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On December 12 2017 05:33 JimmyJRaynor wrote:
hey, like ummm call me captain obvious here.. but Stalkers should be good against Marines because they cost gas.. a Marine is 50 Minerals and requires only a Rax. A Stalker requires a CyberCore and a Gateway and they cost 125 Minerals and 50 Gas.
<>
"All We Are Saying .... Is Give Peace Stalkers A Chance"
if i get smashed by good stalker micro right after i've done 1-rax fast expand... its on me...
keep the Stalker strong. the Stalker nerf is a bad idea.
if you want to nerf something on Protoss nerf an air unit.
i'd like to see Protoss early air and Protoss early multiple gateway both be viable as aggressive openings so that i see my opponents doing a mix of things. i don't want to see 500 Protoss opponents in a row all going for the Oracle as their 1st offensive move every game.
By that logic zerglings should be bad vs mauraders. I don't think the idea that because a unit costs gas it should magically be better than mineral only units holds much weight. Additionally having efficient mineral only units is a core mechanic and identity of Terran in sc2.
With that being said I'd prefer they not nerf the stalker and find alternatives to balance tvp. Maybe buffs to the maurader and early game units out of factory or starport or nerfs to chrono. Maybe a nerf to upgrade research time or cost for Protoss so balls of pure gateway units arnt shredding bio. I think that having strong stalkers and no ms core just makes Protoss feel so much better to play and I hope blizzard finds another way to fix tvp.
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On December 12 2017 01:19 NonY wrote:Show nested quote +On December 11 2017 08:47 youngjiddle wrote:On December 11 2017 07:20 MrWayne wrote:On December 11 2017 06:32 Lexender wrote:On December 11 2017 05:52 NonY wrote:
I don't get why they are now ultimately changing Stalker from 10 (15) to 13 (18). Doesn't seem very significant. Seems like they made a change that had actual impact by making it 15 (21). And now they're concerned about balance and so just nerfing Stalkers, but it's actually a design change, not just a balance change, and remembering where Stalkers started and how they were trying to redesign them with the November redesign patch, this just doesn't make sense to me. Either they have the numbers to fill other roles or they don't. They changed the stalker so that it could fill more roles and it's doing so and now they regret it? I don't know what's going on or what 13 (18) is specifically intended to do. Honestly just seems like their thought process is "stalkers are too strong, let's reduce their numbers" which is what some armchair dev would do, not the kind of sophistication you'd expect from a team of professionals
On the other hand, the chrono boost change is something that would benefit from a small change. There's nothing weird about making a small change to that, such as halfway between what it is now and what they're proposing. Their proposed change is so drastic and chrono boost is important for so many things other than the specific things they're targeting with this change. Such a big change that affects so many things, just to address a small number of specific things... weird way to approach changing the rules of the game. Seems like that should go against some basic policies on what kind of rule changes you can make as devs. Stalker changes actually would make sense if they deal with it in the right way. For example 15 damage stalkers kill marines in 3 and 4 hits (no CS and with CS) and these numbers don't change except it's +2 attack stalker vs +1 armor marines and +3 attack stalkers vsmarines regardless of armor. Meanwhile 14 damage talkers kill marines in 4 and also 4 hits both CS and no CS, meanwhile +1 attack stalkers kill both no CS and with CS marines in 3 hits and +2 attack stalkers would kill +1 armor marines in 3 attacks and +3 attack stalkers kill marines in 3 shots regardless of upgrades. I think if they change stalkers to 14 instead of 13 and leave upgrades at +2 it would make more sense because it would be just like the nerf to adepts last year, it only affect the early game and then once upgrades roll is all back to normal. The Stalker change makes a lot of sense, blizz don't want Stalkers 3 shooting marines at any time in the game.. If they only changed the attack from 15(21) to 13(18) and kept the +2 attack per upgrade the Stalker would 3 shot a marine again once 2/2 kicks in. CS +10 hp is often negated by Stim. Why should the Stalker be that good vs marines? Protoss already has tools to deal with light units, the Adept in the early game/ mid game and Colossus/ Storm in the later stages of the game. To answer your question "Why should the Stalker be that good vs marines?", it more like... They don't exactly, but they do need to ultimately be better vs everything else. For example, with no mothership core protoss needs and effective way to defend proxy cyclones, proxy liberators, proxy rax, ect. You can no longer defend your main with your motheship core, instead you need to split off a unit to defend, making you weaker elsewhere. The way to compensate was the shield battery and the use of stalkers and kiting. Your comment "Protoss already has tools to deal with light units, the Adept in the early game/ mid game" makes no sense because adepts are weak to many things that early-midgame terran can pump out: widow mines, liberators, cyclones, banshees, plus they need an upgrade to do good dps. The adept is in a weird state of being a midgame tanking unit for timing attacks or harrassment. Also one last thing, just saying "Why should the stalker be good vs. marines?" is just not fair, as youngjiddle explains, but I'll exound on i. It's like saying "why should the marine be good vs ______" or any other unit. There's nothing wrong with having a core unit that is just.... good. I've already been saying for months and months that the stalker is one of the worst protoss units (pre 4.0). Another way to answer the question "why should stalkers be good against marines?" is because that's the effect the initial change was supposed to have. With 10 (15) and +1 per weapon upgrade, they weren't very good. Part of the redesign patch was to make stalkers better against light units so that they could be good all-around units, like marines are. That's why I'm asking why they're changing it to 13 (18). If someone then asks "why should they be good against marines?" it's just going full-circle and not making any progress. They should be good against marines because that was part of the redesign this year. That's a core change that I assumed would stick for a while and balance issues would be dealt with around it, so we could see what the game is like when the stalker is an actual good unit. Is it actually good for the game? Who knows. It's way too early to tell. But now they're just reverting a major design change they made as a knee-jerk reaction to a balance issue. PvT success has been totally dependent on three things: oracle openings (gone), the new stalker being the key to a solid 3 base defensive build (gonna be gone), and chrono boost providing stronger openings (gonna be gone). I can see how they didn't intend oracles to do what they were doing, so I'm fine with that changing, but I don't understand how this wasn't what they envisioned for stalkers and chrono boost. If it's too strong, they should look for other ways to alter the win percentages. Giving us design changes and then simply taking them away when they're key to our strategies is just absurd. What if these are really good design changes? Just because the matchup happens to start out imbalanced, you're gonna revert your design changes instead of finding a way to keep the gameplay intact and tweaking the win percentages some other way? Expounding on what youngjiddle already just explained: Adepts are a good way to deal with marines but they're pretty 1-dimensional units. If protoss has to make adepts in anticipation of terran making marines, I think terran is better off there, because adepts are more of a liability early-game than marines are. Hypothetically, we'd have to make adepts just to survive your marine pressure, whereas it's easy for you to survive early adept pressure. So it's just a survival tool for us against on specific thing, but then we are no threat to medivacs, not prepared for liberator harass, and they're also horrible against cyclones. If protoss doesn't get lucky with probe scouting and we can't tell if you're going marine pressure or cyclone pressure, god forbid we make adepts and 2 cyclones show up. Remember also that adepts aren't really a great counter to marines until they get glaives and +1. If we're forced into doing that all the time, that gives the terran such a large window throughout early game and mid game when there's no blink. Protoss plays against protoss too -- we know how nice it is to harass a protoss that doesn't have blink.
I agree with everything you've said, but +3 damage on Stalkers is still pretty significant. Significant enough to offset the loss of the MSC and Photon Overcharge? I guess we'll see, Stalkers will fire slightly faster.
Sadly, Protoss has always suffered like this in PvT, their win rate hits 55% and Blizzard slams them. Then their win rate sits at 45% for months, slowly creeping toward 50%. And then they get something that helps them to 55% and the process repeats.
I've never understood why Terran gets a pass when they have a 55% winrate, just bias at Blizzard when they tell us to the let the meta "settle" when Terrans are wrecking face.
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On December 12 2017 01:19 NonY wrote:
Another way to answer the question "why should stalkers be good against marines?" is because that's the effect the initial change was supposed to have. With 10 (15) and +1 per weapon upgrade, they weren't very good. Part of the redesign patch was to make stalkers better against light units so that they could be good all-around units, like marines are. That's why I'm asking why they're changing it to 13 (18). If someone then asks "why should they be good against marines?" it's just going full-circle and not making any progress. They should be good against marines because that was part of the redesign this year. That's a core change that I assumed would stick for a while and balance issues would be dealt with around it, so we could see what the game is like when the stalker is an actual good unit.
