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On August 14 2013 00:30 Thalandros wrote:Now I don't see this happen a lot in games aside from the ones I and a few of my friends play, and that's probably why it's getting buffed, but as Zerg I really don't know the actually solid composition against raven/BC. Hydralisks just don't do the damage before they die.  If mech upgrades were to 100% count as air upgrades, I could see that being a problem, with or without vipers.
I really see the Hydralisk as the core of all the Zerg-related issues.
Void Rays supported with any sort of splash damage seems to be fairly problematic because Hydras just aren't even viable. With fungals, abducts, and everything else available to Zerg, Hydralisks STILL die in seconds, they're just not resilient enough.
Raven/bc isn't much of an issue right now, but I would agree with you that it could become one, and as soon as it does, Zerg will have no answer, again, because Hydras just die instantly when any sort of splash damage is involved.
Oddly enough, I think a buff to Hydralisks would be the perfect solution to the current MMMM issue. The problem seems to be that Zerg can't hold an area without losing 2/3 of their ground army. A Hydra(with a buff)/Roach/Baneling/Viper(without the buff) army would be able to hold this just fine. WE MIGHT ACTUALLY SEE CONTENTION OVER MIDDLE GROUND AREAS if Hydras could provide some sort of ranged support against Terran armies.
There are lots of good options for buffing hydras. You could buff their armor to make them good vs small-damage, fast-hitting units like the marine, bc, and void ray (all potential problem units for Zerg) while still allowing Colossi, storms, and siege tanks to crush them. You could buff their HP to add more general survivability. You could buff their range. They already pay 150/150 for a +1 range upgrade, just make that a +2 range upgrade. They are flimsy enough and expensive enough, I don't think 7 range would necessarily be an issue, but of course, we would have to see...
I don't understand why they hate the hydralisk so much in SC2...
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On August 14 2013 00:35 Lukeeze[zR] wrote:Show nested quote +On August 14 2013 00:19 mothergoose729 wrote:
Just a thought about vipers vs mech upgrades in tvz....
Maybe terran can afford to go defensive mech into sky terran instead of maxing out on tanks? Abduct is ok against BCs and ravens, but its not awesome sauce. Blinding cloud is about 1000% more effective against mech on the offense. if you have spread tanks on high ground behind a planetary than blinding cloud just doesn't work very well, unless you are going to abudct and blind every single seige tank individually.
Also, sky terran has no hard counter for zerg. The hardest part of going sky terran was getting the bases and the upgrades. Upgrade problem solved now, sounds not that bad to me. It would be a boring meta. And if I know my opponent is turtling with a fairly low ammount of tanks because he's planning to go mass startports, I'd just siege him with SH's.
30s of theory crafting on both of our parts and the meta already got more interesting. People complain to much. If blizzard wants to risk fucking up the game a little bit to make more strategies viable I think that is an appropriate risk. People complain the game doesn't have enough strategic depth but belly ache every time blizzard tries to widen the spectrum of viable possibilities.
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On August 14 2013 00:47 mothergoose729 wrote:Show nested quote +On August 14 2013 00:35 Lukeeze[zR] wrote:On August 14 2013 00:19 mothergoose729 wrote:
Just a thought about vipers vs mech upgrades in tvz....
Maybe terran can afford to go defensive mech into sky terran instead of maxing out on tanks? Abduct is ok against BCs and ravens, but its not awesome sauce. Blinding cloud is about 1000% more effective against mech on the offense. if you have spread tanks on high ground behind a planetary than blinding cloud just doesn't work very well, unless you are going to abudct and blind every single seige tank individually.
Also, sky terran has no hard counter for zerg. The hardest part of going sky terran was getting the bases and the upgrades. Upgrade problem solved now, sounds not that bad to me. It would be a boring meta. And if I know my opponent is turtling with a fairly low ammount of tanks because he's planning to go mass startports, I'd just siege him with SH's. 30s of theory crafting on both of our parts and the meta already got more interesting. People complain to much. If blizzard wants to risk fucking up the game a little bit to make more strategies viable I think that is an appropriate risk. People complain the game doesn't have enough strategic depth but belly ache every time blizzard tries to widen the spectrum of viable possibilities.
Yeah, I love how people complain about a stale metagame, yet also complain about making the game unstable. I think a more robust game requires more options and variety. People become to invested in a single build or play style and get really bent out of shape when some balance change comes along threatening to force them to change.
