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On August 22 2013 16:49 Decendos wrote:Show nested quote +On August 22 2013 15:02 Rabiator wrote:On August 22 2013 02:05 TheRabidDeer wrote:On August 21 2013 18:58 Rabiator wrote:On August 21 2013 17:53 TheRabidDeer wrote:On August 21 2013 17:39 Rabiator wrote:On August 21 2013 17:28 Shousan wrote:
The problem I see with TvZ is that mid/late game composition for T is basically the same just in higher numbers while establishing a fourth base while Z has to go higher on their tech tree while still matching constant production and attacks from T, this is why it always seemed as if Z needed to continue with a mid game composition of mass muta ling bling just because there's not enough time to tech up, establish more bases and defend multiple drops and pushes, and in the end it just becomes impossible to match a 3/3 terran army with that composition.
People have been trying to go for different compositions but they fail at constantly trading and killing key terran units (medivacs), the ultralisk buff isn't really that big of a deal because in order to fully take advantage of ultras you need infestors and that composition comes a little too late IMO, And even then, 50hp sounds just weird...
I'd love it if this in fact changed how TvZ plays out in the late stages of the game, but I'm not very optimistic, I think more areas should be explored, maybe a corruptor change could make a roach ling bling corruptor composition more viable (having another viable unit composition would be awesome) or 3/3 with infestation pit just to get more even trades and allow the Z to tech up...
I like the other changes, making mech more viable will be helpful to bring more diversity to all matchups which is always a good thing. Swap that part with "can go higher tech" ... nothing high tech on the Terran side makes any sense at all and even Ravens - which are awesome when you have the energy to use them - cant keep up with the reproduction rate of Zerg. Battlecruisers have been useless against Zerg ever since the first day of WoL and nothing has changed ... except that they are even more useless nowadays with Abduct added to the Zerg arsenal. + Show Spoiler +/trade WTB scrolls of Irradiate and Defensive Matrix to teach to Ravens since the stupid engineers seem to have forgotten its secrets in just five years. The reason for the "T3 problems" lie in the extremely high concentration of small AA units which maximizes their firepower while the "clump up punishing abilities" have been nerfed. Even Seeker Missile gets a five second warning and nice red glow as a warning so you can get every other unit out of the way. Completely stupid and Blizzard should really stop with that nonsense. The only reason BC's have ever been "bad" against zerg is because they are 0-0 upgrades in the lategame. BC's, ravens and ghosts are all viable in the late game for terran though, really. I wouldnt mind seeing cloaked ghost queen sniping into tech nuking. 2 nukes kills any tech building. Send in 5 or 6 ghosts while turtling, kill the main + nat + 3rd + macro hatch queen -> nuke all the tech. Obviously there is no Neural Parasite, no "vs massive Corruptors" and no "machinegun Hydras" (BCs are even slower than slow Hydras off creep). And there probably isnt an Abduct spell either now, eh? Ghosts - which are Tier 2 units which were NOT the topic - dont deal nearly enough damage for their cost when they run out of energy because they are squishy "vs. light specialists" and a big part of the damage Zerg deals does not come from light units. Ravens are super expensive at 200 gas apiece and thus can never really achieve the efficiency of Infestors AND their "fighting unit" costs 50 energy and requires building squares and thus isnt as spammable and as "concentratable" as the Infested Terrans of the Infestor. Their other two spells are far too expensive to be useable all the time because you wont ever have the 25+ of them as it was possible for the Infestor. Too bad the Seeker Missile got nerfed so much that it doesnt really do AoE anymore (because most of the time only one target gets hit). Even if the Terran had the gas to build 25 Ravens that would take AGES since they cant just do it in one production cycle so the unit has at max a supporting role. Numbers - "critical numbers" at that - affect the power of a unit and in the case of energy units it is important to have enough of them so you can "always have a Fungal" or "always Forcefield" ... and that is simply unrealistic for the Raven. Dont look at them when they are doing something ... look at them over the course of "the whole war". Corruptors are "meh" against BC's. Raven/BC is even worse thanks to PDD and HSM. Hydras are BAD against BC's. Why would you think a low damage fast firing unit is good against a high armor unit? Do you think marines are good against ultralisks? The only thing that works is abduct and neural, both of which can be hard to pull off. Tier system is archaic and has always been questionable. Ghosts are tier 3 infantry in my mind. I dont understand why their damage while uncloaked is what you choose to point out since they just killed off a majority of production and all of the tech at a supply cost of 10. 5 ghosts isnt making an army of ghosts or something. And are you really saying the raven sucks? REALLY? And why is 200 gas so much for terran but the 200 gas viper isnt? The problem is that you ignored the most important point of my argument ... the NUMBERS of the units (not their stats but how many there are). Raven sucks because you will usually have only 3-4 of them and this means they will run out of energy "as a group". The Infestor became a problem because 25+ would NOT run out of energy as a group and there would always be enough for a Fungal. Added to this "energy problem" is the fact that Seeker Missile has become rather bad in that its target is so obviously announced. The original "slow homing" version was much harder to detect AND it had the added effect of scaring away the enemy units as a group. The current version is easy to "counter" because you simply move the big red glowing unit from the front. Hydras are awesome against BCs, because "Skyterran" doesnt start with the flip of a switch and which other unit would you start massing against that? With the Viper and its Abduct spell AND a clump of Hydras you can easily get rid of BCs. I have seen games where a Colossus got pulled into a group of Zerg units and died in HALF A SECOND. Sure it will take a bit longer to kill the BC, but there is no doubt as to the end. You really need to learn to look behind the unit stats and look at the realities of a game. Ground infantry is easily massed but high tech Terran units like the BC arent. Ultralisks are Zerg units and they never come alone but rather come with many Ultralisks AND they have REALLY BIG AoE damage which kills Marines easily. Does the BC have the same to scare Hydralisks? No! so you compare a single BC to a hydra/viper army? wtf? either you have some BC and ravens which also means you will have a lot of MMMM leftover which laugh at hydras or if going mech you will have tanks, BF helions (which also own hydras) etc. compare armies and not single units doing vs an army. only way to fight BC raven + support army for Z is hiding behind spores with SH and viper and reason is that hydras DO suck. its just the opposite of what you say. Z AA is so horrible that Z has to hide behind mass spores vs both T and P air once they reach their composition (hydrabased armies are always a (semi) all in army where you need to do so much damage you can either kill them or transition into SH + spores which is so boring). really hope they nerf SH + spore turtle (just make SHs better in lower numbers and worse in big numbers) and compensate by finally buffing hydras to a viable level and give Z a way to deal with spellcasters which is reason no.2 Z hides behind spores with SHs since nothing else but SHs can deal with HTs or mass ravens. --> BC raven + support is the strongest army in TvZ, its getting there wheres the problem. MMMM forces Z to go T3 units...the same should be done with T. so buff units like viper and infestors to make MMMM on a timer like ling bane muta and buff the transition possibilities from bio to mech/air (thats why i like the upgrade buff for T: it makes the transition easier but its not enough). for example remove the energy upgrade for ravens and lower armory cost while increasing bio +3 +3 upgrade cost so mech gets buffed, bio nerfed (only at +3 +3) and bio can start mech/air upgrades earlier/its easier to transition to T3.
