penalty somewhat similar to what Zergs and Terrans face. Because zerg and terran has much more mobile harass options. Now here is the issue: If you give protoss mobile and strong units that can harass/have map control on their own + the option of warping in defensively instantly --> Protoss can nullify opponents harass a lot easier than they currently can --> more passive game. So simply put, if you make warptech stronger defensively and weaker offensively --> More passive gameplay is rewarded (ceteris paribus at least). I simply much rather focus on making the offensive protoss plays more exciting and microable than taking the aspect away from them. | ||
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Hider
Denmark9342 Posts
On April 23 2014 16:29 Ben... wrote: The weirdest things about infestor/broodlord were: a) The composition was known about by pros as early as early March-April 2011 but was not popular because it was tough to get to (Yugioh was doing it on his stream and basically never losing outside of cheese. It just took a lot longer to get to the composition but once he got there he was untouchable. This was before the fungal patch. This was just before and around the 1.3 patch the halfed the duration of fungal but doubled the the DPS to make the damage equal, before ling/infestor and ling/bane/infestor became a thing) b) David Kim knew about it fairly early on as well (He commented on it in an interview in mid-2011 saying that he had concerns about the potential of it. Of course people on TL immediately attacked him for saying that and said he was crazy and had other more important things to worry about. Kinda shows how shortsighted some parts of this community are.) The queen patch (which encompassed both the +2 ground range buff for queens and the speed buff for overlords) enabled the composition because it allowed Zerg to get to the broodlord/infestor composition much, much faster than they previously could have. Before the patch, getting to the composition was not nearly as feasible because it was slowed so significantly by the need to play safer in the earlier parts of the game, usually by opening with two bases and a few getting anti-hellion roaches to allow you to push out and take a third and having to wait until overseer to get a reliable scout. After the queen patch, those roaches and speedlings were no longer needed because queens could easily fill the role of the thing that pushed hellions back, which freed up more larva and more gas. As well, scouting what the opponent was doing was able to be done in a consistent manner much earlier than before. Had the buff not happened, broodlord/infestor probably still would have happened, but not nearly to the extent it did. Before the patch, queen openings did exist but only a few incredibly good zergs were doing them because they were much more difficult to do because of how much more important positioning was (Losira, for example, commonly did the 6 queen in later 2011, well before it became common to see. He had great results with it. If you watch the games you will see that his positioning of queens was quite clever). It was inevitable that the best Zergs would eventually have been able to do some of the same stuff we saw with 5 range queens, with 3 queens, but it likely wouldn't have been as wide spread because only the top Zergs would have been able to pull it off, and not the mid-tier Zergs that we saw mysteriously rise to the top after the patch *cough*Sniper*cough*. Your TvP comment seems fairly spot on and reasonable. I imagine the matchup will even out over the next bit. Blink is not nearly as much of a threat anymore as it was with the old map pool and oracles are getting handled much better by top tier Terrans now. Well for a while in like mid/early 2011, people did complain about Broodlord/infestor, but then terrans started to learn to use Snipe... However, the Snipe Nerf patch was IMO quite terrible, as it didn't make sense that Blizzard never compensated terran. It was quite clear at that point in time that it was only a question of time before zergs learned to get to the critical mass of Broodlord/Infestors. But, it did actually take longer than I expected, and for a while, pro terrans were simply outdropping zergs left and right (quite impresisve with those slowmedivacs), and zergs had trouble getting there. I guess, that was where the Queen buff came in, as it simply made it a lot easier for Zergs to tech up safely on a high drone count. Pre-Queen buff I guess early game TvZ too some extent was comparable to early game TvP. It was terran who had it really easy in early game, and could basically decide whether he wanted to go into greedy macro or all-in, while zerg had issues with scouting. I guess the Queen-patch was understandable, but once again you wonder why they never compensated terran. And IMO, it was still obvious for like 6-9 months that the game was completley broken, yet Blizzard delayed the required buffs/nerfs as MVP won against Vortix and one other "unknown foreign" zerg player with Seeker Missiles. Meanwhile you had no foreign terran player anywhere in sight. At least today (while terran still is quite underpresented) you have guys like Dayshi and Bunny. Blizzards decisionmaking throughout WOL involved lots of errors and I think the way they adapted in HOTS wasn't correct either. Instead, of just being very slow with nerfs/buffs, they should remember to compensate the race that's nerfed, rather than not making any changes at all (when the gam clearly needs it). | ||