Is it actually good for the game? Who knows. It's way too early to tell. But now they're just reverting a major design change they made as a knee-jerk reaction to a balance issue. PvT success has been totally dependent on three things: oracle openings (gone), the new stalker being the key to a solid 3 base defensive build (gonna be gone), and chrono boost providing stronger openings (gonna be gone). I can see how they didn't intend oracles to do what they were doing, so I'm fine with that changing, but I don't understand how this wasn't what they envisioned for stalkers and chrono boost. If it's too strong, they should look for other ways to alter the win percentages. Giving us design changes and then simply taking them away when they're key to our strategies is just absurd. What if these are really good design changes? Just because the matchup happens to start out imbalanced, you're gonna revert your design changes instead of finding a way to keep the gameplay intact and tweaking the win percentages some other way?
Expounding on what youngjiddle already just explained: Adepts are a good way to deal with marines but they're pretty 1-dimensional units. If protoss has to make adepts in anticipation of terran making marines, I think terran is better off there, because adepts are more of a liability early-game than marines are. Hypothetically, we'd have to make adepts just to survive your marine pressure, whereas it's easy for you to survive early adept pressure. So it's just a survival tool for us against on specific thing, but then we are no threat to medivacs, not prepared for liberator harass, and they're also horrible against cyclones. If protoss doesn't get lucky with probe scouting and we can't tell if you're going marine pressure or cyclone pressure, god forbid we make adepts and 2 cyclones show up.
Remember also that adepts aren't really a great counter to marines until they get glaives and +1. If we're forced into doing that all the time, that gives the terran such a large window throughout early game and mid game when there's no blink. Protoss plays against protoss too -- we know how nice it is to harass a protoss that doesn't have blink.
first of, I don't think they wanted to redesign the Stalker and if they wanted so, they did a pretty bad job. the Stalker is basically the same unit as pre 4.0 with exactly the same role they just made him better, a little bit too good it seems.
If they want to make the Stalker a marine like basic unit they need to buff the DPS sagnificantly and obviusly remove blink from the game, even than it will be hard to balance this, the Stalker can not be a brood war dragoon because Zerg and Terran aren't their BW counterparts.
About the openings in PvT:
the oracle nerf was an overkill they should remove the dmg nerf and balance the oracle by adjusting the build time.
Obviously it will become harder to get a 3 base but terran cheese and early game pressure is not particular strong right now, also a lot of you overestimate the Chrono Boost change.
if protoss players have trouble to defend their bases blizzard should buff defensive structures and not units that are used offensively and up until the late game.
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On December 12 2017 05:45 washikie wrote:Show nested quote +On December 12 2017 05:33 JimmyJRaynor wrote:
hey, like ummm call me captain obvious here.. but Stalkers should be good against Marines because they cost gas.. a Marine is 50 Minerals and requires only a Rax. A Stalker requires a CyberCore and a Gateway and they cost 125 Minerals and 50 Gas.
<<goes into his John Lennon voice>>
"All We Are Saying .... Is Give Peace Stalkers A Chance"
if i get smashed by good stalker micro right after i've done 1-rax fast expand... its on me...
keep the Stalker strong. the Stalker nerf is a bad idea.
if you want to nerf something on Protoss nerf an air unit.
i'd like to see Protoss early air and Protoss early multiple gateway both be viable as aggressive openings so that i see my opponents doing a mix of things. i don't want to see 500 Protoss opponents in a row all going for the Oracle as their 1st offensive move every game.
By that logic zerglings should be bad vs mauraders. I don't think the idea that because a unit costs gas it should magically be better than mineral only units holds much weight. Additionally having efficient mineral only units is a core mechanic and identity of Terran in sc2. With that being said I'd prefer they not nerf the stalker and find alternatives to ballance tvp. Mabey buffs to the maurader and early game units out of factory or starport or nerfs to chrono. Mabey a nerf to upgrade research time or cost for Protoss so balls of pure gateway units arnt shredding bio. I think that having strong stalkers and no ms core just makes Protoss feel so much better to play and I hope blizzard finds another way to fix tvp.
ya, the problem is the Stalker is like the Marine in that it is a ground unit that attacks both air and ground with a ranged weapon.
i agree with everything else in your post and i'm a terran player.
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On December 12 2017 06:04 MrWayne wrote:Show nested quote +On December 12 2017 01:19 NonY wrote:
Another way to answer the question "why should stalkers be good against marines?" is because that's the effect the initial change was supposed to have. With 10 (15) and +1 per weapon upgrade, they weren't very good. Part of the redesign patch was to make stalkers better against light units so that they could be good all-around units, like marines are. That's why I'm asking why they're changing it to 13 (18). If someone then asks "why should they be good against marines?" it's just going full-circle and not making any progress. They should be good against marines because that was part of the redesign this year. That's a core change that I assumed would stick for a while and balance issues would be dealt with around it, so we could see what the game is like when the stalker is an actual good unit.
