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On July 13 2014 16:59 Dingodile wrote:Show nested quote +On July 13 2014 16:51 HallofPain wrote: What about thors? Those gigantic junks cost 6 food 300/200 and just get slaughtered by something 4 food 250/100? Does Toss really need something that hard counters Thor anyway? Thors are not hard to deal with at all without immortals. Terran will mech all day long if P does not have Immortal. Only this one unit can deal vs mech not pretty bad.
Immortals aren't even good in the lategame against a good Mech players, since both Ravens and Ghosts just take their shields so fast that it's a plain slaughter.
Immortals are only the lazyass superimbalanced "hey I don't want to play anymore, 1A" option that Protoss has against Mech from the earlygame to latemidgame and wins a massive amount of games, without the Protoss players even having developed sharp timings for it yet. (or most Protoss even knowing how you actually want to play against Mech - well, I guess when even a comparabily weak midgame timing wins you most games, why even try to learn something that is actually unbeatable for Mech, but may be hard...)
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Personally, I think that if you're going to nerf hardened shield, nerf it by only making it affect the base damage of the units, but not upgrade damage. Then you could also have the shield upgrades work on the upgrade damage. So +1 tanks would deal 15 damage to hardened shield, or 14 damage against +1 shield Immortals. +2 tanks would be 20 damage, +3 tanks would be 25 damage. +1 Thors would be 13 damage x2, +2 16 damage x2, +3 19 damage x2.
This would make mech viable in macro games but still give Protoss a strong counter unit to early game all-in attacks with half the SCVs pulled for repairs.
You can't really nerf Photon Overcharge without breaking PvP. It barely deters phoenixes from slaughtering probes as it is, a change to 10+10 shields would turn PvP into "whoever expands first loses" again. You need 3 cannons in a mineral line to prevent phoenixes from constantly picking off your gas probes and you just can't afford to waste that many resources when trying to expand in the mirror. Warpgates mean no defender's advantage and if you try to expand while wasting that many resources on static defense that doesn't contribute you're going to get steamrolled. None of the Protoss force multipliers work against phoenixes, you can't make sentries because the phoenix easily pick them off in seconds even if they're in the middle of your army, remember it takes 18 stalker hits to kill a phoenix. Leaving some stalkers in your main doesn't work to protect your probes either, they can just flyby and pick a few off, taking very little damage. Even a nerf to the energy cost would probably break this matchup, it's very common for Protoss to overcharge the main twice in succession to keep phoenix out until their expansion's production ramps up and their extra gates finish.
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There is no early game all-in available for Terran. There needs something that forces Toss to play less greedy and scout. The 50 damage against armor units is already more than enough imo, no need to cap the damage taken to 10.
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Could someone please explain for once that "can't break PvP" argument for me. Like, break down the current metagame for me, that it so great?
Because what I see from current PvPs it is one of the following -) 1gate-->blink-->semiallinish to allinish aggression -) 1gate-->Stargate-->reactive 1base play or allin -) 1gate-->DT-->semiallinish to allinish aggression -) 3gate-->allin
And in WoL it was something like: -) defensive robo-->expand -) offensive blink+obs-->semiallinish to allinish aggression -) 3-4 gateway allin -) DTs
I don't really get what the problem would be if you couldn't 1gate-->blink allin anymore. Great, you would now have to use the weaker 3-4gate as your 1base allin. You couldn't coinflip DTs as often, since the metagame would be more oracle and robo focused if you can't get a ridiculous early blink, great. Like, a nerf to the PO would probably only shift the metagame from the one 1base builds to the others. It's not like we have any forms of early macro builds that need the PO. Those 1gate expands have very quickly fallen out of style and are currently nearly nonexistant, given that they lose to basically every tech opening or at least are forced into a nexus cancel if the other side executes properly.
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I never understood the concern about breaking PvP, yet I hear it all the time. The matchup will always have a 50% winrate, therefore it should come secondary to non-mirror matchups... Right?
The primary goal of the balance team should be to equalize the winrates across all matchups because that's most fair to progamers whose livelihoods depend on balance. Yet I frequently hear protoss whining that PvP would not be fun enough if PO was changed.
