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.
If you have any comments or questions, I'll try to answer them if I can.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
i wanted to do this haha. great job analysing! at least now workers dont get two shotted as long as you keep up with your upgrades. i think this gives people more chance to react to hellion shots. running workers now have more chance to survive as not all of them will get shot by 3 hellions if 3 hellions shoot at once.
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.
But spire also costs gas...alot of it too T_T
..Not to mention extremely long time to build.
Just pointing out that you can't compare race 'equivalent' like that.
EDIT: also, reducing reducing gas cost of armoury to 50 like that would make thor rushes much faster wouldn't it? That'll be another all-in P has to worry about.
Blizzard should not be forcing meta game shifts. BFH was a product of bad game design so they should aim to rectify the problem in the expansion instead of trying to change how the unit works and risk making it worthless. IMO the main problem with the hellion is that it costs no gas, having two mineral sinks in a race makes balancing much more difficult. If the hellion costed like 15 gas, losing 4 + 1 medivac would hurt the terran enough to make it a punishment.
On August 25 2011 15:26 Like a Boss wrote: Terrans usually drop 4 blue flame hellions... it is still 1 shot.
in that case screw the BF upgrade because regular hellions do that anyway.
Hellions are like paper vs the +armored attack units like Marauders and Stalkers, though, so expecting only 2-3 of your Hellions to live to see the workers is standard.
It does hurt drops quite a bit if your opponent is prepared for it.
On August 25 2011 15:26 Like a Boss wrote: Terrans usually drop 4 blue flame hellions... it is still 1 shot.
in that case screw the BF upgrade because regular hellions do that anyway.
Hellions are like paper vs the +armored attack units like Marauders and Stalkers, though, so expecting only 2-3 of your Hellions to live to see the workers is standard.
It does hurt drops quite a bit if your opponent is prepared for it.
Actually, they aren't armored as I recall. It was mentioned by one of the casters when he was talking about immortals and how most people think they are armored but they aren't
I personally think (at least for me), it won't matter too much, as I only use hellions in TvT, and usually have about 10. And whenever I do drop hellions, I drop 4, so I still 1 shot workers :D
3 Normal Hellions is as good as 3 blue vs Probe/Drone, but when you get +1 for Hellions it will be as before so mid game drops will still be scary atleast for Protoss and Zerg
On August 25 2011 15:43 spicyredcurry wrote: Blizzard should not be forcing meta game shifts. BFH was a product of bad game design so they should aim to rectify the problem in the expansion instead of trying to change how the unit works and risk making it worthless. IMO the main problem with the hellion is that it costs no gas, having two mineral sinks in a race makes balancing much more difficult. If the hellion costed like 15 gas, losing 4 + 1 medivac would hurt the terran enough to make it a punishment.
Well Terran needs two mineral sinks with the way Terran works. You can't build Marines when you play heavy mech because bio without upgrades just sucks. Terran isn't Protoss you don't allways build out of Barracks/Gateways . Factories they are alot more like Barracks in the regard you can build an entire army out of them not just supporting units. Gateways have every non-support Units Protoss need , Barracks don't have that for Terran.
Helions need a change but a different one make them weaker vs workers/light but better as a general fighting units overall.
blizzard loves doing this upgrade stuff, and i think its really epic for e sports The example im thinking of is the baneling. Marines kill it, but on creep they kill marines, and marines with stim kill those banes, and then banes with hooks kill THOSE marines
the same is happening with hellions: 3 shots until attack, until armour takes over then its 2 again. Puts more emphasis on upgrades. Its really good
As a Terran, I'm glad they're nerfing blue flame, because the only use of hellions nowadays is droppping them and hoping you kill all his eco to make up for your rush to blue flame. Hopefully they will have a more standard role in army composition now, but still I would rather replace BF with something like mines, who have several use (map control, punishing lack of detection, tank lines breaker) and create great micro.
On August 25 2011 15:26 Like a Boss wrote: Terrans usually drop 4 blue flame hellions... it is still 1 shot.
Often when they are dropped fast, you see if players react fast enough atleast 2 will die before reaching the mineral line. Before those 2 who get through kill alot of workers, making the drop viable. Now if 2 dies, the damage is minimal.
I see this as a nerf to running or dropping hellions. Often you would see, even if a player reacts almost perfect 2-3 hellions will get through. IMO it sounds like this has fixed what players complained about before, 2 hellions isn't as random as before, but still keeping the fun in BFH. If you don't react to a drop and 4 gets into a mineral line, it's dead....
On August 25 2011 15:16 TDN4 wrote: 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.
Pros have been using blue flame as a big part of their main army, a "lucky" drop has nothing to do with it. As a terran player I don't see how it takes more skill to roll up with a bunch of tanks and siege them infront of my opponants base.
Hellions take a lot more micro (read skill) to be used well.
This is an instersting part of the game dev and a blizzard showing their cards a bit on balance it looks like they do not want one strategy that is clearly dominante for a race as blue flame was becoming for terran.
On August 25 2011 15:26 Like a Boss wrote: Terrans usually drop 4 blue flame hellions... it is still 1 shot.
in that case screw the BF upgrade because regular hellions do that anyway.
Hellions are like paper vs the +armored attack units like Marauders and Stalkers, though, so expecting only 2-3 of your Hellions to live to see the workers is standard.
It does hurt drops quite a bit if your opponent is prepared for it.
