On April 18 2017 06:35 LSN wrote: Mutas are imo broken in a way that they regenerate too fast and require protoss to counter them with phoenix. Anything else will give you a hard time.
That regeneration speed is a direct consequence not to mines, but to the frequency of attacks coming in by terran, which pace is defined by bio. Mutas had to regen up inbetween these attack waves in order to keep the zerg in game with this playstyle. It is not the mines that define the interval of terran attacks majorly. Of course mines added to that.
True. And I didn't mean to imply that fast regeneration was only because of mines. Just meant that it was because they are so frail and can't take direct engagements very well.
Though we'll see about the adept after the hp change. Hopefully they can make it through. Though I still think my idea of making them an upgrade to zealots would deal with a lot of these issues.
I.e. must be in psi matrix, has warp in time (on a zealot) of an additional 15 or so second, costs 50/25 or 50/50, so you have to build zealots (forcing them to be a part of your army) and reduces the number you have, because you have to upgrade them at a pylon.
On April 18 2017 06:35 LSN wrote: Mutas are imo broken in a way that they regenerate too fast and require protoss to counter them with phoenix. Anything else will give you a hard time.
That regeneration speed is a direct consequence not to mines, but to the frequency of attacks coming in by terran, which pace is defined by bio. Mutas had to regen up inbetween these attack waves in order to keep the zerg in game with this playstyle. It is not the mines that define the interval of terran attacks majorly. Of course mines added to that.
True. And I didn't mean to imply that fast regeneration was only because of mines. Just meant that it was because they are so frail and can't take direct engagements very well.
Though we'll see about the adept after the hp change. Hopefully they can make it through. Though I still think my idea of making them an upgrade to zealots would deal with a lot of these issues.
I.e. must be in psi matrix, has warp in time (on a zealot) of an additional 15 or so second, costs 50/25 or 50/50, so you have to build zealots (forcing them to be a part of your army) and reduces the number you have, because you have to upgrade them at a pylon.
Kind of like how a lurker or ravager works
It takes 1min25s to heal a mutas from 1 hp to full HP for a 100/100 units that have less DPS than a single marine 0/0 with stim pack.
In this 85s, a medivac could heal 1,071 HP ! And Shield could regenerate 217 and it affects all protoss units and buldings...
But let's whine about mutas without any real arguments but anti-zerg bias...
On April 18 2017 06:35 LSN wrote: Mutas are imo broken in a way that they regenerate too fast and require protoss to counter them with phoenix. Anything else will give you a hard time.
That regeneration speed is a direct consequence not to mines, but to the frequency of attacks coming in by terran, which pace is defined by bio. Mutas had to regen up inbetween these attack waves in order to keep the zerg in game with this playstyle. It is not the mines that define the interval of terran attacks majorly. Of course mines added to that.
True. And I didn't mean to imply that fast regeneration was only because of mines. Just meant that it was because they are so frail and can't take direct engagements very well.
Though we'll see about the adept after the hp change. Hopefully they can make it through. Though I still think my idea of making them an upgrade to zealots would deal with a lot of these issues.
I.e. must be in psi matrix, has warp in time (on a zealot) of an additional 15 or so second, costs 50/25 or 50/50, so you have to build zealots (forcing them to be a part of your army) and reduces the number you have, because you have to upgrade them at a pylon.
Kind of like how a lurker or ravager works
It takes 1min25s to heal a mutas from 1 hp to full HP for a 100/100 units that have less DPS than a single marine 0/0 with stim pack.
In this 85s, a medivac could heal 1,071 HP ! And Shield could regenerate 217 and it affects all protoss units and buldings...
But let's whine about mutas without any real arguments but anti-zerg bias...
I don't understand. I wasn't whining about mutas, I was just saying why I felt they had quick regeneration, nor was I saying it was a bad thing?
I think that it's fine, and has a purpose, reason, and is good overall.
Medivacs are strong, shields are strong, every race has stuff that is strong, otherwise this game would suck.
Came here to write my reply to your post, but seeing as Blizzard has gone ahead with the Adept nerf already, it seems a moot point. Regardless, you made good points and made them well.
