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On June 28 2017 21:48 DomeGetta wrote:Show nested quote +On June 28 2017 21:40 mizenhauer wrote:On June 28 2017 21:22 DomeGetta wrote:
Most of the thread here is filled with complaints about tvz and mech (either it's good enough / too good bc 1 player in korea used it in 2 series in code s - or it's not viable bc avilo isn't code s etc.)
I will be brief on that overall but need to say - both sides in this argument aren't being objective and acting a bit like young children.
On the 1 side you hear - "zomg gumiho won code s with mech - problem solved"
On the other - "omg soo didnt use SH - not solved"
Let's think objectively about it -
As basically only 1 player in Korea has shown this style - how much practice do you think soO had against gumimech?
soO didn't just fail to SH in game one because he's obstinate. He knew GuMiho was going to mech and he had a plan for it. A lot of factors go into choosing builds and strategies over the course of a seven game series. You should trust the opinion and decisions of a professional who played hundreds of games of ladder and customs in order to sculpt an appropriate strategy over that of unenlightened people (which in this case appears to include you). If he didn't go SH, he did it for a reason. Not disagreeing with this statement at all - only highlighting that you can't draw a significant balance conclusion off of 1 series. The style is brand new in relative time - when have you ever seen the meta immediately having the answer to a new style that shows up over halfway through code S? Never. The answer to the first version of mech that came in lotv was mass queen / SH - this style is different for sure - but does that mean there is no answer? Maybe so - but we aren't anywhere near being able to make that inference. Let this play out on the ladder over the next few weeks - and I would be extremely surprised if we don't see hots tvz again. For me - I hope it is broken and gets nerfed - because I don't want to see byun and maru leap frog pushing siege tanks across the map in a 45 minute game where the only interaction between the players is the 3 or 4 times the terran sends helions at a base.
More on this -
I think it would be awesome to see a show-match between the best EU/NA zergs and Gumigod.
Scarlett / Snute / Nechio pls. Can someone organize this!
You gotta think - say for example sake soO has played 10K ladder tvz's - I think 90% is probably a fair estimate of how many of those games have been vs standard bio play.
The Eu/Na zergs- though they won't have much experience vs the Gumi-Mech - have more likely played closer to 30% vs some mech style - I'd be willing to bet they'd have a better answer - and it would be interesting to watch.
Gotta remember - rts is so much about quickly reacting perfectly - no matter how many practice games soO played vs people imitating Gumi - you wonder how many situations came up in the series where it was the first time he had been put in that situation - any time you don't have a preset response - your answer is usually less than ideal.
PROS PLS - DO IT!
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Norway839 Posts
There's already plenty of games of gumiho on youtube. A lot of the series between gumiho and myself and soo and gumiho on wardi's channel for example will give you a somewhat nuanced view of mech vs zerg. Surprise surprise, mech both wins and loses. It's still in the process of being figured out. Swarm host can appear ridicilous, same goes for vipers and terran ground or ravens. +++
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The issue with swarm host on the sub-top level is that hosts appear ridicilous to play against if you don't know exactly how to approach it from the get-go with a high level of skill (6200+ MMR?). Mech is also harder to play compared to mass swarm host on the sub-top level, so the most vocal players will most likely always state that swarm hosts are broken.
Personally i think mech is slightly inferior to bio, but i also know that a simple showmatch won't necessarily provide the answers people are looking for. It takes a decently large sample size of scenarios and situations with different openings, perhaps a replay pack of 20-50 games. There are ways to delay the onset of swarmhost such as turboshee, banshee into 2thordrop, and there are also ways for zerg to delay their own swarm host (3base, heavy roach ravager hydra viper before swarm host etc.). There are ways out such as mass muta switch, and switching from sky terran to ground etc. And more...
People don't look at large enough samples and a lot of the time the zerg makes mistakes. Right now, players in KR are indeed struggling with Mech, but from watching streams I can tell that both sides are making some pretty silly mistakes and that a lot of the time the games on average aren't as un-even as either side might think. But if you know that your opponent will always play mech from the start, or if you know that a zerg will only play roach hydra viper and no swarmhost or ONLY swarmhost no matter what for example, then yes it's easy to make either side look disgusting.
There aren't enough broadcast games to give a clear picture. Personally I think destroying mech terrans on EU is super easy for the most part. But word from KR is that mech is hard. So.. hard to tell.
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In the match-ups I play and watch (TvT, ZvT, TvP, ZvP) I'm actually pretty of happy overall with where the state of the game is in at the moment.
I agree with those that say the TvP meta is a bit stale. While I like that in LOTV T can be easily forced to defend, esp as they essentially had to be the aggressor in HOTS or die to Lazers(TM). It sucks that mech hasn't happened but I don't think it has to be viable in every match-up to' fix the game'. On the P side, stargate being pretty much the only opener is getting kind try, with not many pros having had much luck with consistency getting robo or twilight openers to reliably work. The adept health nerf was helpful to even things out a bit in the mid-game and it's good to see zealots again with the cheaper upgrade. I still think the shade cool-down should be increased slightly
Liberators definitely come into their own with range and are a bit of a problem if P isn't in a position to get tempests out, or keep the lib numbers down though consistently chipping away at them with blink stalkers. I think P should probably *something* to help counter ranged libs slightly earlier than tempests and to balance this, tempests should not counter them quite so hard. The other option prev suggested by some would be to make the freedom zone either start smaller and gradually expand +/- reduce maximum radius of the zone. I think the damage + range is in a pretty good place vs P now.
The addition of libs have definitely made the late-game dance (lib/ghost/viking/MMM/mine vs. Protoss splash fest+Tempests) much more enjoyable (for me) than the equivalent HOTS fights ever were, with T getting owned if they didn't gain a large enough lead in the mid-game. I also certainly prefer these late game encounters to watching a bunch of adepts shade on top of an army as phoenixes fly in to pick up every effective counter. I get that because of Libs many protoss now feel forced to try and either end it or cripple the T in the midgame with Phoenix/Adept. I dunno, but Phoenixes just seem to be pretty fucking durable to me, compared at least to their delicate appearance and shoot while-flying design. I think toning town their shields slightly (but still being barely able survive one widow mine shot) could help push them slightly more into a harass role. Either that or make them unable to pick-up widow mines that have started the burrowing animation, unless detection is present (might cause issues with defending mine drops..but could argue that to counter a mine drop the phoenixes should focus on intercepting the medivac instead). It just doesn't look right when they brazenly fly in, directly over a ball of marines+mines, as adepts shade in, then proceed to pick-up and kill a bunch of shit, while also taking out a couple of medivacs for good measure on their way out, all the while retaining most of the fleet with 50-60% of their health.