Hellions are light units, not armored. They take only 10 damage from marauders. In fact they are good meat shield for the tanks in TvT vs marauders.
The problem I have with these changes, and all other changes, is Blizzard seems content to try to funnel every player into playing the same way. Someone finds something strong, Blizzard goes out and 'fixes' it. So let's all get the 3 builds orders for each race that Blizzard wants to force down our throats and just practice those.
There's a difference between improving your game and interfering with it... and I think Blizzard has crossed that line several times.
Mech was hard enough to play prior to Blizzard 'balancing' stuff and now it's even harder. Why am I forced to play bio? You take away the options and you take away the fun. The best part of Starcraft to me is seeing all the different builds and strategies players come up with. At this rate Blizzard will eliminate all creativity and strategy and it'll be dumbed down into a game of who can click fastest to do the same build.
In other words, stuff like this is ruining the flexibility of the game.
On August 25 2011 21:58 Bagi wrote: Regular reactor hellions will probably be the way to go in TvZ, in fact I don't see much reason to research BFH unless its a mech-heavy build now.
Why are people acting like reactor hellion openings weren't seen? Most terrans(Koreans included) were still opening reactor Hellions TvZ and then doing some add on switching to get blue flame later. Now they might not do that switching. TvT I think is changed the most. Stimmed marines and marines without combat shield lasting 2 hits or more is massive.
On August 25 2011 15:22 avilo wrote: 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.
Why would you an armory be cheaper? A Lair is 100 gas, and that's what you need to get 2-2 and 3-3 for zerg, and protoss needs a twilight council to get 2-2 and 3-3. There is no difference there. An armory was the path to higher bio upgrades and then you could get ship weapons/mech weapons.
Terran has a different dynamic than all the other races, where zerg doesn't have a completely different unit type that is it's own strat, all of their units are bio. Protoss cannot go bio. Terran is the only race that can go bio or mech or a combination of the two.
Seems like blizz is trying to force terran to go bio =/. I dont see many people going BFH anymore, people will still go hellions but I think it will only be for early game map control or if someone is trying to force a mech style.
I don't see BFH being an upgrade worth rushing for any more. Better off dropping 4 normal hellions with a medivac and saving the gas for something else rather than going for BFH drops.
And also there nerfing something that has only been used in the meta game for the past month or two =/. Not giving people enough time to adapt and change.
On August 25 2011 22:33 Pwnographics wrote: I think the upgrade should be changed to 100/100 and 65 seconds research time to compensate for this nerf.
It's more a problem with the unit itself as opposed to blink where it just came out to early, blue flame helions are good all the time, and it's not that they just come to fast. Normal helion opens tvz are still very good, and shouldn't affect them since they end up switching to tank marine later in the game anyway and not blue flame helion... Will definitely affect a lot of people though who only used marine helion elevator play or marine helion timings...
oh and i guess it was because it will secretly buff hydras and still punish mass lings early on the same way etc, and balance tvt (hellions >>>> attacking bio). no idea if there is an issue with zealots, but there charge is the big problem hehe. But as it goes for the probes early on you always saw a 4 hellion drop and most of the time they simply moved through the oppenents army and 2 hellions made it past and then frying drones. Guess this will take a lil more skill now x3 or a 5th hellion giggles.
They should just increase the research time, if the problem is "too strong early game" I wouldnt mind if it was like, 200 secs or something. I think its reasonable. Nerfing the damage lke this wrecks the hellion all game long, not just early. And the investment becomes too big (BF and +1) to warrant its use unless youre going full mech. But you only go full mech in TvT, and since helions will be crap against Marines now, it will be Marine-Tank all over again. And no, sir, I dont like it.
On August 25 2011 22:40 gustavohmp wrote: They should just increase the research time, if the problem is "too strong early game" I wouldnt mind if it was like, 200 secs or something. I think its reasonable. Nerfing the damage lke this wrecks the hellion all game long, not just early. And the investment becomes too big (BF and +1) to warrant its use unless youre going full mech. But you only go full mech in TvT, and since helions will be crap against Marines now, it will be Marine-Tank all over again. And no, sir, I dont like it.
Mech TvT will still be good against biomech since BFHs three-shot marines regardless now, however instead of BFHs stomping marines, it'll be more even in the matchup. The key turning point will be medivacs vs vikings. The medivacs will make a big difference now to absorb hellion damage, but if the mech player with his vikings can take them out, the hellions will still kill the marines.
I dunno where the fuck blizzard pulled this out from, Im busy trying to counter late game 3/3 chargelots with BFH and they pop this out. Fuck. I guess BFH were always horrible against chargelots...:/ More ghosts ftw now
On August 25 2011 22:40 gustavohmp wrote: They should just increase the research time, if the problem is "too strong early game" I wouldnt mind if it was like, 200 secs or something. I think its reasonable. Nerfing the damage lke this wrecks the hellion all game long, not just early. And the investment becomes too big (BF and +1) to warrant its use unless youre going full mech. But you only go full mech in TvT, and since helions will be crap against Marines now, it will be Marine-Tank all over again. And no, sir, I dont like it.
Mech TvT will still be good against biomech since BFHs three-shot marines regardless now, however instead of BFHs stomping marines, it'll be more even in the matchup. The key turning point will be medivacs vs vikings. The medivacs will make a big difference now to absorb hellion damage, but if the mech player with his vikings can take them out, the hellions will still kill the marines.
