Blizzard has announced the final list of changes for the upcoming Nov 20th balance patch. Blizzard has also announced notes for patch 4.7.0, which features the release of the Zeratul Co-op commander.
Congrats to our new WCS Global Finals champion, Serral! It’s certainly been an eventful year for StarCraft, and now that the season has ended, it’s time to continue forward with our post-BlizzCon design and balance changes. Thanks to everyone for testing; your feedback has helped us iterate and make many improvements. Before the changes go live, we have a few more updates we’d like to add in:
Terran
Cyclone
Cyclone supply cost reduced from 4 to 3.
When the Cyclone had its Vespene Gas cost reduced in a patch prior to 3.8, and we also increased its supply out of caution against mass Cyclones becoming too prevalent at the time. More recently, we have gotten some high-level feedback that this Cyclone could perhaps be too weak due to how the meta has developed. In addition, when we first announced our pre-3.8 Cyclone revert, we emphasized our intention to have them scale better into the late-game. Thus, to improve the Cyclone’s mid- and late-game potential, we are reducing the supply cost, so they can hopefully be more easily utilized as support units in a larger army.
Thor
Thor 250mm Punisher Cannon damage increased from 40 (+10 Massive) to 40 (+15 Massive).
Thor 250mm Punisher Cannon attack period decreased from 1.78 to 1.71.
When we initially announced our balance revamp this year, we stated that we wanted to push the Thor into a “giant that slays other giants” role, but we haven’t heard much discussion regarding this new focus. In addition, with the recent Carrier damage revert and the Thor’s now lower armor, Thors are not able to fulfill this role as well as we’d like. Thus, we’ve carefully tweaked the numbers on the Thor’s anti-Massive weapon so that it will consistently defeat Carriers in one-on-one combat and be more powerful against the new fast-moving Tempests. At the same time, we were cautious to not critically affect its relationship against Brood Lords. As with many of our other changes in this patch, we want new options to feel powerful out of the gate, but we are also ready to readjust as necessary.
Sensor Tower
Sensor Tower pre-placement selection display will now show a range indicator on the minimap.
This quality of life change, which was suggested by the community, will allow players to more strategically and deliberately place their Sensor Towers.
Zerg
Creep
Creep spread delay from Hatcheries, Lairs, and Hives decreased from 0.45 to 0.3.
We received feedback that the previously proposed creep spread rate change for Hatcheries would overly adversely affect Zerg early-game, especially in ZvZ. We agree with this feedback and, as a result, will be changing the Hatchery, Lair, and Hive to retain their old creep spread rate values. Meanwhile the other creep generators (Nydus Worm, Overlords, and Creep Tumors) will remain at 0.45.
Ultralisk
Ultralisk Anabolic Synthesis upgrade research time reduced from 79 seconds to 43 seconds.
As a Hive-level unit, Ultralisks are already locked to the late-game and having both of its upgrades require a 79 second research time could excessively delay the Ultralisk’s full power. A reduction in research time could also create more of a choice for Zerg players depending on the game state as currently, Chitinous Plating is heavily preferred as the first pick.
Protoss
Structures
Robotics Facility cost reverted from 150/100 to 200/100.
Robotics Bay cost reduced from 200/200 to 150/150.
We initially proposed reducing the mineral cost of the Robotics Facility for a variety of reasons. Two of these reasons include improving defense against Zerg in the mid-game and improving defense against Terran proxies. Since our initial proposal, however, we’ve made additional adjustments to the balance test mod such that we no longer believe Protoss needs additional help in these regards.
Another goal of the Robotics Facility cost change was to promote more Robotics-based openers, but we now believe a different change could be more targeted to achieve this goal. By reducing the cost of the Robotics Bay instead, we would promote deeper tech options that aren’t as common right now,such as Colossus, Disruptor, or speed-upgraded Warp Prism openers. This contrasts with the originally proposed Robotics Facility change, which we believe would have undesirably further reinforced the strength of Immortals in PvZ.
We are planning to push the balance changes to live ladder at the start of the next season on Tuesday, November 20th. However, the SCV single-click priority change will require a patch, so we will be pushing out this change a little earlier with the SC2.4.7 release.
Thank you for all the support and feedback, and as always, let us know what you think! See you on ladder!
It is now easier to select an SCV that is currently constructing a building using mouse click selection
Added a button to the “Language and Region” panel of the Options menu that manually refreshes ping time to all game servers.
This function is most useful immediately after a connection change such as a switching to a new ISP or moving your computer to a new location.
Although StarCraft II automatically adjusts networks settings to provide the most responsive gameplay, this function will make these adjustments immediately, ensuring the lowest latency available to you.
Editor
New sub field added: Parent Behavior Link
Located under Unit -> Addon On Units.
Applies the specified behavior to its parent unit from the addon unit.
Allows control over the parent unit based on the Addon’s state.
Added Height Range field to CActorQuad.
Allows the quad to change its height based on the position of the player cursor.
Bug Fixes
Co-op
Raynor: Fixed an issue that allowed the Hyperion to still attack even when under the effect of the Moment of Silence Mutator.
Kerrigan: Fixed a bug a bug that caused the Pneumatized Carapace icon on Overlords and Overseers to appear inactive when it had already been researched.
Swann: The Vespene Harvester can no longer be cast on enemy or neutral harvesters.
Vorazun: Shadow Fury upgrade icon no longer displays the Protoss Ground Level 3 icon.
Karax: Mind controlled Colossi will now properly attack after researching the Fire Beam ability.
Alarak: Custom hotkeys are now retained for Protoss Weapon and Armor upgrades.
Fenix: Fixed a typo in his level 11 upgrade on the Co-op Commander selection screen.
Tychus
Fixed an issue with the sound of Nux’s normal attack.
The Odin can no longer damage Invulnerable Units and Structures with its splash damage.
Units affected by the Polarity Mutator will no longer display an icon, even when they are inside a Bunker.
Temple of the Past: Fixed several areas near ramps that units could become stuck in if they were unloaded by a transport.
Maps
Automaton LE, Port Aleksander LE, Emerald City LE: Fixed an issue that caused several ramps and doodads to not display Creep spread.
Port Aleksander LE: Fixed a bug that allowed players to build structures on a particular ramp.
Emerald City LE: Unit outlines will now be displayed when units are positioned behind ramps.
Campaign
Fixed an issue that allowed players to build units in the second part of ‘Enemy Intelligence.’
Tal’darim Probes and Stalkers are now using the correct Tal’darim portraits in Legacy of the Void campaign.
Instigators from the mission ‘Purification’ are no longer missing their 2D portrait.
Versus
Heart of the Swarm: The Mothership Core model is no longer a placeholder model if the Golden Age Protoss Mothership skin is equipped.
Fixed an issue that caused Broodlings with the Simulant skin to produce overly large corpses.
Roaches using the Simulant skin now have the Tunneling Claws upgrade indicator on Low settings.
I love Blizzard so much! This is exactly the fine tuning changes needed to make cyclones viable and thors performing in their intended role!
Also for people thinking that Blizzard is not trying to make mech viable in TvP, why do you think they mention Thors vs Carriers? I doubt people will add a few Thors to their marine ball, the Thor changes are made specifically in order to make mech viable in TvP.
Just out of someone care to explain to me what the hatcherie creep spread timer change do? I don't really understand when it comes up, I was guessing it was mostly about cannon/bunker rush but it seems a super specific fix and they talk about it changing zvz.
On November 14 2018 14:58 Nakajin wrote: Just out of someone care to explain to me what the hatcherie creep spread timer change do? I don't really understand when it comes up, I was guessing it was mostly about cannon/bunker rush but it seems a super specific fix and they talk about it changing zvz.
There's some ling flood builds that have to be defended by walling off with evos and having the queens hold the line. With the creep nerf, in some circumstances the creep isn't far enough forward to wall off the front of the nat, which is why they're reverting that particular part of the nerf. Defending against bunker rushes is also part of it I think.
Well i really hope they will revert creep and queen nerfs. It's too much impact on early and lategame of Zerg. And no additional buffs to compensate that.
On November 14 2018 18:12 DieuCure wrote: I dont get why people want QoL changes seriously, they are bad overall and make the game easier for nothing. ( Obs, overseer, target scv ... )
Because most people play games to have fun and not to be forced to stress out over minor aspects of the game.
On November 14 2018 18:12 DieuCure wrote: I dont get why people want QoL changes seriously, they are bad overall and make the game easier for nothing. ( Obs, overseer, target scv ... )
Because most people play games to have fun and not to be forced to stress out over minor aspects of the game.
Yes, so much fun when you can forget about your obs, or when you can click easily on a scv.
So where's the change that's supposed to make lategame even? I thought that's one of their design goals? Hope this doesn't end up like their countless "promises" to make mech viable in tvp.
Also shitty ravager rush just became ungodly super duper powerful getoutofthegame Ravager rush. The Cyclone change is the single most disappointing change I can remember. Terran early game is just fucked now.
On November 14 2018 20:27 Charoisaur wrote: So where's the change that's supposed to make lategame even? I thought that's one of their design goals? Hope this doesn't end up like their countless "promises" to make mech viable in tvp.
Also shitty ravager rush just became ungodly super duper powerful getoutofthegame Ravager rush. The Cyclone change is the single most disappointing change I can remember. Terran early game is just fucked now.
this build really should not exist, but bunker with scvs can buy time until tank or even a banshee.
On November 14 2018 20:27 Charoisaur wrote: So where's the change that's supposed to make lategame even? I thought that's one of their design goals? Hope this doesn't end up like their countless "promises" to make mech viable in tvp.
Also shitty ravager rush just became ungodly super duper powerful getoutofthegame Ravager rush. The Cyclone change is the single most disappointing change I can remember. Terran early game is just fucked now.
This plus the proxy reaper in TvT, 2016 TvT ladder was hell
The changes seem decent the only issue I see is the Cyclone will still be really strong early game PvT. Once it has mag field upgrade it basically counters immortals. Like 3 cyclones can out DPS the 2 shield batteries, I saw it on stream, its a bit ridiculous. I think the upgrade should require Armory.
ehhhhh, can't say I'm a fan of this batch of changes.
A lot of these changes are actually step backs into things that were already in the game and were IMHO not fun parts of it. Mine cloak, super kite cyclones, game swinging Disruptor shots, nydus worms being bad ( cost doesn't matter if it can't complete )
On November 14 2018 16:15 pieroog wrote: At the moment, there is no way of selecting queens outside manual search&click. Maybe some quality of life change too...?
YES PLEASE, this would help a whole lot.
On November 14 2018 21:10 nightowl879 wrote: What is a Quality of Life change?
Something that doesn't change the potential power of a player, but makes that potential easier accessible. For example, the F2, you would be able to select your whole army even without this, but it makes a thing that might have been difficult to do very easy.
On the changes: I like the change in ZvT and ZvP interactions, I'm quite concerned about TvP, skytoss is super strong, BCs are still next to useless, since AA dmg is the same and Yamato is nerfed against protoss (they have a lot of 250-300HP stuff) and I think that the adjusted thor is a terrible answer to the mobile skytoss, since they now have two teleports, one with 80sec CD and even with both unavailable, Tempest are zippy now and carrier can just move out of Thor range. But then again, I play toss, so, ehm yolo? :D
I think people seriously understimate the strenght of early game cyclones, specially now that the range bug has been fixed, theres NOTHING that can catch a cyclone to kill him in the early game (except of course speedlings), on maps where the natural entrance is not a ramp cyclones just shit on protoss, 2-3 cyclones can just keep a protoss pinned in their base buidling batteries so they don't bleed stalkers and immortals to the lock on while you take a 3rd or get stim. Even just opening with defensive cyclones can actually allow you to get 3 fast bases vs protoss, something almost impossible in the current meta (but that was very standard in the old cyclone meta), altough of course I doubt many people would do that since terran has no reason to go to lategame vs protoss while having all the reason to end the game before that.
I'm a bit worried about TvT in the fact that cyclones would still be king of early game (they counter anything except more cyclones or a well placed tank) but at least it would be in favor of macro games because they are better at defense than at aggression than current cyclones.
TvZ cyclones are probably weaker (?) but they weren't the most important unis anyway, I don't think ravager rushes would be that much of a problem since you would need speed lings to actually catch the cyclones while the cyclone can eat the ravagers until while taking basically 0 damage (unles you fuck up your micro), I guess it would depend on the type of rush, 1 base rushes would be pretty bad as 1 cyclone with 1 bunker should be enough, 2(3) base would probably be harder but at that point you didn't use cyclones to defend anyway.
In my opinion the cyclone is bad by design in every possible way and does not fit in the game. I wonder how long you will have to tweak that unit before you realize it might just be the fact that it was a horrible decision to put it in the game in the first place. You obviously want the cyclone to fill a hole in Terran Mech, why not just trash the unit and design something new?.
On November 15 2018 03:46 raXNT wrote: In my opinion the cyclone is bad by design in every possible way and does not fit in the game. I wonder how long you will have to tweak that unit before you realize it might just be the fact that it was a horrible decision to put it in the game in the first place. You obviously want the cyclone to fill a hole in Terran Mech, why not just trash the unit and design something new?.
What units name is a synonym for something really really big?
Is anyone having mouse problems since update to latest patch. Since I updated, when I enter the game I can not move my mouse. I can click button, but really move it around?
On November 15 2018 03:46 raXNT wrote: In my opinion the cyclone is bad by design in every possible way and does not fit in the game. I wonder how long you will have to tweak that unit before you realize it might just be the fact that it was a horrible decision to put it in the game in the first place. You obviously want the cyclone to fill a hole in Terran Mech, why not just trash the unit and design something new?.
What units name is a synonym for something really really big?
Who did david in the bible beat up with a rock?
What says its name and then says "online"?
Damn, drawing too many blanks here.
I mean, it has been said a million times that we need them. They even have a really nice model with all the sounds and animation done for them, they control really well, and they are the mobile AA and solid unit that mech needs. I really dislike that there is a timer every time I fight a protoss and if I don't kill them in time, match is over.
On November 14 2018 23:04 Lexender wrote: I think people seriously understimate the strenght of early game cyclones, specially now that the range bug has been fixed, theres NOTHING that can catch a cyclone to kill him in the early game (except of course speedlings), on maps where the natural entrance is not a ramp cyclones just shit on protoss, 2-3 cyclones can just keep a protoss pinned in their base buidling batteries so they don't bleed stalkers and immortals to the lock on while you take a 3rd or get stim. Even just opening with defensive cyclones can actually allow you to get 3 fast bases vs protoss, something almost impossible in the current meta (but that was very standard in the old cyclone meta), altough of course I doubt many people would do that since terran has no reason to go to lategame vs protoss while having all the reason to end the game before that.