Isnt it obvious why I compare one BC with an army? Because that is the reality. BCs take AGES to mass and at most someone will have 5-6 of them with maybe a handful of Ravens. The Zerg opponent will have lots of Corruptors and/or Hydralisks - we were talking about the oh so powerful Skyterran and those two units are the only ones available to counter that - and a few Vipers. Those Vipers pull the expensive stuff on top of the Hydralisks and then the BCs simply evaporate ... one after the other without the chance to deal significant damage.
The rarely available Seeker Missile wont help against Hydras or Corruptors because it is far too easy to counter it and the PDD only stops 20 shots and is immobile in any case.
@RabidDeer
Vipers are much more powerful because Zerg can produce any number of them at the same time while it is far harder for a Terran to produce a large number of Ravens ... Starports and Tech labs cost a lot of resources to build in the first place. You completely ignore the production capability of Zerg again ...
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On August 22 2013 22:47 Rabiator wrote:Show nested quote +On August 22 2013 16:49 Decendos wrote:On August 22 2013 15:02 Rabiator wrote:On August 22 2013 02:05 TheRabidDeer wrote:On August 21 2013 18:58 Rabiator wrote:On August 21 2013 17:53 TheRabidDeer wrote:On August 21 2013 17:39 Rabiator wrote:On August 21 2013 17:28 Shousan wrote:
The problem I see with TvZ is that mid/late game composition for T is basically the same just in higher numbers while establishing a fourth base while Z has to go higher on their tech tree while still matching constant production and attacks from T, this is why it always seemed as if Z needed to continue with a mid game composition of mass muta ling bling just because there's not enough time to tech up, establish more bases and defend multiple drops and pushes, and in the end it just becomes impossible to match a 3/3 terran army with that composition.
People have been trying to go for different compositions but they fail at constantly trading and killing key terran units (medivacs), the ultralisk buff isn't really that big of a deal because in order to fully take advantage of ultras you need infestors and that composition comes a little too late IMO, And even then, 50hp sounds just weird...
I'd love it if this in fact changed how TvZ plays out in the late stages of the game, but I'm not very optimistic, I think more areas should be explored, maybe a corruptor change could make a roach ling bling corruptor composition more viable (having another viable unit composition would be awesome) or 3/3 with infestation pit just to get more even trades and allow the Z to tech up...
I like the other changes, making mech more viable will be helpful to bring more diversity to all matchups which is always a good thing. Swap that part with "can go higher tech" ... nothing high tech on the Terran side makes any sense at all and even Ravens - which are awesome when you have the energy to use them - cant keep up with the reproduction rate of Zerg. Battlecruisers have been useless against Zerg ever since the first day of WoL and nothing has changed ... except that they are even more useless nowadays with Abduct added to the Zerg arsenal. + Show Spoiler +/trade WTB scrolls of Irradiate and Defensive Matrix to teach to Ravens since the stupid engineers seem to have forgotten its secrets in just five years. The reason for the "T3 problems" lie in the extremely high concentration of small AA units which maximizes their firepower while the "clump up punishing abilities" have been nerfed. Even Seeker Missile gets a five second warning and nice red glow as a warning so you can get every other unit out of the way. Completely stupid and Blizzard should really stop with that nonsense. The only reason BC's have ever been "bad" against zerg is because they are 0-0 upgrades in the lategame. BC's, ravens and ghosts are all viable in the late game for terran though, really. I wouldnt mind seeing cloaked ghost queen sniping into tech nuking. 2 nukes kills any tech building. Send in 5 or 6 ghosts while turtling, kill the main + nat + 3rd + macro hatch queen -> nuke all the tech. Obviously there is no Neural Parasite, no "vs massive Corruptors" and no "machinegun Hydras" (BCs are even slower than slow Hydras off creep). And there probably isnt an Abduct spell either now, eh? Ghosts - which are Tier 2 units which were NOT the topic - dont deal nearly enough damage for their cost when they run out of energy because they are squishy "vs. light specialists" and a big part of the damage Zerg deals does not come from light units. Ravens are super expensive at 200 gas apiece and thus can never really achieve the efficiency of Infestors AND their "fighting unit" costs 50 energy and requires building squares and thus isnt as spammable and as "concentratable" as the Infested Terrans of the Infestor. Their other two spells are far too expensive to be useable all the time because you wont ever have the 25+ of them as it was possible for the Infestor. Too bad the Seeker Missile got nerfed so much that it doesnt really do AoE anymore (because most of the time only one target gets hit). Even if the Terran had the gas to build 25 Ravens that would take AGES since they cant just do it in one production cycle so the unit has at max a supporting role. Numbers - "critical numbers" at that - affect the power of a unit and in the case of energy units it is important to have enough of them so you can "always have a Fungal" or "always Forcefield" ... and that is simply unrealistic for the Raven. Dont look at them when they are doing something ... look at them over the course of "the whole war". Corruptors are "meh" against BC's. Raven/BC is even worse thanks to PDD and HSM. Hydras are BAD against BC's. Why would you think a low damage fast firing unit is good against a high armor unit? Do you think marines are good against ultralisks? The only thing that works is abduct and neural, both of which can be hard to pull off. Tier system is archaic and has always been questionable. Ghosts are tier 3 infantry in my mind. I dont understand why their damage while uncloaked is what you choose to point out since they just killed off a majority of production and all of the tech at a supply cost of 10. 