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Honestly, the PO nerf proposed will destroy PvP.
PvP was getting interesting nowadays and with the nerf, we will return to the 4gate era.
EDIT: As of the mech buff, it will break TvZ. Mech is good as it is now, and the problem in pvt, is that Terrans focus solely on the damn siege tanks. For me, the core mech unit in pvt sc2 is the banshee, not the siege tank.
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On January 03 2014 11:05 Ranari wrote: Honestly, I think the problem with siege tanks lies in the underlying gameplay mechanics rather than the units itself. Blizzard obviously didn't want the same ole' with Starcraft 2, and as a result released units that essentially hard-countered the siege tank from a both balance and lore perspective. There are other factors to consider as well, and yes I'm including lore factors into this because it's more fun that way:
1. The Crucio siege tank is a lot less powerful than the Arclite it replaced. 2. The Zealots were given charge upgrades to close the distance with siege lines. 3. The Immortal was born to soak up the siege damage. 4. The Colossus is significantly more mobile than the Reavers that it replaced, allowing it to engage the Terran frontlines much more quickly. 5. Because of the Crucio inferiority, it's a lot less effective against Archons. 6. Although siege tanks are actually fairly effective against Stalkers, the Blink ability allows them to move into position to start focus firing down siege tanks much more effectively.
So pretty much everything about Protoss was conceptually designed to counter the Terran siege line, and because the siege tank is the backbone of the mech army, this makes Protoss extremely effective at dealing with them.
Now let's talk about Zerg (where at least the siege tank has some teeth):
1. The Crucio is a lot less powerful than the Arclite it replaced. 2. The introduction of Banelings requires Terran to be substantially more mobile to properly counter; a luxury siege lines do not have. 3. Vipers effectively nullify mech with blinding cloud and abduction. 4. Widow Mines are just more versatile, more mobile, do more up front damage, and are cheaper and quicker to replace.
So bringing back "da siege tank" is going to be a very difficult thing to do without rebalancing the game. And if you ask me, the state of the game is actually pretty good with the exception of mech (TvP). So what can we do? Here are some ideas, and feel free to shoot them down:
1. Borrow the Maelstrom Rounds upgrade from the single player campaign, perhaps. Blizzard introduced the Hellbat to help deal with Zealot charges, but the friendly fire damage from siege lines just aids Protoss in this case. This would also help assist with increasing the effectiveness of siege tanks against hyper-mobile zerg forces. 2. Play with increasing damage to shields as stated above. This would increase the effectiveness against Protoss but change nothing to other Terran and Zerg players (where mech isn't so pitiful in comparison). 3. I just can't see Vipers nullifying siege tanks with blinding cloud. Even modern day tanks have very advanced targeting systems that cut through smoke, dust, and darkness. I usually don't advocate individual unit nerfs, but Starcraft 2 takes place in the early 2500s. Every Terran and Protoss units are going to have targeting systems that cut through blinding cloud. But hey, fusing two souls together to form and Archon doesn't make [realistic] sense either, and that's part of the fun of the game! lol 4. Change the starting armor of the siege tank to 2. Currently it has 1, which is the same as a zealot and a marauder. I mean, it's a tank for crying out loud. It should be heavily armored!
Note - I'm actually starting to see Thors mixed in with 4M gameplay against zerg nowadays.
Note #2 - Yes, some of my suggestions are a bit on the radical side, but they're there to add ideas and get creativity going, not make the siege tank overpowered.
Honestly, I'd start with making shields take full damage from all damage types.(at least more than they currently do)
It would make the match up significantly less volatile, which might open up more options for the Terran player.
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On January 03 2014 11:24 Bagi wrote: Can't believe they are protoss players against a PO nerf.
I was under the impression that it was universally thought of as a bullshit ability, and the nerf is really minor anyway.
The only people actually for it are people that don't understand how to force the nexus cannon early in pvt /terrans that are being suped biased and saying they want to be able to punish protoss early. Which is basically the same as saying they want their own blink all in. Which, should probably be nerfed. So they're basically being hypocrites xD.
The nerf is not minor at all.