This is one thing I've been thinking about a lot. How exactly does protoss catch and kill the new cyclones or even defend against them? Terran and zerg both have options to take them out (zerg has speedlings, terran can make their own cyclones) but protoss only has phoenixes and oracles. None of the gateway units have any chance of killing the cyclones unless the terran screws up. Same with immortals. Stargate is theoretically the only safe opening against them. The various types of photon overcharge used to be used to deal with these kind of issues, but with it gone, this could be a problem.
I'm not shocked to see the robotics facility cost reverted. It would have led to silliness. You could have two immortals building before warpgate was even finished and would have made battery rushes even stronger.
Am I confused if this is my interpretation of this patch?
Terran - almost all buffs Zerg - almost all nerfs Protoss - mixed
How can you possibly call this simply a Terran QoL buff? Even if you never build a mech unit (almost all of which got a buff) the medivac got a pretty solid buff for bio....
On November 15 2018 07:59 Darth Caedus wrote: Am I confused if this is my interpretation of this patch?
Terran - almost all buffs Zerg - almost all nerfs Protoss - mixed
How can you possibly call this simply a Terran QoL buff? Even if you never build a mech unit (almost all of which got a buff) the medivac got a pretty solid buff for bio....
The Terran QoL change is the add-on lift-off change, not the balance changes.
On November 14 2018 23:04 Lexender wrote: I think people seriously understimate the strenght of early game cyclones, specially now that the range bug has been fixed, theres NOTHING that can catch a cyclone to kill him in the early game (except of course speedlings), on maps where the natural entrance is not a ramp cyclones just shit on protoss, 2-3 cyclones can just keep a protoss pinned in their base buidling batteries so they don't bleed stalkers and immortals to the lock on while you take a 3rd or get stim. Even just opening with defensive cyclones can actually allow you to get 3 fast bases vs protoss, something almost impossible in the current meta (but that was very standard in the old cyclone meta), altough of course I doubt many people would do that since terran has no reason to go to lategame vs protoss while having all the reason to end the game before that.
This is one thing I've been thinking about a lot. How exactly does protoss catch and kill the new cyclones or even defend against them? Terran and zerg both have options to take them out (zerg has speedlings, terran can make their own cyclones) but protoss only has phoenixes and oracles. None of the gateway units have any chance of killing the cyclones unless the terran screws up. Same with immortals. Stargate is theoretically the only safe opening against them. The various types of photon overcharge used to be used to deal with these kind of issues, but with it gone, this could be a problem.
I'm not shocked to see the robotics facility cost reverted. It would have led to silliness. You could have two immortals building before warpgate was even finished and would have made battery rushes even stronger.
they might be a problem if cyclones effectively shutdown robot opening in TvP tho 4 supply,they are trash but 4 supply with moarrrr stats ?? they would probadly fuck early game anyway this unit is so damn hard to balance Davey...
On November 14 2018 23:04 Lexender wrote: I think people seriously understimate the strenght of early game cyclones, specially now that the range bug has been fixed, theres NOTHING that can catch a cyclone to kill him in the early game (except of course speedlings), on maps where the natural entrance is not a ramp cyclones just shit on protoss, 2-3 cyclones can just keep a protoss pinned in their base buidling batteries so they don't bleed stalkers and immortals to the lock on while you take a 3rd or get stim. Even just opening with defensive cyclones can actually allow you to get 3 fast bases vs protoss, something almost impossible in the current meta (but that was very standard in the old cyclone meta), altough of course I doubt many people would do that since terran has no reason to go to lategame vs protoss while having all the reason to end the game before that.
This is one thing I've been thinking about a lot. How exactly does protoss catch and kill the new cyclones or even defend against them? Terran and zerg both have options to take them out (zerg has speedlings, terran can make their own cyclones) but protoss only has phoenixes and oracles. None of the gateway units have any chance of killing the cyclones unless the terran screws up. Same with immortals. Stargate is theoretically the only safe opening against them. The various types of photon overcharge used to be used to deal with these kind of issues, but with it gone, this could be a problem.
I'm not shocked to see the robotics facility cost reverted. It would have led to silliness. You could have two immortals building before warpgate was even finished and would have made battery rushes even stronger.
they might be a problem if cyclones effectively shutdown robot opening in TvP tho 4 supply,they are trash but 4 supply with moarrrr stats ?? they would probadly fuck early game anyway this unit is so damn hard to balance Davey...
On November 15 2018 15:05 Loccstana wrote: Why was the Thor given increase in damage to massive, but the armor reduced from 2 to 1?
They want to buff the Thor against massive air like Brood lords and carriers, so they nerf it instead?
They want thor to be a "giant that slay other giants". The reduced armour make it so that none-giants can fight the thor. The increased damage per hit gives damage only vs giants. The thor gets nerfed vs none-giants. It is the role of giant slayer that gets defined.
On November 15 2018 15:05 Loccstana wrote: Why was the Thor given increase in damage to massive, but the armor reduced from 2 to 1?
They want to buff the Thor against massive air like Brood lords and carriers, so they nerf it instead?
They want thor to be a "giant that slay other giants". The reduced armour make it so that none-giants can fight the thor. The increased damage per hit gives damage only vs giants. The thor gets nerfed vs none-giants. It is the role of giant slayer that gets defined.
Yeah that's because we often get mono-battle situations where thors and Broodlords/carriers amove into each other with no other unis interacting /s
Seriously, it's a huge nerf vs "other giants" because of broodlings and interceptors
The basic problem is that Carriers will now do 33% more damage to Thors due to Thor having 1 less armor. That combined with the 12.5% more hitpoints for Carriers means that Thors will perform worse in a 1v1 battle vs Carrier even though they fire faster and hit harder.
The intresting thing to investigate once the patch goes live is the impact of blowing up interceptors. Basically if trying to blow up the interceptors for the first part of the battle and then switch to single Target mode will be more effective.
On November 15 2018 08:19 MarthTV wrote: So why does the thor get 1 armor removed? He is not that strong anyways.
A lot of Cracklings deal with thors, no problem, and what Immortals do vs them is against the Geneva convention.
To allow zerg to build mutas in ZvT
The splash damage nerf should already solve that issue. Mutas are not meant to be a Thor "counter''.
They aren't meant to be a counter, but Thors having 2 armor made Mutas basically unplayable in ZvT.
muta is still viable on big maps, in current patch zergs can play pure ling bane into hive and be fine too, and in new patch terrans will more often make +1 armor for mines instead of +1 attack for tanks like now, so thors will get that armor back quickly anyway
On November 15 2018 18:31 MockHamill wrote: The basic problem is that Carriers will now do 33% more damage to Thors due to Thor having 1 less armor. That combined with the 12.5% more hitpoints for Carriers means that Thors will perform worse in a 1v1 battle vs Carrier even though they fire faster and hit harder.
The intresting thing to investigate once the patch goes live is the impact of blowing up interceptors. Basically if trying to blow up the interceptors for the first part of the battle and then switch to single Target mode will be more effective.
you have probably missed that Blizz increased Thor damage against massive by an additional ~14% according to yesterdays note.
On November 15 2018 08:19 MarthTV wrote: So why does the thor get 1 armor removed? He is not that strong anyways.
A lot of Cracklings deal with thors, no problem, and what Immortals do vs them is against the Geneva convention.
To allow zerg to build mutas in ZvT
The splash damage nerf should already solve that issue. Mutas are not meant to be a Thor "counter''.
They aren't meant to be a counter, but Thors having 2 armor made Mutas basically unplayable in ZvT.
What made Mutas "unplayable" was when they increased the splash damage to 6, now they reduced it to 5 so they should be fine again. You don't want to engage Thors with Mutas anyway, but getting hit by a few volleys wont be as devastating anymore.
On November 15 2018 18:31 MockHamill wrote: The basic problem is that Carriers will now do 33% more damage to Thors due to Thor having 1 less armor. That combined with the 12.5% more hitpoints for Carriers means that Thors will perform worse in a 1v1 battle vs Carrier even though they fire faster and hit harder.
The intresting thing to investigate once the patch goes live is the impact of blowing up interceptors. Basically if trying to blow up the interceptors for the first part of the battle and then switch to single Target mode will be more effective.
you have probably missed that Blizz increased Thor damage against massive by an additional ~14% according to yesterdays note.
No I included that in the calculation.
Carriers do 33% more damage to Thors. Carriers have 12.5% more hitpoints.
Thors do 10% more damage (55 compared to 50) if the fire rate was the same. Thor fire 25% faster.
So Thor will be weaker vs Carriers in a 1v1 battle post patch, mostly due to the extreme difference in damage output from the interceptors.
Thor may still work as a counter though, if you get the interceptor count down.
On November 15 2018 18:31 MockHamill wrote: The basic problem is that Carriers will now do 33% more damage to Thors due to Thor having 1 less armor. That combined with the 12.5% more hitpoints for Carriers means that Thors will perform worse in a 1v1 battle vs Carrier even though they fire faster and hit harder.
The intresting thing to investigate once the patch goes live is the impact of blowing up interceptors. Basically if trying to blow up the interceptors for the first part of the battle and then switch to single Target mode will be more effective.
you have probably missed that Blizz increased Thor damage against massive by an additional ~14% according to yesterdays note.
No I included that in the calculation.
Carriers do 33% more damage to Thors. Carriers have 12.5% more hitpoints.
Thors do 10% more damage (55 compared to 50) if the fire rate was the same. Thor fire 19.5% faster.
So Thor will be weaker vs Carriers in a 1v1 battle post patch, mostly due to the extreme difference in damage output from the interceptors.
Thor may still work as a counter though, if you get the interceptor count down.
On November 15 2018 18:31 MockHamill wrote: The basic problem is that Carriers will now do 33% more damage to Thors due to Thor having 1 less armor. That combined with the 12.5% more hitpoints for Carriers means that Thors will perform worse in a 1v1 battle vs Carrier even though they fire faster and hit harder.
The intresting thing to investigate once the patch goes live is the impact of blowing up interceptors. Basically if trying to blow up the interceptors for the first part of the battle and then switch to single Target mode will be more effective.
you have probably missed that Blizz increased Thor damage against massive by an additional ~14% according to yesterdays note.
No I included that in the calculation.
Carriers do 33% more damage to Thors. Carriers have 12.5% more hitpoints.
Thors do 10% more damage (55 compared to 50) if the fire rate was the same. Thor fire 25% faster.
So Thor will be weaker vs Carriers in a 1v1 battle post patch, mostly due to the extreme difference in damage output from the interceptors.
Thor may still work as a counter though, if you get the interceptor count down.
Thors fire 25% faster post-patch.
You are right. But even then Thor will still do worse in 1v1 fight against Carrier compared to pre-patch.
On November 15 2018 23:15 IshinShishi wrote: the best "counter" to carriers are warp ins and mass yamatos, thors are laughable and will never help you.
In a mono battle BC works great. But with the new improved Tempest I doubt BC will work vs Protoss.
I think Thors+widow mines or Thors+liberators will work better vs Protoss air, but it remains to be seen.
On November 15 2018 23:15 IshinShishi wrote: the best "counter" to carriers are warp ins and mass yamatos, thors are laughable and will never help you.
In a mono battle BC works great. But with the new improved Tempest I doubt BC will work vs Protoss.
I think Thors+widow mines or Thors+liberators will work better vs Protoss air, but it remains to be seen.
I think BC + Vikings with raven and WM support can be very good against Protoss even with the new Tempest (the style TY played vs Creator) but transitioning into it will be very difficult.
On November 15 2018 23:15 IshinShishi wrote: the best "counter" to carriers are warp ins and mass yamatos, thors are laughable and will never help you.
In a mono battle BC works great. But with the new improved Tempest I doubt BC will work vs Protoss.
I think Thors+widow mines or Thors+liberators will work better vs Protoss air, but it remains to be seen.
I think BC + Vikings with raven and WM support can be very good against Protoss even with the new Tempest (the style TY played vs Creator) but transitioning into it will be very difficult.
I ran some numbers on the thor vs carrier scenario. There were some things I did not take into consideration: * The attack point (warm up for attacks). I only took the base attack rate. * The interceptor release time. I assumed all interceptors were out at the start of the fight. * The shields of the carriers got counted as hull instead, gaining the 2 armour from hull instead of the armour of shields (that is a buff to carriers).
Results: 1. On average, both the new carrier and the new thor takes more damage per second compared to the old ones, no matter the upgrades. 2. With 0/0 upgrades, the new thor loses. With armour on thor and attack on carrier, the thor loses. Thor loses hard with less armour than carrier attack. If thor has got more armour than carrier has got attack, thor wins. Ergo, thor should prioritize armour and carrier should prioritize attack. 3. The armour upgrade on carriers had almost no impact. The attack upgrade on thor is noticable. If thor doesn't lose on armour, thor wins because of attack upgrades.
In a heavily upgraded scenario thor is superior. In a barely upgraded scenario carrier is better. New thor is slightly worse vs new carrier compared to what old thor was vs old carrier.
While I hade the calculations up I changed a few numbers and made a quick calculation of other massive flyers: Generally, things die faster. Thor takes more damage and deals more damage vs everything massive in the air. Thor got better vs the following units: - Brood lords are worse vs new thor, that was a surprise. The damage buff vs massive along with the increased attack speed more than makes up for the loss in armour. The broodlings aren't as good as I thought vs new thor. - The speed tempest can easily kite thors, but loses big time in a straight up fight. New tempest is so fragile. - The new battlecruiser is slightly worse vs new thor, but it still beats the crap out of them cost for cost and supply for supply. Some upgrade interactions (high armour thor vs low attack BC) makes the new BC way better than the old one. - The yamato nerf is not taken into consideration in my calculations. Damage difference of old yamato vs new yamato corresponds to less than 1.4 seconds of regular attacks, tilting the fight even more. - Thor vs mothership has become a better 1v1 for the thor, so long as the Thor got worse vs the following units: - Only variations of upgrades is making the new thor bad. The low innate armour makes it vulnerable vs fast attacks. If you upgrade armour first, you'll be fine, the exception being vs brood lords. The first upgrade should be +1 attack, then go full +3 armour before continuing the +2 attack.
In short, new thor is way worse vs most stuff and better vs massive flyers. Thor should prioritize armour.
Sidenote: the new interceptor release takes twice as long for the carrier. The difference is more than half a volley of 16 attacks with 5 damage each. The old carrier sends out its 4th interceptor when the new carrier releases its 2nd. The first interceptor is doing its second attack about the same time as the last interceptor gets out of the new carrier. With the difference in interceptor release time, the new thor wins a 1v1 vs the new carrier as long as the thor's armour upgrade is equal to or higher than the carrier's attack upgrade.
