EPTSituation Report: June 11, 2013 - Page 17
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hansonslee
United States2027 Posts
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Clbull
United Kingdom1439 Posts
Gameplay has already become stale because MMMW (Marines, Marauders, Medivacs and Widow Mines) appear to be the only viable option to play TvZ. Mech is far less viable because it's often virtually impossible to strike a balance between fending off mutalisk harass with Thors and Missile Turrets, having enough Siege Tanks to hold a potential Roach Hydra or mass Ultralisk bust, not keeping yourself contained on two bases because getting a third requires a great amount of positioning and pre-construction of Supply Depot walls and Missile Turrets, having enough anti-air to snipe Brood Lords, Corruptors and Vipers, and still preventing the Zerg from staying one full saturated base above you. Additionally, I haven't seen anybody other than Strelok and GoOdy successfully pull off a TvP Mech build. Even then I feel confident their builds would crumble to a precise 2 or 3 gate early game aggressive timing. A good reason why is probably the weakness of Siege Tanks from Wings onwards and the lack of TvP viability for the Widow Mine and Hellion (note, not the Hellbat which is a great unit in its own right.) The Widow Mine is a very useful unit until you consider the fact that a Tier 1.5 unit (Stalker) with detection can completely hard-counter it by outranging its attack radius. This is something the Hydralisk cannot even do until it gets its own upgrade (Grooved Spines) to increase attack range. Using Widow Mines to defend a 4-gate is also a double edged sword. You may have sniped two Zealots but on the other hand you now have two dead 150 minerals and 50 gas worth of useless dead weight now recharging its attack, in the amount of time it woudl take an extra warp in to breach your main, kill your workers and production and lose you the game. On the point of the Siege Tank I could elaborate further and give some accurate numbers. Bear in mind the change to overkill doesn't factor in but surely it doesn't excuse a straight-up 20 damage nerf... Siege Tank BW: 70 Explosive Damage (35 to Small, 52.5 to Medium and 70 to Large units) Siege Tank SC2: 35 Damage (50 vs Armored) As far as I know, these numbers are 100% accurate. Siege Tank BW vs Archon BW (360 effective HP) - 360 / 70 = 5 remainder 10. Six hits to kill. Siege Tank SC2 vs Archon SC2 (360 effective HP) - 360 / 35 = 10 remainder 11. Eleven hits to kill. That's right, Archons are now the second-tankiest unit in existence against Siege Tanks, the first being the Immortal with a whopping fourteen hits to kill. This is because despite being large, the Siege Tank does not even do full damage because it is not Armored. Siege Tank BW vs Dragoon BW (180 effective HP) - 180 / 70 = 2 remainder 40. Three hits to kill. Siege Tank SC2 vs Stalker SC2 (160 effective HP) - 160 / 50 = 3 remainder 10. Four hits to kill. Despite being inferior stat wise to the Dragoon, the Stalker is tankier to tank fire in SC2. Added with better pathing AI and Blink, Stalkers are now the hard-counter for Siege Tanks when in Brood War Tanks soft-countered them. Siege Tank BW vs Hydralisk BW (85 HP) - 85 / 52.5 = 1 remainder 32.5. Two hits to kill. Siege Tank SC2 vs Hydralisk SC2 (85 HP) - 85 / 35 = 2 remainder 15. Three hits to kill. Hydralisks are also tankier against the Siege Tank. In fact, Roaches take the same number of hits to kill as well. The only reason they would fare weaker against a tank line would likely be the Hellion/Hellbat support in front. Siege Tank BW vs Reaver BW (180 effective HP) - 180 / 70 = 2 remainder 40. Three hits to kill. Siege Tank SC2 vs Colossus SC2 (300 effective HP) - 300 / 50 = Six hits to kill. That's right, the Colossus - commonly considered an a-move unit - is far tankier to the Siege Tank than the Reaver was in Brood War. The sad reality is that Robo tech in SC2 straight-up sweeps away Mech when it's not in a critical mass. Siege Tank BW vs Ultralisk BW (400 HP) - 400 / 70 = 4 remainder 20. Five hits to kill. Siege Tank SC2 vs Ultralisk SC2 (500 HP) - 500 / 50 = Ten hits to kill. Here's an even bigger shocker. Ultralisks are now so tanky against Siege Tanks that it takes ten shells to kill them. This is due to their nerfed maximum damage potential and the Ultralisk's 100 health buff in the transition to SC2. Now consider the fact that Blizzard were considering the possibility of adding an autocasted Charge ability to the Ultra. How would I improve the Siege Tank? Simple Siege Tank: 35 damage (60 vs Armored, 85 vs Massive) | ||