Is it actually good for the game? Who knows. It's way too early to tell. But now they're just reverting a major design change they made as a knee-jerk reaction to a balance issue. PvT success has been totally dependent on three things: oracle openings (gone), the new stalker being the key to a solid 3 base defensive build (gonna be gone), and chrono boost providing stronger openings (gonna be gone). I can see how they didn't intend oracles to do what they were doing, so I'm fine with that changing, but I don't understand how this wasn't what they envisioned for stalkers and chrono boost. If it's too strong, they should look for other ways to alter the win percentages. Giving us design changes and then simply taking them away when they're key to our strategies is just absurd. What if these are really good design changes? Just because the matchup happens to start out imbalanced, you're gonna revert your design changes instead of finding a way to keep the gameplay intact and tweaking the win percentages some other way?
Expounding on what youngjiddle already just explained: Adepts are a good way to deal with marines but they're pretty 1-dimensional units. If protoss has to make adepts in anticipation of terran making marines, I think terran is better off there, because adepts are more of a liability early-game than marines are. Hypothetically, we'd have to make adepts just to survive your marine pressure, whereas it's easy for you to survive early adept pressure. So it's just a survival tool for us against on specific thing, but then we are no threat to medivacs, not prepared for liberator harass, and they're also horrible against cyclones. If protoss doesn't get lucky with probe scouting and we can't tell if you're going marine pressure or cyclone pressure, god forbid we make adepts and 2 cyclones show up.
Remember also that adepts aren't really a great counter to marines until they get glaives and +1. If we're forced into doing that all the time, that gives the terran such a large window throughout early game and mid game when there's no blink. Protoss plays against protoss too -- we know how nice it is to harass a protoss that doesn't have blink. first of, I don't think they wanted to redesign the Stalker and if they wanted so, they did a pretty bad job. the Stalker is basically the same unit as pre 4.0 with exactly the same role they just made him better, a little bit too good it seems. If they want to make the Stalker a marine like basic unit they need to buff the DPS sagnificantly and obviusly remove blink from the game, even than it will be hard to balance this, the Stalker can not be a brood war dragoon because Zerg and Terran aren't their BW counterparts. About the openings in PvT: the oracle nerf was an overkill they should remove the dmg nerf and balance the oracle by adjusting the build time. Obviously it will become harder to get a 3 base but terran cheese and early game pressure is not particular strong right now, also a lot of you overestimate the Chrono Boost change. if protoss players have trouble to defend their bases blizzard should buff defensive structures and not units that are used offensively and up until the late game.
with regards to the stalker, what they have said is
With the removal of the Mothership Core we are also looking into Protoss’s other early game units. In particular we wanted to try sharpening the role of the Stalker
It is also mentioned in the team liquid Q&A they did where I think they talked about wanting to only change the numbers on the stalker, not it's utility.
anyways, I find your comments really funny, because they are the opposite of what players want.
The common player does not want the oracle strong, and really hates the units.
Also you think that blizzard should buff defensive structures so that protoss can win? Yeah, fuck the protoss player, he should never leave his base until 20 minutes!
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On December 12 2017 11:34 youngjiddle wrote:Show nested quote +On December 12 2017 06:04 MrWayne wrote:On December 12 2017 01:19 NonY wrote:
Another way to answer the question "why should stalkers be good against marines?" is because that's the effect the initial change was supposed to have. With 10 (15) and +1 per weapon upgrade, they weren't very good. Part of the redesign patch was to make stalkers better against light units so that they could be good all-around units, like marines are. That's why I'm asking why they're changing it to 13 (18). If someone then asks "why should they be good against marines?" it's just going full-circle and not making any progress. They should be good against marines because that was part of the redesign this year. That's a core change that I assumed would stick for a while and balance issues would be dealt with around it, so we could see what the game is like when the stalker is an actual good unit.
Is it actually good for the game? Who knows. It's way too early to tell. But now they're just reverting a major design change they made as a knee-jerk reaction to a balance issue. PvT success has been totally dependent on three things: oracle openings (gone), the new stalker being the key to a solid 3 base defensive build (gonna be gone), and chrono boost providing stronger openings (gonna be gone). I can see how they didn't intend oracles to do what they were doing, so I'm fine with that changing, but I don't understand how this wasn't what they envisioned for stalkers and chrono boost. If it's too strong, they should look for other ways to alter the win percentages. Giving us design changes and then simply taking them away when they're key to our strategies is just absurd. What if these are really good design changes? Just because the matchup happens to start out imbalanced, you're gonna revert your design changes instead of finding a way to keep the gameplay intact and tweaking the win percentages some other way?
