We saw good discussion around maps this week, and wanted to remind you that new maps will be coming in towards the end of this month.
Map diversity is our main goal for 1v1 maps, and we’re on the lookout for potential balance issues that may come up as we pursue that goal. This doesn’t mean that we should just jump at any new strategy that initially looks overpowered—new strategies almost always looks overpowered at first and oftentimes turn out fine once players learn to deal with it. Instead, we should be doing our best to figure out new strategies and counters to those new strategies, but if there are real balance issues we need to work hard towards addressing them as soon as possible.
The 1v1 map cuts will be the three oldest maps in the current pool and Central Protocol.
For map adds, we pushed the direction that we discussed last week, and we’d like to thank everyone for providing feedback to our map design team so that they’ll have a strong direction for Season 2.
- We’re planning to replace Central Protocol with a map with a similar idea and better execution: (4)Invader. - The second map will allow players to break down Rock Towers in order to block off all possible ground paths to your base and three additional expansions. We want to see if we can get some island-like scenarios without the problems of island maps. - The third map will feature a small ramp leading down from the base to a long, thin ground path as the main, central avenue of attack. Players can use buildings and/or units to more easily defend this choke point. Moving defensive locations away from the base and making use of the terrain have the potential to create cool games. - The fourth map is (8)Korhal Carnage Knockout. There are many places, depending on the flow of expansions, where players will really need to strategize around when to break Rocks and Rock Towers both on the offense and defense.
We would also like to acknowledge the mapmaker, Sidian. When we look at his maps, even the ones that aren’t used on the ladder, we really admire his work. We know how difficult it is to be creative while still thinking about game balance when making maps, and Sidian is a solid example of someone who clearly tries his best on both fronts.
We know it’s not as difficult to just pump out the same types of maps on different tilesets, but it’s just awesome seeing many mapmakers out there pushing the limits for the better of the game.
Map Diversity and Map Balance First, we would like to thank the casters in SSL and Proleague for pointing out how new maps in Legacy of the Void, such as Ulrena, are creating much more interesting games and scenarios than maps of the same type. We completely agree, and believe map diversity makes the playing and spectating experiences better.
With that said, because we are pushing map diversity much harder in Legacy of the Void, the chances of there being balance issues on specific maps may be higher. Unlike balance changes to the game, we can definitely have a much quicker turnaround on map balance changes.
Map Data Please keep in mind that although data contributes towards the big picture, it doesn’t say everything about the situation and is not the absolute source from which we draw conclusions. That’s why we approach gauging the state of the game by looking into many factors such as ladder data, community feedback, pro feedback, current meta game on the ladder/tournaments, tournament results, checking past experiences, and so on.
With that said, since the map changes to the current pool last time, we’re seeing that every map in every matchup at all skill levels using our adjusted ratings is off by plus or minus 5%. Adjusted ratings are win/loss percentages that are measured with the players’ skill factored out on the ladder, so that we can more accurately gauge the state of each race. The general gauge suggested by our stats/math people for adjusted ratings is that plus or minus 5% is just normal data fluctuating, and over plus or minus 10% means there could be an issue.
To reiterate, we’re not saying the balance is perfect—we just want to point this out due to how we’re seeing clear improvements on the data side since the last changes. So congrats on the great suggestions!
Let’s continue to focus on other points other than data to really zero in on potential balance issues and discuss solutions to the issues so that we can make the best changes we can on a map by map basis. Data alone can’t paint the best clear big picture, and we have to spend efforts across all fronts to make the least biased decision.
Balance
Please share your thoughts on the topics we’re discussing this week:
Ravager
Cooldown nerf looks to be the strongest in this area. For example, if we go from 10 seconds to 14 seconds on the ability, that’s a big DPS nerf on the ability damage.
We definitely want to nerf either Ravager timings or Overlord drops in PvZ, due to strategy diversity on the Protoss side. But we don’t need a simultaneous double nerf.
Overlord Tier 1 Drops
We saw the strong points many of you brought up in terms of not nerfing Ravagers, and focusing more so on Overlord drops as the first pass.
If we were to go this route, we believe moving the requirement from Evolution Chamber to Lair would be the most reasonable, and although this is a huge nerf, we can definitely test this out due to the early game PvZ issue looking pretty clear at this point.
Let’s discuss whether we should test a Ravager or Overlord tier 1 drop nerf first, because we’d like to test something as soon as possible on the balance test map so that we can patch to the live game.
Cyclone
We believe the suggestion of increasing health but also increasing the supply cost is good to make sure that we buff them for the early/mid game, while making it about the same in the late game.
We also believe due to the cost of this unit, this could potentially be a safe change that doesn’t give outright advantage to Terran as a whole.
Because Terran is at a powerful state right now, we definitely don’t want to only do straight-up buffs.
Banshee
After going over the feedback and having more discussions around it, we wonder if we can take away the strength of Liberators somewhat, and make the Banshee movement speed upgrade lower in tier, such as no requirement or Armory requirement.
This is the same logic as the above; we can’t just straight-up buff Terran when they are already performing strongly at the moment.
If we were to nerf the range and upgraded range of Liberators against ground, we can maybe bring the Banshee speed upgrade requirement down much lower, so that there can be a bit of decision making and choice with these two units depending on the situation.
AA from the Factory
We are currently exploring your feedback of potentially bringing in a generally solid AA option on the Factory to allow for a reliable ground based AA solution.
We can definitely explore this angle with the Cyclone (if we don’t go the route proposed above), but Thor is definitely another area we can go.
For example, because splash AA is covered pretty well by Widow Mines, one potential route we can go is more of a single-target, flat damage option on the Thor.
Let’s discuss so that we can start exploring this front soon.
Discussions Around Mech Thanks for many great discussions around this topic. After going through the feedback, our current thought is to focus more on individual mech units first, and diversifying that. As we explore changes in this area, we’ll be able to identify what type of strategies and unit compositions show potential, so we can go from there. The question as to whether bio and mech should be completely split or always mixed will naturally be answered better as we explore individual design improvements.
Next Week We won’t have an update next week, because some of our team members will be at GDC. However, we will still be exploring the exact changes that we need to test for the next balance test map. So please continue contributing to the proposed changes to the next balance test map so that we can continue making StarCraft II the best game it can be.
Regarding the banshee vs liberator situation: the liberator still deals more damage and can be reactored, which makes it flatly better than banshees, even with less range, in many situations, if not almost all. It just becomes weaker in harassment.
Too much focus on Terran/Mech, not enough on PvZ. Regarding the latter, I'm for testing nerfing Overlord drops first. Without that constant threat, maybe Protoss can play more greedy, which could make the race as strong as Zerg in the later stages of the game.
On March 12 2016 04:06 Elentos wrote: Regarding the banshee vs liberator situation: the liberator still deals more damage and can be reactored, which makes it flatly better than banshees, even with less range, in many situations, if not almost all. It just becomes weaker in harassment.
Every time I've seen speed banshees they seem incredibly strong. The cost-effectiveness a good player can squeeze out of them is insane. I wouldn't underestimate the potential of this change.
Let’s discuss whether we should test a Ravager or Overlord tier 1 drop nerf first, because we’d like to test something as soon as possible on the balance test map so that we can patch to the live game.
Rather than nerfing interesting Zerg aggressive options (which aren't a problem in TvZ or ZvZ), I'd much prefer a change to Protoss' capability to open a few gateways to be safe, then transition well into the mid-game.
If you just nerf Zerg, Protoss will still be stuck with only one safe macro-build in PvZ. Why not address this issue directly?
What's up with all this focus on the cyclone? Yes, it's use is limited, but It's not useless. Not all units need to be used equally. It's still a good tool for terran in certain situations. It's fine as it is.
On March 12 2016 04:43 sashkata wrote: What's up with all this focus on the cyclone? Yes, it's use is limited, but It's not useless. Not all units need to be used equally. It's still a good tool for terran in certain situations. It's fine as it is.
I think they are very unhappy that a brand new unit in the expansion has a very close nitche live.
For maps:
I was always very vocal to get rid of the maps. And I am happy that this is finally happening. On the other side, they only showed us 2 of the 4 maps. I hope they will show us the new maps way before they introduce them, because else we again couldnt fing the potential flaws of the maps. And to be honest, Blizzards Team has shown that they have hard times to find the flaws on maps by their own.
Balance: I agree, Ling Drop nerf should work without destroying any game, but giving protoss a bit more air to breath. If they would patch again (and not wait 8 month) later when the drop nerf wouldnt help enough or not at all, they can figure out another thing. I cant agree about playing with terran stats or upgrades. If you want to nerf the liberator, just do it. Terran is strong enough to compensate that without any buff for another unit. Especially when it is such a useless upgrade like banshee speed. Cyclone: Does it really need more health? Is the AI actually fixed, that they dont move into 5 range when they use lock on (without manual move command)? Mech: Please no!
Balance stats:
I cant understand how they find 5% acceptable. Do they mean 47,5%-52,5% ? That could be okay. But if they mean 45%-55% is not okay at all. If thats their way of balance, I know what made 8 month of Brofestor possible.
Appreciate the kind words, thanks for the shoutout! I don't play sc2 much at all anymore (a little bit of co-op here and there) but I still watch streams and map make all the time. Korhal Carnage was designed back in HOTS so I'm a little nervous how it'll do in LOTV.
Either way, hopefully the map turns out to be fun for the players after the final version comes out and fingers crossed it won't be too imba. I would imagine blizzard would update aesthetics to LOTV textures and might possibly do a few balance tweaks as well.
ps. The map thread is actually a little outdated, there are rocks that block between the close bases so speedling openers shouldn't wreck protoss that bad.
I am interested in seeing how they plan to create seperate roles for Vikings and Thors. Ideally I would like to see Vikings and Liberators being merged into one (splash with slightly better single target than the current liberator). This could open up a role for the Cyclone to counter armored air units and the Thor to be used vs massive air units ( tier 3).
I still hope they buff siege tanks, cus I really want to play a proper mech.
If they move zerg drops to lair, I would like to see it being buffed. Maybe +0.5 movement speed or something like that.
Also they need to nerf reaper early game and give it a midgame upgrade.
These updates are like a dog chasing its own tail now. Nothing on tanks and now we are back to talking about ravagers and factory based AA like it is the end of beta again. Terran should get back on track and stick to the original design philosphy of variable compositions instead of simply marine tank medivac openings every time.
Well i guess they read Avilo's thread about mech and AA. I just hope we get stronger Terran ground and weaker Terran air. Some how , some way please buff the Tank, the Thor and the Cyclone and weaken Terran Air units to compensate for it. I really like the map diversity and I'm glad it is a continued goal of the design team to use diverse maps in the ladder map pool.
On March 12 2016 05:13 Aocowns wrote: great, super fast banshees being more common, thats gonna make laddering even more fun rip
Thor AA singletarget i like that potential alot. or Cyclone better AA unit. I like this potential to. But harder to picture this one since no idea is yet mentioned.
Really think if factory gets good AA, it could potentially do alot for mech in general.
Dont like the banshee or liberator-what should i produce. I know its probably very far off, but looking at the viking instead and redesigning it so the terran player chooses between viking/liberator could be alot more fun. Making the viking more dynamic.
This all looks good, maybe Thor is not the correct AA option due to its incredible immobility but overall I find myself agreeing with most points lately.
However, stop bloody talking about it and do it - I think that you are moving in the right direction but now we need to see it in action.
This all looks good, maybe Thor is not the correct AA option due to its incredible immobility but overall I find myself agreeing with most points lately.
Well it depends. If it is supposed to counter other immobile air units like Brood, Carriers and Tempests, it doesn't need much more mobility. That said, I am generally not a fun of slow moving units as I think they just become unmicroable.
What's the point in buffing banshees when mech is not viable. With bio you won't ever make banshees outside of the early game because you have no techlabbed starport
On March 12 2016 05:30 Charoisaur wrote: What's the point in buffing banshees when mech is not viable. With bio you won't ever make banshees outside of the early game because you have no techlabbed starport
And banshee's will also not be able to do anything that bio cannot do with medivacs. Maybe there will be a few "cheesy" builds where the protoss player doesn't have observer speed to deal with banshee's. But banshee's have no natural synergy with bio play. For banshee's to ever work with mech, it will also need a gas reduction, since otherwise you will just be cutting into tank count which means you cannot take bases as fast.
I feel that a lot of the issues that David Kim is bringing up are very easy to predict in advance.
The Thor change is something I had wanted to see years ago. Tank delay increase is something I suggested around 6 months ago. Same with banshee speed requring armory tech.
On March 12 2016 05:28 DeadByDawn wrote: This all looks good, maybe Thor is not the correct AA option due to its incredible immobility but overall I find myself agreeing with most points lately.
However, stop bloody talking about it and do it - I think that you are moving in the right direction but now we need to see it in action.
I think my only concern is if they take out Thor's AA splash damage, that it might add more incentive to use Liberators, to which I think there enough incentive to use them.
It could also encourage the use of mines to combat air units. This is merely speculation on my end though.
You can say what you want, but one has to give credit to blizzard for making the new expansion that awesome. The balance issues arent that massiv but I dislike the Terran-nerf-ideas.
I believe than rather nerfing the Liberators range, you simply could change them to Tech Lab requirement. This would open up a lot of new builds, for example Liberator into Banshee, while you already upgrade Cloak. This idea mainly focuses on TvZ and TvT though.
I also think that rather changing the overlord drop requirements, Blizz should nerf the Ravager instead. That change seems the most reasonable to me right now, because it helps out in two different matchups.
Overall I'm very happy how things are going right now, gj blizzard!
On March 12 2016 05:37 Dungeontay wrote: You can say what you want, but one has to give credit to blizzard for making the new expansion that awesome. The balance issues arent that massiv ... snip ... Overall I'm very happy how things are going right now, gj blizzard!
Indeed, nice to hear it said occasionally! I am not getting as much time to play due to work pressures but loving watching the games lately and enjoying when I do play. Once I get some time I intend to do a personal 'grind to masters'!
At the moment balance problems are just niggles - let's see in 6 months if there is enough diversity to keep the interest. If not then I plan to random to enjoy the game more fully albeit at the loss of my 'Starship Trooper' fantasies.
Drops or Ravager nerf I think drops is the better option, mainly because nerfing the dps of the ravager affects TvZ and ZvZ as well, while early drops are hardly seen in those matchups. But the cooldown nerf on the bile is also a good idea, just be watchful about those other matchups.
Maps
Cyclone I think a costreduction would be better than a health buff in combination with the supply nerf. But interesting direction one way or the other.
Liberator & Banshee Please don't nerf the liberator at this point. The banshee buff does nothing for standard Terran play, while the strong liberator is necessary in PvT, the matchup does not need a Terran nerf. Even though I agree with the general context of not just buffing a well-performing race, I think there is no need to consider this when talking about a lategame upgrade for a rarely lategame playable unit like the banshee. Just test the buff imo, don't try to replace one strategy with another here.
AA from the factory Then I want a ground-to-air counter tool for Zerg that is at least as strong as marines. Factory might be lacking anti-air, but Terran is not and any Terran playstyle can field enough antiair. The problem is not anti-air, the problem is the anti-antiair in my opinion. Parasitic Bomb and Storms counter Vikings way too well, making it too hard to counter Protoss and Zerg lategame capital ships.
Mech: Please try to nerf tankivacs somehow and give compensation buffs to the siege tank in other forms. TvT is really not in a good spot right now.
Banshee vs Liberator - Why? The liberator is a far more interesting unit than the banshee. A unit that has to switch between attacking air only vs attacking ground only and has to completely root itself to a spot to attack ground is far more interesting than an A-move unit. Don't they ever learn?
Map diversity - It still amazes me that they are putting all these complications about rocks and crap into maps while simultaneously claiming that having a non-standard amount of resources in expansions will make the heads of casual players explode.
On March 12 2016 05:55 Big J wrote: Mech: Please try to nerf tankivacs somehow and give compensation buffs to the siege tank in other forms. TvT is really not in a good spot right now.
+1 like how about Medivacs can't boost when carrying a heavy payload outside its body. When a Siege Tank lands it should take 1 cool down period before it can fire its first shot. And, Tanks do 40/60 damage. Also, when the THor lands it should not be able to insta-fire. It should take 1 attack cool-down period before it can fire its first shot.
the above Medivac mechanics change weakens both the Thor and Tank. Buff the Thor in some way to make up for it. Avilo is requesting better AA for the Thor. Maybe that is a way to go.
This makes Terran slightly less mobile and puts the Thor and Tank into the slow-moving//hard-hitting category to a greater extent.
Again, i'm having fun with the game as it stands now. I think the changes i'm spit-balling here make the game slightly better.