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On August 14 2013 00:24 Jermstuddog wrote:Show nested quote +On August 14 2013 00:02 MasterDrone wrote:On August 13 2013 20:45 PopoChampion wrote:
Coming from a high masters player on KR, I feel like the overseer change is good but the main problems of ZvT are not the detection of the widow mines but rather how strong they are in the late game when the bio is strong enough to kill all the lings you send in as bait to set off the mines before the mines are set off. Due to this, the mines are always in the fight and with how many you can make off 4 base, they will do huge damage to your army. Splitting is helpful but the terran should win the fight if they're not in a terrible position against ling bane muta. If they're going ultras the widow mines do so much damage to them, making them easy targets for the bio. The only time you have a decent chance is when you have infestor ultra, which is where it comes down to control, but I truly feel like it's up to the terran to screw up and get a huge chunk of his army fungalled. I'll second this. One thing to add is: MMMM have range attack. That's why Terran splitting works. In contrast, lings & bane needs to stay together so they can reach enemy units to cause damage. Splitting them as a bait will get killed & failed immediately when Terran has 2-2 and a decent amount of army. Both of you are completely ignoring the fact that 4 base T is not the issue, it's 3 base T. I don't really know why Blizzard is going with viper and overseer buffs, I don't see how it really helps, but the problem is that 3 base T can just rally endless MMMM to the most convenient Zerg base WHILE TAKING THEIR 4th, and Zerg can't do anything about it. Attacking into mines is guaranteed to cost you pretty much all your ground army, and while you're trying to rebuild your lings and blings, Terran ALREADY has 20+ marines walking toward the same base with 14+ spawning every 30 seconds, and that's not even counting mines. Zerg has lacked a meaningful, cost-effective counter to the marine since the release of the game, and with the new cheap and effective mine, it makes the marine problem even worse.That's the current problem I see in top-level TvZ. It seems like they're trying to force Zerg into using Vipers to bridge the gap, but I don't see how. Considering that nothing in that whole army is worth abducting, how fast Marines move (out of blinding cloud), the fact that blinding cloud doesn't even affect mines, I don't know how that's supposed to help. Not to mention the huge gas cost, the resource that Zerg is constantly lacking at that point in the game. I don't know WTF they're thinking. All I can say is I hope DK knows something we don't about the unit interactions involved...
That's not true. If you count WoL beta, Zerg had roaches which were designed to counter marines and force marauders/tanks/air units instead. But they got nerfed because Protoss couldn't deal with them. (I wish they had stuck with 2armor roaches and had nerfed their HP instead, so that they would still be useful against marines)
And then in early 2011, Fungal got changed a few times, and suddenly you could shut down pure marine play in the midgame without going melee upgrades+banelings everygame.
And ultras have always been quite good against marines.
So Zerg had options.
Now in HotS, fungal got nerfed and the ultralisk buffed instead... which now means that zerg has one (really powerful: ultralisk) and a half (banelings; because they are a very wacky way to trade with marines) counters to marines - both on the melee upgrade path. Which has extinct all the midgame strategies (ling/infestor, roach into infestor, roach/hydra into infestors) that were blooming in WoL and that weren't ling/bling.
It's sad because there was a good dynamic in TvZ: Terrans going marine/tank, or bio or mech in the midgame, zerg having a lot of styles against it. And when the marine numbers got high, Zerg could transition into infestors and Terrans into more tanks (2-3factory transitions) against them. It's just that then the game flipped, because Infestor/Broodlord was too good against tank/viking and any form of Terran airtransition basically unreachable (unless it was a shit map or Terran had a big advantage). Which meant Zergs had a 5min window to win or cripple a Terran that had to rely on tanks to keep infestors back.
But from their comments, I'd say that blizzard has realized this "problem" (it's not a balance problem, but it means that zergs can only tech in one way if they want to play a macrogame). That's why they try to push the viper, as the viper is a unit that you can transition into from any composition as zerg. And a useful Viper against bioterran would give roach and roach/hydra based play a way to transition into a useful lategame, without falling behind because of transitioning into unupgraded units like Ultralisks or Broodlords.
The question is, how to change the viper so that it works against bioterran (and isn't broken against other races/playstyles).
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On August 14 2013 00:50 Big J wrote:Show nested quote +On August 14 2013 00:24 Jermstuddog wrote:On August 14 2013 00:02 MasterDrone wrote:On August 13 2013 20:45 PopoChampion wrote:
Coming from a high masters player on KR, I feel like the overseer change is good but the main problems of ZvT are not the detection of the widow mines but rather how strong they are in the late game when the bio is strong enough to kill all the lings you send in as bait to set off the mines before the mines are set off. Due to this, the mines are always in the fight and with how many you can make off 4 base, they will do huge damage to your army. Splitting is helpful but the terran should win the fight if they're not in a terrible position against ling bane muta. If they're going ultras the widow mines do so much damage to them, making them easy targets for the bio. The only time you have a decent chance is when you have infestor ultra, which is where it comes down to control, but I truly feel like it's up to the terran to screw up and get a huge chunk of his army fungalled. I'll second this. One thing to add is: MMMM have range attack. That's why Terran splitting works. In contrast, lings & bane needs to stay together so they can reach enemy units to cause damage. Splitting them as a bait will get killed & failed immediately when Terran has 2-2 and a decent amount of army. Both of you are completely ignoring the fact that 4 base T is not the issue, it's 3 base T. I don't really know why Blizzard is going with viper and overseer buffs, I don't see how it really helps, but the problem is that 3 base T can just rally endless MMMM to the most convenient Zerg base WHILE TAKING THEIR 4th, and Zerg can't do anything about it. Attacking into mines is guaranteed to cost you pretty much all your ground army, and while you're trying to rebuild your lings and blings, Terran ALREADY has 20+ marines walking toward the same base with 14+ spawning every 30 seconds, and that's not even counting mines. Zerg has lacked a meaningful, cost-effective counter to the marine since the release of the game, and with the new cheap and effective mine, it