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Nothing said in the OP makes the widow mine fundamentally flawed, only difficult to balance.
To all the people that keep saying that it is not intended as a direct combat unit:
If it is not intended like that they shouldn't promote it like that. This is totally misleading.
That's your own fault. Don't assume there is 1 way of using something because that's what was shown to you. There are likely a multitude of uses that clever people will use them for.
What if they said they would buff the Colossus to do 10 times as much damage and also shoot air units? Would you say the same thing? No, because it's obviously terrible and so is the Widow Mine.
Yes, let's make an impossible hyperbolic example, and compare it to something reasonable, and pretend we just said something intelligent and rebuttled the argument!
My thoughts are this: Blizzard has stated on a number of cases that the widow mine has been extremely tricky to balance, because of how it functions as a sacrificial unit, and the delayed detonation mechanic. Note, that they did not say it is perpetually underpowered or flawed. It teeter-totters. So despite all this BRILLIANT (that's sarcastic) theorycrafting, people, in application are able to use the widow mine effectively (even super-effectively) depending on the cost. Having said this, a unit that can shift so dramatically to being UP or OP with slight changes in cost may not be the best thing for SC2, especially if that applies when the metagame shifts. Blizzard has already stated that they weren't sure if it would make the final cut. In fact, I think DB said he was even doubtful, but don't quote me on that.
Point is, you know nothing. I know nothing. This all may be moot, because they may have removed it already due to their own internal testings. No, i'm not saying it's pointless discussing obvious problems (like a 10x colossus, right OP? -_-) but this is not obvious, as shown by the OP's inept ability to convey any real arguments or data as to why it could be flawed. By all means, discuss...just don't make stuff up or pretend to be all knowing unless you're sitting next to David Kim at work tinkering around and analyzing to find perfection, and please don't think 1 instance of it not working brilliantly is evidence for it's "fundamentaly flawed nature".
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Difficult to predict already if widow mine is flawed. The game hasn't even been released; who knows, maybe progamers (and consequently the rest of the masses) will find a usage for them that we aren't able to yet see because we haven't played the game yet.
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On August 04 2012 04:01 Sepheren wrote:Nothing said in the OP makes the widow mine fundamentally flawed, only difficult to balance. Show nested quote +To all the people that keep saying that it is not intended as a direct combat unit:
If it is not intended like that they shouldn't promote it like that. This is totally misleading. That's your own fault. Don't assume there is 1 way of using something because that's what was shown to you. There are likely a multitude of uses that clever people will use them for. Show nested quote +What if they said they would buff the Colossus to do 10 times as much damage and also shoot air units? Would you say the same thing? No, because it's obviously terrible and so is the Widow Mine. Yes, let's make an impossible hyperbolic example, and compare it to something reasonable, and pretend we just said something intelligent and rebuttled the argument! My thoughts are this: Blizzard has stated on a number of cases that the widow mine has been extremely tricky to balance, because of how it functions as a sacrificial unit, and the delayed detonation mechanic. Note, that they did not say it is perpetually underpowered or flawed. It teeter-totters. So despite all this BRILLIANT (that's sarcastic) theorycrafting, people, in application are able to use the widow mine effectively (even super-effectively) depending on the cost. Having said this, a unit that can shift so dramatically to being UP or OP with slight changes in cost may not be the best thing for SC2, especially if that applies when the metagame shifts. Blizzard has already stated that they weren't sure if it would make the final cut. In fact, I think DB said he was even doubtful, but don't quote me on that. Point is, you know nothing. I know nothing. This all may be moot, because they may have removed it already due to their own internal testings. No, i'm not saying it's pointless discussing obvious problems (like a 10x colossus, right OP? -_-) but this is not obvious, as shown by the OP's inept ability to convey any real arguments or data as to why it could be flawed. By all means, discuss...just don't make stuff up or pretend to be all knowing unless you're sitting next to David Kim at work tinkering around and analyzing to find perfection, and please don't think 1 instance of it not working brilliantly is evidence for it's "fundamentaly flawed nature".
Thank you kind sir. I could have said "this", or "+1", but no. This is so well written, I will give it some time.
I like it to discuss possible flaws and most of us do in various scenarios (Exam subjects, facation place/wheater etc.), but especially when you say yourself "They are not quite sure about it" it is even more unnecessary to state things.