On March 12 2016 06:09 andrewlt wrote: Banshee vs Liberator - Why? The liberator is a far more interesting unit than the banshee. A unit that has to switch between attacking air only vs attacking ground only and has to completely root itself to a spot to attack ground is far more interesting than an A-move unit. Don't they ever learn?
Map diversity - It still amazes me that they are putting all these complications about rocks and crap into maps while simultaneously claiming that having a non-standard amount of resources in expansions will make the heads of casual players explode.
Early in the game the Banshee is not an a-move unit. It is a micro rewarding harassment unit, it has cloak and is quite fragile. Players dodge shots and scans. Back in WoL I used to love taking on pre-stim marines by microing it.
On March 12 2016 06:17 FFW_Rude wrote: I want to see battlecruiser. That's all. Medivac can tankivac only if there's a BC near them. I know that's stupid. But i want to see battlecruisers.
Battlecruisers have a giant magnet under them and the Medivac and BC can stack in mid air. When the magnet is activated the BC becomes like a giant MRI machine and provides detection to the player for cloaked mechanical units as it pulls up the Tank.
Please don't nerf the liberator at this point. The banshee buff does nothing for standard Terran play, while the strong liberator is necessary in PvT, the matchup does not need a Terran nerf.
Well I think that if buff protoss AA options the Liberator nerf wouldn't be needed.
Me and a friend just tried Korhal Carnage and it's bugged. Spawning is supposed to be as shown here but we spawned damn near on top of each other. Hopefully that will be fixed
Please don't nerf the liberator at this point. The banshee buff does nothing for standard Terran play, while the strong liberator is necessary in PvT, the matchup does not need a Terran nerf.
Well I think that if buff protoss AA options the Liberator nerf wouldn't be needed.
Buffing Stalker AA damage has been needed since forever. I don't know why Blizzard thinks that Stalkers need to do the same amount of damage vs ground and vs air. It's not like there aren't already units in the game that have differing DPS vs ground and vs air.
Please don't nerf the liberator at this point. The banshee buff does nothing for standard Terran play, while the strong liberator is necessary in PvT, the matchup does not need a Terran nerf.
Well I think that if buff protoss AA options the Liberator nerf wouldn't be needed.
I see no problem in PvT that would require action besides giving more options. Nerfing the liberator is plainly making Terran weaker, buffing banshees does absolutely nothing, buffing Protoss antiair is probably equivalent to nerfing liberators, if not even better for protoss because it helps with medivacs as well (that obviously depends on the exact buff you have in mind).
On March 12 2016 04:06 Elentos wrote: Regarding the banshee vs liberator situation: the liberator still deals more damage and can be reactored, which makes it flatly better than banshees, even with less range, in many situations, if not almost all. It just becomes weaker in harassment.
Every time I've seen speed banshees they seem incredibly strong. The cost-effectiveness a good player can squeeze out of them is insane. I wouldn't underestimate the potential of this change.
You still can't use them as part of a proper composition to the extent you can with liberators. You need twice as many starports to make banshees at the same rate as liberators. I mean, I could see them used against Zerg, but since they tickle ultras you have to get liberators eventually anyway. Against Protoss you need the zoning the liberator provides, banshees are too fragile.
On March 12 2016 06:09 andrewlt wrote: Map diversity - It still amazes me that they are putting all these complications about rocks and crap into maps while simultaneously claiming that having a non-standard amount of resources in expansions will make the heads of casual players explode.
Sorry, if I have to play on a map that isn't 8 mineral fields 1500 minerals per patch, or 6 high yield mineral fields 1500 minerals per patch I will die. That's the only accepted standard. Forever and eternal.
Please don't nerf the liberator at this point. The banshee buff does nothing for standard Terran play, while the strong liberator is necessary in PvT, the matchup does not need a Terran nerf.
Well I think that if buff protoss AA options the Liberator nerf wouldn't be needed.
Buffing Stalker AA damage has been needed since forever. I don't know why Blizzard thinks that Stalkers need to do the same amount of damage vs ground and vs air. It's not like there aren't already units in the game that have differing DPS vs ground and vs air.
Not a chance with blink. Too hard not to make them OP when they can just blink under air units.
I disagree about liberator's nerf and buff banshee because it may be balance in zerg but does nothing vs protoss.Which mean we nerf it and don't give terran anything back vs P match up. And talk about liberator too strong vs protoss ground or protoss ground AA is too weak.I think liberator is doing a good job compare with what tank suppose to be right now.It zone the shit out every ground unit, just like BW siege tank.So it's not about damage or protoss's AA.Counterplay of protoss vs liberator is way too hard. We keep its strength which is zone ability while nerf it's AOE circle to make counterplay easier. Also with new factory AA, we can torn down it AA ablity too. This unit is the BW siege tank vs protoss which is good but also the goliath as the same time. It's wayy too versatile but not a jack of all trade kind.
Please don't nerf the liberator at this point. The banshee buff does nothing for standard Terran play, while the strong liberator is necessary in PvT, the matchup does not need a Terran nerf.
Well I think that if buff protoss AA options the Liberator nerf wouldn't be needed.
Buffing Stalker AA damage has been needed since forever. I don't know why Blizzard thinks that Stalkers need to do the same amount of damage vs ground and vs air. It's not like there aren't already units in the game that have differing DPS vs ground and vs air.
Because if you want to counter mass air, you must go mass air.That how this game was designed.
Please don't nerf the liberator at this point. The banshee buff does nothing for standard Terran play, while the strong liberator is necessary in PvT, the matchup does not need a Terran nerf.
Well I think that if buff protoss AA options the Liberator nerf wouldn't be needed.
Buffing Stalker AA damage has been needed since forever. I don't know why Blizzard thinks that Stalkers need to do the same amount of damage vs ground and vs air. It's not like there aren't already units in the game that have differing DPS vs ground and vs air.
Not a chance with blink. Too hard not to make them OP when they can just blink under air units.
Too hard not to make them OP? Hahahaha! Even with Blink Stalkers are pretty bad vs Mutas and Liberators. Why is it acceptable that Protoss only has ONE unit that can handle Mutas? I'm bored of Pheonix into Chargelot/Immortal/Archon every single game vs Zerg.
Please don't nerf the liberator at this point. The banshee buff does nothing for standard Terran play, while the strong liberator is necessary in PvT, the matchup does not need a Terran nerf.
Well I think that if buff protoss AA options the Liberator nerf wouldn't be needed.
Buffing Stalker AA damage has been needed since forever. I don't know why Blizzard thinks that Stalkers need to do the same amount of damage vs ground and vs air. It's not like there aren't already units in the game that have differing DPS vs ground and vs air.
Because if you want to counter mass air, you must go mass air.That how this game was designed.
GIVE THE CYCLONE THE POTENTIAL TO BE A CORE UNIT. (aka redesign). If you increase its health and its supply, it's just gonna be an abusive viking that won't be used (maybe one in TvP/TvT as an opener). If you want to make the thor, the viking, and the liberator the terran facto/SP AA, it's gonna overlap as hell.
About bio/mech mixing
JUST REDESIGN THE CYCLONE TO MAKE IT THE MECH CORE UNIT. You can work on the siege tank/thor later, for now :
Proposition for mech/the cyclone
Cyclone : - 150/75 ressources 2 supply - remove lock on (abusive ability, therefore either the unit is OP, either it's worthless) - attack range from 5 to 6, health from 120 to 140 - tech lab upgrape so the cyclone can shoot while moving - reduce movespeed a little and increase rate of fire a little
There you go. It's cheaper, a little slower, a little thougher, with better Amove DPS, but can have an upgrade to kite : IT'S A MECH FOOTMAN. It's a core, massable unit, that needs support units (tanking, AoE, and good AA). And without the abusive lock on.
Regarding overlord drops and ravager I think it is resonable areas to look at for pvz. Personally from what I have seen, zergs going for hydra lurker into a big muta switch seems pretty troublesome, if not for balance it just looks so cancerous to play from the protoss side of things. I dont play the matchup so I dont really now.
Cyclone, I think they should to try to change it into a massable anti air specialist (with weak anti ground) instead. Key here is you need to be able to reactor it.
Banshee, tbh I have no clue about this and I have never understood this unit to begin with, I would much rather have a wraith type of unit that can do light harass and are decent against other air (even though I think air should mainly be countered by ground)
What I hope giving mech an anti air unit accomplishes is that it gives terran a timing before broods/temps. Right now any such timings get nullified by small ammounts of air. Creating this timing goes hand in hand with nerfing starports (vikings) so it doesn't become the same turtle to a big air army as before.
Droplord to Lair? Seems reasonable. Now can we get overseer to tier 1 (unlocked with evo chamber) so we can start to build up energy earlier and use contaminate for harass? :D
I hope the liberator doesn't get nerfed just to promote/force some banshee appearances. I think the unit is in a great spot right now and time will tell if there are really any adjustments to be made. Once people start using Ghosts more in TvZ to counter Ultras Liberators might already have a time getting that staple spot a good tech unit in that matchup.
On March 12 2016 07:45 Gullis wrote: Regarding overlord drops and ravager I think it is resonable areas to look at for pvz. Personally from what I have seen, zergs going for hydra lurker into a big muta switch seems pretty troublesome, if not for balance it just looks so cancerous to play from the protoss side of things. I dont play the matchup so I dont really now.
Cyclone, I think they should to try to change it into a massable anti air specialist (with weak anti ground) instead. Key here is you need to be able to reactor it.
Banshee, tbh I have no clue about this and I have never understood this unit to begin with, I would much rather have a wraith type of unit that can do light harass and are decent against other air (even though I think air should mainly be countered by ground)
What I hope giving mech an anti air unit accomplishes is that it gives terran a timing before broods/temps. Right now any such timings get nullified by small ammounts of air. Creating this timing goes hand in hand with nerfing starports (vikings) so it doesn't become the same turtle to a big air army as before.
Theres no problems with vikings the only mass air options from terrans are ravens and libs, the first were already nerfed and the second are about to get nerfed
On March 12 2016 07:23 seemsgood wrote: I disagree about liberator's nerf and buff banshee because it may be balance in zerg but does nothing vs protoss.Which mean we nerf it and don't give terran anything back vs P match up. And talk about liberator too strong vs protoss ground or protoss ground AA is too weak.I think liberator is doing a good job compare with what tank suppose to be right now.It zone the shit out every ground unit, just like BW siege tank.So it's not about damage or protoss's AA.Counterplay of protoss vs liberator is way too hard. We keep its strength which is zone ability while nerf it's AOE circle to make counterplay easier. Also with new factory AA, we can torn down it AA ablity too. This unit is the BW siege tank vs protoss which is good but also the goliath as the same time. It's wayy too versatile but not a jack of all trade kind.
You what other unit is like a BW siege tank? The siege tank, dunno just think about it, a siege tank doing the role of the siege tank, maybe we should explore that instead.
Please don't nerf the liberator at this point. The banshee buff does nothing for standard Terran play, while the strong liberator is necessary in PvT, the matchup does not need a Terran nerf.
Well I think that if buff protoss AA options the Liberator nerf wouldn't be needed.
Buffing Stalker AA damage has been needed since forever. I don't know why Blizzard thinks that Stalkers need to do the same amount of damage vs ground and vs air. It's not like there aren't already units in the game that have differing DPS vs ground and vs air.
Because if you want to counter mass air, you must go mass air.That how this game was designed.
And its the biggest general design flaw of Sc2.
The biggest flaw is that mass air is best against mass air even though that situation is extremely rare in pro games?
We saw the strong points many of you brought up in terms of not nerfing Ravagers, and focusing more so on Overlord drops as the first pass.
If we were to go this route, we believe moving the requirement from Evolution Chamber to Lair would be the most reasonable, and although this is a huge nerf, we can definitely test this out due to the early game PvZ issue looking pretty clear at this point.
Let’s discuss whether we should test a Ravager or Overlord tier 1 drop nerf first, because we’d like to test something as soon as possible on the balance test map so that we can patch to the live game.
change drops first 100% IMO.
ravager design is a little iffy for multiple races (vs siege tanks & static defenses, that discussion has been had with siege tank buffs) - they change how some stuff works in the game just as a fact of their range, but that's not neccesarily a balance problem.
If siege tanks are worth building even though ravagers exist, if protoss can live without photon cannons that ravagers have invalidated etc then it can still be good. The main problem is if tanks are not worth building and if toss would otherwise need static defense to live, but can't build it.
----
Drop is a way bigger problem for protoss right now IMO - a ravager corrosive bile cooldown nerf would largely affect ZvT, maybe even more than ZvP.
Protoss can hold their own in a game with drops at lair and a well balanced map pool - they just have neither at the moment.
It's quite easy to make a map that's not so bad for protoss - some key things to keep in mind are:
* The distance between the main and the natural
* The width of the natural entrance (if this is 9 squares it's amazing, if it's 15 then it can be very very hard) - this is not just about the amount of buildings that you need to wall, but also the amount of ground that you can effectively cover with 1 or 2 overcharges or photon cannons.
* The holdability of the third base for both Z and P
* With hatch(!) tech drops in the game, the air to air distance. That allows for more overlords to drop without overlord speed or for queens to easily be brought if overlord speed is researched. If drops hit later, this is less of a problem because P can live through the early game then start to leverage the close air distance back against the zerg. A dead protoss cannot abuse close air distance though, so this tends to favor zerg right now.
Please don't nerf the liberator at this point. The banshee buff does nothing for standard Terran play, while the strong liberator is necessary in PvT, the matchup does not need a Terran nerf.
Well I think that if buff protoss AA options the Liberator nerf wouldn't be needed.
Buffing Stalker AA damage has been needed since forever. I don't know why Blizzard thinks that Stalkers need to do the same amount of damage vs ground and vs air. It's not like there aren't already units in the game that have differing DPS vs ground and vs air.
Because if you want to counter mass air, you must go mass air.That how this game was designed.
And its the biggest general design flaw of Sc2.
The biggest flaw is that mass air is best against mass air even though that situation is extremely rare in pro games?
You mean like protoss having to go mass phonex vs a muta switch or mass tempest vs liberators? Or terran going mass liberators as their endgame almost every non-TvT? HotS skyterran vs zerg? skytoss vs zerg?
Theres ton of example that occur very commonly in progames
Please don't nerf the liberator at this point. The banshee buff does nothing for standard Terran play, while the strong liberator is necessary in PvT, the matchup does not need a Terran nerf.
Well I think that if buff protoss AA options the Liberator nerf wouldn't be needed.
Buffing Stalker AA damage has been needed since forever. I don't know why Blizzard thinks that Stalkers need to do the same amount of damage vs ground and vs air. It's not like there aren't already units in the game that have differing DPS vs ground and vs air.
Because if you want to counter mass air, you must go mass air.That how this game was designed.
And its the biggest general design flaw of Sc2.
The biggest flaw is that mass air is best against mass air even though that situation is extremely rare in pro games?
You mean like protoss having to go mass phonex vs a muta switch or mass tempest vs liberators? Or terran going mass liberators as their endgame almost every non-TvT? HotS skyterran vs zerg? skytoss vs zerg?
Theres ton of example that occur very commonly in progames
Phoenix vs Muta: 'Mass' Mutalisk Corruptor isn't really a thing in LotV like it was in HotS thanks to the new economy. Zerg do go Mutalisk sometimes but a handful of Phoenixes is all you need and that opening Phoenix hardly counts as going 'mass air', Blink Stalker compositions are also more popular as of late and deal with Mutalisks fine as long as you know what you're doing. Late-game Muta switches are also pretty bad in LotV most of the time.
Tempest vs Liberator: Tempests aren't a necessity vs high Liberator counts (Stork vs Innovation on Prion o_o), but even if you do go for them, they are just complementing your ground force, there are times where the Tempest count gets super high but that's pretty rare. When they get Liberator range you do need some air presence so that you actually mine, but again that's not mass air.
Liberator vs Zerg: I don't really see a 'only mass air "counter" mass air' situation here.
HotS Raven Viking and PvZ Skytoss are actual examples of mass air and yea they sometimes did lead to boring games, but that's not an issue any more. PvP Carrier styles do seem really strong, you have to kill them with a really strong ground timing to win, but it seems to be pretty rare in pro games so I guess the best players are good against it now.
Zerg do go Mutalisk sometimes but a handful of Phoenixes is all you need and that opening Phoenix hardly counts as going 'mass air', Blink Stalker compositions are also more popular as of late and deal with Mutalisks fine as long as you know what you're doing. Late-game Muta switches are also pretty bad in LotV most of the time.
They're strong enough and counters are specific enough to limit strategic diversity. People don't open stargate or drop 2-3 stargates blindly in the midgame because it's good, but because it's risky to play otherwise even if it may put you behind.
Liberator is a much better muta deterrant than phoenix or blink due to the splash damage, it would be lovely to have that tool. The problem with muta is not a numerical problem but due to the conflicting styles of zerg and protoss production
Please don't nerf the liberator at this point. The banshee buff does nothing for standard Terran play, while the strong liberator is necessary in PvT, the matchup does not need a Terran nerf.
