I don't understand how magically after four years it's blink stalker all-ins that supposedly end up being the one unstoppable strategy.
One of the responses to Medivac Boost and the addition of Photon Overcharge has lead to a very greedy on Tech 2 base Protoss, which has relulted in Terran being able to very quickly safely take 3 bases and roam out and deny Protoss thirds or at the very least do insane damage with drop harass. So I think all the Blink allins are to punish this and so Terrans are having trouble knowing when to be greedy and when not to.
On January 27 2014 19:10 Grumbels wrote: I don't understand how magically after four years it's blink stalker all-ins that supposedly end up being the one unstoppable strategy.
Because MsC is lower cost/time investing compare to obs, gives better high ground vision, has time wrap. And if you see too much defense, you can go back to tech/macro while doing a contain since you will have PO if terran goes for counter.
So yeah, the blink all-in from 4 years ago with obs doesn't work. This is totally different.
Didnt read the whole thing, but as terran player i think it is about Mothershit core a lot more than some ppl think. Imagine your one base push as T (doesnt exist anymore) if theres no overcharge. Imagine it has nearly no vision. Not saying it should happen, just think about it. What i dont like about protoss (as someone said) is fact, that even if they are allining, you have to prepare perfectly and it STILL might not be enough. But what pisses me off more.... even if they are allin, and they fail, they are able to do enough dmg to prolong a game lets say 8-9/10 times. Meanwhile if terran or zerg is doing some allin that i spot and i prepare myself (baneling bust) he: 1) pretty much never succeed 2) is DEAD 8-9/10 times if i hold with same effort as i hold P allin.
I like how they are trying to buff mech, but i dont think these changes will do much. Terran always had only pretty much one comp MMM, which makes it incredibly boring to play and you always have to adapt your composition you never force player to build something because you have this (he just choose what comp is best for him collosus/stormschargelots hydraroach/lingblingmuta etc.).
And let me write just a little offtopic. Name me a foreign terran that in past two years had decent results in longterm. We had stephanos, naniwas, scarlets, nerchios and so on. I was thinking and maybe Lucifron? But overall, we havent seen top terran (thorzain, demu and those kids are happy to be GM and stream nowadays honestly). And my only question is. Is it the lack of skill? What if terran is just harder race to manage, so only top korean players are capable to do so.
Last but not least: I was never EVER beat by zerg with lower APM than i got, meanwhile protoss is able to do it without much problems. In GM problem maybe dissapears but what about recreational player(s)?
On January 27 2014 19:13 Squat wrote: Still not the same thing. You can micro away from and kill locusts. Front loaded burst damage is way better. Swarm hosts would be shit if locusts cost minerals.
Micro away from ? Not mech. Front burst damage may be better situationally where they kill a lot but I don't remember reavers ever causing so many problems without tons of micro. Just saying a little mineral costs to be so effective isn't a bad thing.
On January 27 2014 19:13 Squat wrote: Still not the same thing. You can micro away from and kill locusts. Front loaded burst damage is way better. Swarm hosts would be shit if locusts cost minerals.
Micro away from ? Not mech. Front burst damage may be better situationally where they kill a lot but I don't remember reavers ever causing so many problems without tons of micro. Just saying a little mineral costs to be so effective isn't a bad thing.
And I'm saying it is. Mech can deal with it fine. PDD plus sieged tanks can neutralize locusts.
Reavers were cool because they were so devastating but only with good micro, so yes. Hosts are a horrible unit, but zerg has nothing else to deal with late game mech and toss.
On January 27 2014 19:13 Squat wrote: Still not the same thing. You can micro away from and kill locusts. Front loaded burst damage is way better. Swarm hosts would be shit if locusts cost minerals.
Micro away from ? Not mech. Front burst damage may be better situationally where they kill a lot but I don't remember reavers ever causing so many problems without tons of micro. Just saying a little mineral costs to be so effective isn't a bad thing.
And I'm saying it is. Mech can deal with it fine. PDD plus sieged tanks can neutralize locusts.
Reavers were cool because they were so devastating but only with good micro, so yes. Hosts are a horrible unit, but zerg has nothing else to deal with late game mech and toss.
