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On November 15 2016 19:23 prabuty wrote:Show nested quote +On November 15 2016 18:53 Probe1 wrote:On November 15 2016 18:42 prabuty wrote:So... How are you gonna hold any early baneling-hydra 3-base allins ("early aggression") without losing your 3rd as protoss? This actually eliminates any potential for early economic play for protoss in pvz. Removing the release interceptors ability from carriers is probably something I can live with, but I don't really understand the point of adding this shadow stride ability (another active ability so it feels like now there are not enough hotkeys on the keyboard to be able to cast them all) to dt's except from some early allins that protoss players will be experimenting with shortly after the patch is released. What I mean by that is that protoss will not receive any new "real" harassment options vs. terran as this dt play will get countered so hard by a default turret-mine placement in all expansions that terran is taking (there is actually a considerable difference between harassing with medivacs that you can send to a certain location with pre-selected drop command so that you can concentrate on manouvering your main army force and harassing with expensive units like a dt or oracle that can die to a single shot from a burrowed mine...). This mech play in pvt, for what I can tell at least based on what I'm seeing in these changes, will actually mean carnage for protoss since the new tank-hellbat-cyclone composition decimates any gate protoss force with vikings owning any colossi, carriers, and tempests (yeah, there is no interceptor release potential to hit and run a mech force being halfway to their destination).And to think that it's gonna happen on maps like King Sejong Station or Galactic Process with so many chokes and upper-ground siege locations  KSS and Gal will both be phased out by the time the change hits. "Early" and "At the bare minimum 7 minutes into the game" don't check out. Well, to be more specific by saying "early" I meant that zerg would be able to take down protoss 3rd so easily with taking only like 3 gases and having full mineral saturation in his main and natural with using a hatchery in his 3rd for spamming zerglings and relying solely on the new strength of banelings and +2 hydras. I'm making this assumption based on the current regular expansion timings in pvz with any further delay of protoss 3rd benefiting only zerg. By mentioning maps like KSS and Gal I wanted to stress out the fact that such map architectures extremely favor terran over as could be seen in the last Dark-Byun finals, for example.
Three gasses, 3 base saturation, a fast lair, two back to back upgrades plus the hydra den, and we have to hope that Protoss doesn't do any sort of pressure since all we have to spare are mineral units that suck ass against adepts.
Seriously lets break this down.
Lair - Minerals 150 (450) Gas 100 Game Speed 57
Hydralisk Den - Minerals 100 Gas 100 Game Speed 29
Muscular Augments - Minerals 150 Gas 150 Game Speed 71
Grooved Spines - Minerals 100 Gas 100 Game Speed 71
So 228 seconds / 3:48 minutes. 500 minerals. 450 gas. Just for the tech alone. If Zerg took a fast lair at 4:00 then we're looking at 7:48 if they execute it perfectly. At 8 minutes I expect Protoss to have close to full saturation on their third. I know people are panicking over zerg getting a unit that isn't flaming shit but this isn't going to come at 4 minutes or 5 minutes or even 7 minutes. It's coming when both players will have 3 base saturation and the late game tools to deal with mid game pressure.
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Tbh pretty much every unit can fight wreck stalkers now. Cyclones, tanks, vikings, ravens, swarmhosts, hydras... all get sweet buffs. Hell even banes now take one more shot to kill, and infestors cast while burrowed. Sad stalker fanclub.