I have no problem about "objective" talk, but please don't start with "How awful the community is to you by ignoring you and being active in another topic" (exaggerated), or defending your own points at the end in "bold".
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Reduce explosion timer to 0,5 and call it a spider mine :D , i think its so funny that they called it a widow mine.. jeez just call it what it is , or should be ;D
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Wait until beta at least.
2) "There might be other uses for the unit that we can't think about now."
What SC2 units can you think of that are used in a way that nobody thought about before the SC2s release. (Note: I'm not talking about compositions or strats!). The only 2 things that I can think of is the Archon toilet and a proxy Spine rush. SC2 units a very straight up, so is the Widow Mine. You have 3 options where to place it:
There are many more examples of SC2 units being used in a way that nobody thought about before the SC2 release.
Warp prisms with sentrys to kill mineral lines/entire bases rather than standard warp prism play.
voidray phoenix play. Not until about a year into SC2's release did people pair the two together for a deadly ZvP stargate style. Phoenix's to pick up the queens while voidrays did dmg. This truly wasn't done the first year of Starcraft 2's existence.
you say no comps or strats but comps and strats consisting of a widow mine is 100% relevant. what if in TvT, rather than defend mineral lines with turrets/scans for cloak banshees, there was some sort of widow mine build where you didn't have to blow all your mules. Throw down a couple mines on the outskirts of your mineral line and hten the banshee flys over and then all of a sudden...boom dead banshee lol.
There are many unexplored ways this unit can be used and it is too early to debate this.
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I can think of tons scenarios in which the widow mine can be useful.
1. sending a mine into a mineral line as you launch an attack at a different base to distract in attempt to blow up a whole line of workers
2. placing behind your army to defend a retreat.
3. placing behind your opponents army if they retreat (and all those expensive units in the back of a deathball run into them first).
4. placing way behind your opponents army to take out reinforcements (where a strike on a lone colossus can be likely).
5. placing next to an opponents unit producing structure, robo bay/factory/starport/stargate being good targets. maybe not a likely tactic at GM, but definitely the lower leagues can take advantage of this.
6. placing on the sides of the map where you think a drop might come from.
7. choke points were already mentioned.
8. burrowing at a opponents 3rd or 4th before they build, the terran equivalent of a burrowed zergling block, not only delays but also informs you when the oponent is trying to expand, and if on hold position maybe it can be prevented from trying to detonate itself on a worker and keep on blocking..
etc. etc. and so on, and so on blahblahblah
anyways, notice how none of my examples included "take them with your main army and try to throw them at lines of zealots and lings". because that's stupid. blizzards videos are designed to show off, not demonstrate tactics or strategy. thats for players to figure out, and OP failed hard.
in conclusion, if you use the mine in a stupid way or the enemy puts in effort to counter it, then the widow mine IS useless, not because of a fundamental flaw in the mine, but because of a flaw in your play. I keep thinking back to pro games played now where many commentators always make a point when a player goes DT or banshee or void ray that they NEED to do damage with them or else they'll be at a disadvantage. I think the widow mine will be another unit that will fit into that category of either putting you far ahead, or far behind.
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What a dumb thread. The OP doesn't understand what a fundamental design flaw is. I'll give you a hint. A colossus with 15 range and 50 damage IS NOT FUNDAMENTALLY BROKEN BY DESIGN. It is broken by its stats, which can be changed by tweaks to numbers. The design of the unit is how it is intended to be used.
The colossus' design is an A-move aoe damaging unit that moves up and down cliffs and specializes in killing large numbers of low HP units.
The Siege tank is a long range aoe splash unit, designed to be defensive in nature, or to be used to set up siege lines. It specializes in killing clumped up units.
I'll give you a fundamentally flawed unit: The carrier. Hence its removal. I will argue this now.
This is a unit flawed from its design up: Carrier is a swarm unit with many weak attacks, from interceptors. It is designed to kill units with high HP quickly from range.
The carrier cannot be fixed with stat tweaks because even a change of one damage can send its damage straight over the top to units or buildings with low armour. However units with high armour, such as the corruptor, take very little damage from it. Carrier upgrades come too late and are too expensive, carrier counters are intensely easy to churn out quickly en mass. The carrier is also not designed to kill anything that can fight back, or that cannot already be killed by something else better and cheaper. Interceptors are expensive and are easily killed by clumped ground units, and their range can be countered by a stim or a blink.
