Designated Balance Discussion Thread - Page 980

On May 05 2014 18:07 LSN wrote:


Last year, when terran was winning the majority of tournaments, this thread was not any different:

This thread was inhabited with 80% terrans that were blaming good stats of terran race on the uber-abilities of innovation and flash. However, nowadays it is very clear that innovation was just one of the guys in history of sc2 that were able to abuse certain mechanics/playstyles to his favour during a period of time where it was hard to deal with them like there were several before him and flash can't live up to his prior broodwar times of success, which surely also is a matter of sc2 being not that appealing and inspiring to him as broodwar was (imo, due to the lower general skill cap and due to too fast macro of all races).


Anyway, the terran bias in this thread is quite strong.

I don't even know what is the point about 2 rax or 2 off-rax execution in here. It is basically a matter of scouting and reaction of the opponent and not only a matter of microabilities of the executioner. The game is balanced around marines can't be controlled 100% perfectly, otherwise they required nerfing anyway (as other units as well). Therefore it is not relevant if marines can or cannot be microed perfectly.


Terran is a bit in a bad spot right now, I don't doubt, but the solution neither can be any 2 rax timings nor enabling bio in general to overpower their opponents with easy in many situations, as it was before e.g. queen patch or nexus overcharge.

The solution can only be to enforce/enable the terran race to mix a bigger variety of units into their composition of wanted army.

The SC2 state is alot better than it was 1 year ago, but still doesn't feel finnished. Emphasize of terran race is still too much on bio and the ways to deal with it for opponents. I think the thor has to go and be replaced with something more appropriate/dynamic.

On May 05 2014 20:39 TheDwf wrote:

For 7g robo, certainly. For some other all-ins, there is no such a thing because there are less tasks to perform.

On May 05 2014 21:38 Mutineer wrote:
Assume there are = amount of players started to play every race.

Assume Win rate between players follow normal curve of distribution in every sample size.

Assume win rate stabilised on 50% for each sample.

Get Number of players in each race in a sample. (example, N of each race in GM liaque).

Calculate chance of win if race distribution 20 -40-40 for top 20-20-20.

I let you do the math.

On May 06 2014 01:16 B-rye88 wrote:


You could also just, I don't know, go to aligulac.

On May 05 2014 22:38 ETisME wrote:

and? It's not like 2 port banshee/mass bfhellion/cloak banshee required a lot of tasks either.
my point is that 2 rax isn't some amazing all in that has high skill ceiling, soultrain itself is the perfect example of that

On May 05 2014 22:19 Micro_Jackson wrote:


I think the reason for the Terran bias is that T is the "hardest" or better said "frustrating" race to play. Lets say you are Protoss and open Dt every game. Between Bronce and High Master you will win 3 or 4 out of 10 games just randomly by choosing this build.
Terran in the current meta doesnt have this "random" wins and is lacking of consistent allins too.
In my opinion the Terran bias is not about balance, it is more about the feeling that the opponent doesn´t "earned" the win by playing better. Even on pro level you see T dropping all over the place and P turtling on 2 base just waiting for T to make a mistake and stomp him with 1 push.

Honestly i think Terran needs even a bigger rework then Protoss. Bio play is either too strong at the highest level or too "hard" for lowlvls, everything that synergies with bio is overpowered by default and every Mech buff will be hardcountert by ZvP balance, like history shows (roachbuff(s), Immortalbuff, Tempest). And removing every T upgrade from the game will not fix the problems.

Ideas might be:
- Move Marauder somehow to Mech.
- Rework Reaper away from scout only to some sort of mapcontrol unit.
- Rework Air, in times of speed oracle, speed mutas and super long range Tempest, the BC and Banshee look a bit outdated.

On May 06 2014 07:40 jojamon wrote:
I'm a Terran player, and I think that Terran is the strongest race in the mid-game, but is the weakest by far in the late game. Our tier 3 units are useless en masse (BCs, Thors). Ravens are really good, but there's no situation where you can easily mass up a bunch of Ravens if your opponent knows what they're doing. Our early game is hampered by the fact that we don't have any aggressive openings that can catch the opponent off-guard and do a significant amount of damage anymore.