That extra shot means a lot of DPS from stimmed marines. And like you pointed out, M&M will be immortal vs helions should the medivacs live. Mech TvT is over if this patch goes live.
From a players perspective, I hated using blue flame. To an extent I felt gimmicky. When I decimated worklines/marines I felt no joy, I just felt I was using a broken mechanic. I felt as if a lot of my games lost a lot of the skill element from just massing up on Hellions.
From a spectating perspective this is awesome as well. Hellions are so boring to watch and so volatile and unforgiving, I just sighed every time I watched a Slayers game.
The mix of bio-mech will always be more interesting to watch, and indeed require more skill to play it. For me this patch couldn't come sooner, I'd love to see it before MLG this weekend. One can dream! ^_^
On August 25 2011 23:11 sephius wrote: From a players perspective, I hated using blue flame. To an extent I felt gimmicky. When I decimated worklines/marines I felt no joy, I just felt I was using a broken mechanic. I felt as if a lot of my games lost a lot of the skill element from just massing up on Hellions.
From a spectating perspective this is awesome as well. Hellions are so boring to watch and so volatile and unforgiving, I just sighed every time I watched a Slayers game.
The mix of bio-mech will always be more interesting to watch, and indeed require more skill to play it. For me this patch couldn't come sooner, I'd love to see it before MLG this weekend. One can dream! ^_^
BFH exploits lack of sim city and reaction time from the oponent. Its always tense when you watch a player LINE'EM UP If you are winning games on BFH harass alone, you either Fantasy incarnate or your oponents suck. Zerg has legit problems with it though on maps that are hard to wallin. But its been some time since I last saw Zerg losing to it.
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
stop. I may be theory crafting here, but heres the deal If the new BFH three shots workers, same as a non upgraded hellion. Then what if you go for reactor instead of techlab on factory, the freed up 150 gas (still doing double gas) will allow you to not only get a fast starport, allowing you to drop ever earlier, but you'll also be able to do a stupid fast cloakshee+hellion follow up too? Or you can simply just go single gas, still have 100 gas right as factory finishes for fast starport then dropship, have more money to get expo/ go for heavy rax hellion play + drop ship similiar to slayers style?
On August 25 2011 23:11 sephius wrote: From a players perspective, I hated using blue flame. To an extent I felt gimmicky. When I decimated worklines/marines I felt no joy, I just felt I was using a broken mechanic. I felt as if a lot of my games lost a lot of the skill element from just massing up on Hellions.
From a spectating perspective this is awesome as well. Hellions are so boring to watch and so volatile and unforgiving, I just sighed every time I watched a Slayers game.
The mix of bio-mech will always be more interesting to watch, and indeed require more skill to play it. For me this patch couldn't come sooner, I'd love to see it before MLG this weekend. One can dream! ^_^
Its always tense when you watch a player LINE'EM UP
How is it tense? It's not tense because the second you see a massed group of hellions in someones base you know the game is going to be over fairly shortly. It's just way too unforgiving. Brilliant players are just getting owned far too quickly and easily without a fighting chance.
BFH are too cheap and far too easy to pull off. Anyway, this doesn't make blue flame completely useless. I've seen non-upgraded Hellions still wreck havoc on mineral lines. So the flexibility in Terran builds still exist, and people will still use Hellions no doubt. It was just a change that needed to happen because it was broken.
-edit- Would just like to state that I am a Terran player. And from the perspective of a Terran and spectator I am thrilled with the upcoming changes. If I had a hat I'd take it off for Blizzard.
I think over all this is a good change. 2 shotting workers with hellions early game was a bit too strong. The change to 3 shots will help minimize the damage from these often deadly harasses.
On August 25 2011 23:11 sephius wrote: From a players perspective, I hated using blue flame. To an extent I felt gimmicky. When I decimated worklines/marines I felt no joy, I just felt I was using a broken mechanic. I felt as if a lot of my games lost a lot of the skill element from just massing up on Hellions.
From a spectating perspective this is awesome as well. Hellions are so boring to watch and so volatile and unforgiving, I just sighed every time I watched a Slayers game.
The mix of bio-mech will always be more interesting to watch, and indeed require more skill to play it. For me this patch couldn't come sooner, I'd love to see it before MLG this weekend. One can dream! ^_^
Its always tense when you watch a player LINE'EM UP
How is it tense? It's not tense because the second you see a massed group of hellions in someones base you know the game is going to be over fairly shortly. It's just way too unforgiving. Brilliant players are just getting owned far too quickly and easily without a fighting chance.
BFH are too cheap and far too easy to pull off. Anyway, this doesn't make blue flame completely useless. I've seen non-upgraded Hellions still wreck havoc on mineral lines. So the flexibility in Terran builds still exist, and people will still use Hellions no doubt. It was just a change that needed to happen because it was broken.
Broken? lol Raise depots, no more helions Get roaches, no more helions Get Stalkers, no more helions
People were getting raped by it because it was new. Suddenly 8 helions enter your base, people didnt knew what to do. I do agree that they are a very unforgiving unit, but seriously? We always knew that. Just because now people decided to make more than 2 hellions after the first 5 minutes of the game doesnt mean it is suddenly broken. We havent even exploited helions to its full potential. It makes no sense nerfing it or calling it broken within one month of relatively success on its use. And youre overestimating the hellion too much. Right now, helions have a future in a late game plan, and mech viability in all matchups. Nerfing the upgrade like this is the same as removing it since it makes helions cute opener with limited effectiveness.