BisuDagger
Bisutopia19225 Posts
On June 13 2013 01:11 hansonslee wrote: I think tanks need a slight buff. Mutalisks are faster and can snipe tanks more easily, and vipers can remove them from the game easily. It would be nice to see tanks in play once more (especially seeing tanks kill a bunch of banelings)! Maybe siege mode tanks can't get grabbed by the viper because they are clamped into the grown. That would be a nice little fix there. I still think they should get an upgrade ability to activate the dmatrix. (I think BC's used dmatrix in sc2 campaign?) Let's have something like that be possible. | ||
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patman
Sweden2 Posts
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BisuDagger
Bisutopia19225 Posts
On June 13 2013 01:15 patman wrote: Just give splash to turrets or something and remove anti air on mines. Even with 50apm more than my opponent I never have time to clear the minefields with sufficient losses before a new bioball is standing on it. I'm master league and this matchup for me is all about putting out fires for 40minutes and if i manage to not slip up even then I might loose the game. I'm at 30% winpercentage ZvT atm and I usually watch my fellow zergs statistics after each ZvZ and ~30% is what I usually see... Something even more simple is to reduce the overpriced turrets to 75 minerals. I feel to invested everytime I have to plant a turret down. 1 turret = 2 marines = 1 hellion/hellbat = 1 supply depot = 2 scvs or 5 turrets = 10 marines (meh/great with a medivac) = 5 hellbats(nice) = 5 supply depots (that's 50 supply!) = 10 scvs (sweet) or 10 turrets = 20 marines (that's a small army) = 10 hellbats(holy dmg) = 10 supply depots (that's 100 supply!) = 20 scvs (sweet glorious money) Now imagine the same turret costing 75 minerals. That number alone sounds good enough to ease some pain. | ||
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Prog455
Denmark970 Posts
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Zarahtra
Iceland4053 Posts
On June 13 2013 01:15 BisuDagger wrote: Maybe siege mode tanks can't get grabbed by the viper because they are clamped into the grown. That would be a nice little fix there. I still think they should get an upgrade ability to activate the dmatrix. (I think BC's used dmatrix in sc2 campaign?) Let's have something like that be possible. Well it's not like the grab is the big problem with the tank though, blinding cloud is far worse for the tank. With the new mutalisk rines just aren't enough like in WoL. Before you could obviously count on that mutas wouldn't actually fight your rines, now they just fight them, kill them and ask for seconds, that is, if you don't have something that threatens them. Sadly even though thor was always suppose to fulfil this role, it never did due to magic boxing. If zerg with the new muta and viper is going to stay in, I don't really think the tank can be saved. It'd be redicilous to not make blinding cloud work on tanks and it'd be dangerous to nerf the most notable change to zerg in HotS(the muta regen/speed), so yeah... think we're stuck with the VM(a buff to the splash of thors would probably fix the muta problem, but it'd still leave tanks sucking vs vipers)... On June 13 2013 01:48 Prog455 wrote: Personally i would love to see a buff to Tanks and a nerf to Hellbats. I always felt that the sole purpose of Hellbats was to make up for the fact that Siege Tanks are hard-countered by next to every Protoss unit in the game, especially Zealots. Agreed. The real strength of mech in TvP is the hellbats tbh. You just need tanks to force engagements and kill AoE for the hellbats to do their job. I don't think hellbats need a nerf in current balance, but i'd much rather have a strong tank than a strong hellbat. Admittedly TvZ MMM+hellbat might become pretty weak though. | ||
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Snowbear
Korea (South)1925 Posts
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Daswollvieh
5553 Posts