This is a straight up moan but it still bugs me that P can pretty much fuck off with their whole army at any point prior to T getting full bio upgrades+medivacs up and be able to defend or buy enough time with one unit's overcharge spam. Having the warp-in mechanic already helps to mitigate the risk. I know that P needs the MSC to be viable, I just wish there was something to make them think twice before sending their whole army out or building 3 tech structures off 3 units before getting gateways up.
In comparison, I'd argue that ZvT has a pretty healthy meta now, compared at least to 4-6 months ago. We see multiple varied Terran openings that are viable, with at least two distinct styles of mech to mix in (Innovation's cyclone heavy opener and Gumimech style). A good Zerg can respond any of these openers with either Roaches/Rav or ling/bling. I think it's appropriate that T should need to put some sort of pressure on the zerg to keep them honest in the early/start of mid-game. It just makes sense with their production mechanics. I'd say reaper grenades are slightly unbalanced still but only in the hands of Byun. It would be hard to tone them down just enough to retain the viability of 3-rax reaper without making it extinct at lower levels.
If the Z gets to lair tech on roughly even footing, then mutas, infestors, and even hydra/lurkers (thanks Solar) are viable in the hands of a good player. Swarm hosts have niche to be sure and can be hard to deal with but I'd disagree that they 'hard-counter' mech as hard as some suggest. Their relatively light use has probably resulted in counter play being under-developed so far, dealing with them requires higher map vigilance from T compared to usual vs Z. I would like to see their speed toned down slightly though.
When it comes to late game it's kind of harder to tell because so often one player is already ahead. I was super stoked to see how viable Raven/Viking/Thor was against Brood corruptor in GSL game one as both players entered the late game. Would have been interesting to see SoO attempt swarmhost/nydus/drops as that game went on but equally an extra infestor or two getting off a fungal on the raven cloud, combined with parasitic bomb would have made that game look a lot different. Bio vs. Z still is looks hard for many pros once ultras are out, esp if they are even or head but it's not impossible for Terran to counter them, same goes for air comps. As a terran player think Z deserves to have a slight edge for successfully reaching T3 without taking too much damage and for T to have to counter them at that point with either superior control or out positioning.
As for ZvP I don't watch a lot of it currently, looks like Zerg usually either wipes the protoss with an arc of hydra bain or dies shortly after this.
Maps will always affect balance one way or the other. As long as Tournament organisers are vigilant so as to prevent their pool from overly favouring one race/match-up too mcuh. In future, I think more experimentation with mineral/gas levels should definitely be explored, particularly if other balance changes stop.
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On June 28 2017 23:28 Liquid`Snute wrote: Surprise surprise, mech both wins and loses. It's still in the process of being figured out.
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Swarm host can appear ridicilous, same goes for vipers and terran ground or ravens. +++
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Mech is also harder to play compared to mass swarm host on the sub-top level, so the most vocal players will most likely always state that swarm hosts are broken.
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Personally i think mech is slightly inferior to bio
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There aren't enough broadcast games to give a clear picture. Personally I think destroying mech terrans on EU is super easy for the most part. But word from KR is that mech is hard. So.. hard to tell.
thanks for these insights.
so we have some vocal non-pro players screaming they've figured out TvZ completely and have ready-made solutions. and we have pros who pay their mortgage/rent by winning SC2 games saying stuff like "hard to tell" and "its still being figured out".
Regarding balance tweaks at this stage of LotV: i think Blizzard needs focus more on the top level and Blizz needs to focus less on NA Ladder guys like me.
if we were in the pre-beta stage of a new RTS game then Blizz needs to focus more on guys like me. That is not the case though.
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Thanks for the insight, it was an interesting read! I guess the whole discussion on the validity of mech and/or SH also depends heavily on maps no?
On June 28 2017 23:28 Liquid`Snute wrote:
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There aren't enough broadcast games to give a clear picture. Personally I think destroying mech terrans on EU is super easy for the most part. But word from KR is that mech is hard. So.. hard to tell.
Aren't you also destroying bio terrans on EU anyway? ^^
It's really nice to have the opinion of pro player in these kinds of threads, instead of master/low GM that are good enough that wrongly see themselves as legit to talk about balance with certainty. There used to be interview done by Teamliquid of lots of pro player on balance/community update, they were often insightful, I kinda miss those.
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Interesting to have pro level feedback on this.
Would love to hear some insights from pro level Terran players as well.
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On June 28 2017 07:37 avilo wrote:
In more relation to balance changes and what the community should really be focusing on asking blizzard to address are these things right now:
a) Protoss re-design/balance changes to adepts, zealots, gateway units, and adding 1500 mineral patches back to every patch on every base. The mineral change alone makes the game more Heart of the Swarm-esque and this will benefit Protoss. Protoss suffers in LOTV 100% because of the bad economy change forcing harrass/expand.
b) Address mech viability in the form of anti-air added to the factory / nerfing + removing the swarmhost so that it is not oppressive.
c) Zerg needs to be toned down. The queen range buff on AA needs a revert as it was only meant for back when liberators were OP at the time. Bane/hydra buffs need a revert imo as well.
d) Address mass air all across the board. This can be done by making all OP air units require more supply. example: BC/Carrier being 8-10 supply instead of 6. Ravens being 3-4 supply instead of 2. Broodlords being 6 supply instead of 4. This tones down mass air and intrinsically buffs ground anti-air because a player that opts to max out on air units will now have less air units while the player that opts to play ground oriented will now essentially have more AA in comparison. Changes like this tweak the gameplay of the game without actually changing or altering any unit interactions or base stat values which in turn allows blizzard to not break balance. This means units like hydralisks and thors inherently become stronger without actually needing to buff them any.
Nobody will take you seriously, especially your disappearing act towards TLO's challenge & now you are back spouting your usual BS even though Gumigod just won with mech & Inno too (partially).