Is that seriously supposed to be a compelling argument? First world Protoss problems I guess
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On July 13 2014 19:02 eightym wrote:I never understood the concern about breaking PvP, yet I hear it all the time. The matchup will always have a 50% winrate, therefore it should come secondary to non-mirror matchups... Right? The primary goal of the balance team should be to equalize the winrates across all matchups because that's most fair to progamers whose livelihoods depend on balance. Yet I frequently hear protoss whining that PvP would not be fun enough if PO was changed. Is that seriously supposed to be a compelling argument? First world Protoss problems I guess
MU still needs to be fun to play. And there is no real fix for PO where we just marginally nerfs it whereafter it functions perfectly in TvP and ZvP. I think the current version is the lesser of other evils.
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On July 13 2014 19:16 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +On July 13 2014 19:02 eightym wrote:I never understood the concern about breaking PvP, yet I hear it all the time. The matchup will always have a 50% winrate, therefore it should come secondary to non-mirror matchups... Right? The primary goal of the balance team should be to equalize the winrates across all matchups because that's most fair to progamers whose livelihoods depend on balance. Yet I frequently hear protoss whining that PvP would not be fun enough if PO was changed. Is that seriously supposed to be a compelling argument? First world Protoss problems I guess MU still needs to be fun to play. And there is no real fix for PO where we just marginally nerfs it whereafter it functions perfectly in TvP and ZvP. I think the current version is the lesser of other evils. Indeed. But i still think we can make the matchup funnier if we had for example buildtime fixes. Lower the buildtimes a little so you still have a chance to catchup if you fall behind, lower the buildtimes so you actually can trade cost inefficiently if you're ahead and same the other way around.
Its like they've painted themselves into a corner where you have two strategies that work, and dont fix things with making other strategies fail a little more
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I would also prefer a buff to tank. They just simply feel more awesome and kick ass yet they suck vs muta ling bling. Mine should be buffed a little just to make it another option, create some variance unit composition wise in the MU but tank should still be the go to unit. Problem with buffing the tank is that in TvT I already feel that mech is slightly better than bio so after any buff we would see mech vs mech all the time :/ But if we were to look at TvZ only I think that siege time decrease alongside thor AA buff (making is something like with widow mine attack - the further from the center of the hit, the less damage) so that mutas dont just shit on thors. That should make marine, thor, tank completly viable vs zerg and that composition just looks fricken badass. As for tank in TvP I think we won't get anything till LotV
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On July 13 2014 18:49 Big J wrote: Could someone please explain for once that "can't break PvP" argument for me. Like, break down the current metagame for me, that it so great?
Because what I see from current PvPs it is one of the following -) 1gate-->blink-->semiallinish to allinish aggression -) 1gate-->Stargate-->reactive 1base play or allin -) 1gate-->DT-->semiallinish to allinish aggression -) 3gate-->allin
And in WoL it was something like: -) defensive robo-->expand -) offensive blink+obs-->semiallinish to allinish aggression -) 3-4 gateway allin -) DTs
I don't really get what the problem would be if you couldn't 1gate-->blink allin anymore. Great, you would now have to use the weaker 3-4gate as your 1base allin. You couldn't coinflip DTs as often, since the metagame would be more oracle and robo focused if you can't get a ridiculous early blink, great. Like, a nerf to the PO would probably only shift the metagame from the one 1base builds to the others. It's not like we have any forms of early macro builds that need the PO. Those 1gate expands have very quickly fallen out of style and are currently nearly nonexistant, given that they lose to basically every tech opening or at least are forced into a nexus cancel if the other side executes properly. Well that sh*t PvP state you're talking about is already the exact result of nerfing the MSC few times before.. It will be even shittier if it does get nerfed more
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On July 13 2014 19:02 eightym wrote:I never understood the concern about breaking PvP, yet I hear it all the time. The matchup will always have a 50% winrate, therefore it should come secondary to non-mirror matchups... Right? The primary goal of the balance team should be to equalize the winrates across all matchups because that's most fair to progamers whose livelihoods depend on balance. Yet I frequently hear protoss whining that PvP would not be fun enough if PO was changed. Is that seriously supposed to be a compelling argument? First world Protoss problems I guess Wrong - in WoL PvP was who expands first loses the game.. Now it's looking like that more and more, and that's exactly MSC nerf's fault.. Now it's OK-ish, but further nerfs to the MSC will make PvP as was in WoL before
That's the EXACT SAME REASON why Terrans are hesitant to think that buffing the Tank further would be better than buffing the WM let's BH
EDIT: Sorry for the double-post, but understand that one as is, it's necessary for P to have some defender's advantage if not vs T, surely vs BOTH - P and vs Z - it's really essential overall
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I hope this patch is released ASAP cause I am tired of watching TvZs where Z makes like 70 banelings and rolls over T.