Well I think that if buff protoss AA options the Liberator nerf wouldn't be needed.
Buffing Stalker AA damage has been needed since forever. I don't know why Blizzard thinks that Stalkers need to do the same amount of damage vs ground and vs air. It's not like there aren't already units in the game that have differing DPS vs ground and vs air.
Because if you want to counter mass air, you must go mass air.That how this game was designed.
And its the biggest general design flaw of Sc2.
The biggest flaw is that mass air is best against mass air even though that situation is extremely rare in pro games?
You mean like protoss having to go mass phonex vs a muta switch or mass tempest vs liberators? Or terran going mass liberators as their endgame almost every non-TvT? HotS skyterran vs zerg? skytoss vs zerg?
Theres ton of example that occur very commonly in progames
Phoenix vs Muta: 'Mass' Mutalisk Corruptor isn't really a thing in LotV like it was in HotS thanks to the new economy. Zerg do go Mutalisk sometimes but a handful of Phoenixes is all you need and that opening Phoenix hardly counts as going 'mass air', Blink Stalker compositions are also more popular as of late and deal with Mutalisks fine as long as you know what you're doing. Late-game Muta switches are also pretty bad in LotV most of the time.
Tempest vs Liberator: Tempests aren't a necessity vs high Liberator counts (Stork vs Innovation on Prion o_o), but even if you do go for them, they are just complementing your ground force, there are times where the Tempest count gets super high but that's pretty rare. When they get Liberator range you do need some air presence so that you actually mine, but again that's not mass air.
Liberator vs Zerg: I don't really see a 'only mass air "counter" mass air' situation here.
HotS Raven Viking and PvZ Skytoss are actual examples of mass air and yea they sometimes did lead to boring games, but that's not an issue any more. PvP Carrier styles do seem really strong, you have to kill them with a really strong ground timing to win, but it seems to be pretty rare in pro games so I guess the best players are good against it now.
Regarding mass Muta + Corruptor: did you see the one game DRG and Hero played at the GSL today? Even if you scout the moment the Zerg planted his Spire and build two Stargates, there is a chance that he will win with mass Muta/Corruptor. Saying that it's not a problem is very odd, because I see top level players losing to that quite often. There is a reason Protoss open with Stargate or double Stargate. They do it in order to have a lead on the Zerg in terms of air. As the above referenced game showed, reacting 100% properly is often simply not enough, you have to blind counter Mutas to make sure that you won't die to them. And that is unbelievably dumb design.
Increasing the supply cost of the cyclone is a terrible idea. Blizzard needs to fix the stats on the unit, and maybe re-gear it to being an anti-air unit.
Cyclone currently has less health than an auto-turret, and less DPS than an auto-turret. That's pretty disgusting -_-
4 supply cyclone will be even more useless. I don't know why blizzard won't just buff the unit AND THEN SEE what changes to make. Buffing and nerfing the cyclone at the same time is pointless and the unit will remain in it's useless garbage state.
The thor change, i hope they took a look at the mod map that myself and nice_username created with that thor upgrade on it. Honestly, that upgrade alone made mech viable because thors became a good counter to carrier/tempest/etc.
Honestly...they should just take the idea i had and put it in the game...it just makes sense...makes thors able to deal with air bullshit, and is gated by being an upgrade in the game for the thor with fusion core pre-req so it's not available too early in the game.
Either way...thors/cyclones being good vs air...will make mech viable assuming they can actually deal with air. Honestly, i don't understand how people in the community think that massing 100% pure carrier/tempest is healthy for SC2 games vs mech lol. I mean, that's fine...but shouldn't someone going mech have a counter to that? Of course they should.
I just hope they will finally fix mech anti-air...i think people will see mech is playable if anti-air is strong because you can then go past 5 factories and you won't have to sit and turtle into mass air every game just because your opponent is massing air.
edit: also, people should honestly stop that argument of "winrate is so n so, so why even bother changing the game or this race or that unit?"
It should not matter at all what winrates are when it comes to improving the design of units or changing the metagame of the game to be more healthy.
Please don't nerf the liberator at this point. The banshee buff does nothing for standard Terran play, while the strong liberator is necessary in PvT, the matchup does not need a Terran nerf.
Well I think that if buff protoss AA options the Liberator nerf wouldn't be needed.
Buffing Stalker AA damage has been needed since forever. I don't know why Blizzard thinks that Stalkers need to do the same amount of damage vs ground and vs air. It's not like there aren't already units in the game that have differing DPS vs ground and vs air.
Because if you want to counter mass air, you must go mass air.That how this game was designed.
And its the biggest general design flaw of Sc2.
The biggest flaw is that mass air is best against mass air even though that situation is extremely rare in pro games?
First of, it is there. You see Phoenix vs Mutas as Stalkers are too bad in low numbers. It would open up for a lot more variety if toss had better ground counter vs air.
Secondly, there is a reason its not in pro games. Part of that is because everytime a meta has been involved with mass (tier 3) air vs mass air it has resulted in terrible games and thus has had to be nerfed.
Further, note that this is late game only, and since the air vs air typically implies that one race is better (one comp is usually more efficient than the other), one of the races needs to end the game before it gets to that time. For instance terran needs to get ahead before tempests/HT gets out. If on the other hand, Thors could beat Tempests, the dynamic would be very different.
Adress air vs ground, and you will see a ton more variety in terms of unit compositions.
We know it’s not as difficult to just pump out the same types of maps on different tilesets, but it’s just awesome seeing many mapmakers out there pushing the limits for the better of the game.
This bit, plus how they seem to link Invader and Central Protocol together, make me think they see maps in a really skewed way. It's like how people used to talk about Daybreak syndrome - they think all maps are basically the same but with different tilesets. I wonder if Dayvie would put Galactic Process in the same category or 'map type' as Lerilak Crest.
I take that statement as direct discouragement to the standard-and-amazing maps that I see as the best choices to put on ladder. Your map doesn't have island features, has a longer than 35 second rush distance, and has no gold minerals? Might as well tear it up, they want Ulrena instead. "It's just awesome seeing many mapmakers out there pushing the limits" but they actually couldn't care less. People seem to think Eris could be that third map - it would be a miracle. It does make sense though in a weird way, if Blizzard sees Invader and Central Protocol as the same concept, they might describe Eris like that. I think they dump Eris right into the 'pushing the limits for the better of the game but will never see competitive play' bucket.
Give us all community maps, every season, and change out 4 or more every season, and let masters players vote on maps, instead of having the balance team just pick them.
Zerg do go Mutalisk sometimes but a handful of Phoenixes is all you need and that opening Phoenix hardly counts as going 'mass air', Blink Stalker compositions are also more popular as of late and deal with Mutalisks fine as long as you know what you're doing. Late-game Muta switches are also pretty bad in LotV most of the time.
They're strong enough and counters are specific enough to limit strategic diversity. People don't open stargate or drop 2-3 stargates blindly in the midgame because it's good, but because it's risky to play otherwise even if it may put you behind.
Liberator is a much better muta deterrant than phoenix or blink due to the splash damage, it would be lovely to have that tool. The problem with muta is not a numerical problem but due to the conflicting styles of zerg and protoss production
Just because they restrict unit composition somewhat, it doesn't mean they limit strategic diversity, Mutalisks, and by extension the threat of Mutalisks, bring their own strategic elements into the game. Pros aren't going to drop Stargates blindly in the mid-game unless they feel something is up, and they decided to go for a Chargelot composition without opening Phoenix (which is a very strong opening in its own right beyond deterring Mutas). You can also go for a Blink Stalker composition and Phoenixes aren't a necessity at all vs Muta openings. If you made Stalkers stronger vs Mutalisks I don't think it would really give you many more options, because if you have lots of Stalkers you should be fine.
Please don't nerf the liberator at this point. The banshee buff does nothing for standard Terran play, while the strong liberator is necessary in PvT, the matchup does not need a Terran nerf.
Well I think that if buff protoss AA options the Liberator nerf wouldn't be needed.
Buffing Stalker AA damage has been needed since forever. I don't know why Blizzard thinks that Stalkers need to do the same amount of damage vs ground and vs air. It's not like there aren't already units in the game that have differing DPS vs ground and vs air.
Because if you want to counter mass air, you must go mass air.That how this game was designed.
And its the biggest general design flaw of Sc2.
The biggest flaw is that mass air is best against mass air even though that situation is extremely rare in pro games?
You mean like protoss having to go mass phonex vs a muta switch or mass tempest vs liberators? Or terran going mass liberators as their endgame almost every non-TvT? HotS skyterran vs zerg? skytoss vs zerg?
Theres ton of example that occur very commonly in progames
Phoenix vs Muta: 'Mass' Mutalisk Corruptor isn't really a thing in LotV like it was in HotS thanks to the new economy. Zerg do go Mutalisk sometimes but a handful of Phoenixes is all you need and that opening Phoenix hardly counts as going 'mass air', Blink Stalker compositions are also more popular as of late and deal with Mutalisks fine as long as you know what you're doing. Late-game Muta switches are also pretty bad in LotV most of the time.
Tempest vs Liberator: Tempests aren't a necessity vs high Liberator counts (Stork vs Innovation on Prion o_o), but even if you do go for them, they are just complementing your ground force, there are times where the Tempest count gets super high but that's pretty rare. When they get Liberator range you do need some air presence so that you actually mine, but again that's not mass air.
Liberator vs Zerg: I don't really see a 'only mass air "counter" mass air' situation here.
HotS Raven Viking and PvZ Skytoss are actual examples of mass air and yea they sometimes did lead to boring games, but that's not an issue any more. PvP Carrier styles do seem really strong, you have to kill them with a really strong ground timing to win, but it seems to be pretty rare in pro games so I guess the best players are good against it now.
Regarding mass Muta + Corruptor: did you see the one game DRG and Hero played at the GSL today? Even if you scout the moment the Zerg planted his Spire and build two Stargates, there is a chance that he will win with mass Muta/Corruptor. Saying that it's not a problem is very odd, because I see top level players losing to that quite often. There is a reason Protoss open with Stargate or double Stargate. They do it in order to have a lead on the Zerg in terms of air. As the above referenced game showed, reacting 100% properly is often simply not enough, you have to blind counter Mutas to make sure that you won't die to them. And that is unbelievably dumb design.
Well firstly I've heard you whining about Mutalisks for months in probably every other Feedback Update so it's kind of hard to take you seriously. Of course there is a 'chance' you can lose, StarCraft is a complicated game, you aren't going to get a free-win just for scouting a Spire... HerO reacted 100% properly? StarCraft is a lot more complicated than you seem to think.
On March 12 2016 07:23 seemsgood wrote: I disagree about liberator's nerf and buff banshee because it may be balance in zerg but does nothing vs protoss.Which mean we nerf it and don't give terran anything back vs P match up. And talk about liberator too strong vs protoss ground or protoss ground AA is too weak.I think liberator is doing a good job compare with what tank suppose to be right now.It zone the shit out every ground unit, just like BW siege tank.So it's not about damage or protoss's AA.Counterplay of protoss vs liberator is way too hard. We keep its strength which is zone ability while nerf it's AOE circle to make counterplay easier. Also with new factory AA, we can torn down it AA ablity too. This unit is the BW siege tank vs protoss which is good but also the goliath as the same time. It's wayy too versatile but not a jack of all trade kind.
You what other unit is like a BW siege tank? The siege tank, dunno just think about it, a siege tank doing the role of the siege tank, maybe we should explore that instead.
Yes but let liberator fulfill its role vs protoss when you choose to play bio,its mobility is perfectly fit into bio army.
Pros aren't going to drop Stargates blindly in the mid-game unless they feel something is up, and they decided to go for a Chargelot composition
The best PvZ guide that we have on TL advocates doing exactly that and if you look for it in pro games, you'll probably see more games with early stargate or added midgame stargates than you realize.
Many Z will drop a spire even if they don't plan on building any mutalisks because it's a 200/200 building that usually forces a disproportionate response.
I don't think it's a huge issue right now but it is a significant pressure in the matchup - when doing any kind of early or midgame play, it's something that every single protoss player and pro is thinking about. As an observer who's not a high level protoss player that's probably less obvious, but it's less obvious because people are constantly adjusting their play so that it's not a problem (at the expense of other areas)
Zerg do go Mutalisk sometimes but a handful of Phoenixes is all you need and that opening Phoenix hardly counts as going 'mass air', Blink Stalker compositions are also more popular as of late and deal with Mutalisks fine as long as you know what you're doing. Late-game Muta switches are also pretty bad in LotV most of the time.
They're strong enough and counters are specific enough to limit strategic diversity. People don't open stargate or drop 2-3 stargates blindly in the midgame because it's good, but because it's risky to play otherwise even if it may put you behind.
Liberator is a much better muta deterrant than phoenix or blink due to the splash damage, it would be lovely to have that tool. The problem with muta is not a numerical problem but due to the conflicting styles of zerg and protoss production
Just because they restrict unit composition somewhat, it doesn't mean they limit strategic diversity, Mutalisks, and by extension the threat of Mutalisks, bring their own strategic elements into the game. Pros aren't going to drop Stargates blindly in the mid-game unless they feel something is up, and they decided to go for a Chargelot composition without opening Phoenix (which is a very strong opening in its own right beyond deterring Mutas). You can also go for a Blink Stalker composition and Phoenixes aren't a necessity at all vs Muta openings. If you made Stalkers stronger vs Mutalisks I don't think it would really give you many more options, because if you have lots of Stalkers you should be fine.
Please don't nerf the liberator at this point. The banshee buff does nothing for standard Terran play, while the strong liberator is necessary in PvT, the matchup does not need a Terran nerf.
Well I think that if buff protoss AA options the Liberator nerf wouldn't be needed.
Buffing Stalker AA damage has been needed since forever. I don't know why Blizzard thinks that Stalkers need to do the same amount of damage vs ground and vs air. It's not like there aren't already units in the game that have differing DPS vs ground and vs air.
Because if you want to counter mass air, you must go mass air.That how this game was designed.
And its the biggest general design flaw of Sc2.
The biggest flaw is that mass air is best against mass air even though that situation is extremely rare in pro games?
You mean like protoss having to go mass phonex vs a muta switch or mass tempest vs liberators? Or terran going mass liberators as their endgame almost every non-TvT? HotS skyterran vs zerg? skytoss vs zerg?
Theres ton of example that occur very commonly in progames
Phoenix vs Muta: 'Mass' Mutalisk Corruptor isn't really a thing in LotV like it was in HotS thanks to the new economy. Zerg do go Mutalisk sometimes but a handful of Phoenixes is all you need and that opening Phoenix hardly counts as going 'mass air', Blink Stalker compositions are also more popular as of late and deal with Mutalisks fine as long as you know what you're doing. Late-game Muta switches are also pretty bad in LotV most of the time.
Tempest vs Liberator: Tempests aren't a necessity vs high Liberator counts (Stork vs Innovation on Prion o_o), but even if you do go for them, they are just complementing your ground force, there are times where the Tempest count gets super high but that's pretty rare. When they get Liberator range you do need some air presence so that you actually mine, but again that's not mass air.
Liberator vs Zerg: I don't really see a 'only mass air "counter" mass air' situation here.
HotS Raven Viking and PvZ Skytoss are actual examples of mass air and yea they sometimes did lead to boring games, but that's not an issue any more. PvP Carrier styles do seem really strong, you have to kill them with a really strong ground timing to win, but it seems to be pretty rare in pro games so I guess the best players are good against it now.
Regarding mass Muta + Corruptor: did you see the one game DRG and Hero played at the GSL today? Even if you scout the moment the Zerg planted his Spire and build two Stargates, there is a chance that he will win with mass Muta/Corruptor. Saying that it's not a problem is very odd, because I see top level players losing to that quite often. There is a reason Protoss open with Stargate or double Stargate. They do it in order to have a lead on the Zerg in terms of air. As the above referenced game showed, reacting 100% properly is often simply not enough, you have to blind counter Mutas to make sure that you won't die to them. And that is unbelievably dumb design.
Well firstly I've heard you whining about Mutalisks for months in probably every other Feedback Update so it's kind of hard to take you seriously. Of course there is a 'chance' you can lose, StarCraft is a complicated game, you aren't going to get a free-win just for scouting a Spire... HerO reacted 100% properly? StarCraft is a lot more complicated than you seem to think.
Hero scouted seconds after the Spire was planted, he immediately built 2 Stargates and started pumping out Phoenixes. He made no glaring mistake in that game and yet he lost quite convincingly. But who knows, maybe you would have won that game, seeing how you seem to know something that Hero doesn't.
He made no glaring mistake in that game and yet he lost quite convincingly.