On August 25 2011 21:58 Bagi wrote: Anyone else feel that BF should be made a bit cheaper with this change? You get half the damage for the same price now, feels a bit odd.
Regular reactor hellions will probably be the way to go in TvZ, in fact I don't see much reason to research BFH unless its a mech-heavy build now.
No. The hellion is still an incredibly powerful unit. Even if you removed the BF upgrade completely.
If I could warp in hellions as protoss or spawn them as zerg I'd do it every single game.
Top players will still be able to destroy workers with hellions but for the rest of us it just got a bit harder. I think that's a good thing.
I dont see the problem really, Hellions are pretty much made to destoy light units and att utterly useless vs anything els. I mean (extremly useless).
I believe a helion does 9damage? yey i'm having fun spending 30seconds with 4blueflame hellions trying to kill 1roach
If they were to nerf hellions vs light they have to buff them vs anything that isnt light because hellions are probably the most useless when it comes shoting on things it's not suppose to.
A maruder does really low damage on anything that isnt armored. But it's not so low that you wouldnt engage 1/3 smaller ball with light units. Compared to a group of hellions (lets say 10) wich basicly loses vs 4maruders. See the problem?
I mean how hard could it be to leave 1tank/spinecrawler at your mineral line incase of helion suprise. First time i ever got pwned by a hellion drop, i was pwned hard had 0minerals left and couldnt make another worker. After that i just learned how to play by learning the timing on the drop and getting seige befor that. Ye maybe a couple of workers will die but do people srly mean that you should get away with 0workers dead because you manage to put this 1unit to defend your base and you wouldnt manage to keep a better eye on what's going on around your base? That's pathetic.
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.
The armory is more analogous to the lair or twighlight council by allowing you to continue upgrading from your forge, evo chamber, or eng bay. Btw the armory, lair, and twighlight council all cost 150/100
I sincerely think following changes are needed along with this BFH nerf:
Reduce the upgrade cost to either 100/100 or 75/75, and; Reduce the Armory building cost to 100/100.
In this way, BFH drops are still viable financially even with the delayed timing - Terran will need to build Armory and research +1 attack upgrade ASAP, and will probably finish the upgrade when BFHs have just landed to the enemy base.
On August 25 2011 23:44 Granter wrote: I dont see the problem really, Hellions are pretty much made to destoy light units and att utterly useless vs anything els. I mean (extremly useless).
I believe a helion does 9damage? yey i'm having fun spending 30seconds with 4blueflame hellions trying to kill 1roach
If they were to nerf hellions vs light they have to buff them vs anything that isnt light because hellions are probably the most useless when it comes shoting on things it's not suppose to.
A maruder does really low damage on anything that isnt armored. But it's not so low that you wouldnt engage 1/3 smaller ball with light units. Compared to a group of hellions (lets say 10) wich basicly loses vs 4maruders. See the problem?
I agree if they change Helions vs Light ( which is fine ) they'd have to buff it against anything else or the Unitt just becomes plain bad. Helions vs anything that isn't light is just pathetic which is why in lategame they are only used in Mech-only composition because you gotta do something with your spare minerals and at least they buffer some shots but as fighting units themselves they just suck. They shoot slow and the splash is pretty hard to use in big battles .
Well that's the problem with Terran units, they're all far too specialistic and reliant on bonus damage vs specific unit types. Just give us some solid mech units to work with Blizz :/
On August 26 2011 00:09 Saechiis wrote: Well that's the problem with Terran units, they're all far too specialistic and reliant on bonus damage vs specific unit types. Just give us some solid mech units to work with Blizz :/
Doubt we're getting goliaths back, if that happend.... oh my oh my ...
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
You should practice ! Not write posts on TL.net ! :D
I don't mind hellions not being able to three-shot workers, but having to three-shot marines in both the early game (no stim, no combat shield) and late game (stim and combat shield) is highly aggravating to someone that goes out of his way to avoid tank-viking wars. I seriously disliked TvT until I started going hellion-air, which I think is far more fun (I'm not nearly good enough to really be entitled to an opinion on objective effectiveness, but it works better for me). Now, I feel like if the other T has a lot of marines - and really, how often do they not? - I have no choice but to get tanks with siege mode, or my own massive army of marines. Neither option sounds like much fun.
If the concern is early blue-flame hellion drops decimating worker lines, why not just make blue flame take longer to research (either via research time itself, or some sort of additional requirement - e.g., armory)? Or even make the hellions larger, and therefore more susceptible being sim city'd out?
On August 26 2011 00:09 Saechiis wrote: Well that's the problem with Terran units, they're all far too specialistic and reliant on bonus damage vs specific unit types. Just give us some solid mech units to work with Blizz :/
Doubt we're getting goliaths back, if that happend.... oh my oh my ...
Think that wouldn't change much. The vulture on the other hand...
On August 26 2011 00:09 Saechiis wrote: Well that's the problem with Terran units, they're all far too specialistic and reliant on bonus damage vs specific unit types. Just give us some solid mech units to work with Blizz :/
Agree so hard with this. Was thinking about it for quite a while why in general protoss have 23units while zerg and terran have 21.
