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On June 10 2013 03:22 Fig wrote: One Baneling explodes to do 35 splash damage to light One Hellbat does 30 splash damage to light each attack
Holy shit what
I'm so glad the Terrans I face aren't really good at making hellbats.. That's a shit ton of damage.
Baneling is 50min 25 gas, Hellbat is 100 minerals. So every time a Hellbat fires, that's 25 minerals and 12 gas that a Terran gets.
Well obviously you can't approach the problem this way but you get the idea.
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Fiddler's Green42661 Posts
On June 10 2013 03:23 teddyoojo wrote:Show nested quote +On June 10 2013 03:22 Fig wrote: One Baneling explodes to do 35 splash damage to light One Hellbat does 30 splash damage to light each attack so buff hellbat to 35 dmg or what u tryin to say
David Kim buffed Hellbats today giving them +5 damage to light, ability to attack air and flight. When asked why he said, "We have only seen Hellbats used in only 80% of top level TvT's, 60% in TvPs and a pitiful 20% in TvZs. We wanted to increase the Terran offensive options and increase the percentages across the board to 90%."
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I was thinking about this on the way to work, especially how awkward some of the things they implemented for hellbats (Biological, only 2 in the medivac) and I was thinking about how they could fix this.
Keep the cost the same Remove the biological from the hellbat, increase its HP to compensate. Decrease the hellbat damage from (18 + 2) to (14 +1), but allow 4 hellbats to go in a medivac.
Maybe the damage nerf is a little too much, but I feel like that way you invest more money into something that is scarier than what we currently have. Finding the right balance of damage for cost would be cool. Nerfing is not really my favourite way to go about balancing the game, and this might make hellbats boring to watch though.
I personally think that blizzard should sit back longer and slowly buff things, like the protoss warp prism buff while keeping an eye on all matchups (including tvt). If TvT stays this way for the long run, maybe try something with the regular hellion or doing something crazy like making landed viking runbys a thing.
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On June 10 2013 02:45 Zerg.Zilla wrote: Hellbats are transformed from hellions so it should be a mechanical unit...so how can a medivac heal a fucking car?!? I think that's the biggest problem...
Hellbats are guys in transformed cars. Marines are guys in huge exoskeletons. How does a medivac heal anything with some magic beam of light? Reality is the weakest argument here.
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On June 10 2013 02:08 sevia wrote:- Make speed-boost accelerate and decelerate in a bell-curve pattern instead of instant speed boost (starts off slowly, but peaks at a faster speed - taking more skill to enter the mineral line at peak speed, and limiting instant-escape potential). Quick MS Paint diagram- Divide speed-boost and healing into two 'modes', with a transform time like thors. An upgrade enables both at once.
This almost warrants a thread of it's own :-). Really great idea having accel./decel. be a part of medivac boosting instead of the current insta-increase!
About hellbats I think one of the problems is that 1 medivac+2hellbats only cost 300mins/100gas and have relatively low build time, against the damage they can do. When the player reacts quickly and removes workers in time to avoid any losses the resulting loss of mining time affects him (50% reduction, since it most often hits well before establishing three bases (except for TvZ)). Most often there will be worker losses, because the medivac drops in motion and can follow workers being pulled somewhat. The second problem is the effort going into the drop against the effort going into defending it (this is a general issue with several harras options in SC2, but hellbats seem more problematic). static defense does not really prevent hellbat drops, since the two units are unloaded before the medivac dies and the hellbats themselves have enough HP to stay alive for several devastating attacks on workers.
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I like the idea of making the light armor damage bonus require the blue flame upgrade (say 18+4, +additional 6 with blue flame), plus biological needs to be removed. Hellbats are too tanky when being dropped on siege tank lines. It takes equal or more shots to kill a hellbat than to kill nearby siege tanks with tank friendly fire, and that's before factoring in the hellbat's own splash attack. Being healed puts it way over the top.
P.S. Snipe needs to be 45 damage to non massive.0
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A few points I'd like to add. First of all I main as Terran, and to hear terrans complain about hellbats in tvt makes me think "how do you think zerg feels?" Most of the issues sited apply to the unit in many matchups. I actually don't feel players are even using them to their full potential, they are not changing them from hellion to hell bat mode at the right times. I think alternating in blue hellion/hellbat drops is more powerful because they have to either pull or split their workers depending on which it is, the wrong choice is disaster. Also, walking them across the map is pretty silly when they go so fast as hellions.
Terrans need to use SENSOR TOWERS more in TvT. It is very very cheap to make a sensor tower compared to the dmg a surprise drop can do to the economy! Furthermore, I feel that getting the upgrade on turret range is well worth it to help crush drops. I also see many terrans making their 3rd's and 4th bases as orbitals. Make them PF's and build extra orbitls for mules in your main. Terrans often have the minerals to burn. A PF is so much safer against raids!
I think a lot of the reasons these things are underutilized is that many players are playing WOL with Hellbats. Instead of HOTS. This mentality and lack of creativity is hampering the races potential imo. But hey who am I? What do I know? This wouldn't be the first time I've posted ideas that got flamed, only to see them become popular or at least utilized months later......
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It has been suggested to tweak the dmg output so that it requires 3 "sweeps" to kill a worker. This would make the drops pretty useless as any decent player wouldn't allow you to get more than one sweep from each hellbat before the workers have escaped, hence making it impossible to kill any workers aside from the occasional straggler. Hellbats would probably still have a place as part of an army composition, but the drop potential would be completely removed. Bad idea.