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SC2Toastie
Netherlands5725 Posts
Snipe was nerfed within days. No adaptation or whatsoever. Brofestor was not OP until the Queens, because the timing hit a lot later. After the queen buff, Zergs would have broodlord infestor running around when 2/2 was done. | ||
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ETisME
12276 Posts
On April 23 2014 20:42 SC2Toastie wrote: Hider, you've got your WOL timelines messed up. Snipe was nerfed within days. No adaptation or whatsoever. Brofestor was not OP until the Queens, because the timing hit a lot later. After the queen buff, Zergs would have broodlord infestor running around when 2/2 was done. Are you sure about that? Didn't mvp take out July in ro8 with turtle ghost style and he also took out nestea in same way during blizcon final. Not sure which was first but I do believe it was longer than days | ||
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Hider
Denmark9342 Posts
On April 23 2014 20:42 SC2Toastie wrote: Hider, you've got your WOL timelines messed up. Snipe was nerfed within days. No adaptation or whatsoever. Brofestor was not OP until the Queens, because the timing hit a lot later. After the queen buff, Zergs would have broodlord infestor running around when 2/2 was done. Sniped was nerfed within days? Ehh. starting from when exactly? I realize that to the more mainstream/casual public, alot of people didn't know about the power of Snipe untill the MVP vs Nestea finale, however I think there was at least a couple of months after Infestor buff where there were signs at higher level of play that Snipe was indeed quite boring. Actually, I remember that I did the build myself a lot on Shakuras where I would just turtle and never attack with a Tank/marine/Ghost army. It was a totally unbeatable style if you just did it right. But yeh, that was a long time before the MVP vs Nestea finale (which Nestea btw didn't lose intentionally. People who made those dumb accusations really need to go rewatch the game, because Nestea was actually never once ahead on army supply the entire game. And your bank doesn't really matter vs that terran deathball). Didn't mvp take out July in ro8 with turtle ghost style and he also took out nestea in same way during blizcon final. Not sure which was first but I do believe it was longer than days Yeh he did that on Metalopolis a while before the MVP vs Nestea game as well. But I think even a month or 2 before that, Idras was asked in streamchat whether Broodlord/Infestor was OP. He answered "No, unless Ghost's aren't as good as I expect them to be". You can give Idra a lot of flack, but that comment turned out to be a great prediction on the future balance issues of Sc2 WOL. | ||
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TheDwf
France19747 Posts
On April 23 2014 21:09 Hider wrote: Sniped was nerfed within days? Ehh. starting from when exactly? I realize that to the more mainstream/casual public, alot of people didn't know about the power of Snipe untill the MVP vs Nestea finale, however I think there was at least a couple of months after Infestor buff where there were signs at higher level of play that Snipe was indeed quite boring. EDIT: I retract my statemenet, I no longer "think" this, but instead, I know I am right. Bascially, I did the builds myself a lot on Shakuras where I would just turtle and never attack with a Tank/marine/Ghost army. It was a totally unbeatable style if you just did it right. But yeh, that was a long time before the MVP vs Nestea finale (which Nestea btw didn't lose intentionally. People who made those dumb accusations really need to go rewatch the game, because Nestea was actually never once ahead on army supply the entire game. And your bank doesn't really matter vs that terran deathball). Yeh he did that on Metalopolis a while before the MVP vs Nestea game as well. But I think even a month or 2 before that, Idras was asked in streamchat whether Broodlord/Infestor was OP. He answered "No, unless Ghost's aren't as good as I expect them to be". You can give Idra a lot of flack, but he was totally right on that one comment. Against Xigua in the WCG 2011 finals. | ||
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Hider
Denmark9342 Posts
That was much later though - December 2011, post Snipe nerf. It seemed, that he used Ghosts for EMP that game. | ||
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ZenithM
France15952 Posts
On April 23 2014 21:27 Hider wrote: That was much later though. December 2011, post Snipe nerf. He used Ghosts for EMP it seemed that game. And for nukes. That was awesome ;D | ||
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Big J
Austria16289 Posts
On April 23 2014 21:27 Hider wrote: That was much later though. December 2011, post Snipe nerf. He used Ghosts for EMP it seemed that game. The Snipe Nerf came on February 21st 2012, according to liquipedia. They really wanted to make sure that DRG gets a championship.  | ||
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Hider
Denmark9342 Posts