Than i started to look on what exactly you said, terran army (outside marines) are so much, okay random dude x builds this, i build that, he builds this, i build that. As terran you just addapt all the time what the other opponent is building with a counter unit.
I want mech unit that i can build beside the seige tank/hellions that are actually fairly good vs most units. Have maybe some basic counter but are just in general a good unit. Like stalker/marine typ of unit.
Dont really know what but not having any other option than Going for hellions wich are just badly designed. And tanks, wich makes the game slow as shit is just bad. And thors wich basicly doesnt have any skill invovled in them.
But since hellions are being nerfed the only doable thing now is to go into marine/tank gameplay again followed by a lot of marine/bunker rushes vs zerg
On August 25 2011 23:11 sephius wrote: From a players perspective, I hated using blue flame. To an extent I felt gimmicky. When I decimated worklines/marines I felt no joy, I just felt I was using a broken mechanic. I felt as if a lot of my games lost a lot of the skill element from just massing up on Hellions.
From a spectating perspective this is awesome as well. Hellions are so boring to watch and so volatile and unforgiving, I just sighed every time I watched a Slayers game.
The mix of bio-mech will always be more interesting to watch, and indeed require more skill to play it. For me this patch couldn't come sooner, I'd love to see it before MLG this weekend. One can dream! ^_^
Its always tense when you watch a player LINE'EM UP
How is it tense? It's not tense because the second you see a massed group of hellions in someones base you know the game is going to be over fairly shortly. It's just way too unforgiving. Brilliant players are just getting owned far too quickly and easily without a fighting chance.
BFH are too cheap and far too easy to pull off. Anyway, this doesn't make blue flame completely useless. I've seen non-upgraded Hellions still wreck havoc on mineral lines. So the flexibility in Terran builds still exist, and people will still use Hellions no doubt. It was just a change that needed to happen because it was broken.
Broken? lol Raise depots, no more helions Get roaches, no more helions Get Stalkers, no more helions
People were getting raped by it because it was new. Suddenly 8 helions enter your base, people didnt knew what to do. I do agree that they are a very unforgiving unit, but seriously? We always knew that. Just because now people decided to make more than 2 hellions after the first 5 minutes of the game doesnt mean it is suddenly broken. We havent even exploited helions to its full potential. It makes no sense nerfing it or calling it broken within one month of relatively success on its use. And youre overestimating the hellion too much. Right now, helions have a future in a late game plan, and mech viability in all matchups. Nerfing the upgrade like this is the same as removing it since it makes helions cute opener with limited effectiveness.
Don't really agree. With BFH, you could instantly win the game if your opponent didn't overwhelmingly defend them. They were basically like mineral-only super fast reusable banelings. And with the change, you can still do good damage if the other guy doesn't prepare well. But not to the point where your entire mineral line can go down in a couple shots while you reposition your defenses.
On August 25 2011 15:22 avilo wrote: 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.
I can't believe you are actually complaining about the gas cost of an armory. For Zerg to get any kind of T2 upgrade they need lair (which is pretty easy) however if they want T3 they need Hive (not exactly cheap between infestation pit + hive gas costs.
If protoss want T2 upgrades we need the throw down a twighlight council and for protoss who are going robo -> collosus the 100gas for robo + 200gas for support bay we don't exactly have a surplus of gas.
By making an armory which gives you access to thors (t3 unit) only cost minerals all you do is make thor rushing even more ridiculous vs protoss. All we would see out of terrans would be proxy factory thor rushes.
Its amazing how ignorant your post is, comparing an armory to engi bars, forges and evo chambers when they arn't even close to the same thing.
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.
I absolutely agree, going mech is 100% about gas allocation, and trying to upgrade mech units is incredible hard, 100gas per armory is just so darn expensive, 50gas or even 75gas for an armoy makes more sense to me. However, I do have to critique your post about evolution chambers/forges. If you want an in depth analysis of upgrade costs, you have to take in to account everything.
(ignoring actual cost of individual upgrades) Terran Bio, 1-1 (0 gas engy bay) 2-2 (100 gas armory) 3-3 (100 gas armory) Terran Mech 1-1 (100gas armory, but if you want to upgrade 2 things at a time, 200gas for 2 armories =\ Protoss Ground, 1-1 (0 gas forge) 2-2 (100gas twilight council) 3-3 (100gas twilight) Protoss Air, 1-1 (0 gas cyber) 2-2 (150gasfleet beacon) 3-3 (150gas beacon) Zerg Ground 1-1 (0 gas evo) 2-2 (100gas lair) 2-2 (250gas lair+hive) Zerg Air, Really odd to analyze if you look at the gas cost of Spire, Lair, Hive, Greater Spire...
I dunno, I think the problem with pure mech builds is that you need effective mineral dumps because your core army is so gas heavy. You have a few choices of how to use those minerals: marines, hellions, turrets, command centers. Marines are pretty bad unless you upgrade them, but that severely cuts in to your mech gas. Hellions are alright, but they're pretty bad against anything non light or air. And then turrets and CCs force you to play suuuper duper passive.
I'm also going to address something before it comes up, because I know someone is going to be a smartass.... unupgraded marines are GREAT in the early game. They do however SUCK in the mid/late game.
On August 25 2011 14:30 movac wrote: 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.