I did not save my numbers. There is no use asking for them.
Btw, i don't get this carrier rant. Carrier is not getting nerfed, it's actually buffed.
It took 110 seconds to build a carrier with 8 interceptors. It will take 108 after the patch. But you will have the first 4 interceptors 20 seconds earlier to defend timing attacks - > a straight BUFF.
More HP -> BUFF.
Minus 150/150 for upgrade -> BUFF
MInus 1 stargate (another 150/150) due to decreased build time -> BUFF
0,1875 average launch time (0,125*4 + 0,25*4) vs 0,27 is ofc a nuisance, but it's almost completely negated in long fights.
It's obvious that carriers will be abused even more and will be nerfed within 1-2 months after the patch.
edit: with the new tempest (and i as a protoss fail to understand the reasoning behind this change) protoss air would be on a complete new level. Why would blizzard do such thing is a mystery to me. As if it wasnt good enough.
On November 16 2018 15:12 insitelol wrote: Btw, i don't get this carrier rant. Carrier is not getting nerfed, it's actually buffed.
It took 110 seconds to build a carrier with 8 interceptors. It will take 108 after the patch. But you will have the first 4 interceptors 20 seconds earlier to defend timing attacks - > a straight BUFF.
More HP -> BUFF.
Minus 150/150 for upgrade -> BUFF
MInus 1 stargate (another 150/150) due to decreased build time -> BUFF
0,1875 average launch time (0,125*4 + 0,25*4) vs 0,27 is ofc a nuisance, but it's almost completely negated in long fights.
It's obvious that carriers will be abused even more and will be nerfed within 1-2 months after the patch.
edit: with the new tempest (and i as a protoss fail to understand the reasoning behind this change) protoss air would be on a complete new level. Why would blizzard do such thing is a mystery to me. As if it wasnt good enough.
All of that is true but destroying the interceptors will be much more efficient. For instance if you have 1.5 times as many widow mines as they have Carriers you can often destroy 50-75% of their interceptors almost instantly. Previously they could just retreat and rebuild the interceptors very fast.
Now if takes 44 seconds to rebuilt 4 interceptors and 88 if they lost all 8. That gives you an opportunity to either focus down the Carriers or if they teleport back, go and destroy an expansion.
On November 16 2018 15:12 insitelol wrote: Btw, i don't get this carrier rant. Carrier is not getting nerfed, it's actually buffed.
It took 110 seconds to build a carrier with 8 interceptors. It will take 108 after the patch. But you will have the first 4 interceptors 20 seconds earlier to defend timing attacks - > a straight BUFF.
More HP -> BUFF.
Minus 150/150 for upgrade -> BUFF
MInus 1 stargate (another 150/150) due to decreased build time -> BUFF
0,1875 average launch time (0,125*4 + 0,25*4) vs 0,27 is ofc a nuisance, but it's almost completely negated in long fights.
It's obvious that carriers will be abused even more and will be nerfed within 1-2 months after the patch.
edit: with the new tempest (and i as a protoss fail to understand the reasoning behind this change) protoss air would be on a complete new level. Why would blizzard do such thing is a mystery to me. As if it wasnt good enough.
All of that is true but destroying the interceptors will be much more efficient. For instance if you have 1.5 times as many widow mines as they have Carriers you can often destroy 50-75% of their interceptors almost instantly. Previously they could just retreat and rebuild the interceptors very fast.
Now if takes 44 seconds to rebuilt 4 interceptors and 88 if they lost all 8. That gives you an opportunity to either focus down the Carriers or if they teleport back, go and destroy an expansion.
it's a good reason to start another "Turtle Meta".
On November 16 2018 15:12 insitelol wrote: Btw, i don't get this carrier rant. Carrier is not getting nerfed, it's actually buffed.
It took 110 seconds to build a carrier with 8 interceptors. It will take 108 after the patch. But you will have the first 4 interceptors 20 seconds earlier to defend timing attacks - > a straight BUFF.
More HP -> BUFF.
Minus 150/150 for upgrade -> BUFF
MInus 1 stargate (another 150/150) due to decreased build time -> BUFF
0,1875 average launch time (0,125*4 + 0,25*4) vs 0,27 is ofc a nuisance, but it's almost completely negated in long fights.
It's obvious that carriers will be abused even more and will be nerfed within 1-2 months after the patch.
edit: with the new tempest (and i as a protoss fail to understand the reasoning behind this change) protoss air would be on a complete new level. Why would blizzard do such thing is a mystery to me. As if it wasnt good enough.
All of that is true but destroying the interceptors will be much more efficient. For instance if you have 1.5 times as many widow mines as they have Carriers you can often destroy 50-75% of their interceptors almost instantly. Previously they could just retreat and rebuild the interceptors very fast.
Now if takes 44 seconds to rebuilt 4 interceptors and 88 if they lost all 8. That gives you an opportunity to either focus down the Carriers or if they teleport back, go and destroy an expansion.
Ah, those terran problems i totally forgot about. I do not believe in carrier based TvP, but if someone got issues with that i don't mind it. It just never crossed my mind why on earth i would want carriers in this MU. I guess it's just a sequence of T going mech, as you guys discussed previously... I was talking about PvZ and PvP for the most part, where i can clearly see a much smoother transitoion to carriers in a midgame. And i really don't like it.
On November 16 2018 08:58 DieuCure wrote: Players who care more about Thor vs Carrier than 3rax in TvT ...
Why worry about a mirror matchup? You can easily hold a 3 rax by going 2 rax factory or even 1-1-1 if you have good worker micro.
You must be trolling.
Are we talking about the same thing? I assumed you meant 3 rax proxy reaper? I used to hold it all the time back when it was popular, without making cyclones. 1-1-1 opening was tricky to hold it with, but that is just because my micro is not good. As soon as switched to 2 rax, 1 factory it become very easy to hold proxy 3 rax reaper.
I was confused about the Ultraliks Anabolic Syntesis upgrade, as I just came back to SC2 after a 3 year break from LOTV multiplayer, when I noticed you left out so many balance changes in the post above. The full notes are in the link, and I was wondering why did you not include all the notes here as per usual?
On November 18 2018 07:39 Athenau wrote: Uthermal playing (on the balance test mod) a crazy Cyclone-Hellion-Banshee into Cyclone-Hellion-Raven-BC game against Namshar:
That game was quite boring. Every part of mech that makes it interesting revolves around tanks and to some degree widow mines. If you take away that it just feels like a slower version of bio.
Positioning tanks and mines, moving your army and outmaneuvering your opponent is interesting, it is like a fast version of chess. Running around with cyclone/hellion is just like running around with a bioball, except slower.
On November 18 2018 07:39 Athenau wrote: Uthermal playing (on the balance test mod) a crazy Cyclone-Hellion-Banshee into Cyclone-Hellion-Raven-BC game against Namshar:
That game was quite boring. Every part of mech that makes it interesting revolves around tanks and to some degree widow mines. If you take away that it just feels like a slower version of bio.
Positioning tanks and mines, moving your army and outmaneuvering your opponent is interesting, it is like a fast version of chess. Running around with cyclone/hellion is just like running around with a bioball, except slower.
I'm not convinced by the Banshee transition myself, but there's nothing preventing people from playing Cyclone-Hellion with tanks for defense instead.
Playing pure tower-defence with tanks is boring as well. It's the mix of slower, positional units and faster harassing units that makes mech interesting, like the BW tank-vulture-goliath combo. Unfortunately, in SC2 Hellions alone are too limiting which is where the reverted Cyclones fill the gap.
On November 14 2018 15:35 hiroshOne wrote: Well i really hope they will revert creep and queen nerfs. It's too much impact on early and lategame of Zerg. And no additional buffs to compensate that.
Am I the only one who remembers it was going to be EITHER queen range OR faster spore crawler burrow, 'they are just testing out both for now' ?
On November 18 2018 07:39 Athenau wrote: Uthermal playing (on the balance test mod) a crazy Cyclone-Hellion-Banshee into Cyclone-Hellion-Raven-BC game against Namshar:
That game was quite boring. Every part of mech that makes it interesting revolves around tanks and to some degree widow mines. If you take away that it just feels like a slower version of bio.
Positioning tanks and mines, moving your army and outmaneuvering your opponent is interesting, it is like a fast version of chess. Running around with cyclone/hellion is just like running around with a bioball, except slower.
I could not disagree more, that play style is super fun to watch and a breath of fresh air.
On November 19 2018 19:57 JAG.war wrote: Is anyone else concerned about Protoss chances in 2019 considering they didn't get the same buffs as Terran and Zerg, and barely won anything in 2018?
Not really. The problem with Protoss is that their top players are slightly worse compared to Zerg and Terran top players.
Protoss have several good players but none on Serral or Maru level, so until they get one I suspect they will get less tournament wins.
How the balance is after the patch is almost impossible to know yet. I fear that Disruptor/Tempest/HT might be broken but I hope I am wrong.
On November 18 2018 07:39 Athenau wrote: Uthermal playing (on the balance test mod) a crazy Cyclone-Hellion-Banshee into Cyclone-Hellion-Raven-BC game against Namshar:
After watching this game, i am superhyped for Gumiho in 2019! Just to make things clear, I am not saying he is going to be Maru Serral level, i am just saying i am waiting to see how he is gonna utilize Terran mech after the patch. I think he already has many "never seen before" strats..
On November 18 2018 07:39 Athenau wrote: Uthermal playing (on the balance test mod) a crazy Cyclone-Hellion-Banshee into Cyclone-Hellion-Raven-BC game against Namshar:
After watching this game, i am superhyped for Gumiho in 2019! Just to make things clear, I am not saying he is going to be Maru Serral level, i am just saying i am waiting to see how he is gonna utilize Terran mech after the patch. I think he already has many "never seen before" strats..
I asked GuMiho on twitch chat if he liked the "new" lock-on cyclone and he said (paraphrasing):
"no. not strong enough. fighting protoss is going to be harder"
maybe he was just in a bad mood or feeling pessimistic in that moment. also, this was before the 3 supply change was announced.
I am #1 gumiho fan and yes, I have your attitude. the cyclone feels much more like a core unit now. the spiritual successor of vultures.
can't wait to see some 8-factory armored hellion / cyclone / widow mine vZ, and maybe some high-level ground mech vP (big maybe...)
On November 18 2018 07:39 Athenau wrote: Uthermal playing (on the balance test mod) a crazy Cyclone-Hellion-Banshee into Cyclone-Hellion-Raven-BC game against Namshar:
After watching this game, i am superhyped for Gumiho in 2019! Just to make things clear, I am not saying he is going to be Maru Serral level, i am just saying i am waiting to see how he is gonna utilize Terran mech after the patch. I think he already has many "never seen before" strats..
I asked GuMiho on twitch chat if he liked the "new" lock-on cyclone and he said (paraphrasing):
"no. not strong enough. fighting protoss is going to be harder"
maybe he was just in a bad mood or feeling pessimistic in that moment. also, this was before the 3 supply change was announced.
I am #1 gumiho fan and yes, I have your attitude. the cyclone feels much more like a core unit now. the spiritual successor of vultures.
can't wait to see some 8-factory armored hellion / cyclone / widow mine vZ, and maybe some high-level ground mech vP (big maybe...)
Eh, pros play the game for a living, so they're going to focus on immediate problems rather than pie-in-the-sky theorycrafting. Like, if Gumiho thinks TvP is hopeless without proxies, of course he's going to have a negative opinion of the patch, regardless of how much cool stuff he could potentially do with Cyclone/Hellion in TvZ or whatever.
Ask him again in a couple of weeks, if you have a chance.
On November 19 2018 19:57 JAG.war wrote: Is anyone else concerned about Protoss chances in 2019 considering they didn't get the same buffs as Terran and Zerg, and barely won anything in 2018?
I am concerned that PvZ is going to turn into a turtlefest favouring Zerg since Protoss can't really pick fights with the new tempests in the way the can with current carriers, and the new carriers are much more susceptible to losing all their interceptors and being out of the game for longer. The new tempests having such low health makes mass spores with viper/corruptor/queen quite good since they can easily kill any tempests grabbed by the vipers and the tempests will die quickly if they ever have to fight in range of the spores. Given that a lot of the Zerg pros, at least in the European scene, haven't exactly shied away from turtle styles in the past, combined with these styles indirectly getting buffed by the carrier nerf, makes me think that we're going to be seeing a lot more of it.
PvT is much harder to judge. The return of cloaked mines could make bio with mines a lot better again and the new/old cyclone could make a more mobile form of mech viable too. The reverted disruptor sounds like it's a wash in terms of how it will impact the matchup from what most pros have said since the current one worked quite well. The guardian shield buff will help a bit.
The only actual buffs Protoss got were basically the tempest change, the 50/50 cost reduction to the robo bay (which isn't impactful unless you're doing some weird early speed prism build or distruptor build), the small sentry changes, the DT blink changes (which still amount to it never being used), and the whopping 15% decrease in void ray prismatic speed reduction (which is about as meaningful as the DT blink changes. If you need to run void rays away you can cancel prismatic alignment anyway). Everything else was either an outright nerf or a neutral change that doesn't impact anything.
The carrier definitely needed to be changed, but I'm going to remain skeptical of how they have filled the gap in the Protoss composition that the old carrier filled. The new tempest is situationally better, but not necessarily better against some of the compositions the old carrier was good against.
1.- WM only get cloack AFTER drilling claws. 2.- You just need a detector, wich its pretty much a given anyway, if you don't have good vision a bio drop would kill you anyway, WM or not.
The patch is live on NA, at least. If you check the unit stats and whatnot they represent the adjusted changes, as well as there is a new map pool already. The season hasn't changed which is very odd and it definitely says nov 21 now. I think someone goofed somewhere, but the patch IS live.
edit: Yes, someone definitely goofed on that "nov 21" thing. The new season is now live as of 12:49 central us time.
Battlecruisers were trash and still too weak for a late game expensive T3 unit with a high production time.
-1 armor for the thor is pretty bad, double medivac-thor haras become significantly weaker.
Bunkers with a Neosteel frame have never been used, still, new upgrade Neosteel armor is the same as Structure Armor both cost and research time. And there is no real need to use high capacity bunkers in the late game. The only possibility to make a worthy upgrade "Neosteel armor" is to reduce its research time to allow terrans to use it while defense at the early stages of the game. High capacity bunker with an increased armor could be an interesting choice to deal with all-ins, but 100 sec production time is too high. It should be taken into consideration reduced time of research like 57 (like for Hi-sec auto-tracking).
Swarm hosts are imba and should be nerfed. To easy to play with them but to hard to play against.
No slight hydra nerf is also bad both for terrans and protoss. It also should be considered once again.