On January 27 2014 19:13 Squat wrote: Still not the same thing. You can micro away from and kill locusts. Front loaded burst damage is way better. Swarm hosts would be shit if locusts cost minerals.
Micro away from ? Not mech. Front burst damage may be better situationally where they kill a lot but I don't remember reavers ever causing so many problems without tons of micro. Just saying a little mineral costs to be so effective isn't a bad thing.
And I'm saying it is. Mech can deal with it fine. PDD plus sieged tanks can neutralize locusts.
Reavers were cool because they were so devastating but only with good micro, so yes. Hosts are a horrible unit, but zerg has nothing else to deal with late game mech and toss.
Vipers (cloud + Abduct) + hydra?
late game 3-3 vikings make it very hard for vipers to get in range.
On January 27 2014 18:49 DooMDash wrote: On the topic of Swarm Hosts:
Personally I'd like to suggest maybe each broodling cost 2 minerals. This way at least there is some thought maybe even hesitation over just spamming them out. The idea of swarm hosts works perfectly fine in the LORE of Zerg, however in Starcraft it would also make sense that they would need money for the food of spawning new units as silly as that sounds.
Also this would solve late game mined out free unit problems. Run out of money? No longer pumping out free units for an easy win.
If i have to pay for it, then it should not have a timed life. Just like everything else you pay for.
Reavers you had to pay for an attack. Or switch to energy cost, in which it would coincide with infested terran.
And scarabs actually have a hit guarantee apart from bugged movment and dropmicro and you cannot destroy them. if you give my locust a zealotchargelike hitguarantee ok, else no. also: different game
On January 27 2014 21:22 1nobody wrote: So, Hydra is the only core for Z.... then lets decrease cost for more hydras??? What?? What about diversity?
lol, ask Terrans about diversity. So is SC2 evolving to a pure APM game? Dont bother about BO, build the current standar build and micro your way to victory.
It would be interesting to finally have hydras become viable, I played tons of hydras i BW and I was so sad when I realized they aren't really viable for macro oriented mid-late game builds in SC2.
On January 27 2014 19:10 Grumbels wrote: I don't understand how magically after four years it's blink stalker all-ins that supposedly end up being the one unstoppable strategy.
Well it was already really strong during HOTS beta when people used to do it 1 base, blink was nerfed and siege mode + widow mine shield damage were largely added to help against early game toss.
I think it was duckdeok who first started to use a 2 base all-in variation, then further variations started to develop where some of them are just light pressure and others go fully all-in. For terran its just a mess where you have to guess how much to commit to defense and early production. Also any build that is even slightly greedy or otherwise unorthodox becomes garbage thanks to 2 base blink.
On January 27 2014 06:36 pure.Wasted wrote: I've been thinking about feasible redesigns of the Colossus that would discourage deathball play and encourage micro from the Protoss. Stuff that Blizzard might actually possibly be persuaded to go for.
Increase Colossus dps with an emphasis of burst with longer cooldowns (this is a buff). Then, change its attack shape - instead of a horizontal line perpendicular to the Colossus, it becomes a vertical line starting at the Colossus's feet that travels all the way to its target (and/or past the target). Then give it friendly fire. (this is obviously a nerf)
Using the Colossus behind an army of Zealots or Stalkers becomes suicidal, because the Colossus will melt all of them before it melts anything of the opponent's. Keeping the Colossus balled up doesn't work. On the other hand, if you micro the Colossus around the battlefield between shots, so that it's always engaging the enemy army at a flanking angle, it will do even more damage than it does now.
Other option: increase dps, change the attack to a line from the Colossus's feet that travels up to a target, give it a 1-2 second "charging" delay before the attack activates. As it "charges," a red dot appears over its target so the player knows exactly who the Colossus is aiming at. Now, if when the Colossus attacks, there is a friendly unit within the attack's trajectory, the Colossus does not attack, selects a new target, and starts charging again. If there are no friendly targets between the Colossus and the target, the attack goes through.
Again, attacking from behind an army of Zealots and Stalkers is discouraged, flanking and all kinds of battle micro are encouraged.