Expounding on what youngjiddle already just explained: Adepts are a good way to deal with marines but they're pretty 1-dimensional units. If protoss has to make adepts in anticipation of terran making marines, I think terran is better off there, because adepts are more of a liability early-game than marines are. Hypothetically, we'd have to make adepts just to survive your marine pressure, whereas it's easy for you to survive early adept pressure. So it's just a survival tool for us against on specific thing, but then we are no threat to medivacs, not prepared for liberator harass, and they're also horrible against cyclones. If protoss doesn't get lucky with probe scouting and we can't tell if you're going marine pressure or cyclone pressure, god forbid we make adepts and 2 cyclones show up.
Remember also that adepts aren't really a great counter to marines until they get glaives and +1. If we're forced into doing that all the time, that gives the terran such a large window throughout early game and mid game when there's no blink. Protoss plays against protoss too -- we know how nice it is to harass a protoss that doesn't have blink. first of, I don't think they wanted to redesign the Stalker and if they wanted so, they did a pretty bad job. the Stalker is basically the same unit as pre 4.0 with exactly the same role they just made him better, a little bit too good it seems. If they want to make the Stalker a marine like basic unit they need to buff the DPS sagnificantly and obviusly remove blink from the game, even than it will be hard to balance this, the Stalker can not be a brood war dragoon because Zerg and Terran aren't their BW counterparts. About the openings in PvT: the oracle nerf was an overkill they should remove the dmg nerf and balance the oracle by adjusting the build time. Obviously it will become harder to get a 3 base but terran cheese and early game pressure is not particular strong right now, also a lot of you overestimate the Chrono Boost change. if protoss players have trouble to defend their bases blizzard should buff defensive structures and not units that are used offensively and up until the late game. with regards to the stalker, what they have said is Show nested quote +With the removal of the Mothership Core we are also looking into Protoss’s other early game units. In particular we wanted to try sharpening the role of the Stalker It is also mentioned in the team liquid Q&A they did where I think they talked about wanting to only change the numbers on the stalker, not it's utility. anyways, I find your comments really funny, because they are the opposite of what players want. The common player does not want the oracle strong, and really hates the units. Also you think that blizzard should buff defensive structures so that protoss can win? Yeah, fuck the protoss player, he should never leave his base until 20 minutes!
Wasn't the whole point of 4.0 to remove/reduce the power of defensive structures like pylon overcharge/msc? Remove PO/MSC and replace with buffing actual units. Which is exactly what they did. This patch in a few days isn't changing any of that, it's only tweaking some numbers because the buffs were too strong. The major design change (units instead of msc) is still very much there.
After this latest balance patch we will (theoretically) have a more balanced game without the design flaw of the msc. Obviously some more balance patches may be needed, but that is the end goal.
I for one approve of the balance team's direction.
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On December 12 2017 12:46 pvsnp wrote:
Remove PO/MSC and replace with buffing actual units. Which is exactly what they did.
The only relevant change to units was the change to the stalker, which is being heavily backpedaled now. The shield battery has also received a nerf.
Honestly, anyone who doesn't expect the next patch to include a major buff to early-game Protoss units (if this one gets through as-is) is deluding themselves. PvX win-rates will certainly plummet below what we're seeing today in TvP.
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On December 12 2017 13:10 Edowyth wrote:Show nested quote +On December 12 2017 12:46 pvsnp wrote:
Remove PO/MSC and replace with buffing actual units. Which is exactly what they did. The only relevant change to units was the change to the stalker, which is being heavily backpedaled now. The shield battery has also received a nerf. Honestly, anyone who doesn't expect the next patch to include a major buff to early-game Protoss units (if this one gets through as-is) is deluding themselves. PvX win-rates will certainly plummet below what we're seeing today in TvP.
Presumably TvP will be restored to some semblance of balance after these changes go through. Seeing as the MU is nowhere close to balanced now, with pure gateway armies stronger than anything Terran can put together.
I am worried about earlygame PvZ though, since Protoss is already suffering in that regard. That being said, I think that's more an a ling drop issue than anything else, so I would expect to see Zerg nerfs rather than Protoss buffs.