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I'm a protoss player, and i couldn't be happier with the Overcharge change - 60 seconds is silliness. It makes some PvP games so infuriating. I would even be happier with 30 second nerf 
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The mech changes were vague so I don't know what to think about it. I like shortening the overcharge though; it made a lot of cool timing attacks negated by a really boring wait. Now it can still have a defensive function without being as much of a no-fun spell
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If they want to make the roach more interesting I wish they would just get rid of the infestor-type burrow movement and give them something like the burrow charge ability the ultralisk had in the HotS beta. No stun or AoE damage or whatever that was going to do, just an upgraded ability the roach can use while burrowed that allows it to charge to the targeted location and it plays that same rapid burrowing animation the ultra ability had. Exciting, cool animation, uses existing assets they have already built and tested, fits the zerg feeling, makes roach vs roach more entertaining, useful for closing distance or getting out of range rather than just getting under forcefields...
I mean herp derping a whole army of burrowed roaches past an army or into an enemy base with no detection was fun a couple times but its pretty rare that the ability is used for anything besides escaping force field anyway... I doubt anyone would really miss the ability to sneak across the whole map with them
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I really despise the way blizzard talks about their changes. They're so vague. A change should be directed towards a very specific problem, not some generalizing claim like " oh, we want to give this style some more potency".
The PO change is likely targeted in the general direction of giving drop play a little more strength vs P, but in the process it makes SCV all ins stronger, and it also makes PvP even more 1 base oriented than it already is. I think these two things can, for the most part, be unanimously agreed to be negative side effects. Maybe blizzard is right, and we do need to buff drop plays, but do we have to do so in a way that also hinders much of what was good about PO?
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I'm going to blow my lid here. Excuse me in advance. This is a total rant, but I think I have a point.
I'm sorry, but I think this whole MsC debacle has been gone about in an incredibly ham-handed way that doesn't address what really is at issue here, and that issue is that Gateway units just plain suck.
Has anyone asked why Protoss players feel like they have to scramble for a MsC as quickly as possible in their builds? Why are split Protoss armies so ineffective and thus always deathballed, whereas small pods of Terran bio drops or Zerg hit squads can do game-altering damage? Why do the successes or failures of singular attack timings tend to dominate games with Protoss in them, and a lost army almost universally means a lost game, whereas in TvZ you have these epic back-and-forth slugfests? Again, it's because Gateway units suck.
We rush for an MsC because we have to spend 125/50/2 on a unit that does less DPS than a ZERGLING. Try defending an early attack with just those and see how it goes. The MsC is a crutch we have to lean on.
Our drops get cleaned up really insanely easily for what they cost and our other harass options suck past the point when proxy openers lose their effectiveness (Terrans, if you want a lesson in humility, try to drop 400 or 800 minerals worth of Zealots at a Planetary, ignoring the missile turrets like you would cannons. See what happens when you try that.). Our static defense sucks so much that Medivacs just drop top of it with no care, and we can't resposition cannons either - in fact, we're the only race that can't reposition buildings. So, we turtle with the MsC.
Gateway units are so weak in small numbers and so reliant on Force Field to both do damage (corral units for chargelots) or defend themselves, that they have no choice but to clump. All they really do late game is soak damage and provide support for the splash units, such as Colossi and Templars, to do the actual work. If Colossi get hung up or storms get dodged, we're dead, numbers be damned.
We tech switch so freakishly expensively and slowly (saw you go Spire? Another 300/300 of Stargates, plus a 300/200 Fleet Beacon, plus a 150/150 upgrade....oh wait you just made more roaches and hydras anyways, over 600/600 thrown away not counting however many phoenix I made, lol wp gg) that we can't keep up late and therefore go for earlier game timings or excessively greedy third builds.
I know Protoss are doing well overall right now, but I get so confused when I see players try some stupid rush that only worked in WoL and then whine about how it doesn't work any more now. Well no kidding it doesn't work now, the game has changed, TRY NEW THINGS. I'm sorry your old marine-SCV all-in that you abused up to Masters your first season doesn't work any more. I'm sorry you can't seven pool into expand any more, now knowing that you can't count on Forge FE 100% of the time. I can't four gate everyone to oblivion any more and you don't see me whining (though nerf PO any more and I guarantee you'll see PvP become a 4gate fest again). Stuff happens, try new things - the pros are and they are winning against all races.