Also, I would pay attention to the fact that a lot of Terran spells are interrupted by damage (as for ghosts) or by abduct (for BCs). It should be a good choice to remove interruption of snipeshots to deal with broodlords and vipers more effective and work with BCs to make them more effective and/or give immunity for adbuct.
I do not understand why there are no significant changes for TvP, where toss could make just a-click unit composition and win (zealots-archons-immortals) or even mass zealots with stalkers could be a good limit to deal with Terran pushes within mid-game. Maybe pro players like Maru could deal with it. But even them used to create proxy meta as its the only choice to take some advantage to have a chance to win a protoss. As well as widely used 2 bases all-ins from terrans say that it too hard to deal with protoss.
And the last short comment of DT's change: Are you serious? The unit which been buffed from time to time get bigger buff? Cool. Imba DT's become more op.
On November 21 2018 07:24 DomeGetta wrote: Not sure if this has been asked and answered already..but is there any way to manually put burrow and unburrow back on one key?
but it doesn't seem to work for swarm hosts.
I really hate that burrow/unburrow change, so unnecessary. Change is bad.
On November 21 2018 15:38 CadoEverto wrote: Also, I would pay attention to the fact that a lot of Terran spells are interrupted by damage (as for ghosts) or by abduct (for BCs). It should be a good choice to remove interruption of snipeshots to deal with broodlords and vipers more effective and work with BCs to make them more effective and/or give immunity for adbuct.
I have thought for the longest time that massive units should be immune to abduct. It doesn't make a lot of sense anyway and usually looks ridiculous, and it would also prevent cheap snipes like against a Mothership.
To make this not too much of a nerf, Tempests should lose the massive tag, so there is still some interaction between Vipers and Airtoss armies. With this patch Tempests have been moved away from the siege/capital ship status so the tag isn't that fitting anymore in any case.
I think for the most part the new cyclone is better but in TvP the fact that it doesn't exist as a nonaddon unit takes away a lot of our early game options as well as making terrans incredibly vulnerable to early game attacks. I also think by the time the new cyclone does come it dies too quickly. Perhaps making its hp at least somewhere been 140-150 may be a decent idea. Cause now we are just stuck opening standard or just proxying a reaper which puts us back to where we were the last patch where standard games against toss put us at a disadvantage.
On November 22 2018 00:09 Ryu3600 wrote: I think for the most part the new cyclone is better but in TvP the fact that it doesn't exist as a nonaddon unit takes away a lot of our early game options as well as making terrans incredibly vulnerable to early game attacks. I also think by the time the new cyclone does come it dies too quickly. Perhaps making its hp at least somewhere been 140-150 may be a decent idea. Cause now we are just stuck opening standard or just proxying a reaper which puts us back to where we were the last patch where standard games against toss put us at a disadvantage.
I have an ok success with them in TvP but what I've seen on streams do shows that they are on the weak side in TvP, mostly due to how fast a protoss can get stalkers other and tech. I think they should lower the build time of cyclones, it would help with what they are supposed to do in the early game, besides helping mech deal with quick tech transitions. The cyclone is supposed to be a jack of all trades.
On November 21 2018 07:24 DomeGetta wrote: Not sure if this has been asked and answered already..but is there any way to manually put burrow and unburrow back on one key?
I really hate that burrow/unburrow change, so unnecessary. Change is bad.
Appreciate the reply. Does not work for me at all..guy goes a but nuts during the explanation and contradicts himself so might be doing it wrong lol. thx tho hopefully i figure it out
On November 22 2018 01:38 Hvvacha wrote: at 1h39m15s there's a bug with yamato since test map, sometimes it's getting cancelled for some reason.
Did it change to only work while seeing the target? It looks like the target went out of vision and the yamato got cancelled. If that is intended, that would be a notable change.
On November 22 2018 00:09 Ryu3600 wrote: I think for the most part the new cyclone is better but in TvP the fact that it doesn't exist as a nonaddon unit takes away a lot of our early game options as well as making terrans incredibly vulnerable to early game attacks. I also think by the time the new cyclone does come it dies too quickly. Perhaps making its hp at least somewhere been 140-150 may be a decent idea. Cause now we are just stuck opening standard or just proxying a reaper which puts us back to where we were the last patch where standard games against toss put us at a disadvantage.
I have an ok success with them in TvP but what I've seen on streams do shows that they are on the weak side in TvP, mostly due to how fast a protoss can get stalkers other and tech. I think they should lower the build time of cyclones, it would help with what they are supposed to do in the early game, besides helping mech deal with quick tech transitions. The cyclone is supposed to be a jack of all trades.
On November 22 2018 00:09 Ryu3600 wrote: I think for the most part the new cyclone is better but in TvP the fact that it doesn't exist as a nonaddon unit takes away a lot of our early game options as well as making terrans incredibly vulnerable to early game attacks. I also think by the time the new cyclone does come it dies too quickly. Perhaps making its hp at least somewhere been 140-150 may be a decent idea. Cause now we are just stuck opening standard or just proxying a reaper which puts us back to where we were the last patch where standard games against toss put us at a disadvantage.
I have an ok success with them in TvP but what I've seen on streams do shows that they are on the weak side in TvP, mostly due to how fast a protoss can get stalkers other and tech. I think they should lower the build time of cyclones, it would help with what they are supposed to do in the early game, besides helping mech deal with quick tech transitions. The cyclone is supposed to be a jack of all trades.
it needs more HP or it needs to be a reactor unit
No it does not and no, terrans do not need early game/proxy variety, cyclone got changed exactly because of that. It was official blizzard statement.
On November 22 2018 01:38 Hvvacha wrote: at 1h39m15s there's a bug with yamato since test map, sometimes it's getting cancelled for some reason.
Did it change to only work while seeing the target? It looks like the target went out of vision and the yamato got cancelled. If that is intended, that would be a notable change.
nvm, 2 yamato got cancelled because they was targeting same tempest that was killed by mines.
As terran, the most noticable change is new Cyclone. I have played several games myself, and watched few streamers, and still can't find the role for it.
Before change cyclone for me was jack of all trades defensive unit, especially vs protoss where number of early options viable for them is too big and too versatile to count. Right now, lower HP and tech lab requirement, make it to be easily overwhelmed by stalkers, which it used to counter.
Massing them is really not viable, due to low HP. I tried using them to pick heavy hitters like carriers, but didn't found much success with that either. So far it seems like dead unit.
On November 22 2018 16:43 megamanx32 wrote: As terran, the most noticable change is new Cyclone. I have played several games myself, and watched few streamers, and still can't find the role for it.
Before change cyclone for me was jack of all trades defensive unit, especially vs protoss where number of early options viable for them is too big and too versatile to count. Right now, lower HP and tech lab requirement, make it to be easily overwhelmed by stalkers, which it used to counter.
Massing them is really not viable, due to low HP. I tried using them to pick heavy hitters like carriers, but didn't found much success with that either. So far it seems like dead unit.
I have used them successfully against proxy void ray/shield batteries but apart from that, they seem useless.
They are simply too fragile to be used outside of early game.
On November 22 2018 00:09 Ryu3600 wrote: I think for the most part the new cyclone is better but in TvP the fact that it doesn't exist as a nonaddon unit takes away a lot of our early game options as well as making terrans incredibly vulnerable to early game attacks. I also think by the time the new cyclone does come it dies too quickly. Perhaps making its hp at least somewhere been 140-150 may be a decent idea. Cause now we are just stuck opening standard or just proxying a reaper which puts us back to where we were the last patch where standard games against toss put us at a disadvantage.
I have an ok success with them in TvP but what I've seen on streams do shows that they are on the weak side in TvP, mostly due to how fast a protoss can get stalkers other and tech. I think they should lower the build time of cyclones, it would help with what they are supposed to do in the early game, besides helping mech deal with quick tech transitions. The cyclone is supposed to be a jack of all trades.
it needs more HP or it needs to be a reactor unit
No it does not and no, terrans do not need early game/proxy variety, cyclone got changed exactly because of that. It was official blizzard statement.
I mean what do you suggest we make vs Protoss who go for 2gate now lol the unit is very squishy, it works GREAT in TvZ and its okay defensively (If the toss doesn't cheese you) vs Warp prisms etc and it has some use vs Terran but the HP is probably needed the unit is very squishy 2 tank shots can kill them (Even in splash range). Protoss is very powerful rn the whole reason we have been proxying is that we kind of needed to. If you actually go onto TY's stream he wins 1 in 5 maybe 1 in 6 TvP's. The presence of the old cyclone being an option from the reactor was what made Terran's safe from certain Protoss cheeses. Now in most scenarios, it almost makes more sense to just opt for a tank and only get a cyclone if you've got a successful opening into 3-1-1/1-3-1 or 3CC
They should also do something about infestor... I haven't seen one of those in ages. That unit has no place in current meta.
The more I play this patch, I am less than satisfied with actual results. I have to note that i play mech, in all three matchups. I have already stated my view on cyclone, he was my staple unit against protoss. Now he is empty slot.
Now the second is was more interesting. Thor was changed in order to be slayer of other giants. On paper, these changes have made this so, one on one, thor better handles carriers and brodlords. But when I actually play he seems a lot weaker. I badly lost against broodlord composition that usually win against. That one armor was really helpful when dealing with zerglings and broodlings, and made thor more durable so he can snipe BL. So while in theory he should be giant slayer, he is now neither, a unit without identity.
The only mech buff that i find any meaningful is widow mine permanent clock with drilling claws, but I have yet to find composition that exploits that.
The only mech buff that i find any meaningful is widow mine permanent clock with drilling claws, but I have yet to find composition that exploits that.
WMs being able to cloak again also helps make them more usable vs Carriers and air armies late game since they don't auto die.
In general they are also more useful again because you can scatter a few around the map in key areas like to block or harass far expos, since they cloak back it is harder for the opponent to find them and you can move the WMs around.
I really like the WM change, it is a nice middle ground now.
But for Cyclone? My issue from trying it is it comes out too slow to be used in the early game, and it is not good enough of a unit to waste a Factory Tech Lab's worth of production on. It seems decent against stargate proxy all-ins, and that's it.
Like maybe, you could make 1 or 2 Cyclones to help defend against early game WP drop play, or such, instead of building turrets, and that's it...?
Cyclones have too low HP and too low initial lock down range so anything after early game they just die when you try to lock down high value or high HP units. And them not being reactorable sucks for how fragile and weak they are overall. The 3 supply for them also hurts because it is a bit high and takes too much supply for mech for them to be an appealing choice. To think it was considered they'd be 4 supply...
The one other use I can imagine them for, (and was one of the primary goals of the change), is that they can be used mech TvP to help counter an air transition. Or at least you don't auto die if you weren't prepared with 4 reactored stargates with vikings. Making ~6 Cyclones in this situation seems it can be useful vs a surprise 2-4 Carriers but they can still be targetted down by the Carriers and storm and immortals are effective against them... Before they used to be fine vs immortals but now they lose hard to them, and immortals are important in late game to support airtoss vs mech.
Overall even when talking about dealing with a sudden airtoss transition vs mech, I think I would prefer to just make the new buffed Thors with those factory tech labs, rather than Cyclones which can be targetted down too easily and die to storm/immortals much faster.
If anyone has ideas or experience getting them to fulfill some interesting roles, please do share!
I have signed up just to write this post. I have played many games now on ladder with all three races, but specifically with mech Terran. I play all three races, but my main at the moment is Terran and i exclusively play Mech. Thats why I was curious to find out whether the new patch made significant changes to make mech more viable.
TERRAN:
Cyclones - first i had hope that the Cyclone changes were positive, but as pointed out by the previous users, the Cyclones are way too squishy, they only have an early game role. If not backed up by blink-stalkers or sentries, they can snipe single immortals which is good. BUT they dont have a mid game/late game role as suggested by blizzard. They have way too low HP and the Lock-On range is too small which means having 10 cyclones doesnt have an advantage over 4, because simply they cant get in range to shoot before being totally destroyed (because of their low hp). Cyclone change = fail
Widow Mines - good change, makes them more viable overall. Without being overpowered in early game (cause in early game you wont have drilling claws)
Thor - what sounded like a buff is actually a nerf, i have not managed to defeat Brutelords or any sort of Skyarmy (from Toss) with it. Maybe 2-3 carriers ok. But as soon as Voids and Tempests are in the Mix they are total trash mostly because their armor is greatly reduced (same is true against brutes, Mix in a few swarmhosts and the reduced armor kills them immideatly). They feel like the new cyclones - too squishy. Thordrops or Thorpushes against Zerg? Forget it, they die way too quickly now. The Thor is almost being eliminated out of the game with the recent patch which is very sad. It is a big, chunky, slow Unit that gets countered by almost everything, what is the point of that? Big, clunky units are supposed to be strong. With the reduced range and Armor even smaller swarms of Mutas just snipe Thors.
Protoss: Carriers - good nerf, Carriers used to be too strong, especially in Teamgames.
Tempest - If you play Protoss youll like the change they are very fun to use BUT they are the new carriers. Once theres Storm and a few tempests its literally impossible to push against the Protoss army being Terran. Vikings can get in range because they get stormed. Thors just get sniped and kited by the tempest. BCs well you know the answer, outranged by them.
Disruptor - fun change back to the previous state, they are harder to use but generate greater damage
OVERALL: decent patch for Bio-Terrans with the widow mines. Complete failure for Mech-Players. win for all Protoss players.
Speaking for MECH Terran:
Swarmhosts need a fix. Tempests need a fix, Thors need a fix (not reduce its armor and range). I really wonder if the people that make the changes have feedback from users that actually play the game.
Cyclone feels good for defensive TvP openers. Eschew the starport for a while.. Reaper FE into reactor with tech lab factory for cyclone and if needed a tank, otherwise swap rax to tech lab for stim and get 3 rax and +1 going. Very safe, defensive, macro oriented play leading very well into a 3rd base. Can hit a very strong ground based timing against greedy thirds too. If P opts for 3 base 8 gate, turtling with upgrades is still a viable option.
basically my opinion of the cyclone is it lets you "save money" by not getting the starport (safe from nearly everything without starport now) and can put that money into more long term focused things. Can't play too defensive because then protoss gets a ton of splash. Definitely reminds me of hots era play somewhat. This is just how i've been approaching the matchup - YMMV
also cyclone change has done wonders for TvT. Really cool builds out there right now revolving around the early game defensive capabilities of Cyclone.
On November 25 2018 04:10 julhart69 wrote: I have signed up just to write this post. I have played many games now on ladder with all three races, but specifically with mech Terran. I play all three races, but my main at the moment is Terran and i exclusively play Mech. Thats why I was curious to find out whether the new patch made significant changes to make mech more viable.