I guess we'll see how the matchup goes from here in the GSL, SSL, VSL and to a lesser extent, WCS Austin. I don't think it will make as much of a difference foreigner matchups because they're not as good as their Korean counterparts, and the 10 point health nerf changes them more in the Terran matchup than the Zerg matchup.
Did protoss need a nerf in pvz? I saw many complaints about pvt, but not pvz. Blizzard made the right decision unless there's something I'm missing.
Came here to write my reply to your post, but seeing as Blizzard has gone ahead with the Adept nerf already, it seems a moot point. Regardless, you made good points and made them well.
I guess we'll see how the matchup goes from here in the GSL, SSL, VSL and to a lesser extent, WCS Austin. I don't think it will make as much of a difference foreigner matchups because they're not as good as their Korean counterparts, and the 10 point health nerf changes them more in the Terran matchup than the Zerg matchup.
Did protoss need a nerf in pvz? I saw many complaints about pvt, but not pvz. Blizzard made the right decision unless there's something I'm missing.
It was the mass shading that caused a lot of havoc in PvZ. To a certain extent that was true in PvT, but if your warped into the main base, you could just close the supply depots. But for Zerg, the mass shading caused a lot of problems because adepts counter one of their basic units, and roaches and hydras are slower than shading adepts.
Also, a number of people on here and on reddit suggested changes be made to the unit such as the shade cooldown or some other change rather than a straight health nerf. I think it was agreed by a lot of people (though not everyone) that Protoss does need the adept to combat Terran but also that Protoss needs other options if they intended to straight nerf the adept.
Did protoss need a nerf in pvz? I saw many complaints about pvt, but not pvz. Blizzard made the right decision unless there's something I'm missing.
Strictly balance-wise, no, Zergs didn't. PvZ winrates are balanced (and with the nerf it would be a good idea to watch PvZ carefully to see if Protoss needs a buff there). But Adepts shading between mineral lines is extremely frustrating to play against, even if Zergs did win about half the games in the end.
On April 18 2017 06:35 LSN wrote: Mutas are imo broken in a way that they regenerate too fast and require protoss to counter them with phoenix. Anything else will give you a hard time.
That regeneration speed is a direct consequence not to mines, but to the frequency of attacks coming in by terran, which pace is defined by bio. Mutas had to regen up inbetween these attack waves in order to keep the zerg in game with this playstyle. It is not the mines that define the interval of terran attacks majorly. Of course mines added to that.
True. And I didn't mean to imply that fast regeneration was only because of mines. Just meant that it was because they are so frail and can't take direct engagements very well.
Though we'll see about the adept after the hp change. Hopefully they can make it through. Though I still think my idea of making them an upgrade to zealots would deal with a lot of these issues.
I.e. must be in psi matrix, has warp in time (on a zealot) of an additional 15 or so second, costs 50/25 or 50/50, so you have to build zealots (forcing them to be a part of your army) and reduces the number you have, because you have to upgrade them at a pylon.
Kind of like how a lurker or ravager works
It takes 1min25s to heal a mutas from 1 hp to full HP for a 100/100 units that have less DPS than a single marine 0/0 with stim pack.
In this 85s, a medivac could heal 1,071 HP ! And Shield could regenerate 217 and it affects all protoss units and buldings...
But let's whine about mutas without any real arguments but anti-zerg bias...
Ok, so here is the real argument.
Before Phoenixes were buffed to hard counter Mass Mutalisks (because they didn't initially), Protoss players were losing hard to Mass Mutalisks. But then HerO came along and showed us how to counter Mass Mutalisks with Stalkers/Archons/High Templar, you slowly whittle down the flock, as Day[9] explains...
It took a lot of skill for the Protoss player to do this, and consequently it took a lot of skill for the Zerg player to avoid damage. The result was a skillful game because the counter to Mutalisks didn't share the Mutalisks main strength, the ability to ignore terrain (fly).
