EPTHellbats Review - Page 23
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AzureD
United States320 Posts
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Channel56k
United States413 Posts
On June 10 2013 15:38 FinalForm wrote: so like, you put a picture in the OP to make this a legit "review"? what makes this different than any other generic balance whine post? The sheer fact that you would post that on page 23 of comments surrounding this "generic balance whine post" is in itself a statement. | ||
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bhfberserk
Canada390 Posts
AnomalySC2 wrote: So you think no matter what you do it's not possible to come out ahead vs a hellbat opener? -_- It will balance itself out naturally. You're new to metagames and trends or something? For instance, you can absolutely outplay a hellbat opener with a solid banshee build. There are many other options undiscovered, I'm sure.... If Blizzard steps in and starts nerfing whatever is currently the trend for the metagame then we will get a worse game in the long run. The final era of WoL was a complete mess for that exact reason. Lets be more specific, to keep the discussion logical: I am not sure if you are theory crafting or have some solid games played, can banshee build outplay Hellbat drops? Banshee can only be produced one at a time, it takes 6 shots to kill a Hellbat. More than enough time for hellbats to kill all the SCVs. Are your banshees on the aggressive or defensive? Your opponent have all the early marines at the main base to defend against your banshee + and reactor starport ready. Also I think the fastest hellbat drop build will get to your base before a banshee. With medivac speed + faster build time. Making Banshees mean you are investing gas into harassing units. Whereas Hellbat drop's gas investment is actually just the armoury, which really nicely allow you to transition into mech with fast upgrades. Hellbat drop can easily escape from a banshee because it can simply pick up. The Hellbat dropship can fly around to scout, pressure, and keep you contained. These days I uses Forgg mass hellions + some vikings. Because hellions actually do quite well against Hellbat. They are fast to react. But you loses most of the aggression. At best, you really just come out even while losing most of the map control. I really like Blizzard waited a long time before any nerf hammer. The last patch really changed one specific thing affecting only ZvZ. That is really cool to see. But will Hellbat drop really balance itself out? The last time DK speak about Hellbat was about a month ago. Do we need to wait another season to see the metagame really settle down? Shouldn't we at least get a PTR going on Hellbat. That's all I am asking Blizzard to do. Let's start looking into Hellbat! | ||
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Tsubbi
Germany7979 Posts
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NarutO
Germany18839 Posts
On June 10 2013 15:43 bhfberserk wrote: Lets be more specific, to keep the discussion logical: I am not sure if you are theory crafting or have some solid games played, can banshee build outplay Hellbat drops? Banshee can only be produced one at a time, it takes 6 shots to kill a Hellbat. More than enough time for hellbats to kill all the SCVs. Are your banshees on the aggressive or defensive? Your opponent have all the early marines at the main base to defend against your banshee + and reactor starport ready. Also I think the fastest hellbat drop build will get to your base before a banshee. With medivac speed + faster build time. Making Banshees mean you are investing gas into harassing units. Whereas Hellbat drop's gas investment is actually just the armoury, which really nicely allow you to transition into mech with fast upgrades. Hellbat drop can easily escape from a banshee because it can simply pick up. The Hellbat dropship can fly around to scout, pressure, and keep you contained. These days I uses Forgg mass hellions + some vikings. Because hellions actually do quite well against Hellbat. They are fast to react. But you loses most of the aggression. At best, you really just come out even while losing most of the map control. I really like Blizzard waited a long time before any nerf hammer. The last patch really changed one specific thing affecting only ZvZ. That is really cool to see. But will Hellbat drop really balance itself out? The last time DK speak about Hellbat was about a month ago. Do we need to wait another season to see the metagame really settle down? Shouldn't we at least get a PTR going on Hellbat. That's all I am asking Blizzard to do. Let's start looking into Hellbat! Hellions RAPE hellbats. They dont do "quiet well". They flat out DESTROY. If you go for forGGs build and lose to a hellbat opening (hellbat drop, dual hellbat drop, expansion delayed) you are doing crucial mistakes. A forGG followup with lots of hellions and 3-4 vikings to shut down hellbat drops onto your hellions cannot be defended with just hellbats. While I agree TvT is now shitty with everyone only dropping hellbats, I'd rather have a predictable TvT meta than unpredictable one. MVP vs Innovation did show in some games that there can be very good games evolving from hellbat drops, not flat out stupid ones. You just need to be good enough ;-) | ||
EsportsJohn
United States4883 Posts