Wont the regen of the drone mean that they'll need 3 shots to kill a drone? (Unless it's 2 helions who shots simultaneously).
Either way I love this change, even as a terran player. Starcraft 2 is and should be a game of poking and prodding to get an advantage, meanwhile blueflame helions where more like hitting people with a big fucking hammer. (I'm thinking of ogres from WoW yelling MEEEEE SMAAAAAAASH). Ie either you miss, or you hit and totally destroy everything.
Though I think that it would have been okay to simply reduce their damage vs workers also, but I guess blizzard doesn't work that way anymore. (I didn't play a lot of BW, but I've understood it so that some units simply did extra damage/lower damage vs some specific other units, unrelated to armor types or whatever, and that would do aswell, without nerfing the helions in actualy fights, which I don't think anyone felt neccesarry).
This change atleast gives the defender a bit more leeway, I'm sorry but 2 BFH in your base at any point in the game could spell doom. I rather people have to drop 3 or 4 and be better at lining shots up.
BFH still have decent power(especially with upgrades), but they aren't going to be wheels of destruction no matter what, and this risk vs reward is balanced more with this change.
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.
I absolutely agree, going mech is 100% about gas allocation, and trying to upgrade mech units is incredible hard, 100gas per armory is just so darn expensive, 50gas or even 75gas for an armoy makes more sense to me. However, I do have to critique your post about evolution chambers/forges. If you want an in depth analysis of upgrade costs, you have to take in to account everything.
(ignoring actual cost of individual upgrades) Terran Bio, 1-1 (0 gas engy bay) 2-2 (100 gas armory) 3-3 (100 gas armory) Terran Mech 1-1 (100gas armory, but if you want to upgrade 2 things at a time, 200gas for 2 armories =\ Protoss Ground, 1-1 (0 gas forge) 2-2 (100gas twilight council) 3-3 (100gas twilight) Protoss Air, 1-1 (0 gas cyber) 2-2 (150gasfleet beacon) 3-3 (150gas beacon) Zerg Ground 1-1 (0 gas evo) 2-2 (100gas lair) 2-2 (250gas lair+hive) Zerg Air, Really odd to analyze if you look at the gas cost of Spire, Lair, Hive, Greater Spire...
I dunno, I think the problem with pure mech builds is that you need effective mineral dumps because your core army is so gas heavy. You have a few choices of how to use those minerals: marines, hellions, turrets, command centers. Marines are pretty bad unless you upgrade them, but that severely cuts in to your mech gas. Hellions are alright, but they're pretty bad against anything non light or air. And then turrets and CCs force you to play suuuper duper passive.
I'm also going to address something before it comes up, because I know someone is going to be a smartass.... unupgraded marines are GREAT in the early game. They do however SUCK in the mid/late game.
There is something lacking with your anlysis aswell though, most of the requirements for higher uppgrades for Z and P are you gonna want to have anyway for other purposes. (Also you don't need greater spire for 3/3 air I think, just hive? I'm not really sure as most of the time you'll get greater spire asap when you get hive either way.) At least the zerg ones, it's not like you are getting lair to get 2-2, most players even get lair before 1-1 is finished. But you are not getting a second armory for anything but just mass mech or mass air uppgrades. (And when you go bio you wont want that armory at all except for the greater uppgrades out of the enginering bay).
Thus as T it's an investment solely to attain the possibility to invest more in uppgrades, compared to the PZ requirements that simply also yield the possibility to uppgrade more.
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.
I absolutely agree, going mech is 100% about gas allocation, and trying to upgrade mech units is incredible hard, 100gas per armory is just so darn expensive, 50gas or even 75gas for an armoy makes more sense to me. However, I do have to critique your post about evolution chambers/forges. If you want an in depth analysis of upgrade costs, you have to take in to account everything.
(ignoring actual cost of individual upgrades) Terran Bio, 1-1 (0 gas engy bay) 2-2 (100 gas armory) 3-3 (100 gas armory) Terran Mech 1-1 (100gas armory, but if you want to upgrade 2 things at a time, 200gas for 2 armories =\ Protoss Ground, 1-1 (0 gas forge) 2-2 (100gas twilight council) 3-3 (100gas twilight) Protoss Air, 1-1 (0 gas cyber) 2-2 (150gasfleet beacon) 3-3 (150gas beacon) Zerg Ground 1-1 (0 gas evo) 2-2 (100gas lair) 2-2 (250gas lair+hive) Zerg Air, Really odd to analyze if you look at the gas cost of Spire, Lair, Hive, Greater Spire...
I dunno, I think the problem with pure mech builds is that you need effective mineral dumps because your core army is so gas heavy. You have a few choices of how to use those minerals: marines, hellions, turrets, command centers. Marines are pretty bad unless you upgrade them, but that severely cuts in to your mech gas. Hellions are alright, but they're pretty bad against anything non light or air. And then turrets and CCs force you to play suuuper duper passive.
I'm also going to address something before it comes up, because I know someone is going to be a smartass.... unupgraded marines are GREAT in the early game. They do however SUCK in the mid/late game.
There is something lacking with your anlysis aswell though, most of the requirements for higher uppgrades for Z and P are you gonna want to have anyway for other purposes. (Also you don't need greater spire for 3/3 air I think, just hive? I'm not really sure as most of the time you'll get greater spire asap when you get hive either way.) At least the zerg ones, it's not like you are getting lair to get 2-2, most players even get lair before 1-1 is finished. But you are not getting a second armory for anything but just mass mech or mass air uppgrades. (And when you go bio you wont want that armory at all except for the greater uppgrades out of the enginering bay).
