David Kim answers Balance Questions on Battle.net forums -…

On February 06 2014 10:36 Squat wrote:

It's not, and that is pretty much the crux of the entire problem. Out-expanding a turtling opponent simply is not rewarded enough. It does not provide a meaningful increase in mineral income past the third base, and not much in gas past the fourth.

Blizzard basically imported the concept of relative maxed army strength directly from BW into Sc2, which is why we see so many of these stupid SH turtle games. It works fine in a game where you can take 7 bases and trade badly, but not disastrously so, and win through attrition. It does not work in a game where you cap income on 4 bases and any trade will likely be a one-sided massacre. This is why ZvP is such a pile of shit, and will likely become worse as we go.

On February 06 2014 10:36 Whitewing wrote:
David does not get enough credit. For one thing, he's right 99% of the time when he gives these answers, but people all have their own agendas and biases and won't really consider what he says. Another is that he's right not to change design with patches, and obviously he can't comment on LOTV yet.

People get mad at him because they want something, unfortunately they're generally unwilling to consider that they are in fact wrong or off about what they want. Some people hate forcefields as a spell, problem is, as much as you might want to believe it, not everybody hates forcefields.

On February 06 2014 10:47 Wombat_NI wrote:
Zerg are by far my least played race, but all it takes is one game where you have a WP sentry drop FFing your ramp lol. Such a silly ability.

On February 06 2014 10:42 aZealot wrote:


But, is the problem with that the turtle-style or the SwarmHost? I mean, historically speaking, the best SC2 players have generally been aggressive players or active macro players. It's usually average or poor players who turtle away but, if a player is equally as skilled and is up with his scouting, I don't see it as much of a problem as you (or Ammanas) seem to think it is.

You may be right that the advantage in expanding is not as high as it should be. And it makes the engagement so important.

Edit/ Anyway, time to ladder.

On February 06 2014 10:47 Wombat_NI wrote:
Zerg are by far my least played race, but all it takes is one game where you have a WP sentry drop FFing your ramp lol. Such a silly ability.

On February 06 2014 10:50 Pandain wrote:


I used to think that, but lately Dear has been doing late-game warp prism drops in PvZ where it's three zealots and a sentry instead of four sentries. He goes to the main and forcefields the ramp to allow his zealots (and warp in reinforcements) to do more damage.

It's literally so sick to watch.

If that can be in the game and be effective late game, and actually take skill to keep track of (given the investment you're doing), I think early sentry drops are an okay trade.

On February 06 2014 10:56 Wombat_NI wrote:

Stuff like that IS cool. Startale Ace's legendary game vs BboongBboong was where I first saw that kind of lategame shenanigans. The problem for me with Protoss is that for every cool thing they can do with those units and abilities lategame, there's about 20 obnoxious things that can be done with them in the early/midgame

On February 06 2014 11:04 Whitewing wrote:


Except that there are things you can do about it. They made burrow move faster, moved burrow to hatch. Massive units crush them. Terrans lift forcefielded units all the time with medivacs. It's not that bad.

The point is, complainers are very loud.

On February 06 2014 10:47 Wombat_NI wrote:
Zerg are by far my least played race, but all it takes is one game where you have a WP sentry drop FFing your ramp lol. Such a silly ability.

On February 06 2014 11:04 Whitewing wrote:


Except that there are things you can do about it. They made burrow move faster, moved burrow to hatch. Massive units crush them. Terrans lift forcefielded units all the time with medivacs. It's not that bad.

The point is, complainers are very loud.

On February 06 2014 11:09 Squat wrote:

It's not OP, it's just stupid and obnoxious. The fact that counter-moves exist does not make it less so. They are absurdly easy to use compared to the counters required to fight them. This is a common theme with protoss in general.

If David feels they are a net positive for the game, so be it. I'm glad that I can at least know that it won't change.

On February 06 2014 11:11 Plansix wrote:

Almost every game with overhead control of units has stuns, roots, slows and other abilities that make it so you can't move. Dota 2 is filled with them and then people buy items that give them the ability to move their team mates out of harms way. Its good play and counter play. BW was filled with them as well.

On February 06 2014 11:16 Squat wrote:

I agree, I'm pretty OG as far as dota goes(I was playing when the Gambler was in the game, for reference). The thing is, the counter play for dota is to use BKB or another immunity spell, or have teammates disable enemy heroes in turn. There is a balance in terms of relative difficulty involved.

FF place the entire burden on the person being forcefielded, it requires too little to use and too much to counter. The relative difficulty is out of balance. It's kind of like zergs in WoL telling terrans to always keep their vikings spread to avoid the instant fungals. Sure it's doable, but one side has it much easier.