This is a design flaw. This was also not noticed for a long long time... many people even still claim the design flaw does not exist. We cannot possibly KNOW if it does not work until the game comes out, and extensive playtesting has occured. My outline with the carrier shows that simply tweaking the HP or the damage, or the range won't make a difference... the unit will stay broken. Your outline of the widow mine shows that the detonation time, or the ability to hold position should be changed. These can easily be changed.
The widow mines design, **SEEMS TO BE**: a cheap unit, designed to control space and force micro/caution from the opponent. Gives the factory something to do in bio builds, and helps assist with mech builds' weaknesses with mobility on the defence.
Does terran mech need space control? well away from their siege lines, yeah probably... they need help defending harass from warp prisms, mutalisks and medivacs... the factory is famously lonely and is often used as an expensive observer in bio heavy games... so maybe the design isn't flawed...
You complain that YOU DON'T THINK this unit will do what YOU THINK it is designed to do. You base that off a random fun video that blizz put out to show us big explosions. It is not designed to be used in this situation... It just looks cool in a video. People wont throw them at deathballs. They will be used to stop harassment. They will be used to cut off a retreat/reinforcement path. They will be nice for stopping scouting, and for scouting troop movements. They are NOT used to kill zealots in a deathball, nor should they be. They will NOT be used to blow up zerglings harassing your third. You have other units and structures and weapons for that.
Bottom line: If the widow mine doesn't do something well... don't use it for that. Use it for something else. If it does nothing well, then it will be fixed, or removed. As far as I see it, it will do some things very well.
So, long post short: TLDR:
No, this is not a DesignWhine. This is a balance complaint. You think it is too weak in a deathball situation, or a weak unit harass situation. You complain its damage is too small, its detonation time is too long, and its cost is too expensive. All of these are balance complaints... not design issues.
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So I read OP's post and thought to myself "yeah, im not really sure how effective Widow Mines are gonna be" so I went to the HOTS custom map to try and fool around a bit and see what seemed effective. I got matched against a diamond Zerg player, which Terran is my worst race so it probably put us at relatively equal skill, and I went for a mech style and here is what I found out.
1: Decent at economy harassment.
If you can sneak some widow mines into a mineral line it's absolutely devastating, I only got 2 inside a mineral line once in the game but it killed almost every worker there. It felt very similar to when trying to use a few Banelings to wipe out a mineral line, if they react in time it does basically nothing but if they don't it pays off huge.
2. Pretty good map control in the mid-late game.
Now some people say Terran doesnt need map control, they have Siege Tanks, Sensor Towers, PFs and Bunkers, but for the most part none of these things really give you map control, Siege Tanks can be used to zone out units and take space but you have to protect them and keep your army nearby, if your army is nearby then it's basically your entire army controlling the space, not just a couple units. I basically kept producing at least a few Widow Mines almost the entire game, just spreading them out across the map giving me vision basically everywhere I wanted it for an affordable price. Widow Mines also did a very very nice job of picking off Overlords that tried to roam the map, effectively denying my opponent his own map vision. I also did occasionally pick off valuable units like Broods, Vipers and Overseers. Think of how much attention Zerg players will have to spend on sending random Zerglings all over the map constantly to clear mines or slowly crawl around with an Overseer, stopping at every mine and waiting to clear it out before proceeding to sweep more mines, it will definitely slow down Zerg players or take out valuable chunks of their army if they proceed without caution.
3. In-battle use.
OP made a lot of arguments about how ineffective Widow Mines will be in any real battle but I think he forgot that the introduction of so many new units to HOTS is going to change the dynamics of how battles play out. Think of it like this, if I have Siege Tanks set up with my army I can set a few Widow Mines around to pick off Vipers who may come too close trying to pull my Tanks, so yeah if you want to pull my Siege Tanks go for it, you lose an expensive Viper and it's a fine trade for Terran. Think of Ultralisks as well, with the new Burrow-Attack skill they can easily be caught with defensive Widow Mines, BAM now a huge chunk of their health drops. I could see Swarm Hosts being quite effective against Widow Mines and being used to clear out paths, but then again with good micro a Terran can just lift his Mines away from the Locusts and relocate.
