This thread is going nowhere and I'm tired of dealing with it. Either drop the personal attacks and whining and replace it with actual discussion or it'll be closed.
On June 27 2012 06:19 Dalavita wrote: I don't think any of the terrans will switch to be honest. They'll keep grinding the game in the hopes of finding something new.
Regardless of what they'll find, if they'll discover some endgame composition that works against the endgame of the zerg or whatnot doesn't change the fact that Blizzard hamhandedly broke the earlygame of TvZ, a matchup that was considered balanced.
Edit: Statistics aside. The matchup is less fun than it was before. Who would want to turtle on their ass for 10+ minutes before anything happened? What is the point in those first ten minutes if nothing important happens...
If terrans discovered that turtling on 4 base until BC/Ravens was successful, the earlygame of TvZ would still be broken, regardless of statistical balance.
I see two ways out of this situation, actually.
1) a T build gets developed that takes advantage of the lack of threats from Z in the early game. Everybody starts doing that, the metagame shifts, and Z eventually start cutting corners by getting less queens (because they don't give them an auto-win since aggression isn't that common anymore). At this point, pressure builds, threats and feints become viable again. 2) no such build gets discovered and Blizzard patches this up.
Zerg will never have an incentive to produce less queens. Why would you get less of something that:
1) Doesn't use larva 2) Serves as a replacement for spine crawlers, thereby saving a drone 3) Facilitates the spread of creep 4) Counters any early game aggression with ease 5) Provides Anti Air 6) Has the transfuse ability that can be used on units/spines for any excess queens that accrue energy
because they can't attack off creep and they take up 2 supply? They are not the be-all-end-all of Zerg units. Yes, there is great incentive to build lots early game. But there are plenty of reasons to NOT spend 150 minerals on a 2 supply unit that you cannot (reasonably) bring to your opponent's base (early game).
Considering the creep spread will cover 90% of the map by the 10 minute mark, the "can't attack off creep" argument is invalid. Further, they are amazing in lategame broodlord/infestor army compositions as they can endlessly transfuse broodlords during fights. I remember a hilarious TvZ of Demuslim vs some guy called Ftizyhere (NA Zerg) where Demuslim was focusing down one single broodlord with every viking he had for an entire fight and it kept getting transfused, meanwhile Demuslim lost his entire army to fungal/broodlord and tapped out.
Queens are just way too versatile a unit, and so is the infestor. I can't see why the race with the best macro and best remax capabilities needs these ridiculous units that are always useful in any situation. What was once the "good econ but cost-inefficient armies" race has become the "out-of-this-world econ and most cost-effective army in the game" race.
Edit: Off-topic, but the guy who said mech TvT isn't viable is just plain wrong.
If you're just going to talk in ridiculous hyperbole then there's no point in have a discussion at all.
On June 27 2012 06:19 Dalavita wrote: I don't think any of the terrans will switch to be honest. They'll keep grinding the game in the hopes of finding something new.
Regardless of what they'll find, if they'll discover some endgame composition that works against the endgame of the zerg or whatnot doesn't change the fact that Blizzard hamhandedly broke the earlygame of TvZ, a matchup that was considered balanced.
Edit: Statistics aside. The matchup is less fun than it was before. Who would want to turtle on their ass for 10+ minutes before anything happened? What is the point in those first ten minutes if nothing important happens...
If terrans discovered that turtling on 4 base until BC/Ravens was successful, the earlygame of TvZ would still be broken, regardless of statistical balance.
I see two ways out of this situation, actually.
1) a T build gets developed that takes advantage of the lack of threats from Z in the early game. Everybody starts doing that, the metagame shifts, and Z eventually start cutting corners by getting less queens (because they don't give them an auto-win since aggression isn't that common anymore). At this point, pressure builds, threats and feints become viable again. 2) no such build gets discovered and Blizzard patches this up.
Zerg will never have an incentive to produce less queens. Why would you get less of something that:
1) Doesn't use larva 2) Serves as a replacement for spine crawlers, thereby saving a drone 3) Facilitates the spread of creep 4) Counters any early game aggression with ease 5) Provides Anti Air 6) Has the transfuse ability that can be used on units/spines for any excess queens that accrue energy
because they can't attack off creep and they take up 2 supply? They are not the be-all-end-all of Zerg units. Yes, there is great incentive to build lots early game. But there are plenty of reasons to NOT spend 150 minerals on a 2 supply unit that you cannot (reasonably) bring to your opponent's base (early game).
Considering the creep spread will cover 90% of the map by the 10 minute mark, the "can't attack off creep" argument is invalid. Further, they are amazing in lategame broodlord/infestor army compositions as they can endlessly transfuse broodlords during fights. I remember a hilarious TvZ of Demuslim vs some guy called Ftizyhere (NA Zerg) where Demuslim was focusing down one single broodlord with every viking he had for an entire fight and it kept getting transfused, meanwhile Demuslim lost his entire army to fungal/broodlord and tapped out.
