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On April 15 2013 08:54 sCCrooked wrote:
Something nobody has addressed is that when you bring up the argument that BW had OP things, you have to note that ALL of them were manned skill-shot abilities as were the dodging splits necessary to micro against them. Mines are not a skill shot. They are automated killing machines available incredibly quick with no fixed answer. They're just plain far too powerful for their cost and mobility. There's no downside, no "catch" to them.
See, this post is a great example of why "balance" debate in general has been largely a shitfest (I don't intend this as a dig against you, SCCrooked).
People naturally use these terms -- "OP", "skill", "quick", "too powerful" -- without bothering to really talk about what they mean. I mean, hell, what does overpowered mean here? What criteria are necessary and/or sufficient for a unit or building to be overpowered? Clearly if the unit impacts the game such that the entire metagame collapses into a Nash equilibrium where you have to play this race and your army has to be composed entirely of this one unit, then that's an "overpowered" unit. But that's sort of a trivial definition, and nothing in the game falls under this at the moment. Can you elaborate on this?
It's also clearly false that there's "no downside" to using widow mines. On a fundamental level, the opportunity costs involved -- having to build factories, having widow mines occupying your factories' queues, having widow mines occupying supply, not being able to spend the money you used on widow mines to build other units or expand -- clearly prevent you from executing other strategies. More than that, a strategy containing widow mines clearly doesn't dominate strategies not containing widow mines; there are units against which the widow mine is totally ineffective, and where you really ought to be building other units as a Terran player. It's self-evident, then, that the cost-benefit analysis isn't black-and-white here; there is a very real tradeoff you're making by pursuing widow mines, and that alone should give you pause.
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On April 15 2013 08:54 sCCrooked wrote:
Something nobody has addressed is that when you bring up the argument that BW had OP things, you have to note that ALL of them were manned skill-shot abilities as were the dodging splits necessary to micro against them. Mines are not a skill shot. They are automated killing machines available incredibly quick with no fixed answer. They're just plain far too powerful for their cost and mobility. There's no downside, no "catch" to them.
Mines can actually be targeted to deal more damage when they being triggered by units inside the range and doing so can result in a better shot when good opponents are properly countering them. You clearly have not been watching high level play as the best players are dealing with mines just fine.
On April 15 2013 09:13 Nimelrian wrote:
I think one of the biggest problems of mines is the fact, that they don't do overkill when you don't command them to.
This allows terrans to bring a lot of widow mines to a fight, burrow all of them at the same place and watch magic happen.
If you want to break a siege tank line as Zerg, you can throw one IT egg to tank the tank shots, since ALL tanks will fire at it, resulting in an overkill and a short period of time in which Zerg can push forward.
Against widow mines, Zerg can't do such a thing. Throwing one IT egg will trigger one mine, that's it. Bringing in 10 zerglings will trigger 10 mines, but 10 zerglings will die instantly against bio/mech support behind the mines.
You just can't avoid the mines if they lie in a path you have to take to get to your enemy. Either you try kill the mines with hydras/fungals, possibly resulting in high losses of resources/energy, or you can't fight, that's it.
Actually you can fight it, you just aren't thinking about it. You even said a great way to counter them in your post which is infested terran eggs. Watch some high level play and you'll see many top zergs now using single or very few swarm hosts to counter and waste mine shots along with spitting many eggs where they know mines are planted to waste them as well. Not sure if you are referring to BW about the tanks wasting shots but they don't do that in sc2 either.
On April 15 2013 10:06 408xParadox wrote:
I think there are two problems with the widow mine. The first being the fact that it is a no skill, very strong unit, much like the infestor in WOL. The widow mine is guarenteed damage. There is absolutely no reason not to make them in t v z.Terrans can place them in random spots on the map, forget about them and and the they will do damage to a pack of lings that euns by them They completely shut down ling runbys and do so extremly cost efficiently, for 75 mins and 25 gas, your third is protected form both lings and mutas. They also shut down all forms of zerg aggresion in the early game. Zerg has to macro, which makes gamplay stale, when everygame is a no rush 20.
For the viewer I find the game extremely boring to watch when widow mines come into play. FYI I play zerg, and I used to love the art of t vs z specifically muta ling bane vs marine tank. The marine splits, the ling flanks, mutas focusing tanks, tanks focusing blings. Then infestors happened and we lost that. And now its widow mines, where you can make insane amount of them, and be safe and they decimate everything. It just seems to have lost the greatness that it once was.