5 ghosts isnt making an army of ghosts or something. And are you really saying the raven sucks? REALLY? And why is 200 gas so much for terran but the 200 gas viper isnt? The problem is that you ignored the most important point of my argument ... the NUMBERS of the units (not their stats but how many there are). Raven sucks because you will usually have only 3-4 of them and this means they will run out of energy "as a group". The Infestor became a problem because 25+ would NOT run out of energy as a group and there would always be enough for a Fungal. Added to this "energy problem" is the fact that Seeker Missile has become rather bad in that its target is so obviously announced. The original "slow homing" version was much harder to detect AND it had the added effect of scaring away the enemy units as a group. The current version is easy to "counter" because you simply move the big red glowing unit from the front. Hydras are awesome against BCs, because "Skyterran" doesnt start with the flip of a switch and which other unit would you start massing against that? With the Viper and its Abduct spell AND a clump of Hydras you can easily get rid of BCs. I have seen games where a Colossus got pulled into a group of Zerg units and died in HALF A SECOND. Sure it will take a bit longer to kill the BC, but there is no doubt as to the end. You really need to learn to look behind the unit stats and look at the realities of a game. Ground infantry is easily massed but high tech Terran units like the BC arent. Ultralisks are Zerg units and they never come alone but rather come with many Ultralisks AND they have REALLY BIG AoE damage which kills Marines easily. Does the BC have the same to scare Hydralisks? No! so you compare a single BC to a hydra/viper army? wtf? either you have some BC and ravens which also means you will have a lot of MMMM leftover which laugh at hydras or if going mech you will have tanks, BF helions (which also own hydras) etc. compare armies and not single units doing vs an army. only way to fight BC raven + support army for Z is hiding behind spores with SH and viper and reason is that hydras DO suck. its just the opposite of what you say. Z AA is so horrible that Z has to hide behind mass spores vs both T and P air once they reach their composition (hydrabased armies are always a (semi) all in army where you need to do so much damage you can either kill them or transition into SH + spores which is so boring). really hope they nerf SH + spore turtle (just make SHs better in lower numbers and worse in big numbers) and compensate by finally buffing hydras to a viable level and give Z a way to deal with spellcasters which is reason no.2 Z hides behind spores with SHs since nothing else but SHs can deal with HTs or mass ravens. --> BC raven + support is the strongest army in TvZ, its getting there wheres the problem. MMMM forces Z to go T3 units...the same should be done with T. so buff units like viper and infestors to make MMMM on a timer like ling bane muta and buff the transition possibilities from bio to mech/air (thats why i like the upgrade buff for T: it makes the transition easier but its not enough). for example remove the energy upgrade for ravens and lower armory cost while increasing bio +3 +3 upgrade cost so mech gets buffed, bio nerfed (only at +3 +3) and bio can start mech/air upgrades earlier/its easier to transition to T3. Isnt it obvious why I compare one BC with an army? Because that is the reality. BCs take AGES to mass and at most someone will have 5-6 of them with maybe a handful of Ravens. The Zerg opponent will have lots of Corruptors and/or Hydralisks - we were talking about the oh so powerful Skyterran and those two units are the only ones available to counter that - and a few Vipers. Those Vipers pull the expensive stuff on top of the Hydralisks and then the BCs simply evaporate ... one after the other without the chance to deal significant damage. The rarely available Seeker Missile wont help against Hydras or Corruptors because it is far too easy to counter it and the PDD only stops 20 shots and is immobile in any case. @RabidDeer Vipers are much more powerful because Zerg can produce any number of them at the same time while it is far harder for a Terran to produce a large number of Ravens ... Starports and Tech labs cost a lot of resources to build in the first place. You completely ignore the production capability of Zerg again ...
so like...you still ignore that there is a huge MMMM army besides the BC that just a moves the hydras + viper + corruptor comp you are talking about. obv you have no idea on how hard BC raven laughs at anything that is hydras or corruptors.
the problem right now is: MMMM is too strong but also mech/biomech and the transition away from bio is too weak. if you reach BC/raven its strong once again. thats why i said force T to transition (by buffing Z vs bio/mine) but also buff the transition (cheaper armory, raven free energy upgrade, faster BC buildtime).
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On August 22 2013 22:47 Rabiator wrote:
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@RabidDeer
Vipers are much more powerful because Zerg can produce any number of them at the same time while it is far harder for a Terran to produce a large number of Ravens ... Starports and Tech labs cost a lot of resources to build in the first place. You completely ignore the production capability of Zerg again ...
Thats wrong. Zergs are so much limited by gas, that any viper that you build is a huge investment. Terrans have about unlimited amounts of gas if they want start the raven production. The only thing a terran needs is an extra starport + addon and then can build ravens permanently at the costs of 2 marines each while producing bio+mine. If zergs build some vipers they better have some use or it instantly can lose you the game. Zergs produce vipers at the converted cost of about 10 marines each.
I expect the raven in its current state to be heavily overpowered. Hunter seeker missiles just crush everything of zerg in large numbers. It is possible to dodge one or a few of them but once the critical number is reached and HSMs are launched inside army vs army engagements, e.g. when terran attacks a zerg expansion, there is no way to deal with it as a zerg. Combined with some PDD and auto turrets it should be unstoppable in theory. This is going to showcase once terrans have learned to play the ravens the right way (quite defensively, offense only with full army engagements or drops) and more TvZs reach these later stages.