I'd actually prefer they get rid of the MsC - just chuck the whole stupid thing. Then you'd see how crappy Gateway units really are, and then you just might see the Protoss of yore that didn't rely on temporary walls to defend themselves but had units that had the firepower in small groups that their cost warrants.
And as far as the whole roach burrow thing goes, I see it work really well when used properly (want to know how to utterly defecate on a sentry-heavy army?) but I almost never see it used in the first place. I don't think it's the developers job to cheapen a skill or unit overly heavily until it gets used like they want to see it, let people figure it out on their own. It's not the devs fault that people aren't using tools available to them.
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I personally think PO needs to be dropped all together and Figure out something that would make the MSC a Micro intensive unit that has the potential to stop all ins so that we would start seeing Skill Gaps appear that are real and not manufactured by a roll of the dice BO finished with a F Click instant Defense to anything....
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The patch looks good. Nerfs where they are needed and buffs to stuff people are not using enough. Of course some people won't be happy until they can not shot immortals, but a buff to EMP is needed. Of course, they could just make it so ghosts are easier to get, since they seem to want to make it more "available".
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If you want to make burrow-roaches a staple, let them move under buildings as well... At the very least it would be funny for a little while.
As for the MSC, at least they're trying something. It's more than I expected honestly.
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Russian Federation4295 Posts
I think, Blizzard should try to push more changes into Balance Test map. Just try to test more changes and revert them, if anything goes wrong. You should start to test a bit more, not two-three cosmetical changes that change nothing.
Here are my ideas and some explanation why these ideas may work and why they can solve some popular problems:
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Nydus Worm
● Nydus rumble is cloaked and requires detection to be visible. ● Nydus Worm now costs 150 minerals and 150 gas
Nydus becomes more expensive, but it's now cloaked, so enemy should make a turret in the each corner of their base. Also buffed Sensor Tower with detection may help Terrans against it.
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Sensor Tower
● Sensor Tower now can be connected to Terran addons: -- Tech Lab connected - decreases sensor radius by 50% / hides it from enemy / highlights cloaked/burrowed units with red markers, but not reveals them. -- Reactor connected - doubles the sensor radius.
Solves many problems of slow army against fast drops / proxies, such as Oracle / Blink / Mutalisk / Prizm Drop / Speedivac / etc
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Overseer
● Contaminate costs 100 energy. ● Overseer costs 1 supply and have 150 health / 0 starting armor.
Overseer becomes weaker, but more dangerous. It now can block 2 buildings at time of have full energy. To avoid problems with unlimited Overseers, Overseer itself now provides 7 supply, or it just costs 1 supply.
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Ventral Sacs upgrade
● Ventral Sacs (Overlord Drop) upgrade moved to Hatchery level. This will allow for Zergs to rush into one of the rarely used tech-paths a bit earlier.
Terran can switch addons to make Starport make 2 Medivacs at time, or something like that. Allow Zergs to start research Overlord drop upgrade a bit earlier. That can be a special rush tactic from Zerg like Oracle / DT rush or fast-Banshee / Drop from Terran.
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tl;dr Buff Zerg early-game harrassing options, allow them to make something similar to Oracle rush or Banshee rush, allow them to invest into one of the rarely used tech-patchs a bit earlier. Also make Sensor Tower as a blink-allins solver, make it work with Terran addons and get different benefits from both addons.
Thank you for reading and hope you will enjoy these changes, and imlement or even try to test something from these.
If you like these changes support the main thread on official forums http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/11040395028
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On January 03 2014 12:43 Chvol wrote: I really despise the way blizzard talks about their changes. They're so vague. A change should be directed towards a very specific problem, not some generalizing claim like " oh, we want to give this style some more potency".
The PO change is likely targeted in the general direction of giving drop play a little more strength vs P, but in the process it makes SCV all ins stronger, and it also makes PvP even more 1 base oriented than it already is. I think these two things can, for the most part, be unanimously agreed to be negative side effects. Maybe blizzard is right, and we do need to buff drop plays, but do we have to do so in a way that also hinders much of what was good about PO?
I have no clue why people are stating that PO has anything to do with PVP. 4gate era has been gone ages ago.
