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I'd like to present an analysis of how the nerfed blue flames affects the game. The first paragraph here is the original post I made in the thread about patch 1.4. Since it's an incomplete analysis, I'd like to add a bit more to what I've discovered.
The new blue flame upgrade will now make the hellion deal 19 damage instead of 24, as a result, they will no longer 2 shot workers and will require 3 shots just like the red flames, they will however still 2 shot zerglings. I'd like to add that hellions get +1 damage but also +1 to light, giving them +2 damage vs light units. With 1 attack upgrade, they will deal 21 damage vs light, even with an armor upgrade from the opposing side they will still deal 20 damage which is sufficient to kill a probe or drone in 2 shots. So now what has changed is that it is no longer possible to 2 shot a large group of workers in the early game, but in the later stages when a terran player has both the blue flames and attack upgrades, it'll still be possible.
Ok now I'm going to add an additional comment about how it affects SCVs (or stimed combat shield marines).
Since blue flame hellions get +2 per attack against light, they do 19/21/23/25 damage with blue flames.
SCVs have 45 hp, so if SCVs has 0 armor, they will get 2 shot by hellions with 2 upgrades. if they have 1 or 2 armor they will get 2 shot by hellions with 3 attack upgrades. if they have 3 armor, they will never get 2 shot by hellions.
it's important to note that with the current mech trend in TvT, it's very possible for either of the above scenarios to happen.
Marines
under no circumstance can they be 2 shot with combat shields even with hellions having 3 attack upgrades and marines have 0 armor.
Hellions previously 4 shot each other, now it's 5 shot unless the 1 hellion can do 23 damage to another, which is possible if a 2 attack upgrade hellion attacks a 0 armor hellion or a 3 attack hellion against a 2 armor hellion.
Zerglings always get's 2 shot unless hellions have 0 attack upgrade and zerg has 2 armor, rare but possible.
Hydralisks / High Templar / Sentries (all 80 hp)
Previously it was possible to 3 shot hydralisks if hellions has 2 attack upgrades and hydralisks has either 0 or 1 armor or if they hellions has 3 attack upgrades, in which case the hellions would still 3 shot them even with 3 armor. But now this is no longer possible.
Now the following image below is a spread sheet that I had created to display what previously died from combinations of 1-2 seige tank hits and 1-2 hellion hits.
The graphs in the left display how much damage hellions nerfed and pre nerfed does and how much seige tanks does to light units in each of it's damage radius. The section that says matching enemy upgrades represents how much damage seige tanks and hellions assuming the enemy matches an equal level of armor upgrades, which is fair presumming the both players are equally good.
The graphs to the right displays how much damage is dealt in combinations of 1 seige hit and 1 hellion hit or 1 seige hit and 2 hellion hits or 2 seige hits and 1 hellion hit and 2 seige hits and 2 hellion hits.
The red squares represents the scenarios where combat shield marines previously would of died, but now survive. Which happens when neither terran has attack or armor upgrades and the marine survives with 1 hp. It also happens when marines take 1 in the 25% tank radius and 2 hellion hits in all upgrade levels. This one I feel may be a semi common scenario in a TvT where 1 player goes mech and the other goes marines.
The orange square represents the scenarios where a zergling survives. It's a rare scenario where at 3 upgrade levels and the zergling takes 25% tank splash and 1 hellion hit, so it's not big deal.
The yellow square represents the scenarios where 80 hp units (hydra, sentry, high templar) survives. This happens 0 or 1 upgrade levels with 1 seige hit and 2 hellion hits. It also happens at 0-2 upgrade levels with 2 seige hit and 2 hellion hits. This is also not a common scenario in the current meta game as a zerg using hydralisks vs a terran going mech doesn't happen.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/ZPdMo.jpg)
If you have any comments or questions, I'll try to answer them if I can.
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buff probes plz
User was temp banned for this post.
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So what was the intended point of this nerf? Which match up was it meant to fix? Or is it a general blue flame was too devastating in all match ups like IdrA said, 6 failed attempts at bfh and 1 success makes up for all the other failures because of how unforgiving they are.
Will this completely take hellions out of the picture beyond first 2-4 for map control vs zerg? 150/150 is a pretty expensive upgrade for 5 damage vs light.
Thoughts?
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I definitely don't think of myself as a credible person to discuss balance relative to so many others here, but I am a bit concerned this will hurt "standard" mech play styles which are already quite uncommon. Hellions were obviously great against all of the T1 units in all of the match ups, and were important to defending tanks and thors.
I really hope this nerf doesn't affect the macro play style, when really something like a delayed research time would only lessen the impact of the BFH rush... then again they would still be very volatile, though there may simply be less opportunities to get in and do the damage.
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The purpose of the nerf is to prevent workers and no combat shield marines from getting 2 shot by BFH in the early minutes of the game. But probe and drone raids are still viable in the later stages of the game. I think the main intention is to just lower it enough so the hellions does just short of 20 damage a shot so players can't be out of the game so easily in the early stages.
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Sweden164 Posts
So rushing for blue flame will only be good against zerglings. No more gas before rax rush to blue flame as fast as possible anymore! Marines fighting!!!<3
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yea i wonder mech will be viable tvt... dosnt seem likely which is what i dont understand... wish bliz didnt nerf so hard just because i love mech 
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Pure Mech needed hellions to 3 shot marines to be a viable mineral dump compared to the bio mineral dump of the marine.
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On August 25 2011 14:45 Thorzain wrote:
So rushing for blue flame will only be good against zerglings. No more gas before rax rush to blue flame as fast as possible anymore! Marines fighting!!!<3
This. Get ready for only 2rax again with maybe some reactor hellion (like days of old). Honestly based on logical feedback I'm doubting this particular patch goes live. Maybe 100/100 or something. I see why they don't want the 2 shot but this isn't the best way to do it IMO.