The point is that terrans in endgame e.g. on 5 bases use to use only 6 gases (60%) and still have enaugh gas to produce ravens from at least 1 starport permanently. Once ZvT meta is at a level where it reaches these later stages more oftenly and terrans pick all 10 gases from their 5 bases (because bio/mine is not enaugh enymore to crush everything), this will lead into 2-3 stargate production of ravens easily if not more. Same applies to any mixture of BC/Ravens. Ravens at this point have the effective costs of 2 marines (100 minerals) as gas isnt a scarce resource and there is only opportunity costs for the mineral part of the raven production. There is no better way to spend the gas than for ravens and all of their spells are extremely strong and hard to counter. When terrans stop to win games with bio/mine only and learn to transition into ravens early enaugh, this will have a heavy impact on TvZ. 4-5 Ravens are enaugh to deal significant damage against almost everything the zerg has: Broodlords, corruptors, infestors, ling/bane and roach/hydra all get devastated by several simultaniously launched HSMs without any real chance of microing against it without losing a position of e.g. defending an expansion or attacking the terran. Once 10-15 Ravens are reached terrans can't lose anymore by default when only expanding and defending the new expansion (not risking to lose the ravens to perma fungal far away from where they should be). Ravens are also the perfect addition for lategame kill drops.
I pointed at this issue already weeks and monthes ago in several forums/threads. Wondering when HOTS will reach this level of metagame when ravens are frequently started to be used in the middle stages of the game.
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Russian Federation40190 Posts
On August 23 2013 00:11 LSN wrote:Show nested quote +On August 22 2013 22:47 Rabiator wrote:
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@RabidDeer
Vipers are much more powerful because Zerg can produce any number of them at the same time while it is far harder for a Terran to produce a large number of Ravens ... Starports and Tech labs cost a lot of resources to build in the first place. You completely ignore the production capability of Zerg again ... Thats wrong. Zergs are so much limited by gas, that any viper that you build is a huge investment. Terrans have about unlimited amounts of gas if they want start the raven production. The only thing a terran needs is an extra starport + addon and then can build ravens permanently while producing bio+mine. If zergs build some vipers they better have some use or it instantly can lose you the game cause you gonna lack other costy gas units like BL/ultra/infestor/banelings. I expect the raven in its current state to be heavily overpowered. Hunter seeker missiles just crush everything of zerg in large numbers. It is possible to dodge one or a few of them but once the critical number is reached and HSMs are launched inside army vs army engagements, e.g. when terran attacks a zerg expansion, there is no way to deal with it as a zerg. Combined with some PDD and auto turrets it should be unstoppable in theory. This is going to showcase once terrans have learned to play the ravens the right way (quite defensively, offense only with full army engagements or drops) and more TvZs reach these later stages. The point is that terrans in endgame e.g. on 5 bases use to use only 6 gases (60%) and still have enaugh gas to produce ravens from at least 1 starport permanently. Once ZvT meta is at a level where it reaches these later stages more oftenly and terrans pick all 10 gases from their 5 bases (because bio/mine is not enaugh enymore to crush everything), this will lead into 2-3 stargate production of ravens easily if not more. Same appliels to any mixture of BC/Ravens. Ravens at this point have the effective costs of 2 marines (100 minerals) as gas isnt a scarce resource and there is only opportunity costs for the mineral part of the raven production. There is no better way to spend the gas than for ravens and all of their spells are extremely strong and hard to counter. When terrans stop to win games with bio/mine only and learn to transition into ravens early enaugh, this will have a heavy impact on TvZ. 4-5 Ravens are enaugh to deal significant damage against almost everything the zerg has: Broodlords, corruptors, infestors, ling/bane and roach/hydra all get devastated by several simultaniously launched HSMs without any real chance of microing against it without losing a position of e.g. defending an expansion or attacking the terran. Ravens are also the perfect addition for lategame instant kill drops. I pointed at this issue already weeks and monthes ago in several forums/threads. Wondering when HOTS will reach this level of metagame when ravens are frequently started to be used in the middle stages of the game.
I shall claim that HotS meta in it's current version of units will never ever ever reach states of game, when you can actually get critical mass of ravens in top level TvZ. Someone will die before, it's that simple.
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its not that simple man. Blizzard will take alot of time but finally they will stop terran to be able to crush zerg with only bio/mine. Right now you are right but I dare to predict this will change for sure.
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On August 22 2013 11:40 Scarecrow wrote:Show nested quote +On August 22 2013 05:54 GhostOwl wrote:On August 21 2013 08:54 Deathstar34 wrote:
You can buff late game Z all you want but if they cant get to the late game somewhat safely, then the ultra buff is useless. Zerg needs some sort of mid game buff against T to help them out. This. This is what I've been saying a billion times. Either a new mid-game unit, or hydras/SH need to be re-worked. I'd prefer hydra being changed so that they apply 'special toxin' that reduces the regeneration and healing rate by 50%. That way, it won't really affect vs. Protoss or Zerg matchups because regeneration is pitfully slow during battle anyway, and only really hurts the medivac healing rate (which is pretty justified seeing as how 4M just completely demolishes Hydra/Roach if micro'd properly on both sides) Fantastic idea, this would be a great way to encourage diversity in TvZ and maybe bring more tanks back to the mu
I don't know if you're being sarcastic, but it actually does do perform the two points you mentioned
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Raven are bad against lings banelings ultras. since it's the core component of a Z army vs MMMM i see no reason to add raven to the mix until the zerg is clearly transitioning BL. So with the current metagame of ZvT raven is not good.
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you seem to completely ignore what I said. The opportunity costs of the first raven for terran is 100+150+50=300mins(?) = 6 marines, as gas doesnt matter. Any more ravens that are being built from then cost the opportunity of 2 marines each. Once it is not worth for terrans to build these 6 extra marines anymore cause they don't support the killing blow bio/mine rally in midgame, terrans will learn to start raven production earlier and see how few opportunity costs they have.
Furthermore it is wrong what you say: Ravens are quite good vs ling/bane and also ultralisks. Ling/bane can get killed in large numbers. It is extremely hard to micro away a few banelings out of a group of 20 when 2-3 HSMs are launched into them. Ultralisks are surrounded by other units and possibly air untis as well. Ravens perfectly support lategame drop play. Autoturrets are as well perfect for defense and offense, if HSMs at all make no sense in a certain case.
