[D]Are mutalisks overpowered in WOL?? - Page 33

On November 01 2011 07:05 Blasterion wrote:

To be honest, Bio Mech was kinda the default way to play tvz wasn't it?

On November 01 2011 07:06 AutomatonOmega wrote:
I think a lot of it revolves around the fact that oftentimes, (and I know you've all seen pro games like this) TvZ early game is shaky ground for the Zerg... Until mutalisks arrive. Then, the harassment potential coupled with the map control oftentimes win the game outright for the Zerg when they were behind all game leading up to the arrival of the Mutas.

Blizzard is probably just wanting Mutalisks to be an integral, compositional unit rather than a linchpin of several strategies.

A lot of why Mutas are a linchpin strat now is out of necessity, due to lack of other viable midgame options. HotS will be a different landscape altogether, and Blizzard is trying to drift away from single unit strategies.

TL;DR: Different game, different recommended compositions. No more 1-unit armies. This is good for the health of the game.

On November 01 2011 07:06 AutomatonOmega wrote:
I think a lot of it revolves around the fact that oftentimes, (and I know you've all seen pro games like this) TvZ early game is shaky ground for the Zerg... Until mutalisks arrive. Then, the harassment potential coupled with the map control oftentimes win the game outright for the Zerg when they were behind all game leading up to the arrival of the Mutas.

Blizzard is probably just wanting Mutalisks to be an integral, compositional unit rather than a linchpin of several strategies.

A lot of why Mutas are a linchpin strat now is out of necessity, due to lack of other viable midgame options. HotS will be a different landscape altogether, and Blizzard is trying to drift away from single unit strategies.

TL;DR: Different game, different recommended compositions. No more 1-unit armies. This is good for the health of the game.

On November 01 2011 07:09 kofman wrote:

Your saying that you can just mass mutalisks and win? Lol, they suck by themselves, they need to be with ling bling.

On November 01 2011 07:06 AutomatonOmega wrote:
I think a lot of it revolves around the fact that oftentimes, (and I know you've all seen pro games like this) TvZ early game is shaky ground for the Zerg... Until mutalisks arrive. Then, the harassment potential coupled with the map control oftentimes win the game outright for the Zerg when they were behind all game leading up to the arrival of the Mutas.

Blizzard is probably just wanting Mutalisks to be an integral, compositional unit rather than a linchpin of several strategies.

A lot of why Mutas are a linchpin strat now is out of necessity, due to lack of other viable midgame options. HotS will be a different landscape altogether, and Blizzard is trying to drift away from single unit strategies.

TL;DR: Different game, different recommended compositions. No more 1-unit armies. This is good for the health of the game.

On November 01 2011 06:58 AnachronisticAnarchy wrote:
ZvP mutas are, if not decent, then just horrible. Stalkers, templars and archons counter them, and all are part of a standard composition, not to mention the phoenix, a living hard counter. All you need to do is turtle up on however many bases you feel comfortable on then murder the zerg for going for a gas and supply intensive dead weight in a straight up fight.

On November 01 2011 07:13 VassiliZaytsev wrote:



Or..... the protoss leaves his base... the 30 mutalisks swoop in and kill every single probe, then go home to defend the infestor Brood lord spine crawler ling town from your ball of collosus free fragile units.. Since the toss is turtling up on 3 - 4 bases.. im sure the zerg is turtling up on 8 while making you spend infinite resources replacing probes, pylons, stray units and who knows, maybe key production and tech structures. Maybe you win that fight, then he remaxes on roaches and rolls the remainder of your army. Sorry I can't trust your former zergness just yet, not until you have experienced the brotoss terror that is mass mutalisk . (This isnt even mentioning the fact that splitting your army up is not an option, as mutalisks snipe shit so fast and they can smell weakness such as small groups of stalkers). And on maps like taldarim and xel naga it gets to be uncontrollably annoying and the game quickly spirals out of protoss control.