TERRAN:
Cyclones - first i had hope that the Cyclone changes were positive, but as pointed out by the previous users, the Cyclones are way too squishy, they only have an early game role. If not backed up by blink-stalkers or sentries, they can snipe single immortals which is good. BUT they dont have a mid game/late game role as suggested by blizzard. They have way too low HP and the Lock-On range is too small which means having 10 cyclones doesnt have an advantage over 4, because simply they cant get in range to shoot before being totally destroyed (because of their low hp). Cyclone change = fail
Widow Mines - good change, makes them more viable overall. Without being overpowered in early game (cause in early game you wont have drilling claws)
Thor - what sounded like a buff is actually a nerf, i have not managed to defeat Brutelords or any sort of Skyarmy (from Toss) with it. Maybe 2-3 carriers ok. But as soon as Voids and Tempests are in the Mix they are total trash mostly because their armor is greatly reduced (same is true against brutes, Mix in a few swarmhosts and the reduced armor kills them immideatly). They feel like the new cyclones - too squishy. Thordrops or Thorpushes against Zerg? Forget it, they die way too quickly now. The Thor is almost being eliminated out of the game with the recent patch which is very sad. It is a big, chunky, slow Unit that gets countered by almost everything, what is the point of that? Big, clunky units are supposed to be strong. With the reduced range and Armor even smaller swarms of Mutas just snipe Thors.
Protoss: Carriers - good nerf, Carriers used to be too strong, especially in Teamgames.
Tempest - If you play Protoss youll like the change they are very fun to use BUT they are the new carriers. Once theres Storm and a few tempests its literally impossible to push against the Protoss army being Terran. Vikings can get in range because they get stormed. Thors just get sniped and kited by the tempest. BCs well you know the answer, outranged by them.
Disruptor - fun change back to the previous state, they are harder to use but generate greater damage
OVERALL: decent patch for Bio-Terrans with the widow mines. Complete failure for Mech-Players. win for all Protoss players.
Speaking for MECH Terran:
Swarmhosts need a fix. Tempests need a fix, Thors need a fix (not reduce its armor and range). I really wonder if the people that make the changes have feedback from users that actually play the game.
Well my experience using only mech on the new patch is the following:
TvT is the same, both mech and bio works.
TvZ mech is slightly better in the late game now, thors do excellent against smaller number of broodlords. I do not think Swarm Hosts are OP vs mech, they are a bit to cost efficient but they can be managed either by a) counter attacking OR b) Go up to 200 supply and taking advantage of Swarm Hosts not being supply efficient.
The key to neutralize Swarm Hosts is placing your army in the middle of the map, if you place your army too defensively you will eventually lose the game.
TvP mech is the same as pre patch. Mech can handle ground units, even tripple robo immortals or zealot/archons can be handled by tanks, hellbats and mines.
But sky Protoss is still impossible to fight. Carriers are still OP vs all mech units except BCs. And BCs get even more hard countered by new Tempest.
Basically mech can only work vs Protoss if the Protoss player is polite enough to stay on ground units.
I played a few games. Protoss blink build against a terran going 4 2 rax fact. Messed his business up with 3 blink stalkers as he moved out. He took out my natural, and traded well against my blink stalkers back at home. I was at a 3k resource disadvantage, but I had +1 upgraded, and almost +2, and I still had some blink stalkers. And, my 3 retreating blink stalkers caught 3 empty medivacs. His widow-mine drop did 8 probes of damage and I killed the mines and his medivac. I retook my natural at my 3rd. As he drove me back from his 3rd, where I killed a CC and a few scvs with chargelots, he kept stimming to gun down a few zealots at a time. All the way back to my base, where I took a good engagement. I destroyed supply depots and an upgrading Ebay at his main with 8 blink stalkers. With +3, I was very efficient and got ANOTHER medivac (#9). All I did was get blink and charge and have good blink timing. I was at 46 supply, and he was at 84 but he said GG and left because he overestimated my economy from the 3rd. Lol.
I am glad Blizzard is willing to make changes to improve the game as much as possible even if it may mean reverting changes that were once needed, but with this patch I am worried about many things especially regarding mech.
1) Thor armor and splash revert
Back then Mutas started to be really strong especially vs Mech so they increased the thor splash and thor armor. Honestly even back then, I was thinking the thor splash was perhaps too good, since 0.6 radius means it will splash a lot more even if magic box'd than compared to 0.5 radius. The armor was helpful too because as others said, it really helped the Thor not die to a buncha low tier units like zerglings, marines, and also helped against carriers and BCs. The 2 armor change for the Thor made a ton of sense.
I'm really not feeling the armor revert on the thor. Perhaps the splash revert to 0.5 from 0.6, but maybe keep the armor as 2? That would be a decent middleground I think. The thor would be much more durable that way and be able to fight the big units it's supposed to take down like BCs, Carriers, and Broodlords, while also not being countered as hard against things like zerglings, zealots, and marines. I think the 2 armor buff was very elegant at addressing several issues with the thor at once and I am sad to see it back to 1 armor.
2) Ghost mineral/gas cost revert to 150/150 from 200/100 (from a previous patch) The cost was changed to 200/100 way back then when Terrans started to really abuse EMP vs protoss and it was deemed too strong. So the cost was changed to 200/100 from 150/150 because bio does not need the gas as much but they need the minerals, while mech needed ghosts and didn't need minerals. So this was elegant because it helped mech get the support units it needs while making it less dominant for bio. Now after many years, it is reverted back. It is even harder to use Ghosts with mech, since you have to tech to them and they cost more gas. It is already harder to get ghosts in time compared to HotS because now you expand and tech up faster in general, and mech already needs to focus as many resources as it can into getting enough army to defend against Protoss and take a third base. Back then mech TvP was fine and even had time to comfortably add in ghosts once you got 3 base, now I don't feel like adding ghosts until 4 base.
Another thing that makes ghost change hurt even more for mech, is that the new Immortal shields now being temporary ~350 already makes ghost and EMP much less effective than back then. The old hardened shields which reduced damage to 10 was too polarizing indeed, but in terms of early-mid fights against mech, a couple EMPs made a huge difference because you can immediately get rid of the hardened shields. Now, you can't do that anymore.
3) Cyclones now no longer being a reliable and multi-purpose units early and mid game (TvP and TvZ at least) Being able to add cyclones early game really helped not just terran but especially mech players to have a solid opening. It didn't mean you were automatically safe against everything, as you still had to scout, position your cyclones to catch harass, decide whether to poke their expansion or keep them at home, whether to try to micro vs the stalkers, etc. I really miss the interactions of having the previous cyclones, and all the little action happening across the map as you try to fight for an advantage going into mid game.
Now you have less flexibility and in general you don't have as good of an all-rounder unit anymore. Perhaps other races prefer this as cyclones were probably a little too oppressive/polarizing though.
I also liked that Cyclones had use in mid game as well, as they did pretty fine vs Protoss armies. They didn't instantly die to immortals; sure they take huge damage, but they also dish huge damage back at the Immortals. They weren't the best unit in all situations but they were nice to have and made sure that protoss can't surprise you with just a few air units and crush your army. They were a nice unit to consider adding to your army, which really helped considering the ghost is less useful and more gas expensive now. But now we have lost this role of the cyclone too and TvP mech has even less options now.
4) Tempests being a polarizing unit now I really don't like the idea of super long ranged units doing so much damage while also being mobile. I think the old/previous idea of it having 6 supply and thus not being a deathball-massable unit, but being a useful support unit for the range, was good. I understand it had pretty niche uses in many situations and that it could be improved, but I do not think making a unit like this have mobility makes sense. It further speeds up the game and lessens the importance of careful, positional play. I think that takes away a lot of the suspense and fun when it comes to late game compositions with these powerful units.
I can understand giving it a little more speed, but I do not get making them cheaper and weaker, but keeping the long range and damage with increased speed. Sure they are weaker and can be killed much easier, but it just seems polarizing to me, and polarizing interactions should be avoided. If we want to make them 5 supply and cheaper to make, then can't we maybe nerf the damage slightly if you want to also make it much faster? Because as is, if the Terran can't even approach or engage your army without losing a ton to storm and tempest fire, then the Tempest being more fragile really doesn't matter. The lower durability only matters once an engagement happens, and I thought a direction SC2 had a lot of success in taking was lessening the commitment needed to engage, because it resulted in deathball situations where no one wanted to fight because of the risk in WoL especially but also HotS to a lesser extent. And tempests being 5 supply instead of 6, also contributes to the polarizing nature because you can now have even more tempests shooting before the terran gets to engage and take advantage of the lower durability.
Giving the tempests so much speed while keeping its high range and damage output simply will help cause the return of the old tempest/HT compositions that we got rid of for a good reason. I think buffing the speed to make them even better at kiting and picking stuff off, lowering the supply and cost thus allowing them to be more massable, all without reducing the damage doesn't make much sense and will force the opponent to run away or go all-in because it would hurt more to re-engage.
This kind of polarity applies to the new Cyclones as well. Sure with the upgrade they can do 800 damage to armored over 14 seconds, but... you need to be within 5 range to start lock on, and realistically you need to be closer than that to get all your cyclones to cleanly lockon. So it's an all or nothing thing, you go all the way in and get the lock ons, or you just avoid battle and try to turtle up to a more comfortable deathball because you're afraid to engage and make a wrong call.
A good example of reducing polarity though, is the new Carrier change. They made them more of a high durability support unit that can harass and poke and control space, rather than a deathball unit that just bursts things down before they get to return fire. It is less committal to engage with the carriers, making things like pokes much more viable and that leads to more player interactions. You don't have to run away, try to turtle to get the deathball you need to fight the carriers, and then go all-in on one fight.
I would like this direction to be kept in mind with the Tempest change and the Cyclone changes too. And if it was intentionally decided against, I would like to understand Blizzard's thoughts better.
Extremely disappointed with the patch thus far. The Cyclone removal gutted terran early game and the thor nerf made mech much harder to play. The Zerg Creep and transfuse changes were completely unnecessary and nerfed Zerg for no reason. They weren't performing that well before except for Serral. I think it's clear at this point that Blizzard has no "vision" for the game anymore and just keep making random changes to "shake things up". Wish they would've abondoned balancing multiplayer earlier. At least Disruptor, Carrier, Infestor and thor AA splash changes are good.
Oh the Cyclone removal also ruined TvT because it's so much more volatile now.
Also they have done the opposite of what they promised in terms of lategame. they said they wanted to equalize lategame but instead they've left terran lategame unchanged and buffed P/Z lategame (Ultra and tempest buff).
Early cyclone is amazing early game people need to learn to use again since theres no unit that has any comparable micro in the terran arsenal.
That being said they are indeed too weak because the removal of the MsC gave protoss much faster tech paths, either an HP buff (to help them in midgame) or shorter build times (to help tech to them faster) would be ok. Making them buildable withouth a tech lab its also a choice but its too soon to say if they would be too strong in such a situation.
On November 26 2018 01:39 Lexender wrote: Early cyclone is amazing early game people need to learn to use again since theres no unit that has any comparable micro in the terran arsenal.
That being said they are indeed too weak because the removal of the MsC gave protoss much faster tech paths, either an HP buff (to help them in midgame) or shorter build times (to help tech to them faster) would be ok. Making them buildable withouth a tech lab its also a choice but its too soon to say if they would be too strong in such a situation.
If they end up being too weak mid-late (still TBD IMO), giving lock-on +1 range with hi-sec autotracking would be a good option.
On November 26 2018 09:26 FBTsingLoong wrote: Does anyone notice the interceptor's shield is reduced from 40 to 35?It was found in Chinese community some days ago. Look at the red circle in the picture below,you guys may not understand Chinese words,but you must know the numbers. https://imgsa.baidu.com/forum/pic/item/2d2509f7905298229ebad784daca7bcb0b46d4f7.jpg
On November 26 2018 09:26 FBTsingLoong wrote: Does anyone notice the interceptor's shield is reduced from 40 to 35?It was found in Chinese community some days ago. Look at the red circle in the picture below,you guys may not understand Chinese words,but you must know the numbers. https://imgsa.baidu.com/forum/pic/item/2d2509f7905298229ebad784daca7bcb0b46d4f7.jpg
On November 26 2018 09:26 FBTsingLoong wrote: Does anyone notice the interceptor's shield is reduced from 40 to 35?It was found in Chinese community some days ago. Look at the red circle in the picture below,you guys may not understand Chinese words,but you must know the numbers. https://imgsa.baidu.com/forum/pic/item/2d2509f7905298229ebad784daca7bcb0b46d4f7.jpg
Did you link the wrong image? Haha
umm,what do you mean "wrong image"?you can't open that website?
On November 26 2018 09:26 FBTsingLoong wrote: Does anyone notice the interceptor's shield is reduced from 40 to 35?It was found in Chinese community some days ago. Look at the red circle in the picture below,you guys may not understand Chinese words,but you must know the numbers. https://imgsa.baidu.com/forum/pic/item/2d2509f7905298229ebad784daca7bcb0b46d4f7.jpg
Did you link the wrong image? Haha
umm,what do you mean "wrong image"?you can't open that website?
Do not use baidu pic as a reliable image source.
Oh,sorry,I didn't know that.So what image source should I use?
I like the design changes for Tempest (faster, less hp, cheaper, less supply, better acceleration).
Problem is that the new Tempest is simply too good. They are so fast and have such long range that the units that are supposed to counter them can not do their job.
Vikings do not work since Tempest can kite them from 15 range and need to travel over half the map until they finally reach them, eating storms, archon splash and stalker fire in the meantime. Basically Viking do not work at all against Tempest.
Thors while beating Tempest in a straight up a-move battle does not work if the Tempest user kite. Since both units have the same ground range only a few of the Thors can get in range but almost all Tempest can due to how air units can stack.
15/10 range made sense back when Tempest were slow. Now when they are so fast the range need to be adjusted so that counter play is possible.
I suggest lowering the ground range to 9 and the air range to 13.
I agree. I play mech, and to be honest, new tempest, while on paper looks squishy has given me a lot of trouble. Good protoss players will just start massing them and defending if they see mech. And to be honest it is such a good unit when produced en mass.
I haven't found a way to counter them, they are almost insta gg for mech player. Vikings should in theory counter them, but not really. Tempest superior range nullifies kiting. Thor can do some good if only 2-3 tempest are present, but if not they are easily sniped by tempest. Battlecruiser while good at countering carrier, is not cost effective vs tempest.
Mech needs some way to deal with this. And if your advice is just kill him before he goes tempest, that doesn't really do it for me. I like long macro games, that are back and forth.
