Updated Balance Test Map - Page 24

On September 27 2013 18:52 Big J wrote:


yeah, marines are fine. Because the whole game has been rebalanced for them, from the siege tank nerf, barracks nerfs, bunker nerfs, stim nerf, BC nerf (and despite announcing it, not going through with the "big" BC buff in HotS), immortal buff... everything is hugely connected to how 50/0/1 marines counter every other singlefire unit cost for cost in the game.

On September 28 2013 00:16 metroid composite wrote:


That's...not true?

Obviously it depends if you mean with micro or without micro. With micro earlygame stalkers can take on much larger marine counts. Without micro, earlygame zealots can take on much larger marine counts. I tend to be a little more interested in the raw stats, since I don't really have the APM for that kind of stalker micro while also not slipping on my macro. Which means the cost-efficient singlefire units (against stim combat shield marines) include...

* Zealots (and they can get charge for the same cost as stim/combat shield, so this isn't too crazy)
* Zerglings (and they can get speed for cheap, so this isn't too crazy)
* Roaches if both are upgraded (since roaches upgrade slightly better, and roaches are basically tied when everyone's 0/0)
* Hellbats (Assuming the bats manage to get on top of the marines, they win even without the help of splash because hellbats are basically roaches, except more damage to armored, plus infernal preigniter)
* Ultralisk (if the ultra closes distance, but deals singletarget damage, it's cost efficient)

And several other units aren't bad (Thor, Queen, Oracle)


I dunno, medivacs seem more problematic to me. With medivacs there's suddenly a lot of armies that used to do ok against marine balls and now don't (blink stalkers, roaches, queens--basically anything with low DPS). And even the units that have high DPS and can still do well (lings if they get a surround) can be escaped from by lifting into the medivac. It's really medivacs that necessitate AoE. With medivacs the army is so mobile and can harass so well that you need to be hugely cost-efficient when you actually do manage to engage the army, and AoE is the only way to be massively cost-efficient.

On September 28 2013 00:34 rikter wrote:
Glad they got rid of the DT's, but the oracle change is lame. People talking about how its the same speed as the mutalisk seem to be forgetting that the mutas hit at the ten minute mark, while oracles hit at five. By the time the mutas are in play the ebay is up, stim is done, and I can actually catch the mutas. When an oracle shows up, I have no stim, less units, and no plans to build an ebay at 430 or so to have turrets in time.

The oracle isnt used late game because it sucks in that role. The observer provides better scouting, and just about anything else is hardier and more useful.

Widow mine change isnt bad, especially coupled with tank buff. I think Blizz wants to see both units in the bio force vZ, with the mines shifting more to an anti air role while the tanks do better against the ground stuff. An extra shot off per tank makes a huge difference vs lings and banes, so theres balance in TvZ. The mirror is a wash and no one uses tanks and mines vs P anyways, so this is, I think, one of the better balance changes they have made. At least in terms of not fixing one matchup while trashing another.

On September 28 2013 00:34 rikter wrote:
Glad they got rid of the DT's, but the oracle change is lame. People talking about how its the same speed as the mutalisk seem to be forgetting that the mutas hit at the ten minute mark, while oracles hit at five. By the time the mutas are in play the ebay is up, stim is done, and I can actually catch the mutas. When an oracle shows up, I have no stim, less units, and no plans to build an ebay at 430 or so to have turrets in time.

The oracle isnt used late game because it sucks in that role. The observer provides better scouting, and just about anything else is hardier and more useful.

Widow mine change isnt bad, especially coupled with tank buff. I think Blizz wants to see both units in the bio force vZ, with the mines shifting more to an anti air role while the tanks do better against the ground stuff. An extra shot off per tank makes a huge difference vs lings and banes, so theres balance in TvZ. The mirror is a wash and no one uses tanks and mines vs P anyways, so this is, I think, one of the better balance changes they have made. At least in terms of not fixing one matchup while trashing another.

On September 28 2013 00:31 Thieving Magpie wrote:


Bio play in BW (although viable in only 1 matchup) was split between Marine/Medic/Dropship/Science Vessel production.

You needed enough marines to fight, enough medics to heal, enough dropships that you could actually threaten to hit bases and not just die to lurker traps, and enough science vessels to support your army.

By fusing 2 of those aspects (Medic/Dropship) and cutting a 4rth aspect (Science Vessel), you are left with a 2 unit production style of "Offensive units" (Marine/Maruader) and Medivacs (acting as both support and mobility)

This simplification creates the biggest no no of fun to watch gameplay. You end up with an army that is covered up by 10-12 medivacs shooting green lasers.

In BW, since you would only build 1-3 Dropships, every lost dropship was PAINFUL and every drop play was a HUGE investment. But since you constantly produce medivacs in SC2, drop play is "This chunk of my army leaves to fight"

I just find it more visually interesting to watch ground units do ground battles and dropships do drop play.

But to each their own.

On September 28 2013 00:40 DusTerr wrote:
While watching GSL today I realized that the WM radius decrease could actually be pretty decent in situations without micro as they'll catch my own units less...

On September 28 2013 01:07 p14c wrote:
This is the patch that would end all Terran hopes. Mech would still be crap and Terran would have only 4 usable units: marines, marauders, medivacs and sometimes vikings..Horrible, pathethic units that get crushed by aoe.

On September 27 2013 23:51 SsDrKosS wrote:

I think they should give us roach not burrow but cliff climbing ability.
How come an alien roach is worse than earth roach when real roaches can fly, climb, bite, and s@#$ on my room

On September 28 2013 01:02 phalanx wrote:
I just hate when people are blaming Blizzard for balance issue. It's completely immature, and worse when you make vindicative claim that the community is right and that they should listen to you caprice. Never forget that guys auto centered on your own experience only perceive the tip of the iceberg, ahhh humbleness. I don't even get why people get so subjectively involved when it's only about a TEST, you guys haven't even tried it but you already know better.

WELCOME THE CHANGE BEFORE COMPLAINING BECAUSE IT'S OUR DELIVRANCE. AMEN.

On September 28 2013 01:38 Whitewing wrote:


This is the wrong way to think about it. It's not about getting an extra shot off, it's about getting the shots it does get off quicker.

Consider the following: Each shot erases a clump of banes or lings, correct? That means the after the first shot, the next group dies .3 seconds faster, meaning there are .3 additional seconds where your marines are shooting other things, and that clump is not attacking your units. When the third shot comes, it's .6 seconds faster than it originally was, so another clump is gone .6 seconds faster than it would have been. Even if the tank doesn't get more attacks than it ordinarily would (incidentally, it's likely that it will), it's still being substantially more effective.

Why is it that 3 marines beat 2 marines, but 15 marines absolutely slaughter 2 marines? It's about destroying the enemy DPS as fast as possible, and therefore reducing the damage the enemy army can do to you. The faster you kill the enemy army, the less damage your enemy army gets to attempt to do to you, and you therefore wind up with more units leftover after the battle.

On September 28 2013 01:43 vthree wrote:


Except you are missing the fact that tanks damage has friendly fire. So once enemies are in melee range of your own units, the Terran takes a lot of damage as well.

On September 28 2013 01:52 Tsubbi wrote:
not going into specifics as there are so many potential underused units but overall id love if blizzard was willing to test way way bigger changes for the offseason in testmaps in the beginning of the testphase

also i think the most important part in all of this is to integrate a button into the client next to the ranked and unranked buttons to play the testmap against equally skilled players, this would up the testing quality and quantity by at least 9000%