Queens are just way too versatile a unit, and so is the infestor. I can't see why the race with the best macro and best remax capabilities needs these ridiculous units that are always useful in any situation. What was once the "good econ but cost-inefficient armies" race has become the "out-of-this-world econ and most cost-effective army in the game" race.
Edit: Off-topic, but the guy who said mech TvT isn't viable is just plain wrong.
If you're just going to talk in ridiculous hyperbole then there's no point in have a discussion at all.
If you're going to completely ignore an entire post based on the first line including some humour then I can think of no kind ways to describe your character, sir.
How about make infestor more smaller, maybe even so small like HT / ghost? So zerg-players will have to control them more accurately or they will punished by tanks and EMPs.
More skillbased + more fun to watch.
Anyway, infestor is the way fastest caster in comparison to ghost or ht, so it'll be not so hard.
On June 27 2012 14:33 iaguz wrote: queens aren't good at attacking but they are really good at getting you 70 drones so you can make a shitload of units that can.
This is like saying the weakness of orbitals is that they can't kill enemy units at all.
This, except they are surprisingly good at defending 2base pushes. A bunch of queens with energy to transfuse are not to be underestimated.
On June 27 2012 14:33 iaguz wrote: queens aren't good at attacking but they are really good at getting you 70 drones so you can make a shitload of units that can.
This is like saying the weakness of orbitals is that they can't kill enemy units at all.
On June 27 2012 06:19 Dalavita wrote: I don't think any of the terrans will switch to be honest. They'll keep grinding the game in the hopes of finding something new.
Regardless of what they'll find, if they'll discover some endgame composition that works against the endgame of the zerg or whatnot doesn't change the fact that Blizzard hamhandedly broke the earlygame of TvZ, a matchup that was considered balanced.
Edit: Statistics aside. The matchup is less fun than it was before. Who would want to turtle on their ass for 10+ minutes before anything happened? What is the point in those first ten minutes if nothing important happens...
If terrans discovered that turtling on 4 base until BC/Ravens was successful, the earlygame of TvZ would still be broken, regardless of statistical balance.
I see two ways out of this situation, actually.
1) a T build gets developed that takes advantage of the lack of threats from Z in the early game. Everybody starts doing that, the metagame shifts, and Z eventually start cutting corners by getting less queens (because they don't give them an auto-win since aggression isn't that common anymore). At this point, pressure builds, threats and feints become viable again. 2) no such build gets discovered and Blizzard patches this up.
Zerg will never have an incentive to produce less queens. Why would you get less of something that:
1) Doesn't use larva 2) Serves as a replacement for spine crawlers, thereby saving a drone 3) Facilitates the spread of creep 4) Counters any early game aggression with ease 5) Provides Anti Air 6) Has the transfuse ability that can be used on units/spines for any excess queens that accrue energy
because they can't attack off creep and they take up 2 supply? They are not the be-all-end-all of Zerg units. Yes, there is great incentive to build lots early game. But there are plenty of reasons to NOT spend 150 minerals on a 2 supply unit that you cannot (reasonably) bring to your opponent's base (early game).
Considering the creep spread will cover 90% of the map by the 10 minute mark, the "can't attack off creep" argument is invalid. Further, they are amazing in lategame broodlord/infestor army compositions as they can endlessly transfuse broodlords during fights. I remember a hilarious TvZ of Demuslim vs some guy called Ftizyhere (NA Zerg) where Demuslim was focusing down one single broodlord with every viking he had for an entire fight and it kept getting transfused, meanwhile Demuslim lost his entire army to fungal/broodlord and tapped out.
Queens are just way too versatile a unit, and so is the infestor. I can't see why the race with the best macro and best remax capabilities needs these ridiculous units that are always useful in any situation. What was once the "good econ but cost-inefficient armies" race has become the "out-of-this-world econ and most cost-effective army in the game" race.
Edit: Off-topic, but the guy who said mech TvT isn't viable is just plain wrong.
If you're just going to talk in ridiculous hyperbole then there's no point in have a discussion at all.
What do you add to the conversation by stating this?
He made some excellent points, none of which you addressed substantively.
DeMuslim is actually starting to play Zerg for fun and I recall him on his stream saying he beat Ogsforgg and Idra. Thorzain also beat Idra offracing as Zerg. I think if this continues, we will just see a mass exodus from Terran to Zerg or Protoss. I was rank 1 master Terran last season, only rank 5 master this season and working my butt off. Strangely, however I easily maintained my Rank 2 Protoss (900 points) and top 8 master zerg. Whats wrong with this? I barely play the other races.
On June 27 2012 14:33 iaguz wrote: queens aren't good at attacking but they are really good at getting you 70 drones so you can make a shitload of units that can.
This is like saying the weakness of orbitals is that they can't kill enemy units at all.
...what? this made no sense.please explain
Complaining that queens are bad at attacking is like complaining that orbitals can't attack. They aren't meant to.