Again, it is not a "no skill" unit, the mine shot can be targeted by the terran player. Mine play can be countered very easily and it is also not "guaranteed damage", just lol. Ever think of running 1 of those lings from the pack ahead of them to waste the shot? or use some of the ideas posted above. Terrans can not place them randomly on the map, that would be such a waste and a single mine does not protect your third from lings and mutas. You need to go watch some games and see that no rush 20 you speak of with no zerg early aggression. If you seriously believe all of your own statements I'm just astonished.
I don't see how any of the stats gathered in this thread mean anything when the balance isn't focused around the highest levels of play where strategies are still being developed and even the best players are still learning how to adapt and deal with new and odd compositions.
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On April 15 2013 09:13 Nimelrian wrote:
I think one of the biggest problems of mines is the fact, that they don't do overkill when you don't command them to.
This allows terrans to bring a lot of widow mines to a fight, burrow all of them at the same place and watch magic happen.
If you want to break a siege tank line as Zerg, you can throw one IT egg to tank the tank shots, since ALL tanks will fire at it, resulting in an overkill and a short period of time in which Zerg can push forward.
Against widow mines, Zerg can't do such a thing. Throwing one IT egg will trigger one mine, that's it. Bringing in 10 zerglings will trigger 10 mines, but 10 zerglings will die instantly against bio/mech support behind the mines.
You just can't avoid the mines if they lie in a path you have to take to get to your enemy. Either you try kill the mines with hydras/fungals, possibly resulting in high losses of resources/energy, or you can't fight, that's it.
That's not true, Mines DO overkill. And they are not that cool in some scenario where they kill your own marines.
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On April 15 2013 10:40 Faust852 wrote:Show nested quote +On April 15 2013 09:13 Nimelrian wrote:
I think one of the biggest problems of mines is the fact, that they don't do overkill when you don't command them to.
This allows terrans to bring a lot of widow mines to a fight, burrow all of them at the same place and watch magic happen.
If you want to break a siege tank line as Zerg, you can throw one IT egg to tank the tank shots, since ALL tanks will fire at it, resulting in an overkill and a short period of time in which Zerg can push forward.
Against widow mines, Zerg can't do such a thing. Throwing one IT egg will trigger one mine, that's it. Bringing in 10 zerglings will trigger 10 mines, but 10 zerglings will die instantly against bio/mech support behind the mines.
You just can't avoid the mines if they lie in a path you have to take to get to your enemy. Either you try kill the mines with hydras/fungals, possibly resulting in high losses of resources/energy, or you can't fight, that's it. That's not true, Mines DO overkill. And they are not that cool in some scenario where they kill your own marines.
They don't overkill against a single unit. They'll fire as many shots at a unit as it takes to kill it, but the splash can overkill. Tanks work the same way. If you throw a single IT egg (70 health), it will be shot at by 2 tanks. Mines literally work the same way.
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This isn't a dig at foreign/non-Korean Z players, but most of them just got lazy because of the fact that they had free reign to take 3 hatches with impunity in WOL through mass Queen builds, and had Infestors that basically had no counterplay to them. Now that HOTS has come along and evened the odds significantly (Widow Mines/Reapers early in the game stop alot of the nonsensical creep spread and incredibly greedy 3rd hatches, and Infestors are severely nerfed from what they once were in WOL), you see that most of the Z's that relied heavily on Infestor play/absurdly greedy 3 hatch play in WOL are suffering big time, because they basically have not had to deal with any kind of early aggression before, which is clearly not the case anymore in HOTS.
The combination of widow mines/reapers/battle helions/etc. force Z players to make units instead of drones now, which is a good thing for TvZ. The current incarnation of HOTS TvZ is far more entertaining, and far more skill based than WOL. There are some legitimate complaints regarding Medivac turbo boost (although I feel the Muta buff is enough for this), but overall the match-up is in a good spot right now. Just Z players need to adapt instead of playing like this is WOL and trying to take 3rd hatches without thinking.
Widow Mines in particular are a good unit. You can counter play them. There's nothing wrong with them at all. It's just that Z players are too used to not being touched for the first 7-10 minutes except by like 4 Helions and a Banshee. Now, if a Z players too greedy, the T player can punish you big time with widow mines.
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I have an 81% winrate vs. zergs in masters and I only ever build four safety widow mines after my six hellions. I find mines are too unreliable, luck based, rely on zerg not being able to micro etc.