This forces the game into a really awkward position where both players are positioned way in the back of their base with all of their defense and poaching out with their own hellbat drops to see if they can get more damage done. | ||
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NarutO
Germany18839 Posts
On June 10 2013 15:48 SC2John wrote: The biggest issue for hellbat harass is that is also shuts down vision in TvT SUPER HARD. You can no longer sacrifice a single marine or SCV to hold a watchtower or watch a drop path because you need all of your defenses at home. In addition, if a hellbat drop flies over a scouting unit, they can drop, immediately kill it, and then continue with the drops. This forces the game into a really awkward position where both players are positioned way in the back of their base with all of their defense and poaching out with their own hellbat drops to see if they can get more damage done. Viking as defence. Turret at edge or mineral line. The medivac is the problem, not the hellbats. Once the medivac is gone, threat is gone. | ||
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EsportsJohn
United States4883 Posts
On June 10 2013 15:50 Type|NarutO wrote: Viking as defence. Turret at edge or mineral line. The medivac is the problem, not the hellbats. Once the medivac is gone, threat is gone. False. Hellbats are stronger than marines and if you have a hellbat lead, you'll also win the hellbat battle by a huge margin. In the meantime, the hellbats are wandering around in the mineral line and stopping mining until you can kill the hellbats without losing too much. We saw this several times in Innovation vs. Mvp where Innovation just had 6 hellbats in Mvp's base and Mvp just didn't have enough units to deal with it. Sidenote: I think a good and easy fix for hellbats would be to just nerf the damage and apply the blue flame upgrade to them. This would make them less devastating in the early game while still making them potent later in the game. | ||
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NarutO
Germany18839 Posts
On June 10 2013 15:50 SC2John wrote: False. Hellbats are stronger than marines and if you have a hellbat lead, you'll also win the hellbat battle by a huge margin. In the meantime, the hellbats are wandering around in the mineral line and stopping mining until you can kill the hellbats without losing too much. We saw this several times in Innovation vs. Mvp where Innovation just had 6 hellbats in Mvp's base and Mvp just didn't have enough units to deal with it. Sidenote: I think a good and easy fix for hellbats would be to just nerf the damage and apply the blue flame upgrade to them. This would make them less devastating in the early game while still making them potent later in the game. Its not false. If you shut down the first drop (or don't allow it to land) you will have enough and can properly respond. Even BoguS didn't go for his 8 hellbat drop on Newkirk once he saw 4 vikings. Its just not doable. You will lose 1 medivac before you unload if Terran is in position. You will lose the others after. If all you have is 8 marines, yes ofcourse the danger is from hellbats themselves but that shouldn'T be the case right? I have never taken damage with vikings and hellions or my own hellbats in position. I only lost or took damage based on mistakes earlier that will snowball and lose. If he has 3 medivacs and 6 hellbats, I would assume you (with defenders advantage) have the same number on either your side or at his base. If you previously did drop and lost engagements, you already made mistakes. | ||
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bhfberserk
Canada390 Posts
On June 10 2013 15:48 Type|NarutO wrote: Hellions RAPE hellbats. They dont do "quiet well". They flat out DESTROY. If you go for forGGs build and lose to a hellbat opening (hellbat drop, dual hellbat drop, expansion delayed) you are doing crucial mistakes. A forGG followup with lots of hellions and 3-4 vikings to shut down hellbat drops onto your hellions cannot be defended with just hellbats. While I agree TvT is now shitty with everyone only dropping hellbats, I'd rather have a predictable TvT meta than unpredictable one. MVP vs Innovation did show in some games that there can be very good games evolving from hellbat drops, not flat out stupid ones. You just need to be good enough ;-) Well in my games they are not "flat out DESTROY" but yes! forGG build is quite good  . But your opponent is not going to be behind. And here I am just saying really standard stuff. Lucifron Thor rush really shut down hellbat opener. | ||
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TheRabidDeer
United States3806 Posts
