EPTThe complaints are that the risk/reward makes hell bat drops a stable choice and that's only going to stagnate Terran over time, the games for spectators become stales and everyone ends up cheering for the underdog which we saw in WoL when Z were getting slaughtered by everything and the Nerf fell on T patch after patch.
Opinion on hellbat drop play - Page 4
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aka_star
United Kingdom1546 Posts
The complaints are that the risk/reward makes hell bat drops a stable choice and that's only going to stagnate Terran over time, the games for spectators become stales and everyone ends up cheering for the underdog which we saw in WoL when Z were getting slaughtered by everything and the Nerf fell on T patch after patch. | ||
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darkscream
Canada2310 Posts
am I mistaken? David kim are you here? | ||
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Nerski
United States1095 Posts
As they stand right now an opponent can recognize the drop, and the drop can still more then pay for itself. No harassment option should be so strong that it will work even if your opponent is prepared for it. Your opponent having to be prepared for the drop is damage in itself, being able to do additional damage despite your opponent recognizing it makes no sense. | ||
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MannerzMan
United States63 Posts
On July 04 2013 01:08 Aunvilgod wrote: Can anyone of the fellow pros lurking around here explain how Hellbats can be essential in TvP? After all Protoss has gotten no addition since WoL and in WoL TvP was completely fine. I thought after 3 years that matchup is somewhere figured out. It is still Bio with Vikings or Ghosts vs the usual Protoss deathball most of the time after all. Ill answer this. The no addition is wrong. We have a mothership core which makes us extremely safe to early game. Hellbats are a nice touch when facing a zlot heavy army where they getting eaten like dinner. also since hellbats arent that expensive, doing hellbat drops can have quite a nice reward without too much of a risk (2 hellbats + medivac costs less that a collu). | ||
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Plansix
United States60190 Posts
On July 04 2013 01:11 Nerski wrote: Avilo pointed out the exact thing a lot of people have already said, just remove the biological tag. It cures peoples worries about hellbats viability late game (helps them TvP) and puts a much more significant timer on the drops. All without making the drops ineffective because not recognizing the drop can still allow hellbats to do game ending damage, as it should be. As they stand right now an opponent can recognize the drop, and the drop can still more then pay for itself. No harassment option should be so strong that it will work even if your opponent is prepared for it. Your opponent having to be prepared for the drop is damage in itself, being able to do additional damage despite your opponent recognizing it makes no sense. I think it would be just as good to make them 3 shot workers, rather than 2. Or delay their first shot after they are dropped. Right now, there is no animation when they are dropped and a hellbat unloads its first attack almost the instant it hits the ground. A delay on that wouldn't require any change to the units stats or its ability as a combat unit, but would give a little more time for workers to escape. | ||
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Radel
United States115 Posts
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MorroW
Sweden3522 Posts
On July 04 2013 01:08 Aunvilgod wrote: Can anyone of the fellow pros lurking around here explain how Hellbats can be essential in TvP? After all Protoss has gotten no addition since WoL and in WoL TvP was completely fine. I thought after 3 years that matchup is somewhere figured out. It is still Bio with Vikings or Ghosts vs the usual Protoss deathball most of the time after all. disregarding balance i think blizzard wanted terran to have a bit more options in their army compositions in the midgame. in wol protoss could go colo tree or ht tree, mix in archons or not etc while terrans did MMM + viking, or no viking having hellbats is simply more fun to have that option in tvp instead of always playing exactly same army composition its not like hellbats are simply better to go for in tvp than without, we dont see it every game and it works better against some protoss compositions and worse against others. which just makes it for better game i think even though WoL was fine, blizzard tried with hots to look for ways to make things even better, adding things even if they were not absolutely needed | ||
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MannerzMan
United States63 Posts