His multitasking was actually terrible that game. So much miscontrol and missed opportunies along with a bad engagement. Hero just isn't a very good player. In the hands of a skilled player that actually can attack locations at once effectively, it seems like an interesting build.
Pros aren't going to drop Stargates blindly in the mid-game unless they feel something is up, and they decided to go for a Chargelot composition
The best PvZ guide that we have on TL advocates doing exactly that and if you look for it in pro games, you'll probably see more games with early stargate or added midgame stargates than you realize.
Many Z will drop a spire even if they don't plan on building any mutalisks because it's a 200/200 building that usually forces a disproportionate response.
I don't think it's a huge issue right now but it is a significant pressure in the matchup - when doing any kind of early or midgame play, it's something that every single protoss player and pro is thinking about
Exactly this! Overwhelming majority of PvZ games on the top level start with either one or double Stargate. IMO this is quite a good indicator of just how much Mutas restrict Protoss strategic options.
He made no glaring mistake in that game and yet he lost quite convincingly.
His multitasking was actually terrible that game. So much miscontrol and missed opportunies along with a bad engagement. Hero just isn't a very good player. In the hands of a skilled player that actually can attack locations at once effectively, it seems like an interesting build.
Nope, he was trading Adepts for Drones, but he didn't lose Phoenixes. The one attack (at over 150 supply) that Tastosis taught was premature, would have looked a whole lot different, when mass Muta wouldn't wreck Stalkers as hard as they do. You can't fault Hero for moving out, when he knows that he's on a timer and that Zerg could just as well be teching to Parasitic Bomb.
Talk about mass air situation. Here is the statement: Zerg goes broodlord + viper + corruptor Protoss goes tempest+ carrier Terran goes liberator. What unit comp you gonna respond ? Why those situations are so rare in pro game ? Because the gane isn't long enough,it is a uncommon issue unless you face sOs or play mech. I don't care it's the best design flaw or not but i don't like mass air vs mass air.It need to rarely seen as much as possible or completely dissapear. You guys try to argue it's the best design flaw make no sense to me....the rest comments just go off track.
I do think lib range needs a slight range nerf, wouldnt mind banshee speed. Ravagers feel quite strong. Dont see a big problem with the evo drops though, I'd rather see a ravager nerf before I saw the drop nerf.
On March 12 2016 10:06 crazedrat wrote: I do think lib range needs a slight range nerf, wouldnt mind banshee speed. Ravagers feel quite strong. Dont see a big problem with the evo drops though, I'd rather see a ravager nerf before I saw the drop nerf.
You are talking from a TvZ standpoint though?
I think a targetted corrosive bile nerf would affect terran a lot, maybe even more than protoss. Meanwhile drop affects protoss a lot more than it affects terran
He made no glaring mistake in that game and yet he lost quite convincingly.
His multitasking was actually terrible that game. So much miscontrol and missed opportunies along with a bad engagement. Hero just isn't a very good player. In the hands of a skilled player that actually can attack locations at once effectively, it seems like an interesting build.
Nope, he was trading Adepts for Drones, but he didn't lose Phoenixes. The one attack (at over 150 supply) that Tastosis taught was premature, would have looked a whole lot different, when mass Muta wouldn't wreck Stalkers as hard as they do. You can't fault Hero for moving out, when he knows that he's on a timer and that Zerg could just as well be teching to Parasitic Bomb.
First of he absolutely spewed the first 3 Adepts by shading when he shouldn't and loses them for no reason. Had he not shaded he would be able to go get a few more ling kills and then get behind the mains mineral lines. While doing that he would get a great opportunity for warping in 1-3 more Adepts at the 3rd for a few more kills. (Though that would delay the double stargate by 5-10 seconds.)
You also notice that when he tries to do double pronged Adept + Disruptor drops he doesn't fire with the Disruptor but just afk's it. Meanwhile (and over the next 2 minutes) he is never below 300 minerals showing subpar macro. When the Oracle arrives, they are also afk for 5-10 seconds at DRGs 3rd giving him a bit of time to react. (though DRG reacts terribly).
After the initial 2 Adepts he also just afks with the second warp prism that he isn't capable of multitasking with. The second warp prism could be harassing the natural or kill the 4th, but he afks with it for several minutes. His mechanics seems limited to one warp prism + oracle + subpar macro.
With better macro he could have had templar tech at the time his twilight actually finished. This would allow him to go for 2-3 archons with the attack and he would likely win.
On March 12 2016 05:34 Charoisaur wrote: So what's with the tank damage buff. That's the most important thing for mech
It seems most do not want stronger mech that is designed to turtle. So cyclone and thor are safer bets to create factory play that can cross the map before 160 supply and critical mass.
On March 12 2016 05:40 Charoisaur wrote: If thors AA becomes single target mech will have no answer to mutas
That is why I think cyclone is better as general AA and thor more in a specialized role but maybe in LOTV you still need to increase thor speed a little to make it viable at all.
On March 12 2016 05:34 Charoisaur wrote: So what's with the tank damage buff. That's the most important thing for mech
It seems most do not want stronger mech that is designed to turtle. So cyclone and thor are safer bets to create factory play that can cross the map before 160 supply and critical mass.
Just because they don't mention it now doesn't mean there is no change coming, they don't always touch everything all the time in these posts.
Great direction on this one Blizzard. When you consider BW longevity LOTV is just a baby. Do not be afraid to redesign a little and finalize balance later. Everyone will thanks you for it in a few years and the game will be epic.
Here are my recommended Terran changes: -Change Thor anti-air to high single target dps. Allow it to trade evenly with broodlords and carriers. -Give vikings a late game upgrade that adds a small splash radius to their air attack. -Remove cyclone lock on ability. Increase cyclone hp to 160 and range to 9 to compensate. -Remove energy bar from battlecruiser. Change yamato to 60 cooldown, increase cast range to 15. -Raven: reduce seeker missile to 75 energy, increase PDD time to 60 seconds, and auto turret time to 30 seconds. -Revert the marauder nerf.
On March 12 2016 05:34 Charoisaur wrote: So what's with the tank damage buff. That's the most important thing for mech
It seems most do not want stronger mech that is designed to turtle. So cyclone and thor are safer bets to create factory play that can cross the map before 160 supply and critical mass.
I think making high supply unit with decent build time become good enough is the smart move to hasten the time terran need to max out a mech army.Even player chooses to turtle. A mech army invole a couple cyclone and thor is insanely supply heavy.If those units are good enough. Then we can keep the tank's buff to make terran turtle easier. I want a test map to test how long terran turtle until move out.
Discussions Around Mech Thanks for many great discussions around this topic. After going through the feedback, our current thought is to focus more on individual mech units first, and diversifying that. As we explore changes in this area, we’ll be able to identify what type of strategies and unit compositions show potential, so we can go from there. The question as to whether bio and mech should be completely split or always mixed will naturally be answered better as we explore individual design improvements.
So you will focus on individual mech units besides the tank? Or is that included? Also what the fuck do you mean identify startegies and unit comps that show potential and go from there? That seems like more of the players job, and once you find a comp with "potential" what are your plans? Buffing those units to ensure that, that particular comp or strategy is used?
And again I will say as I did in the last update. If you want true strategic diversity for terran you will split the two comps to be stand alone. The potential for mixing will always be there.
I am a korean. My english is poor. but i say that DK should choose overlord drop tech nerfing. because nerfing ravager may effect TvZ not only PvZ. In korea, TVZ is tilled to Terran. So if DK nerf to ravager, even if DK nerf to tank too, TVZ will be more tilled to terran. So i agree to nerf overlord drop tech.
Cooldown nerf looks to be the strongest in this area. For example, if we go from 10 seconds to 14 seconds on the ability, that’s a big DPS nerf on the ability damage.
We definitely want to nerf either Ravager timings or Overlord drops in PvZ, due to strategy diversity on the Protoss side. But we don’t need a simultaneous double nerf.
Overlord Tier 1 Drops
We saw the strong points many of you brought up in terms of not nerfing Ravagers, and focusing more so on Overlord drops as the first pass.
If we were to go this route, we believe moving the requirement from Evolution Chamber to Lair would be the most reasonable, and although this is a huge nerf, we can definitely test this out due to the early game PvZ issue looking pretty clear at this point.
Let’s discuss whether we should test a Ravager or Overlord tier 1 drop nerf first, because we’d like to test something as soon as possible on the balance test map so that we can patch to the live game.
In fact, many korean user agree to nerfing overlord drop. Thay say that overlord is more problem than raveger in pvz.
SC2 is becoming boring again. Flat one dimensional gameplay, with these changes. No options to attack, 10- 15 min no rush games turtle feasts because it's better to sit and defend than to attack. Terran Mech is rank bad in this game, to watch and play against
This looks like the beginning of the end for this game when i see what they are considering in the above. My love for this game is fading fast
I've never seriously thought this before, but with so much of their focus on terran even though they say it's doing fine... really makes you think they care about making them happy more than other races, which they won't even think about design changes for
Thank for your a piece of advice @cyro. Well... accidental post is not deleted... haha...OMG
Well, anyways. I just came to tell about agreement of this week feedback and i vote for overlord drop nerfing instead of ravager nerfing strongly as many korean protoss users.
an island map? Seriously... Can we get two separate map pools already. One for competitive play where Davie can mess around with all his stupid map ideas and then a normal map pool which isnt completely retarded. That would be great mmmk.
Nerfing is lame, why not just try small buffs on specific problem areas with Protoss? Taking away options from Zerg instead of just giving more options to Protoss leads me to believe that David is over thinking the problem and more interested in maintaining the "status quo" of 50% balance across the boards instead of promoting better game play.
If Protoss is struggling with early aggression, tune things like the mothership core or cannons or other early defensive buffs, if Protoss is struggling vs. Lurkers, buff things like the Disruptor or even the Colossus or Void Ray (which sucks in LOTV) to help them fight it, give Protoss more options.
Moving Overlord drops to Lair will only work if they give it as an upgrade to Overseers, once turrets and a few basic in base defenses go up Overlord drops are almost never worth it and hardly do damage at all in comparison to Terran and Protoss drops. Are we really going to neuter one of the few ways Zerg can attack early on? It's also ridiculously easy to scout.
Making Zerg 100% reactive is ridiculous, Overlord Drops will go straight into the trash can like Swarm Hosts if they are moved to lair with no compensation. The Ravager is really just looking like the problem child, for god's sake just make it so Bile doesn't effect buildings so more defensive builds will be viable for Protoss and they can defend and take third bases easier.
The news on maps is also maddening, can we just get a separate map pool for competitive ladder and like another map pool where David can test out retarded "fun and interesting" concepts like islands? Islands lol, good luck stopping that from being hopelessly imbalanced and immediately thrown out in the pro scene.
How about making ovie speed a requirement for drops? This removes that shenanigan of really early drops. To drop at an early-ish timing you need an investiment before you really want speed for scouting. Its a really small nerf but its something.
It's actually not easy to scout every game. How do you consistently scout if a zerg built 8 speedlings or 26 off a hatch gas pool or hatch hatch gas pool opening?
How about making ovie speed a requirement for drops?
The ones that get overlord speed on close air positions and use it to attack w/ queens and drop micro as well as speedlings would be unaffected. That's very powerful too, not just pure speedling drops.
It's actually not easy to scout every game. How do you consistently scout if a zerg built 8 speedlings or 26 off a hatch gas pool or hatch hatch gas pool opening?
How about making ovie speed a requirement for drops?
The ones that get overlord speed on close air positions and use it to attack w/ queens and drop micro as well as speedlings would be unaffected. That's very powerful too, not just pure speedling drops.
Uhm, so the problem is the commited drop (ovie speed, sending and producing queens, losing overlors), the early harass (8 lings in your main) or both? Because its an interesting option for zerg that shoudn't be completely removed if Ulrena is the problem. Its not as strong in other not as close air positions.
It seems like DK has no vision or plan for the game at all. It feels like he is just throwing atound random changes and sticks with the things that get the least hate from the community.
Uhm, so the problem is the commited drop (ovie speed, sending queens)
the early harass (8 lings in your main) or both?
8 speedlings is never a problem, if there are only 8 speedlings on the map then there is no reason to take damage from them
Usually Z either gets overlord speed and brings 2 queens with ~10-20 speedlings to the main. Without overlord speed, it's 8-16 lings dropped in the main & more poking at front simultaneously. Both are pretty strong.
Yeah drop are strong early, and ravagers are, but dk solution is making them useless...
If you move drop to lair they need a speed buff, or faster unload, or it's will be useless.
If they kill the agressive option, Zerg will be back to the boring defensive race with no harass, nor micro option, just macro and get T3 tech, then turtle.
Myself, i will just stop playing. I loved the design of the race, but it was a lie, it was never the swarm agressive race, Terran is. It's just a protoss like with bugs... Desappointed.
Drops or Ravager nerf I still think ravager bile could be so much more interesting with a longer cooldown, damage reduction (with a bonus to bio) and an AOE increase that makes it similar to the tank attack (with a damage reduction as it moves away from the center). Would also help clear two Forcefields with one shot, which was the main selling point of this ability when first introduced. Better players than me are saying that drops are more problematic to begin with tho, so I would listen to them first
Maps Good shit.
Cyclone Terrible stats per cost, anything that helps it (either cost reduction or health increase) will be good. Just compare the stats with the mighty liberator to see why this sees no play after the early game.
Liberator & Banshee Liberator has needed either a range or damage nerf since forever. It's the most glaring example of an air unit that is way stronger against ground than most anti-air ground units. I'd -1 the base range and switch the range upgrade for something else (like an upgrade that gives it bonus damage against massive). Could also remove the AOE from the anti-air attack (has proven problematic in lategame TvZ) but buff the damage to compensate. Another interesting idea is switching the tech lab requirement (banshee should not require it, liberator should). There's just so many possibilites with the liberator.
AA from the factory A cyclone buff should deal with this. Cyclones, thors and widow mines seem plenty good antiair from the factory compared to what other races have. If this were to be a real problem in the future, Thor AA buff could be considered, but these things are just too slow atm to consider building other than to defend against ultras anyway. Giving such a slow unit a really strong AA attack just screams turtle, and I'm sure that is not what people want to see.
Mech: I would merge all the nice ideas regarding the tankivac: Make the medivac unable to boost while carrying a sieged tank or thor, give the tank the big cooldown after dropping sieged and boost the tank damage.
On March 12 2016 19:52 FueledUpAndReadyToGo wrote: Easier banshee speed is going to be super strong imo
This, double banshee is already insane when a good Terran is microing them, they can bully down spores and Queen easily or at the very force minimum 2 spores per base or substantial drone losses will be taken.
It's not like Mutalisks are very viable against Starport in general with the Liberator able to be reactored and I think Corruptors are a tad bit too slow to catch the Banshees so I wouldn't be surprised to see a Banshee meta surface again.
Speed buff would make them just broken or force Spire play.
On March 12 2016 20:26 Salteador Neo wrote: Liberator & Banshee I'd -1 the base range and switch the range upgrade for something else (like an upgrade that gives it bonus damage against massive).
A buff against massive affects like 1 unit per race and seems like a complete waste of resources on a unit with the DPS of the liberator. Not to mention removing all range upgrades and locking it at 4 removes so much utility as a zoning tool, which is really needed especially against Protoss.
Could also remove the AOE from the anti-air attack (has proven problematic in lategame TvZ) but buff the damage to compensate.
That just makes vikings even worse.
What you could also do is keep the base range as it is now (maybe up it to 6) and lower the radius of defender mode, then have the upgrade be one that increases the radius.
I agree that Terran is right now strong (or rather Korean Terrans are strong, same thing since 2010...) and therefore nerfing Z or P for the sake of the matchups against T should not happen.
However, unfortunately for me, a low level Terran (I am in low Platinum), LotV is unplayable. Terran is too difficult to play, it's too much about survival and all sort of extremely intensive (in the sense of micro and multitasking) timing attacks before the late game. In the late game there is no point for me to play vs Z. Simply the game became too difficult for me, I stopped playing because I have no fun anymore. SC2 in LotV became fast, almost arcade game. It no longer feels like strategy game. I never liked to play as P and I don't want to play as Z because it would mean playing almost exclusively ZvZ nowadays. So I just switched back to WoL Anyway, LotV is great to watch, very enjoyable. But, for me, a low level Terran and a complete casual, it is far, far from being fun to play.
And one more thing. I seriously hope for new ladder map pool and that Ulrena will be gone. I may not play LotV but I watch a lot of streams and would love to see games on new maps
On March 12 2016 20:26 Salteador Neo wrote: Liberator & Banshee I'd -1 the base range and switch the range upgrade for something else (like an upgrade that gives it bonus damage against massive).
A buff against massive affects like 1 unit per race and seems like a complete waste of resources on a unit with the DPS of the liberator. Not to mention removing all range upgrades and locking it at 4 removes so much utility as a zoning tool, which is really needed especially against Protoss.