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For the moment, this patch "supposed to balance TvZ" is just another huge Terran gift : 525 mineral and 525 gaz, and 575 second of research time for free (yeah really Terran need another gaz cost reduction) The Zerg "buff" are pointless like hell compared to the insane Terran Stuff.
TvZ balance is worst than at the beginning of WOL. Infestor is weaker than before his buff at WOL. Nothing new for the zerg before Hive tech.
But Terrans have stronger bio/biotank/mech/biomech and even a newbiomine style and i forget the new late skyterran wich is so strong.
The only thing which doesn't make TvZ : like 100% Terran favored is the map pool change and a best knowledge of the game. Just go back to the old map and just look how the TvZ is more imbalance than at the beginning of WOL. Zerg have nearly the same tools to deal with an insane terran new stuff. And at least at WOL Zerg have a macro avantage, they don't have it anymore.
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The Ultra change seems strange to me. If we look at high level play, the games that zerg are losing are not the games where they have ultras out. They are losing games before they get to that stage. This is because Ultras are already part of the solution to the style. The main problem with the bio-mine Terran style for me is that they get to that composition SO quickly, and once they do they are already at their "end-game" composition (defined as the composition they want to get to and play out the game with, we should also note that we see games of such varying length and Terrans stick with this composition from 10 minutes right up until even 40 minutes if the game goes on that long). This means they can begin trading armies cost efficiently and pressuring and just waiting on upgrades. Terran reach their "end-game" TvZ composition so quickly and just stay there. This seems strange to me. The thing I notice most in high level games is how cost efficient the style is, and seems that Terran can take the best engagements and be ahead when they are on 2 bases and the zerg is on 4. I think much of this is down to the fact the zerg doesnt have a cost efficient way to deal with the widow mine, as we only have 2 units that outrange them (queen and Hydra, excluding swarm host and brood lord). Perhaps a zerg buff that allows for more cost efficiency in engagements?
I am not sure I am keen on making Hive any easier to get to or any cheaper to get to because then it messes with all the timings of "tier 3" units and structures. In terms of the infestor's use, perhaps give fungal the ability to make widow mines not activate during that period? The same way fungal already stops abilities like blink, siegetank and viking transformation, and zerg units burrowing.
Lots of people dislike the idea of adding the upgrades to the infestation pit because of how fast the 3-3 comes. You could always make it so infestation pit allows the upgrades, but then make the upgrades longer research time until whatever you feel is balanced enough. So if you added 30 seconds onto the upgrade time for 3-3 then you are still cutting them 30 seconds out of the 100 it takes the build a hive, so the upgrades still come over a minute quicker. I think this is maybe a better route to take if you believe that zerg upgrades are what are causing problems for the zerg. I think people forget the amount of variations that Blizzard can tweak things, they have so much control.
Because of the balance in TvP at the moment, I think the answer needed here is definitely in buffing zerg rather than nerfing terran, but i'm not sure the best way to go about it.
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As many allready pointed out, the transition to ultras are the hard part. Ultras without upgrades are bad, and its a big investment to get to +3+3 and ultras. Right now it feels like zerg need to get to upgraded ultras to not just simply die when the terran gets +3+3 while the only thing the terran player really need to do to adapt to the lategame is to add a few rax with techlabs for marauders.
I think zerg needs a little stronger midgame army options to make the transition not such a gamble. I think that buffing hydra damage vs bio wouldn't be a bad thing to try. Not by a huge amount but a little. Right now a hydra has the same dps and almost the same hp as 2 marines. (2 food for a hydra and 2 food for 2 marines) where the marines benefit more from their upgrades and support units and also cost 25gas less / suply.
Right now the same suply hydra vs marine is slighty in the marines favor wich i think is a little odd, when you think about the fact that hydras are a higher tier and more expensive unit that have the same role as the marine. I think it whould be interesting for the matchup to give hydras a small (not a blizzard style 100%) dps boost vs bio. (could be nested to the hydra range upgrade?)
One of the benefits with this is that it would not change anything vs mech and hardly anything vs protoss. Zealots and templars would be the only units effected and I honestly dont think it would have to much of an impact.
I would have liked this change over the spore buff for zvz too...
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How about the following:
Chitinous Plating upgrade removed. Ultralisks start with an additional +2 armor baseline.
You pretty much need the upgrade anyway, it just adds time to the transition window before ultralisks can be useful.
I consider this less drastic than the +50hp buff.
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Sweden3522 Posts
On August 23 2013 05:41 Salomonster wrote:
As many allready pointed out, the transition to ultras are the hard part. Ultras without upgrades are bad, and its a big investment to get to +3+3 and ultras. Right now it feels like zerg need to get to upgraded ultras to not just simply die when the terran gets +3+3 while the only thing the terran player really need to do to adapt to the lategame is to add a few rax with techlabs for marauders.
I think zerg needs a little stronger midgame army options to make the transition not such a gamble. I think that buffing hydra damage vs bio wouldn't be a bad thing to try. Not by a huge amount but a little. Right now a hydra has the same dps and almost the same hp as 2 marines. (2 food for a hydra and 2 food for 2 marines) where the marines benefit more from their upgrades and support units and also cost 25gas less / suply.
Right now the same suply hydra vs marine is slighty in the marines favor wich i think is a little odd, when you think about the fact that hydras are a higher tier and more expensive unit that have the same role as the marine. I think it whould be interesting for the matchup to give hydras a small (not a blizzard style 100%) dps boost vs bio. (could be nested to the hydra range upgrade?)
One of the benefits with this is that it would not change anything vs mech and hardly anything vs protoss. Zealots and templars would be the only units effected and I honestly dont think it would have to much of an impact.