Thus as T it's an investment solely to attain the possibility to invest more in uppgrades, compared to the PZ requirements that simply also yield the possibility to uppgrade more.
You try comparing a SECOND armory to getting a hive... really?
If I want to upgrade my mutalisks to 2/2 in a timely manner, I have to get 2 spires. That's another 200/200+drone for nothing but upgrades.
Stop doing round-about comparisons to make your QQ sound valid.
On August 26 2011 00:40 Tomfour wrote: Didn't read your post, except for the first few lines, and since I know we are talking about pre-nerf hellions all I would like to say is this.
A complete monkey could be as effective with this unit as Flash, can't wait to see the nerf.
Why would you comment on the OP without reading the entire post? And then just dismiss the entire thing with "hrllions r OP lulz"*
Blue flame hellions were straight too strong for their cost. That's all this nerf is for. They are still strong, you just need 3 of them to destroy workers (or +1) instead of 2 which isn't that big of a deal and they will still be very effective against light as well as for buffering damage for more costly units. I understand the argument in that the upgrade is now pointless, but it really isn't. In larger numbers, bfh is still much better than red flames. The T whining is killing me. Terran has always been really strong and people are figuring out ways to make them even stronger by utilizing every unit, they needed to be worked a bit.
Zealot 12/7/9 Change +2 Sentry 6/4 /5 Change +1 High Templar 6/4/5 Change +1 Dark Templar 9/6/7 Change+1
- Helions worker Harrassing has been nerfed giving all races 1 attack cycle longer to react. (also makes quick blue flame pointless as red kills equally fast)
- BFH nerf is a massive buff for protoss gateway units as it effects helions vs every single toss light unit.
- BFH are still as effective in lategame combat engagements vs Terran and Zerg as reapers and hydralisks dont typically square off against mech (or Terran for that matter)
(maybe this is a hint for the gas floating Bio users to get reapers in the army to deal with upgraded Zealots?)
On August 26 2011 02:21 Karnac wrote: - BFH are still as effective in lategame combat engagements vs Terran and Zerg as reapers and hydralisks dont typically square off against mech (or Terran for that matter)
Unfortunately, that's not the case, since in most late-game TvT situations where you have BFHs, the other person will have both stim and combat shields for their marines, meaning you're going to have to burn through 45hp, which now will take 3, rather than 2, shots.
On August 26 2011 02:21 Karnac wrote: - BFH are still as effective in lategame combat engagements vs Terran and Zerg as reapers and hydralisks dont typically square off against mech (or Terran for that matter)
Unfortunately, that's not the case, since in most late-game TvT situations where you have BFHs, the other person will have both stim and combat shields for their marines, meaning you're going to have to burn through 45hp, which now will take 3, rather than 2, shots.
You obviously mis-understood or didnt read my post.
A combat Shield Marine has 55 hp Red flame takes 4 hits to kill Current Blue Flame takes 3 hits to kill With the damage reduction it will still take 3 hits to kill a marine with shield.
AKA the patch makes no difference vs combat shield marines. The only difference is VS un-shielded marines, a late game rarity.
On August 26 2011 02:21 Karnac wrote: - BFH are still as effective in lategame combat engagements vs Terran and Zerg as reapers and hydralisks dont typically square off against mech (or Terran for that matter)
Unfortunately, that's not the case, since in most late-game TvT situations where you have BFHs, the other person will have both stim and combat shields for their marines, meaning you're going to have to burn through 45hp, which now will take 3, rather than 2, shots.
You obviously mis-understood or didnt read my post.
A combat Shield Marine has 55 hp Red flame takes 4 hits to kill Current Blue Flame takes 3 hits to kill With the damage reduction it will still take 3 hits to kill a marine with shield.
AKA the patch makes no difference vs combat shield marines. The only difference is VS un-shielded marines, a late game rarity.
I read it - scout's honor. My point is that late-game, you're facing shielded marines _who have stimmed_, bringing their hp back down to 45, at which point, you're back (in the current version, but not under the proposed change) in 2-shot territory.
On August 26 2011 02:21 Karnac wrote: - BFH are still as effective in lategame combat engagements vs Terran and Zerg as reapers and hydralisks dont typically square off against mech (or Terran for that matter)
Unfortunately, that's not the case, since in most late-game TvT situations where you have BFHs, the other person will have both stim and combat shields for their marines, meaning you're going to have to burn through 45hp, which now will take 3, rather than 2, shots.
You obviously mis-understood or didnt read my post.
A combat Shield Marine has 55 hp Red flame takes 4 hits to kill Current Blue Flame takes 3 hits to kill With the damage reduction it will still take 3 hits to kill a marine with shield.
AKA the patch makes no difference vs combat shield marines. The only difference is VS un-shielded marines, a late game rarity.
There's one thing you didn't account for its called Medivacs . Helions will be significantly worse vs Marines ( fine with me though ) .
Wait, wouldn't it take 3 shots to kill a drone? 20+20=40 but drones will regenerate 1hp so 3? Guess it doesn't make sense to get early blue flame now..