Could also remove the AOE from the anti-air attack (has proven problematic in lategame TvZ) but buff the damage to compensate.
That just makes vikings even worse.
What you could also do is keep the base range as it is now (maybe up it to 6) and lower the radius of defender mode, then have the upgrade be one that increases the radius.
All fair points. I thought about reducing the circle of freedom radius a while ago too, but for some reason didn't post it. I agree with you that it would probably be a better solution than removing the range upgrade, overall it's just better than my earlier suggestion.
It might still need the -1 the base AG range tho, atm it just limits mapmaking too much.
The air damage could have +damage to bio instead of the AOE, to make it more different to the viking then? The range is also way different.
On a different topic: No mention of Nydus from Blizz is surprising. Giving it like +6 or +8 armor instead of pure invincibility sounds so much more smooth to me. It's like the old warp tech problem on crack.
On March 12 2016 03:56 vult wrote: Map Data Please keep in mind that although data contributes towards the big picture, it doesn’t say everything about the situation and is not the absolute source from which we draw conclusions. That’s why we approach gauging the state of the game by looking into many factors such as ladder data, community feedback, pro feedback, current meta game on the ladder/tournaments, tournament results, checking past experiences, and so on.
i like DKs approach to Stats/BI/Analytics/Database-Marketing. Of course it might get him banned from the Sloan Analytics conference. )
its also cool that he gives us a glimpse into his philosophy/approach to decision-making.
On March 12 2016 05:30 Charoisaur wrote: What's the point in buffing banshees when mech is not viable. With bio you won't ever make banshees outside of the early game because you have no techlabbed starport
Thats sad because banshees with speed upgrade are really good in every stage of the game. People havent discovered it yet thats all.
Please dont let us go back to hots and please buff everything instead of nerfing it. Make everything viable instead of making it useless. There are two kind of balance skill vs reward and everything overpowered. One does apply to mass unit compositions and the last to a small amount of units.
Buffing everything gives some pretty horrifying power creep. You also end up buffing unit A, then B, then C, then D.. and by the time you're done, unit A needs another buff because the other options are so much better.
On March 12 2016 07:21 Nerchio wrote: I am fine with them discussing overlords and ravagers but I wish they would think about doing something with Immortals
I'm surprised they haven't mentioned that 7 immortals can rip through an entire zerg army by themselves yet
We are currently exploring your feedback of potentially bringing in a generally solid AA option on the Factory to allow for a reliable ground based AA solution.
We can definitely explore this angle with the Cyclone (if we don’t go the route proposed above), but Thor is definitely another area we can go.
For example, because splash AA is covered pretty well by Widow Mines, one potential route we can go is more of a single-target, flat damage option on the Thor.
Let’s discuss so that we can start exploring this front soon.
Or, you know, use that unit that has existed for 20 years and would have saved you 5 years of attemting to balance Mech...
Okay so here's a thought regarding the Overlord that I think would be super interesting.
Overlord drop should become a unit in itself like the Overseer, it shouldn't be just another Overlord that can drop. Give it a cool name. Then remove the Mineral Costs of both Overseer and Droplord morphs, but make it so neither of them provides Supply. This makes the effective costs of the units 100/25 and 100/50 respectively. They are easier to get to, which means less dying to DT's and Cloaked Banshee's that happens to catch you off guard, but the strats would still be viable and every Overseer you force, is a bigger investment for the Zerg. The Droplord would be a bigger investment as well and makes it so you cannot just force reactions from Protoss, while macroing up in your own base and getting super far ahead as we see currently. However, once you've morphed a Droplord that also means that should the unit die, it's a smaller investment, as you save the 25 Minerals. We'll see less dropping, but you can be more aggressive with them. It would also be possible to give Droplords 1 armour, just like the Overseer, since it wouldn't break the early game. This would be a small buff to the mass Bane bombs and similar cool tactics. The Overseer could also receive a small speed buff, pre-Overlord Speed.
On March 12 2016 23:15 ejozl wrote: Okay so here's a thought regarding the Overlord that I think would be super interesting.
Overlord drop should become a unit in itself like the Overseer, it shouldn't be just another Overlord that can drop. Give it a cool name. Then remove the Mineral Costs of both Overseer and Droplord morphs, but make it so neither of them provides Supply. This makes the effective costs of the units 100/25 and 100/50 respectively. They are easier to get to, which means less dying to DT's, Cloak Banshee's that caught you off guard, but the strats would still be viable and every Overseer you force, is a bigger investment for the Zerg. The Droplord, would be a bigger investment as well and makes it so you cannot just force reactions from Protoss, while macroing up in your own base and getting super far ahead, as we see currently. However, once you've morphed a Droplord that also means that should the unit die, it's a smaller investment, as you save the 25 Minerals. We'll see less dropping, but you can be more aggressive with them. It would also be possible to give Droplords 1 armour, just like the Overseer, since it wouldn't break the early game. This would be a small buff to the mass Bane bombs and similar cool tactics. The Overseer could also receive a small speed buff, pre-Overlord Speed.
If they give no supply they are actually more expensive. Also, seems like a silly and annoying quirk in design when you can destroy your own supply...
On March 12 2016 23:15 ejozl wrote: Okay so here's a thought regarding the Overlord that I think would be super interesting.
Overlord drop should become a unit in itself like the Overseer, it shouldn't be just another Overlord that can drop. Give it a cool name. Then remove the Mineral Costs of both Overseer and Droplord morphs, but make it so neither of them provides Supply. This makes the effective costs of the units 100/25 and 100/50 respectively. They are easier to get to, which means less dying to DT's, Cloak Banshee's that caught you off guard, but the strats would still be viable and every Overseer you force, is a bigger investment for the Zerg. The Droplord, would be a bigger investment as well and makes it so you cannot just force reactions from Protoss, while macroing up in your own base and getting super far ahead, as we see currently. However, once you've morphed a Droplord that also means that should the unit die, it's a smaller investment, as you save the 25 Minerals. We'll see less dropping, but you can be more aggressive with them. It would also be possible to give Droplords 1 armour, just like the Overseer, since it wouldn't break the early game. This would be a small buff to the mass Bane bombs and similar cool tactics. The Overseer could also receive a small speed buff, pre-Overlord Speed.
If they give no supply they are actually more expensive. Also, seems like a silly and annoying quirk in design when you can destroy your own supply...
Yes they are bigger investments, untill the unit dies.
On March 12 2016 23:15 ejozl wrote: Okay so here's a thought regarding the Overlord that I think would be super interesting.
Overlord drop should become a unit in itself like the Overseer, it shouldn't be just another Overlord that can drop. Give it a cool name. Then remove the Mineral Costs of both Overseer and Droplord morphs, but make it so neither of them provides Supply. This makes the effective costs of the units 100/25 and 100/50 respectively. They are easier to get to, which means less dying to DT's, Cloak Banshee's that caught you off guard, but the strats would still be viable and every Overseer you force, is a bigger investment for the Zerg. The Droplord, would be a bigger investment as well and makes it so you cannot just force reactions from Protoss, while macroing up in your own base and getting super far ahead, as we see currently. However, once you've morphed a Droplord that also means that should the unit die, it's a smaller investment, as you save the 25 Minerals. We'll see less dropping, but you can be more aggressive with them. It would also be possible to give Droplords 1 armour, just like the Overseer, since it wouldn't break the early game. This would be a small buff to the mass Bane bombs and similar cool tactics. The Overseer could also receive a small speed buff, pre-Overlord Speed.
If they give no supply they are actually more expensive. Also, seems like a silly and annoying quirk in design when you can destroy your own supply...
Yes they are bigger investments, untill the unit dies.
Which makes it a bigger investment, given time value of resources
On March 12 2016 20:26 Salteador Neo wrote: Liberator & Banshee I'd -1 the base range and switch the range upgrade for something else (like an upgrade that gives it bonus damage against massive).
A buff against massive affects like 1 unit per race and seems like a complete waste of resources on a unit with the DPS of the liberator. Not to mention removing all range upgrades and locking it at 4 removes so much utility as a zoning tool, which is really needed especially against Protoss.
Could also remove the AOE from the anti-air attack (has proven problematic in lategame TvZ) but buff the damage to compensate.
That just makes vikings even worse.
What you could also do is keep the base range as it is now (maybe up it to 6) and lower the radius of defender mode, then have the upgrade be one that increases the radius.
All fair points. I thought about reducing the circle of freedom radius a while ago too, but for some reason didn't post it. I agree with you that it would probably be a better solution than removing the range upgrade, overall it's just better than my earlier suggestion.
It might still need the -1 the base AG range tho, atm it just limits mapmaking too much.
But one of the cool things about decreasing the radius would be that it fixes some of those limitations by proxy even if you don't reduce the actual range. At least for liberator harass. Imagine: as it is now, many times liberators go to the edge of the base to just about cover a few mineral patches. If the radius is sufficiently lower, to cover the same area, the liberator will have to have slightly more aggressive positioning. Which in turn makes it easier to pick off. Additionally, lower radius also allows clunkier units (stalkers, queens) to get a bit closer to harassment liberators without bullying each other into the defender mode zone immediately.
Basically, I think with radius based changes to the liberator, you can make it a more "fragile" (as in you can lose it easier) unit, while also making sure that the zoning functions against ground units (specifically vs Protoss) remain largely intact. I think with this you could put the unit into a state where Terran players won't feel like the unit was gibbed while Zerg and Protoss players will still have an easier time dealing with it.
Also, I can very much agree with changing the liberator's AA functionality. I think it way overperforms on that front. I believe somebody once proposed changing the AA weapons of liberators and thors around (rate of fire, splash radius, etc.), maybe that could be looked into.
how about mixing the mine upgrade with the siege tank siege/unsiege time needed to replace the tankivacalong with the damage buff, would still requires micro and it would respect the ideology of the unit.
Siege mode has been there since the release of sc1 it should be adjusted to the pace of sc2.
On March 13 2016 04:00 ShuriKn wrote: how about mixing the mine upgrade with the siege tank siege/unsiege time needed to replace the tankivacalong with the damage buff, would still requires micro and it would respect the ideology of the unit.
Siege mode has been there since the release of sc1 it should be adjusted to the pace of sc2.
Well that was an old idea of mine was several years ago, but tbh, tankivacs micro is more fun. It's just transportation thats the main issue.
Is there any reason why Blizz hasn't addressed burrowed Lurkers who are picked up from Phoenixes being dropped back in burrowed state? Isn't this a bug?
I like the idea of buffing Banshees and nerfing Liberators.
The Factory clearly needs better AA so it's great they are thinking about it.
I wonder how much HP are they thinking about giving the Cyclone to be worth 4 supply.
I see nothing on the Tank. So what was said last update still stands or have they abandoned the idea of a dmg buff?
If they are only now looking and thinking about the Factory units and their design, makes me wonder what the BETA was about and what have they done all this time. It sounds like if there are going to be significant changes to mech and its viability, they are a long, long way away. So BRB in 6 months
I would be concerned that if the thor became the general AA that it would still be too slow and may cause turtle mech out of fear of counter-attacks that are just too penalizing.
That is why the cyclone as a general AA unit seems to make more sense if we want Mech that can risk earlier engagements and force actual battles with fair trades.
Late game Terran army has been underpowered since always (being Bio drops as the most effective option to win) This match shows how some things should be redesigned: (almost unbeatable Protoss late game combo)
Banshee speed with no upgrade required and that Liberator nerf range for the early stage seems ok, but Thor really needs a full redesign because mines have splash damage but they're even worse than Thors at mobility. (yep, Cyclone need some change too)
Mech should be viable alone without Bio. Starcraft 2 needs all kind of gameplay, mixing types of armies or not at all. The only thing not viable should be massing just one unit but massing one path (or even type for some situations) feels nice.
The reason why many korean user is approve of droplord nerfing is that protoss is not free to choose build and forced to choose build by zerg because of droplord. of caurse, ravager is one of the reasons. But it is not big reason. Because if protoss know ravager push, they can defend this push and knowing ravager push is not difficult. but protoss is hard to know droplord push and to depend this push. Because droplord push is very early time! Especially queen drop in early game is notorious in korean protoss users. so many korean user vote droplord nerfing more than ravager nerfing now. well, I just came to explain in more detail about the reason why many korean user is approve of droplord nerfing.
On March 12 2016 09:20 MiCroLiFe wrote: yes terran is doin so good at the moment. link to any foreginer terran winning anyone good?
WCS winter world: TvZ: 19-16 (54.3%)
Code S: TvZ: 15-9 (62.5%)
Ting open: TvZ: 28-29 (49.1%)
Dreamhack: TvZ: 16-14 (53.3%)
KR masters is 42% terran.
as i said, link any foreginer terran that win anyone good.
I don't know if Polt has stayed long enough in America for the community to recognizes him as a Korean or a foreigner, so let's skip him. HeRoMaRinE, Kelazhur and Major are doing ok in their local tournaments. Also MarineLord trashing Korea in NationWars in all matchups. Now can you please go whine somewhere else?
Zerg: - no idea why they think that both Overlord drop and Ravagers cannot be nerfed at the same time but ok I guess? Overlord drop looks to me like the most pressing issue if I had to choose indeed, Protoss BOs are ridiculously skewed because of this eventuality.
Terran: - I don't think lowering Banshee speed tech is a good idea. I'd rather try inverting tech lab requirement between Liberator and Banshee. I've always thought that being able to produce Liberators 2 by 2 makes any other air options kinda bad. What is the point of Vikings and Banshees if Liberators on top of its own role is kinda decent at doing almost the same job as them? - Cyclone change looks uncalled for but hell, why not.
Protoss: - Mana and some other players suggested the return of Shield Battery to make Protoss defense less reliant on Photon Overcharge. Building is already in campaign. Having recharge as manually cast spell a la BW would be worth a try IMO.
On March 13 2016 23:15 PPN wrote: Protoss: - Mana and some other players suggested the return of Shield Battery to make Protoss defense less reliant on Photon Overcharge. Building is already in campaign. Having recharge as manually cast spell a la BW would be worth a try IMO.
Protoss was so much fun with powerful Overcharge, it was silly how strong it was, but I really think the game would benefit greatly, if each race just received some defensive structure to prevent people from randomly dying.
No, for example ZvP : if P defends early drop, then he has agressive options (oracle/dt/warprism/adept), and Zerg defends.
But if zerg has not these agressive options, zerg defends, then defends, then defends, then defends, etc...
Z has more effective tools to end games early-mid right now. If you feel that's too defensive, imagine how other players are feeling
I think he means zerg should have early game options for aggression, I agree that zerg should have early options like every other race. There should be diversity in strategy, otherwise both t and p will know without scout, "oh zerg is defending and expanding, cause what else can zerg do?" Plus, defending all the time is really boring, makes for not a fun game. Does anybody else think if they nerf overlord drop back to lair again, nobody will use it AGAIN, just like we already know nobody used it before?
I think he means zerg should have early game options for aggression, I agree that zerg should have early options like every other race. There should be diversity in strategy, otherwise both t and p will know without scout, "oh zerg is defending and expanding, cause what else can zerg do?" Plus, defending all the time is really boring, makes for not a fun game.
Does anybody else think if they nerf overlord drop back to lair again, nobody will use it AGAIN, just like we already know nobody used it before?
In korea, many zerg user often use overlord drop in lair tech. Because it is useful for distributed gaze in middle game enough. So i think that this think is unfounded. also, zerg can attack at early game without droplord, such as ravager push and nydus worm, zergling push in pvz.
No, for example ZvP : if P defends early drop, then he has agressive options (oracle/dt/warprism/adept), and Zerg defends.
But if zerg has not these agressive options, zerg defends, then defends, then defends, then defends, etc...
Z has more effective tools to end games early-mid right now. If you feel that's too defensive, imagine how other players are feeling
I think he means zerg should have early game options for aggression, I agree that zerg should have early options like every other race. There should be diversity in strategy, otherwise both t and p will know without scout, "oh zerg is defending and expanding, cause what else can zerg do?" Plus, defending all the time is really boring, makes for not a fun game. Does anybody else think if they nerf overlord drop back to lair again, nobody will use it AGAIN, just like we already know nobody used it before?
I don't think overlords wouldn't be used, but they might fall out of popularity for some time. They are still good and cheap for counterattacking in the midgame, it's just a lot of APM and at the moment the game isn't so well-figured out that the difference between killing 5 workers and delaying a push or not in the midgame makes that much of a difference.
I have absolutely no clue how Protoss would objectively say they don't have enough options early. Their standards to do any sort of bullshit unpunished has just been held way too high during HotS times. It makes for good gameplay if a race can be punished for teching high, or delaying a steady production build up for a 6 gateway explosion, but some players only ever think that making a lot of bases and workers should be punishable. Well, that's not how spending money works, if you spend it on something that cannot fight now and you get attacked then obviously you could have made a better choice, it doesn't matter whether it is a 2 base, mass gas dark shrine build or a 3rd base with 60 drones.