Sadly, Mutalisk regeneration meant that Protoss couldn't whittle down the flock anymore because the Mutalisks regenerated so fast. So we were left with a big buff to Phoenixes. And since HOTS, plenty of Protoss players tried hard and failed at making Stalker/Archon/High Templar work versus Mass Mutalisk. But it just doesn't. "What makes Mutalisks tricky is that it is not just get this unit and you are done!" - Day[9] - 9:37 from the above video
If only that were still true Day[9]... it's like Blizzard watched the daily and did exactly the opposite when it came to HOTS because they don't like strategic play where you have to think and position units properly (this was during the time they waged an all out war against the Siege Tank and Mech play in general with garbage like the Warhound). We had such a great and dynamic relationship between Mutalisks and Protoss that led to skillful plays and counter plays, and it is all gone.
Blizzard gave the Phoenix huge buffs that simply them an extreme hard counter, that could outfight and outfly Mutalisks all while being easy to micro. It is like rock-paper-scissors and so the amount of skill necessary for both the Zerg and Protoss player is greatly reduced because Phoenixes fly and hard counter Mutalisks.
It was one of the worst game design decisions made during HOTS, because it significantly watered down the game... if only we had a different design team.
On April 18 2017 09:06 AdrianHealeyy wrote: And, well, muta regen was necessary because of mines, if I remember correctly?
Actually no... Infestors were incredibly strong in WOL so Blizzard nerfed them but buffed other Lair units like the Hydra and Mutalisk to compensate and give Zerg more viable Lair tech options. Zerg wasn't using Mutalisks or Hydras at all in any matchup at the end of WOL because Infestors were so strong.
Mutalisk regeneration was the buff they decided to go with for Mutalisks. It sounds good for about 5 seconds because it doesn't improve their power in combat. But then you realize that Mutalisks can just run away and heal and you've got the relationship between Marauders without Concussive Shells versus Stalkers in the early game all over again. That led directly the Phoenix buffs and the state we are in (where Stalker/Archon/High Templar can't counter Mass Mutalisks), and sadly, now you do just build one unit to counter Mutalisks and you are done.
Oh how far we've come... if you ever need to study how not to design a game, study SC2.
I mean, they didn't say it was because of mines, but it was probably to a significant extent related to mines. Without regen the occasional mine hit would just fucking ruin a muta flock, and it wouldn't have seemed remotely reasonable to expect a zerg to never let his mutas get hit by any mines or else lose the game. I'm not saying that was the whole reason, and I don't even remember where the mine was in its development when they added that (did it still latch on and then have a goofy timer on the unit it hit before blowing up?), but in a broader sense, they were planning to make AoE against mutas more of a thing (remember the original Tempest design), and that meant the muta flock needed to be able to take a hit and still be relevant.
This isn't the first time I've read BronzeKnee's explanation of how muta regen made P v mutas much less interesting (I think he used to give that explanation in the DBDT?), and I think he's right for the most part. But I think it was necessary for the direction they were taking the game, and he'd probably disagree, but on balance I think it was worth it.
BronzeKnee is sort of right with, but the problem isn't that HT/Archon/Stalkers can't counter mutas. That comp can't stop the muta harassment. Mutas would lose to an HT/Archon/Stalker in a straight up fight, so the zergs just fly around looking for weak points in the protoss base.
Yes the only P unit that can counter a muta flock is pheonix, which is really dumb. But Zerg needs that muta regen or else a few stray mine hits will completely rip up the mutas.
So if a zerg goes mutas, they usually go only about 8ish to harass and distract. A good protoss would see a muta build and counter it with phoenix. Sometimes the bigger problem is when a zerg goes for a hard muta switch in the late game. That can end a protoss that doesn't diligently scout.
I don't like the interaction, but at least it creates some exciting games. Nix vs Mutas dance is very fun to watch.
The issue with phoenix is, apart from the mutalisk vs. phoenix issue, which BronzeKnee described perfectly, that they allow too easy and too fast transition into carriers. The vicious circle. And that is why DK is bad btw. He didn't see stuff like that coming and the game is messed. You now can't play a single 3on3 anymore without one of the players heading for carriers after like 5 minutes and phoenix shutting down any other air play before.
What would be the fix to this? Nerf carriers? Yes, if you wanna take them out of the game.
The best practise however would be to nerf phoenix, nerf muta regen and then adapt bio composition (bio + mine) to that (nerf).