There is no proof of anything only one month into the game though.
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On April 15 2013 10:06 408xParadox wrote:
I think there are two problems with the widow mine. The first being the fact that it is a no skill, very strong unit, much like the infestor in WOL. The widow mine is guaranteed damage. There is absolutely no reason not to make them in t v z.Terrans can place them in random spots on the map, forget about them and and the they will do damage to a pack of lings that euns by them They completely shut down ling runbys and do so extremely cost efficiently, for 75 mins and 25 gas, your third is protected form both lings and mutas. They also shut down all forms of zerg aggression in the early game. Zerg has to macro, which makes gameplay stale, when every game is a no rush 20.
For the viewer I find the game extremely boring to watch when widow mines come into play. FYI I play zerg, and I used to love the art of t vs z specifically muta ling bane vs marine tank. The marine splits, the ling flanks, mutas focusing tanks, tanks focusing blings. Then infestors happened and we lost that. And now its widow mines, where you can make insane amount of them, and be safe and they decimate everything. It just seems to have lost the greatness that it once was.
There are so many things which misrepresent what's actually happening. First, widow mines are not and cannot be no skill/strong. First of all, they are positional units, i.e., you have to choose where to burrow them. If you choose a poor location, they do not do damage. In fact, as they do friendly fire damage, poor positioning can end up killing your own workers or army. Furthermore, as they must be deployed before they do damage, they have a chance of getting killed before they deploy. I never bought into the infestors=no skill, but the difference is striking: immobilization to cast, no instant cast spell (in fact, complex targeting mechanism), tiny range, cooldown versus energy guarantees no double-cast.
Secondly, we do not see that gameplay is NR20 at the moment. In fact, mines allows for a number of dynamic situations where zergs try to micro against mine-based defenses while going into the mid-game. The mid-game was skipped entirely during the 3 queen time, but now there are ling, bling, muta or SH or roach, hydra mid-games which play an important part. Furthermore, vipers play a more mid-game oriented role as they come out earlier, stretching it out even more. If you look at LRs, everybody seems to enjoy TvZ a lot more now. A great example why is probably Fantasy versus True, set 3. If you haven't seen it, go see it now.
As for the final point, after you gave that clearly skewed depiction, you do not need to add ''FYI, I play zerg''. We know.
+ Show Spoiler [spelling] +P.S. I fixed your spelling of guaranteed, gameplay, aggression, extremely and every game for future reference
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Don't know why people are bringing up qxc strategy . It obviously doesn't work at the highest level of play .
And Stephano crushed him the game after on Whirlind with his roaches . :x Even using sexy burrow micro to negate most of the mines hits .
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On April 12 2013 07:17 SC2Frozen wrote:
OK, this thread has had enough of the "this is not significant" BS. Let us pull back the foreskin of ignorance and apply the steel wool of enlightenment.
<snip>
Note, this does not say that the widow mine production caused the win, but it pretty definitely shows that in games where the WMs were produced in these volumes, the winrate was very likely higher than 55%.
Most of the posters saying this data isn't significant were speaking to the lack of control for confounding factors.
For instance, the same data shows Terran masters players are winning almost 58% of games that go beyond 15 minutes, and that there is no discernible correlation between widow mines as a proportion of the army at 15 minutes and win-rates.
So far as I can tell from the OP, the stats are not for ">10 wm vs <10wm @10 mins", they are for ">10 wm vs <10wm" period. So how much of the correlation can be attributed to Terrans winning more in longer games, and rather unsurprisingly making more units in longer games?
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On April 15 2013 10:32 Snoodles wrote:
You're spending all your time trying to justify the validity of your sample set and ignoring all posts that give you examples of top Korean players dealing with widow mines with finesse.
What I've mainly seen from Koreans (GSL, Korean ladder etc) is "survive until tier 3 and throw ultras at the problem", not what I would really be calling "finesse", but to each his own I suppose. There's been some experimentation with ITs, with SHs and with running single units ahead of the group, all of which are Masters+ level micro, and even getting to Tier 3 when Terran wanders 10 WMs into your base is a challenge at lower levels.
Put another way, and has been stated before: if Zerg has fantastic micro, then WMs are not too much of an issue. However the increase in skill/micro required from Terran to be able to make a big impact with them (not get full value -- that requires good micro as well) is much much lower, so the unit is essentially abusive.