Sounds more like a likely scenario to me.

And man if you want to defend with only mass phoenix, I hope you already had 2 stargates and were making phoenixes not voids. GL!

On November 01 2011 05:37 acgFork wrote:
Mass mutas in PvZ are almost impossible to deal with.

On November 01 2011 07:07 FabledIntegral wrote:


Marine/Medic, eventually start adding tanks, then a science vessel. Move out with marine/medic/3tank/1 sci EE HAN TIMING!

On November 01 2011 08:34 StarBrift wrote:


You could actually make the argument that Ravens are better against mutas science vessels was. Sure irradiate would be imba against 30 mutas. But improved seeker missile + PDD actually shuts down mutas completely especially in conjuction with turrents and/or thors. It's just that terrans chose to spend their gas on tanks and ghosts atm. Once ghost EMP area gets nerfed they may go into a viking / raven composition instead. PDD makes vikings dominate corruptors and mutas are completely shut down from harassing the tanks. I have also been chased out of harassing a main by a seeker missile (forced to run away until it expires) only to face 20 marines when I get back. Leaving a raven at the base when moving out late game could be really strong I think even for pro gamers.

I have faced som GM and master terrans that go ravens on EU and I really am at a loss for what to do. I think the Neural range nerf + seeker missile speed buff really enables this unit to be super strong late game. I can only imagine a korean terran adding maybe 3 ravens late game to supplement the allready strong ghost/tank/marine/viking force. I really don't see broodlords working at that time. I mean it's gonna be ridiculously hard to micro that properly in some fights but PDD makes such sick defensive lines.

I think if the raven was as fast as the science vessel was in sc1, every terran would use it every game against all races.

Btw not to mention how insanely long PDD stays up. You can basically add PDDs close to your main turrets when a raven gets full energy cause it will stay there for like 3 minutes.

On November 01 2011 08:45 FabledIntegral wrote:


I've used plenty of ravens prebuff. Seeker missile is good, but Raven simply isn't comparable to the Science Vessel for reasons already mentioned. Energy cost of the spell of irridiate is lower than seeker missile and is available nearly as soon as the vessel pops (67 energy after upgrade) compared to a Raven having 75 energy after popping. Sci vessels could thus be able to throw out multiple irridiates without question, up to a whopping 3 compared to a single seeker missile. Irridiate was also always guaranteed to hit. If Science Vessels were around, they'd def still be massed, considering they could irridiate infestors as well. If unburrowed, a seeker missile will never kill more than 1 full HP infestor! Being able to swoop in with 5 science vessels and irridiate infestors would be huge, although then you have to take into account the potential for fungal. I'm still convinced Sci Vessels are insanely better.

On November 01 2011 08:13 StarBrift wrote:


Actually, in a situation where both players are one 4+ bases mutas get completely raped by archon/stalker/HT. You just need to storm properly. First storms goes on mutas before they get over your army. Second round of storms goes on ground units supporting the mutas. Then when ground is gone you can storm mutas again by splitting your army. You actually kill mutas by killing their ground support and then going to town on the allready damaged mutas with archon/stalkers.

Also you should very very rarely get into a situation where a zerg has been allowed to spend 2500+ gas on mutas without losing a base or a huge ammount of other units. As long as you dont mess up you stalker vs muta defense and lose a lot of probes I don't see how you can even be behind if you play properly as protoss.

On November 01 2011 08:58 Dfgj wrote:

lol in a situation where one player has only probes, 1 muta is pretty OP too

Mutalisks aren't a lategame weapon vP. They're a midgame tool (along with lings) to control the map and force P into turtling if they didn't already win with a timing attack. This lets Z run away with the game unless the P handles the harass extremely well and secures a third. Blink/Storm etc are fantastic against mutas, but getting those when you're bottled up on limited bases takes awhile.