On July 04 2013 01:14 Plansix wrote: I think it would be just as good to make them 3 shot workers, rather than 2. Or delay their first shot after they are dropped. Right now, there is no animation when they are dropped and a hellbat unloads its first attack almost the instant it hits the ground. A delay on that wouldn't require any change to the units stats or its ability as a combat unit, but would give a little more time for workers to escape. As true as this may be, The hellbat attacks when dropped. Its priority of attack is the nearest thing attacking it first, then the nearest thing second. So having a tank or a spine or a cannon in the mineral line is essential to reducing hellbats dmg for its harass henceforth giving you that little extra time. | ||
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FakiVII
Germany18 Posts
How it is now: - Hellions can not be healed by Medivacs, but Hellbat can. Why? I don't like this. - 4 Hellions fit in a Medivac, but only 2 Hellbats? Why? Do they gain mass when tranformating? Come on, this is strange. How i would like it to be: - Hellbats can not be healed by Medivacs and can not be loaded into Medivacs in Hellbat form. - Decrease cost and reseatch time for the Hellbat upgrade. - Increase speed of the transformation Hellion, so that loeading Hellions into Medivac,dropping Hellions, transforming into Hellbat becomes playable. This would add to ne synergy of the game and make the Hellion/Hellbat a normal unit, not a unit with special rules. | ||
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Brian333
657 Posts
It doesn't matter that Hellbats are OP or whatever. What matters is that they turned one of HotS's best match-ups (TvT) into one of HotS's worst match-ups. You know what this looks and feels like? 4-gate in WoL PvP. Think about that for a second. For the sake of the match-up, they need to change. | ||
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Negius
Netherlands290 Posts
Why don't we have the Missile Turret deal more damage to medivacs? That way, the healing power is quickly gone and it is somewhat easier to defend drops in TvT. I can see that this causes some problems with other harassing styles in TvT but it seems to me this is similar to the Spore Crawler change against Mutalisks. Or maybe widow mines could play a more active role and deal enough damage to kill a medivac (something like x damage + energy damage such as feedback). I think hellbat drops are a good part of the game, but it is now to easy to execute them and too hard to defend your workers. With the above change, they will still exist and you would have to rely on scouting to build a missile turret/widow mine for your opponent's hellbat drops or you can just build 1 or 2 blindly. | ||
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Darrkhan
Finland1236 Posts
On July 04 2013 01:18 FakiVII wrote: I think the Hellbat is a stupid/strange unit, they should meake a few changes to it. How it is now: - Hellions can not be healed by Medivacs, but Hellbat can. Why? I don't like this. - 4 Hellions fit in a Medivac, but only 2 Hellbats? Why? Do they gain mass when tranformating? Come on, this is strange. How i would like it to be: - Hellbats can not be healed by Medivacs and can not be loaded into Medivacs in Hellbat form. - Decrease cost and reseatch time for the Hellbat upgrade. - Increase speed of the transformation Hellion, so that loeading Hellions into Medivac,dropping Hellions, transforming into Hellbat becomes playable. This would add to ne synergy of the game and make the Hellion/Hellbat a normal unit, not a unit with special rules. I kinda agree but wouldn't it be more strange if you couldn't pick even 2 in medivac O_o I play every race in diamond, not that it is good accomplishment, but i feel like balance has not been this good ever. Yeah terran got some nice stuff speed medivacs, hellbats but before that in end of wol zergs could play so greedy against terran even tvp was so hard because of mass warp ins and zealot harrass (which are still soooooooo good, go look recent IMFirst OSL games) All you really have to do is scout what terran is doing and prepare. Not really hard to put some anti-air ready before drop and target queens. | ||
BisuDagger
Bisutopia19399 Posts
On July 04 2013 00:27 Zarahtra wrote: Well it'd not really change anything for DTs, if turrets aren't down preemptively, you're pretty screwed anyway. It's not like with zerg where you can start like 6 spores and just cancel everyone except the first to finish. The issue is that turrets can be erected without the need for an engineering bay. So early dts while being a threat, still have to dodge around until scan is all used up. The time it takes to build an engineering bay + turrets can be devastating, but one turret getting made in time without the ebay will spoil the riches for the DT. | ||
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Hellbat
223 Posts