Your mod is even more laughable, can be summed up as:
Buff everything for turtle mech, reduce charge cost,
nerf everything else for Protoss, nerf everything for Zerg.
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On June 28 2017 19:40 reneg wrote:Show nested quote +On June 28 2017 08:19 SHODAN wrote:
the meta is so stale right now. there is very little room for creativity by terrans. same old tactics and unit compositions. every game looks the same. occasionally you see a pro terran abuse the map in an interesting way, but that's all. the core gameplay is gimmicky as hell.
WoL was a solid foundation which just got more and more convoluted over time. now there's too many dodgy spell-casters, specialty units and hard-counters... A lot of this is fair, though I don't think the issue is the spellcasters. Sure, there are a lot, especially if you're P, but I think the real cause for a 'stale meta' is that they basically said, 'let's skip the first five minutes of each game'. Sure, it moves the games along quicker, gets the fights going faster, but it took a lot of different options away
spellcasters is the wrong word... I meant spells in general.
terran is the race which probably didn't come into your mind first, so let's talk about terran spells. widow mine missiles, cyclone lock-on, KD8 Charge...
widow mine missiles are micro-manageable in theory. in practice, however, it is impossible to focus fire the missile during a typical battle. for example, when pro terrans play ~140 supply bio/mine vs line/bane/muta, they just burrow the mines, re-position them, and forget about them... luck decides the rest.
widow mines take 2 seconds to activate. let's give our pro terrans 300 APM. that's 5 actions per second. 10 actions available before the widow mines detonate. if we simplify the scenario greatly, it is possible to micro-manage 1 or 2 mines. for example, widow mine drop harass intended to kill workers, or small skirmishes involving a small number of units (think 1-1-1 vs protoss).
after this phase of the game is over, pro terrans lose control over the missile pathing. for example, when line/bane swarms you, or when adepts shade in, you want to burrow all the mines at once and try to avoid the splash. all the while, you are busy kiting your bio back and doing other things. all in all, there are very few opportunities in the game to show off your widow mine control. the act of burrowing mines and hoping for a lucky shot is not satisfying at all. you can of course use them to out-position an opponent, and this is impressive in its own way, but this is not what makes a unit inherently fun.
the old cyclone was a masterstroke in terms of design. in the days of massing cyclones in the late-game, man... I never had this much fun in sc2. they were fast, fragile, and extremely dangerous. there was a real tactile satisfaction using them. have you played hellion/cyclone/mine vs a roach/hydra/viper army? or kited an army of ultralisks all the way across the map? you had to keep moving. if you got cornered, you were done for. that was the name of the game. cyclones could outrun everything on the ground except lings. there was this magic synergy between hellions and cyclones... we were just beginning to see this fast and furious speedy mech style played by Innovation and TY. Innovation would open double factory and from there on, it was non-stop action.
and what did Blizz do? they replaced it with a boring 1A mech marine that can't even kill a liberator in one go. you literally can't micro the new cyclones at all. it's pathetic. the scoot and shoot magic is gone. this is the most tragic design change in the history of Starcraft. what the fuck were they thinking? sure, cyclones were obnoxious in the early game. 1 cyclone vs 1 banshee was not fair. but this could have been fixed. they could have reduced the non-upgraded AA damage. they could have increased the AA damage in tandem with the lock-on upgrade, just in time to deal with mutalisks or liberator pushes. but nah, they just killed everything that was fun about the unit. grinds my gears to no end.
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Great to have some professional input on the state of TvZ mech. Snute's takeaway seems to be that mech is more or less viable, depending of course on the opponent (like any other build). His words are also given substantial weight by the actions of INnoVation and Gumiho, who both incorporated mech into their recent Starleague victories.
The EU-KR Terran dynamic is interesting as well, though I suspect that the "Korean Terran" phenomenon is playing a role there. That being said, bio is still the name of the game and I've yet to see any mass exodus towards mech reminiscent of late 2015. So long as bio remains a viable way of ending the game in the midgame (and it is), I very much doubt we will see a big transition towards mech in TvZ.
As it stands, I'm very happy with the current meta of bio being the go-to default for TvZ while mech represents a minority. Bluntly put, 4M vs LBM is hugely entertaining to watch, while mech....isn't. The novelty is what gives mech its appeal, and while it's certainly refreshing to see some variation in TvZ, the appeal of mech wears off pretty fast once every single game ends in mass Ravens. So the current mostly-bio-plus-some-mech meta is the best of both worlds.
As far as avilo goes......well some semi-pro (if even that much) NA Terran who streams a lot claims one thing and is directly contradicted by the words of a highly accomplished veteran (Snute) plus the actions of two more Korean veterans that are serious contenders for the Terran throne. So yeah. Use your brains, people.
On a related note, regarding the viability of specific Terran builds, INnoVation (as always) is a great bellwether. That counts for double in the case of TvZ, since he is easily the most accomplished TvZ player in the world. The guy won his first GSL with bio TvZ and his second GSL with mech TvZ. Where he goes, Terrans follow.
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On June 29 2017 04:55 pvsnp wrote:
As far as avilo goes......well some semi-pro (if even that much) NA Terran who streams a lot claims one thing and is directly contradicted by the words of a highly accomplished veteran (Snute) plus the actions of two more Korean veterans that are serious contenders for the Terran throne. So yeah. Use your brains, people.
why don't you use your brains and actually read what avilo is advocating for? I don't like the guy, but somewhere underneath his outrageous hyperbole ("remove swarm hosts from the game!") he has some sensible ideas about terran mech. avilo's whining, while justified in many ways, unfortunately brings the mech cause more harm than good. people fixate on his trolling and assume that all mech players just want mech to be OP.
avilo wrote:
I do not play that style of mech by choice.
[...]