I dunno, I thought Widow Mines were gonna suck but actually playing around with them a little bit made me see a ton of usefulness to them, I think they will make an incredibly nice addition to Terran play, especially Mech since the Zerg will most likely want Roaches over Zerglings against Mech and if you have to trade Widow Mines for basic units it's better spent on a Roach so at least it's cost effective no matter what.
Course none of this really matters since the beta isnt even out but whatever, it's still fun to think about.
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Yay, they've changed the mine! Now I'm looking forward to HotS.
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With both this and the mothership core available at very early stages of the game, coupled with the most maps having chokes at the entrace of the natural, I'm scared HOTS will turn in a 10mn no-rush borefest.
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I don't think that the recent change to the mine actually addresses all the issues with it. Because the mine seems to be invulnerable once it has activated there is no possibility for a good player to quickly react and neutralize the threat. As the mine currently exists you can not mine clear without sacrificing units, unless you have observers. Think back to the days of Brood War in which you could, if you were good enough, use a single DT to destroy mines. As a bad player this was very difficult for me, even in micro-practice maps in which I was able to focus solely on the DT vs Mine micro. Another change to make would be to remove the population cost on the unit, so that it does not tie up food if you leave it in your base to defend against drops/recalls. The final change would be to remove the cost, and make the mine a limited ability on a unit, such as the Vulture Helion.
Blizzard should change the mine so that the highly skilled players are rewarded more for their fast reaction times and superior micro. Giving it "unburrowed" health and changing the "attachment" mechanic would make this a more flexible unit.
To sum it up:
- Add unburrowed HP to the unit
- Change the attachment mechanic
- Remove the population cost
- Change the unit to an ability of a light, cheap, raider unit
Edit: My four bullet point is just a joke, but I actually think it should be tested.
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Widow Mines will stay Widow Mines because if they just brought back Spider Mines they would look lazy in the eyes of the press. Doesn't matter that it would be better for the game.
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Hopefully they change it alot, Widow mines are the perfect all around unit, They are cheap, great for defense, offense, and containment, widows mine shut down all forms of drops/harassment.
Can't move out without obs/ravens/overseers for fear of losing huge chunks of life, since sc2 units clump up so much, or just run single zealot/marine/zergling out to clear a field (very costly for Protoss),
Of course most of the HOTS stuff is op right now cause they have to get a feel for how stuff will be used. Widow mine just as much as any other unit.
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Personally I think the real issue is that they can move up to an opposing force and burrow, and also that they cost supply. I'm really with the idea that they should be put on the hellion. They can attack ground or air, don't care about that. Just that they should be forced to be immobile once burrowed.
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On August 18 2012 04:45 NeonFox wrote:
With both this and the mothership core available at very early stages of the game, coupled with the most maps having chokes at the entrace of the natural, I'm scared HOTS will turn in a 10mn no-rush borefest.
WoL is a 15min NR borefest, so I guess that's an improvement.
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On August 18 2012 06:17 AsherSC wrote:
I don't think that the recent change to the mine actually addresses all the issues with it. Because the mine seems to be invulnerable once it has activated there is no possibility for a good player to quickly react and neutralize the threat. As the mine currently exists you can not mine clear without sacrificing units, unless you have observers. Think back to the days of Brood War in which you could, if you were good enough, use a single DT to destroy mines. As a bad player this was very difficult for me, even in micro-practice maps in which I was able to focus solely on the DT vs Mine micro. Another change to make would be to remove the population cost on the unit, so that it does not tie up food if you leave it in your base to defend against drops/recalls. The final change would be to remove the cost, and make the mine a limited ability on a unit, such as the Vulture Helion.
Blizzard should change the mine so that the highly skilled players are rewarded more for their fast reaction times and superior micro. Giving it "unburrowed" health and changing the "attachment" mechanic would make this a more flexible unit.
That doesn't need to be changed. You can have both.
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Attaching the Widow Mine to a Reaper and jumping to the enemy's mineral line was pretty cool.
Without the 10sec timer it won't be possible =(
I guess I'll just drop them with Medivacs.
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Some questions for the lucky IEM visitors.
Currently do WMs damage buildings?
Can you manually activate them? i.e. like manual baneling bursts so they don't go off on a lone ling.
Do they do friendly fire? If so with instant damage 1 mine could wipe out all surrounding mines 
Thank you in advance to those who know and say 
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Brunei Darussalam566 Posts
So, is the widow mine now like a mech-baneling?
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no, widow mine is a spider mine that costs supply D:
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EPT