If they scouted your 2 bases push (and it's easy surprisingly to sense), you gonna see more queens early to get those energy, it just mean you have to deny scout and get your units out there to do that, not stay in base. I see many Terran not doing that as thou I start making queen more per hatch and they are out spreading creep, whereas I should be getting my third max out first. No Zerg will build tons of queen if they know there is no impending early rush. The queen range just helps us spread creep better, anything else is just because you got scouted and we can build an army faster than you can.
On June 27 2012 06:19 Dalavita wrote: I don't think any of the terrans will switch to be honest. They'll keep grinding the game in the hopes of finding something new.
Regardless of what they'll find, if they'll discover some endgame composition that works against the endgame of the zerg or whatnot doesn't change the fact that Blizzard hamhandedly broke the earlygame of TvZ, a matchup that was considered balanced.
Edit: Statistics aside. The matchup is less fun than it was before. Who would want to turtle on their ass for 10+ minutes before anything happened? What is the point in those first ten minutes if nothing important happens...
If terrans discovered that turtling on 4 base until BC/Ravens was successful, the earlygame of TvZ would still be broken, regardless of statistical balance.
I see two ways out of this situation, actually.
1) a T build gets developed that takes advantage of the lack of threats from Z in the early game. Everybody starts doing that, the metagame shifts, and Z eventually start cutting corners by getting less queens (because they don't give them an auto-win since aggression isn't that common anymore). At this point, pressure builds, threats and feints become viable again. 2) no such build gets discovered and Blizzard patches this up.
Zerg will never have an incentive to produce less queens. Why would you get less of something that:
1) Doesn't use larva 2) Serves as a replacement for spine crawlers, thereby saving a drone 3) Facilitates the spread of creep 4) Counters any early game aggression with ease 5) Provides Anti Air 6) Has the transfuse ability that can be used on units/spines for any excess queens that accrue energy
because they can't attack off creep and they take up 2 supply? They are not the be-all-end-all of Zerg units. Yes, there is great incentive to build lots early game. But there are plenty of reasons to NOT spend 150 minerals on a 2 supply unit that you cannot (reasonably) bring to your opponent's base (early game).
Considering the creep spread will cover 90% of the map by the 10 minute mark, the "can't attack off creep" argument is invalid. Further, they are amazing in lategame broodlord/infestor army compositions as they can endlessly transfuse broodlords during fights. I remember a hilarious TvZ of Demuslim vs some guy called Ftizyhere (NA Zerg) where Demuslim was focusing down one single broodlord with every viking he had for an entire fight and it kept getting transfused, meanwhile Demuslim lost his entire army to fungal/broodlord and tapped out.
Queens are just way too versatile a unit, and so is the infestor. I can't see why the race with the best macro and best remax capabilities needs these ridiculous units that are always useful in any situation. What was once the "good econ but cost-inefficient armies" race has become the "out-of-this-world econ and most cost-effective army in the game" race.
Edit: Off-topic, but the guy who said mech TvT isn't viable is just plain wrong.
If you're just going to talk in ridiculous hyperbole then there's no point in have a discussion at all.
What do you add to the conversation by stating this?
He made some excellent points, none of which you addressed substantively.
DeMuslim is actually starting to play Zerg for fun and I recall him on his stream saying he beat Ogsforgg and Idra. Thorzain also beat Idra offracing as Zerg. I think if this continues, we will just see a mass exodus from Terran to Zerg or Protoss. I was rank 1 master Terran last season, only rank 5 master this season and working my butt off. Strangely, however I easily maintained my Rank 2 Protoss (900 points) and top 8 master zerg. Whats wrong with this? I barely play the other races.
It would help if you actually read what I was responding to in the first place, which his wall of text ALSO didn't address: someone said that there was no reason not to make queens, and i gave a reason. That's it. Early game, you can't use them to attack and they take up supply. Not saying queens are shitty. Not saying they are/aren't op. Just that there are reasons not to make them at certain stages of the game. Read. The. Goddam. Posts.
On June 27 2012 06:19 Dalavita wrote: I don't think any of the terrans will switch to be honest. They'll keep grinding the game in the hopes of finding something new.
Regardless of what they'll find, if they'll discover some endgame composition that works against the endgame of the zerg or whatnot doesn't change the fact that Blizzard hamhandedly broke the earlygame of TvZ, a matchup that was considered balanced.
Edit: Statistics aside. The matchup is less fun than it was before. Who would want to turtle on their ass for 10+ minutes before anything happened? What is the point in those first ten minutes if nothing important happens...
If terrans discovered that turtling on 4 base until BC/Ravens was successful, the earlygame of TvZ would still be broken, regardless of statistical balance.
I see two ways out of this situation, actually.
1) a T build gets developed that takes advantage of the lack of threats from Z in the early game. Everybody starts doing that, the metagame shifts, and Z eventually start cutting corners by getting less queens (because they don't give them an auto-win since aggression isn't that common anymore). At this point, pressure builds, threats and feints become viable again. 2) no such build gets discovered and Blizzard patches this up.