On June 10 2013 15:31 Type|NarutO wrote: Dropping hellbats into static defence with proper reaction from Protoss (lets put TvP here) will make you lose the game in the end. Yes Protoss does lose mining time, but your medivac is crucial. Usually TvP builds are with an unreactored starport for the early drops, can be done with too, but losing medivacs constantly would be very bad. So in theory and very good reaction, Protoss should not lose a lot of probes. Yes afterburner can give them trouble, but you got the observer for spotting as well. You KNOW that its coming. If it deals damage ALWAYS even if Protoss knows and is prepared, thats an issue, but thats not the case. As soon as you have stalkers in place Terran would need to sacrifice and commit to either a bigger drop or stop the harassment and simply force you into defensive state. What do Protoss players do right now? No stargate? No phoenix? 2 Phoenix shut down drops immediately. Even 1 does or at least always costs the Terran 100/100. Yes stargate + phoenix is an investment, but so are 2 forges +1+1 at 6 minute mark. I simply disagree with people saying all builds are figured out and there is no chance to defend it in any cost-efficient or efficient way. WCS spoilers: + Show Spoiler + Innovation vs sOs game 1? Innovation lost 4 medivacs of hellbats and killed only 9 probes and was still ahead. Personally, I can't quite explain that... but just sayin that it doesnt make you even come close to losing the game. EDIT: He had 2/2 on the way and both sOs and innovation had their 3rd up at the same time with roughly even harvesters. The hellbats killed no units. It was basically perfect drop defense but he was still down 23 supply | ||
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NarutO
Germany18839 Posts
On June 10 2013 16:02 TheRabidDeer wrote: WCS spoilers: + Show Spoiler + Innovation vs sOs game 1? Innovation lost 4 medivacs of hellbats and killed only 9 probes and was still ahead. Personally, I can't quite explain that... but just sayin that it doesnt make you even come close to losing the game. EDIT: He had 2/2 on the way and both sOs and innovation had their 3rd up at the same time with roughly even harvesters. The hellbats killed no units. It was basically perfect drop defense but he was still down 23 supply + Show Spoiler + As I said, I don't know if there is a bigger issue that needs to be fixed, all I'm saying is that on highest level its not always hellbats that are automatically a win. Innovation is right now one of the best, if not the best Terran player in the world. He proceeded to take all other games against sOs and those were not based on hellbats. He did it in a 4-0 sweep even. So yeah, while hellbats might be problematic, they are nowhere near autowin and losing 4 medivacs with only killing 9 probes, I guarantee Innovation didn't win the game because of those probes. sOs made other mistakes ... and Innovation played overall better. Not trying to defend hellbats alltogether but you will always find a small samplesize of games that render some units to be overpowered or too good | ||
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[F_]aths
Germany3947 Posts
I think however, it shall not be changed right now. The game should have some perceptively OP units. I am fine with having standard strategies including the hellbat. If any unit would be considered of equally valid, we would just have some strategies with no real reason why they are standard. "Since months it appears to strong, should Blizzard do something about it?" is the wrong approach in my opinion. Unless it is outright broken, Blizzard should not step in and rather let the players figure out how to deal with it. | ||
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Creager
Germany1889 Posts
That said I agree the Hellbat is pretty strong and renders the Hellion more or less useless after the early-/midgame TvT due to inferior hitpoints, in addition to that lots of people tend to mech in TvT nowadays, but the crucial/fundamental problem is not the Hellbat itself, as many before me already concluded, it's the Medivac with it's short cooldown on boost which gives the Hellbats so much mobility. Medivacs should NOT be able to boost that often (and I play Terran as well). It's not impossible to defend Hellbat drops without sustaining severe amounts of damage to your worker line(s), but it requires spot-on reactions and better static defenses to limit their mobility (aka=kill the Medivac), which is something you probably can't execute perfectly every time you happen to play against it. But once you get rid of the Medivacs, Hellbats on their own aren't overpowered at all - OK, yes, they are pretty strong, but just look how slow and bulky they move, you can kite them with almost any unit that isn't a worker. What I discovered while playing/dropping against Protoss is that one or two Cannons behind your mineral line / in front of your Nexus can shut down Hellbat drops pretty nicely. Maybe not really cool to do so in Masters+, because it could be a rather heavy investment, but it definitely helps deflecting those pesky Medivacs and goofs around with the targeting A.I. of Hellbats, which gives the Protoss player more time to save his Probes. Maybe the combination of two Hellbats and a speed Medivac is too cheap an investment to reconsider the attempt of harassing regardless of the opponents' defenses (because you boost into the base anyway), but what other possibilites aside from that has Terran really left in their arsenal? Banshees got pretty much figured out, Widow Mines got (sort of) figured out, reapers don't do shit after crossing the 5 min mark and Hellions CAN be good, but require really good micro and blunders from your opponent to work, so why bother  ? | ||
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TRaFFiC
Canada1448 Posts
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sM.Zik
Canada2547 Posts
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DasHawk
Denmark362 Posts