Maybe remove the ability to heal hellbats? That would nerf the drop potential since it would make them a lot easier to kill, but it would also weaken their place as part of an army. I feel this nerf might be too heavy.
The best way would probably to simply make them more expensive, maybe increase their supply cost by one. Another clever idea I heard was to make it so that they can only be made by transforming hellions, with the transformation requiring an upgrade. That upgrade would naturally be done in the armory or tech lab on a factory, with the side effect of making any hellbat drop build significantly slower and weaker, which again might be a nerf too heavy.
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I think I would like to see the hellbat transformation upgrade play a bigger role. Maybe making the hellbat cost 100/25 out of the factory, but with the transformation upgrade, you can get it for 100 via hellions. That way it doesn't affect long term play, but you will have to put a high opportunity cost if you want them quicker.
Perhaps have them benefit some how from the blue-flame upgrade. I think stock hellbats are a bit too easy of an investment. At least this way, you have to pour some gas and time via upgrades if you want a drop of doom.
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hellbat is not the problem, speedvac is. its too good and too early in the game
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On June 10 2013 03:32 PerryHooter wrote: The best way would probably to simply make them more expensive, maybe increase their supply cost by one. Another clever idea I heard was to make it so that they can only be made by transforming hellions, with the transformation requiring an upgrade. That upgrade would naturally be done in the armory or tech lab on a factory, with the side effect of making any hellbat drop build significantly slower and weaker, which again might be a nerf too heavy.
In other words, bring back the Transformation Servos upgrade version from beta. Which is also clever in that if it's on the factory tech lab, you also limit production of the hellion/hellbat itself, because you can't double-build from that factory.
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They really just need to make it so that hellbats cannot be made until the transformation upgrade is researched. This preserves their role as a mech fodder unit and holds back hellbat harassment until a slightly later stage in the game. I never fucking understood why you could build hellions immediately in hellbat mode. It's the simplest change in the world...
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Dunno about you, but MVP vs. Innovation was some of the most entertaining TvT I have ever seen in Starcraft (WoL + HotS).
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Why not just make hellbats unproduceble from the factory? That way the transformation upgrade may be remotely useful.
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On June 10 2013 03:38 mongoose22 wrote:Show nested quote +On June 10 2013 03:32 PerryHooter wrote: The best way would probably to simply make them more expensive, maybe increase their supply cost by one. Another clever idea I heard was to make it so that they can only be made by transforming hellions, with the transformation requiring an upgrade. That upgrade would naturally be done in the armory or tech lab on a factory, with the side effect of making any hellbat drop build significantly slower and weaker, which again might be a nerf too heavy. In other words, bring back the Transformation Servos upgrade from beta.  Which is also clever in that if it's on the factory tech lab, you also limit production of the hellion/hellbat itself, because you can't double-build from that factory.
I'd make hellbats 100/25 if going this route, while making it free to transform hellions into hellbats after researching the upgrade. It becomes cost-effective to make hellions first, then transform them, after roughly 6-8 hellions (depending how you value gas). It might be kinda weird to have a unit with effectively two different costs, but there's a tradeoff either way you choose to build them.
That would be kind of technical, so you could also just make it cost 25 gas to transform a hellion permanently into a hellbat, and in that case I'd lower the research cost of transform.
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On June 10 2013 02:08 sevia wrote:- Make speed-boost accelerate and decelerate in a bell-curve pattern instead of instant speed boost (starts off slowly, but peaks at a faster speed - taking more skill to enter the mineral line at peak speed, and limiting instant-escape potential). Quick MS Paint diagram- Divide speed-boost and healing into two 'modes', with a transform time like thors. An upgrade enables both at once.
I like this idea a lot. Although we see that hellbat drops are the main problem in tvt, I think nerfing the speedboost of the medivac is a better approach. We often see medivacs boost straight into the mineral line on a one-way mission just to drop off the hellbats. I think nerfing the medivac will fix this problem for the other two matchups as well.
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On June 10 2013 03:37 PredY wrote: hellbat is not the problem, speedvac is. its too good and too early in the game Speedvac is a bigger part of the game then hellbats occasionally game ending attack on workers.
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hellbats aren't that great. they are easily kited and very immobile. you guys focus on the wrong unit. the unit that is the problem in tvt is the medivac speeding past turrets and vikings in order to deliver the hellbats to the mineral line.
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The problem I have is that I have never seen one transform from a hellion into a hellbat or vice versa.
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I was hoping for a genuine Hellbat review. Here's mine:
Hellbat - 9/10
Out of all the units in Terran's arsenal Hellbat has to be my favorite. It's cheap, doesn't cost any gas, can be produced quickly with a reactor add-on, does splash damage and can be healed by medivacs just like bio units. Hellbats also do bonus damage to light units which makes them just perfect for killing enemy workers. One of strategies I often use, with a great success, is dropping Hellbats in enemy mineral lines. Even if I lose the hellbats and sometimes the medivac I usually come out on top as it's really difficult to prevent worker losses, even with static defense. This way I don't have to worry about complex strategic decisions or advanced tactics as I can just annoy my enemies to death with constant hellion drops.
I'm not giving Hellbat a perfect 10, because it's a bit too slow and can't shoot air, which is something Blizzard should consider adding in the future patches. Overall it's an amazing unit though, which has greatly improved my winrates in all matchups. Thanks Blizzard!
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