Zerg will never have an incentive to produce less queens. Why would you get less of something that:
1) Doesn't use larva 2) Serves as a replacement for spine crawlers, thereby saving a drone 3) Facilitates the spread of creep 4) Counters any early game aggression with ease 5) Provides Anti Air 6) Has the transfuse ability that can be used on units/spines for any excess queens that accrue energy
because they can't attack off creep and they take up 2 supply? They are not the be-all-end-all of Zerg units. Yes, there is great incentive to build lots early game. But there are plenty of reasons to NOT spend 150 minerals on a 2 supply unit that you cannot (reasonably) bring to your opponent's base (early game).
Considering the creep spread will cover 90% of the map by the 10 minute mark, the "can't attack off creep" argument is invalid. Further, they are amazing in lategame broodlord/infestor army compositions as they can endlessly transfuse broodlords during fights. I remember a hilarious TvZ of Demuslim vs some guy called Ftizyhere (NA Zerg) where Demuslim was focusing down one single broodlord with every viking he had for an entire fight and it kept getting transfused, meanwhile Demuslim lost his entire army to fungal/broodlord and tapped out.
Queens are just way too versatile a unit, and so is the infestor. I can't see why the race with the best macro and best remax capabilities needs these ridiculous units that are always useful in any situation. What was once the "good econ but cost-inefficient armies" race has become the "out-of-this-world econ and most cost-effective army in the game" race.
Edit: Off-topic, but the guy who said mech TvT isn't viable is just plain wrong.
If you're just going to talk in ridiculous hyperbole then there's no point in have a discussion at all.
What do you add to the conversation by stating this?
He made some excellent points, none of which you addressed substantively.
DeMuslim is actually starting to play Zerg for fun and I recall him on his stream saying he beat Ogsforgg and Idra. Thorzain also beat Idra offracing as Zerg. I think if this continues, we will just see a mass exodus from Terran to Zerg or Protoss. I was rank 1 master Terran last season, only rank 5 master this season and working my butt off. Strangely, however I easily maintained my Rank 2 Protoss (900 points) and top 8 master zerg. Whats wrong with this? I barely play the other races.
It would help if you actually read what I was responding to in the first place, which his wall of text ALSO didn't address: someone said that there was no reason not to make queens, and i gave a reason. That's it. Early game, you can't use them to attack and they take up supply. Not saying queens are shitty. Not saying they are/aren't op. Just that there are reasons not to make them at certain stages of the game. Read. The. Goddam. Posts.
In the early game you run no risk of maxing out, so queens taking up supply is no issue whatsoever. In the early-midgame they are excellent defense and creep-spreaders. In the lategame they are excellent for transfusing.
As someone said, while they might not be good 'attackers' per se, they lead to strong armies in that they defend really cost-efficiently, and they spread creep, so if you attack (or defend) you have a ton of creep to help you.
Tell me again why you would ever not make a lot of queens.
There's still quite a bit that has yet to be explored with Terran. I've yet to see a terran play to the point where I can't point out some major flaw in their gameplay. Hell, I've yet to even see an scv marine supply drop all in yet that was played perfectly.
Exploring mech openings, exploring SK mass mass marine medivac, raven style, etc etc. There's still hope!
I mean, we all stopped bitching about protoss for the most part didn't we? Yep, because a late game protoss is believe it or not, BEATABLE. If you play more actively with scans, vikings, ghosts, before you engage, and when you do engage you send marauders first before marines ( I can't even fucking believe how many pros still just ball a move and get their marines instantly murked by splash).
On June 27 2012 17:13 cydial wrote: Exploring mech openings, exploring SK mass mass marine medivac, raven style, etc etc. There's still hope!
I mean, we all stopped bitching about protoss for the most part didn't we? Yep, because a late game protoss is believe it or not, BEATABLE. If you play more actively with scans, vikings, ghosts, before you engage, and when you do engage you send marauders first before marines ( I can't even fucking believe how many pros still just ball a move and get their marines instantly murked by splash).
The only real reason the bitching of TvP has stopped is because TvZ is in like 10x times worse shape. In TvP there is atleast a window where you can win or get far enough ahead to be even.
The problem with your statement is, should terran have to always play perfectly to win, if zerg/toss don't have to? Players can still improve a ton, don't get me wrong, but that can be said about all players. Terran shouldn't just suck until players start coming close to the skill ceiling.
PS. Sadly most builds have simply been tried and tested. If there is going to be some silver bullet, it will be a build that has been tested extensively already(as such, I dare you find a unit combo that hasn't been played around with).
1. only applies when the expansion is already here. Until then, it's a no point. SC2 might have new ideas coming in, but the scene is established, the best players are established and the metagame is established, and we can use history and experience to be able to analyze current situations and changes better. Back then none of these factors were present.