See MMA - Ragnarok at Dragon.
After patch at least it wont be auto win for Zs.
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I thought that the Starbow solution of allowing you to cast chronoboost on cannons for a defensive boost (faster attack speed) was nice. It gives further integration of race mechanics, and it puts a cost on defensive utility that's more real than having to use energy on the MsC.
And would it be crazy to turn the Cybernetics Core into a shield battery? It has a similar look and you're only going to build one anyway so it can hardly break the game.
Protoss needs a defender's advantage that's not based on photon overcharge or wall-offs.
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On July 13 2014 22:17 Grumbels wrote: I thought that the Starbow solution of allowing you to cast chronoboost on cannons for a defensive boost (faster attack speed) was nice. It gives further integration of race mechanics, and it puts a cost on defensive utility that's more real than having to use energy on the MsC.
And would it be crazy to turn the Cybernetics Core into a shield battery? It has a similar look and you're only going to build one anyway so it can hardly break the game.
Protoss needs a defender's advantage that's not based on photon overcharge or wall-offs. and not totally mitigate aggression.
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PO is the worst solution that can be imagined. It's basically "pause game" button. Even normal static defenses are more interesting to watch than this, because you have to crush or avoid them and with PO you just have to wait.. Not too surprising since it was designed by the same folks who came up with the SH as the solution to stalemate in a late game. + Show Spoiler + I just don't know whats going on. If they want to make early PvP more stable than there is no better solution than shield battery. It feels like David Kim is jealous about how well BW was made and pretend that his solutions are far more superior to the BW mechanics
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I think we shouldn't be too harsh on David Kim, I think there are a few things done well and a few things done wrong in HotS for Terran. One of the things he did wrong was being to harsh with the nerfs on terran in the beginning, which ended up with Terrans being where they are now. For example, Hellbats were really strong (arguably too strong yes) but then they were nerfed to being straight up useless. Mines were nerfed as well not to being useless but not strong enough anymore to really fulfil their main purpose, namely destroying huge clumps of a-moved units so mines could function as a zoning unit/reinforcement point. This mine nerf forces terran to do a lot of damage with their first medivac drops (before muta) or they would get behind eventually. All the while the initial "mine problem" might have been fixed entirely with the overseer speed buff, which helped the Zerg to never totally lose their muta flock if handled with good micro. I think that PvT balance indirectly got disturbed by this focus on fixing ZvT.
What was done right in HotS was firstly the medivac boost ability which sped up the game and made it rewarding for good multitaskers to display their skill. Secondly the Hellbat unit, which actually made the transition to mech in TvT and ZvT possible and fun. Thirdly, accompanied by the medivac boost, the widow mines made for an even more dynamic and fast bioplay in ZvT which didn't rely on the slow moving tanks which only make sense in greater numbers requiring the Terran to build up for a longer time.
All in all, I think HotS sometimes is a great game but can be an even greater game in potential if more tech paths came to be available for Terran. I really want to know opinions of Zergs and Protoss too. Personally I still think the Terran match ups are still the most enjoyable despite the small amount of variation in tech paths, their early and mid game are really fun.
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Italy12246 Posts
On July 13 2014 18:49 Big J wrote: Could someone please explain for once that "can't break PvP" argument for me. Like, break down the current metagame for me, that it so great?
Because what I see from current PvPs it is one of the following -) 1gate-->blink-->semiallinish to allinish aggression -) 1gate-->Stargate-->reactive 1base play or allin -) 1gate-->DT-->semiallinish to allinish aggression -) 3gate-->allin
And in WoL it was something like: -) defensive robo-->expand -) offensive blink+obs-->semiallinish to allinish aggression -) 3-4 gateway allin -) DTs
I don't really get what the problem would be if you couldn't 1gate-->blink allin anymore. Great, you would now have to use the weaker 3-4gate as your 1base allin. You couldn't coinflip DTs as often, since the metagame would be more oracle and robo focused if you can't get a ridiculous early blink, great. Like, a nerf to the PO would probably only shift the metagame from the one 1base builds to the others. It's not like we have any forms of early macro builds that need the PO. Those 1gate expands have very quickly fallen out of style and are currently nearly nonexistant, given that they lose to basically every tech opening or at least are forced into a nexus cancel if the other side executes properly.