In the current version of SC2, if your opponent starts massing air and you went mech, you now are forced to sit and build 4-5 starports and mass viking/lib/raven since there is no anti-air unit like the goliath available from the factory.
see? nobody wants 2015 turtle mech, ravens, or invincible sky armies. we want a solid ground-to-air AA unit and heightened synergy between the current factory units.
factory-based mech, with some minor sky support, should be able to handle any situation (8 factories, 1 starport). we took 2 steps forward with the siege tank change and thor armour buff. we took 1 massive step back with the cyclone.
avilo thinks factory-vikings are the answer... personally, I don't agree with avilo's viking suggestion. I would prefer to see the core characteristics of the old cyclone reinstated with some adjustments:
- remove Tornado Blaster weapon from the game
- movement speed increased to 4.72
- health decreased to 160
- supply cost remains at 3
- reinstate ground-to-ground lock-on
- reinstate ground-to-air lock-on
- reinstate auto-cast
- lock-on deals 200 damage over 14 seconds vs light ground/air
- lock-on deals 400 damage over 14 seconds vs armored ground/air
- mag-field accelerator increases lock-on damage from 200 to 200 (+200) vs light ground/air, 400 (+400) vs armored ground/air
- mag-field launchers increases the cyclone's ground-to-air range from 7 to 9
I believe these adjustments to the cyclone would have wide-ranging positive effects in all match-ups:
1) banshees, medivacs and oracles would have a chance to survive lock-on during early-game harassment. warp prisms would be more punishable.
2) cyclones would be able to kill a liberator with a single iteration of lock-on.
3) renewed synergy between hellions and cyclones, thanks to their similar movement speed.
4) cyclone/mine would take over the thor's role of mutalisk defense. GuMiho's mech defense against mutalisks consists of 2 thors and 2 medivacs. he loads the thors in the medivacs so he can boost and chase after the mutalisks. unfortunately, this forces the mech player into a "soft turtle" phase where we wait for ~160 supply and 2-2 upgrades. thors take time to build, and there is an urgency to follow the thors with tanks because of the threat of a roach/ravager/hydra switch. if we give the role of mutalisk defense to cyclone/mine, this would remove the ground turtling phase and give mech a natural follow-up to the "speedy mech" style afforded by early game hellion/banshee harass. the lock-on upgrade would also allow mech to kite and buy time against a possible roach/ravager/hydra follow-up.
5) cyclones would have some micro potential again. right now, cyclones have the same micro potential as a missile turret. how can anyone think this unit is fun to use? Tornado Blaster is pure fucking cancer. how can terran players get any satisfaction from controlling a slow 1A mech marine? you traded in a glass cannon for a literal photon cannon that can move when it's not firing. it blows my mind that people were not up in arms about this change. I guess terran players kept quiet because it did more damage...
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On June 29 2017 06:27 SHODAN wrote:Show nested quote +On June 29 2017 04:55 pvsnp wrote:
As far as avilo goes......well some semi-pro (if even that much) NA Terran who streams a lot claims one thing and is directly contradicted by the words of a highly accomplished veteran (Snute) plus the actions of two more Korean veterans that are serious contenders for the Terran throne. So yeah. Use your brains, people. why don't you use your brains and actually read what avilo is advocating for? I don't like the guy, but somewhere underneath his outrageous hyperbole ("remove swarm hosts from the game!") he has some sensible ideas about terran mech. avilo's whining, while justified in many ways, unfortunately brings the mech cause more harm than good. people fixate on his trolling and assume that all mech players just want mech to be OP. Show nested quote +avilo wrote:
I do not play that style of mech by choice.
[...]
In the current version of SC2, if your opponent starts massing air and you went mech, you now are forced to sit and build 4-5 starports and mass viking/lib/raven since there is no anti-air unit like the goliath available from the factory.
see? nobody wants 2015 turtle mech, ravens, or invincible sky armies. we want a solid ground-to-air AA unit and heightened synergy between the current factory units. factory-based mech, with some minor sky support, should be able to handle any situation (8 factories, 1 starport). we took 2 steps forward with the siege tank change and thor armour buff. we took 1 massive step back with the cyclone. avilo thinks factory-vikings are the answer... personally, I don't agree with avilo's viking suggestion. I would prefer to see the core characteristics of the old cyclone reinstated with some adjustments: - remove Tornado Blaster weapon from the game - movement speed increased to 4.72 - health decreased to 160 - supply cost remains at 3 - reinstate ground-to-ground lock-on - reinstate ground-to-air lock-on - reinstate auto-cast - lock-on deals 200 damage over 14 seconds vs light ground/air - lock-on deals 400 damage over 14 seconds vs armored ground/air - mag-field accelerator increases lock-on damage from 200 to 200 (+200) vs light ground/air, 400 (+400) vs armored ground/air - mag-field launchers increases the cyclone's ground-to-air range from 7 to 9 I believe these adjustments to the cyclone would have wide-ranging positive effects in all match-ups: 1) banshees, medivacs and oracles would have a chance to survive lock-on during early-game harassment. warp prisms would be more punishable. 2) cyclones would be able to kill a liberator with a single iteration of lock-on. 3) renewed synergy between hellions and cyclones, thanks to their similar movement speed. 4) cyclone/mine would take over the thor's role of mutalisk defense. GuMiho's mech defense against mutalisks consists of 2 thors and 2 medivacs. he loads the thors in the medivacs so he can boost and chase after the mutalisks. unfortunately, this forces the mech player into a "soft turtle" phase where we wait for ~160 supply and 2-2 upgrades. thors take time to build, and there is an urgency to follow the thors with tanks because of the threat of a roach/ravager/hydra switch. if we give the role of mutalisk defense to cyclone/mine, this would remove the ground turtling phase and give mech a natural follow-up to the "speedy mech" style afforded by early game hellion/banshee harass. the lock-on upgrade would also allow mech to kite and buy time against a possible roach/ravager/hydra follow-up. 5) cyclones would have some micro potential again. right now, cyclones have the same micro potential as a missile turret. how can anyone think this unit is fun to use? Tornado Blaster is pure fucking cancer. how can terran players get any satisfaction from controlling a slow 1A mech marine? you traded in a glass cannon for a literal photon cannon that can move when it's not firing. it blows my mind that people were not up in arms about this change. I guess terran players kept quiet because it did more damage...
Viable doesn't mean you like the strategy, or that it's your preferred strategy, or even that it's a fun strategy. Viable means that a player can win with the strategy against another player of approximately equal skill.
While I agree with some of what you said about mech AA, especially the Cyclone (it is a stupid unit w/o micro potential confined to the early game), mech as it currently stands has been proven (by the words of Snute and the actions of INnoVation/Gumiho) to be viable. No, it is not perfect. No, it is not significantly better than bio (in fact I'd argue it's slightly worse). But at the highest level of Starcraft 2 TvZ, mech is viable.