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On November 15 2016 20:49 Probe1 wrote:Show nested quote +On November 15 2016 19:23 prabuty wrote:On November 15 2016 18:53 Probe1 wrote:On November 15 2016 18:42 prabuty wrote:So... How are you gonna hold any early baneling-hydra 3-base allins ("early aggression") without losing your 3rd as protoss? This actually eliminates any potential for early economic play for protoss in pvz. Removing the release interceptors ability from carriers is probably something I can live with, but I don't really understand the point of adding this shadow stride ability (another active ability so it feels like now there are not enough hotkeys on the keyboard to be able to cast them all) to dt's except from some early allins that protoss players will be experimenting with shortly after the patch is released. What I mean by that is that protoss will not receive any new "real" harassment options vs. terran as this dt play will get countered so hard by a default turret-mine placement in all expansions that terran is taking (there is actually a considerable difference between harassing with medivacs that you can send to a certain location with pre-selected drop command so that you can concentrate on manouvering your main army force and harassing with expensive units like a dt or oracle that can die to a single shot from a burrowed mine...). This mech play in pvt, for what I can tell at least based on what I'm seeing in these changes, will actually mean carnage for protoss since the new tank-hellbat-cyclone composition decimates any gate protoss force with vikings owning any colossi, carriers, and tempests (yeah, there is no interceptor release potential to hit and run a mech force being halfway to their destination).And to think that it's gonna happen on maps like King Sejong Station or Galactic Process with so many chokes and upper-ground siege locations KSS and Gal will both be phased out by the time the change hits. "Early" and "At the bare minimum 7 minutes into the game" don't check out. Well, to be more specific by saying "early" I meant that zerg would be able to take down protoss 3rd so easily with taking only like 3 gases and having full mineral saturation in his main and natural with using a hatchery in his 3rd for spamming zerglings and relying solely on the new strength of banelings and +2 hydras. I'm making this assumption based on the current regular expansion timings in pvz with any further delay of protoss 3rd benefiting only zerg. By mentioning maps like KSS and Gal I wanted to stress out the fact that such map architectures extremely favor terran over as could be seen in the last Dark-Byun finals, for example. Three gasses, 3 base saturation, a fast lair, two back to back upgrades plus the hydra den, and we have to hope that Protoss doesn't do any sort of pressure since all we have to spare are mineral units that suck ass against adepts. Seriously lets break this down. Lair - Minerals 150 (450) Gas 100 Game Speed 57 Hydralisk Den - Minerals 100 Gas 100 Game Speed 29 Muscular Augments - Minerals 150 Gas 150 Game Speed 71 Grooved Spines - Minerals 100 Gas 100 Game Speed 71 So 228 seconds / 3:48 minutes. 500 minerals. 450 gas. Just for the tech alone. If Zerg took a fast lair at 4:00 then we're looking at 7:48 if they execute it perfectly. At 8 minutes I expect Protoss to have close to full saturation on their third. I know people are panicking over zerg getting a unit that isn't flaming shit but this isn't going to come at 4 minutes or 5 minutes or even 7 minutes. It's coming when both players will have 3 base saturation and the late game tools to deal with mid game pressure.
Again, I'm talking here specifically about ~3-gas, 2-base mineral saturation with 3rd-being-used-as-a macro-hatch timings with rush distances comparable to KSS or Frozen Temple. Another thing here is that you don't need muscular augments (can always be optionally researched after +2 is finished) for your hydras to execute this particular deadly attack (you need only like 8-10 +2 hydras to provide uncontested ranged dmg with everything else being sent as reinforcements (zerglings, banelings) to accompany the hydras). At this point protoss used to defend with sentry-stalkers and possibly some pylon overcharges, but now this early gate defensive force will be decimated way too quickly for protoss being able to add some splash to his defense, which will automatically mean protoss having to take his 3rd later compared with what it is now. I'm not opposing the idea of zerg having +2 hydras as its core unit later on in the game to fight things like mech but as of now it seems like too much too quickly.