2. I'm sure you enjoy the matchup, and I might as well if I played zerg. However I don't think it's unfair to say that the matchup is worse off because of the change, and considering what we gained with the change (zergs have to try less hard to defend against hellions I guess?) to a previously balanced matchup and what we had to give up to get it. I didn't mind all the trillion bunker nerfs that terrans got even though Blizzard might have gone overboard in combination with larger maps, because they made the matchup better overall. This change? No positive change whatsoever. I don't think I'm the only one feeling this way, since there hasn't been this much of an uproar over a change since ever, and the uproar is cross race.
3. Whether it was wrong or not, it was generally considered that zergs had the super lategame going for them even back then due to the larva mechanics. They did have something to look forward too when they worked at surviving. At the moment as a terran, your thought process is basically "oh, I didn't cripple him the first ten minutes, it's time to slowly die unless he goes full retard."
1. This makes no sense to me. That's like saying in the early days that we can't hope for new improvements until they actually release them? Lol. We already know 2 expansions are coming out, simple as that. You know 100% that there will be massive metagame shifts and unit composition changes, what is there to argue? My point is that it's NOT THAT BAD. Now you just enter into mid and lategame without easily being able to gain an advantage unless you do something clever, you can't simply do the exact same cookie-cutter build every game and have a very high chance of crippling your opponent...back in the early days Zergs had to worry about simply dying in the first 10 minutes of every single game...just let that sink in for a moment as you reflect upon how bad you guys have it now, lawl. Also, I'm still not convinced that Terrans simply don't require more build changes and strategy improvement, Terrans have been crying about this change since the day it came out and I really think that 90% of the people complaining have done hardly a thing to try and change their own play up in compensation. The only reason you see a difference between Terran complaints now and past Zerg complaints is because you are very, very biased.
2. Maybe you think there is no positives but I see plenty. For one, Zergs typically aren't dying nearly as often because one of their Queens was out of position by a quarter of an inch allowing Hellions to run by a gap the Zerg thought was covered. Secondly, ZvZ is greatly improved and a hell of a lot more fun now as well.
3. Actually Zergs still died all the time in the super late game vs Protoss and Terrans...so, your opinion is simply that, your opinion. Also, you seem to still think that Zerg has an advantage over Zerg in the late game but I really doubt that, Terrans can play late game just fine if they utilize their units properly and play it out right. I still almost never see Terrans build Ghosts, yet the few that do always make me happy to play against because their late game is 3x as hard to fight as a scrub Terran who refuses to build them even once.
Beenu, You are obviously "very, very biased" yourself. Simply saying "Terran's need to evolve" and "use their units properly" does not get rid of the pink elephant in the room. Want to talk about bias? Morrow (Pro Zerg and Terran) player, believes they are too powerful and the buff was unnecessary. As a former GM, I would hope you take some advice when i say there is only so much you can do mechanically when a zerg queens up to 5-7 queens, turtles then takes a substantial eco advantage. It becomes a all-in coin flip for Terran. I suggest you watch some of these interviews and read some legitmate Pro threads before you throw your, less experienced, two sense in.
Watch around 5:30
Kawaii rice interview
blah blah blah, yawn. I'm not really biased much at all really, I understand Terrans are having a tough time and for some players that may be a legitimate concern, no argument here. Whether or not the buff was "necessary" or not is still irrelevant, it exists simple as that so you need to learn to deal with it until either the problem goes away with metagame changes or blizzard makes changes. But no, most Terrans seem to prefer to just weep and cry about Queens and then use that opportunity to start crying about Infestors all over again [rooooooofl] and quite frankly, when people keep crying about Infestors they just lose all credibility with me. It's hard not to generalize, but this thread makes me think Terrans just wanna cry for the sake of crying when they can't even stay on-topic for what they want to cry about in the first place.
Blizzard are not our masterful overlords who never mess up. When something is broken in society, whether it's in politics, schools, ideologies or whatnot, people complain. We have no reason not to complain when Blizzard throws a wrench into a working matchup for no reason. Saying something exists and thus it's set in stone is one of the worst attitudes you could have in life.
Not sure of the rules but I'm posting this for the third time in this thread as I would like to bring up issues not currently being talked about.
Warning: wall of text incoming
The way I feel one should look at this is from the perspective of how Blizzard wants their game to play out. They have stated that they regard balance not only on a unit vs unit basis but also on a timing basis.
"In non-mirror matches we intentionally work to provide diverse strategies that make use of asymmetric design to produce varied, fun and interesting games, while maintaining excellent overall balance. That does mean that at different stages of the game, one race might have tools which represent an advantage against the others--though it’s important that those advantages can always be mitigated by good play." -Daxxarri
I understand that this quote was in relation to the TvP matchup, however, there are a lot of similarities recently in the late game play of TvP and TvZ. Terran trying to find a perfect engagement and trying to abuse lack of mobility. They've stated they'd like Terran to be very strong in the early and mid-game while trading off for a weaker end game. Their philosophy was that Terrans should push their early and mid-game advantage before the opponent achieves a superior unit composition which allows them to arrive in the late game in a favorable position with which they can continue to batter down the opposition and win.
