Patch 1.4.3 - Preview Blog - Page 91

On February 11 2012 08:07 smoosh wrote:
There is one thing in this thread that I've read from several people but I feel (for purposes of intelligent discussion) has not been given enough attention.

Why not just make snipe cost more energy? I've thought this through and I think it solves every single problem that a damage nerf solves in a much more efficient manner. Here's why:

First and foremost, this would solve the apparent "imbalance" issue that Blizzard is trying to address of ghosts being too effective against zerg t3 units. Let's face it, the snipe ability was not put in the game to be mindlessly spammed against and instantly dispatch of units with hundreds of health. Immediately it is apparent that the increased energy cost makes the snipe ability less spammable. Now, you're probably thinking that terran still has the ability to spam ghost production and be protected against all forms of zerg t3, but let's think about this. Assuming terran spams the same amount of ghosts as they did before, the increased energy cost of snipe will require them to manage their energy better between emp, cloak, and snipe against a t3 zerg army (which is really the whole goal here).

Also, the increased energy cost of snipe hardly hurts the ghost's effectiveness against infestors which is their intended purpose in a late game terran unit composition. They will still be able to cloak and snipe/emp infestors quite effectively, they just won't be able to kill brood lords and ultralisks afterwards as well (enter vikings, marauders). A certain level of versatility that currently exists can also be maintained. If a terran can effectively keep the infestor count low through the course of the game without the use of ghost energy (high level play), he should, in a sense, be rewarded by now having the option to use all of his energy on snipe against brood lords and ultralisks (I'm a zerg player, and this seems fair to me).

As an afterthought, it also has less indirect effect on what didn't need to be fixed. What I mean by this is that Blizzard was not trying to fix snipe against units like zealots or marauder/marine or roach/hydra. Snipe is now completely useless against zealots (seriously, you might as well use your energy to emp single zealots) and it didn't need to be this way. The point is, an increase in energy cost, rather than a damage nerf, would've maintained some of the snipe ability's effectiveness in other areas of gameplay (where there was no problem with it).


As for the phoenix change, I haven't though about this one as much, but here's one adverse affect it will have aside from the problem it was meant to solve (late game muta) - we will now start to see more stargate openings and more infestors for a simple reason: mutas were one way zerg had to punish the stargate opening and now they can no longer serve this purpose. One less way to punish a stargate = more stargate. Probably as a result we'll see more carriers and (quicker?) motherships in the metagame which if you ask me is bad news for zerg TT.

On February 11 2012 08:07 NNTP wrote:
Ghost was good because it offers a very good unit vs T3 Zerg. Reason for which is that Zerg can force mass viking with broodlords then remax with ultras and since he would have 3/3 melee armour for zerglings and banelings anyway the ultras will have 3/4 or 3/5 if carapace was researched. then the vikings are pointless then.

If you survive the blords you can recycle your ghosts on ultras which makes the ghosts cost effective (they cost a lot in time and resources).

Now terrans have to mix it up and figure out when that remax will happen and wether it is a remax under flyer or armored ground form.

Perhaps there will be more mech play late game? I don't know!! i am okay with reducing damage vs armored units like ultras which realistically makes sense. A sniper round is not supposed to be a RPG blast lol but a sniper round that cant 1 shot kill someone is pointless. Before ghosts could 1 shot kill marines without combat shields and stimmed marines. Now it is rendered pointless to snipe T1 units. You could also drop stimmed marines and 1-2 ghosts to snipe scv and drones now adding that ghost in is kind of pointless... or maybe still drop it in to emp the orbital command then cloak/hide pick up marines and nuke when army redeploys somewhere else??

On February 11 2012 08:09 OwNaGeForce wrote:


The game shouldn't be "oh, I wasn't able to prevent him from getting certain units, I guess I auto lose!" .... with this train of thought, all terrans should look to all-in zerg to prevent the game from going past the 16 minute mark.....

everyone enjoys the longer, macro games, so it seems like nerfing the only effective tier 3 unit terran has against zerg is sending the wrong message

On February 11 2012 08:14 poor newb wrote:
ghosts wipes out 200/200 zerg army in 2 seconds
david kim: nah, that's just "slightly" too strong

6 phenix dies to 20 mutas because the toss cant micro
david kim: omfg nerf nerf nerf, give phenix +100 range

On February 11 2012 08:14 poor newb wrote:
ghosts wipes out 200/200 zerg army in 2 seconds
david kim: nah, that's just "slightly" too strong

6 phenix dies to 20 mutas because the toss cant micro
david kim: omfg nerf nerf nerf, give phenix +100 range

On February 11 2012 08:14 poor newb wrote:
ghosts wipes out 200/200 zerg army in 2 seconds
david kim: nah, that's just "slightly" too strong

6 phenix dies to 20 mutas because the toss cant micro
david kim: omfg nerf nerf nerf, give phenix +100 range

On February 11 2012 08:13 MrTng wrote:


"Figure out when remax will happen"? Uhm... maybe just after you sniped all the broodlords? Really, that's just common sense. Also, using snipe on T1 units is kind of silly since T1 can be massed so easily.

On February 11 2012 08:10 RavenLoud wrote:



Sounds to me like you don't play zerg at all.

On February 11 2012 08:14 Louis8k8 wrote:
MULE gold mineral nerf: I totally support this. It really balances out the game as they said. The risk and the reward is now the same for all 3 races.

Snipe Damage Increase but split over two conditions: I think 2 snipe > infestor will break the game again. The ease to kill an infestor while having a lesser gas cost is too game breaking. The 11->21 shot to kill an ultralisk also seems to much. 25+20 imo. What unit exactly is Blizz wanting to kill in less snipes with the 5 extra damage? Is it really only infestor? Infestors aren't even that threatening any more with their past nerfs.

Phoenix +1 range upgrade: YES! I love the idea of having upgrades over plain stats. There's many pre-researched spells and certain traits that I wish were re searchable and not given for free. Because Protoss crumble to mass muta and not fast mutas, this research at the beacon (T3 tech) is fair appropriate. However, I wonder if even +1 range on phoenix will help against mass muta. While a zerg can easily replenish its army with completely mutalisks, a protoss cannot. And a high pheonix army is very frail and terrible against something like mass zerglings that follows up from mutalisk tech. I don't know if this upgrade is enough...

To be honest, I don't want +1 range. I want OVERLOAD back.