Seeing as these balance changes are explicitly designed to fix the balance issues that resulted from the design patch, the balance team will most likely have to nerf Zerg. That, or figure out some way to buff Protoss in such a way that PvT remains balanced, which I doubt they can seeing as Protoss is currently shitting all over Terran and still losing to Zerg.
Currently:
P > T
T = Z
Z > P (early)
The upcoming change should fix PvT, so after this it is just PvZ that needs fixing. Unfortunately PvZ is in an odd spot where Zerg has a significant advantage early, but Protoss has a significant advantage late. Obviously a lategame advantage is useless if the game never goes late, but if the balance team fixes that and Protoss can get to mass air, the winrates could very well swing the other way very quickly.
It's the same problem that existed pre-4.0, where Skytoss is nigh-invincible and the Zerg has to win before then, which led to hydra/bane pushes, which in turn led to mass oracle.
Personally, I think the balance team could've saved themselves a lot of headache if they just directly buffed bio (probably marauders). The hydra and stalker buffs + WM nerf made bio so much weaker that Terrans transitioned to mech against Zerg and were basically doomed against Protoss since mech sucks like it always has in TvP.
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Ling drops are fine. If they nerf ling drops I assune they should nerf warprisms and medivacks drops too as they surely are capable of dealing game ending damage far more than ling drop. Nerfing drops means no early game damage for Zerg in PvZ. That snowballs to games where Protoss camps on 3 bases to his perfect deathball not disturbed by any agression. To defend vs ling drop all they need is shieldbattery and some units. It's about time that all Protosses understood that playing without actual units, just pumping eco and tech till 6 minutes mark is not an option anymore. And that's healthy for the game.
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On December 12 2017 16:06 hiroshOne wrote:
Ling drops are fine. If they nerf ling drops I assune they should nerf warprisms and medivacks drops too as they surely are capable of dealing game ending damage far more than ling drop. Nerfing drops means no early game damage for Zerg in PvZ. That snowballs to games where Protoss camps on 3 bases to his perfect deathball not disturbed by any agression. To defend vs ling drop all they need is shieldbattery and some units. It's about time that all Protosses understood that playing without actual units, just pumping eco and tech till 6 minutes mark is not an option anymore. And that's healthy for the game.
How do medivacs have anything to do with PvZ?
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It's just for example purpose
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The only thing that bothers me a lot is this argument that "the stalker vs the marine dynamic favors the stalker too heavily in the early game"
Too heavily in what context? Terran can make a bunker at the front and marines are now really good at holding early stalker pokes. if the only dynamic that is concerning is the early game then why not adjust something with the bunker? Terran players have been staunchly against ever having to change their play, insist on doing the same 1/1/1's every game and any time they have to do anything remotely defensive Protoss gets patched into the ground. It's pretty absurd. Terran bio scales with upgrades and is vulnerable early. Compensate by using your races defensive structure, the bunker. Terran does NOT have to commit marines to attacking the other side of the map. They have many options available to them via widow mines, liberators, hellions, hellbat drops, banshees, even ghost openers.
This kneejerk nerf on the stalker really does upset me a lot and I really hope Blizzard takes more time to consider all possible avenues. I have watched a lot of high level replays on this current patch and most the time that Terran ends up losing is not because of a straight up fight and the protoss army is "imba" , it's because Terran is out of position, the liberators or tanks aren't sieged up, they committed too much to a drop... So many things can be pointed out as the reason Terran lost and it's not because the stalker is too strong. If anything is too strong it's upgrades / chronoboost, they can come out too fast for the terran to properly deal with, and this can be adjusted by changing the research time on upgrades with chronoboost in mind. Point being, there are many things to look at and many options to choose from on what to do instead of a kneejerk reaction with the stalker nerf.
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I would rather see Protoss keep the current Stalkers if Carriers instead received some kind of nerf.
Stalkers are strong but beatable. But the late game armanda of Carrier/Tempest/HT is almost unbeatable for Terran given similiar economies. And it seems to a problem in PvZ as well.
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On December 12 2017 23:33 MockHamill wrote:
I would rather see Protoss keep the current Stalkers if Carriers instead received some kind of nerf.
Stalkers are strong but beatable. But the late game armanda of Carrier/Tempest/HT is almost unbeatable for Terran given similiar economies. And it seems to a problem in PvZ as well.
Agreed. Or Collossus, they are incredibly strong right now. The Stalker is the wrong unit to nerf imo
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Well, they can nerf the stalker, the blink for example. The unit was useless besides all ins, but nowadays it gives so much to the game, harass, late game. We even see units like tanks because of them. I'll say it again, buff other races, don't nerf stalkers besides of blink!