makes the marine problem even worse.That's the current problem I see in top-level TvZ. It seems like they're trying to force Zerg into using Vipers to bridge the gap, but I don't see how. Considering that nothing in that whole army is worth abducting, how fast Marines move (out of blinding cloud), the fact that blinding cloud doesn't even affect mines, I don't know how that's supposed to help. Not to mention the huge gas cost, the resource that Zerg is constantly lacking at that point in the game. I don't know WTF they're thinking. All I can say is I hope DK knows something we don't about the unit interactions involved... That's not true. If you count WoL beta, Zerg had roaches which were designed to counter marines and force marauders/tanks/air units instead. But they got nerfed because Protoss couldn't deal with them. (I wish they had stuck with 2armor roaches and had nerfed their HP instead, so that they would still be useful against marines) And then in early 2011, Fungal got changed a few times, and suddenly you could shut down pure marine play in the midgame without going melee upgrades+banelings everygame. And ultras have always been quite good against marines. So Zerg had options. Now in HotS, fungal got nerfed and the ultralisk buffed instead... which now means that zerg has one (really powerful: ultralisk) and a half (banelings; because they are a very wacky way to trade with marines) counters to marines - both on the melee upgrade path. Which has extinct all the midgame strategies (ling/infestor, roach into infestor, roach/hydra into infestors) that were blooming in WoL and that weren't ling/bling. It's sad because there was a good dynamic in TvZ: Terrans going marine/tank, or bio or mech in the midgame, zerg having a lot of styles against it. And when the marine numbers got high, Zerg could transition into infestors and Terrans into more tanks (2-3factory transitions) against them. It's just that then the game flipped, because Infestor/Broodlord was too good against tank/viking and any form of Terran airtransition basically unreachable (unless it was a shit map or Terran had a big advantage). Which meant Zergs had a 5min window to win or cripple a Terran that had to rely on tanks to keep infestors back. But from their comments, I'd say that blizzard has realized this "problem" (it's not a balance problem, but it means that zergs can only tech in one way if they want to play a macrogame). That's why they try to push the viper, as the viper is a unit that you can transition into from any composition as zerg. And a useful Viper against bioterran would give roach and roach/hydra based play a way to transition into a useful lategame, without falling behind because of transitioning into unupgraded units like Ultralisks or Broodlords.
I say "since release" and you immediately start talking about beta...
Beyond that, every single counter you mention is heavy on gas, and still struggles to deal with Marines, while effective, they are not what I would call a COUNTER like you would consider a Siege Tank, Colossus or High Templar. I would consider both the WoL Infestor and the current Ultralisk more akin to the Archon relationship with marines: Good enough, but not great.
And again, the problem I see is even with full energy, how the hell is a viper supposed to help vs MMMM?
(I don't exactly disagree with you Big J, I just think the Marines have been a pretty big issue for Zerg throughout the history of SC2)
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They should just give hydras the range upgrade for free. It's a decent unit but 300/300 in essential upgrades + a ton of research time makes their window of opportunity (before AOE damage becomes overwhelming) so tiny. Needing just 1 upgrade also makes it easier to mix smaller numbers of hydras to your armies when its not such a huge commitment to do so.
Messing with the core stats of an unit seems dangerous and unpredictable to me.
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On August 14 2013 00:43 Jermstuddog wrote:Show nested quote +On August 14 2013 00:30 Thalandros wrote:Now I don't see this happen a lot in games aside from the ones I and a few of my friends play, and that's probably why it's getting buffed, but as Zerg I really don't know the actually solid composition against raven/BC. Hydralisks just don't do the damage before they die. If mech upgrades were to 100% count as air upgrades, I could see that being a problem, with or without vipers. I really see the Hydralisk as the core of all the Zerg-related issues. Void Rays supported with any sort of splash damage seems to be fairly problematic because Hydras just aren't even viable. With fungals, abducts, and everything else available to Zerg, Hydralisks STILL die in seconds, they're just not resilient enough. Raven/bc isn't much of an issue right now, but I would agree with you that it could become one, and as soon as it does, Zerg will have no answer, again, because Hydras just die instantly when any sort of splash damage is involved. Oddly enough, I think a buff to Hydralisks would be the perfect solution to the current MMMM issue. The problem seems to be that Zerg can't hold an area without losing 2/3 of their ground army. A Hydra(with a buff)/Roach/Baneling/Viper(without the buff) army would be able to hold this just fine. WE MIGHT ACTUALLY SEE CONTENTION OVER MIDDLE GROUND AREAS if Hydras could provide some sort of ranged support against Terran armies. There are lots of good options for buffing hydras. You could buff their armor to make them good vs small-damage, fast-hitting units like the marine, bc, and void ray (all potential problem units for Zerg) while still allowing Colossi, storms, and siege tanks to crush them. You could buff their HP to add more general survivability. You could buff their range. They already pay 150/150 for a +1 range upgrade, just make that a +2 range upgrade. They are flimsy enough and expensive enough, I don't think 7 range would necessarily be an issue, but of course, we would have to see... I don't understand why they hate the hydralisk so much in SC2...
They're generally wary of buffing "all-purpose" units (meaning, T1 and T2 Units that hit both ground and air), because they never want to create a situation where players can just mass one kind of unit and have it be effective against most compositions (even Void Rays, who did get buffed in HotS, simultaneously had their supply cost nerfed so that while they're good in small numbers, they're crappy when massed against all but a few compositions like Swarm Host+Static D turtling). It's the same reason why Stalker DPS for cost has always been and always will be terrible--if it wasn't, people would just build Stalkers. In the case of Hydras, their weakness is that they are glass cannons, and I don't see Blizzard changing that any time soon--especially since Zerg production mechanics mean that units like Hydras can be massed very easily. Forcing Zerg to get a bunch of upgrades is one way to counteract the fact that the units themselves can typically be built in huge numbers in a way that isn't possible for other races. If Hydras wen't fragile, there'd be no need to mix in any other unit type with them prior to Hive Tech.