On March 12 2016 09:20 MiCroLiFe wrote: yes terran is doin so good at the moment. link to any foreginer terran winning anyone good?
WCS winter world: TvZ: 19-16 (54.3%)
Code S: TvZ: 15-9 (62.5%)
Ting open: TvZ: 28-29 (49.1%)
Dreamhack: TvZ: 16-14 (53.3%)
KR masters is 42% terran.
as i said, link any foreginer terran that win anyone good.
If terran is the strongest race at the highest level of play, it doesn't make sense to buff them further because weaker players are having trouble.
With a huge drop off in ability and/or represenation at lower levels, you might be able to consider changes like the zerg inject change (that allows you to cast it 3 times on the same hatchery without having to time it each time as the duration expires) which basically exist to make the race easier, but not directly stronger.
Does anybody else think if they nerf overlord drop back to lair again, nobody will use it AGAIN, just like we already know nobody used it before?
So how do you want to strengthen PvZ early game while keeping drop and nerfed photon overcharge?
No, for example ZvP : if P defends early drop, then he has agressive options (oracle/dt/warprism/adept), and Zerg defends.
But if zerg has not these agressive options, zerg defends, then defends, then defends, then defends, etc...
Z has more effective tools to end games early-mid right now. If you feel that's too defensive, imagine how other players are feeling
I think he means zerg should have early game options for aggression, I agree that zerg should have early options like every other race. There should be diversity in strategy, otherwise both t and p will know without scout, "oh zerg is defending and expanding, cause what else can zerg do?" Plus, defending all the time is really boring, makes for not a fun game. Does anybody else think if they nerf overlord drop back to lair again, nobody will use it AGAIN, just like we already know nobody used it before?
I don't think overlords wouldn't be used, but they might fall out of popularity for some time. They are still good and cheap for counterattacking in the midgame, it's just a lot of APM and at the moment the game isn't so well-figured out that the difference between killing 5 workers and delaying a push or not in the midgame makes that much of a difference.
I have absolutely no clue how Protoss would objectively say they don't have enough options early. Their standards to do any sort of bullshit unpunished has just been held way too high during HotS times. It makes for good gameplay if a race can be punished for teching high, or delaying a steady production build up for a 6 gateway explosion, but some players only ever think that making a lot of bases and workers should be punishable. Well, that's not how spending money works, if you spend it on something that cannot fight now and you get attacked then obviously you could have made a better choice, it doesn't matter whether it is a 2 base, mass gas, build dark shrine build or a 3rd base with 60 drones.
Don't play on words, don't go the easy troll way. When Protoss players say they don't have enough options, they mean early game before they choose their tech path. Forge expand is out of trend also because of Overlord drop and Ravagers. Wtf do you expect us to do against an Overlord drop that can happen right as we are in the middle of researching warpgate & defending with 1 unit besides gateway/gaz 19 -> nexus -> core? Because of how fast the game starts, we don't even have an hallucination ready to scout evo chamber. Basically we are forced to play blind with that risk in mind and/or make an adept and pray evo chamber is not built too deep in so that we may find it.
Forge expand is out of trend also because of Overlord drop and Ravagers
Not just those, but also because of the maps. Back in the days of forge expand a 9-square natural entrance was standard. Some of the current ladder maps are 20 squares across. Even if we were playing WOL on those maps, they would be hell for forge expands or dropping a forge soon after a gate expand - you just can't sufficiently wall or cover ground properly with cannons.
Take a look at the natural on Cloud Kingdom, one of my favourite PvZ maps:
100% wallable with forge-gateway-gateway, forge-gateway-core or forge-gateway-pylon-zealot and one cannon could cover the entire wall, two could cover basically the entire wall with a huge zone of overlap.
zerg still managed a 52% winrate there over 1356 international games
No, for example ZvP : if P defends early drop, then he has agressive options (oracle/dt/warprism/adept), and Zerg defends.
But if zerg has not these agressive options, zerg defends, then defends, then defends, then defends, etc...
Z has more effective tools to end games early-mid right now. If you feel that's too defensive, imagine how other players are feeling
I think he means zerg should have early game options for aggression, I agree that zerg should have early options like every other race. There should be diversity in strategy, otherwise both t and p will know without scout, "oh zerg is defending and expanding, cause what else can zerg do?" Plus, defending all the time is really boring, makes for not a fun game. Does anybody else think if they nerf overlord drop back to lair again, nobody will use it AGAIN, just like we already know nobody used it before?
I don't think overlords wouldn't be used, but they might fall out of popularity for some time. They are still good and cheap for counterattacking in the midgame, it's just a lot of APM and at the moment the game isn't so well-figured out that the difference between killing 5 workers and delaying a push or not in the midgame makes that much of a difference.
I have absolutely no clue how Protoss would objectively say they don't have enough options early. Their standards to do any sort of bullshit unpunished has just been held way too high during HotS times. It makes for good gameplay if a race can be punished for teching high, or delaying a steady production build up for a 6 gateway explosion, but some players only ever think that making a lot of bases and workers should be punishable. Well, that's not how spending money works, if you spend it on something that cannot fight now and you get attacked then obviously you could have made a better choice, it doesn't matter whether it is a 2 base, mass gas, build dark shrine build or a 3rd base with 60 drones.
Don't play on words, don't go the easy troll way. When Protoss players say they don't have enough options, they mean early game before they choose their tech path. Forge expand is out of trend also because of Overlord drop and Ravagers. Wtf do you expect us to do against an Overlord drop that can happen right as we are in the middle of researching warpgate & defending with 1 unit besides gateway/gaz 19 -> nexus -> core? Because of how fast the game starts, we don't even have an hallucination ready to scout evo chamber. Basically we are forced to play blind with that risk in mind and/or make an adept and pray evo chamber is not built too deep in so that we may find it.
Wait, that is the argument? FFE? Lol, yeah. Make it viable in PvP first if you actually think that FFE makes for truely different and better gameplay and don't steal lifetime of non-Protoss players with that sleepinfusing, unstrategical and uninteractive build order.
On March 14 2016 03:34 Cyro wrote: There's a lot of depth in forge-nexus or nexus-forge openings at any high level of play
There's a lot of depth in anything in high level of play. The game is just fundamentally good enough.
You called it
sleepinfusing, unstrategical and uninteractive
a couple posts ago.
So it has a ton of depth and interaction with what your opponent is doing + allows completely different styles of play that are completely unique to the matchup but isn't worthy of mention? FFE was one of the best things to happen to broodwar and WOL PvZ IMO.
So? Just because players are very good doesn't mean the strategies they play play a big role in that. I can show you games so incredibly good (for their time at least) to justify any viable strategy that ever existed in SC2. Broodlord/Infestor made for some of the best gameplay ever on Korean level, so time to bring it back? Of course not. It's not the specific strategy that made the games incredible, but the incredible players in an overall very good game.
I don't understand sure why so many are advocating for Goliath 2.0 when Vikings basically are Goliath 2.0. The only real difference is separate weapon upgrades, so why not advocate for that and give Thor a different role?
On March 14 2016 04:08 NyxNax wrote: Id love to see the thor just straight up redesigned. Make it HALF the size, cheaper and move faster. Adjust its attacks. Done. Goliath 2.0
On March 14 2016 05:55 Skyro wrote: I don't understand sure why so many are advocating for Goliath 2.0 when Vikings basically are Goliath 2.0. The only real difference is separate weapon upgrades, so why not advocate for that and give Thor a different role?
Well, there's the difference that the viking isn't built from the factory (which is where people would want a decent AA unit to be from what I gather) and also the cumbersome switching between ground and air mode.
On March 14 2016 05:55 Skyro wrote: I don't understand sure why so many are advocating for Goliath 2.0 when Vikings basically are Goliath 2.0. The only real difference is separate weapon upgrades, so why not advocate for that and give Thor a different role?
Well, there's the difference that the viking isn't built from the factory (which is where people would want a decent AA unit to be from what I gather) and also the cumbersome switching between ground and air mode.
Being built from a different structure is a good thing from a unit diversity standpoint.
On March 14 2016 05:55 Skyro wrote: I don't understand sure why so many are advocating for Goliath 2.0 when Vikings basically are Goliath 2.0. The only real difference is separate weapon upgrades, so why not advocate for that and give Thor a different role?
Well, there's the difference that the viking isn't built from the factory (which is where people would want a decent AA unit to be from what I gather) and also the cumbersome switching between ground and air mode.
Being built from a different structure is a good thing from a unit diversity standpoint.
It's still an air unit which the goliath wasn't. I'm pretty sure people got bothered by the fact that only air armies can beat air armies a while ago already.
On March 14 2016 05:55 Skyro wrote: I don't understand sure why so many are advocating for Goliath 2.0 when Vikings basically are Goliath 2.0. The only real difference is separate weapon upgrades, so why not advocate for that and give Thor a different role?
Vikings in ground mode should just benefit from Vehicle ground weapons and get 1 base armor. Also i don´t see any role for the Thor anymore. It´s role is occupied by other Units. Battle Hellions as Meatshields and Anti-air splash by Liberators. Even it´s ground burst damage is terrible and Tanks are just better at that because of the horrible Attack delay.
Some quick thoughts about this Update regarding Mech:
- Widow Mines are unreliable. They should be Anti-flanking tools not Anti-Air. - It would be very sad if they scrapped the Siege tank damage buff they proposed. It would be great if they do it with the Numbers they wanted. - Cyclone change is not good. It should cost 2 supply with lower costs but also the Lock on should be adjusted with that. Right now it´s a Wall of Text in the tooltip which makes it really difficult to calculate the actual damage it does. The only other Unit that has this horrible damage chart is the Void Ray. Cyclones should be the main/all purpose Anti-Air Unit of Mech/Factory Units. I think the speed of this Unit is okay it should at least catch up with most Air Units unlike the Thor. - As said above I don´t know where the Thor could fit in and i guess the balance team is in the same situation. - Liberators and Banshees. Hmm difficult. I think the Liberator anti-ground mode overlaps a bit with Banshees. While Banshhes are more of a Harass Unit, Liberators are used for that too. Maybe they can push the Units more in their specific roles so that Liberators aren´t used for harass at all.
All in all I think splitting between Mech and Bio would be better to adjust than just a mix of those two playstyles. Against the common thought of Bio and Mech would be hard to balance if they were split or even a complete rework of the game to make it work, I think this would be more the case when these were split.
EDIT: One thought about maps. I think what SC 2 needs is a Starcraft equivalent of Dust2 in Counter Strike. 1 or 2 of this kind of map that´s balanced, fun to play etc would greatly help. Sure some people would get sick of it too but I still think 1 or 2 balanced maps that can be played over years would make it much better. There is a reason Dust2 has made it into several versions of CS.
No, for example ZvP : if P defends early drop, then he has agressive options (oracle/dt/warprism/adept), and Zerg defends.
But if zerg has not these agressive options, zerg defends, then defends, then defends, then defends, etc...
Z has more effective tools to end games early-mid right now. If you feel that's too defensive, imagine how other players are feeling
I think he means zerg should have early game options for aggression, I agree that zerg should have early options like every other race. There should be diversity in strategy, otherwise both t and p will know without scout, "oh zerg is defending and expanding, cause what else can zerg do?" Plus, defending all the time is really boring, makes for not a fun game. Does anybody else think if they nerf overlord drop back to lair again, nobody will use it AGAIN, just like we already know nobody used it before?
I don't think overlords wouldn't be used, but they might fall out of popularity for some time. They are still good and cheap for counterattacking in the midgame, it's just a lot of APM and at the moment the game isn't so well-figured out that the difference between killing 5 workers and delaying a push or not in the midgame makes that much of a difference.
As transports overlords are horrendous, when compared to their counterparts in other races.
1) They are slow, too slow to run away from almost anything in the game (even with the speed upgrade) 2) They cannot heal units 3) The don't have boosters 4) You cannot warp in or create a ton of units at their location.
They have maybe 10% of he utility of any other transport in the game, which is way drop harass mid game is almost non-existent. By mid-game most overlords near someone's base have already been sniped or sac'd for a scout. Maybe if one was converted as a transport early game, and for some reason wasn't hunted down after first use, I've seen people return to using it.
What's the point if you can just make a nydus.
I've seen Scarlett use bane drops recently in direct engagements zvp, and some use for harass of mineral lines, but I think such strats are only good early game. Subverting forcefield through drops is a good utility, but that fell out a long time ago. I think the only reason it is back is because of the stage at which it is available in the game.
We used to have drop at lair tech, take a trip back in time to that moment... and you see a tech that nobody used. If you told people back then that, "We are going to buff drops by taking away ventral sacs and allowing you to convert one at a time for a net higher gas cost," people would have considered this a nerf instead of a buff.
There's a few builds that use drops I like... You would be eliminating an entire build with this move and for what reason I do not know, I would like to hear specifically why you feel this is necessary, the builds are not incredibly imbalanced. Protoss typically dont even play that well against drops, a single scout can stop whatever it may be. Protoss can work on their defense, and if they have problems than buff the MSC. You probably overnerfed the MSC honestly. Focus on that, don't take away the fun from the game.
On March 14 2016 05:55 Skyro wrote: I don't understand sure why so many are advocating for Goliath 2.0 when Vikings basically are Goliath 2.0. The only real difference is separate weapon upgrades, so why not advocate for that and give Thor a different role?
Well, there's the difference that the viking isn't built from the factory (which is where people would want a decent AA unit to be from what I gather) and also the cumbersome switching between ground and air mode.
And also that fighting air with air makes for less interesting unit dynamics. That's why it's more interesting watching marines chasing Mutas, Goliaths chasing Carriers, Hidras Phoenixes, etc.
The debate about mech pollutes everything is high-jacking the main issue of Terrans : TvT is at its lamest since sc2 release, and it's 100% because of tankivacs.
I don't see how buffing thors will solve this (unless you make thors ridiculously OP in all match ups) .
And thinking the solution necessarily has to come from a buff of a factory unit is equally senseless.
It's not about a bio vs mech issue (anyway, since when medivacs and tanks are bio units?) it's about a design that is showing its limits more and more every day.
This is the #1 ermegency for Terrans, who gives a flying f to thors and banshees when you can have 10 sieged tanks in medivacs, supported by 50 stimed marines, and can drop them anywhere you want?
On March 14 2016 21:30 Gwavajuice wrote: The debate about mech pollutes everything is high-jacking the main issue of Terrans : TvT is at its lamest since sc2 release, and it's 100% because of tankivacs.
I don't see how buffing thors will solve this (unless you make thors ridiculously OP in all match ups) .
And thinking the solution necessarily has to come from a buff of a factory unit is equally senseless.
It's not about a bio vs mech issue (anyway, since when medivacs and tanks are bio units?) it's about a design that is showing its limits more and more every day.
This is the #1 ermegency for Terrans, who gives a flying f to thors and banshees when you can have 10 sieged tanks in medivacs, supported by 50 stimed marines, and can drop them anywhere you want?
You must have missed that part of HotS where, if you didn't die in the battle of gas first build orders, you died to a doom drop with unsieged tanks at some point. That was atrocious as hell.
On March 14 2016 05:55 Skyro wrote: I don't understand sure why so many are advocating for Goliath 2.0 when Vikings basically are Goliath 2.0. The only real difference is separate weapon upgrades, so why not advocate for that and give Thor a different role?
Well, there's the difference that the viking isn't built from the factory (which is where people would want a decent AA unit to be from what I gather) and also the cumbersome switching between ground and air mode.
And also that fighting air with air makes for less interesting unit dynamics. That's why it's more interesting watching marines chasing Mutas, Goliaths chasing Carriers, Hidras Phoenixes, etc.
This is also why some of us ask for flattening the stalker AA damage to 14 instead of 10+4.
Atm the best anti air options for protoss are:
Phoenix: Best AA against Phoenix (derp), Muta, early game Liberator, Oracle, Medivac, Viking. Archon: Best AA against lategame Muta, Corruptor, Viking and Phoenix. Tempest: Best AA against lategame mass Liberators. Good vs Vipers? HT feedback: Best antiair against Vipers.
On March 14 2016 05:55 Skyro wrote: I don't understand sure why so many are advocating for Goliath 2.0 when Vikings basically are Goliath 2.0. The only real difference is separate weapon upgrades, so why not advocate for that and give Thor a different role?
Well, there's the difference that the viking isn't built from the factory (which is where people would want a decent AA unit to be from what I gather) and also the cumbersome switching between ground and air mode.
And also that fighting air with air makes for less interesting unit dynamics. That's why it's more interesting watching marines chasing Mutas, Goliaths chasing Carriers, Hidras Phoenixes, etc.