If we can extrapolate anything from this it’s that Terran has to use the same general strategy in both matchups, that is, do damage early and do your best to ride that advantage into the late game for the win. We can also gather from this that they want certain races to be weaker in certain stages of the game. I do speak from speculation here; however, I believe Terran is balanced with zerg in the ultra-early game and in the mid game Terran needs to apply pressure before the swarm takes over in order to be able to secure a win against an even-skilled opponent.
How I believe the T is supposed to deal this damage is through superior cost effectiveness and through map control, slowly trading both of these aspects to the Z by the end game to Infestors and Broods. At this point, hopefully, T has efficiently traded armies and/or managed to affect the economy of the Z enough to put him at an advantage against the Z in the late-game and can, as is said a considerable amount in this community, “get more ahead” to secure the win.
This is where I feel Blizzard has acted completely contradictory to their balance philosophy. At the rate of the current metagame, in order for Terrans to keep themselves at an even remotely close pace with Zerg they have been forced to take extremely potentially vulnerable early fast expansions. This is where the queen buff shines as well. Early with a range 3 on queens it was considerable easier for T to take this early FE and not be paranoid about a possible all in from the Z because it was easily possible to keep your SCV alive around the base to hopefully scout if early gasses are going down. This isn’t even close to plausible any more as the range buff to the queen allows them to easily down initial scvs if they pool first and to keep scouting units out of their main. This isn’t the most important change however.
The current metagame with the queen buff has created a scenario that in order for a T to deal any sort of damage to a Z they have to trade an economic or timing advantage later. Creating scenarios in which the T has to deal a considerable amount of damage with their opening gambit in order to break even with the Z. With this buff Blizzard is essentially telling Ts that they aren’t supposed to safely pressure greedy Zs in the early game as queens can very easily repel bunkers now with ling support.
The Hellion opening was very good for as it allowed to T to safely pressure a FEing zerg(which is nearly every game) by forcing Z to create bit of army units and forcing spine crawlers. The hellions could deal with Queens as they had them out ranged and could stutter step them in and out to exploit holes in the Zerg’s defense. It wasn’t an over committal to Hellions and it allowed the T to establish an early Factory tech, All the while preventing the early spread of creep. This early prevention of creep also allowed a 1-1 timing or a tank timing later in the midgame to be more powerful as it allowed the T to move much closer to the Z base without having to slow down and begin killing tumors also saving more scans. With the patch the Zerg metagame has adapted and Zs have been opening with the early 4-6 queen builds. Where Queens couldn’t leave the safety of Spine Crawlers previously they can now venture forth on the map and fight early hellion pressure.
Aside. The only adaptation from T I have seen is maybe possibly a 2 reactor hellion build that gets out 10 hellions super quick for an almost all-in attack. The problem with this is that now the choice to get out hellions isn’t so much of a transition as it is a commitment to hellions, which in turn forces the T to deal actual damage or the T will be considerably behind in tech and timing. Turning a solid light pressure build into a build committed to deal damage.
Aside. Marine openers can be dealt with 4+ queens plus a round of zerglings from the Z. Also if the T loses his early group of Marines he will be completely unable to keep up with the unit production of Zerg and he can overwhelm him early for the gg and at the least it will make his push later very susceptible to a Muta defense.
Aside. Banshee openers are also beeing thwarted rasther easily as well. If a T does it on 1 base it might as well be an all-in. If they execute it after taking an FE its delayed enough that now zerg is normally getting 2 fast evo chambers anyway. They will have the min nessecarry for spores easily and while starting with 6 queens anyway there isnt much of an issue.
Now with the Queens being able to deal with hellion builds and the fact that Zs are getting nearly 6 now it allows Queens to move out and spread creep earlier.
With the earlier creep spread we have what we have been seeing a considerably lot of lately. Which is by 10:-- mark over half the map is covered in creep. This creates another problem as the supposed strong mid game push from T has to slow down and clear creep before it can create a situation where the engagement is T favored with less creep around. Making T mid game pushes even weaker as they are arriving at the Zs natural or third even later giving the Z considerably more time to prepare and set up flanks.
Behind all this the Zerg is free to make rounds and rounds of drones almost unsusceptible to pressure. And this is where I believe we are now AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL OF PLAY which is key. What can T do? Well if I knew that I wouldn’t have been typing about the problems and would have been typing out the solutions.
Now back to Blizzard’s philosophy. They state they want asymmetric balance between the races. However, every nerf Terrans have been receiving is from Blizzard saying that these things are too strong early/mid game. The Z has problems defending T early to mid-game. Z has problems scouting in the early game. If T clearly doesn’t have an advantage late game, which no one really disputes, and Blizzard keeps nerfing ways for T to punish Z and do damage early to mid-game. T commiting in the early game is to economically unviable if it doesnt do enough damage. And now T is losing their mid-game timings as Zerg is achieving their Late-game composition earlier and earlier. Blizzard has consistantly been balancing this game to force almost all match-ups into the lategame where T, which they have admitted, doesnt have the strongest of armies.Where exactly is Terran supposed to be asymmetrically balanced with Zerg at this point?