That said, I'm not necessarily opposed to a Hydra buff, I'd just much rather see a buff that improved their strengths, rather than one which mitigated their weaknesses, because it is their weaknesses that keep players from simply massing pure Hydra.
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that viper buff need instant chuck norris round house kick to the balls to iot who even think about it.......
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On August 14 2013 00:58 awesomoecalypse wrote:Show nested quote +On August 14 2013 00:43 Jermstuddog wrote:On August 14 2013 00:30 Thalandros wrote:Now I don't see this happen a lot in games aside from the ones I and a few of my friends play, and that's probably why it's getting buffed, but as Zerg I really don't know the actually solid composition against raven/BC. Hydralisks just don't do the damage before they die. If mech upgrades were to 100% count as air upgrades, I could see that being a problem, with or without vipers. I really see the Hydralisk as the core of all the Zerg-related issues. Void Rays supported with any sort of splash damage seems to be fairly problematic because Hydras just aren't even viable. With fungals, abducts, and everything else available to Zerg, Hydralisks STILL die in seconds, they're just not resilient enough. Raven/bc isn't much of an issue right now, but I would agree with you that it could become one, and as soon as it does, Zerg will have no answer, again, because Hydras just die instantly when any sort of splash damage is involved. Oddly enough, I think a buff to Hydralisks would be the perfect solution to the current MMMM issue. The problem seems to be that Zerg can't hold an area without losing 2/3 of their ground army. A Hydra(with a buff)/Roach/Baneling/Viper(without the buff) army would be able to hold this just fine. WE MIGHT ACTUALLY SEE CONTENTION OVER MIDDLE GROUND AREAS if Hydras could provide some sort of ranged support against Terran armies. There are lots of good options for buffing hydras. You could buff their armor to make them good vs small-damage, fast-hitting units like the marine, bc, and void ray (all potential problem units for Zerg) while still allowing Colossi, storms, and siege tanks to crush them. You could buff their HP to add more general survivability. You could buff their range. They already pay 150/150 for a +1 range upgrade, just make that a +2 range upgrade. They are flimsy enough and expensive enough, I don't think 7 range would necessarily be an issue, but of course, we would have to see... I don't understand why they hate the hydralisk so much in SC2... They're generally wary of buffing "all-purpose" units (meaning, T1 and T2 Units that hit both ground and air), because they never want to create a situation where players can just mass one kind of unit and have it be effective against most compositions (even Void Rays, who did get buffed in HotS, simultaneously had their supply cost nerfed so that while they're good in small numbers, they're crappy when massed against all but a few compositions like Swarm Host+Static D turtling). It's the same reason why Stalker DPS for cost has always been and always will be terrible--if it wasn't, people would just build Stalkers. In the case of Hydras, their weakness is that they are glass cannons, and I don't see Blizzard changing that any time soon--especially since Zerg production mechanics mean that units like Hydras can be massed very easily. Forcing Zerg to get a bunch of upgrades is one way to counteract the fact that the units themselves can typically be built in huge numbers in a way that isn't possible for other races. If Hydras wen't fragile, there'd be no need to mix in any other unit type with them prior to Hive Tech. That said, I'm not necessarily opposed to a Hydra buff, I'd just much rather see a buff that improved their strengths, rather than one which mitigated their weaknesses, because it is their weaknesses that keep players from simply massing pure Hydra.
So the range buff then? All you had to say was "I like the range buff better than the other two examples"
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On August 14 2013 01:00 Jermstuddog wrote:Show nested quote +On August 14 2013 00:58 awesomoecalypse wrote:On August 14 2013 00:43 Jermstuddog wrote:On August 14 2013 00:30 Thalandros wrote:Now I don't see this happen a lot in games aside from the ones I and a few of my friends play, and that's probably why it's getting buffed, but as Zerg I really don't know the actually solid composition against raven/BC. Hydralisks just don't do the damage before they die. If mech upgrades were to 100% count as air upgrades, I could see that being a problem, with or without vipers. I really see the Hydralisk as the core of all the Zerg-related issues. Void Rays supported with any sort of splash damage seems to be fairly problematic because Hydras just aren't even viable. With fungals, abducts, and everything else available to Zerg, Hydralisks STILL die in seconds, they're just not resilient enough. Raven/bc isn't much of an issue right now, but I would agree with you that it could become one, and as soon as it does, Zerg will have no answer, again, because Hydras just die instantly when any sort of splash damage is involved. Oddly enough, I think a buff to Hydralisks would be the perfect solution to the current MMMM issue. The problem seems to be that Zerg can't hold an area without losing 2/3 of their ground army. A Hydra(with a buff)/Roach/Baneling/Viper(without the buff) army would be able to hold this just fine. WE MIGHT ACTUALLY SEE CONTENTION OVER MIDDLE GROUND AREAS if Hydras could provide some sort of ranged support against Terran armies. There are lots of good options for buffing hydras. You could buff their armor to make them good vs small-damage, fast-hitting units like the marine, bc, and void ray (all potential problem units for Zerg) while still allowing Colossi, storms, and siege tanks to crush them. You could buff their HP to add more general survivability. You could buff their range. They already pay 150/150 for a +1 range upgrade, just make that a +2 range upgrade. They are flimsy enough and expensive enough, I don't think 7 range would necessarily be an issue, but of course, we would have to see... I don't understand why they hate the hydralisk so much in SC2... They're generally wary of buffing "all-purpose" units (meaning, T1 and T2 Units that hit both ground and air), because they never want to create a situation where players can just mass one kind of unit and have it be effective against most compositions (even Void Rays, who did get buffed in HotS, simultaneously had their supply cost nerfed so that while they're good in small numbers, they're crappy when massed against all but a few compositions like Swarm Host+Static D turtling). It's the same reason why Stalker DPS for cost has always been and always will be terrible--if it wasn't, people would just build Stalkers. In the case of Hydras, their weakness is that they are glass cannons, and I don't see Blizzard changing that any time soon--especially since Zerg production mechanics mean that units like Hydras can be massed very easily. Forcing Zerg to get a bunch of upgrades is one way to counteract the fact that the units themselves can typically be built in huge numbers in a way that isn't possible for other races. If Hydras wen't fragile, there'd be no need to mix in any other unit type with them prior to Hive Tech. That said, I'm not necessarily opposed to a Hydra buff, I'd just much rather see a buff that improved their strengths, rather than one which mitigated their weaknesses, because it is their weaknesses that keep players from simply massing pure Hydra. So the range buff then? All you had to say was "I like the range buff better than the other two examples"
Possibly, although I think a better place to start would be buffing their speed prior to the upgrade, or reducing the cost/research time of the upgrade (or even removing the need for a speed upgrade entirely).