Z can do an aggressive ling/bane +/- roach, P can open DTs, Oracles, Blink stalkers, VRs, 6gate, immortal bust, amongst many others that if not super prepared for, Terran will just die.

I suggest a few minor changes that can make a difference.
1) Make BCs attacks ignore armor (so now they're not totally worthless against Corruptors)
2) Increase MSC build time to 40secs. This will slightly delay the zealot/stalker/MSC poke so Terran can be a little bit safer in the early game.
3) Decrease Reactor build time to 45secs
4) Remove Vikings "armored" profile. This will make landed vikings not die in like 2 shots to immortals, make them not as weak against marauders in TvT, and also not as terrible vs VRs and Stalkers.

On May 06 2014 07:40 jojamon wrote:
I suggest a few minor changes that can make a difference.
1) Make BCs attacks ignore armor (so now they're not totally worthless against Corruptors)
2) Increase MSC build time to 40secs. This will slightly delay the zealot/stalker/MSC poke so Terran can be a little bit safer in the early game.
3) Decrease Reactor build time to 45secs
4) Remove Vikings "armored" profile. This will make landed vikings not die in like 2 shots to immortals, make them not as weak against marauders in TvT, and also not as terrible vs VRs and Stalkers.

On May 06 2014 01:24 Thieving Magpie wrote:


He could also not spend half his argument telling people to assume data that he doesn't present and assume the phrase "I let you do the math" makes him look smart, which it doesn't.

On May 06 2014 09:14 Mutineer wrote:


Please, go to school, I will not spend time writing equilibriums for you.

On May 06 2014 09:46 Uberduder wrote:
I was thinking, since zvz is the matchup with swarmhosts that can get the most bogged down and take the longest, an interesting way to deal with that problem would be to make it so vipers could abduct and uproot zerg static defense. I think that would make the viper more interesting, solve the problem of swarmhost zvz, without affecting the other matchups. I think it would really help deal with the gridlock. Thoughts?

On May 06 2014 07:40 jojamon wrote:I suggest a few minor changes that can make a difference.
1) Make BCs attacks ignore armor (so now they're not totally worthless against Corruptors)
2) Increase MSC build time to 40secs. This will slightly delay the zealot/stalker/MSC poke so Terran can be a little bit safer in the early game.
3) Decrease Reactor build time to 45secs
4) Remove Vikings "armored" profile. This will make landed vikings not die in like 2 shots to immortals, make them not as weak against marauders in TvT, and also not as terrible vs VRs and Stalkers.

On May 06 2014 21:07 BurningRanger wrote:

I think you see the right problems, but your ideas are not hitting them that well imo.

1) Yes the BC is totally underused/worthless in all matchups and this shouldn't be. Your idea of its damage ignoring armor is kind of strange though. If you want to buff the lategame damage, just implement a BC-only damage upgrade to the Fusion Core (quite similar to the Ultralisk-only armor upgrade).
I'd rather see Yamato changed a bit maybe. Tone down the energy usage so it can be fired more often, but also decrease the damage. Overall Yamato should have more damage per energy though. This would also promote micro a little.

2) I'd rather see the MSC built in a Stargate or have another requirement or so. Another idea would be to make Photon Overcharge an upgrade that has to be researched. any of those would weaken the early pressure a Protoss can do or make them more all-in'ish. The Protoss player has to choose to be more aggressive or more safe, not both at the same time.

3) I guess you want to speed up Terran's production a bit. It's just way too slow and inflexible in the lategame though. In early- and midgame it's fine imo.
Here I'd like a lategame upgrade (after Fusion Core?) that allows TLs and Reactors to be upgraded to Tech-Reactors (like the one from WoL campaign).

4) The idea is not that bad. I'd just do it for the Assault mode only. In Fighter mode it's fine as it is. In Assault Mode it could transform from Armored into Light for example (a Hellion/Hellbat transforms from Mechanical to Bio and back, so Light to Armored shouldn't be a problem).

On May 06 2014 08:18 Thieving Magpie wrote:


4.) In addition, I've always been a big proponent for transforming the Viking's "Assault Mode" attack from a single to a double-firing strike. So instead of 12x1 it will be 6x2 allowing Vikings to get +2 damage per upgrade without improving their damage vs +3 armor.