Right before Heart of the Swarm, PVP in wings evolved into massive macro style with mass colossi/immortal battles. There has not been 1 base vs 1 base in a long time, PO has nothing to do with that. Map choices do, back in the day the maps were so broken and small, best builds were 1 base all ins, that can be said for zvz and tvt to so can't even argue that with PO nerf.
PO reduction in time wont even be that game changing, protoss players really use it as a crutch more then anything. PO still has it's insane range, time reduction means it gives a better window for players to apply more aggression in the early game vs protoss.
Protoss can do anything they want in any part of the game, differently vs Terran, Blink all ins, or they can sit back on PO and afk building a death ball with out worry of drops or any kind of early attacks.
Terran has very little options vs protoss in the early game. at least in wings terran had a nice time to be aggressive when their first 2 medivacs popped out.
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[*] The next step for Terran mech
We believe we can push mech usage more as well. Some options we’re looking at here are: higher armored damage for siege tanks, easier access to EMP when going mech (such as building the energy upgrade into the unit), buffing mech air, and so on. However, this is the area in which we’re the least certain. Detailed feedback based on good reasoning is greatly appreciated. Please keep in mind none of this is even close to final. We truly appreciate your feedback, and we’ll continue to carefully consider what you’ve got to say before we publish the next balance test map.
[/list]
Here's my taughts.
The problem with mech isnt that any unit is too bad at doing what it is supposed/designed to do.
The problem is how good the other races options are against the mech units, im talking about these units: Brood Lord, Swarm Host, Corruptor, Infestor, Immortal, Colussus, Tempest, Carrier. These units all destroy mech very easilly and nobody would ever encounter e mech army without these units. This is the huge problem of having units that are designed to be good specifically against other units, they will end up beeing too good against some not so intended units aswell and the gameplay becomes very one sided and boring.
I hate to have to bring back old Brood War to make a comparision. In Brood War we saw big ground armies smashing into the sitting mech army that was so strong against everything on the ground that it could spread itself thinly over a map and make so called "siege-tank" lines. Nothing in SC2 works like that, mech cant spread because if it does theres always a specific unit that the opponent can make that will go gover and kill mech units that doesnt have support from X, Y and Z basically for free.
So that's my taughts, and here are my Suggestions. Sine the problem is that the other races have specific units that will basically destroy mech and make the Terran player feel really stupid for making so many units that are now utter garbage I will suggest that it is these units that needs to be targeted in most cases. The problem is that this will affect other matchups aswell but let me go through what I think could be done to some of these units.
1. Brood Lord The big bad tank destroyer that will make hordes of staple siege tanks drop their pants (unsiege) and run for the hills. Nobody will ever make a significant number of tanks with a late-game in mind a long as there is no solution to the Brood Lord. At the moment you make vikings to combat the Brood Lord but the problem is that zerg then makes corruptors and infestors to beat your vikings and now we're transitioning out from mech into a air fight and so again you cant make a mech army for the late game in this state.
My suggestion is to make Vikings way stronger against Brood Lords and Corruptors, in fact I want them so strong that just a couple of them will scare the Zerg from making air units at all, I want to see mobile ground Zerg vs immobile and spread out strong Terran. Also the fact that Brood Lords will make every single Siege-Tank useless (staple mech unit.) suggest to me that there MUST be a powerfull and easy transition for the Terran to disencourage the Zerg from making Brood Lords against mech in the first place.
Also Brood Lord vs Mech is bad gameplay, two slowpoker siege/siege-breaker armies and very low intencity games. I Believe if my suggestion with just a couple of Vikings beeing able to really make Zerg wish he had not made those Brood Lords in the first place will push the matchup more into a ground vs. ground state with a small viking army ruling the air, patrolling and giving vision to Siege-Tanks.
Also if you need to make fewer vikings you become less voulnerable against fungal growth so the Zerg can't just keep making Brood Lord & Corruptor with some infestor support.
2. Swarm Host These units are a huge problem against mech, basically against a mech army these units take over the map (wich Zerg should be able to do against mech.), burrow and from there the Terran is never able to advance his possition at all. In fact they are so strong that they can actually do damage against Sieged Tanks, wich is too good and basically gives Zerg and options to lock down and destroy mech from afar without ever actually confronting the army.