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+ Show Spoiler +On November 15 2016 06:09 Destructicon wrote:Show nested quote +On November 15 2016 05:38 ivancype wrote:
i would love to see the Thor designed to be a counter for heavy hitting ground units like immortal or ultras, and letting air deal with air, would make more sense to me. Letting air deal with air is very uninteresting in SC2 and generally has lead to some of the most boring games imaginable. Don't get me wrong, I like air units, but SC2's are poorly designed. Let me explain. Air units should, in general, be designed around the axiom of being fast, maneuverable but short-range and fragile. This is due to the fact that air units can bypass terrain, entrenchments and armies, they have a very strong tactical advantage and must have a suitable weakness. The most fun and successful such units in SC2 have been phoenixes and mutalisks, in BW other good examples were wraiths, scouts and corsairs. Just think back to the epic wraith vs muta/scourge or muta vs muta fights from BW, or the dance between phoenixes and mutalisks, those units are so fast and responsive that the victor is usually determined by who can control his units better. When air units can reach such a point that they can fight toe to toe with ground units that delicate axiom is broken and air units become the go to end-game. In SC2 this has resulted in BL/Viper armies, Air-Toss and Sky Terran, which are extremely boring compositions to watch, play and play against. These armies are boring because they are slow, unresponsive and unresponsive, thus they are not suitable for snap micro like you have with phoenixes or mutas and thus are best used in a a-move. It is thus paramount that ground units at all times hold the advantage in a head to head fight so as to force the air army to coax the most out of its mobility advantage. The problem now is that we have many capital ship type units in the game that, after a certain critical mass, can not only fight toe to toe with their ground counters, but can even beat them, this should just not happen. The reason why BW carrier was so beloved and such a successful capital ship is because it wasn't designed like a SC2 capital ship, it was designed more like mutalisks. Carriers didn't have speed but they had ranged and they shined in situations where they could abuse that range coupled with terrain. Carriers were really bad against mass Goliaths if caught out and could be easily sniped. I hope that after this patch the community can finally agree upon this fact and we can push for a general rework of air units in SC2.
That's very well said. But we can only hope that Blizzard would see that and have enough will to do anything with that.
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Ground to Air is sadly so bad in sc2, I was just reminded of this trying to fight Liberators with Hydras :D.
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I can't believe they're actually going through with this patch, addresses none of the current problems and adds loads. I'd better enjoy Homestory then cut my losses with this game.
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Blink to DTs ? I dont know about this.......
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I guess people are overestimating the effects of the patch. At least in TvZ and TvP, I just don't see mech becoming the go-to composition. We just saw the GSL test map tournament and the only players that actually even tried mech were Gumiho and Ryung. Both lost all games playing mech BTW. In TvP, nobody even bothered trying mech. I think the matchup that will be mostly changed is ZvP, based on how strong hydras will be. Even in this MU, Zest managed to defeat Byul pretty well, so I wouldn't be so scared at this point.
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Am I the only one that is really worried that mech still is completely worthless except in TvT on the test map? Mech is stronger in theory but not in practice.
Not a single person I have talked to on bnet seems to have got mech to work outside of TvT on the test map.
It seems the pro players have the same issue by looking at tournaments and streams.
Is Blizzard aware of this or are they just hoping for the best?
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On November 15 2016 23:59 MockHamill wrote:
Am I the only one that is really worried that mech still is completely worthless except in TvT on the test map? Mech is stronger in theory but not in practice.
Not a single person I have talked to on bnet seems to have got mech to work outside of TvT on the test map.
It seems the pro players have the same issue by looking at tournaments and streams.
Is Blizzard aware of this or are they just hoping for the best?
You are definitely not the only one worried. Mech's increase in strength is heavily exaggerated. Take the tank for instance. People say that they have been extremely buffed, but this is not really true. The tank was basically buffed against armored units. Against non-armored the buff was almost marginal. At the same time, the tank was also NERFED by not being able to be picked up by medivacs, yet everyone seems to "forget" about this.
In TvZ, tanks become stronger vs roaches and ultralisks. But what if they use a composition of ling/bane/hydras? Is the marginal non-armored buff and the nerf of no tankivacs a net buff? I hardly think so. The viper is still the bane of any mech compositions anyway. Abduct thors, blind cloud tanks, and PB vikings.