On June 13 2013 01:56 Snowbear wrote: Can someone explain me why terrans don't go tank + mine (2 factory, 1 techlab 1 reactor) + marine + medivac? Is it bad? I suppose it´s simply because you´d spent a lot more gas while sacrificing mobility. | ||
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Mortal
2943 Posts
edit- added words. | ||
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Daswollvieh
5553 Posts
On June 13 2013 01:14 Clbull wrote: Balance opinions incoming. Gameplay has already become stale because MMMW (Marines, Marauders, Medivacs and Widow Mines) appear to be the only viable option to play TvZ. Mech is far less viable because it's often virtually impossible to strike a balance between fending off mutalisk harass with Thors and Missile Turrets, having enough Siege Tanks to hold a potential Roach Hydra or mass Ultralisk bust, not keeping yourself contained on two bases because getting a third requires a great amount of positioning and pre-construction of Supply Depot walls and Missile Turrets, having enough anti-air to snipe Brood Lords, Corruptors and Vipers, and still preventing the Zerg from staying one full saturated base above you. Additionally, I haven't seen anybody other than Strelok and GoOdy successfully pull off a TvP Mech build. Even then I feel confident their builds would crumble to a precise 2 or 3 gate early game aggressive timing. A good reason why is probably the weakness of Siege Tanks from Wings onwards and the lack of TvP viability for the Widow Mine and Hellion (note, not the Hellbat which is a great unit in its own right.) The Widow Mine is a very useful unit until you consider the fact that a Tier 1.5 unit (Stalker) with detection can completely hard-counter it by outranging its attack radius. This is something the Hydralisk cannot even do until it gets its own upgrade (Grooved Spines) to increase attack range. Using Widow Mines to defend a 4-gate is also a double edged sword. You may have sniped two Zealots but on the other hand you now have two dead 150 minerals and 50 gas worth of useless dead weight now recharging its attack, in the amount of time it woudl take an extra warp in to breach your main, kill your workers and production and lose you the game. On the point of the Siege Tank I could elaborate further and give some accurate numbers. Bear in mind the change to overkill doesn't factor in but surely it doesn't excuse a straight-up 20 damage nerf... Siege Tank BW: 70 Explosive Damage (35 to Small, 52.5 to Medium and 70 to Large units) Siege Tank SC2: 35 Damage (50 vs Armored) As far as I know, these numbers are 100% accurate. Siege Tank BW vs Archon BW (360 effective HP) - 360 / 70 = 5 remainder 10. Six hits to kill. Siege Tank SC2 vs Archon SC2 (360 effective HP) - 360 / 35 = 10 remainder 11. Eleven hits to kill. That's right, Archons are now the second-tankiest unit in existence against Siege Tanks, the first being the Immortal with a whopping fourteen hits to kill. This is because despite being large, the Siege Tank does not even do full damage because it is not Armored. Siege Tank BW vs Dragoon BW (180 effective HP) - 180 / 70 = 2 remainder 40. Three hits to kill. Siege Tank SC2 vs Stalker SC2 (160 effective HP) - 160 / 50 = 3 remainder 10. Four hits to kill. Despite being inferior stat wise to the Dragoon, the Stalker is tankier to tank fire in SC2. Added with better pathing AI and Blink, Stalkers are now the hard-counter for Siege Tanks when in Brood War Tanks soft-countered them. Siege Tank BW vs Hydralisk BW (85 HP) - 85 / 52.5 = 1 remainder 32.5. Two hits to kill. Siege Tank SC2 vs Hydralisk SC2 (85 HP) - 85 / 35 = 2 remainder 15. Three hits to kill. Hydralisks are also tankier against the Siege Tank. In fact, Roaches take the same number of hits to kill as well. The only reason they would fare weaker against a tank line would likely be the Hellion/Hellbat support in front. Siege Tank BW vs Reaver BW (180 effective HP) - 180 / 70 = 2 remainder 40. Three hits to kill. Siege Tank SC2 vs Colossus SC2 (300 effective HP) - 300 / 50 = Six hits to kill. That's right, the Colossus - commonly considered an a-move unit - is far tankier to the Siege Tank than the Reaver was in Brood War. The sad reality is that Robo tech in SC2 straight-up sweeps away Mech when it's not in a critical mass. Siege Tank BW vs Ultralisk BW (400 HP) - 400 / 70 = 4 remainder 20. Five hits to kill. Siege Tank