I would not put too much emphasize on "a few stray mine hits" though. in ZvT the zerg was on pure defense anyway during the relevant game phases at that time. It was about defending wave after wave of terran bio, which was complemented by mines at this time. But no matter what source of damage they became subject to, mutas had to regen up faster in order to be able to deal with the interval of attacks. Mines have added to the pace of attacks a bit, but they are not the originator of that high mobility permanent attack gameplay. They can be replaced by other units and mutas would have still needed regen to stay in that race.
In a very basic and unrelated manner I wanna add, that in general the decisionmaking with mutas that have no/few regen is better and requires more skill. It would involve risk/gain calculations and require the player to caclulate if he can afford his mutalisks to get damaged or not in situations.
So the final question must be, no matter what you sense as your personal reason for why the regen had been buffed, in which environment mutalisks without regen would be viable. This, btw., could be one of the initial steps towards curing SC2 from its many sicknesses.
They buffed Medivac Boost, because harassment is so much fun in their eyes. Then as a result Protoss needed the Mothership Core, Mutas needed + speed and regeneration, then Phoenix needed + range because of the new Muta. Not sure if the Mine anti air attack was then a response to Mutalisk flocks?
On April 15 2017 08:10 ChristianS wrote: I honestly think the problem with adepts isn't their harassment ability or their straight-up fighting strength per se. While it does feel dumb for a mono-comp to be good against nearly everything I have except widow mines, I think the part that feels broken is that they don't obey normal scaling rules. Most of the time melee units hit hard in small numbers, but don't scale well because their damage is limited by surface area. Ranged units do better in mid-sized engagements, but as their numbers increase not all of them are shooting at the same time because they're stuck behind other units at the start of the engagement. Then AoE is the best in big engagements because it hits very hard when the enemy is clumped up, and if the ranged units spread out to avoid the AoE then even more of them aren't fighting.
But adepts sidestep all that by shading on top of your army. No matter how many you have you can get them all firing at once, and if you do it right your opponent doesn't even want to AoE you because they'll hit their own stuff. It's not even nevessarily broken in that it's overpowered (although it might be that too), it's broken in that it disobeys conventional combat rules that nearly every other unit follows. I don't know if Protosses find it fun to do, but it's not particularly fun to play against and it's confusing as hell to watch. For TvP engagements like that, you get a million shades all coming in, the Terran wriggles back and forth to get away from the shades so his own mines won't destroy him, and then all of a sudden everything's on top of everything and mine explosions are blowing up everywhere and after five or ten seconds one army is still there and the other isn't. Very hard to tell what happened or follow who's ahead mid-fight.
I don't know what could be done to fix it. I'd be tempted to have the shade given collision, but my understanding is that gets pretty broken because a bunch of shades can act like a totally impenetrable forcefield. Maybe something weird like if the shades can't walk through enemy units, but enemy units aren't impeded by shades and just push them back?
Exactly. My solution would be to remove the Adepts weapon for 1.5 second upon transfering to it's new position. Either this or change the Shades cooldown and duration numbers to make it so that there's only a minor period of say 3 seconds, where the Ability is on cooldown and the Adept has already transfered to the new location. Then add a rule that says: 'have 50% reduced attack speed while this ability is on Cooldown.' This should severely hamper the mass, mass , MASS Adepts that we currently see, while still keeping them strong as harassing units. Basically they should be sneaky annoying little shits that you always make a few of to keep the Terran on it's feet.
THEN with this giant nerf, we nerf the Widow Mine so it does no additional Shields damage in AoE, for the uninitiated this is a 25 vs Shields damage nerf on ONLY the AoE, not the Single target. You can possibly make the single target Shields damage into +vs Mech if you want to remove annoying TvT doomdrops, but SC2 balance team possibly might think this is the most awesome shit ever.
Then you buff the Zealot by 10 Shields, give it back what it lost during the WoL beta. Proxy Zealots is not really a thing right now and I don't mind if it is used once in a while by sOs.
Basically bring back the sad little Zealot and make Adepts worse in numbers where you use them to fight.
Well to be precise: Mines add to the total amount of anti air damage within a fight on mutalisks. But regeneration is an over time thing.