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I mean this doesn't effect my play style cause i like marine siege tank in all match ups with different support of bio vs protoss. As zerg and terran I never used the infestor play or 1/1/1 cause they just seem to gimicky in the match up and will be inevitably nerfed at some point. After this patch im kind of glad I did this.
Can we also discuss barracks change? 5 seconds longer to build hurt 2 raxx or any TvX match ups? I know it will cause a weird timing with raxx finishing and orbital timing as it was already pretty tight.
I think BFH nerf was fine, but i just feel like its not a balance flaw its a game design flaw. They make stuff like BFH and storm as an example where you only need to have it work once to have huge damage. EMP everything but allow a storm or two and it really doesn't matter, same with BFH.
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On August 25 2011 14:52 AndreiDaGiant wrote:yea i wonder mech will be viable tvt... dosnt seem likely which is what i dont understand... wish bliz didnt nerf so hard just because i love mech
Mech in TvT is affected by
1) it's very unlikely that SCVs will get 2 shot.
2) marines have added survivability at 0 upgrades or all upgrade levels when they're hit once in the 25% seige tank radius.
3) clumps of vikings can no longer outrun a seeker missile, making a potential for ravens to appear in large air battles.
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On August 25 2011 14:45 Thorzain wrote:
So rushing for blue flame will only be good against zerglings. No more gas before rax rush to blue flame as fast as possible anymore! Marines fighting!!!<3
Bio micro will always be more attractive.
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Ravens are already a huge part of massive air battles. 2-3 ravens with PDD will win you the battle against someone who doesnt. If seeker missles werent needed to be upgraded AND cost 125 energy per missle I would say it could be a fair exchange for all the other nerfs. The fact is HSM is useless in TvP and you don't have the gas to spare this useless tech in TvT or TvZ. Maybe someone will be cute and have it work for them in a match-up, but my guess is that someone who has it work in a game was already so far ahead they could literally do anything and win.
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I would love to go back to bio tank. Hellions seem so random and luck. Bio tank requires more skills. a few hellions sneak in behind your mineral line in early game and it's gg. so much luck.
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United States7483 Posts
Reactor hellion openings (without blue flame) haven't been touched though, they're still as strong as they were before.
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They need to rethink this and go back to their philosophy of "wait and see" of what players come up with. Hellions already are pretty effectively dealt with by good sim city and awareness...
It's sort of like nerfing marines because an "8 marine drop with stim is too powerful..." yes it is if you weren't prepared or they all landed and started taking out scvs...
Blizzard jumping the gun over 1 tournament, you can still bio TvT, you just can't play it stupidly like everyone does right now where they run into a tank line and then go, "oh bio doesn't work." You're supposed to leverage BCS/banshees with bio vs mech to create holes and force unsieges.
If the patch goes through, we'll start to see more maraudercraft in TvT...which leads back to mass marines/tank to beat that...etc.
I'm not even really worried about mech TvT so much as mech possibilities going bye bye in TvP/TvZ related to using hellions. Blue flame will not be as attractive an upgrade if it takes 3 shots to kill probes/drones...as that was the entire point of the upgrade.
And if they're going to keep it that +1 weapon hellions + blueflame can 2 shot workers and such...maybe they should lower gas cost of the armory so it's not 100 gas...one of the most difficult parts of trying to go mech TvP/TvZ is not the actual unit control, but trying to allocate all your gas to units + upgrades which is very, very difficult since armories cost 100 vespene gas, wheres engineering bays are only minerals, forges are only minerals, and evolution chambers are only minerals...factories all cost 100 gas...barracks are only minerals and gateways are only minerals...why is the armory 150/100? If they are going to nerf mech and keep it insanely difficult to do in TvP/TvZ they should consider making armories cheaper gas wise, more like 150/50.
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On August 25 2011 14:56 Trealador wrote:
I mean this doesn't effect my play style cause i like marine siege tank in all match ups with different support of bio vs protoss. As zerg and terran I never used the infestor play or 1/1/1 cause they just seem to gimicky in the match up and will be inevitably nerfed at some point. After this patch im kind of glad I did this.
Can we also discuss barracks change? 5 seconds longer to build hurt 2 raxx or any TvX match ups? I know it will cause a weird timing with raxx finishing and orbital timing as it was already pretty tight.
I think BFH nerf was fine, but i just feel like its not a balance flaw its a game design flaw. They make stuff like BFH and storm as an example where you only need to have it work once to have huge damage. EMP everything but allow a storm or two and it really doesn't matter, same with BFH.
Storm isn't even close to as dangerous as BFH, as it comes WAY LATER when you can more easily be prepared for it. Plus the fact that hellions are very fast, and can easily march into a worker line and end the game instantly (especially vs zerg where walling in is difficult if not impossible on many maps. BFH is mostly a problem in the early game, where it puts zerg in a very precarious situation, at no risk whatsoever to the terran.
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Terrans usually drop 4 blue flame hellions... it is still 1 shot.
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It's actually kind of surprising how little it actually changes.
Stimmed marine, no combat shield: still 2 hits
Combat shield marine, no stim: still 3 hits
Does 10 less damage before dying to a reaper 1v1 
Even on zealots, it's only two more attacks.
But since hellions are used almost exclusively to kill workers, there's little reason to bother with the upgrade. I honestly wonder if it's worthwhile in the current patch, though, given how most players already tend to make quite a bit more than 2 hellions. With every reason to leave the factory on a reactor, I imagine the big metagame shift for terran in patch 1.4 will be from lots of blue flame hellions to even more red flame hellions.
Actually, in TvT it's still super important to get blue flame just for hellion vs. hellion battles. Having higher numbers is often the opposite of helpful in that particular case.
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EPT