SC2 vs Ultralisk SC2 (500 HP) - 500 / 50 = Ten hits to kill. Here's an even bigger shocker. Ultralisks are now so tanky against Siege Tanks that it takes ten shells to kill them. This is due to their nerfed maximum damage potential and the Ultralisk's 100 health buff in the transition to SC2. Now consider the fact that Blizzard were considering the possibility of adding an autocasted Charge ability to the Ultra. How would I improve the Siege Tank? Simple Siege Tank: 35 damage (60 vs Armored, 85 vs Massive) While I don´t believe comparisons to BW are the best way to look at SC2 balancing, it raises an interesting problem: redundant damage codes. While in BW it was mainly sizes (small/medium/large) that influenced damage, which followed an easy logic of bigger is better, in SC2 it is rather inconsistent with (none/light/armored/massive) and thus very hard to balance. Because a buff to armored damage effects almost all relevant units it is shyed away from. There are simply too many armored units, with light and massive being niches. I think that is a big obstacle for a siege tank buff. A relatively elegant version to buff tanks late game could be via escalating the regular attack upgrades from the armory. Why not give it +3, +5, +10? | ||
Destructicon
4713 Posts
However, the biggest problem with tanks doesn't seem to stem from their damage to single targets, but more so from their vulnerability and immobility. Since removing their vulnerabilities to air is a no go, the best way might be to address some of their mobility issues, either increasing top speed (not acceleration) and/or reducing siege and unsiege time by 1 second. It feels like with the paradigm switching so much to mobility and harassment, that tanks might require a small buff in this direction to keep the relevant in the bigger scheme of things. However another big issue seems to be that, tanks are a lot harder to balance in SC2 due to pathing and they aren't as exciting are they where in BW due to the same reason. In BW even if you amassed a large force of tanks with good enough support, it didn't mean the game was over for the other guy. The tanks where difficult to control, difficult to get all in the same small area to do huge damage, units didn't clump up as much. The lack of smart fire meant you could abuse them in various ways with zealot bombs or drops. These limitations meant that often times moving the mech army across the map and taking up position was an interesting affair, you had to lay a minefield ahead, and do it in such a way that it couldn't be abused against the tanks, you had to consider the terrain, you had to spread your tanks optimally to do damage and also avoid taking damage from previously mentioned tactics, and you also had to guard the tanks from other threats such Arbiters, Mutas, Carriers etc, all while moving forward. This is a far cry from SC2 tanks that, once they reach a critical mass, can almost a-move across the map and obliterate anything in their path, if siege tanks where as strategical and meticulous to use as they are in BW then I'd agree we should do all we can to bring them back into the fold, but sadly, they are not. This is why I honestly hate SC2 mech and I'm absolutely 100% fine with it never being viable, because I can't see how you can make it viable and interesting at the same time. Mech is fun in TvT because the tank lines and terrain recreate the same BW situation where it was meticulous and interesting to advance forward, bio-mine is fun in TvZ to watch because of the positional aspects and fast paced nature, marine tank is a treat for the strategist in us. However mech vs Toss and mech vs bio is just cringe worthy at times. | ||
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Melwach
Germany176 Posts
So our question here becomes “is this a good thing that Widow Mines have replaced Siege Tanks as the primary splash damage units?” We believe the answer is yes. Ouch...that was painful to read. In my opinion it's horrible that the mine has replaced Siege Tanks as a splash scource. The goal should be to make the mine an essential component of positional tank play, not replace it. I don't really now how to achieve this without going back to a spider-mine like concept, but the current way seems to be very unsatisfactory. Please don't make the #2 iconic Terran unit a gimmick. Terran mech still feels like a contruction site. Sadly no mention of Banshees/Raven. But I guess there are other issues at hand. Other than that I like the thoughts of Blizzard at the moment. They seem to follow the right way. | ||