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On August 14 2013 00:55 Jermstuddog wrote:Show nested quote +On August 14 2013 00:50 Big J wrote:On August 14 2013 00:24 Jermstuddog wrote:On August 14 2013 00:02 MasterDrone wrote:On August 13 2013 20:45 PopoChampion wrote:
Coming from a high masters player on KR, I feel like the overseer change is good but the main problems of ZvT are not the detection of the widow mines but rather how strong they are in the late game when the bio is strong enough to kill all the lings you send in as bait to set off the mines before the mines are set off. Due to this, the mines are always in the fight and with how many you can make off 4 base, they will do huge damage to your army. Splitting is helpful but the terran should win the fight if they're not in a terrible position against ling bane muta. If they're going ultras the widow mines do so much damage to them, making them easy targets for the bio. The only time you have a decent chance is when you have infestor ultra, which is where it comes down to control, but I truly feel like it's up to the terran to screw up and get a huge chunk of his army fungalled. I'll second this. One thing to add is: MMMM have range attack. That's why Terran splitting works. In contrast, lings & bane needs to stay together so they can reach enemy units to cause damage. Splitting them as a bait will get killed & failed immediately when Terran has 2-2 and a decent amount of army. Both of you are completely ignoring the fact that 4 base T is not the issue, it's 3 base T. I don't really know why Blizzard is going with viper and overseer buffs, I don't see how it really helps, but the problem is that 3 base T can just rally endless MMMM to the most convenient Zerg base WHILE TAKING THEIR 4th, and Zerg can't do anything about it. Attacking into mines is guaranteed to cost you pretty much all your ground army, and while you're trying to rebuild your lings and blings, Terran ALREADY has 20+ marines walking toward the same base with 14+ spawning every 30 seconds, and that's not even counting mines. Zerg has lacked a meaningful, cost-effective counter to the marine since the release of the game, and with the new cheap and effective mine, it makes the marine problem even worse.That's the current problem I see in top-level TvZ. It seems like they're trying to force Zerg into using Vipers to bridge the gap, but I don't see how. Considering that nothing in that whole army is worth abducting, how fast Marines move (out of blinding cloud), the fact that blinding cloud doesn't even affect mines, I don't know how that's supposed to help. Not to mention the huge gas cost, the resource that Zerg is constantly lacking at that point in the game. I don't know WTF they're thinking. All I can say is I hope DK knows something we don't about the unit interactions involved... That's not true. If you count WoL beta, Zerg had roaches which were designed to counter marines and force marauders/tanks/air units instead. But they got nerfed because Protoss couldn't deal with them. (I wish they had stuck with 2armor roaches and had nerfed their HP instead, so that they would still be useful against marines) And then in early 2011, Fungal got changed a few times, and suddenly you could shut down pure marine play in the midgame without going melee upgrades+banelings everygame. And ultras have always been quite good against marines. So Zerg had options. Now in HotS, fungal got nerfed and the ultralisk buffed instead... which now means that zerg has one (really powerful: ultralisk) and a half (banelings; because they are a very wacky way to trade with marines) counters to marines - both on the melee upgrade path. Which has extinct all the midgame strategies (ling/infestor, roach into infestor, roach/hydra into infestors) that were blooming in WoL and that weren't ling/bling. It's sad because there was a good dynamic in TvZ: Terrans going marine/tank, or bio or mech in the midgame, zerg having a lot of styles against it. And when the marine numbers got high, Zerg could transition into infestors and Terrans into more tanks (2-3factory transitions) against them. It's just that then the game flipped, because Infestor/Broodlord was too good against tank/viking and any form of Terran airtransition basically unreachable (unless it was a shit map or Terran had a big advantage). Which meant Zergs had a 5min window to win or cripple a Terran that had to rely on tanks to keep infestors back. But from their comments, I'd say that blizzard has realized this "problem" (it's not a balance problem, but it means that zergs can only tech in one way if they want to play a macrogame). That's why they try to push the viper, as the viper is a unit that you can transition into from any composition as zerg. And a useful Viper against bioterran would give roach and roach/hydra based play a way to transition into a useful lategame, without falling behind because of transitioning into unupgraded units like Ultralisks or Broodlords. I say "since release" and you immediately start talking about beta... Beyond that, every single counter you mention is heavy on gas, and still struggles to deal with Marines, while effective, they are not what I would call a COUNTER like you would consider a Siege Tank, Colossus or High Templar. I would consider both the WoL Infestor and the current Ultralisk more akin to the Archon relationship with marines: Good enough, but not great. And again, the problem I see is even with full energy, how the hell is a viper supposed to help vs MMMM? (I don't exactly disagree with you Big J, I just think the Marines have been a pretty big issue for Zerg throughout the history of SC2)
If you think that WoL Infestor and current Ultralisk are only as good against Marines as Archons then you are missing something. While i agree that Widow Mines are too strong in TvZ i would hate to see Zerg players getting a better way of dealing with Marines. Infestors and Ultralisks are already very strong, and if you add a few Vipers that should be more than sufficient. We don't want more hardcounters in this game. Units that hardcounter another unit is the single best way to ensure minimal micro action.