There is a huge amount of variation in there. All the builds you listed can be played either as a lighter pressure, a committed allin, or just an aggressive timing, depending on follow up tech, risks taken (going robo vs not going robo, going sentry first to scout, number of early game units before tech, etc), and most importantly constant probe production. It's not as simple as picking one tech path, the way that tech path is played also heavily changes the outcome of a game. In fact, modern blink builds are on average very defensive.
The issue with phasing out blink is that, out of those, it's the most reliable build, because the success of the aggression is determined more by both players' execution, rather than some random bo decision/early game counter. Stargate mirrors as a counter example are coinflippy as fuck, (and also very boring to play) as the player that decides to skip oracle for phoenix will come out miles ahead of oracle first builds, the player that gambles and skips a robo is usually ahead vs whoever starts a robo, etc.
Finally, being forced into stargate mirrors (the second most reliable build in terms of execution vs bo hard counters) is incredibly obnoxious because of how it plays out.
The issue with PO in PvP is that it gives the defending player some semblance of defender's advantage, which has been lacking for Protoss forever. Since the oracle buff it doesnt allow for a straight up fast expansion to be defended, but at least the game can stabilize considerably more easily, hence why, for example, blink builds are only used to pressure and delay the nexus of a Stargate player, rather than being a straight up bo win after jumping past a forcefield on a ramp like it used to be in WoL.
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On July 13 2014 20:17 VArsovskiSC wrote:Show nested quote +On July 13 2014 19:02 eightym wrote:I never understood the concern about breaking PvP, yet I hear it all the time. The matchup will always have a 50% winrate, therefore it should come secondary to non-mirror matchups... Right? The primary goal of the balance team should be to equalize the winrates across all matchups because that's most fair to progamers whose livelihoods depend on balance. Yet I frequently hear protoss whining that PvP would not be fun enough if PO was changed. Is that seriously supposed to be a compelling argument? First world Protoss problems I guess Wrong - in WoL PvP was who expands first loses the game.. Now it's looking like that more and more, and that's exactly MSC nerf's fault.. Now it's OK-ish, but further nerfs to the MSC will make PvP as was in WoL before That's the EXACT SAME REASON why Terrans are hesitant to think that buffing the Tank further would be better than buffing the WM let's BH EDIT: Sorry for the double-post, but understand that one as is, it's necessary for P to have some defender's advantage if not vs T, surely vs BOTH - P and vs Z - it's really essential overall
You say "wrong" without specifying what is wrong. Pray tell, where did I say something wrong? And lets argue with one person at a time here (I never said tank shouldn't be buffed and haven't seen many Terrans claim that either).
I know PvP wasn't fun in WoL, but the current state of TvP is even less fun and less fair. I know this way of thinking will never be adopted by others, but:
Why should Protoss having "fun" be more important than TvP being balanced? That seems to be the crux of your argument.
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Italy12246 Posts
On July 13 2014 20:17 VArsovskiSC wrote:Show nested quote +On July 13 2014 19:02 eightym wrote:I never understood the concern about breaking PvP, yet I hear it all the time. The matchup will always have a 50% winrate, therefore it should come secondary to non-mirror matchups... Right? The primary goal of the balance team should be to equalize the winrates across all matchups because that's most fair to progamers whose livelihoods depend on balance. Yet I frequently hear protoss whining that PvP would not be fun enough if PO was changed. Is that seriously supposed to be a compelling argument? First world Protoss problems I guess Wrong - in WoL PvP was who expands first loses the game.. Now it's looking like that more and more, and that's exactly MSC nerf's fault.. Now it's OK-ish, but further nerfs to the MSC will make PvP as was in WoL before That's the EXACT SAME REASON why Terrans are hesitant to think that buffing the Tank further would be better than buffing the WM let's BH EDIT: Sorry for the double-post, but understand that one as is, it's necessary for P to have some defender's advantage if not vs T, surely vs BOTH - P and vs Z - it's really essential overall
Incorrect. Eventually in WoL players figured out how to expand relatively safely (thanks to robo expands), and now the same is kind of happending too (blink/stargate+robo expands). The mothership core has little to do with the inherent volatility of the matchup imo; in fact, removing its defensive capabilities makes the match up even more volatile (think early WoL).