I would have liked this change over the spore buff for zvz too...
you have to keep in mind marines are supposed to soft counter hydralisks because siege tanks do worse against hydras than they do against anything else and marauders are awful against hydralisks and widow mines get outranged by hydralisks
if hydras went toe to toe or even swing-favor to hydralisk just a little bit over marines i think that would become a major problem
there are a good amount of progamers out there that are doing roach hydralisk and its actually better than it sounds
just replacing mutalisk with hydralisks in your mutalingbane composition makes a lot of sense because in the current meta you dont really have any room to mutalisk harass anyway since terran is constantly attacking you. ofcourse this army composition and playstyle is heavily underused and not even considered in most cases. but from my practice ive had i can tell you i have a lot more trouble dealing with hydra ling bane than muta ling bane
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On August 23 2013 07:29 Jalued wrote:Show nested quote +On August 23 2013 06:40 Grumbels wrote:How about the following: Chitinous Plating upgrade removed. Ultralisks start with an additional +2 armor baseline.You pretty much need the upgrade anyway, it just adds time to the transition window before ultralisks can be useful. I consider this less drastic than the +50hp buff. That would be a plain buff to ultras and would not help against wm in the slightest (as their damage is spellcaster so ignores armor). I think what suppy was saying a few days ago about being able to tech to hive from spire would be an interesting change to consider because it would allow zergs to be a bit more flexible with their tech path
You don't build widow mines in isolation. My suggested change is a buff to the ultralisk vs bio-mine styles.
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On August 23 2013 07:12 MorroW wrote:Show nested quote +On August 23 2013 05:41 Salomonster wrote:
As many allready pointed out, the transition to ultras are the hard part. Ultras without upgrades are bad, and its a big investment to get to +3+3 and ultras. Right now it feels like zerg need to get to upgraded ultras to not just simply die when the terran gets +3+3 while the only thing the terran player really need to do to adapt to the lategame is to add a few rax with techlabs for marauders.
I think zerg needs a little stronger midgame army options to make the transition not such a gamble. I think that buffing hydra damage vs bio wouldn't be a bad thing to try. Not by a huge amount but a little. Right now a hydra has the same dps and almost the same hp as 2 marines. (2 food for a hydra and 2 food for 2 marines) where the marines benefit more from their upgrades and support units and also cost 25gas less / suply.
Right now the same suply hydra vs marine is slighty in the marines favor wich i think is a little odd, when you think about the fact that hydras are a higher tier and more expensive unit that have the same role as the marine. I think it whould be interesting for the matchup to give hydras a small (not a blizzard style 100%) dps boost vs bio. (could be nested to the hydra range upgrade?)
One of the benefits with this is that it would not change anything vs mech and hardly anything vs protoss. Zealots and templars would be the only units effected and I honestly dont think it would have to much of an impact.
I would have liked this change over the spore buff for zvz too... you have to keep in mind marines are supposed to soft counter hydralisks because siege tanks do worse against hydras than they do against anything else and marauders are awful against hydralisks and widow mines get outranged by hydralisks if hydras went toe to toe or even swing-favor to hydralisk just a little bit over marines i think that would become a major problem there are a good amount of progamers out there that are doing roach hydralisk and its actually better than it sounds just replacing mutalisk with hydralisks in your mutalingbane composition makes a lot of sense because in the current meta you dont really have any room to mutalisk harass anyway since terran is constantly attacking you. ofcourse this army composition and playstyle is heavily underused and not even considered in most cases. but from my practice ive had i can tell you i have a lot more trouble dealing with hydra ling bane than muta ling bane
Sup Morrow.
Mutalisks are more than just for harassing, though. They're essentially the best way to deal with the dreaded Terran Drop Harass that Terran have always relied on. If you go Hydras, how to do you compensate for the reduced ability to deal with drops?
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United Kingdom12022 Posts
On August 23 2013 07:32 dabom88 wrote:Show nested quote +On August 23 2013 07:12 MorroW wrote:On August 23 2013 05:41 Salomonster wrote:
As many allready pointed out, the transition to ultras are the hard part. Ultras without upgrades are bad, and its a big investment to get to +3+3 and ultras. Right now it feels like zerg need to get to upgraded ultras to not just simply die when the terran gets +3+3 while the only thing the terran player really need to do to adapt to the lategame is to add a few rax with techlabs for marauders.
I think zerg needs a little stronger midgame army options to make the transition not such a gamble. I think that buffing hydra damage vs bio wouldn't be a bad thing to try. Not by a huge amount but a little. Right now a hydra has the same dps and almost the same hp as 2 marines. (2 food for a hydra and 2 food for 2 marines) where the marines benefit more from their upgrades and support units and also cost 25gas less / suply.
Right now the same suply hydra vs marine is slighty in the marines favor wich i think is a little odd, when you think about the fact that hydras are a higher tier and more expensive unit that have the same role as the marine. I think it whould be interesting for the matchup to give hydras a small (not a blizzard style 100%) dps boost vs bio. (could be nested to the hydra range upgrade?)
One of the benefits with this is that it would not change anything vs mech and hardly anything vs protoss. Zealots and templars would be the only units effected and I honestly dont think it would have to much of an impact.
I would have liked this change over the spore buff for zvz too... you have to keep in mind marines are supposed to soft counter hydralisks because siege tanks do worse against hydras than they do against anything else and marauders are awful against hydralisks and widow mines get outranged by hydralisks if hydras went toe to toe or even swing-favor to hydralisk just a little bit over marines i think that would become a major problem there are a good amount of progamers out there that are doing roach hydralisk and its actually better than it sounds just replacing mutalisk with hydralisks in your mutalingbane composition makes a lot of sense because in the current meta you dont really have any room to mutalisk harass anyway since terran is constantly attacking you. ofcourse this army composition and playstyle is heavily underused and not even considered in most cases. but from my practice ive had i can tell you i have a lot more trouble dealing with hydra ling bane than muta ling bane Sup Morrow. Mutalisks are more than just for harassing, though. They're essentially the best way to deal with the dreaded Terran Drop Harass that Terran have always relied on. If you go Hydras, how to do you compensate for the reduced ability to deal with drops?
Couldn't you technically just get 8-12 mutas like you would in Broodwar then switch into Hydras from there? I've never understood zergs in ZvT who go up to like 30 mutas, they die to marines anyway due to slower upgrades most of the time.