Thoughts?
I believe OneGoal tested something like this a while back and wasn't pleased with the results. Their consensus was that, yes, this would discourage death-balling, but it also became overpowered versus worker lines, or something of the like. Their implementation became too devastating with proper micro. I do like the idea though, and I hope something like this gets tested in the future.
The alternative I would like to test is the Colossus' original attack as shown in the alpha build - instead of a splash beam, it single-targets units down continuously for given time intervals. Shown below:
From what I've heard, the reason this was scrapped was because it somehow overlapped with the Carrier attack mechanism. I'd love to see someone test this though.
They should bring back the mothership from the preview, just make it cost 1000/1000. The current one is so boring.
On January 27 2014 19:13 Squat wrote: Still not the same thing. You can micro away from and kill locusts. Front loaded burst damage is way better. Swarm hosts would be shit if locusts cost minerals.
Micro away from ? Not mech. Front burst damage may be better situationally where they kill a lot but I don't remember reavers ever causing so many problems without tons of micro. Just saying a little mineral costs to be so effective isn't a bad thing.
And I'm saying it is. Mech can deal with it fine. PDD plus sieged tanks can neutralize locusts.
Reavers were cool because they were so devastating but only with good micro, so yes. Hosts are a horrible unit, but zerg has nothing else to deal with late game mech and toss.
PDD does help a lot but with a decent number of swarm hosts the rate in which they drain the PDD since they spawn so many locusts is within a matter of seconds. Believe me I'm a huge raven user and one of my other ideas to help would have just to reduce the amount of locusts they spawn ( which would make PDD more viable vs a decent number ).
On January 27 2014 19:13 Squat wrote: Still not the same thing. You can micro away from and kill locusts. Front loaded burst damage is way better. Swarm hosts would be shit if locusts cost minerals.
Micro away from ? Not mech. Front burst damage may be better situationally where they kill a lot but I don't remember reavers ever causing so many problems without tons of micro. Just saying a little mineral costs to be so effective isn't a bad thing.
And I'm saying it is. Mech can deal with it fine. PDD plus sieged tanks can neutralize locusts.
Reavers were cool because they were so devastating but only with good micro, so yes. Hosts are a horrible unit, but zerg has nothing else to deal with late game mech and toss.
Vipers (cloud + Abduct) + hydra?
Would still get murdered by raven heavy comps. Mass raven really is incredibly strong, hence why zerg will turtle up behind 80 spores. You have no realistic option of winning an engagement, so you have to go with attrition.
On January 27 2014 19:13 Squat wrote: Still not the same thing. You can micro away from and kill locusts. Front loaded burst damage is way better. Swarm hosts would be shit if locusts cost minerals.
Micro away from ? Not mech. Front burst damage may be better situationally where they kill a lot but I don't remember reavers ever causing so many problems without tons of micro. Just saying a little mineral costs to be so effective isn't a bad thing.
And I'm saying it is. Mech can deal with it fine. PDD plus sieged tanks can neutralize locusts.
Reavers were cool because they were so devastating but only with good micro, so yes. Hosts are a horrible unit, but zerg has nothing else to deal with late game mech and toss.
Vipers (cloud + Abduct) + hydra?
Would still get murdered by raven heavy comps. Mass raven really is incredibly strong, hence why zerg will turtle up behind 80 spores. You have no realistic option of winning an engagement, so you have to go with attrition.
That is not true. As Zerg there's ceretainly very agressive options to employ against a Raven/Mech deathball. HOWEVER: doing so risks you to go into a war of attrition you will most probably lose. The safer way to play (you have more control over it) is to go for the war of attrition on even ground.
I played a little bit of Starbow yesterday and in the mod it is possible to lift sieged-up siegetanks with the dropship. This makes it possible to save siegetanks with good dropship micro. If you drop the tank afterwards it is in mobile mode again. I would love to see this mechanic in hots. This change would make tanks a little bit more mobile if you put in the effort. Good players would even be able to save a tank or two while being overrun, especially in TvZ. This would help to make marine tank medevac just a little bit better.
EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/IWkzPbb.png)