T all-ins get nerfed and some deservedly so. But where have the nerfs been to the damage Banelings do to buildings to help Terran ability to mitigate those all-ins? Where has any nerfs to early roach all-ins been? These all-ins are very common on the ladder play and very commonly earn the Z a win on a consistent basis and also allow the Zerg to transition from them into follow-up pushes that also very consistently get the gg. But when Terran has any reliable all-ins to do damage to the Zerg or even put pressure on Zerg early it for some reason is a sign that Blizzard doesn’t agree with the metagame and they have to step in to stop it without allowing the metagame to reset itself
I will agree that nerfs and buffs are certainly nessesary for SC2, however sometimes I wish that Blizzard would mind their own business and/or incorporate pro players opinions into their beta testing for patches. The fighting Game community does this on a regular basis and it has certainly showed as of late with very balanced very fun games.
To the people saying it is too early to discuss whether or not this change has affected the state of the game. I ask why was this change made in the first place? What about the state of the game warranted a change of this magnitude to the matchup?
Ok.... and there we go for people who needed it broken down more for you. And people asking why T doesn’t just do this or that. I'm sure i missed several points as I'm certainly not a GSL champion, however this seems to be the ghist from my POV
On June 27 2012 17:13 cydial wrote: Exploring mech openings, exploring SK mass mass marine medivac, raven style, etc etc. There's still hope!
I mean, we all stopped bitching about protoss for the most part didn't we? Yep, because a late game protoss is believe it or not, BEATABLE. If you play more actively with scans, vikings, ghosts, before you engage, and when you do engage you send marauders first before marines ( I can't even fucking believe how many pros still just ball a move and get their marines instantly murked by splash).
The only real reason the bitching of TvP has stopped is because TvZ is in like 10x times worse shape. In TvP there is atleast a window where you can win or get far enough ahead to be even.
The problem with your statement is, should terran have to always play perfectly to win, if zerg/toss don't have to? Players can still improve a ton, don't get me wrong, but that can be said about all players. Terran shouldn't just suck until players start coming close to the skill ceiling.
PS. Sadly most builds have simply been tried and tested. If there is going to be some silver bullet, it will be a build that has been tested extensively already(as such, I dare you find a unit combo that hasn't been played around with).
I'm not here to talk about what the game should be like, I'm terran and I feel that protoss and zerg can a-move with impunity while terran can't ever do such a thing because of storm, banelings, fungal, etc. What the game is like is Terran needs to micro fucking amazing against splash or an a moving chargelot / ling ultra army.
However, if Terran does play perfect with their micro, then what can the opposing race really do? Terran skill is more like exponential decay and zerg/protoss are linear. It gets to a point that no amount of micro on the zerg or protoss side can over come the vastly more microable terran units.
On June 27 2012 06:19 Dalavita wrote: I don't think any of the terrans will switch to be honest. They'll keep grinding the game in the hopes of finding something new.
Regardless of what they'll find, if they'll discover some endgame composition that works against the endgame of the zerg or whatnot doesn't change the fact that Blizzard hamhandedly broke the earlygame of TvZ, a matchup that was considered balanced.
Edit: Statistics aside. The matchup is less fun than it was before. Who would want to turtle on their ass for 10+ minutes before anything happened? What is the point in those first ten minutes if nothing important happens...
If terrans discovered that turtling on 4 base until BC/Ravens was successful, the earlygame of TvZ would still be broken, regardless of statistical balance.
I see two ways out of this situation, actually.
1) a T build gets developed that takes advantage of the lack of threats from Z in the early game. Everybody starts doing that, the metagame shifts, and Z eventually start cutting corners by getting less queens (because they don't give them an auto-win since aggression isn't that common anymore). At this point, pressure builds, threats and feints become viable again. 2) no such build gets discovered and Blizzard patches this up.
Zerg will never have an incentive to produce less queens. Why would you get less of something that:
1) Doesn't use larva 2) Serves as a replacement for spine crawlers, thereby saving a drone 3) Facilitates the spread of creep 4) Counters any early game aggression with ease 5) Provides Anti Air 6) Has the transfuse ability that can be used on units/spines for any excess queens that accrue energy
because they can't attack off creep and they take up 2 supply? They are not the be-all-end-all of Zerg units. Yes, there is great incentive to build lots early game. But there are plenty of reasons to NOT spend 150 minerals on a 2 supply unit that you cannot (reasonably) bring to your opponent's base (early game).
Considering the creep spread will cover 90% of the map by the 10 minute mark, the "can't attack off creep" argument is invalid. Further, they are amazing in lategame broodlord/infestor army compositions as they can endlessly transfuse broodlords during fights. I remember a hilarious TvZ of Demuslim vs some guy called Ftizyhere (NA Zerg) where Demuslim was focusing down one single broodlord with every viking he had for an entire fight and it kept getting transfused, meanwhile Demuslim lost his entire army to fungal/broodlord and tapped out.