Protoss needs this "dragoon".
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On December 12 2017 22:20 LHK wrote:
The only thing that bothers me a lot is this argument that "the stalker vs the marine dynamic favors the stalker too heavily in the early game"
Too heavily in what context? Terran can make a bunker at the front and marines are now really good at holding early stalker pokes. if the only dynamic that is concerning is the early game then why not adjust something with the bunker? Terran players have been staunchly against ever having to change their play, insist on doing the same 1/1/1's every game and any time they have to do anything remotely defensive Protoss gets patched into the ground. It's pretty absurd. Terran bio scales with upgrades and is vulnerable early. Compensate by using your races defensive structure, the bunker. Terran does NOT have to commit marines to attacking the other side of the map. They have many options available to them via widow mines, liberators, hellions, hellbat drops, banshees, even ghost openers.
This kneejerk nerf on the stalker really does upset me a lot and I really hope Blizzard takes more time to consider all possible avenues. I have watched a lot of high level replays on this current patch and most the time that Terran ends up losing is not because of a straight up fight and the protoss army is "imba" , it's because Terran is out of position, the liberators or tanks aren't sieged up, they committed too much to a drop... So many things can be pointed out as the reason Terran lost and it's not because the stalker is too strong. If anything is too strong it's upgrades / chronoboost, they can come out too fast for the terran to properly deal with, and this can be adjusted by changing the research time on upgrades with chronoboost in mind. Point being, there are many things to look at and many options to choose from on what to do instead of a kneejerk reaction with the stalker nerf.
hears the issue, since Terran marines cant push back a stalker until they have stim protoss gets total map control and is free to do whatever they want until Terran has stim. this lets protoss do things like take absurdly fast thirds while pumping double upgrades with the new chrono boost. protoss gets so far ahead during this stage of the game that you see things like balls of pure gateway units shredding any army terran can muster. Maybe you don't need to fix it by nerfing the stalker but terran needs some kind of tool to keep protoss honest. it used to be widowmine drops, as a protoss you had to be prepared for a potential drop so you could only be so greedy even with photon overcharge as a safety net, since these drops now suck, and also direct ground pushes suck since they get shredded by stalkers there is nothing to keep protoss honest. this means protoss can be incredibly greedy and Terran cant punish it. It was always the case that protoss defense let them be greedy but this patch seems to have increased the amount of greed that's possible partially because protoss does not need to tech to high tier units to hold off Terran pushes due to chronoed upgrades, partially because they don't need to get detection in their build to counter widowmine drops, and partially because there map control is so solid for so long. Meanwhile terran still has to be super careful because once the reaper is shut down they have no map control and no solid idea what protoss is doing, they could be doing the popular greedy style but they could also be preparing a massive allin, You can scan but than you've sunk 100 minerals in a bunker that only helps you live through the first stalker and an additional 500 minerals into 2 scans, and you might still not know what going on if they hid there tech well at this point your still so behind it wont matter if you know what protoss is doing because you wont be able to stop it. This problem makes Terran have to play very safely while protoss has free reign and this leads to the imbalance we see in the match up. There are not enough threats that terran can dish out to keep protoss honest so they cant run away with the game and at the same time protoss is to threatening for terran to cut enough corners to keep up with toss.
To get out of this situation many terran have had to open cyclones so they can push back the stalkers, the problem with cyclones is that they are a huge investment since they are realy expensive compared to what terran used to need in the early game. They really slow down your ability to get your bio with stim, medivacs and a third up and running leading many terran to go mech off of cyclones, the problem with mech is that its not all that great vs a race with immortals, chargelots and carriers. so Terran is in a tough bind. They can go cyclones and not be behind early but be behind latter or they can go bio and just be behind. Either way in the current iteration of the game Terran is usually stuck playing from behind protoss. Protoss has to make large errors for Terran to catch up. I think at most levels of play Terran has a reasonable chance to catch up with medivac drops, hellion runbys, proxy ghost allins, But pro protoss are just very solid and seem to be able to not take damage from Terran and than roll over them hence the imbalance.
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I think a big part of the reason for current Terran struggles revolves around some less tangible things than simply Stalkers vs. Marines.
1. Early offense & defense:
- Terran cannot gain early map control in TvP or TvZ. It's not that they don't want to pay for the investment. There's nothing to invest in. Any unit that once gave map control (early BF hellions/reapers/bunker rushing) was nerfed to the point that it no longer can offer map control without an investment so high that losing it means losing the game.