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There are already some very strong Roach/Hydra timings in TvZ where mines absolutely do nothing, and atleast 5/6 siege tanks are required on some maps with more open ground to hold a 3rd.
Reducing cost of hydra would be a viable option, but don't buff hydra damage. That would be ridiculous.
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why are we talking about buffing the hydra now?
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What a huge TvP change, this will be very very big  , probably seeing extra armor on vikings now instead of weapons , this will be a very big change :D
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On August 14 2013 00:50 Big J wrote:Show nested quote +On August 14 2013 00:24 Jermstuddog wrote:On August 14 2013 00:02 MasterDrone wrote:On August 13 2013 20:45 PopoChampion wrote:
Coming from a high masters player on KR, I feel like the overseer change is good but the main problems of ZvT are not the detection of the widow mines but rather how strong they are in the late game when the bio is strong enough to kill all the lings you send in as bait to set off the mines before the mines are set off. Due to this, the mines are always in the fight and with how many you can make off 4 base, they will do huge damage to your army. Splitting is helpful but the terran should win the fight if they're not in a terrible position against ling bane muta. If they're going ultras the widow mines do so much damage to them, making them easy targets for the bio. The only time you have a decent chance is when you have infestor ultra, which is where it comes down to control, but I truly feel like it's up to the terran to screw up and get a huge chunk of his army fungalled. I'll second this. One thing to add is: MMMM have range attack. That's why Terran splitting works. In contrast, lings & bane needs to stay together so they can reach enemy units to cause damage. Splitting them as a bait will get killed & failed immediately when Terran has 2-2 and a decent amount of army. Both of you are completely ignoring the fact that 4 base T is not the issue, it's 3 base T. I don't really know why Blizzard is going with viper and overseer buffs, I don't see how it really helps, but the problem is that 3 base T can just rally endless MMMM to the most convenient Zerg base WHILE TAKING THEIR 4th, and Zerg can't do anything about it. Attacking into mines is guaranteed to cost you pretty much all your ground army, and while you're trying to rebuild your lings and blings, Terran ALREADY has 20+ marines walking toward the same base with 14+ spawning every 30 seconds, and that's not even counting mines. Zerg has lacked a meaningful, cost-effective counter to the marine since the release of the game, and with the new cheap and effective mine, it makes the marine problem even worse.That's the current problem I see in top-level TvZ. It seems like they're trying to force Zerg into using Vipers to bridge the gap, but I don't see how. Considering that nothing in that whole army is worth abducting, how fast Marines move (out of blinding cloud), the fact that blinding cloud doesn't even affect mines, I don't know how that's supposed to help. Not to mention the huge gas cost, the resource that Zerg is constantly lacking at that point in the game. I don't know WTF they're thinking. All I can say is I hope DK knows something we don't about the unit interactions involved... That's not true. If you count WoL beta, Zerg had roaches which were designed to counter marines and force marauders/tanks/air units instead. But they got nerfed because Protoss couldn't deal with them. (I wish they had stuck with 2armor roaches and had nerfed their HP instead, so that they would still be useful against marines) And then in early 2011, Fungal got changed a few times, and suddenly you could shut down pure marine play in the midgame without going melee upgrades+banelings everygame. And ultras have always been quite good against marines. So Zerg had options. Now in HotS, fungal got nerfed and the ultralisk buffed instead... which now means that zerg has one (really powerful: ultralisk) and a half (banelings; because they are a very wacky way to trade with marines) counters to marines - both on the melee upgrade path. Which has extinct all the midgame strategies (ling/infestor, roach into infestor, roach/hydra into infestors) that were blooming in WoL and that weren't ling/bling. It's sad because there was a good dynamic in TvZ: Terrans going marine/tank, or bio or mech in the midgame, zerg having a lot of styles against it. And when the marine numbers got high, Zerg could transition into infestors and Terrans into more tanks (2-3factory transitions) against them. It's just that then the game flipped, because Infestor/Broodlord was too good against tank/viking and any form of Terran airtransition basically unreachable (unless it was a shit map or Terran had a big advantage). Which meant Zergs had a 5min window to win or cripple a Terran that had to rely on tanks to keep infestors back. But from their comments, I'd say that blizzard has realized this "problem" (it's not a balance problem, but it means that zergs can only tech in one way if they want to play a macrogame). That's why they try to push the viper, as the viper is a unit that you can transition into from any composition as zerg. And a useful Viper against bioterran would give roach and roach/hydra based play a way to transition into a useful lategame, without falling behind because of transitioning into unupgraded units like Ultralisks or Broodlords. The question is, how to change the viper so that it works against bioterran (and isn't broken against other races/playstyles).