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WindCalibur
Canada938 Posts
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Shiori
3815 Posts
On June 13 2013 01:14 Clbull wrote: Additionally, I haven't seen anybody other than Strelok and GoOdy successfully pull off a TvP Mech build. Even then I feel confident their builds would crumble to a precise 2 or 3 gate early game aggressive timing. You have failed to establish why this is a bad thing. Strelok and GoOdy have some of the most boring, turtley playstyles I've ever seen in TvP. Why should it be a priority for Blizzard to make that low-APM, a-move style more viable? I know people like to wax poetic about how mech players are "decision making" geniuses, but let's call a spade a spade. There's nothing particularly interesting about watching mech TvP because both sides have mostly one-dimensional units with a couple of spellcasters. We can theorize about the Siege Tank all we want, but in Sc2 (i.e not BW) Siege Tank based mech versus Protoss is basically turtling until 170-200 supply and then pushing slowly and unstoppably across the map. This is not fun. Seeing rings of turrets and Photon Cannons at every base to discourage drops means that both players are just vying for positioning with really boring long-ranged units like Carriers, Siege Tanks, and Tempests. No thanks. Meanwhile bio based TvP is mechanically demanding for both players and much more fast-paced than mech based styles. | ||
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Zarahtra
Iceland4053 Posts
On June 13 2013 01:56 Snowbear wrote: Can someone explain me why terrans don't go tank + mine (2 factory, 1 techlab 1 reactor) + marine + medivac? Is it bad? Why would you? There is just so much overlap between the two, yet to optimize them you have completely different playstyles. VMs optimal usage is constant aggression, where you are trading efficiently with the zerg. Tanks you generally don't want to just trade with the zerg, you want to win a battle. | ||
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SpaceYeti
United States723 Posts
Really, widow mines play out a lot like burrowed banes, except they require less attention on the part of the player and because the missile is ranged also require less precise placement. Part of what makes watching burrowed banes exciting is that if the zerg player isn't paying attention they miss out on an awesome hit. Again tho, the suspense is very brief and the results are very all-or-none, unlike the sustained tension that siege tanks bring to many games. | ||
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Snowbear
Korea (South)1925 Posts
On June 13 2013 02:36 Zarahtra wrote: Why would you? There is just so much overlap between the two, yet to optimize them you have completely different playstyles. VMs optimal usage is constant aggression, where you are trading efficiently with the zerg. Tanks you generally don't want to just trade with the zerg, you want to win a battle. Why would you? Well: 1) Tanks can manually target banelings and they can shoot several times 2) Mines force zerg micro Doesn't it become much harder to micro against mines backed up with tanks? I feel like the combination of these 2 would do so much splash damage, but I can be wrong. I am definitely going to take a look at this. | ||
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Sissors
1395 Posts
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Zarahtra
Iceland4053 Posts
On June 13 2013 02:40 Snowbear wrote: Why would you? Well: 1) Tanks can manually target banelings and they can shoot several times 2) Mines force zerg micro Doesn't it become much harder to micro against mines backed up with tanks? I feel like the combination of these 2 would do so much splash damage, but I can be wrong. I am definitely going to take a look at this. Well tanks are very costly units, and a tank simply isn't going to be doing 275 resource worth of dmg on a consistant basis, especially when you have very few actually on the field at a time(like VM usage playstyle revolves around). | ||
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