Balance Test Map Soon July 8th - Page 13

Faust852

Luxembourg4004 Posts

July 09 2014 00:04 GMT

#241

On July 09 2014 09:02 Shellshock wrote:
Didnt thors used to prioritize air in WoL or am I imagining that? I'm probably wrong but I thought that was the case

Yes, and they were derping on overlord and shit like that.

Disciple7seveN

France28 Posts

July 09 2014 00:04 GMT

#242

None of these changes address the issues leaving so many Terrans back in Bronze.
The way I see it, Blizz better really have some great things in store for LotV because if they release that game with the same types of 'improvements' they've been patching WoL and HotS with (namely leaving T on WoL while Z and P get upgrades and new units/strats) It's going to be really bad for them as viewership and players/sales will drop off dramatically. SC is a 3 race game, Blizz. Act like it.

TheDwf

France19747 Posts

July 09 2014 00:08 GMT

#243

Widow Mine splash radius increase
This will allow Terran to be stronger in the mid/late games in both matchups. We’ve also seen feedback that the Widow Mine splash radius increase doesn’t buff late game Terran, however we feel that this type of mid-game buff also carries over into a late game buff.

Splash radius changed from 1.25/1.5/1.75 to 1.5/2/2.5.

Good. Very good. Well, let's recap the different states of the Mine throughout HotS:

[image loading]

1 = Original Mine
2 = Post-nerf Mine after patch 2.0.12
3 = Mine after +shields buff
4 = Mine with the proposed change

Against Zerg specifically (comparison between the original Mine and the proposed one):

[image loading]

The critical one-shot of banes in the current secondary area (from 1.25 to 1.5) is here again. That's perfect. For the rest, we'll have to see if the average amount of damage in the extra area (from 1.75 to 2.5) is adequate.

Additionally, people shouldn't forget that Mines deal friendly fire, and Terran has to deal with that too. ForGG may not be pleased with that aspect.

Against Protoss specifically (comparison between the original Mine and the proposed one):

[image loading]

*Depending on the amount of shield left.
**Probes are one-shot.

The positive points:

Mine drops and thus 1-1-1 builds would be a powerful early game threat anew. Those Mines would be even more deadly than the original ones for Protoss' mineral lines (they would kill Probes in one shot up to 2 radius, instead of 1.75 at the beginning of HotS), but of course Protoss have mastered the defence of such attacks since then and would deal with it better. That being said, sloppiness would be heavily punished and that's a good thing (risky builds without detection in time would also suffer more). By repercussion, Protoss might have to concede Cannons in their mineral lines and maybe some extra stalks if they can't rule out a Mine drop, thus toning down their builds a bit. That's a good point.
7g blink would die. You can't all-in without detection if a Mine reaching your mineral line threatens to kill 10 Probes every 40 seconds. Someone explained that recently in some lengthy post; can't remember where though. Oh well.
Drops with Mines would be more powerful in midgame. There may be more incentive for Terran to use Mines against blink/colo (while they're currently mostly useless against that style).
Mines might now be useful in lategame? Written with a big question mark, but they might have some use to hold the scenario of a quick Zealots/Archons remax.

The negative point:

Protoss will be further pushed away from Templar openings, a style allowing better distinction and producing better games than the dreadful blink colo dual forge boredom.
Another problem to consider is that Blizzard tends to propose a bigger change for their test maps compared with the actual values they aim for. For instance, they had initially announced a reduction of the Mine radius to 1.1 (!) to sweeten the pill.

Thor Attack priority changed to use AA weapon first
Because Thors are mostly core against Zerg, and the AA weapon is the preferred weapon when using Thors, we’d like to try this change.

Will be practical/useful in some situations and a pain in others, so we'll have to see. As for aberrant priorities, how about 25 Vikings in autopilot don't shoot at the first Observer they see while your bio evaporates to the 6 colos behind?

Time Warp duration decreased from 30 to 15
We’d like to try out this change for 3 reasons: Reduce the strength of various all-ins that combo with offensive Time Warps, reduce general Protoss main army strength, and hopefully increase micro opportunities against the spell.

Why not, but in most situations the trapped units will already be dead in the span of the first 15 seconds (no idea what kind of micro they expect against Time Warp other than right clicking trapped units out of the area), so in many scenarii this is mostly cosmetic as far as TvP goes. A reduced radius or a lesser slowing would be better tracks to explore. Implementing a cast point and a casting backswing animation to the MSC so it doesn't instantly cast its spells (except Recall given the use) would also be nice. That being said, there are situations in which this change would come in handy, and all in all it cannot hurt (in TvP) so OK.

Ironsyde

United States6 Posts

July 09 2014 00:10 GMT

#244

Time warp change is useless in PvT except maybe weakening blink all ins. They should consider either allowing time warp to affect friendly units or lowering the cast range to 0, making time warp a preemptive positional advantage type of spell rather than something thrown down on bio mid-battle. Messing with the cast range might make colossi weaker in PvP though.

SC2Toastie

Netherlands5725 Posts

July 09 2014 00:13 GMT

#245

On July 09 2014 04:48 MorroW wrote:

Show nested quote +

the thor buff is super useful. its very difficult to target mutalisks with your thors in the initiation of the fight where normally youd spend time splitting or queing the ultralisks with marauders. this will help a lot or at the very least make it easier to control your army in tvz

No. In big engagements mutalisk are either not participatibg or magic boxed. Thors are mostly used for zoning and forcing said magic box, something this buffnerf does notging for

[PkF] Wire

France24239 Posts

July 09 2014 00:13 GMT

#246

I can't even imagine the change to the mine making it through without at least a nerf to +shields damage. I'm pretty sure the change is intended for TvZ and this mine would be ridiculously good at wiping out mineral lines, and by ridiculously good I mean too good. I'm ready to test this change but I don't like its potential conjunction to the bandaid +shields damage that was applied some time ago.