On December 02 2018 02:27 megamanx32 wrote: I agree. I play mech, and to be honest, new tempest, while on paper looks squishy has given me a lot of trouble. Good protoss players will just start massing them and defending if they see mech. And to be honest it is such a good unit when produced en mass.
I haven't found a way to counter them, they are almost insta gg for mech player. Vikings should in theory counter them, but not really. Tempest superior range nullifies kiting. Thor can do some good if only 2-3 tempest are present, but if not they are easily sniped by tempest. Battlecruiser while good at countering carrier, is not cost effective vs tempest.
Mech needs some way to deal with this. And if your advice is just kill him before he goes tempest, that doesn't really do it for me. I like long macro games, that are back and forth.
the problem is the overlap between goliaths, thors, vikings and liberator AA. if I was the big dick at blizz, I'd make the following changes:
1) remove thors from the game 2) new unit: goliaths + charon booster upgrade (+3 AA range) 3) replace the viking's lanzer torpedoes with a splash weapon (similar to the liberator's old AA weapon) 4) replace the liberator's lexington rockets with an aerial liberation zone (via the advanced ballistics upgrade)
the goliath would become the core AA mech unit, fulfilling the role of high impact payload. the charon boosters upgrade would fulfill the role of lanzer torpedoes.
the viking needs a different gimmick. you could give them a splash weapon, fulfilling the role of explosive payload. perhaps this would make vikings preferable vs mutas, phoenix and interceptors.
nobody builds liberators for AA splash. lexington rockets is a pointless attack and should be reworked to make the liberator's AA role more meaningful. I'll start with the crazy suggestions first:
advanced ballistics could be reworked to allow liberation zones to target air units. with the current range stats, advanced liberators would have 14 AA range in defender mode. this means tempests would only out-range them by 1. this is probably OP vZ... perfect opportunity to make the corruptor more interesting, or give it an upgrade. I hear that zergs also struggle vs the golden armada! if that's no good, make liberation zone AA also target friendly units. it's a crazy idea, but who knows? the liberator is a new unit after all... brand new technology for the terrans. write in the lore that they haven't mastered AA radar systems yet. and finally....... if liberation zone AA is completely unworkable, just give the liberator a simple move-and-fire (or scoot-and-shoot) 10 range, single-target, high-damage AA weapon and be done with it. liberators are pretty beefy, faster than the golden armada, and would do strong focus fire. basically, it would be a much stronger (and more expensive) version of the current viking's AA.
this would also fix the rock / paper / scissors shit that happens with bio / liberator vs lategame toss deathball + tempests. once tempests are on the field, bio terrans become desperate to end the game quickly because there is no answer to the tempests. well... the bio terran already invested so much in liberators to make him safe from the toss ground deathball. it doesn't make sense that those liberators should be rendered completely useless once toss climbs one rung higher in the tech tree. the real choice should be: how many liberators do I keep in siege mode (vs ground)? and how many should I keep flying, to help zone out the tempests? no more panic to mass vikings which inevitably get slaughtered by storms, archons, tempests and stalkers.
the cyclone has its own unique role which the goliath cannot imitate. lock-on is strong vs zerg ground units and as an early-game defense tool in the other match-ups. the goliath, on the other hand, is mediocre vs ground units and super strong vs long-ranged air units.
Some GM streamers claim that Swarm Hosts are OP vs mech. At my lower level (Diamond) I find that Swarm Hosts (and Zerg in general) is quite easy to deal with.
So is there consensus that Swarm Hosts are OP vs mech at higher levels? And if so, how come Swarm Hosts are no problem at lower level? Why is Diamond level mech vs Diamond Level Swarm Host easier compared to GM level mech vs GM level Swarm Host?
Swarmhosts have needed a hotfix since they came out with flying locust. Why this is still not removed from the game is disgusting, it's OP vs mech.
Mech changes are all bad - thor got - 1 armor for no reason, also dmg nerf to mutas....pretty bad. It is just as bad vs Protoss air as before.
Tempest now also are basically OP late game and replaced the carrier. I've played Protoss and against Protosses - it's laughable that BCS got "buffed" but it doesn't matter because as Protoss i can mass 15 tempest late game and 1 shot every BC while my tempest now move faster than before.
Cyclone change also screwed over TvT, more random cheese builds early game.
Overall, a pretty horrendous patch, mostly because of mech nerfs all across the board while not fixing mech issues (AKA SWARMHOSTS) while making mech counters worse (TEMPESTS).
I don't know how anyone can like the patch after over a week of playing, it's pretty bad considering there was no patch for 1+ yr and now we're stuck dealing with the game in a worse state.
But there's still people here that will claim it's fine because they like watching every Terran pro game be 5 barracks double reactor double tech lab reactor starport 1 factory every single game.
So, summed up:
-Mech worse because of random nerfs that were unnecessary (thor, cyclone nerfs) -Swarmhosts left unaddressed after 1.5+ yrs -tempests hyper buffed to be worse than carriers were last patch
Those are my thoughts.
Also, forgot to add they basically removed the raven from the game. Ravens went from being one of the most overpowered units in the game to being useless. Terran currently has no late game unit vs two races that have hyper scaling units (swarmhosts, broods, vipers, templar, tempests, carriers). Someone explain to me how this is good balance.
I can't say I'm enjoying this patch very much. Lategame PvZ is not fun at all. If the game last past the chargelot/archon/immortal vs. hydra/ling/bane phase it turns into a turtlefest while aiming for mass tempest with archon and storm, which is borderline as broken as mass carriers were before, but way more passive since tempests can't chew through stuff in the way the old carrier did. I've yet to have a lategame PvZ be less than 35-40 minutes, and it's never an exciting, fun lategame.
Same with PvT versus mech. The only effective option is tempest compositions. Nothing ground-based works once enough hellbat/tank is out, voidrays still suck, carriers are bad now (liberators can basically nullify them now since they can kill interceptors so fast and then it's over a minute to get the carriers back to full strength), so all that's left is tempests.
To me, the new tempest feels way too strong, but it's also kinda the only option available in the lategame now. I've noticed I've been playing substantially less since the patch came out, and I wouldn't be shocked if I stop again like I did in Heart of the Swarm when the old swarmhost was a thing. The game just feels stale to me now. The tempest is such a boring unit, and making it the key unit for protoss was a huge mistake.
I've played about 400 Terran games on this new patch. My MMR is a little over 5k. I like experimenting with new builds so I'm OK when I go on losing streaks to sacrifice losses for improvement and better gameplay.
Looking at my W/L I see the biggest impact is TvP. I mech versus all three races and my W/L has dropped 10% versus Protoss. It has dropped TvT too, but that is because of some non-friendly mech maps.
I attribute the sharp decline in TvP due to what we've seen in previous patches: The inability for Terran to punish Protoss early game, then their economy explodes. If you recall, two patches ago, when the Cyclone was what it is today (due to the revert) we also had Window Mines. During the time with the old Cyclone, WM's could not be detected on spawn. Since the Cyclone was not very good out-of-the-box, Terran players relied on early game WM harass. Then, on the previous patch, Blizzard made the WM detectable but made the Cyclone a very strong harass early game unit - so a bit of a trade off. Now, with this latest patch, we have the old Cyclone but WM CAN be detected early game; therefore, over the last 18 months, Terran has a NET LOSS in early gameplay harass.
To comment on Protoss late game, the Tempest is pretty comical in its speed buff: WM can't catch them, Thors can't catch them, BC's can't catch them, and they are about as fast as Vikings. And don't forget recall, that is, if you actually happen to strategically out maneuver your opponent. You could nerf the Tempest HP to 1 HP and it doesn't really matter when you're dealing with a lighting fast unit. It's just frustrating when you see Blizzard finally buff a unit (like BC) but say, "You know how the BC sucked before? Well, we are going to make it good again (i.e. showing it kite Stalkers). But not so fast! Because we are actually going to make it suck worse against a cheaper faster Protoss air unit." This patch feels very much like a bait and switch.
EDIT: Just a fun fact: Blizzard wants the BC to be more tactical and involved as a support unit? It can no longer 1 shot an Immortal or V-ray. 1 Shot immortals is pretty important if you're doing a 2-base push and have BC's in your composition to protect your tanks. I'll be sure to focus fire my Yamato on the ultra deadly Zealot.
same old story vP. my w/r in the last patch was 46% after a few hundred games. just replace thors with goliaths and everything will be ok
The general TvP stats aren't as bad as your win rate suggests so the best solution for you is probably to change your playstyle vs protoss. Adaptability is an important skill in sc2.
On December 09 2018 11:44 MrWayne wrote: Guys, Blizzard will never balance TvP around MechvP. The sooner you accept that, the more fun you will have in the game.
but this is plainly wrong. in the balance patch notes, Blizzard showcase the battlecruiser and thor fighting against protoss units:
"When we initially announced our balance revamp this year, we stated that we wanted to push the Thor into a “giant that slays other giants” role, but we haven’t heard much discussion regarding this new focus. In addition, with the recent Carrier damage revert and the Thor’s now lower armor, Thors are not able to fulfill this role as well as we’d like. Thus, we’ve carefully tweaked the numbers on the Thor’s anti-Massive weapon so that it will consistently defeat Carriers in one-on-one combat and be more powerful against the new fast-moving Tempests."
Blizzard have written in black and white that they want factory units to be playable vs protoss. Blizzard have also directly called for more discussion on thors vP. why are you trying to silence people providing feedback on this unit?
same old story vP. my w/r in the last patch was 46% after a few hundred games. just replace thors with goliaths and everything will be ok
The general TvP stats aren't as bad as your win rate suggests so the best solution for you is probably to change your playstyle vs protoss. Adaptability is an important skill in sc2.
having fun is also an important skill. I play the way that is most intuitive and enjoyable for me. it works vZ and vT, but fun terran styles are not allowed vP. if you want this match-up to be a chore, suit yourself, but every terran player knows deep down that the protoss player is always having more fun. even when they lose, at least they can fire a couple of yolo disuptor balls and storms and peace out like a pimp. bio looks like a sad limp leg dog when it is losing to protoss. there is pretty much no chance to crawl back once you get behind. you have to play boring to win.
yeah yeah, I know people want people to balance the game around win-rate stability, but positive changes are not created this way. stability stagnates opportunity, and the only way you're gonna make the game more fun is to shake it up.
A huge nerf to psi storm vs mechanical units would fix most late game TvP issues and barely affect other matchups but doubt they'll do it. Tempests might be a bit OP in the midgame with its current acceleration, probably need more time to determine that... but late game there is no way to trade efficiently in large scale engagements unless the protoss decides to stand on like 20 liberator zones when there are storms disruptor balls and thermal lances involved.
Upgrade for Terran: lightning rod. Outfits mechanical units with a lightning rod allowing them to transfer some electrical damage into the ground (I don't know jack about physics).
On December 09 2018 14:58 Doko wrote: A huge nerf to psi storm vs mechanical units would fix most late game TvP issues and barely affect other matchups but doubt they'll do it. Tempests might be a bit OP in the midgame with its current acceleration, probably need more time to determine that... but late game there is no way to trade efficiently in large scale engagements unless the protoss decides to stand on like 20 liberator zones when there are storms disruptor balls and thermal lances involved.
I assume you are talking about psi storm vs vikings? because liberators out-range high templars by 1 (without advanced ballistix) and they can survive 2 complete psi storms!
I doubt Blizzard would consider this suggestion. it is not a very elegant solution because no other unit shares that specific damage modifier vs mechanical. if you want to go down the route of making mechanical units better vs toss, without affecting the other match-ups, it would be more consistent to change variables that are already part of the game: such as the raven's ability to reduce shield armor and the ghost's EMP.
if there is 1 unit that should have the ability to reduce shields, it's the tank. make it an upgrade called "anti-plasma cannons" or some shit. make it expensive so it doesn't upset the early-game. now terran can stand toe-to-toe with a robo deathball and use ravens to disable the tempests.
I always found the liberation zone spam vs toss deathball dance to be lame as fuck and zero fun to play (as terran). when T is boxed on 4 bases, you have to constantly unsiege and resiege the liberators. oh! oh! he's coming towards my third... WAIT, he's moving to the other entrance at my 3rd... oh fuck, now he's going to my 4th... oh shit, I gotta start that upgrade back home... *F3's to my main for a split second* oh shit, now I'm dead because my liberators were out of position :D. and if you don't instantly die like that, you bleed units over and over to disruptor balls and tempest shots. literally takes terran about 20 actions to defend against 1 action, and most good toss players perform that 1 action more than once. 200 actions to defend 10 actions... at least in WoL, you could turtle with mass viking / ghost, Byun style.
I don't mind tempests on their own terms. it's the combination of tempests, disruptors, colossus AND storms. how the fuck are you supposed to beat that with infantry and circles? it should not be a matter of hoping toss fucks up in order to win. I wonder how things would play out if the elusive bio / tank was a reality vP. Maru and TY tried it on the last patch with mixed results. their bases looked something like this: 7 raxx, 3 factories (3 tech-labs), 1 starport. macro-oriented bio / tank is actually pretty fucking strong vs protoss if you somehow manage to mass 20 tanks with +2 vehicle weapons. there is no way toss can a-move into that. it's getting there that's the hard part. I feel tanks just need a little bit stronger vP in the mid-game and something special could happen to this match-up.
I think this patch already gave macro bio / tank an indirect buff vP, afforded by 3CC + early-game cyclone defense. it is much less of an investment to defend against stargate / warp prisms, so you can get by on less units in the early game. it is not entirely necessary to make a raven to disable the warp prism and not entirely necessary to make a viking to zone out the warp prism. you can spend that money on a faster armory and faster vehicle weapons. the new maps are also really good for tanks, so I'll be interested to see if Maru / TY pursue the idea further.
same old story vP. my w/r in the last patch was 46% after a few hundred games. just replace thors with goliaths and everything will be ok
The general TvP stats aren't as bad as your win rate suggests so the best solution for you is probably to change your playstyle vs protoss. Adaptability is an important skill in sc2.
having fun is also an important skill. I play the way that is most intuitive and enjoyable for me. it works vZ and vT, but fun terran styles are not allowed vP. if you want this match-up to be a chore, suit yourself, but every terran player knows deep down that the protoss player is always having more fun. even when they lose, at least they can fire a couple of yolo disuptor balls and storms and peace out like a pimp. bio looks like a sad limp leg dog when it is losing to protoss. there is pretty much no chance to crawl back once you get behind. you have to play boring to win.
yeah yeah, I know people want people to balance the game around win-rate stability, but positive changes are not created this way. stability stagnates opportunity, and the only way you're gonna make the game more fun is to shake it up.
totally agree, especially aboooot shaking things up.
it's nice to see BCs finally getting some uses but i have yet to see any thors game from streamers and online tournament.Let take a look at immortals and broodlords.Both are slow as hell and no way for them to retreat without losing a huge amount of arny supply.There must be a reason why thors ain't a importal role like them and blizzard still can't figure out a scenario for thors' to shine where vikings is a inferior choice heck even a reaper esp unit like banshee is a part of TvZ cyclone heavy mech now
On December 09 2018 11:44 MrWayne wrote: Guys, Blizzard will never balance TvP around MechvP. The sooner you accept that, the more fun you will have in the game.
but this is plainly wrong. in the balance patch notes, Blizzard showcase the battlecruiser and thor fighting against protoss units:
"When we initially announced our balance revamp this year, we stated that we wanted to push the Thor into a “giant that slays other giants” role, but we haven’t heard much discussion regarding this new focus. In addition, with the recent Carrier damage revert and the Thor’s now lower armor, Thors are not able to fulfill this role as well as we’d like. Thus, we’ve carefully tweaked the numbers on the Thor’s anti-Massive weapon so that it will consistently defeat Carriers in one-on-one combat and be more powerful against the new fast-moving Tempests."