That was, and still is, my point.
Incidentally, while I am not a huge fan of TvZ mech, I am a massive fan of TvT mech. The endless Marine-Tank doom drops that define the contemporary TvT meta are incredibly dull to watch and coinflippy to play. Bio vs Mech TvT, on the other hand, was amazing to watch and thrilling to play. I cite the legendary duel of TaeJa vs INnoVation on Newkirk Precinct, which to this day is still the greatest single game of Starcraft ever played.
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On June 29 2017 09:39 pvsnp wrote:Show nested quote +On June 29 2017 06:27 SHODAN wrote:On June 29 2017 04:55 pvsnp wrote:
As far as avilo goes......well some semi-pro (if even that much) NA Terran who streams a lot claims one thing and is directly contradicted by the words of a highly accomplished veteran (Snute) plus the actions of two more Korean veterans that are serious contenders for the Terran throne. So yeah. Use your brains, people. why don't you use your brains and actually read what avilo is advocating for? I don't like the guy, but somewhere underneath his outrageous hyperbole ("remove swarm hosts from the game!") he has some sensible ideas about terran mech. avilo's whining, while justified in many ways, unfortunately brings the mech cause more harm than good. people fixate on his trolling and assume that all mech players just want mech to be OP. avilo wrote:
I do not play that style of mech by choice.
[...]
In the current version of SC2, if your opponent starts massing air and you went mech, you now are forced to sit and build 4-5 starports and mass viking/lib/raven since there is no anti-air unit like the goliath available from the factory.
see? nobody wants 2015 turtle mech, ravens, or invincible sky armies. we want a solid ground-to-air AA unit and heightened synergy between the current factory units. factory-based mech, with some minor sky support, should be able to handle any situation (8 factories, 1 starport). we took 2 steps forward with the siege tank change and thor armour buff. we took 1 massive step back with the cyclone. avilo thinks factory-vikings are the answer... personally, I don't agree with avilo's viking suggestion. I would prefer to see the core characteristics of the old cyclone reinstated with some adjustments: - remove Tornado Blaster weapon from the game - movement speed increased to 4.72 - health decreased to 160 - supply cost remains at 3 - reinstate ground-to-ground lock-on - reinstate ground-to-air lock-on - reinstate auto-cast - lock-on deals 200 damage over 14 seconds vs light ground/air - lock-on deals 400 damage over 14 seconds vs armored ground/air - mag-field accelerator increases lock-on damage from 200 to 200 (+200) vs light ground/air, 400 (+400) vs armored ground/air - mag-field launchers increases the cyclone's ground-to-air range from 7 to 9 I believe these adjustments to the cyclone would have wide-ranging positive effects in all match-ups: 1) banshees, medivacs and oracles would have a chance to survive lock-on during early-game harassment. warp prisms would be more punishable. 2) cyclones would be able to kill a liberator with a single iteration of lock-on. 3) renewed synergy between hellions and cyclones, thanks to their similar movement speed. 4) cyclone/mine would take over the thor's role of mutalisk defense. GuMiho's mech defense against mutalisks consists of 2 thors and 2 medivacs. he loads the thors in the medivacs so he can boost and chase after the mutalisks. unfortunately, this forces the mech player into a "soft turtle" phase where we wait for ~160 supply and 2-2 upgrades. thors take time to build, and there is an urgency to follow the thors with tanks because of the threat of a roach/ravager/hydra switch. if we give the role of mutalisk defense to cyclone/mine, this would remove the ground turtling phase and give mech a natural follow-up to the "speedy mech" style afforded by early game hellion/banshee harass. the lock-on upgrade would also allow mech to kite and buy time against a possible roach/ravager/hydra follow-up. 5) cyclones would have some micro potential again. right now, cyclones have the same micro potential as a missile turret. how can anyone think this unit is fun to use? Tornado Blaster is pure fucking cancer. how can terran players get any satisfaction from controlling a slow 1A mech marine? you traded in a glass cannon for a literal photon cannon that can move when it's not firing. it blows my mind that people were not up in arms about this change. I guess terran players kept quiet because it did more damage... Viable doesn't mean you like the strategy, or that it's your preferred strategy, or even that it's a fun strategy. Viable means that a player can win with the strategy against another player of approximately equal skill. While I agree with some of what you said about mech AA, especially the Cyclone (it is a stupid unit w/o micro potential confined to the early game), mech as it currently stands has been proven (by the words of Snute and the actions of INnoVation/Gumiho) to be viable. No, it is not perfect. No, it is not significantly better than bio (in fact I'd argue it's slightly worse). But at the highest level of Starcraft 2 TvZ, mech is viable. That was, and still is, my point. Incidentally, while I am not a huge fan of TvZ mech, I am a massive fan of TvT mech. The endless Marine-Tank doom drops that define the contemporary TvT meta are incredibly dull to watch and coinflippy to play. Bio vs Mech TvT, on the other hand, was amazing to watch and thrilling to play. I cite the legendary duel of TaeJa vs INnoVation on Newkirk Precinct, which to this day is still the greatest single game of Starcraft ever played.
sorry, got my wires crossed on the "viable" thing.