Siege-tanks need to destroy loctus much easier, and so I will suggest a reduction in healthpoints on loctus. A balance needs to be reached as I still want Swarm Hosts to be able to send loctus into the mech army in order to slow it down and make it tougher to advance the army, but this should NEVER actually be a way for Zerg to engage and hurt the Terran.
So that's my suggestions for TvZ. Yes I do think these things would also target the Infestor and the Corruptor pretty well and hopefully push the matchup away from what we would see now if the Terran tried to do mech into something like Ultralisk-Viper for gas units and Zerglings as mineral-dump. This will make the Zerg VERY mobile and open up for sting attacks on Terran expansions and still beeing able to move and regroup to stop the mech from advancing too much. Also I think Infestors and Swarm Hosts would still have a place in this state but just not the same as they are now but more of a defensive controlling role rather offensive.
I'm going to have to think more about TvP suggestions but I still wanted to post this right now as I've felt these are changes I'd love to see for a long time in HotS.
/Emanuel ElGreno
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I saw a toss go 1 gate nexus into double forge-blink templar archives of 1 gate then adding the gates and the T all-ins and P says - "consider if i did not have mo-core I would get REKT" like it if would actually be unjust if he loses.
Meanwhile protoss can all-in left and right like Gods and still have a lategame that is so strong and extremely easy for all non-progamers to handle. Like a random master PvT, equal skill massively favors the protoss, i just dislike how some people have no shame.
Same thing goes for me when i go mech vs random bio terran or zerg low-mid master, mech is actually so much easier than bio to use at that level. when the zerg get mad at my skyterran and pfs and thor-tank and helion run-bys and what have you I will man up and admit that he drew the short stick. I wont sit there and say, stop crying and l2p like so many toss player have been doing.
/rant and crying over, will l2p now
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Russian Federation4295 Posts
2. Swarm Host These units are a huge problem against mech, basically against a mech army these units take over the map (wich Zerg should be able to do against mech.), burrow and from there the Terran is never able to advance his possition at all. In fact they are so strong that they can actually do damage against Sieged Tanks, wich is too good and basically gives Zerg and options to lock down and destroy mech from afar without ever actually confronting the army. Just remove Enduring Locust upgrade and make Locusts themselfs faster.
The big bad tank destroyer that will make hordes of staple siege tanks drop their pants (unsiege) and run for the hills. Nobody will ever make a significant number of tanks with a late-game in mind a long as there is no solution to the Brood Lord. At the moment you make vikings to combat the Brood Lord but the problem is that zerg then makes corruptors and infestors to beat your vikings and now we're transitioning out from mech into a air fight and so again you cant make a mech army for the late game in this state. Seeker Missiles with Vikings and Yamatos already counter very well Broods-Corruptors.
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love that phonton overcharge nerf!
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make the Siege Tank a unit worth spending money on
make it so that .... out of 1000 games.. the typical Terran player spends as much money on Widow Mines as they do Siege Tanks... keep on nerfing Widow Mines and buffing Tanks until this happens.
i'd even vote for making the Tank more "micro"-able... the way the SC1 Seige Tank could fire on the move with the Turret remaining in position between shots would be a nice buff.
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How do you guys feel about: "easier access to EMP when going mech (such as building the energy upgrade into the unit): -ghost academy increase cost by 50-50 or 50-100 and ghosts spawn with mobius "buffing mech air, and so on." landed vikes get buff, BCs get "change" something that makes not so shitty in tvp tvt, but not broken tvz, faster yamato cast time? remove energy and make yamato cool down (fairly long cool down like blink or more) after upgrade > this might need an overall attack damage nerf. BCs feel like a waste because raven is better than BC TvT, HT and tempest can make BCs more trouble than they're worth TvP
thoughts?
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On January 03 2014 07:42 iHirO wrote:
David Kim:
Detailed feedback based on good reasoning is greatly appreciated.
DID HE REALLY WRITE THAT WHAT IS HE TRYING 2 SAY BY THAT IS HE INSULTING THE SC2 COMMUNITY Y DOES HE HAVE TO POST SOMETHING SO INSULTING 2 SO MANY PPL ON THE BLIZZARD AND TL FORUMS??????????????????????????????????????????????????
User was warned for this post
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