Blizzard have written in black and white that they want factory units to be playable vs protoss. Blizzard have also directly called for more discussion on thors vP. why are you trying to silence people providing feedback on this unit?
None of your quotes and sources contradicts my post. It wasn't their goal to make mech more viable with the last balance patch. Whether they achieved their own goals for the Battlecruiser, Thor and Tempest or not is a different discussion. Also what was your feedback in regards to the Thor? "just replace thors with goliaths and everything will be ok" That's not constructive feedback at all, it's wishful thinking because Blizzard will never exchange the Thor in favour of the goliath.
same old story vP. my w/r in the last patch was 46% after a few hundred games. just replace thors with goliaths and everything will be ok
The general TvP stats aren't as bad as your win rate suggests so the best solution for you is probably to change your playstyle vs protoss. Adaptability is an important skill in sc2.
having fun is also an important skill. I play the way that is most intuitive and enjoyable for me. it works vZ and vT, but fun terran styles are not allowed vP. if you want this match-up to be a chore, suit yourself, but every terran player knows deep down that the protoss player is always having more fun. even when they lose, at least they can fire a couple of yolo disuptor balls and storms and peace out like a pimp. bio looks like a sad limp leg dog when it is losing to protoss. there is pretty much no chance to crawl back once you get behind. you have to play boring to win.
yeah yeah, I know people want people to balance the game around win-rate stability, but positive changes are not created this way. stability stagnates opportunity, and the only way you're gonna make the game more fun is to shake it up.
That's a lot of jealousy you have towards protoss players, I wonder if all your Zerg opponents feel the same towards you. 1 vs 1 ladder is not a WoW rpg server, sc2 is afterall still a strategy game where you have to choose the best strategy to win, in addition it's also a extremely deep game, you can choose a suboptimal strategy and still get to GM.
why would you build thors after investing everything into a bio / air-based composition? do you think Blizzard expect us to throw down 3-4 factories 20 minutes into the game in response to tempest / carrier? with +0/+0 vehicle upgrades? maybe sprinkle in a few hellions to make it worthwhile? :D I wrote a more detailed post about goliaths and mech AA overlap in post #137
Terran has so many strong options vs P and you all seem to want to make Straight up mech super powerful? Its called mix in some bio with the mech, Tanks are great, widow mines, even hellions have a big role. Point is, there are plenty of really strong factory units, just going pure factory is almost never good
On December 10 2018 08:41 VamosSC wrote: Terran has so many strong options vs P and you all seem to want to make Straight up mech super powerful? Its called mix in some bio with the mech, Tanks are great, widow mines, even hellions have a big role. Point is, there are plenty of really strong factory units, just going pure factory is almost never good
sorry but isn't they have been asking for pure mech and no bio bullshit involving for years?.don't comment like you have no clue what is happenig in this forum and throw out random stuffs like that.get lost...and give up your anti mech ideal if you really had one because it ain't gonna work.that ideal have not been working for over 5 damn years!
//the mass tempests strats clearly is still beatable with teaja/byun pure ghosts and vikings old shit strats plus raven tho.but they are ghosts not thors.i really dislike any air to air solution so viking being a little less cost effect versus new tempests is fine by me.lets give thors jim raynor's nitro boost or something ??
I dont see terran players complaining about seige tank range, marines, the ability of the updated cyclone to kite anything to death in the early game, etc
It's not enough for terran players that they get the most efficient units in the game, all of which are ranged, scale well, and complement each other well. They want to make sure they are always the ones doing the kiting and not protoss or zerg. They can melt more expensive protoss/zerg ground armies with stimmed MMM kiting, and enough seige tanks can lay waste to any protoss ground army, but then they cry when the other two races finally tech to expensive specialized air units (temptest/broodlord) to even stand a chance against their pound-for-pound efficient mech units.
Tempests are pretty fragile and have low DPS. but they are mobile and have a big range. I know terrans are used to nothing being able to take on mech head on but maybe they should realize that in a balanced game no style should be invincible?
On December 10 2018 08:41 VamosSC wrote: Terran has so many strong options vs P and you all seem to want to make Straight up mech super powerful? Its called mix in some bio with the mech, Tanks are great, widow mines, even hellions have a big role. Point is, there are plenty of really strong factory units, just going pure factory is almost never good
sorry but isn't they have been asking for pure mech and no bio bullshit involving for years?.don't comment like you have no clue what is happenig in this forum and throw out random stuffs like that.get lost...and give up your anti mech ideal if you really had one because it ain't gonna work.that ideal have not been working for over 5 damn years!
//the mass tempests strats clearly is still beatable with teaja/byun pure ghosts and vikings old shit strats plus raven tho.but they are ghosts not thors.i really dislike any air to air solution so viking being a little less cost effect versus new tempests is fine by me.lets give thors jim raynor's nitro boost or something ??
That would require bio nerf, because if you make pure mech doable, then imagine what happens when you combina mech and bio...
Mech is perfectly viable in all matchups for at least 99% of the playerbase.
I have even got mech to work consistenly in TvP macro games.
I am going mass mine/tank supported by vikings/hellion in a large push after I have established my 3rd. Then I continue attacking not stop until the game ends.
If he add tempest/carriers I just add thors and turrets to my mines and continue to play aggressively, never letting him build up the perfect death ball.
Granted this is only Diamond. But I see no reason why this could not work on Master level as well.
I am not saying this would work on Pro level. But 99% of the players are not pro players, and on ladder level almost anything works if you are playing it right.
On December 10 2018 08:41 VamosSC wrote: Terran has so many strong options vs P and you all seem to want to make Straight up mech super powerful? Its called mix in some bio with the mech, Tanks are great, widow mines, even hellions have a big role. Point is, there are plenty of really strong factory units, just going pure factory is almost never good
sorry but isn't they have been asking for pure mech and no bio bullshit involving for years?.don't comment like you have no clue what is happenig in this forum and throw out random stuffs like that.get lost...and give up your anti mech ideal if you really had one because it ain't gonna work.that ideal have not been working for over 5 damn years!
//the mass tempests strats clearly is still beatable with teaja/byun pure ghosts and vikings old shit strats plus raven tho.but they are ghosts not thors.i really dislike any air to air solution so viking being a little less cost effect versus new tempests is fine by me.lets give thors jim raynor's nitro boost or something ??
That would require bio nerf, because if you make pure mech doable, then imagine what happens when you combina mech and bio...
You know what happens?
Nothing happens.
People said that after they removed tankivacs and buffed tanks and guess what? Nothing happened, mech and bio can both be perfectly viable.
On December 10 2018 08:41 VamosSC wrote: Terran has so many strong options vs P and you all seem to want to make Straight up mech super powerful? Its called mix in some bio with the mech, Tanks are great, widow mines, even hellions have a big role. Point is, there are plenty of really strong factory units, just going pure factory is almost never good
sorry but isn't they have been asking for pure mech and no bio bullshit involving for years?.don't comment like you have no clue what is happenig in this forum and throw out random stuffs like that.get lost...and give up your anti mech ideal if you really had one because it ain't gonna work.that ideal have not been working for over 5 damn years!
//the mass tempests strats clearly is still beatable with teaja/byun pure ghosts and vikings old shit strats plus raven tho.but they are ghosts not thors.i really dislike any air to air solution so viking being a little less cost effect versus new tempests is fine by me.lets give thors jim raynor's nitro boost or something ??
That would require bio nerf, because if you make pure mech doable, then imagine what happens when you combina mech and bio...
You know what happens?
Nothing happens.
People said that after they removed tankivacs and buffed tanks and guess what? Nothing happened, mech and bio can both be perfectly viable.
So what's the point of the recent whine since MECH IS VIABLE? Either it's not fully viable as some claim, or is fully viable as you claim. So far I am on the side of "it's not fully viable" as P myself. And I play in a wooden league where everything should work, yet mech players has to be a league above me But maybe I'm just lucky on bad meching Terrans
So, meching community, can you finally decide whether it is viable or isn't?
So what's the point of the recent whine since MECH IS VIABLE? Either it's not fully viable as some claim, or is fully viable as you claim. So far I am on the side of "it's not fully viable" as P myself. And I play in a wooden league where everything should work, yet mech players has to be a league above me But maybe I'm just lucky on bad meching Terrans
So, meching community, can you finally decide whether it is viable or isn't?
mech is...
fully viable vZ and perhaps the best strategy vZ. just ignore avilo's inability to deal with swarm hosts. GM mechanics, platinum league game sense
fully viable vT
not fully viable vP
the most elegant way to make it viable vP without affecting the other match-ups too much...
anti-plasma cannons upgrade at the techlab. costs 150 minerals, 150 gas. requires armory. deals bonus damage to shields, similar to the widow mine's sentinel missile
replace thors with goliaths and +3 range charon boosters upgrade. thors seem to be completely extinct vZ anyways
On December 10 2018 08:41 VamosSC wrote: Terran has so many strong options vs P and you all seem to want to make Straight up mech super powerful? Its called mix in some bio with the mech, Tanks are great, widow mines, even hellions have a big role. Point is, there are plenty of really strong factory units, just going pure factory is almost never good
sorry but isn't they have been asking for pure mech and no bio bullshit involving for years?.don't comment like you have no clue what is happenig in this forum and throw out random stuffs like that.get lost...and give up your anti mech ideal if you really had one because it ain't gonna work.that ideal have not been working for over 5 damn years!
//the mass tempests strats clearly is still beatable with teaja/byun pure ghosts and vikings old shit strats plus raven tho.but they are ghosts not thors.i really dislike any air to air solution so viking being a little less cost effect versus new tempests is fine by me.lets give thors jim raynor's nitro boost or something ??
That would require bio nerf, because if you make pure mech doable, then imagine what happens when you combina mech and bio...
You know what happens?
Nothing happens.
People said that after they removed tankivacs and buffed tanks and guess what? Nothing happened, mech and bio can both be perfectly viable.
So what's the point of the recent whine since MECH IS VIABLE? Either it's not fully viable as some claim, or is fully viable as you claim. So far I am on the side of "it's not fully viable" as P myself. And I play in a wooden league where everything should work, yet mech players has to be a league above me But maybe I'm just lucky on bad meching Terrans
So, meching community, can you finally decide whether it is viable or isn't?
I don't know if you are trolling or do you really think you are smart with such an obviously dumb statement...
A SHODAN said, every mech player that isn't an Avilo wannabe knows that mech is viable in TvZ and TvT and that it has never been viable vsP.
Viability isn't an absolute statement, this is a game with 3 races after all.
On December 10 2018 08:41 VamosSC wrote: Terran has so many strong options vs P and you all seem to want to make Straight up mech super powerful? Its called mix in some bio with the mech, Tanks are great, widow mines, even hellions have a big role. Point is, there are plenty of really strong factory units, just going pure factory is almost never good
sorry but isn't they have been asking for pure mech and no bio bullshit involving for years?.don't comment like you have no clue what is happenig in this forum and throw out random stuffs like that.get lost...and give up your anti mech ideal if you really had one because it ain't gonna work.that ideal have not been working for over 5 damn years!
//the mass tempests strats clearly is still beatable with teaja/byun pure ghosts and vikings old shit strats plus raven tho.but they are ghosts not thors.i really dislike any air to air solution so viking being a little less cost effect versus new tempests is fine by me.lets give thors jim raynor's nitro boost or something ??
That would require bio nerf, because if you make pure mech doable, then imagine what happens when you combina mech and bio...
You know what happens?
Nothing happens.
People said that after they removed tankivacs and buffed tanks and guess what? Nothing happened, mech and bio can both be perfectly viable.
So what's the point of the recent whine since MECH IS VIABLE? Either it's not fully viable as some claim, or is fully viable as you claim. So far I am on the side of "it's not fully viable" as P myself. And I play in a wooden league where everything should work, yet mech players has to be a league above me But maybe I'm just lucky on bad meching Terrans
So, meching community, can you finally decide whether it is viable or isn't?
I don't know if you are trolling or do you really think you are smart with such an obviously dumb statement...
A SHODAN said, every mech player that isn't an Avilo wannabe knows that mech is viable in TvZ and TvT and that it has never been viable vsP.
Viability isn't an absolute statement, this is a game with 3 races after all.
Well I agree, but then don't say it's viable when the biggest whines in this thread is TvP mech. It's not FULLY viable. If the mech should becoma fully viable(PvT included), then it would require bio nerf. IMO
On December 10 2018 08:41 VamosSC wrote: Terran has so many strong options vs P and you all seem to want to make Straight up mech super powerful? Its called mix in some bio with the mech, Tanks are great, widow mines, even hellions have a big role. Point is, there are plenty of really strong factory units, just going pure factory is almost never good
sorry but isn't they have been asking for pure mech and no bio bullshit involving for years?.don't comment like you have no clue what is happenig in this forum and throw out random stuffs like that.get lost...and give up your anti mech ideal if you really had one because it ain't gonna work.that ideal have not been working for over 5 damn years!
//the mass tempests strats clearly is still beatable with teaja/byun pure ghosts and vikings old shit strats plus raven tho.but they are ghosts not thors.i really dislike any air to air solution so viking being a little less cost effect versus new tempests is fine by me.lets give thors jim raynor's nitro boost or something ??
That would require bio nerf, because if you make pure mech doable, then imagine what happens when you combina mech and bio...
it doesn't hurt it we buff thor tho.not the it's plash mode ofc and you can choose either viking or thors to deal with protoss air but right now viking is still a better giant slayer despite being weaker against tempests.it's about the other option.terran can go ghosts + vikings if they choose to play bio but don't force mech terran to do the same while leaving thors in dust for years.blizzard:other giants can't beat the giant slayer when no one builds them #rollsafe
On December 10 2018 16:36 MockHamill wrote: Mech is perfectly viable in all matchups for at least 99% of the playerbase.