for me, the holy grail of mech TvT is Mvp vs Innovation on Akilon Wastes
youtu.be
8 SCVs vs 30 SCVs.
"he may as well GG" - Artosis
15 minutes later
"the humiliated Innovation army is now retreating" - Tasteless
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On June 28 2017 23:28 Liquid`Snute wrote:There's already plenty of games of gumiho on youtube. A lot of the series between gumiho and myself and soo and gumiho on wardi's channel for example will give you a somewhat nuanced view of mech vs zerg. Surprise surprise, mech both wins and loses. It's still in the process of being figured out. Swarm host can appear ridicilous, same goes for vipers and terran ground or ravens. +++ + Show Spoiler +https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FRBvg-wicw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2mqdxOQl40 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFNcPZNfY5M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyQy9IyorYo https://youtu.be/CSDqIj-nHmM?t=9m41s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KuFssqo6Aig The issue with swarm host on the sub-top level is that hosts appear ridicilous to play against if you don't know exactly how to approach it from the get-go with a high level of skill (6200+ MMR?). Mech is also harder to play compared to mass swarm host on the sub-top level, so the most vocal players will most likely always state that swarm hosts are broken. Personally i think mech is slightly inferior to bio, but i also know that a simple showmatch won't necessarily provide the answers people are looking for. It takes a decently large sample size of scenarios and situations with different openings, perhaps a replay pack of 20-50 games. There are ways to delay the onset of swarmhost such as turboshee, banshee into 2thordrop, and there are also ways for zerg to delay their own swarm host (3base, heavy roach ravager hydra viper before swarm host etc.). There are ways out such as mass muta switch, and switching from sky terran to ground etc. And more... People don't look at large enough samples and a lot of the time the zerg makes mistakes. Right now, players in KR are indeed struggling with Mech, but from watching streams I can tell that both sides are making some pretty silly mistakes and that a lot of the time the games on average aren't as un-even as either side might think. But if you know that your opponent will always play mech from the start, or if you know that a zerg will only play roach hydra viper and no swarmhost or ONLY swarmhost no matter what for example, then yes it's easy to make either side look disgusting. There aren't enough broadcast games to give a clear picture. Personally I think destroying mech terrans on EU is super easy for the most part. But word from KR is that mech is hard. So.. hard to tell.
I think swarmhost are very ridiculous at all levels of play. There should not be any army in the game that consists of essentially one tech unit that requires no money to utilize and essentially generates free money and can freely escape across the map while attacking over terrain like a reaper for free.
And before your or anyone try to say i'm biased or something i'm being very objective - ravens are just as bad as swarmhost once you get 10+ of them because there's no downside at all to just "making more ravens" or "making more swarmhosts." Units like this in RTS dissuade either side from doing anything and you're fighting with free unit generators rather than trading unit for units that cost income.
Roach/hydra versus mech is fair because both players are interacting with the other player's units and making trades that cost income.
Mass swarmhost up to 20+ swarmhosts that are flying free locusts every 30 sec is not fair or balanced because you're essentially generating a free army of roach/hydra every 30 seconds. Normally you'd have to actually fight your opponent and risk losing units that cost money. With swarmhosts there is no such risk because you can launch locust from 3 screens away. I would say the same argument applies to mass raven when you have 10+ of them. You just spam auto-turrets/seeker and it turns into the tedious game of picking off units 1 by 1 instead of fighting your opponent.
KR Zergs do not know how to abuse SH like NA/EU Zergs do to show how ridiculously broken it is. There's also the factors that 99% KR Terran play bio instead of mech, and they basically have zero game knowledge or practice on what to do versus mech. Zero nydus play in the finals of Soo vs Gumiho, and if you or anyone is saying Soo went into that series expecting mech...yet still doesn't know to abuse nydus and swarmhosts...
The fact is balance isn't dictated at all by any 1 series of games. Game balance/design for SC2 is more of a "what is fair and balanced for players, and how the game can be strategically diverse." Swarmhosts are oppressive to the point they remove a lot of strategic diversity of Terran just solely because they exist in their current state. They are oppressive to mech being playable, and too easy to use. The counter-measures to swarmhosts require an insane amount of skill compared to the zero amount of skill required to simply "MAKE SWARMOSTS."
The swarmhost really no one can defend as a balanced unit in it's current state, and i'd be willing to debate anyone about it. And what you said snute about you personally finding mech Terrans easy to play vs on EU...it's because you understand how to abuse SH/viper like a lot of other NA/EU Zergs, but for some reason KR Zergs don't seem to quite grasp how strong these units are late game and they do really theoretically bad things like keep massing pure roach and corruptors.
Whenever i off-race on ladder with Z vs T and the Terran goes mech...it's basically a freewin because i know how to abuse mech so easily since i play it so often with my main race.
I will say though, if both players know the theoretical late game Zerg / mech late games....the game becomes really really bad because it's ends up being ghosts sniping vipers 1 by 1 or vipers abducting units 1 by 1 or units getting seekered 1 by 1 for the next 40 minutes with nothing happening because all of these units are energy based units.
With all of this being said, are swarmhosts/ravens unbeatable? Of course not, it's winnable for both the Z and T. THe better question is, "is this the type of gameplay that is healthy for SC2 players, viewers, and community?" The answer is: fuck no, there needs to be changes.
Also, on another note...i think what you said about how the game is way easy essentially if you 100% know the opponent will go mech before the game starts...is exactly why mech is not in a "viable" state at the moment.
A "viable" strategy is a strategy you can go into a game with even if your opponent knows you will do it yet still be effective with it. The best examples with this are ling/bane/muta and bio play. An opponent can know you are going to go for these strategies and yet both strategies remain effective and can win or lose the game without being insanely hard countered by 1 unit.
Mech on the other hand...the amount of games i play on ladder that are people literally metagaming because they see "avilo" and they immediately go up to swarmhosts and then i have to "metagame their meta" with speedshee or weird ass builds...all of this issue is created by the fact that swarmhosts hard counter an entire style and that should be addressed.
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Mech isnt funny to watch
It's just about frustration and impotence.
Wow what a great siege up you really deserve your gsl finals gg
When bio is entertaining. You just have to see the reactions after the blizzcon finals, people who didnt know much about the game were impressed, i'm not sure they would have been seeing this type of match.
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On June 29 2017 06:27 SHODAN wrote:Show nested quote +On June 29 2017 04:55 pvsnp wrote:
As far as avilo goes......well some semi-pro (if even that much) NA Terran who streams a lot claims one thing and is directly contradicted by the words of a highly accomplished veteran (Snute) plus the actions of two more Korean veterans that are serious contenders for the Terran throne. So yeah. Use your brains, people. why don't you use your brains and actually read what avilo is advocating for? I don't like the guy, but somewhere underneath his outrageous hyperbole ("remove swarm hosts from the game!") he has some sensible ideas about terran mech. avilo's whining, while justified in many ways, unfortunately brings the mech cause more harm than good. people fixate on his trolling and assume that all mech players just want mech to be OP. Show nested quote +avilo wrote:
I do not play that style of mech by choice.
[...]