On July 04 2013 00:26 willstertben wrote: haha i read all of that in streloks voice. to your point: blizzard has proposed nerfing hellbats like this: take away bonus to light, add it again through researching blue flame upgrade. they would be weaker in the beginning (NEEDED) and on same strength later (for negligible cost). (not needed in my opinion, i think they're too strong in general, drops or no drops, but that's irrelevant to my point) i disagree with having to buff something else terran has. the even win rates are caused mainly by metagame (blind 3 oc rush from terrans vs roach bling allins) rather than it being balanced. I still wonder if they are going through with this change or will attempt another one. If this change is done, 2 hellbats in a dropship can't 1 shot worker lines so it seems to me that the fast hellbat drop openings will be completely useless | ||
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mythandier
United States828 Posts
If you look at balance like a (simple) algebraic equation, there are a ton of variables to be considered, hellbat being one among many. So that if the current state of the game is: hellbat + tank + banshee + ...(every other terran unit) = balanced Then you can decrease the value of hellbats and give several small increases to other units to fill the gap: hellbat(-10) + tank(+5) + banshee(+5) ... = balanced Now, obviously the game is much more complicated than that and you'll have to consider the impact of every variable on the dynamic of all matchups, I'm simply trying to say that there's more options out there than nerf X/buff Y. | ||
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Aurrora
43 Posts
On July 04 2013 00:36 lichter wrote: If only it were possible to change hellbat drops in TvT without affecting the other matchups. I think hellbats are fine in vP and vZ. It only really spoils the TvT mirror, from a viewer's perspective. There is nothing wrong with the balance. It is just really not fun to watch. I dont agree at all. Hellbats come really early vs every race. There is NO reason not to do hellbats for zerg or protoss. The reward to risk is very high, in favor of reward. You can send 4 medivacs in and not kill any drones (but it is still a cost efficient trade because zerg has to pull EVERYTHING off mining so it actually doesn't put terran behind at all and sometimes terran still comes out ahead because of it) but then you send in another medivac and it kills everything because the player doesnt react right away. Oh, and I forgot to mention when seeing one hellbat drop, it forces a spore and spine in every base. That's usually 6 drones (since zergs are going fast 3 bases) and 575 minerals for static defense. And even this isn't a deterrent for terrans to not hellbat drop, as long as medvac stays out of range but can still heal, queen and spines don't stop it too quickly. It is just incredibly tanky and too cost efficient. The blue flame upgrade actually gives it some more risk to reward and it will come out slower so its not such a big investment for each race to try and defend so early. People aren't taking into account what happens to an economy when hellbats force all works in a base to be pulled for a significant amount of time. | ||
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sva
United States749 Posts
In the other matchups they don't seem to be that much of a problem, but I hate hate them in TvT. | ||
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Hattori_Hanzo
Singapore1229 Posts
On July 04 2013 01:52 BisuDagger wrote: The issue is that turrets can be erected without the need for an engineering bay. So early dts while being a threat, still have to dodge around until scan is all used up. The time it takes to build an engineering bay + turrets can be devastating, but one turret getting made in time without the ebay will spoil the riches for the DT. Removing the ebay requirement will enable two more turrets to bring it total to 4 turrets and a widow mine to be up before the 7:30min mark, assuming the scouting SCV or scan spots the early Armory. But this also means, the <7min Oracle harass is dead as is the 3-5 muta harass in the same window. | ||
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pmp10
3401 Posts
The problem with hellbat nerf is that Blizzard has no idea what to leave in it's place. The compensation banshee cloak buff was a terrible idea only likely to break TvT and I doubt anything better will be proposed. Balance is sadly a more complex issue than just adjusting tank damage. | ||
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Mongoose
United Kingdom190 Posts
The other issue in TvT is that if banshee cloak gets buffed, terrans will need to make marines to defend against banshees, but marines are terrible against hellbats! So it might cause a situation where you have to pretty much guess whether your opponent is going hellbats or banshees, as marines are good vs banshees but terrible vs hellbats. I don't know why Blizzard have never thought of buffing terran defensively as opposed to offensively. Protoss and Zerg were buffed defensively (queens and mothership core respectively), so why not move terrans in that direction too? What I'd love to see is a game that is based less on build orders / catching your opponent by surprise, and more on mechanics and tactical army movement etc. | ||
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