- Bunker defense has been largely negated by Ravager/mass numbers of banelings/stalkers, etc.
- The Cyclone was originally designed to be a defensive powerhouse, but then when the redesign came around they were made into very expensive tanky/all around sorts of units. The biggest drawback to the current Cyclone is its cost vs. its utility, with a close second being its build time. This unit is a poor investment in most circumstances.
Point 1: Terran needs better options for map control and/or better early offensive capabilities.
There are 2 ideas I have for this.
A. Replace the bunker with a very slow mobile attack transport from the campaign. It could move, units could be loaded into it, it could be repairable and even gain the upgrade from the engineering bay for more units or better armor, making use out of a few different things that have very little utility right now. This would also allow for some micro capability against Ravagers.
B. Allow multiple SCV's to build a building simultaneously(up to 3 or something), so that Terran could leverage the early game for offensive and not just macro purpose.
2. Terran lacks Harassment you can believe in: There is without a doubt no unit that is comparable in the Terran arsenal to the risk vs. reward the Protoss can get out of the Oracle and Zerg can get out of Zerglings. The marine was once a unit that could hold its own in packs against a lot of different things. That is not the case anymore. Consider the harass units that have been nerfed for Terran in the past:
- Widow mine nerf
- Liberator nerf/queen buff
- Banshee/queen buff
- Raven redesign
- MMM drops have been dramatically effected by the economy changes in LOTV. The acceleration to the midgame means much more creep/overlords/observers/pheonixes, etc., to take map control. Drops came in at a time in the past where Terran could begin the drop phase and leverage it for a win. More common at this point is losing a medivac or two for nothing and being dramatically behind because of it. For instance, opening 2-1-1 in HOTS gave you 16 marines and 2 medivacs vs. a 2 base zerg with around 40-45 drones that could have 2 base muta coming out soon. Opening 2-1-1 in LOTV gives you 16 marines vs. a Zerg with 55-60 drones and 5-6 queens and about 30 zerglings to hold you off with.
Point 2: Terran needs reliable harassment. Some of these units were problematic (Liberator), but nerfing each one down to its current state seems to have left Terran without reliable harassment. Not only does this mean you need more apm to accomplish damage and convert it into a reasonable push, it means most games will have little to no action for the first 6 or 8 minutes. People have complained about turtling with mech, but most of the turtling I see going on in SC2 right now is Zergs building 70 drones and then massing hydras.
Just a couple of ideas for this:
A. Retool the Cyclone a bit, increasing its speed to move with Hellions so that hellions are not absolutely shut down by armored units. This would require a lowering of the Cyclone's hit points and cost, as well as its build time.
B. Give Reapers a speed upgrade (75/75 cost or so) so that they equal Zerglings with speed. The micro battles would still be phenomenal, but battles could be won by micro rather than simply by bombs.
C. Give Reapers an upgrade to be able to attack air (75/75 cost or so)so that Hellion/Reaper openings are feasible and the game simply doesn't end if Zerg builds some Mutas or Protoss builds an Oracle.
D. Give the new Ghost, or an upgraded Reaper the ability to plant a bomb that would destroy or dramatically damage an opponent's tech building so that the explosion followed by a Reaper attack could flip the game on its side or something.
On the Current Changes:
I write all this because I don't think the issue with Terran is going to be solved by the current changes on Ravens or Widow mines. And I don't think the answer lies in nerfing Stalkers.
A. The Raven - The intangible issue with the Raven is that while you're making it you're not making Medivacs or Vikings or Liberators or Banshees, and nothing they are proposing is anywhere near the utility of those units. Moving the current Raven to the Factory is an idea that would shake things up.
B. Widow Mines - I understand the design dilemma behind Widow Mines, but anyone who has ever said "they're too much of a set it and forget it type unit" is forgetting that it's a land mine. The only future I see for the Widow Mine is even farther in the direction they're currently going. In its current design it is a single shot unit. It will shoot, then it will die. Reduce its supply cost, damage, and resource cost and make it a pure map control unit that needs to operate in groups. It no longer functions as any sort of effective harassment unit.
If anything TvP is going to continue to be extremely volatile while Zerg already has Early, Mid, and Late Game options for Offense, Defense, and Harassment, in addition to units that have been reworked to be reliable and flexible for the various stages of the game.
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Have the balance changes been implemented?
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EPT