I'm not sure how these would help. The problem is, your supposed counters to bio counter siege tanks and mech harder than they counter bio. Ultralisks counter marines but marauders do a good job against them. Blinding cloud and abduct are more powerful against siege tanks than they are against bio.
Let's go back to BW TvZ. The lurker is able to counter marines but is vulnerable to spider mines. It is outranged by siege tanks, even in tank mode. The defiler's dark swarm punishes ranged units but the siege tank's splash damage still works against units under the cloud. In order for a terran to counter lurkers and defilers, they have to wait until science vessels come out and irradiate to finish researching.
What is missing in the zerg arsenal in SC2 is a counter to bio that forces the terran to tech up to counter it. By tech up, I don't mean switching some marines to marauders or going 3/3. Ravens come out earlier than science vessels but don't have anything as powerful as irradiate against zerg. Roaches and ultralisks can be countered just by switching some marines to marauders. Brood lords in sufficient quantities force the terran to supplement their bio force with vikings but ultimately does little to change the dynamic of the matchup.
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On August 14 2013 01:24 renaissanceMAN wrote:
why are we talking about buffing the hydra now?
Because nobody understands how buffing the Viper is supposed to help TvZ.
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On August 14 2013 00:43 Jermstuddog wrote:Show nested quote +On August 14 2013 00:30 Thalandros wrote:Now I don't see this happen a lot in games aside from the ones I and a few of my friends play, and that's probably why it's getting buffed, but as Zerg I really don't know the actually solid composition against raven/BC. Hydralisks just don't do the damage before they die. If mech upgrades were to 100% count as air upgrades, I could see that being a problem, with or without vipers. I really see the Hydralisk as the core of all the Zerg-related issues. Void Rays supported with any sort of splash damage seems to be fairly problematic because Hydras just aren't even viable. With fungals, abducts, and everything else available to Zerg, Hydralisks STILL die in seconds, they're just not resilient enough. Raven/bc isn't much of an issue right now, but I would agree with you that it could become one, and as soon as it does, Zerg will have no answer, again, because Hydras just die instantly when any sort of splash damage is involved. Oddly enough, I think a buff to Hydralisks would be the perfect solution to the current MMMM issue. The problem seems to be that Zerg can't hold an area without losing 2/3 of their ground army. A Hydra(with a buff)/Roach/Baneling/Viper(without the buff) army would be able to hold this just fine. WE MIGHT ACTUALLY SEE CONTENTION OVER MIDDLE GROUND AREAS if Hydras could provide some sort of ranged support against Terran armies. There are lots of good options for buffing hydras. You could buff their armor to make them good vs small-damage, fast-hitting units like the marine, bc, and void ray (all potential problem units for Zerg) while still allowing Colossi, storms, and siege tanks to crush them. You could buff their HP to add more general survivability. You could buff their range. They already pay 150/150 for a +1 range upgrade, just make that a +2 range upgrade. They are flimsy enough and expensive enough, I don't think 7 range would necessarily be an issue, but of course, we would have to see... I don't understand why they hate the hydralisk so much in SC2...
The problem of the Hydralisk is called larva inject. A race with a production as strong as Zerg's simply cannot have a super good ranged unit, hence the cost/supply inflation to balance the absurd production/remax rate. Roaches/Hydras concaves are already brutal enough and I'm fairly sure neither Terran nor Protoss could handle a 7 range Hydralisk.
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On August 14 2013 01:26 Jermstuddog wrote:Show nested quote +On August 14 2013 01:24 renaissanceMAN wrote:
why are we talking about buffing the hydra now? Because nobody understands how buffing the Viper is supposed to help TvZ.
Its not going to do anything in TvZ, and I'm not sure it's intended to. It will literally only change the metagame in one way--PvZ Collossus timings designed to hit before Vipers have energy will be nerfed.
That's it. The Overseer change may have marginal impact on TvZ, in that currently Zerg nearly always lose Overseers when they try to retreat from Terran because the Overseers lag behind and get picked off, so this may prevent that. But that's a fairly minor change.
Which I think is sort of the point. These are not changes designed to completely revamp the game and change the metagame. They're meant to be minor tweaks.
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On August 14 2013 01:24 renaissanceMAN wrote:
why are we talking about buffing the hydra now? Because it's a really fucking shit unit that needs some lovin'.