This is also why some of us ask for flattening the stalker AA damage to 14 instead of 10+4.
Atm the best anti air options for protoss are:
Phoenix: Best AA against Phoenix (derp), Muta, early game Liberator, Oracle, Medivac, Viking. Archon: Best AA against lategame Muta, Corruptor, Viking and Phoenix. Tempest: Best AA against lategame mass Liberators. Good vs Vipers? HT feedback: Best antiair against Vipers.
I know and i agree with that completely. Protoss in particular has very strong air to air counters and very mediocre ground to air. It's somewhat similar to SC2 mech.
On March 14 2016 21:30 Gwavajuice wrote: The debate about mech pollutes everything is high-jacking the main issue of Terrans : TvT is at its lamest since sc2 release, and it's 100% because of tankivacs.
I don't see how buffing thors will solve this (unless you make thors ridiculously OP in all match ups) .
And thinking the solution necessarily has to come from a buff of a factory unit is equally senseless.
It's not about a bio vs mech issue (anyway, since when medivacs and tanks are bio units?) it's about a design that is showing its limits more and more every day.
This is the #1 ermegency for Terrans, who gives a flying f to thors and banshees when you can have 10 sieged tanks in medivacs, supported by 50 stimed marines, and can drop them anywhere you want?
You must have missed that part of HotS where, if you didn't die in the battle of gas first build orders, you died to a doom drop with unsieged tanks at some point. That was atrocious as hell.
But at least those games past that stage becomes a damn beautiful tactical play. Right now tank medivac basically makes the whole game a potential sudden disaster
On March 14 2016 21:30 Gwavajuice wrote: The debate about mech pollutes everything is high-jacking the main issue of Terrans : TvT is at its lamest since sc2 release, and it's 100% because of tankivacs.
I don't see how buffing thors will solve this (unless you make thors ridiculously OP in all match ups) .
And thinking the solution necessarily has to come from a buff of a factory unit is equally senseless.
It's not about a bio vs mech issue (anyway, since when medivacs and tanks are bio units?) it's about a design that is showing its limits more and more every day.
This is the #1 ermegency for Terrans, who gives a flying f to thors and banshees when you can have 10 sieged tanks in medivacs, supported by 50 stimed marines, and can drop them anywhere you want?
You must have missed that part of HotS where, if you didn't die in the battle of gas first build orders, you died to a doom drop with unsieged tanks at some point. That was atrocious as hell.
But at least those games past that stage becomes a damn beautiful tactical play. Right now tank medivac basically makes the whole game a potential sudden disaster
Marine/tank vs marine/tank always had room for that potential sudden disaster in HotS aswell. It only went beyond that if you couldn't find an avenue for a doom drop, or if you for some reason not in the mood for a doom drop to begin with. And any LotV TvT that goes to 4+ bases still has many of those beautiful elements to it.
On March 14 2016 21:30 Gwavajuice wrote: The debate about mech pollutes everything is high-jacking the main issue of Terrans : TvT is at its lamest since sc2 release, and it's 100% because of tankivacs.
I don't see how buffing thors will solve this (unless you make thors ridiculously OP in all match ups) .
And thinking the solution necessarily has to come from a buff of a factory unit is equally senseless.
It's not about a bio vs mech issue (anyway, since when medivacs and tanks are bio units?) it's about a design that is showing its limits more and more every day.
This is the #1 ermegency for Terrans, who gives a flying f to thors and banshees when you can have 10 sieged tanks in medivacs, supported by 50 stimed marines, and can drop them anywhere you want?
You must have missed that part of HotS where, if you didn't die in the battle of gas first build orders, you died to a doom drop with unsieged tanks at some point. That was atrocious as hell.
Come on, I know you are trolling me and that you're clever enough to see this wasn't what HotS was about.
Personally, I find doom drops even easier to defend in LotV than in HotS, I don't see why people are talking about that. Anyway, Tankivac's issue is not about doom drops.
The issue about tankivacs is about how the engagement occurs, when you just need one opening - and there is always one - and then boost -> drop -> stim -> win. The game is decided on reflexes only, reflexes are cool but sc2 should have so much more to offer (and it has in every other match ups) and most importantly you are always playing/watching the same basic and witless game, over and over.
We're stuck in this dumb meta, we need a rescue to get out.
On March 14 2016 21:30 Gwavajuice wrote: The debate about mech pollutes everything is high-jacking the main issue of Terrans : TvT is at its lamest since sc2 release, and it's 100% because of tankivacs.
I don't see how buffing thors will solve this (unless you make thors ridiculously OP in all match ups) .
And thinking the solution necessarily has to come from a buff of a factory unit is equally senseless.
It's not about a bio vs mech issue (anyway, since when medivacs and tanks are bio units?) it's about a design that is showing its limits more and more every day.
This is the #1 ermegency for Terrans, who gives a flying f to thors and banshees when you can have 10 sieged tanks in medivacs, supported by 50 stimed marines, and can drop them anywhere you want?
You must have missed that part of HotS where, if you didn't die in the battle of gas first build orders, you died to a doom drop with unsieged tanks at some point. That was atrocious as hell.
Come on, I know you are trolling me and that you're clever enough to see this wasn't what HotS was about.
That is exactly what happened in HotS marine/tank TvT for the bigger part of 2014 and 2015, actually. They only times in HotS TvT I didn't have to worry about doom drops flying in was when I was playing mech. I'd rather have tankivacs stay in the game then go back to 2014 HotS.
Also don't say all games follow the same path, it's just not true. TY vs aLive played out entirely different from TY vs Ryung. Entirely different strategical approaches. If you get to 4+ bases I firmly believe TvT still has all of its good aspects intact.
So of course the problem with flying tanks is that it facilitates people killing each other - or themselves - in stupid ways before the game gets that far.
No, for example ZvP : if P defends early drop, then he has agressive options (oracle/dt/warprism/adept), and Zerg defends.
But if zerg has not these agressive options, zerg defends, then defends, then defends, then defends, etc...
Z has more effective tools to end games early-mid right now. If you feel that's too defensive, imagine how other players are feeling
I think he means zerg should have early game options for aggression, I agree that zerg should have early options like every other race. There should be diversity in strategy, otherwise both t and p will know without scout, "oh zerg is defending and expanding, cause what else can zerg do?" Plus, defending all the time is really boring, makes for not a fun game. Does anybody else think if they nerf overlord drop back to lair again, nobody will use it AGAIN, just like we already know nobody used it before?
I don't think overlords wouldn't be used, but they might fall out of popularity for some time. They are still good and cheap for counterattacking in the midgame, it's just a lot of APM and at the moment the game isn't so well-figured out that the difference between killing 5 workers and delaying a push or not in the midgame makes that much of a difference.
I have absolutely no clue how Protoss would objectively say they don't have enough options early. Their standards to do any sort of bullshit unpunished has just been held way too high during HotS times. It makes for good gameplay if a race can be punished for teching high, or delaying a steady production build up for a 6 gateway explosion, but some players only ever think that making a lot of bases and workers should be punishable. Well, that's not how spending money works, if you spend it on something that cannot fight now and you get attacked then obviously you could have made a better choice, it doesn't matter whether it is a 2 base, mass gas, build dark shrine build or a 3rd base with 60 drones.
Don't play on words, don't go the easy troll way. When Protoss players say they don't have enough options, they mean early game before they choose their tech path. Forge expand is out of trend also because of Overlord drop and Ravagers. Wtf do you expect us to do against an Overlord drop that can happen right as we are in the middle of researching warpgate & defending with 1 unit besides gateway/gaz 19 -> nexus -> core? Because of how fast the game starts, we don't even have an hallucination ready to scout evo chamber. Basically we are forced to play blind with that risk in mind and/or make an adept and pray evo chamber is not built too deep in so that we may find it.
Wait, that is the argument? FFE? Lol, yeah. Make it viable in PvP first if you actually think that FFE makes for truely different and better gameplay and don't steal lifetime of non-Protoss players with that sleepinfusing, unstrategical and uninteractive build order.
Sorry if you can't see the finesse that having the choice between FFE and Gateway expand could bring to the early game of Protoss in PvZ, just like Zerg could threaten Protoss depending on timing of Spawning Pool. You know, reacting and inverting buildings order depending on what you see and stuff. No idea why you keep spitting your irrelevant bullshit about BL/Infestor or PvP.
No, for example ZvP : if P defends early drop, then he has agressive options (oracle/dt/warprism/adept), and Zerg defends.
But if zerg has not these agressive options, zerg defends, then defends, then defends, then defends, etc...
Z has more effective tools to end games early-mid right now. If you feel that's too defensive, imagine how other players are feeling
I think he means zerg should have early game options for aggression, I agree that zerg should have early options like every other race. There should be diversity in strategy, otherwise both t and p will know without scout, "oh zerg is defending and expanding, cause what else can zerg do?" Plus, defending all the time is really boring, makes for not a fun game. Does anybody else think if they nerf overlord drop back to lair again, nobody will use it AGAIN, just like we already know nobody used it before?
I don't think overlords wouldn't be used, but they might fall out of popularity for some time. They are still good and cheap for counterattacking in the midgame, it's just a lot of APM and at the moment the game isn't so well-figured out that the difference between killing 5 workers and delaying a push or not in the midgame makes that much of a difference.
As transports overlords are horrendous, when compared to their counterparts in other races.
1) They are slow, too slow to run away from almost anything in the game (even with the speed upgrade) 2) They cannot heal units 3) The don't have boosters 4) You cannot warp in or create a ton of units at their location.
They have maybe 10% of he utility of any other transport in the game, which is way drop harass mid game is almost non-existent. By mid-game most overlords near someone's base have already been sniped or sac'd for a scout. Maybe if one was converted as a transport early game, and for some reason wasn't hunted down after first use, I've seen people return to using it.
What's the point if you can just make a nydus.
I've seen Scarlett use bane drops recently in direct engagements zvp, and some use for harass of mineral lines, but I think such strats are only good early game. Subverting forcefield through drops is a good utility, but that fell out a long time ago. I think the only reason it is back is because of the stage at which it is available in the game.
We used to have drop at lair tech, take a trip back in time to that moment... and you see a tech that nobody used. If you told people back then that, "We are going to buff drops by taking away ventral sacs and allowing you to convert one at a time for a net higher gas cost," people would have considered this a nerf instead of a buff.
And people still wouldn't have used drops.
You forgot about the part where an Overlord is a flying supply scouting units that can creep. Please it does not need to be the quickest to get or the best drop units of the game on top of that. It is still usefull in mid-game to make cheap lings drop in small amount if you have spare APM. I would not mind if Overlord could be slightly faster when able to transport though. And you said it, you already have the invincible/transfusable Nydus for the bigger "drop".
On March 14 2016 21:30 Gwavajuice wrote: The debate about mech pollutes everything is high-jacking the main issue of Terrans : TvT is at its lamest since sc2 release, and it's 100% because of tankivacs.
I don't see how buffing thors will solve this (unless you make thors ridiculously OP in all match ups) .
And thinking the solution necessarily has to come from a buff of a factory unit is equally senseless.
It's not about a bio vs mech issue (anyway, since when medivacs and tanks are bio units?) it's about a design that is showing its limits more and more every day.
This is the #1 ermegency for Terrans, who gives a flying f to thors and banshees when you can have 10 sieged tanks in medivacs, supported by 50 stimed marines, and can drop them anywhere you want?
You must have missed that part of HotS where, if you didn't die in the battle of gas first build orders, you died to a doom drop with unsieged tanks at some point. That was atrocious as hell.
Come on, I know you are trolling me and that you're clever enough to see this wasn't what HotS was about.
That is exactly what happened in HotS marine/tank TvT for the bigger part of 2014 and 2015, actually. They only times in HotS TvT I didn't have to worry about doom drops flying in was when I was playing mech. I'd rather have tankivacs stay in the game then go back to 2014 HotS.
Also don't say all games follow the same path, it's just not true. TY vs aLive played out entirely different from TY vs Ryung. Entirely different strategical approaches. If you get to 4+ bases I firmly believe TvT still has all of its good aspects intact.
So of course the problem with flying tanks is that it facilitates people to kill each other - or themselves - in stupid ways before the game gets that far.
No. Just no. Rewatch all Polt/Bomber/MMA games in WCS when they were usually playing bio and tried to doom drop each other, see the finesse needed, all the subtil army movement, both defensive and offensive, and you'll see that even when players choosed (emphasis on "choosed") to abuse doom drops, it was more interesting than LotV TvT.
HotS was : unsiege tanks, load them, boost, drop and siege them again, hoping your opponent didn't see it coming and doesn't use all this time when your tanks are basically dead weight to kill you. LoTV is just : keep your sieged tanks in your medivac, you're 100% safe, just wait for the good moment to drop them and win.
(and don't get me started with game diversity, you can't have forgot : this was our daily TvT bread and butter.)
On March 14 2016 23:48 Gwavajuice wrote: No. Just no. Rewatch all Polt/Bomber/MMA games in WCS when they were usually playing bio and tried to doom drop each other, see the finesse needed, all the subtil army movement, both defensive and offensive, and you'll see that even when players choosed (emphasis on "choosed") to abuse doom drops, it was more interesting than LotV TvT.
It wasn't to me. Neither to watch, nor to play. Every time I saw a doom drop I sighed. Sure there were some great games in there, but there are great games in the current meta, too, so that doesn't mean anything to me. The TvTs I enjoyed the most in mid to late HotS generally involved at least 1 player meching.
On March 14 2016 23:48 Gwavajuice wrote: you're 100% safe
You're not 100% safe just because you have tanks in medivacs, what even is this?
On March 14 2016 23:48 Gwavajuice wrote: (and don't get me started with game diversity, you can't have forgot : this was our daily TvT bread and butter.)
Of course I wouldn't forget this. How would I? TvT in HotS was my personal fucking hell. It wasn't my worst matchup, still isn't to date, but it's always been the matchup I've hated playing the most. And I still hate playing it (mostly because it constitutes like 40% of my ladder games), but slightly less. Not to mention most of the openers the thread lists I still see used regularly in their LotV versions.
And as I said, I don't even like TvT. I'm just cautious about people saying removing tankivacs immediately makes the matchup better, because all I start thinking of is how I best defend doom drops without them.
I do not recall any passionate debates about the sad state of TvT during HOTS (after Hellbat nerf). In fact, I recall many saying that TvT it was one of the best mirror match-ups, if not the best match-up in the entire game. Therefore, I am a bit puzzled about these recent threads as to how TvT would be so incredibly bad if anything was done to nerf the Tankivac - I wonder what the motivation really is for those arguing that point.
On the flip side, there are quite a few people very passionate about seeing the Tankivac gone from TvT nowadays. We are upset at the state of Terran design because we do not believe that air vs. air should be the end game, nor the Tankivac. We enjoy the thought process that comes with splits, concaves, high ground advantages, choke points, flanks, dropping on top of tanks, risk with siege/unsiege, deciding when to roll in unsieged based on quick judgement, etc. All aspects of Terran that create tremendous opportunities to showcase your reasoning/thinking/strategy and even deceive your opponent so that you can set him/her up.
Tankivacs kill alot of that. You re-scan your enemy's army to decide on the best of the numerous courses of actions that I listed above, depending on how your opponent is setting up his forces, and nope... too late - Those 10 sieged up tanks outside my Natural are just about to drop my production 2 seconds earlier than I can get there because my orbital scans were 3 seconds apart. I lose.
I do not watch every Terran's stream, but I have sensed the frustration with this design from Nathanias, Avilo, and Ruff inclusively. (others?) Oddly enough, I have rarely seen these three players off-race in the past year (except Avilo at times), and they have all been off-racing in just the past week after Blizzard announced it might keep the Tankivac. Avilo says he may consider playing Zerg until it is fixed, Nate has been explaining on stream how Protoss is the new Terran in LOTV, and Ruff said two weeks ago he never off-races and was playing Protoss canon-cheese last week.
Yep, back in HotS TvT was voted in many polls (including in TL) to be the best mirror and the second best MU overall (behind TvZ). Also in the feedback update where blizz first talked about the idea of removing it theres was a huge approval from the community.
Also saying TvT would be worst if there was no tankivac is hyperbole, we have no idea how TvT without tanks looks in LotV, since TvT was always a very positional and strategical MU, the changes of pace, timings and maps play a huge role on it and since we've had tankivacs since day 1 we don't know how it looks without them.
On March 15 2016 01:04 PressureSC2 wrote: I wonder what the motivation really is for those arguing that point.
You got me, I'm on the payroll of the secret tankivac lobby.
A confession, nice. I was thinking more in terms of those who do not play Terran as their main race. You know you are out there. O.O
I will say though, if the tankivac removal actually leads to mech resurging a bit in TvT I'd be okay with it. Mech vs bio was my favorite thing in HotS mirrors. Although that will also depend on the maps.