In the current version of SC2, if your opponent starts massing air and you went mech, you now are forced to sit and build 4-5 starports and mass viking/lib/raven since there is no anti-air unit like the goliath available from the factory.
see? nobody wants 2015 turtle mech, ravens, or invincible sky armies. we want a solid ground-to-air AA unit and heightened synergy between the current factory units. factory-based mech, with some minor sky support, should be able to handle any situation (8 factories, 1 starport). we took 2 steps forward with the siege tank change and thor armour buff. we took 1 massive step back with the cyclone. avilo thinks factory-vikings are the answer... personally, I don't agree with avilo's viking suggestion. I would prefer to see the core characteristics of the old cyclone reinstated with some adjustments: - remove Tornado Blaster weapon from the game - movement speed increased to 4.72 - health decreased to 160 - supply cost remains at 3 - reinstate ground-to-ground lock-on - reinstate ground-to-air lock-on - reinstate auto-cast - lock-on deals 200 damage over 14 seconds vs light ground/air - lock-on deals 400 damage over 14 seconds vs armored ground/air - mag-field accelerator increases lock-on damage from 200 to 200 (+200) vs light ground/air, 400 (+400) vs armored ground/air - mag-field launchers increases the cyclone's ground-to-air range from 7 to 9 I believe these adjustments to the cyclone would have wide-ranging positive effects in all match-ups: 1) banshees, medivacs and oracles would have a chance to survive lock-on during early-game harassment. warp prisms would be more punishable. 2) cyclones would be able to kill a liberator with a single iteration of lock-on. 3) renewed synergy between hellions and cyclones, thanks to their similar movement speed. 4) cyclone/mine would take over the thor's role of mutalisk defense. GuMiho's mech defense against mutalisks consists of 2 thors and 2 medivacs. he loads the thors in the medivacs so he can boost and chase after the mutalisks. unfortunately, this forces the mech player into a "soft turtle" phase where we wait for ~160 supply and 2-2 upgrades. thors take time to build, and there is an urgency to follow the thors with tanks because of the threat of a roach/ravager/hydra switch. if we give the role of mutalisk defense to cyclone/mine, this would remove the ground turtling phase and give mech a natural follow-up to the "speedy mech" style afforded by early game hellion/banshee harass. the lock-on upgrade would also allow mech to kite and buy time against a possible roach/ravager/hydra follow-up. 5) cyclones would have some micro potential again. right now, cyclones have the same micro potential as a missile turret. how can anyone think this unit is fun to use? Tornado Blaster is pure fucking cancer. how can terran players get any satisfaction from controlling a slow 1A mech marine? you traded in a glass cannon for a literal photon cannon that can move when it's not firing. it blows my mind that people were not up in arms about this change. I guess terran players kept quiet because it did more damage...
It's interesting that you want the cyclone kind of reverted or pseudo reverted to how it used to be.
I dunno how many of you guys remember cyclones in LOTV Beta but...aggressive mech was actually viable you could go pure tank/cyclone/hellion in action packed games with aggression in multiple places on the map. Admittedly the original version was slightly overpowered in terms of range and lock-on...but it was a much healthier play style and it was really good anti-air.
You could counter carrier interceptors in LOTV beta with pure cyclones. It was fuckin amazing. But then for some reason, as usual, Blizzard decided they hated mech.
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On June 29 2017 13:33 avilo wrote:Show nested quote +On June 29 2017 06:27 SHODAN wrote:On June 29 2017 04:55 pvsnp wrote:
As far as avilo goes......well some semi-pro (if even that much) NA Terran who streams a lot claims one thing and is directly contradicted by the words of a highly accomplished veteran (Snute) plus the actions of two more Korean veterans that are serious contenders for the Terran throne. So yeah. Use your brains, people. why don't you use your brains and actually read what avilo is advocating for? I don't like the guy, but somewhere underneath his outrageous hyperbole ("remove swarm hosts from the game!") he has some sensible ideas about terran mech. avilo's whining, while justified in many ways, unfortunately brings the mech cause more harm than good. people fixate on his trolling and assume that all mech players just want mech to be OP. avilo wrote:
I do not play that style of mech by choice.
[...]
In the current version of SC2, if your opponent starts massing air and you went mech, you now are forced to sit and build 4-5 starports and mass viking/lib/raven since there is no anti-air unit like the goliath available from the factory.
see? nobody wants 2015 turtle mech, ravens, or invincible sky armies. we want a solid ground-to-air AA unit and heightened synergy between the current factory units. factory-based mech, with some minor sky support, should be able to handle any situation (8 factories, 1 starport). we took 2 steps forward with the siege tank change and thor armour buff. we took 1 massive step back with the cyclone. avilo thinks factory-vikings are the answer... personally, I don't agree with avilo's viking suggestion. I would prefer to see the core characteristics of the old cyclone reinstated with some adjustments: - remove Tornado Blaster weapon from the game - movement speed increased to 4.72 - health decreased to 160 - supply cost remains at 3 - reinstate ground-to-ground lock-on - reinstate ground-to-air lock-on - reinstate auto-cast - lock-on deals 200 damage over 14 seconds vs light ground/air - lock-on deals 400 damage over 14 seconds vs armored ground/air - mag-field accelerator increases lock-on damage from 200 to 200 (+200) vs light ground/air, 400 (+400) vs armored ground/air - mag-field launchers increases the cyclone's ground-to-air range from 7 to 9 I believe these adjustments to the cyclone would have wide-ranging positive effects in all match-ups: 1) banshees, medivacs and oracles would have a chance to survive lock-on during early-game harassment. warp prisms would be more punishable. 2) cyclones would be able to kill a liberator with a single iteration of lock-on. 3) renewed synergy between hellions and cyclones, thanks to their similar movement speed. 4) cyclone/mine would take over the thor's role of mutalisk defense. GuMiho's mech defense against mutalisks consists of 2 thors and 2 medivacs. he loads the thors in the medivacs so he can boost and chase after the mutalisks. unfortunately, this forces the mech player into a "soft turtle" phase where we wait for ~160 supply and 2-2 upgrades. thors take time to build, and there is an urgency to follow the thors with tanks because of the threat of a roach/ravager/hydra switch. if we give the role of mutalisk defense to cyclone/mine, this would remove the ground turtling phase and give mech a natural follow-up to the "speedy mech" style afforded by early game hellion/banshee harass. the lock-on upgrade would also allow mech to kite and buy time against a possible roach/ravager/hydra follow-up. 5) cyclones would have some micro potential again. right now, cyclones have the same micro potential as a missile turret. how can anyone think this unit is fun to use? Tornado Blaster is pure fucking cancer. how can terran players get any satisfaction from controlling a slow 1A mech marine? you traded in a glass cannon for a literal photon cannon that can move when it's not firing. it blows my mind that people were not up in arms about this change. I guess terran players kept quiet because it did more damage... It's interesting that you want the cyclone kind of reverted or pseudo reverted to how it used to be. I dunno how many of you guys remember cyclones in LOTV Beta but...aggressive mech was actually viable you could go pure tank/cyclone/hellion in action packed games with aggression in multiple places on the map. Admittedly the original version was slightly overpowered in terms of range and lock-on...but it was a much healthier play style and it was really good anti-air. You could counter carrier interceptors in LOTV beta with pure cyclones. It was fuckin amazing. But then for some reason, as usual, Blizzard decided they hated mech.