In TvP, tanks are essentially stronger vs stalkers and immortals. What if they use a stargate/adept/archon composition? The buff is now almost irrelevant. The cyclones is almost the same thing. Good vs stalkers and meh against pretty much everything else. In fact, many argue that the new cyclones is actually worse, because now mech has no answer to oracles/phoenix openings. The AA dmg was heavily nerfed. It's hard to actually access TvP mech because NO PRO players even attempt it. It is that bad.
Regarding Blizzard, I honestly don't think they are actually trying to make mech viable. It's mostly PR to me. If that was the case why would they go all the way to make sure we don't have goliaths instead of thors? Blizzard is more interested in telling the players they are actually trying, while just ignoring the obvious flaws.
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On November 15 2016 23:59 MockHamill wrote:
Am I the only one that is really worried that mech still is completely worthless except in TvT on the test map? Mech is stronger in theory but not in practice.
Not a single person I have talked to on bnet seems to have got mech to work outside of TvT on the test map.
It seems the pro players have the same issue by looking at tournaments and streams.
Is Blizzard aware of this or are they just hoping for the best?
The thing is that there'll be a completely different map pool after the patch, so we should probably wait a bit longer before judging. If mech doesn't work on the upcoming map pool - in HotS that would have been one of the best map pools for mech period - then they probably didn't achieve their design goal.
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On November 16 2016 00:16 petro1987 wrote:Show nested quote +On November 15 2016 23:59 MockHamill wrote:
Am I the only one that is really worried that mech still is completely worthless except in TvT on the test map? Mech is stronger in theory but not in practice.
Not a single person I have talked to on bnet seems to have got mech to work outside of TvT on the test map.
It seems the pro players have the same issue by looking at tournaments and streams.
Is Blizzard aware of this or are they just hoping for the best?
You are definitely not the only one worried. Mech's increase in strength is heavily exaggerated. Take the tank for instance. People say that they have been extremely buffed, but this is not really true. The tank was basically buffed against armored units. Against non-armored the buff was almost marginal. At the same time, the tank was also NERFED by not being able to be picked up by medivacs, yet everyone seems to "forget" about this.
And the tank fire rate got nerfed. The gif is made with the old fire rate. So in the end its a minor buff in some situations and minor nerf vs light units (due lower fire rate) Verdict: meh.
Edit: seems this isnt true ( http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewpost.php?post_id=26180674 )
Zerg army is since lotv so much more viable in every situation, too many roaches make some ravagers, too many hydra's make lurkers, too many corruptors? no problemo, they kill buildings now as well and lets make some Broodlords. Queen's are viable at every stage, the lings buff that made them good, even vs pf's, hellbats etc. Ultra early ling drops. For some reason i fear the most for PvZ.
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France12899 Posts
On November 15 2016 23:59 MockHamill wrote:
Am I the only one that is really worried that mech still is completely worthless except in TvT on the test map? Mech is stronger in theory but not in practice.
Not a single person I have talked to on bnet seems to have got mech to work outside of TvT on the test map.
It seems the pro players have the same issue by looking at tournaments and streams.
Is Blizzard aware of this or are they just hoping for the best?
It sucks then because I'd rather have mech TvZ/TvP than mech TvT :/.
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I thought Tanks were traditionally the counters to Hydralisks in SC2 and were usually a deterrent to making Hydras at all. With a +1 vehicle attack upgrade, Tanks should be able to 2-shot Hydras in siege mode now instead of 3-shot them like before, if I'm not mistaken.
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On November 16 2016 00:37 PinoKotsBeer wrote:
And the tank fire rate got nerfed. The gif is made with the old fire rate. So in the end its a minor buff in some situations and minor nerf vs light units (due lower fire rate) Verdict: meh.
Actual numbers:
70 / 50 => 40% increase in burst damage versus armored.
40 / 35 => ~14% increase in burst damage versus non-armored.