On June 10 2013 06:18 LoLoWy wrote: The blue flame upgrade could affect positively the hellbat too. The basic damage of the hellbat would be lower, and would increase to its current point when blue flame upgrade is done. This is just making the hellbat rush a little bit more costly so it comes with higher risk. Because right now i feel like you can't get behind with that strat, even if you do no damage. Kinda like this idea too... But to really make the hellbat drop less effective. The damage would have to be reduced so much that they dont two shot workers, and that would require alot of damage nerf! But maybe nerf the inital bonus to light hard, and increase the added bonus from blueflame would do the trick. | ||
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saddaromma
1129 Posts
On June 10 2013 15:20 Type|NarutO wrote: So many people that either are not very good at the game or simply don't try to understand what the problems are. I really cannot stand balance whines on lower-levels (lower levels = below proleague and competetive tournament play and I don't talk about clan setup-amateur tournaments). If people tell me they are losing to me on ladder because of imbalance, I can point out that you could put every Protoss or Zerg from the proleague against me and he would rip my heart out, eat it and shit it into my body again. Its just plain stupid. They are losing because they are reacting terrible and do horrible mistakes. Now for the matter itself. I think hellbats can be countered by Zerg pretty well. The question is, does the counter of hellbats (roach/banes) set you back in that game by such a margin, that it is imbalanced? In bigger fights I would say Zerg can deal with them pretty efficiently. Now for TvP where I think a 'real' issue takes place. Protoss got better in HotS, a lot. Especially against Terran. They got more allins, have more chance to scout and pressure with the MSC and their defence due to photon overcharge is a lot better. If you are not excellent with bio and drops, you will not touch a Protoss on some maps right now. Hellbat drops take place earlier than bio drops as you would need stim + combatshields and you also (as pointed out by op) only need to drop 2 units to deal damage. Protoss has to respond and even a photon overcharge will not shoot down hellbats quickly (or the medivac) so ideally you either drop, shoot and fly away when photon overcharge came as respond and as long as you don't lose your drop, its a win to you. Most Protoss would react with 1-2 cannons. That is not a proper response. Well it is - but it will put you behind. Terran can get a 3rd cc with hellbat drop expansions easily and add barracks and ebay or double ebay even. Good Protoss can and will react with an earlier 3rd base to hellbat pressure. When you drop hellbats you constantly spend 300/100 (1 medivac, 2 hellbats) and you get your bio running a bit slower. That means you cannot pressure as fast. Lots of stalkers are a good option (twilight tech, hero style) with a faster 3rd to deny hellbats and get your economy running. While I would say, the hellbat might be a tad too strong, I don't see Terrans winning on it in TvP and TvZ on the highest level. There are games that were decided by it, but if you put 8 marines stimmed into a Zerg or Protoss economy, they will shred your shit just as fast and can decide a game. I think Blizzard should give it a bit more time (remember, blueflame hellions got nerfed, but people began to figure them out, walling, sim city etc) and it will be just like that with hellbats. Spores / Turret in Economy or cannon is a good timer for it, so he cannot stay there... Give it time :x PS: Yes I'm Terran, I would not cry if its nerfed, I simply don't think the time is here yet. Edit: Right when I posted it, SoulKey got raped by Cure with Hellbats even though he didn't play his best. In my face :[ The issue is about too much usage of hellbat in TvT. Not about protoss or zerg tears. | ||
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IMplying
Germany58 Posts
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Incognoto
France10239 Posts
On June 10 2013 15:31 Type|NarutO wrote: Dropping hellbats into static defence with proper reaction from Protoss (lets put TvP here) will make you lose the game in the end. Yes Protoss does lose mining time, but your medivac is crucial. Usually TvP builds are with an unreactored starport for the early drops, can be done with too, but losing medivacs constantly would be very bad. So in theory and very good reaction, Protoss should not lose a lot of probes. Yes afterburner can give them trouble, but you got the observer for spotting as well. You KNOW that its coming. If it deals damage ALWAYS even if Protoss knows and is prepared, thats an issue, but thats not the case. As soon as you have stalkers in place Terran would need to sacrifice and commit to either a bigger drop or stop the harassment and simply force you into defensive state. What do Protoss players do right now? No stargate? No phoenix? 2 Phoenix shut down drops immediately. Even 1 does or at least always costs the Terran 100/100. Yes stargate + phoenix is an investment, but so are 2 forges +1+1 at 6 minute mark. I simply disagree with people saying all builds are figured out and there is no chance to defend it in any cost-efficient or efficient way. These are the kinds of post in this thread that are worth reading as they come from pr0 players who clearly explain their thoughts. Thanks for posting, Naruto. | ||
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