EPTOpinion on new hellbat nerf patch - Page 3
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Inimic
Canada153 Posts
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scypio
Poland2127 Posts
On July 09 2013 08:58 Fig wrote: Your last sentence doesn't make any sense. This change is making Hellbats worse in the early game. It affects the early game much more than it affects anything lategame, since that Infernal Preignitor upgrade becomes more reasonable to research as you gather more resources during the game. Therefore there is no way any Terran should feel pushed into "I need to end this before 15m." That is just bad logic. I'm sorry that this change will force you to do something slightly different. You will probably need to prepare to add in Hellbats a bit before you actually need them. That way, rather than incur the cost of another entire factory, you can just start using the one you have earlier, instead than leaving it idle or scouting with it during midgame. But being prepared is important in this game. The most prepared player usually wins. Strong early / early mid-game allows the terran to successfully harass their zerg or protoss opponents and enter the late game in a favorable position (or at least on equal footing). With strong(-er) hellbats going into the game with a simple plan (harass -> set up for the late game) is pretty tempting. Once the terran player feels he is unlikely to do damage with harassment he will choose to go all-in before the enemy tech or economy fully kicks in. The whole preparing process takes away the resources at the time the terran player is supposed to do damage. Therefore it may be better to skip that process altogether and go all-in instead. | ||
banjoetheredskin
United States744 Posts
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shinosai
United States1577 Posts
I very much doubt we will see much banshee action. Instead we will see hellbat drops replaced by widow mines and bio drops. The other trouble I see is that hellbats don't have much use outside of harass and early attacks. They are great versus protoss until storm and colossi come out, at which point they die before they get a shot off due to how slowly they move. And vs zerg, they are taken out too easily by banelings, and again, the slow movement makes them particularly susceptible. Overall, I agree that blizz did the right thing nerfing hellbats, but I'm not sure blue flame was the right way to do it. Now hellbats have extremely limited use, and we'll probably see them about as often as nukes. And the banshee buff simply isn't enough to make them competitive in any match except tvt. | ||
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TokO
Norway577 Posts
Nobody ever took issue with the massive overlap that Hellbat had with other terran units. Terran already had three very potent worker harass units in the Marine, Hellion and Banshee, in HotS, they added the Widow Mine and Hellbat. I think with time, the Widow Mine was warranted as an early defense against Oracles and Mutalisks, but if I remember correctly, Oracles was never a very strong harassment unit early in the beta, so the Widow Mine was basically a unit to punish risky aggression, by either punishing the opponents mineral line or their makeshift offensives. Hellbats, well, they overlap a lot with marines in terms of dps. They don't really break the game, but they sort of limit the Protoss in terms of zealots in the early and mid-game. They used to be a staple part of the Protoss army, but now they're really most useful not being part of the army and run around harassing instead. Ghosts used to slaughter zealots pretty well, but they cost their part (Ghost-Marine did perfectly fine against mass chargelots, but required much more Finesse than Hellbats, Hellbats basically took out the finesse part of playing bio). Hellbats doesn't really cost anything for the damage they deal. If Hellbats cost 100/25, Me and probably 90% of Protoss would be perfectly fine with the amount of damage they do in the game. | ||
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BronzeKnee
United States5212 Posts
On July 03 2013 20:42 Strelok wrote: as it was already in WoL when "queens instead of sunkens" eco stuff brought huge zerg domination... Terran dominated (to the tune of 60%+ win rates some months) TvZ for a year and half, while Zerg took the last six months of WOL in much less spectacular fashion. And it didn't have a lot to do with Queens instead of Sunken Colonies, it had it do the with the Infestor becoming the most powerful unit in the game after being buffed combined with a series of nerfs to Terran. On July 09 2013 09:25 TokO wrote: Addressing harassment and TvP. Nobody ever took issue with the massive overlap that Hellbat had with other terran units. Terran already had three very potent worker harass units in the Marine, Hellion and Banshee, in HotS, they added the Widow Mine and Hellbat. I think with time, the Widow Mine was warranted as an early defense against Oracles and Mutalisks, but if I remember correctly, Oracles was never a very strong harassment unit early in the beta, so the Widow Mine was basically a unit to punish risky aggression, by either punishing the opponents mineral line or their makeshift offensives. Hellbats, well, they overlap a lot with marines in terms of dps. They don't really break the game, but they sort of limit the Protoss in terms of zealots in the early and mid-game. They used to be a staple part of the Protoss army, but now they're really most useful not being part of the army and run around harassing instead. Ghosts used to slaughter zealots pretty well, but they cost their part (Ghost-Marine did perfectly fine against mass chargelots, but required much more Finesse than Hellbats, Hellbats basically took out the finesse part of playing bio). Hellbats doesn't really cost anything for the damage they deal. If Hellbats cost 100/25, Me and probably 90% of Protoss would be perfectly fine with the amount of damage they do in the game. It is important to remember that a Hellbat costs the same as two Marines. If you make the Hellbat not cost effective for the Terran player compared to the Marines, then they will simply build Marines. This speaks a lot to Marines and how powerful they are. They are the best mineral only unit in the game, and the only one you use as the backbone of you army. | ||
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Homework
United States283 Posts
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Kmatt
United States1019 Posts