On April 23 2014 21:30 Big J wrote: The Snipe Nerf came on February 21st 2012, according to liquipedia. Oh yeh, guess I did have the timeline wrong (but in the exact opposite way as I was accused of in the previous post). Then there definitely was a big big period where you could abuse it. IMO, that's basically just makes Blizzards decsionmaking even worse. Basically, in February 2012 they made terran late game chanceless vs Zerg. Then just 3 months later, they heavily buffed zerg early game. I guess I remembered this as being like 6-7 months, which made Blizzards decisionmaking seem naive, but yet still somewhat understandable. But only giving Zergs 3 months to figure out how to get to late game safely and then make it a lot easier for them...... Just seemed really bad. I guess this would be (almost) comparable to nerfing Psy Storm damage by 50% today, and then 3 months later remove the Mothership Core. Obviously, it it would make TvP very terran favored. Terran would dominate the scene, "patchterans" phenomena would arise. But we would still have like 1 or 2 korean protosses who would be able to perform decently and beat the 20th best foreign terran player. That combined with "law" of win/rates going towards 50/50 (once again) would result in David Kim makeinga public statement where he doesn't actually think the matchup favors terran becasue the statistics tells him that (+ best korean protoss in the game can still win). Therefore no changes would be made untill next expansion. And for nukes. That was awesome ;D Nah, I think he just threw the game intentionally. Like he was 5/6base to 3 base, but figured it would be more entertaining for viewers to watch the MVP comeback and Nukes killing !@#$%^&*. Meanwhile he had a deal with MVP to split pricepool 50/50, and I am sure Destiny knows some Goldleague zergs who would be able to easily win against MVP from that position. | ||
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TheDwf
France19747 Posts
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ETisME
12276 Posts
terran has at least 5 different all ins, plus a bigger map size (than previously, and slow overlord) makes it hard to scout. Zerg had a hard time grabbing a third because it is not "safe" to do so. At the same time, terran could grab an extremely early in base 3rd which zerg used roach ling baneling all in to counter it. Blizzard wanted zerg to not lose so easily in early game and hellion run by/fast 3rd makes it very easy for terran to just snowball, thus they wanted to test the earlier creep tumor or range buff. The range buff went through and rather than +1, it became a +2 range, combined with overlord speed upgrade. The only thing they needed to fix was how quickly zerg can get broodlord infestors, which is fixed in HotS, with reaper hellion to increase early game interactions and also bio mine which is more momentum based. The strength of bl infestors is only because how early it can come out before terran can have a good optimal counter to it, namely ravens sky transition. Zergs are diverting away from bl infestors in hots because how big the maps are (dies to drops), difficult to get the deathball out (faster drops and bio mine style) and terran can get out ravens a lot easier if needed. In a way, you can see how blizzard fix these issues better than anyone else realised. the fix just comes not in WoL but in Hots, giving tools for players instead of buff and nerf wol units | ||
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SC2Toastie
Netherlands5725 Posts
When the patch came out, many zergs were starting to use queens or roaches in their openers to zone the hellions out. It was however A LOT harder with 3 range than with 5. It still happened, usually with the help of one spine crawler. When Zergs started to adopt that style - BOOM, +2 range ezpz patchzerg era started  . | ||
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vthree
Hong Kong8039 Posts
On April 23 2014 21:58 ETisME wrote: it was more because Zerg were having a tough time surviving early game. terran has at least 5 different all ins, plus a bigger map size (than previously, and slow overlord) makes it hard to scout. Zerg had a hard time grabbing a third because it is not "safe" to do so. At the same time, terran could grab an extremely early in base 3rd which zerg used roach ling baneling all in to counter it. Blizzard wanted zerg to not lose so easily in early game and hellion run by/fast 3rd makes it very easy for terran to just snowball, thus they wanted to test the earlier creep tumor or range buff. The range buff went through and rather than +1, it became a +2 range, combined with overlord speed upgrade. The only thing they needed to fix was how quickly zerg can get broodlord infestors, which is fixed in HotS, with reaper hellion to increase early game interactions and also bio mine which is more momentum based. The strength of bl infestors is only because how early it can come out before terran can have a good optimal counter to it, namely ravens sky transition. Zergs are diverting away from bl infestors in hots because how big the maps are (dies to drops), difficult to get the deathball out (faster drops and bio mine style) and terran can get out ravens a lot easier if needed. In a way, you can see how blizzard fix these issues better than anyone else realised. the fix just comes not in WoL but in Hots, giving tools for players instead of buff and nerf wol units I think you are forgetting that fungal took a huge hit when it was no longer instant. I am sure that if infestors still had the insta fungal, they would be used more via biomine. Remember that terrans switching bio mine means no tanks which were counters to the infestors. And infested terrans are pretty good to take mine shots. Also, in early HoTS, it was all about hellbat drops should zergs really needed mutas to shut them down because infestors are horrible dealing with hellbat drops. | ||