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On August 14 2013 00:55 Jermstuddog wrote:Show nested quote +On August 14 2013 00:50 Big J wrote:On August 14 2013 00:24 Jermstuddog wrote:On August 14 2013 00:02 MasterDrone wrote:On August 13 2013 20:45 PopoChampion wrote:
Coming from a high masters player on KR, I feel like the overseer change is good but the main problems of ZvT are not the detection of the widow mines but rather how strong they are in the late game when the bio is strong enough to kill all the lings you send in as bait to set off the mines before the mines are set off. Due to this, the mines are always in the fight and with how many you can make off 4 base, they will do huge damage to your army. Splitting is helpful but the terran should win the fight if they're not in a terrible position against ling bane muta. If they're going ultras the widow mines do so much damage to them, making them easy targets for the bio. The only time you have a decent chance is when you have infestor ultra, which is where it comes down to control, but I truly feel like it's up to the terran to screw up and get a huge chunk of his army fungalled. I'll second this. One thing to add is: MMMM have range attack. That's why Terran splitting works. In contrast, lings & bane needs to stay together so they can reach enemy units to cause damage. Splitting them as a bait will get killed & failed immediately when Terran has 2-2 and a decent amount of army. Both of you are completely ignoring the fact that 4 base T is not the issue, it's 3 base T. I don't really know why Blizzard is going with viper and overseer buffs, I don't see how it really helps, but the problem is that 3 base T can just rally endless MMMM to the most convenient Zerg base WHILE TAKING THEIR 4th, and Zerg can't do anything about it. Attacking into mines is guaranteed to cost you pretty much all your ground army, and while you're trying to rebuild your lings and blings, Terran ALREADY has 20+ marines walking toward the same base with 14+ spawning every 30 seconds, and that's not even counting mines. Zerg has lacked a meaningful, cost-effective counter to the marine since the release of the game, and with the new cheap and effective mine, it makes the marine problem even worse.That's the current problem I see in top-level TvZ. It seems like they're trying to force Zerg into using Vipers to bridge the gap, but I don't see how. Considering that nothing in that whole army is worth abducting, how fast Marines move (out of blinding cloud), the fact that blinding cloud doesn't even affect mines, I don't know how that's supposed to help. Not to mention the huge gas cost, the resource that Zerg is constantly lacking at that point in the game. I don't know WTF they're thinking. All I can say is I hope DK knows something we don't about the unit interactions involved... That's not true. If you count WoL beta, Zerg had roaches which were designed to counter marines and force marauders/tanks/air units instead. But they got nerfed because Protoss couldn't deal with them. (I wish they had stuck with 2armor roaches and had nerfed their HP instead, so that they would still be useful against marines) And then in early 2011, Fungal got changed a few times, and suddenly you could shut down pure marine play in the midgame without going melee upgrades+banelings everygame. And ultras have always been quite good against marines. So Zerg had options. Now in HotS, fungal got nerfed and the ultralisk buffed instead... which now means that zerg has one (really powerful: ultralisk) and a half (banelings; because they are a very wacky way to trade with marines) counters to marines - both on the melee upgrade path. Which has extinct all the midgame strategies (ling/infestor, roach into infestor, roach/hydra into infestors) that were blooming in WoL and that weren't ling/bling. It's sad because there was a good dynamic in TvZ: Terrans going marine/tank, or bio or mech in the midgame, zerg having a lot of styles against it. And when the marine numbers got high, Zerg could transition into infestors and Terrans into more tanks (2-3factory transitions) against them. It's just that then the game flipped, because Infestor/Broodlord was too good against tank/viking and any form of Terran airtransition basically unreachable (unless it was a shit map or Terran had a big advantage). Which meant Zergs had a 5min window to win or cripple a Terran that had to rely on tanks to keep infestors back. But from their comments, I'd say that blizzard has realized this "problem" (it's not a balance problem, but it means that zergs can only tech in one way if they want to play a macrogame). That's why they try to push the viper, as the viper is a unit that you can transition into from any composition as zerg. And a useful Viper against bioterran would give roach and roach/hydra based play a way to transition into a useful lategame, without falling behind because of transitioning into unupgraded units like Ultralisks or Broodlords. I say "since release" and you immediately start talking about beta... Beyond that, every single counter you mention is heavy on gas, and still struggles to deal with Marines, while effective, they are not what I would call a COUNTER like you would consider a Siege Tank, Colossus or High Templar. I would consider both the WoL Infestor and the current Ultralisk more akin to the Archon relationship with marines: Good enough, but not great. And again, the problem I see is even with full energy, how the hell is a viper supposed to help vs MMMM? (I don't exactly disagree with you Big J, I just think the Marines have been a pretty big issue for Zerg throughout the history of SC2)
I agree with what you say, apart from two things:
- WoL Infestors/HotS Ultras were/are quite better than Archons vs marines. I think WoL Ultras would be a good comparison to Archons. Because yes, they win on amove, but spreading, kiting and mixing in few marauders and tanks was already enough to get even.
- I don't agree with high gascost making them less of a counter. It just means that those units should economywise be played with less gasintense support (zerglings, roaches), while the marines should economywise be played with gasintense support (medivacs, tanks)... or in either case you have to adjust your basemanagement to those units. (take less gases, take extra bases just for gas)
For the Viper, I'm half-half on whether this could help, the more I think about it. Like, the prime problem with blinding cloud against bio is how easy they are too dodge. Starting with 2 clouds does make it easier to cover bigger areas, so the clouds can't be dodged as easily/efficiently and it allows zergs to be quite a bit more wasteful with them. You may just be able to preemtively throw down a cloud or two sometimes and not get punished as much when the terran just sits behind it and waits before it runs out. The disadvantage of course stays that if a Terran just dodges those initial extra clouds or sits them out, we are in the same situation as right now, in which Vipers are not considered good vs bio.
But that's all very theoretical at this point. That's why blizzard is now waiting for feedback and then introducing a test map and waiting for more feedback.
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EPT