On July 09 2013 05:28 Strelok wrote: General conclusion. I doubt this patch will help zergs. They were scared by hellbats, now they will be scared by banshees. Probably, it's even a buff for terran in TvZ, because hellbats still can be rather dangerous, but now zerg has to think also about banshees. The difference is, when Zerg is "scared by hellbats", you had to respond with Roaches, spines, and overlords everywhere. And even then with the speed boost the units get out alive. When you force Roaches and Spines in the early game, they become more or less dead weight as time goes on. Roaches don't transition well due to the cost:supply factor and Spines are still only a supplementary defense, they help defend drops, but unless you've got thousands of minerals banked and unemployed drones they can't do it themselves. So in the case of a successful defense, Terran doesn't kill drones for the investment, but Medivacs and Hellbats still serve a relevant purpose. Zerg is now stuck with a lot of used up supply (so not only draining minerals into Roaches but also extra Overlords) and very little to show for it. If Zerg doesn't defend (well), they either GG outright or have to turtle to midgame with Roaches (which can easily be busted), do a economic all-in of trying to rebuild drones+expansions with no defense ("...just go f*ckin' kill him" -Sean "Day9" Plott), or all-in with what Drones, Zerglings, and Roaches you have for a desperation attack (no parenthetical commentary needed). When a Zerg is "scared by banshees", they defend with Spores (in smaller numbers, maybe 2 in a mineral line and one defending structures in the main), Queens (moar creep, transfusions, all that good stuff), and Hydralisks (viable, though not always ideal mid-late game DPS machine) I'm not so great with conclusions, always lost points on my English essays, but I think the difference is clear enough. | ||
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banjoetheredskin
United States744 Posts
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Taefox
1533 Posts
On July 09 2013 09:05 Inimic wrote: A balance thread, but since a pro posted it its okay. Nice. This is a balance discussion and his opinion about the changes in 3 matchups, NOT a balance whining thread | ||
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Kmatt
United States1019 Posts
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Riquiz
Netherlands402 Posts
Strelok: Hellbats had rather important function late game - they tanked zealots. Now, they won't be able to. They did not change the hitpoints on them right ? Pretty sure they still tank just as good as before, they just don't dish out as much damage as before? You got me confused here. (I don't play TvP!) Other than that, great write-up, very insightful. | ||
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HTOMario
United States439 Posts
On July 09 2013 10:21 Riquiz wrote: They did not change the hitpoints on them right ? Pretty sure they still tank just as good as before, they just don't dish out as much damage as before? You got me confused here. (I don't play TvP!) Other than that, great write-up, very insightful. I believe hellbat damage went from 5 shots to 9 shots against the zealot. Takes nearly 2x as many hellbats to deal the damage until you can squeeze out the upgrade which means 1.5 less medivac and a lot of research time. It delays terrans late game by.. 3 minutes? As bio anyway. | ||
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banjoetheredskin
United States744 Posts
On July 09 2013 10:17 Kmatt wrote: I may overplayed the "Roaches suck" card, but in terms of efficiency, money invested in roaches could be put towards much more cost-effective options. Fair enough, but again I play protoss so my zvt knowledge is limited. I also feel that this won't change that much in TvT. So there won't be games like those innovation played in which he just sent medivac after medivac full of hellbats at his opponent until he just killed everything, but hellbat drops can still be effective. They now 3 shot workers instead of 2, but that just means 2 hellbats 2 shot workers...I think...so it's still a viable opener just not an entire strategy anymore. And with the threat of your opponent going cloak banshee I like that it becomes riskier to play that hellbat-only style because of the lack of anti-air you get with it. So the super boring mass hellbat games should be done with for the most part, and I think that is mission accomplished. | ||
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Rhaegal
United States678 Posts
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Magica
New Zealand13 Posts
[TvP] As far as banshee play goes it shouldn't affect much in TvP since the timing is very similar to WM drop timing so they just need to have their standard detection up by that time. [TvZ] Against zergs, a lot of them are used to just having spores already by that time to deal with the variety of drops that can come so again around the 7:20~ mark, no changes there. [TvT] Maybe will see more banshee plays coming, there was actually a bit of it being used on the korean server (when euros were the only ones really using a lot of hellbats). But I don't feel the buff was big enough to turn TvT into banshee wars, since only the upgrade got cheaper. Which I guess is a "win" for the spectators who want variety. Hellbats: The only fear of "imbalance" I have is in TvP. Non-terran players don't understand how hard it is to deal with endless zealot warp-ins with good upgrades with just pure bio... Delaying the Hellbat bonus damage (yes they do more than just tank, they can actually deal with zealots cost-efficiently and actually kill them instead of just chipping away shields) will make zealot archon storm timings way too strong I think since without Hellbats being able to deal with chargelots, all the Terran can do is either make 5+ bunkers and try to defend until we have ghosts, or rely on insane bio splitting + the protoss player missing a few storms. | ||
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XXXSmOke
United States1333 Posts
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captainwaffles
United States1050 Posts
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Magica
New Zealand13 Posts
On July 09 2013 10:45 XXXSmOke wrote: A lot of people are not considering is that when you take a mainstream build from a race the other race has fewer things to consider and thus can read his opponent more effectively. Most terran builds are pretty transparent anyway (addons/armory/# of production facilities pretty much give everything away) so I don't think it's an issue. | ||
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MooLen
Germany501 Posts
And still Terrans can avoid the mothership core in the mainfight when they are active with drops. Because on the protoss side you are consantly scared that you get catched off guard while you push so you let the MC at home. And regarding Banshee i can´t agree with your points aswell because you need either way an oracle or 2 observers (one at natu, one at main) which is causing a massive delay when you want to go early collosus + the costs for the terran are evening out with the costs of the protoss, atleast gaswise. | ||
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