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vthree
Hong Kong8039 Posts
On April 23 2014 22:06 SC2Toastie wrote: Problem with the queen patch was - it wasn't needed at all. When the patch came out, many zergs were starting to use queens or roaches in their openers to zone the hellions out. It was however A LOT harder with 3 range than with 5. It still happened, usually with the help of one spine crawler. When Zergs started to adopt that style - BOOM, +2 range ezpz patchzerg era started .Another issues was the creep, zergs players had gotten a lot better with their creep spread and without hellions kiting Queens, stopping creep spread was impossible. I think we are approaching this in TvZ now as well. With proper ling Queen micro, it is becoming harder and harder to counter creep even with reaper/hellion. And if you commit to reaper hellion, it is pretty bad vs a roach rush. | ||
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ETisME
12276 Posts
On April 23 2014 22:06 SC2Toastie wrote: Problem with the queen patch was - it wasn't needed at all. When the patch came out, many zergs were starting to use queens or roaches in their openers to zone the hellions out. It was however A LOT harder with 3 range than with 5. It still happened, usually with the help of one spine crawler. When Zergs started to adopt that style - BOOM, +2 range ezpz patchzerg era started .It all comes down on opinions I guess. I hated it personally. Getting roaches out already put zerg slightly behind due to useless tech and gas investment and if terran was doing some quick third or even a marauder hellion medivac all in, you aren't in terrible position but you sure are not in a good position. Every hellion poke has the potential to run in and let terran snow ball, which sucks because the hellion opening is so very damn good already since it denies ling scout and hard to grab a third with the drone. A lot of zerg (including me) was surprised at the +2 range though, we wanted a buff in early game but more in the direction of +1 range. but as it turns out hots is perfect imo, hellions reapers for slowing creep down and harassing the third, more in line of what the opening should be good at. | ||
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Hider
Denmark9342 Posts
A lot of zerg (including me) was surprised at the +2 range though, we wanted a buff in early game but more in the direction of +1 range. but as it turns out hots is perfect imo, hellions reapers for slowing creep down and harassing the third, more in line of what the opening should be good at. Yeh, I agree. Queen 5 range feels good with the new reapers IMO. As a terran player, TvZ early game didn't feel fair at all preQueenbuff, so I agree that a change was needed (though +2 range probably was a bit too mcuh as well back then + terran still needed late game compensation. Just a small change such as Seeker Missile being free - which came way too late - would have been decent along the Queen patch or Snipe nerf patch). | ||
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Big J
Austria16289 Posts
On April 23 2014 22:08 vthree wrote: I think you are forgetting that fungal took a huge hit when it was no longer instant. I am sure that if infestors still had the insta fungal, they would be used more via biomine. Remember that terrans switching bio mine means no tanks which were counters to the infestors. And infested terrans are pretty good to take mine shots. Also, in early HoTS, it was all about hellbat drops should zergs really needed mutas to shut them down because infestors are horrible dealing with hellbat drops. well, you didn't have mutas in time for hellbat drops anyways. But in general, one of the few weaknesses (please don't hang me for using that word in that context) of BL/Infestor in WoL was dropplay. And (medivac) drops have been buffed since that, fungal is a projectile as you say, which is especially bad against units like speedmedivacs and requires much more babysitting than the old "switch screen, click medivac with the defensive infestor at home". And killing the medivacs/drops takes so much more energy as well, since fungal doesn't have +10vs armored anymore and ITs don't have any upgrades anymore. If it was for frontal combat, Infestors might still be OK midgame (combined with banelings at least). But you have a huge problem against drops and Terran can expand like crazy when you don't have mutalisks. Endgame they are still one of the best units though, since they still only cost 2supply and are just much better than most other zerg units in the respective supply relation. | ||
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ZenithM
France15952 Posts
On April 23 2014 21:55 TheDwf wrote: Bomber vs Has was a real treat to watch. I just can't take Has' playstyle seriously. His very existence seems to be screaming a taunt to the other races: "You see, I'm Protoss, I can play as stupidly and dirtily as I want and still be legit!". I mean, I'm all for playing cheesy, but it's not as respectable when you're cheesing with the dominant race and doing pretty much exclusively that. | ||
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