Tldr, decrease +shields damage if you go with this change so that the mine fulfills its role again in TvZ but doesn't become too powerful of a threat in TvP.

stuchiu

Fiddler's Green42661 Posts

July 09 2014 00:22 GMT

#247

That Thor thing was random.

SC2Toastie

Netherlands5725 Posts

July 09 2014 00:26 GMT

#248

On July 09 2014 09:02 Shellshock wrote:
Didnt thors used to prioritize air in WoL or am I imagining that? I'm probably wrong but I thought that was the case

I think that was changed a couple of times because of overseers and medivacs.

Faust852

Luxembourg4004 Posts

July 09 2014 00:27 GMT

#249

On July 09 2014 09:22 stuchiu wrote:
That Thor thing was random.

Not sure about that. It happened to me quite a lot that my thor didn't shoot one voley on a flock of mutas because there was a zergling nearby, and This thor voley could have done so much.
The main point of thor are to kill mutas, and if they focus them first, there is a higher chance for them to hit a big chunk of it instead of a lone muta.

ZAiNs

United Kingdom6525 Posts

July 09 2014 00:28 GMT

#250

On July 09 2014 09:13 SC2Toastie wrote:

Show nested quote +

No. In big engagements mutalisk are either not participatibg or magic boxed. Thors are mostly used for zoning and forcing said magic box, something this buffnerf does notging for

I think Morrow knows more than you lol.

SC2Toastie

Netherlands5725 Posts

July 09 2014 00:30 GMT

#251

All in all I am very disappointed with these changes and frankly very sad there's a) people thinking these are good/useful changes and b) people saying Terrans are never happy witg what they get.

This completely ignores what the game needs and the outcry of intelligent people for things such as a Terran late game, or viable Siege Tanks. This 75/25 unit already does more damage in a battle than the 150/125 unit it overlaps with. Meanwhile, it is faster, easier to use, faster to produce, earlier in the game, and random as fuck.

stuchiu

Fiddler's Green42661 Posts

July 09 2014 00:33 GMT

#252

I can't visualize the effect WR radius would have against Zerg.

DomeGetta

480 Posts

July 09 2014 00:40 GMT

#253

On July 09 2014 07:35 VArsovskiSC wrote:

Show nested quote +

Don't forget that the mine buff applies in TvP also - less "whining" would be a good start..

(I know I said it in a rude way, but feels like Terran's got what they wanted, - and still not enough)

Which of my points were u disagreeing with?

Feel free to link me to a vod where Terran steamrolls that army late game vs P on 4 base - I'd love to copy the godliness.
And you probably said the same thing after the last 2 buffs lol - crazy Terran's for thinking they were stupid and wouldn't change the balance problem.

I stated in my threat in Tvz that I was skeptical of the change because I'm not sure how it affects what% of units die at what radius - thanks to DWF for putting that together - Terran's just making useless whiny posts everywhere - gotta watch out for them

[PkF] Wire

France24239 Posts

July 09 2014 00:40 GMT

#254

Basically you'll one shot banelings again in a 1.5 radius.

I have difficulties in thinking the consequences of that patch for TvZ too, but I can see very well that the Widow Mine would one shot probes in a 2 radius. I guess David Kim will say more about the exact nature of the radius buff in the upcoming days because I don't think a new mine like Downfall described some posts ago would be balanced for TvP (aside from putting the final nail in the coffin of templar openings which are anyway quite dead already).

KrazyTrumpet

United States2520 Posts

July 09 2014 00:44 GMT

#255

On July 09 2014 09:08 TheDwf wrote:

The negative point:

Protoss will be further pushed away from Templar openings, a style allowing better distinction and producing better games than the dreadful blink colo dual forge boredom.

I really don't think this can be stressed enough. Blink stalker/colossus is literally the most skilless and unexciting way to play PvT. Do people really want this??? Really???????

asongdotnet

United States1060 Posts

July 09 2014 00:46 GMT

#256

On July 09 2014 09:22 stuchiu wrote:
That Thor thing was random.

It seems that way but Bomber brought it up when Blizz eSports folks came to visit WCS NA... I guess they do listen to the pros after all!

TheWinks

United States572 Posts

July 09 2014 00:46 GMT

#257

On July 09 2014 09:02 Shellshock wrote:
Didnt thors used to prioritize air in WoL or am I imagining that? I'm probably wrong but I thought that was the case

In beta yes, and it was really aggravating. Then they changed it so they'd prioritize ground except they somehow forgot to alter it for medivacs, so during big mech vs bio fights the thors would tickle the medivacs until they patched it.

If they do the change they ideally should make Thors prioritize air units that can hurt them over ground units, but leave pure air to air target priority as is right now. Whatever they do, Thors shouldn't ever prioritize things like medivacs or overlords over ground targets.

neptunusfisk

2286 Posts

July 09 2014 00:54 GMT

#258

So... basically Bogus can scv pull against colossus every game again and then 4M the zergs because WM actually kill something? This GSL -> best GSL?