Best thing about WMs is we now also have the term "patch terran" 
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On April 15 2013 20:13 SC2Frozen wrote:Show nested quote +On April 15 2013 10:32 Snoodles wrote:
You're spending all your time trying to justify the validity of your sample set and ignoring all posts that give you examples of top Korean players dealing with widow mines with finesse. What I've mainly seen from Koreans (GSL, Korean ladder etc) is "survive until tier 3 and throw ultras at the problem", not what I would really be calling "finesse", but to each his own I suppose. There's been some experimentation with ITs, with SHs and with running single units ahead of the group, all of which are Masters+ level micro, and even getting to Tier 3 when Terran wanders 10 WMs into your base is a challenge at lower levels. Put another way, and has been stated before: if Zerg has fantastic micro, then WMs are not too much of an issue. However the increase in skill/micro required from Terran to be able to make a big impact with them (not get full value -- that requires good micro as well) is much much lower, so the unit is essentially abusive. Best thing about WMs is we now also have the term "patch terran"
Widow Mines are not bullet proof like Infestors were in WOL. In WOL, you basically could not lose Infestors if you had good vision of the map unless you were just completely stupid. See end of WOL's cycle where Z's would basically never lose Infestors and rack up 40+ kills on them.
Widow Mines are much easier to counter. There's plenty of counter play options, it just requires Z players to do more than hit an auto win battle button if the spell lands. Now Z players have to actually split (something Terran and to a lesser degree P players have been doing for a long time), have to bait, engage in better spots, etc. Even if the Widow Mine is slightly OP (which I don't agree with at all), it adds a much more dynamic feel to the game, and as such should remain the way it is. Maelstrom in BW for example was overpowered as hell against Z late game if used correctly, but could easily screw you over if you miscast it onto your Zealots. Same thing with Widow Mines. They can appear almost too effective when used properly, but when misused they are a total waste of resources/supply room.
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On April 15 2013 20:13 SC2Frozen wrote:Show nested quote +On April 15 2013 10:32 Snoodles wrote:
You're spending all your time trying to justify the validity of your sample set and ignoring all posts that give you examples of top Korean players dealing with widow mines with finesse. What I've mainly seen from Koreans (GSL, Korean ladder etc) is "survive until tier 3 and throw ultras at the problem", not what I would really be calling "finesse", but to each his own I suppose. There's been some experimentation with ITs, with SHs and with running single units ahead of the group, all of which are Masters+ level micro, and even getting to Tier 3 when Terran wanders 10 WMs into your base is a challenge at lower levels. Put another way, and has been stated before: if Zerg has fantastic micro, then WMs are not too much of an issue. However the increase in skill/micro required from Terran to be able to make a big impact with them (not get full value -- that requires good micro as well) is much much lower, so the unit is essentially abusive. Best thing about WMs is we now also have the term "patch terran"
If "requires better micro from the other player to make a big impact with this" is sufficient in your eyes for a unit to be abusive, then every unit is abusive. I don't think it makes sense to evaluate whether or not a unit is abusive on the basis of its intrinsic properties; you have to evaluate each unit based on the larger context of all the units and abilities in the game.
For instance, it's much easier to cast a storm on someone else's army and do tons of damage than it is to split and dodge those storms. Same goes for infestors and fungal. Same goes for HSM. Same goes for colossus lasers. Same goes for tank shots. Same goes for EMP. And so on and so forth. Each of these things, when looked at alone, requires better micro on the receiving player's end than the casting player's. That doesn't make them abusive; the fact that each of the other races has abilities of its own levels the playing field out.
EDIT: In fact, I'd argue that the degree of control that you're afforded with these other abilities - you can specifically choose where and when to cast a storm - makes them more potent than the Widow Mine's ability in a lot of game-critical situations. If your Widow Mines burrow and decide to shoot single zerglings, you're pretty much SOL unless you want to have all of your mines retarget and then overkill one guy, which can be even worse.
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Just figured I would throw this solution out there.
Use Overlords with speed, and spread out, to detonate widow mine fields.
Once the widow mines launch, send in your army from whatever angles (surrounds) you want.
The overlords act like bombing ships
I've done this in games and it works out pretty well. Also, if any units are under the splash they get hit hard (units such as marines).
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Since zergs are still learning to deal with mines, these statistics dont mean much. If you're dealing with mass mine burrowing in front of you, infestors will shut it down. If they've built 16 widow mines that's 32 food invested in widow mines. Just play defensive, get infestors, and tech to broods. You will be ahead in army composition.