On March 15 2016 01:15 Lexender wrote: Also saying TvT would be worst if there was no tankivac is hyperbole, we have no idea how TvT without tanks looks in LotV, since TvT was always a very positional and strategical MU, the changes of pace, timings and maps play a huge role on it and since we've had tankivacs since day 1 we don't know how it looks without them.
There's no real reason to assume it would be too different from HotS, it's the only change that has majorly influenced the matchup. Might see liberator play (and thus increased air focus) to break siege lines in longer games if tanks can't be moved though.
The problem with the tankivac is the medivac tbh. Medivacs create so much 'problems' that i think this was one of the worse changes from bw. (if we want to compare it to that) Overall it might only be a syndrom though and not the cause, the pace of the game is simply a little to fast.
Poll: Medivacs can’t pick up Siege Tanks in Siege Mode
Good change (402) - 63% Wrong change (106) - 17% Bad change (85) - 13% No change Needed (46) - 7%
As it currently stands almost a month later.
It's probably a well received change in general, but saying it received huge approval based on a poll with 650 votes is a bit over the top. It's not like all community figures agreed about this topic either.
Poll: Medivacs can’t pick up Siege Tanks in Siege Mode
Good change (402) - 63% Wrong change (106) - 17% Bad change (85) - 13% No change Needed (46) - 7%
As it currently stands almost a month later.
It's probably a well received change in general, but saying it received huge approval based on a poll with 650 votes is a bit over the top.
If I had a better source, I would gladly post it. I would create a strawpoll - but someone would surely say that I created 1,000 accounts to vote and therefore it is biased.. :D Arguably, Korean Pros up for contract renewal next year are financially biased. There are few sources that are 100% reliable - I think we should look at it all as a whole including this poll.
No, for example ZvP : if P defends early drop, then he has agressive options (oracle/dt/warprism/adept), and Zerg defends.
But if zerg has not these agressive options, zerg defends, then defends, then defends, then defends, etc...
Z has more effective tools to end games early-mid right now. If you feel that's too defensive, imagine how other players are feeling
I think he means zerg should have early game options for aggression, I agree that zerg should have early options like every other race. There should be diversity in strategy, otherwise both t and p will know without scout, "oh zerg is defending and expanding, cause what else can zerg do?" Plus, defending all the time is really boring, makes for not a fun game. Does anybody else think if they nerf overlord drop back to lair again, nobody will use it AGAIN, just like we already know nobody used it before?
I don't think overlords wouldn't be used, but they might fall out of popularity for some time. They are still good and cheap for counterattacking in the midgame, it's just a lot of APM and at the moment the game isn't so well-figured out that the difference between killing 5 workers and delaying a push or not in the midgame makes that much of a difference.
I have absolutely no clue how Protoss would objectively say they don't have enough options early. Their standards to do any sort of bullshit unpunished has just been held way too high during HotS times. It makes for good gameplay if a race can be punished for teching high, or delaying a steady production build up for a 6 gateway explosion, but some players only ever think that making a lot of bases and workers should be punishable. Well, that's not how spending money works, if you spend it on something that cannot fight now and you get attacked then obviously you could have made a better choice, it doesn't matter whether it is a 2 base, mass gas, build dark shrine build or a 3rd base with 60 drones.
Don't play on words, don't go the easy troll way. When Protoss players say they don't have enough options, they mean early game before they choose their tech path. Forge expand is out of trend also because of Overlord drop and Ravagers. Wtf do you expect us to do against an Overlord drop that can happen right as we are in the middle of researching warpgate & defending with 1 unit besides gateway/gaz 19 -> nexus -> core? Because of how fast the game starts, we don't even have an hallucination ready to scout evo chamber. Basically we are forced to play blind with that risk in mind and/or make an adept and pray evo chamber is not built too deep in so that we may find it.
Wait, that is the argument? FFE? Lol, yeah. Make it viable in PvP first if you actually think that FFE makes for truely different and better gameplay and don't steal lifetime of non-Protoss players with that sleepinfusing, unstrategical and uninteractive build order.
Sorry if you can't see the finesse that having the choice between FFE and Gateway expand could bring to the early game of Protoss in PvZ, just like Zerg could threaten Protoss depending on timing of Spawning Pool. You know, reacting and inverting buildings order depending on what you see and stuff. No idea why you keep spitting your irrelevant bullshit about BL/Infestor or PvP.
No, for example ZvP : if P defends early drop, then he has agressive options (oracle/dt/warprism/adept), and Zerg defends.
But if zerg has not these agressive options, zerg defends, then defends, then defends, then defends, etc...
Z has more effective tools to end games early-mid right now. If you feel that's too defensive, imagine how other players are feeling
I think he means zerg should have early game options for aggression, I agree that zerg should have early options like every other race. There should be diversity in strategy, otherwise both t and p will know without scout, "oh zerg is defending and expanding, cause what else can zerg do?" Plus, defending all the time is really boring, makes for not a fun game. Does anybody else think if they nerf overlord drop back to lair again, nobody will use it AGAIN, just like we already know nobody used it before?
I don't think overlords wouldn't be used, but they might fall out of popularity for some time. They are still good and cheap for counterattacking in the midgame, it's just a lot of APM and at the moment the game isn't so well-figured out that the difference between killing 5 workers and delaying a push or not in the midgame makes that much of a difference.
As transports overlords are horrendous, when compared to their counterparts in other races.
1) They are slow, too slow to run away from almost anything in the game (even with the speed upgrade) 2) They cannot heal units 3) The don't have boosters 4) You cannot warp in or create a ton of units at their location.
They have maybe 10% of he utility of any other transport in the game, which is way drop harass mid game is almost non-existent. By mid-game most overlords near someone's base have already been sniped or sac'd for a scout. Maybe if one was converted as a transport early game, and for some reason wasn't hunted down after first use, I've seen people return to using it.
What's the point if you can just make a nydus.
I've seen Scarlett use bane drops recently in direct engagements zvp, and some use for harass of mineral lines, but I think such strats are only good early game. Subverting forcefield through drops is a good utility, but that fell out a long time ago. I think the only reason it is back is because of the stage at which it is available in the game.
We used to have drop at lair tech, take a trip back in time to that moment... and you see a tech that nobody used. If you told people back then that, "We are going to buff drops by taking away ventral sacs and allowing you to convert one at a time for a net higher gas cost," people would have considered this a nerf instead of a buff.
And people still wouldn't have used drops.
You forgot about the part where an Overlord is a flying supply scouting units that can creep. Please it does not need to be the quickest to get or the best drop units of the game on top of that. It is still usefull in mid-game to make cheap lings drop in small amount if you have spare APM. I would not mind if Overlord could be slightly faster when able to transport though. And you said it, you already have the invincible/transfusable Nydus for the bigger "drop".
Nyndus isn't a reliable drop way. It's only work as all-in vs greedy play where the other hasn't build enough army to kill it.
Imagine, you will drop and zerg has 14s to prepare, and knows where you drop....and you can't back....
Whereas to understand how zerg are forced to deal with drop, it's like you must deal with medivac boost with some stalker that can't hit air nor photon overcharge. You only have photon canon, and if you really want to kill medivac you're forced to go phoenix, and let say that liberator crush phoenix.
So understand how frustrating it is dealing with drop as zerg, a fortiori when you don't have a reliable dropship contrary to the other race.
On March 14 2016 23:48 Gwavajuice wrote: you're 100% safe
You're not 100% safe just because you have tanks in medivacs, what even is this?
What I mean is there is not a clear way for your opponent to kill your tankivacs, unless your marine support is dead for some reason. For instance, if marines stim towards you, you just boost back and drop tanks behind your own marines and you win the fight, Vikings are too slow and if they get too close from your marines, they're dead, etc.
That's why you see people keeping their tanks in the medivacs, no need to drop them before the moment when you actually want to hit your opponent, you stay in this configuration and you're safe, you just move around waiting for the opening that'll allow you to drop in the "money spot".
It's like in Japanese sabre movies, when the hero samurai has the perfect guard where he can parry all kind of attacks the villain may throw at him.
I'm insisting on this point because to me it's the core of the issue, if we had just one way to correctly engage this "guard", like I don't know? sniping medivacs while they carry the tanks or something, the match up would improve greatly. That's why I think the idea of disabling boost while carrying sieged tanks is a decent idea, although I know it's far from perfect and has some big flaws.
To sum up, I was a huge fan of TvT and that's the one of the reasosn why I played T as my main race in HotS, and that's probably why we don't have the same opinion on the matter.
Maybe I'm the one being wrong and TvT is indeed great in LotV but for the moment I'm more focused on refreshing my queen inject and creep spread mechanics cause ZvZ is the new TvT to me (if this makes any sense..)
The thing is we had nothing new on the subject of tankivac play in TvT, that's why I tried to bring it back on the debate.
I just watched Maru vs INno from yesterday's SPL, and I'm even more convinced tankivac play has to change somehow cause having this 2 genius playing such an unidimensional, and let's face it, boring, game and having Rogue and Impact playing an incredibly rich ZvZ right afterward, is heartbreaking to all TvT lovers.
david kim would have to nerf ZERG in order to nerf PYLONCANNON in order to buff MECH
because z pushes are too powerful if protoss doesnt have pyloncannon, they have to keep the tankivac
in order to nerf BIO tankivac so that you can no longer pickup tanks in siege mode, you have to nerf ZERG so that you can nerf PROTOSS so that you can nerf tankivac
because protoss would butcher terran if we dont have tankivac
and zerg would butcher protoss if they didnt have pyloncannon
so nerf zerg, to nerf pyloncannon, and nerf tankivac with it
this is the ONLY way to remove tankivac.
this empowers gateway units for protoss in both pvz and pvt while denying bio the tankivac which kills ALL POSITIONAL PLAY while also fixing pyloncannonrushes against terran and it balances the z lategame which is insanely broken right now.
david kim is literally fabricating an artificial situation where he gets to make zerg overpowered, and he is doing it deliberately to keep terrans focused on protoss, while the real reason he cant nerf protoss is because zerg is so strong
so i say move ravagers and drop tech to lair tech, and nerf pyloncannon range to 6 so it can only defend against zealots/lings EARLYGAME but phases out in mid to lategame.
if you didnt NEED tankivacs (remove ravager earlygame) you have NO reason to defend its existance, this unit creates a problem david kim is abusing to justify keeping z OP, just look at the derps in lowleague who "need" the tankivac to deal with ravagers, its very convenient for david kim.
The thing is we had nothing new on the subject of tankivac play in TvT, that's why I tried to bring it back on the debate.
I just watched Maru vs INno from yesterday's SPL, and I'm even more convinced tankivac play has to change somehow cause having this 2 genius playing such an unidimensional, and let's face it, boring, game and having Rogue and Impact playing an incredibly rich ZvZ right afterward, is heartbreaking to all TvT lovers.
I'm not convinced that removing the tankivac is the solution that makes TvT super-awesome over night, but it's probably one of the biggest factors that contributes to the current tank/marine headbutting.
It's really uninspiring to watch or play TvT right now, when it's just two players trying to drop their full army onto a half of the opponent's army.
The thing is we had nothing new on the subject of tankivac play in TvT, that's why I tried to bring it back on the debate.
I just watched Maru vs INno from yesterday's SPL, and I'm even more convinced tankivac play has to change somehow cause having this 2 genius playing such an unidimensional, and let's face it, boring, game and having Rogue and Impact playing an incredibly rich ZvZ right afterward, is heartbreaking to all TvT lovers.
I'm not convinced that removing the tankivac is the solution that makes TvT super-awesome over night, but it's probably one of the biggest factors that contributes to the current tank/marine headbutting.
It's really uninspiring to watch or play TvT right now, when it's just two players trying to drop their full army onto a half of the opponent's army.
I wouldn't stop there, remove boost and any change connected to it(muta, phoenixes). I would also slower the Oracle, not to the level of prebuff, but maybe somewhere in between. (slowing WP if needed)
I think that the speed buff received too many units in different forms.
If you look back at WOL, any strong harass was counterbalanced with obvious flaws.
- you could easily catch a medivac full of marines - to damage mutalisks was a big deal : if you got hit by a thor shot, you'd have to be much more carefull with your mutas because they didn't regen like deadpool - phenixes were a good exemple of uncatchable harass that was weakened by design : energy that limited worker kills
When you look at LOTV... There's so many harass options that you can only defend but not really shut down. You can't really shut down an oracle if the opponents doesn't make mistakes, and its energy limitation only means it'll kill a single mineral line (rofl). If you don't go for air, P and Z can end up with mineral lines shut down by liberators. Speedblinkprism + disruptors, DTs or adepts, are virtually uncatachable with T. Same thing with boosted medivacs.
I actually think that hyper mobile/hyper strong/hyper uncatachable harass favorises turtle play. If you go for a comp that doesn't rely on heavy harass, you're forced into turtle, because you can't move out without locking down your entire side of the map, in fear of loosing all of your workers.
On March 17 2016 00:06 JackONeill wrote: If you look back at WOL, any strong harass was counterbalanced with obvious flaws.
- you could easily catch a medivac full of marines - to damage mutalisks was a big deal : if you got hit by a thor shot, you'd have to be much more carefull with your mutas because they didn't regen like deadpool - phenixes were a good exemple of uncatchable harass that was weakened by design : energy that limited worker kills
When you look at LOTV... There's so many harass options that you can only defend but not really shut down. You can't really shut down an oracle if the opponents doesn't make mistakes, and its energy limitation only means it'll kill a single mineral line (rofl). If you don't go for air, P and Z can end up with mineral lines shut down by liberators. Speedblinkprism + disruptors, DTs or adepts, are virtually uncatachable with T. Same thing with boosted medivacs.
I actually think that hyper mobile/hyper strong/hyper uncatachable harass favorises turtle play. If you go for a comp that doesn't rely on heavy harass, you're forced into turtle, because you can't move out without locking down your entire side of the map, in fear of loosing all of your workers.
Yeah, but the point why blizzard buffed harass on all fronts is that every race can go for harass-heavy play and at the current state other playstyles are relatively bad, so you end up with hardly any turtleplay. What they do works, unless you insist on playing arbitrary unit compositions that you think should work, but actually do not.
But yeah, I wish it wasn't so. Harass, like any other play, should be subject to basic strategic rules, like being able to get shut down so that you have to seek an advantage elsewhere.
Maps, obviously, are just as integral to gameplay as units. I wonder if a new neutral element would actually 'fix' many issues by itself. What about most mineral patches ungrown at start of game (except for, say, main and natural, of course), however as game goes on mineral patch areas begin to grow in a nicely random and realistic way as the game progresses?
This would allow for an opportunity to reshape map design. Specifically, regarding unit movement. Right now, all ground units can go anywhere; massive units can even move behind the mineral lines. There's no disadvantage to the Ultralisk? Not very interesting. It would seem more fair if Light Units sometimes had some advantages in their size. I think that players would enjoy more elements in the maps.
For the past 3-5 years I have really enjoyed watching Nathanias, Avilo and Ruff play Terran on twitch. In the past three weeks I have logged on to each of their stream on multiple occasions to either see a lot of off-racing, or instead listen to their views on bad game design while they play Terran - which I agree with them).
I think they agree that balance seems to be ok but I think they also see some very significant design/gameplay issues. And you know what, even if they are wrong, its clear they are not enjoying playing Terran as much as in HOTS and that is an issue on its own.
I am also noticing Twitch viewership decline considerably in the past three weeks. I am concerned.
On March 25 2016 01:55 PressureSC2 wrote: For the past 3-5 years I have really enjoyed watching Nathanias, Avilo and Ruff play Terran on twitch. In the past three weeks I have logged on to each of their stream on multiple occasions to either see a lot of off-racing, or instead listen to their views on bad game design while they play Terran - which I agree with them).
I think they agree that balance seems to be ok but I think they also see some very significant design/gameplay issues. And you know what, even if they are wrong, its clear they are not enjoying playing Terran as much as in HOTS and that is an issue on its own.
I am also noticing Twitch viewership decline considerably in the past three weeks. I am concerned.
Honestly, I feel like so much of this is the result of the map pool. LotV brought in a lot of cheeky mechanics that are hard to deal with, and encouraged a lot of cheesy plays itself. This combined with the massive balance changes that came with it, the game is volatile- there was no way around that.
They we stuck players on maps where they couldn't play safe, relax, and figure out how the game plays. We're still in an early development phase 5 months after launch, and that's really frustrating. I imagine 1 season of safe, standard maps gives everyone enough time to get comfortable with the game- and we'll see all around improved attitudes towards the game. Otherwise, we have a long road ahead of us.
EPT![[image loading]](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CM809rKWoAAiV0C.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/cl0Nef2.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/aR5WXMS.jpg)