Queens are just way too versatile a unit, and so is the infestor. I can't see why the race with the best macro and best remax capabilities needs these ridiculous units that are always useful in any situation. What was once the "good econ but cost-inefficient armies" race has become the "out-of-this-world econ and most cost-effective army in the game" race.
Edit: Off-topic, but the guy who said mech TvT isn't viable is just plain wrong.
If you're just going to talk in ridiculous hyperbole then there's no point in have a discussion at all.
What do you add to the conversation by stating this?
He made some excellent points, none of which you addressed substantively.
DeMuslim is actually starting to play Zerg for fun and I recall him on his stream saying he beat Ogsforgg and Idra. Thorzain also beat Idra offracing as Zerg. I think if this continues, we will just see a mass exodus from Terran to Zerg or Protoss. I was rank 1 master Terran last season, only rank 5 master this season and working my butt off. Strangely, however I easily maintained my Rank 2 Protoss (900 points) and top 8 master zerg. Whats wrong with this? I barely play the other races.
It would help if you actually read what I was responding to in the first place, which his wall of text ALSO didn't address: someone said that there was no reason not to make queens, and i gave a reason. That's it. Early game, you can't use them to attack and they take up supply. Not saying queens are shitty. Not saying they are/aren't op. Just that there are reasons not to make them at certain stages of the game. Read. The. Goddam. Posts.
In the early game you run no risk of maxing out, so queens taking up supply is no issue whatsoever. In the early-midgame they are excellent defense and creep-spreaders. In the lategame they are excellent for transfusing.
As someone said, while they might not be good 'attackers' per se, they lead to strong armies in that they defend really cost-efficiently, and they spread creep, so if you attack (or defend) you have a ton of creep to help you.
Tell me again why you would ever not make a lot of queens.
It really is hard to complain about queens taking 2 supply when it was viable play for zerg to make roaches for fending off hellions that also cost 2 supply. I mean, it used to be that you make 2-supply roaches that also use gas, or you use sunkens and perhaps blings which also really dampens your economy. Now you have 2-supply queens that can spread creep, require no additional building, and requires no gas. It exponentially accelerate the rate at which zergs can develop early game.
Also, the zerg race is the least likely to attack in the early/mid-game anyway. Because zerg develops at a faster speed than any other race unharassed. It's more beneficial for zerg to play a turtle style than either of the other two races because they can hit full saturation the fastest. So they benefit much more from defensive buffs than offensive buffs early game.
I am sure I am not good enough at the game understand it well enough to comment on balance.
but I will say when you see as many pro Terran streamers offracing a lot atm it points to there being a real issue players I have never seen offrace at all and some I have never seen QQ either.
it was actaully funny to watch demuslim offrace zerg and beat forgg with relative ease while not playing very well by his own reconition with a race he has very little practical use with.
On June 27 2012 17:13 cydial wrote: Exploring mech openings, exploring SK mass mass marine medivac, raven style, etc etc. There's still hope!
I mean, we all stopped bitching about protoss for the most part didn't we? Yep, because a late game protoss is believe it or not, BEATABLE. If you play more actively with scans, vikings, ghosts, before you engage, and when you do engage you send marauders first before marines ( I can't even fucking believe how many pros still just ball a move and get their marines instantly murked by splash).
The only real reason the bitching of TvP has stopped is because TvZ is in like 10x times worse shape. In TvP there is atleast a window where you can win or get far enough ahead to be even.
The problem with your statement is, should terran have to always play perfectly to win, if zerg/toss don't have to? Players can still improve a ton, don't get me wrong, but that can be said about all players. Terran shouldn't just suck until players start coming close to the skill ceiling.
PS. Sadly most builds have simply been tried and tested. If there is going to be some silver bullet, it will be a build that has been tested extensively already(as such, I dare you find a unit combo that hasn't been played around with).
I'm not here to talk about what the game should be like, I'm terran and I feel that protoss and zerg can a-move with impunity while terran can't ever do such a thing because of storm, banelings, fungal, etc. What the game is like is Terran needs to micro fucking amazing against splash or an a moving chargelot / ling ultra army.
However, if Terran does play perfect with their micro, then what can the opposing race really do? Terran skill is more like exponential decay and zerg/protoss are linear. It gets to a point that no amount of micro on the zerg or protoss side can over come the vastly more microable terran units.
When terrans get better at microing and controlling their units, zergs and protosses get buffed by Blizzard on a numbers level. It's a fundamental flaw in the game which keeps happening because P/Z are more limited in what player skill can allow for compared to terran because of the shitty design of the races, and it screws the ladder up every single time it happens while the pro players keep adjusting to it by practicing more and more. At some point Blizzard needs to stop focusing at making the game statistically balanced and rework their design to allow P/Z to be more micro and skill friendly than they are now.
EPT![[image loading]](http://pppsr.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/william_adama.jpeg)