On August 26 2011 02:21 Karnac wrote: - BFH are still as effective in lategame combat engagements vs Terran and Zerg as reapers and hydralisks dont typically square off against mech (or Terran for that matter)
Unfortunately, that's not the case, since in most late-game TvT situations where you have BFHs, the other person will have both stim and combat shields for their marines, meaning you're going to have to burn through 45hp, which now will take 3, rather than 2, shots.
You obviously mis-understood or didnt read my post.
A combat Shield Marine has 55 hp Red flame takes 4 hits to kill Current Blue Flame takes 3 hits to kill With the damage reduction it will still take 3 hits to kill a marine with shield.
AKA the patch makes no difference vs combat shield marines. The only difference is VS un-shielded marines, a late game rarity.
I read it - scout's honor. My point is that late-game, you're facing shielded marines _who have stimmed_, bringing their hp back down to 45, at which point, you're back (in the current version, but not under the proposed change) in 2-shot territory.
On August 26 2011 02:21 Karnac wrote: - BFH are still as effective in lategame combat engagements vs Terran and Zerg as reapers and hydralisks dont typically square off against mech (or Terran for that matter)
Unfortunately, that's not the case, since in most late-game TvT situations where you have BFHs, the other person will have both stim and combat shields for their marines, meaning you're going to have to burn through 45hp, which now will take 3, rather than 2, shots.
You obviously mis-understood or didnt read my post.
A combat Shield Marine has 55 hp Red flame takes 4 hits to kill Current Blue Flame takes 3 hits to kill With the damage reduction it will still take 3 hits to kill a marine with shield.
AKA the patch makes no difference vs combat shield marines. The only difference is VS un-shielded marines, a late game rarity.
I read it - scout's honor. My point is that late-game, you're facing shielded marines _who have stimmed_, bringing their hp back down to 45, at which point, you're back (in the current version, but not under the proposed change) in 2-shot territory.
Ah Touche.
Somewhat, it's ignoring the fact medivacs will be healing and usually you stim before any shots get off.
hopefully this patch dosent go live, i mean they could make workers diff type so they take 3 shot by bfh thats not the big deal the real big deal is tvt gonna go back to tank - marine which is really boring and easy too do , make 3 reactor barrack 1 techlab 2 fact 1 reactor port off 2base and if ur op dosent do that u just roll em over
and if ud ont believe me go look at my tvt winratio i know what im talking about T.T sad panda
I really don't think it'll affect TvT much. Hellion/Tank/Viking is still infinitely superior to Marine/Medivac/Tank, though we might see more attempts at 1/2 base bio timing pushes. The hellions no longer 2 shotting SCVs isn't that big of a deal either. If you just make sure you harass with 3~4 hellions (blue flame isn't really required), it'll yield you similar results. Still, not reacting to hellions in your mineral line immediately is more forgiving, so that's nice in a way. Gives TvTs a little more breathing space in the early game.
On August 26 2011 17:47 PredY wrote: what, this change doesnt mean mech in tvt is not viable anymore marines will get raped anyway
This. It essentially makes biomech viable again, without killing off mech, and thus allows for more playstyles in TvT (marines+medivacs+tanks) vs (hellions+vikings+tanks) rather than the hellions+tanks autowinning as it currently is. The medivacs will be able to heal the marines a lot easier now that hellions deal less damage per shot, which is what makes the main difference with this patch.
I think part of the nerf may have to do with team games as well. My brother and I have noticed a huge increase in the number of terrans that make BFH and go for early drops. Some of the new maps (especially Green Acres) are really, really good for BFH because you typically are defending your front and if you don't have much defense near your mineral line you're toast.
I don't use this as an excuse to justify the change since you are responsible for defending your base but I'm sure this was considered in the decision.
What a garbage change, how many people did you see playing mech in TvP or TvZ. I was finally developing this styles to work for me and yes it does depend on doing alot of bfh drops/harass, many of which fail, but same thing with bio drops, thats how terran is played.
Now with workers taking 3shots instead of 2 without upgrades and in tvt always taking 3 the entire mech style is seriously nerfed, and I don't know if it will still be viable.
Strike cannon and energy nerf screwed up my ability to go heavy thors vs protoss and now this basically just ends my hope for mech.
The random victory argument is garbage, one sweet forcefield trap can "randomly" end the game. One baneling bomb on a mineral line or one burrowed baneling trap can do the same.
Guess its back to MMM and marine tank only, thanks blizzard your awful.
Just wondering, Terran Weapon lvl 2 is 175/175, only marginally more costly than BF upgrade. The hellion gets +1/+1 instead of +5, but the upgrade benefits all mech units instead of just the hellion.
I imagine I would rather upgrade lvl 2 weapons first?
I have to say reading the OP I'm actually more confident in the nerf decision now. It seems like something as destructive as the BFH as it stands was simply coming out too early in the game and this change is clever in that it results in the damage scaling more appropriately as the game goes on and makes early game drops far more forgiving, though still something dangerous.
When you hear they've "halved the upgrade" that sounds extreme, but reading through how it actually effects the various situations it seems like it makes sense.
i feel like terran is completely based off of what happens at mlg or any major tournaments. Every game i have played against terran has had no uniqueness to it or play style like zerg/protoss. When i used to see a rush on blue flame i am now seeing use of reapers with bunkers followed by ravens using point defense. Am i the only one that thinks this or are there others as well.
EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/ZPdMo.jpg)
http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/Hellion