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On August 23 2013 07:38 Qikz wrote:Show nested quote +On August 23 2013 07:32 dabom88 wrote:On August 23 2013 07:12 MorroW wrote:On August 23 2013 05:41 Salomonster wrote:
As many allready pointed out, the transition to ultras are the hard part. Ultras without upgrades are bad, and its a big investment to get to +3+3 and ultras. Right now it feels like zerg need to get to upgraded ultras to not just simply die when the terran gets +3+3 while the only thing the terran player really need to do to adapt to the lategame is to add a few rax with techlabs for marauders.
I think zerg needs a little stronger midgame army options to make the transition not such a gamble. I think that buffing hydra damage vs bio wouldn't be a bad thing to try. Not by a huge amount but a little. Right now a hydra has the same dps and almost the same hp as 2 marines. (2 food for a hydra and 2 food for 2 marines) where the marines benefit more from their upgrades and support units and also cost 25gas less / suply.
Right now the same suply hydra vs marine is slighty in the marines favor wich i think is a little odd, when you think about the fact that hydras are a higher tier and more expensive unit that have the same role as the marine. I think it whould be interesting for the matchup to give hydras a small (not a blizzard style 100%) dps boost vs bio. (could be nested to the hydra range upgrade?)
One of the benefits with this is that it would not change anything vs mech and hardly anything vs protoss. Zealots and templars would be the only units effected and I honestly dont think it would have to much of an impact.
I would have liked this change over the spore buff for zvz too... you have to keep in mind marines are supposed to soft counter hydralisks because siege tanks do worse against hydras than they do against anything else and marauders are awful against hydralisks and widow mines get outranged by hydralisks if hydras went toe to toe or even swing-favor to hydralisk just a little bit over marines i think that would become a major problem there are a good amount of progamers out there that are doing roach hydralisk and its actually better than it sounds just replacing mutalisk with hydralisks in your mutalingbane composition makes a lot of sense because in the current meta you dont really have any room to mutalisk harass anyway since terran is constantly attacking you. ofcourse this army composition and playstyle is heavily underused and not even considered in most cases. but from my practice ive had i can tell you i have a lot more trouble dealing with hydra ling bane than muta ling bane Sup Morrow. Mutalisks are more than just for harassing, though. They're essentially the best way to deal with the dreaded Terran Drop Harass that Terran have always relied on. If you go Hydras, how to do you compensate for the reduced ability to deal with drops? Couldn't you technically just get 8-12 mutas like you would in Broodwar then switch into Hydras from there? I've never understood zergs in ZvT who go up to like 30 mutas, they die to marines anyway due to slower upgrades most of the time.
SC2 doesn't have Lurkers, and Swarm Hosts are no substitute.
The problem there is, again, everything that's Lair Tech Zerg still dies to 3/3 4m.
So not only do you have to get a Spire, 8-12 Mutas, a Hydralisk Den, AND add a Hydra force to your composition to survive against Terran, but once they hit 3/3 then you also eventually have to go Hive tech and then 3/3 as well? As a Terran Player, even I think that's asking a bit too much from Zerg.
Which is why I think 3/3 is best moved down one level to Infestation Pit tech instead of Hive Tech.
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On August 23 2013 07:47 dabom88 wrote:Show nested quote +On August 23 2013 07:38 Qikz wrote:On August 23 2013 07:32 dabom88 wrote:On August 23 2013 07:12 MorroW wrote:On August 23 2013 05:41 Salomonster wrote:
As many allready pointed out, the transition to ultras are the hard part. Ultras without upgrades are bad, and its a big investment to get to +3+3 and ultras. Right now it feels like zerg need to get to upgraded ultras to not just simply die when the terran gets +3+3 while the only thing the terran player really need to do to adapt to the lategame is to add a few rax with techlabs for marauders.
I think zerg needs a little stronger midgame army options to make the transition not such a gamble. I think that buffing hydra damage vs bio wouldn't be a bad thing to try. Not by a huge amount but a little. Right now a hydra has the same dps and almost the same hp as 2 marines. (2 food for a hydra and 2 food for 2 marines) where the marines benefit more from their upgrades and support units and also cost 25gas less / suply.
Right now the same suply hydra vs marine is slighty in the marines favor wich i think is a little odd, when you think about the fact that hydras are a higher tier and more expensive unit that have the same role as the marine. I think it whould be interesting for the matchup to give hydras a small (not a blizzard style 100%) dps boost vs bio. (could be nested to the hydra range upgrade?)
One of the benefits with this is that it would not change anything vs mech and hardly anything vs protoss. Zealots and templars would be the only units effected and I honestly dont think it would have to much of an impact.
I would have liked this change over the spore buff for zvz too... you have to keep in mind marines are supposed to soft counter hydralisks because siege tanks do worse against hydras than they do against anything else and marauders are awful against hydralisks and widow mines get outranged by hydralisks if hydras went toe to toe or even swing-favor to hydralisk just a little bit over marines i think that would become a major problem there are a good amount of progamers out there that are doing roach hydralisk and its actually better than it sounds just replacing mutalisk with hydralisks in your mutalingbane composition makes a lot of sense because in the current meta you dont really have any room to mutalisk harass anyway since terran is constantly attacking you. ofcourse this army composition and playstyle is heavily underused and not even considered in most cases. but from my practice ive had i can tell you i have a lot more trouble dealing with hydra ling bane than muta ling bane Sup Morrow. Mutalisks are more than just for harassing, though. They're essentially the best way to deal with the dreaded Terran Drop Harass that Terran have always relied on. If you go Hydras, how to do you compensate for the reduced ability to deal with drops? Couldn't you technically just get 8-12 mutas like you would in Broodwar then switch into Hydras from there? I've never understood zergs in ZvT who go up to like 30 mutas, they die to marines anyway due to slower upgrades most of the time. SC2 doesn't have Lurkers, and Swarm Hosts are no substitute. The problem there is, again, everything that's Lair Tech Zerg still dies to 3/3 4m. So not only do you have to get a Spire, 8-12 Mutas, a Hydralisk Den, AND add a Hydra force to your composition to survive against Terran, but once they hit 3/3 then you also eventually have to go Hive tech and then 3/3 as well? As a Terran Player, even I think that's asking a bit too much from Zerg. Which is why I think 3/3 is best moved down one level to Infestation Pit tech instead of Hive Tech.