So what is major about muta regeneration is the frequency of how often you need to use them.
Mines add two things to that: a) increased total amount of damage requires more regeneration during the same period of time on average. b) mines helped to stabilize and increase the pace of terran bio attacks on zerg.
Hence you could argue the mine did the difference between muta require regen or not. But it is not precise once again: 1. Mines adapt to the pace of the playstyle you choose. Mines complementing slower paced playstyles than bio is would have caused less of a problem for mutalisks as there would be enough time for mutalisks to regen regularily inbetween attacks without increased regen. 2. Mines are replaceable in their role. Lets take the thor as an example, If it was as accessible as the mine (lets assume 3:1 mins/gas, no techlab and no armmory required, but as well other examples are possible), it would have caused the same thing as the mine in relation to muta regen and with bio attacks dictating the pace.
Hence: Of course mines added to the issue. But the issue only exists due to what bio represents.
i hope the Adept nerf works! i'd like to see more Zealots and a bigger over all role for Zealots. Nerfing the Adept's health further defines the Zealot's niche/role as a "durable gateway unit".
On April 18 2017 08:51 BronzeKnee wrote: if only we had a different design team.
several Overwatch , Diablo, WoW, Hearthstone and Heroes "experts" all say the same thing about the design teams in their area of "expertise". with heavily detailed "rationale" explaining why each design team sucks balls.
oh the burden these expert visionaries must carry... having to inform dumb guys like me about what "fun game play" truly is....and all i have is money.
Yea the WOL ZvP metagame of mutalisks vs Hightemplar defense was fucking cool, it's a shame we lost it even tho they wouldn't have been able to add a bunch of stuff without the mutas regen.
Adepts are indeed a bit too strong at everything, but I would have liked to see Mine nerf reverted and possibly altering the shade duration or speed to make it a lot easier for the defender to defends vs the shades. 10 hp nerf also works but is a much less elegant solution, oh well let's hope it's gonna equalize everything nicely.
On April 18 2017 22:20 PtitDrogo wrote: Yea the WOL ZvP metagame of mutalisks vs Hightemplar defense was fucking cool, it's a shame we lost it even tho they wouldn't have been able to add a bunch of stuff without the mutas regen.
Adepts are indeed a bit too strong at everything, but I would have liked to see Mine nerf reverted and possibly altering the shade duration or speed to make it a lot easier for the defender to defends vs the shades. 10 hp nerf also works but is a much less elegant solution, oh well let's hope it's gonna equalize everything nicely.
I feel like not reverting the mine nerf would continue to make zealots worthless. It essentially evaporated entire zealot lines before the fight even started.
Whereas now, if the hit lands on the adepts, it'll bruise a lot of them pretty severely, without erasing zealots from the game.
This is nowhere near enough... Adepts have a completely broken concept as a Unit. Yes, cooldown increase and HP reduction are both a necessity (dont understand why they want to implement only 1 that is utter bullshit), but we need something to make to protoss decide if they want to use the shade or not. Something like Adept shields will go to 0 when shade is used, so protoss cant just shade on top of army and between bases without any consequences.
I still don't understand the mine nerf right after the liberator nerf. They went too far on that one and I'm pretty sure they acknowledge that reverting would be a better solution than these band-aid fixes, but they can't possibly admit that they were wrong and too quick to act.
I read a lot of posts from the recent pages and indeed they seem to balance by switching who is OP and who isn't instead of addressing core issues. The problem of balance isn't really a problem tho, the main focus should be: is the game fun overall, for each and every race? It is ok if it's fun in an asymmetric way, such as: protoss players will have a bit more fun in late game, not that much in mid, decently in early, and switch that up for other races, as long as there is no stage that feels totally stupid for a race (like we had in late WoL with the queen buff into broodlords / infestors, or HotS with swarm hosts vs Protoss deathball, or blink allins).
Ultimately there should be a big poll on bnet forums and/or Reddit and/or TL, for each race, where people can express what they feel fun in the game, what they feel frustrating to play against but ok, and what they feel is killing the fun/seems totally stupid, so that we can see if we can reach a point where everyone gets to have fun, and that it doesn't completely negates the fun of others.
EPT