what I really love about the old cyclone is the effect it had on gas expenditure and mech infrastructure.
right now, mech players are forced to open 1-1-1 and spend a small fortune on starport units before they can even think about a ground army. this is necessary for several reasons... let's run up the costs.
150/100 for the starport
150/75 for a viking
the viking is absolutely essential for denying intel from the zerg and to prevent/delay nydus rushes. of course, it would be a massive over-investment to build a starport just for 1 viking, so our meching terran is tricked into building more crap from the starport in order to make the investment worth it. GuMiho typically builds 1 viking, followed by a combination of 2 or 3 other air units, depending on the map:
200/400 for raven/raven
400/300 for banshee/banshee with cloak
400/350 liberator/banshee with cloak
by the time all that is over, you've spent at least 1000 minerals and 475 gas on the starport. yet another spending obstacle in our struggle to build a ground-based mech army...
that was all different with the old cyclones. with the old cyclones, you could skip the starport entirely and open double factory. Innovation opened double factory reactor/techlab every game, with a quick mag-field accelerator upgrade. I can't emphasize enough how good this for the infrastructure and pacing of ground mech styles. gas expenditure was going in all the right places. and, of course, you could snipe overlords from the ground.
another big effect they had on gas expenditure... the old cyclone was not at the mercy of weapons upgrades. if you can get by on cyclones, you do not have to rush for double armory. you just need 1 armory. this made the synergy between hellion/mine/cyclone so fucking perfect.
2 of those units deal spell damage, so you can delay the weapons upgrade for quite some time. hellions in hellion mode do not benefit much from weapons upgrades. in fact, we want hellions primarily to guard the cyclones from lings and soak damage from roaches/queens.
if hellion/mine/cyclone is viable in the early/mid-game, you can spend the extra gas on more factories, techlab upgrades, and only 1 armory. what does this all mean? no more turtling. faster factories, strong and mobile ground presence, more movement all across the map, more skirmishes, more kiting, more action!
big missed opportunity for the TvZ match-up. I guess not many are nostalgic about this style. it was only just starting to gain traction in the pro Korean scene before the cyclone was suddenly changed to a mech marine. I wish I saved more replays of me playing this style... this is the only one I could salvage:
http://lotv.spawningtool.com/18403/
one more funny thing about cyclone-based mech vZ is that you could legit take a long-distance 4th on the opposite side of the map, just like in Brood War. what the fuck are roach/hydras gonna do? walk all the way across Frost and snipe a planetary? not when you have the best kiting unit in the game picking off units left and right, poised and ready to raid your hatches!
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Bot edit.
User was banned for this post.
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On June 28 2017 23:28 Liquid`Snute wrote:There's already plenty of games of gumiho on youtube. A lot of the series between gumiho and myself and soo and gumiho on wardi's channel for example will give you a somewhat nuanced view of mech vs zerg. Surprise surprise, mech both wins and loses. It's still in the process of being figured out. Swarm host can appear ridicilous, same goes for vipers and terran ground or ravens. +++ + Show Spoiler +https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FRBvg-wicw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2mqdxOQl40 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFNcPZNfY5M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyQy9IyorYo https://youtu.be/CSDqIj-nHmM?t=9m41s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KuFssqo6Aig The issue with swarm host on the sub-top level is that hosts appear ridicilous to play against if you don't know exactly how to approach it from the get-go with a high level of skill (6200+ MMR?). Mech is also harder to play compared to mass swarm host on the sub-top level, so the most vocal players will most likely always state that swarm hosts are broken. Personally i think mech is slightly inferior to bio, but i also know that a simple showmatch won't necessarily provide the answers people are looking for. It takes a decently large sample size of scenarios and situations with different openings, perhaps a replay pack of 20-50 games. There are ways to delay the onset of swarmhost such as turboshee, banshee into 2thordrop, and there are also ways for zerg to delay their own swarm host (3base, heavy roach ravager hydra viper before swarm host etc.). There are ways out such as mass muta switch, and switching from sky terran to ground etc. And more... People don't look at large enough samples and a lot of the time the zerg makes mistakes. Right now, players in KR are indeed struggling with Mech, but from watching streams I can tell that both sides are making some pretty silly mistakes and that a lot of the time the games on average aren't as un-even as either side might think. But if you know that your opponent will always play mech from the start, or if you know that a zerg will only play roach hydra viper and no swarmhost or ONLY swarmhost no matter what for example, then yes it's easy to make either side look disgusting. There aren't enough broadcast games to give a clear picture. Personally I think destroying mech terrans on EU is super easy for the most part. But word from KR is that mech is hard. So.. hard to tell.
thanks for the replays and for the very level-headed stance
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On June 29 2017 13:31 DieuCure wrote:Mech isnt funny to watchIt's just about frustration and impotence. Wow what a great siege up you really deserve your gsl finals gg When bio is entertaining. You just have to see the reactions after the blizzcon finals, people who didnt know much about the game were impressed, i'm not sure they would have been seeing this type of match.
You have no idea what you are talking about dude
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i personally find GSL Code S level Terran Mech entertaining. I find Gumiho's matches very entertaining. not sure how others feel about it.
playing against a Turtler-Mecher is frustrating for me in Diamond League, however, i do not think this warrants any changes from Blizzard.
When you're playing at my level of multitasking and APM with my weak keyboard mechanics .. some degree of frustration will sometimes be part of the game; there is nothing Blizzard can do about it. furthermore, i'm too lazy to make my keyboard mechanics better.
if i complained like some people in this thread i'd be demanding the removal of the Zergling.
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EPT