Or, in addition to Pit unlocking Hive, just make Spire unlock Hive as well.
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On August 23 2013 07:59 awesomoecalypse wrote:Show nested quote +On August 23 2013 07:47 dabom88 wrote:On August 23 2013 07:38 Qikz wrote:On August 23 2013 07:32 dabom88 wrote:On August 23 2013 07:12 MorroW wrote:On August 23 2013 05:41 Salomonster wrote:
As many allready pointed out, the transition to ultras are the hard part. Ultras without upgrades are bad, and its a big investment to get to +3+3 and ultras. Right now it feels like zerg need to get to upgraded ultras to not just simply die when the terran gets +3+3 while the only thing the terran player really need to do to adapt to the lategame is to add a few rax with techlabs for marauders.
I think zerg needs a little stronger midgame army options to make the transition not such a gamble. I think that buffing hydra damage vs bio wouldn't be a bad thing to try. Not by a huge amount but a little. Right now a hydra has the same dps and almost the same hp as 2 marines. (2 food for a hydra and 2 food for 2 marines) where the marines benefit more from their upgrades and support units and also cost 25gas less / suply.
Right now the same suply hydra vs marine is slighty in the marines favor wich i think is a little odd, when you think about the fact that hydras are a higher tier and more expensive unit that have the same role as the marine. I think it whould be interesting for the matchup to give hydras a small (not a blizzard style 100%) dps boost vs bio. (could be nested to the hydra range upgrade?)
One of the benefits with this is that it would not change anything vs mech and hardly anything vs protoss. Zealots and templars would be the only units effected and I honestly dont think it would have to much of an impact.
I would have liked this change over the spore buff for zvz too... you have to keep in mind marines are supposed to soft counter hydralisks because siege tanks do worse against hydras than they do against anything else and marauders are awful against hydralisks and widow mines get outranged by hydralisks if hydras went toe to toe or even swing-favor to hydralisk just a little bit over marines i think that would become a major problem there are a good amount of progamers out there that are doing roach hydralisk and its actually better than it sounds just replacing mutalisk with hydralisks in your mutalingbane composition makes a lot of sense because in the current meta you dont really have any room to mutalisk harass anyway since terran is constantly attacking you. ofcourse this army composition and playstyle is heavily underused and not even considered in most cases. but from my practice ive had i can tell you i have a lot more trouble dealing with hydra ling bane than muta ling bane Sup Morrow. Mutalisks are more than just for harassing, though. They're essentially the best way to deal with the dreaded Terran Drop Harass that Terran have always relied on. If you go Hydras, how to do you compensate for the reduced ability to deal with drops? Couldn't you technically just get 8-12 mutas like you would in Broodwar then switch into Hydras from there? I've never understood zergs in ZvT who go up to like 30 mutas, they die to marines anyway due to slower upgrades most of the time. SC2 doesn't have Lurkers, and Swarm Hosts are no substitute. The problem there is, again, everything that's Lair Tech Zerg still dies to 3/3 4m. So not only do you have to get a Spire, 8-12 Mutas, a Hydralisk Den, AND add a Hydra force to your composition to survive against Terran, but once they hit 3/3 then you also eventually have to go Hive tech and then 3/3 as well? As a Terran Player, even I think that's asking a bit too much from Zerg. Which is why I think 3/3 is best moved down one level to Infestation Pit tech instead of Hive Tech. Or, in addition to Pit unlocking Hive, just make Spire unlock Hive as well.
Don't lump that idea with my post, I'm very much against it.
First of all, no other tech tree allows for multiple routes like that. It goes against the fundamental tech tree mechanics of the game.
Secondly, Spire also unlocking Hive Tech would make the transition to Hive a bit too easy. Hive unlocks a lot more than 3/3, but also Ultras, Vipers, Adrenal Glands, Greater Spire/Brood Lords, etc. Mutas are already considered to be the best Lair tech unit in ZvT and ZvZ (Swarm Hosts in ZvP).
Getting to 3/3 for all races in SC2 should involve getting a building that's a bit out-of-the way from the standard composition.
Terran Bio doesn't normally get an Armory except for 2/2 and 3/3.
Protoss usually go Robo or Stargate for scouting purposes, or Roach defense (i.e. it's considered non-standard to go Twilight straight after Cyber Core, unless you're going for a Blink timing)
Mutas are the standard and probably the most-used Lair Tech route in ZvT and ZvZ.
We saw the effects of making the transition too easy had on WoL. It was never NOT a good idea to get an Infestation Pit since Fungal Growth was OP in WoL. Zergs got Infestors every game that wasn't finished off early. So if you're going to get Infestors anyway, Hive was just way too easy to get. We can already see some of the effects of making the best ZvP Lair Tech unit, the Swarm Host, at Infestation Pit tech. Protoss have a tough time breaking defensive Swarm Hosts, and it serves as a good transition to Hive as a bonus. And Mutas are still good in ZvP. Protoss would then go "wait, Zergs can go Muta OR Swarm Host and still get Hive either way? Those require two completely different tech compositions to fight". (Archon/Storm for mutas, Collosus/Observer for Swarm Hosts)
With Infestors in their nerfed state, it's good to require an Infestation Pit before Hive. The problem right now is that Zergs do need 3/3 Ground to compete with 3/3 4M. My suggestion ONLY changes the 3/3 timing for Zerg, and seems to be the smallest change one could do and it might be enough to let Zergs survive getting to Hive tech. Getting 3/3 would make it so that Zergs could remain more safe at Lair Tech and the transition to Hive Tech easier. Just by enough.
Start with just changing the 3/3 timing. If that's not enough, THEN we can start considering options that go against the fundamental tech tree mechanics of the game, such as Spire also unlocking Hive in addition to Infestation Pit already unlocking it.
I prefer a incremental approach to balance. Blizzard did a good job incrementally nerfing the Hellbat by just enough. It should go about buffing zergs incrementally as well.
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EPT