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On April 15 2013 17:24 Umpteen wrote:Show nested quote +On April 12 2013 07:17 SC2Frozen wrote:
OK, this thread has had enough of the "this is not significant" BS. Let us pull back the foreskin of ignorance and apply the steel wool of enlightenment.
<snip>
Note, this does not say that the widow mine production caused the win, but it pretty definitely shows that in games where the WMs were produced in these volumes, the winrate was very likely higher than 55%.
Most of the posters saying this data isn't significant were speaking to the lack of control for confounding factors. For instance, the same data shows Terran masters players are winning almost 58% of games that go beyond 15 minutes, and that there is no discernible correlation between widow mines as a proportion of the army at 15 minutes and win-rates. So far as I can tell from the OP, the stats are not for ">10 wm vs <10wm @10 mins", they are for ">10 wm vs <10wm" period. So how much of the correlation can be attributed to Terrans winning more in longer games, and rather unsurprisingly making more units in longer games?
This is what most people are missing, out of those games with 10 or more Widow Mines which ones are late game, mid game, etc. This stats don't actually tell you anything about widow mines' effectiveness, using the same sample I could pull out something like "players that build 10+ medivacs have higher winning percentage, therefore, you can clearly see that medivacs are pretty powerful", the fact that two variables seem to move "in the same direction" doesn't mean there's a correlation between the two. Time should be a much bigger factor than mines.
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On April 16 2013 02:53 Shousan wrote:Show nested quote +On April 15 2013 17:24 Umpteen wrote:On April 12 2013 07:17 SC2Frozen wrote:
OK, this thread has had enough of the "this is not significant" BS. Let us pull back the foreskin of ignorance and apply the steel wool of enlightenment.
<snip>
Note, this does not say that the widow mine production caused the win, but it pretty definitely shows that in games where the WMs were produced in these volumes, the winrate was very likely higher than 55%.
Most of the posters saying this data isn't significant were speaking to the lack of control for confounding factors. For instance, the same data shows Terran masters players are winning almost 58% of games that go beyond 15 minutes, and that there is no discernible correlation between widow mines as a proportion of the army at 15 minutes and win-rates. So far as I can tell from the OP, the stats are not for ">10 wm vs <10wm @10 mins", they are for ">10 wm vs <10wm" period. So how much of the correlation can be attributed to Terrans winning more in longer games, and rather unsurprisingly making more units in longer games? This is what most people are missing, out of those games with 10 or more Widow Mines which ones are late game, mid game, etc. This stats don't actually tell you anything about widow mines' effectiveness, using the same sample I could pull out something like "players that build 10+ medivacs have higher winning percentage, therefore, you can clearly see that medivacs are pretty powerful", the fact that two variables seem to move "in the same direction" doesn't mean there's a correlation between the two. Time should be a much bigger factor than mines.
It's not terribly difficult to figure out, you run a probit model of # of widow mines on wins while controlling for things such as length of game, map, etc. The problem is that everything in the game is path dependent. The ability to make widow mines is part of what has happened in the game previously.
I think what you can say with the data available here is that there does appear to be a correlation between widow mines and terran win percentages.
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Need to test one way widow mine correlation with future winning i.e. widow mine creation at time t correlated with winning at time t+t' but not the other way around.
Acquire granger causality.
Swarm augmented.
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I wonder how long it will take before we get threads about the battlehellion. I use 0 mines in tvz, but I use helllbats, and almost every game I get "imba" comments..
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On April 16 2013 23:02 Snowbear wrote:
I wonder how long it will take before we get threads about the battlehellion. I use 0 mines in tvz, but I use helllbats, and almost every game I get "imba" comments..
As a terran who also use hellbat comp (like demuslim), I also think hellbats are totally broken for their cost ^^. Much more than WM ^^
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I like how the vast majority of people defending widow mines and equivocating the meaning of "balance" just happen to be Terran... I've been watching the past two seasons of GSL. And all the successful Terrans have a pretty obvious trend: Medivac afterburners, hellbats, widow mines.
The widow mine's just a cheap, fast-producing, expendable, cloaked, mini-seige tank that attacks air. It's too cost-effective and useful in too many scenarios (people argue it's a defensive unit but that's bs. Flash and other T's this season in GSL showed that WM really are just mini-siege tanks). The worst part is that it doesn't reward T's for doing anything positive. You just start burrowing them all over, then kite with marines for a cost-effective battle.
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EPT