It's weird to me that the Tempest is being added since it doesn't address the main issue: lategame mass mutas, as you said, aren't a problem assuming the players are on roughly even economic footing. The 'lacking' of Protoss in my opinion is that the standard units, while beating mutas by cost, don't beat them enough - you need to sit in your base to defend with the bulk of your forces and thus can't easily pressure or secure expansions (compare this to turrets/marines) - this lets Z get more bases and more gas.

ofc this is skill-based and depend how well you play the situation, so I don't really know if it's a situation that needs attention. I recognize I am bad. The Tempest is silly to me, regardless.

On November 01 2011 09:09 StarBrift wrote:


I agree with what you say but I think thsoe protosses that are pushed back into their main defending against mutas are either playing it wrong or have lost an important battle early on, let me explain what I mean in detail.

Mutas can not win a base trade unless you get 20-25 or so of them (and even then it's doubtful). So up until he gets those numbers you can be offensive and force him back to his side of the map. If you start winning battles majorly you can keep that agression up and expand and later roll him over. If you don't win any battles you will be able to move back, expand and go for a sick 3 base timing. Blinkstalkers out of 7 or so gates should be enough to defend it while teching to templars and cannons etc.

Sure all that is map specific but I feel like that works on current maps. If you let a zerg get up to something like 8 gas and let him build on the muta ball then obviously it will be very hard to stop a muta build. But the whole point is that you dont let him do that. I guess that's why its so hard for low level players that can't pull off timings properly or guage economy or tech tmings of the opponent.

On November 01 2011 08:58 StarBrift wrote:


I really agree that irradiate is better than seeker missile no doubt. But PDD is very useful and quite clearly better than defensive matrix (atleast for sc2). I think the Science vessel was another unit that would slowly pick away at your army by reducint eh defilers and lurkers etc while the Raven is more used to scare away unit from certain positions. That's why I think the raven could be used to great effect in high level sc2. If you can get into one of those "zerg needs to attack me NOW or he dies" situations and you have ravens there. They will really really be useful. Cause if you have 3-4 of them you can make like 3 pdds and a few seeker missiles at any incoming mutas or corruptors (or indeed broodlords).

Sure the problem might be with fungals but good micro and spreads can deter those. You also think very carefully as a zerg about running into an army even if its unsieged when they have the potential to seeker missile your banes if they clump up. But as I said. I see no reason what so ever to not add 2 ravens to your vikings late game agains a broodlord player. You can PDD when the battle begins and remove some very important corruptor shots. It doesnt require much micro and they then sit there doing a good job for the army.

The big weak point though of seeker missile is obviously the friendly fire which is why I only really see use for it vs mutas and corruptors or broodlords (stuff that is not close to your army, or in the case of mutas it does so much damage that it can be worth risking friendly fire). Atleast in high level games. I think people are afraid of getting their full energy ravens neuraled and getting PDD or seeker missiles against themselves. But with the nerfed naural range they shouldn't be afraid of that if they are close toa tank line or have ghosts in their army. I see the raven as something that is part of the viking flock and will keep away from the front of the army until you know he is sending everything in. Then you can throw them forward and try to get good missiles if the situation presents itself.

Again adding ravens will make micro even harder for terran (which is not exactly easy as it is even now) but this is why I think high level players could handle it.

On November 01 2011 09:18 Dfgj wrote:

Sure, I'm fine with everything you say.

I think the bigger difficulty with mutas comes before the 3-base point, however, when speedling/muta can exploit Protoss immobility. Assuming you weren't already going for some sort of timing all-in, this leaves your options as 'try to take a third, tech towards storm', which is pretty passive and can be exploited. This is also a little map dependent, too, as some maps are easier to secure that third on.

You certainly can poke at Z to secure the third, but you run the risk of just losing mineral lines while the Z makes spines and lings to defend until mutas return.. I've seen some players handle this situation beautifully, so again, it's not something I'd call 'imbalance' over. Still, Blizzard is adding anti-muta units (hi, Tempest) - though it's of questionable value.