DPS vs armored: (old) 50 / 2 = 25 (new) 70 / 2.14 = ~32.7
new DPS vs armored is ~30.8% better than old.
DPS vs non-armored: (old) 35 / 2 = 17.5 (new) 40 / 2.14 = ~18.7
new DPS vs non-armored is ~6.8% better than old.
The tank never is nerfed versus old tank DPS or burst damage. Only the mobility has been hit.
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On November 16 2016 01:34 Edowyth wrote:Show nested quote +On November 16 2016 00:37 PinoKotsBeer wrote:
And the tank fire rate got nerfed. The gif is made with the old fire rate. So in the end its a minor buff in some situations and minor nerf vs light units (due lower fire rate) Verdict: meh. Actual numbers: 70 / 50 => 40% increase in burst damage versus armored. 40 / 35 => ~14% increase in burst damage versus non-armored. DPS vs armored: (old) 50 / 2 = 25 (new) 70 / 2.14 = ~32.7 new DPS vs armored is ~30.8% better than old. DPS vs non-armored: (old) 35 / 2 = 17.5 (new) 40 / 2.14 = ~18.7 new DPS vs non-armored is ~6.8% better than old. The tank never is nerfed versus old tank DPS or burst damage. Only the mobility has been hit.
i stand corrected!
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On November 16 2016 01:46 PinoKotsBeer wrote:Show nested quote +On November 16 2016 01:34 Edowyth wrote:On November 16 2016 00:37 PinoKotsBeer wrote:
And the tank fire rate got nerfed. The gif is made with the old fire rate. So in the end its a minor buff in some situations and minor nerf vs light units (due lower fire rate) Verdict: meh. Actual numbers: 70 / 50 => 40% increase in burst damage versus armored. 40 / 35 => ~14% increase in burst damage versus non-armored. DPS vs armored: (old) 50 / 2 = 25 (new) 70 / 2.14 = ~32.7 new DPS vs armored is ~30.8% better than old. DPS vs non-armored: (old) 35 / 2 = 17.5 (new) 40 / 2.14 = ~18.7 new DPS vs non-armored is ~6.8% better than old. The tank never is nerfed versus old tank DPS or burst damage. Only the mobility has been hit. i stand corrected!
You do have a very valid angle to take the argument, though. The mobility is so severely hit that Tanks, in general, are much less useful versus masses of light units.
Fundamentally, I think this is ok. The design is moving away from "fly around and get free damage" to "carefully consider positioning and force the enemy to funnel into a death-zone". With proper support (cyclones / hellions), tanks in good positions should obliterate anything on the ground (light, tag less, armored, whatever).
The sad thing is that the anti-air for Terran is so unwieldy that, even though I feel the tank is vastly improved with this patch, an opponents' air units will simply bypass all its advantages and invalidate the unit.
The Thor needs changes in conjunction with the cyclone. Let the Thor be the anti-clumping unit (give it something like a 2 radius AoE with extremely slow fire rate ... think a mini aerial storm), and let the cyclone be the DPS unit versus air (fast fire rate, low damage -- like a marine). Then you could get a couple of thors (you really don't want more because of their immobility) to ward away things like muta flocks or phoenix ... and some cyclones to buffer for tanks / take care of air units leaking around your thors.
Without a realistic answer to air units, ground mech will never be a composition (they take about the same time to produce, but mech has many more limitations and weaknesses, currently).
Mech could be really fun. I hope they help Terran out by looking next at realistic anti-air options for cyclones and (especially) thors.
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Canada8157 Posts
Thanks for the compilation!
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On November 16 2016 01:25 eviltomahawk wrote:
I thought Tanks were traditionally the counters to Hydralisks in SC2 and were usually a deterrent to making Hydras at all. With a +1 vehicle attack upgrade, Tanks should be able to 2-shot Hydras in siege mode now instead of 3-shot them like before, if I'm not mistaken.
It does 2 hit but a good concave spreads hydra and it's insane dps does its work
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EPT