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On July 14 2014 00:47 Teoita wrote:Show nested quote +On July 13 2014 18:49 Big J wrote: Could someone please explain for once that "can't break PvP" argument for me. Like, break down the current metagame for me, that it so great?
Because what I see from current PvPs it is one of the following -) 1gate-->blink-->semiallinish to allinish aggression -) 1gate-->Stargate-->reactive 1base play or allin -) 1gate-->DT-->semiallinish to allinish aggression -) 3gate-->allin
And in WoL it was something like: -) defensive robo-->expand -) offensive blink+obs-->semiallinish to allinish aggression -) 3-4 gateway allin -) DTs
I don't really get what the problem would be if you couldn't 1gate-->blink allin anymore. Great, you would now have to use the weaker 3-4gate as your 1base allin. You couldn't coinflip DTs as often, since the metagame would be more oracle and robo focused if you can't get a ridiculous early blink, great. Like, a nerf to the PO would probably only shift the metagame from the one 1base builds to the others. It's not like we have any forms of early macro builds that need the PO. Those 1gate expands have very quickly fallen out of style and are currently nearly nonexistant, given that they lose to basically every tech opening or at least are forced into a nexus cancel if the other side executes properly. There is a huge amount of variation in there. All the builds you listed can be played either as a lighter pressure, a committed allin, or just an aggressive timing, depending on follow up tech, risks taken (going robo vs not going robo, going sentry first to scout, number of early game units before tech, etc), and most importantly constant probe production. It's not as simple as picking one tech path, the way that tech path is played also heavily changes the outcome of a game. In fact, modern blink builds are on average very defensive. The issue with phasing out blink is that, out of those, it's the most reliable build, because the success of the aggression is determined more by both players' execution, rather than some random bo decision/early game counter. Stargate mirrors as a counter example are coinflippy as fuck, (and also very boring to play) as the player that decides to skip oracle for phoenix will come out miles ahead of oracle first builds, the player that gambles and skips a robo is usually ahead vs whoever starts a robo, etc. Finally, being forced into stargate mirrors (the second most reliable build in terms of execution vs bo hard counters) is incredibly obnoxious because of how it plays out. The issue with PO in PvP is that it gives the defending player some semblance of defender's advantage, which has been lacking for Protoss forever. Since the oracle buff it doesnt allow for a straight up fast expansion to be defended, but at least the game can stabilize considerably more easily, hence why, for example, blink builds are only used to pressure and delay the nexus of a Stargate player, rather than being a straight up bo win after jumping past a forcefield on a ramp like it used to be in WoL.
Just talking theoretically, since I believe the PO should stay as it is due to PvZ, wouldn't phasing out PO also hit Stargate/Oracle and DT builds?
What you say makes sense for phasing out blink builds, but that's not the point of nerfing PO, isn't it? Going for Oracles, DTs and Blink off of 1gateway would all be much weaker, given the possibility of gateway pressure. So it's not like you lose all counters to Stargate openings, since you could just kill a stargate player with a 3-4gate, while an Oracle/Phoenix opening isn't that strong against something like a 3gate-->blink either, isn't it? Wouldn't the matchup then stabilize around something like 1-3gate+robotics and blink+3gate builds, maybe with a 2gate stalker pressure opening just to punish someone who attempts to still go for 5-7min DTs/Stargates/blink?
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The biggest Terran balance error was made before the WoL beta, and that was making marines so godlike amazing that simply making every other Terran unit suck wasn't enough to make up for it. They then had to cripple Terran production as well, (the barracks and starport convert resources into units at half the rate of a warpgate/stargate) and that STILL wasn't enough, as various marine cheeses utterly dominated early WoL.
Remember, before the recent hydra buff, the marine, a 50 mineral unit, did the same DPS as 100/50 hydralisks.
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