I have even got mech to work consistenly in TvP macro games.
I am going mass mine/tank supported by vikings/hellion in a large push after I have established my 3rd. Then I continue attacking not stop until the game ends.
If he add tempest/carriers I just add thors and turrets to my mines and continue to play aggressively, never letting him build up the perfect death ball.
Granted this is only Diamond. But I see no reason why this could not work on Master level as well.
I am not saying this would work on Pro level. But 99% of the players are not pro players, and on ladder level almost anything works if you are playing it right.
mech is fucking viable for sure i enjoy every supernova's game so far and i swear pro mech players die to toss's timing push and multi harrass way much more than by air toss
On December 11 2018 07:18 deacon.frost wrote: Well I agree, but then don't say it's viable when the biggest whines in this thread is TvP mech. It's not FULLY viable. If the mech should becoma fully viable(PvT included), then it would require bio nerf. IMO
Bio-mech (let's say 7 raxx, 3 factory, 1 starport on 3 bases) has distinct weaknesses that would offset any prospect of breaking the game:
1) bio and mechanical do not share the same weapon / armor upgrades
2) researching techlab upgrades for bio AND mech is expensive and requires a serious sacrifice in other areas
take my suggestion for anti-plasma cannons. 150/150, armory requirement, 121 second research time. a bio / tank player would not be able to afford this upgrade on 2-bases. there will be no change to the strength of 2-base bio / tank all-ins, for example.
this upgrade would not directly benefit bio and would slow the development of bio in other areas. supplementing bio with tanks would strip bio of its core advantage vs protoss: mobility. babysitting all those tanks will make bio-mech almost as slow and immobile as a pure-factory mech player. the bio ball would act as a fast arm to punch when the opportunity arises... but most of the time, you'd need to keep your hand in your pocket. P could be much more mobile with colossus and disruptors.
the Bio-mech player would not be able to afford ship weapons and ship weapons. you either have tanks, with increased staying power on the ground, or viking / liberator, for increased mobility. you can't have it all!
if you try to have it all, you will have a weaker maxed army. 75% of your army will be upgraded. the other 25% will be unupgraded. if you go pure bio / viking / liberator, 100% of your army benefits from upgrades.
how would this affect pure tank-based mech? tanks already do increased damage vs armored. if you give tanks an additional bonus vs shields, an anti-plasma tank might be able to 2-shot a zealot, 3-shot an adept, and 2-shot a stalker. without the upgrade, tanks in siege mode 4-shot a zealot, 4-shot an adept and 3-shot a stalker. immortals would also be more squishy. I guess the game would involve toss getting ahead on economy and making inefficient trades with mass zealot / adept to keep the tank count low, while buying time to get carriers.
On December 13 2018 18:03 insitelol wrote: mech players lol
when people say this, what they are really saying is, "fuck terran players" and "fuck sc2"
it's a super effective caricature. it conjures the image of avilo into your head. you imagine that everyone who makes a case for mech is a clone of avilo, got his ideas from avilo, or is in some way tainted by avilo.
this neatly discredits any suggestion to change factory units, no matter how reasonable the suggestion
it doesn't matter if you play bio 99% of the time when you roll terran, or you play all 3 races to a competent level. if gumiho, ty or special made a smurf account on TL and wrote why factory units should be changed / improved in some way, they would still get responses saying "mech players lol"
the caricature has become so effective, that there are even fellow terran players on ladder who "kys" or "get cancer" if their opponent plays "mech" in TvT
why am I writing mech in air quotes? because there is no mech play in TvT. it doesn't exist. it's imaginary like humpty dumpty. mechanical firebats inside 6 medivacs, boosted and dumped on top of bio, while you have 1 viking more than your opponent is not mech play. it's firebat + tank. the firebats are the core unit of this composition, not the tanks. the tanks are used as a support unit.
for a play style to be called "mech", the core unit most be non-infantry style.
the only true mech style that has ever existed in sc2 is cyclone / hellion / banshee vZ, or cyclone / hellion / widow mine vZ (the hellions spend most of the game in hellion form). notice the complete absence of tanks
mech play =/= factory units
mech play =/= mass tanks
does anyone enjoy viking vs viking? no
does anyone enjoy thor vs anything? no
I would love for someone to explain to me why thors and vikings are fun, interesting units which contribute to the strategic depth of the game (they can't and they don't, but go ahead and try).
I want hellbats, thors and vikings to be removed from the game or heavily redesigned. what have you got to lose? nobody makes thors anyway. viewership is at an all-time low. so many players have quit because it's all so tiresome.
I don't care if tanks are relegated to a support unit in every match-up. tanks don't have to be the core unit in ANY match-up. we need a terran factory / starport unit which can serve as the core of an alternative composition, one that plays nothing like infantry... NOT a mechanical imitation of infantry
everyone - and I mean, EVERYONE - hated the design of hellbats at the start of hots. everyone has amenably grown to tolerate them over time and turn a blind eye... the attitude is: oh well, guess we're stuck with this unmicroable unit... well guess wat?
IF YOU AREN'T PART OF THE SOLUTION, YOU'RE PART OF THE PROBLEM
(NOTE: medivac drop micro = medivac micro, not hellbat micro. same goes for pre-patch a-move cyclones and thors inside a medivac. without a medivac, these units have no dick and no balls)
you could pull the first idea that comes out of your asshole and it would still be an improvement over the hellbat. let's reach in and see what's cooking... how about give hellions the Unstable Concoction ability from wc3 (via techlab upgrade) which makes them explode and destroy the hellion?? like ground scourges?? that would be fun, right? better than gay firebats that walk like constipated ducks, right??
MECH =/= CONSTIPATED DUCKS
heavily change thors, or replace thors with goliaths. do something more interesting with vikings. Blizzard raised the bar high with lock-on cyclones. I expect them to use that standard to resolve the factory / starport AA identity crisis.
lock-on cyclones are one of the best designed units ever to grace an RTS game. it is the quintessential kiting unit. bio has stutter stepping, but not this kind of uninterrupted, high-speed kiting. lock-on cyclones have such a unique synergy with hellions, widow mines and banshees that it offers a completely different style to MMM/4M. its relationship to other units is completely different to MMM (e.g. lock-on cyclones laugh at ultralisks like they are cuddly toys, whereas bio has to flee under liberation zones). speed-mech vZ has already started to become high brow korean meta (though I wish they would make widow mines vs banelings, instead of so many banshees!)
doubting thomas and moaning myrtle say blizz will never make factory units core vP. just look what they've done to wc3 lately. totally fresh unit compositions and hero choices, which have dramatically revitalized the game. anything can happen in sc2. there's never been a better time to be vocal about design suggestions in sc2
On December 13 2018 18:03 insitelol wrote: mech players lol
I'm pretty sure the reason mech keeps getting buffed is because blizzard literally only see mech players comments not ur... Who doesn't like wall of text tho.. Especially game developers
On December 13 2018 18:03 insitelol wrote: mech players lol
I'm pretty sure the reason mech keeps getting buffed is because blizzard literally only see mech players comments not ur... Who doesn't like wall of text tho.. Especially game developers
You tend to express yourself in a more "acceptable" form for sure (no sarcasm), but the truth is we both got a warning =). The thing is this mech rant just seems so pathetic to me, i can't really force myself to take it seriously anymore. Just trying to compromise mech lobbists position by trolling them (without decent success i admit it). I guess the only option left for us (sane people) is to completely ignore them. Which is hard for a community as a whole.
p.s. I know i could get a ban for this, but for the sake of just being consistent, i was not the ONE who started that (loling at mechers). Why did everyone else get away with that with no warining? Thank you.
p.p.s. just noticed that SHODAN actually got the message! Kudos mate. That's exactly what i wanted. Project avilo's image to peoples heads when they hear "mech".
On December 13 2018 18:03 insitelol wrote: mech players lol
I'm pretty sure the reason mech keeps getting buffed is because blizzard literally only see mech players comments not ur... Who doesn't like wall of text tho.. Especially game developers
You tend to express yourself in a more "acceptable" form for sure (no sarcasm), but the truth is we both got a warning =). The thing is this mech rant just seems so pathetic to me, i can't really force myself to take it seriously anymore. Just trying to compromise mech lobbists position by trolling them (without decent success i admit it). I guess the only option left for us (sane people) is to completely ignore them. Which is hard for a community as a whole.
p.s. I know i could get a ban for this, but for the sake of just being consistent, i was not the ONE who started that (loling at mechers). Why did everyone else get away with that with no warining? Thank you.
p.p.s. just noticed that SHODAN actually got the message! Kudos mate. That's exactly what i wanted. Project avilo's image to peoples heads when they hear "mech".
Most serious starcraft fans / players aren't going to balance whine at the start of a new patch. They'll be too busy playing or watching matches.
From my perspective, I'd be okay with tweaking a few things (for example switching Thors with Goliaths) just to make things more fun from a design perspective. But as a public service announcement to Mech lobbyists, when Protoss or Zerg players hear "make mech more viable", all we really are hearing is "buff the shit out of terran by giving an already very strong race more options".
You need to realize that the more solid options that are given to any race, the stronger they will automatically be because they will have the ability to vary play styles more and be unpredictable. Now thats not necessarily a bad thing (all races should have some variability). However, I personally feel that Terran has many solid options already. I completely disagree with the argument that Terran is forced to only do the same thing every game. If you think Terran has limited options you are IMO just very uncreative.
Also, Avilo is a very solid player (compared to most non-pros) , but he has always chosen to play HIS play style, regardless of whether it is the most viable/effective play style. If you choose to do that, you can't complain when it doesn't always work out.
On December 13 2018 18:03 insitelol wrote: mech players lol
I'm pretty sure the reason mech keeps getting buffed is because blizzard literally only see mech players comments not ur... Who doesn't like wall of text tho.. Especially game developers
You tend to express yourself in a more "acceptable" form for sure (no sarcasm), but the truth is we both got a warning =). The thing is this mech rant just seems so pathetic to me, i can't really force myself to take it seriously anymore. Just trying to compromise mech lobbists position by trolling them (without decent success i admit it). I guess the only option left for us (sane people) is to completely ignore them. Which is hard for a community as a whole.
p.s. I know i could get a ban for this, but for the sake of just being consistent, i was not the ONE who started that (loling at mechers). Why did everyone else get away with that with no warining? Thank you.
p.p.s. just noticed that SHODAN actually got the message! Kudos mate. That's exactly what i wanted. Project avilo's image to peoples heads when they hear "mech".
We have two life before getting ban. U don't need to worry about it just abuse that rule like me
On December 14 2018 04:50 VamosSC wrote: From my perspective, I'd be okay with tweaking a few things (for example switching Thors with Goliaths) just to make things more fun from a design perspective. But as a public service announcement to Mech lobbyists, when Protoss or Zerg players hear "make mech more viable", all we really are hearing is "buff the shit out of terran by giving an already very strong race more options".
You need to realize that the more solid options that are given to any race, the stronger they will automatically be because they will have the ability to vary play styles more and be unpredictable. Now thats not necessarily a bad thing (all races should have some variability). However, I personally feel that Terran has many solid options already. I completely disagree with the argument that Terran is forced to only do the same thing every game. If you think Terran has limited options you are IMO just very uncreative.
Switching thors ain't a tweak at all. Thor is my favorite unit and it's sad that people gave up on it but I think this unit can still be fixed. The problem is thors aren't too scary in a straight up fight but also don't have enough mobility which is quite lame since they do have fire power but thier derpy animations are hindering them not because of air toss or other stuff I think blizzard should really consider thor as a pure anti air unit and trash the double mjolnirs because terran don't need them for ground support anymore. They might do worse against more ground enemies but at least I won't see those lame ass animations again
On December 14 2018 04:50 VamosSC wrote: From my perspective, I'd be okay with tweaking a few things (for example switching Thors with Goliaths) just to make things more fun from a design perspective. But as a public service announcement to Mech lobbyists, when Protoss or Zerg players hear "make mech more viable", all we really are hearing is "buff the shit out of terran by giving an already very strong race more options".
You need to realize that the more solid options that are given to any race, the stronger they will automatically be because they will have the ability to vary play styles more and be unpredictable. Now thats not necessarily a bad thing (all races should have some variability). However, I personally feel that Terran has many solid options already. I completely disagree with the argument that Terran is forced to only do the same thing every game. If you think Terran has limited options you are IMO just very uncreative.
Switching thors ain't a tweak at all. Thor is my favorite unit and it's sad that people gave up on it but I think this unit can still be fixed. The problem is thors aren't too scary in a straight up fight but also don't have enough mobility which is quite lame since they do have fire power but thier derpy animations are hindering them not because of air toss or other stuff I think blizzard should really consider thor as a pure anti air unit and trash the double mjolnirs because terran don't need them for ground support anymore. They might do worse against more ground enemies but at least I won't see those lame ass animations again
Well I agree with you and don't see the point of changing Thors, I was more saying that to appease people that want that change. I personally think Thors are fine.
On December 14 2018 04:50 VamosSC wrote: From my perspective, I'd be okay with tweaking a few things (for example switching Thors with Goliaths) just to make things more fun from a design perspective. But as a public service announcement to Mech lobbyists, when Protoss or Zerg players hear "make mech more viable", all we really are hearing is "buff the shit out of terran by giving an already very strong race more options".
You need to realize that the more solid options that are given to any race, the stronger they will automatically be because they will have the ability to vary play styles more and be unpredictable. Now thats not necessarily a bad thing (all races should have some variability). However, I personally feel that Terran has many solid options already. I completely disagree with the argument that Terran is forced to only do the same thing every game. If you think Terran has limited options you are IMO just very uncreative.
I agree with you on this much: T has a choice of 2 strong play-styles vZ: bio and speed-mech.
within those 2 play-styles, T has a broad selection of strong openers vZ: harass, timing pushes, all-ins and greed.
no matter how T opens vZ, the branches will always converge into 2 predictable unit compositions:
BIO core composition = marines, marauders, medivacs mid-game support unit = choice of tanks or widow mines late-game special units = liberators and ghosts in the late-game.
MECH: core composition = hellion, cyclone mid-game support unit = choice of banshees or widow mines late-game special units = tanks to counter infestors. hellbats, thors and vikings to counter brood lords
the question is, which of those things makes T strong? is it the choice of 2 play-styles? or is it the many branches of harass options, timing pushes, all-ins and greedy plays which lead to those core compositions?
I strongly disagree with the notion that having 2 possible play-styles - bio and mech - makes T unpredictable. it is easy to scout whether terran is going bio of mech. it is not so easy to scout if T made a 3rd CC, finished cloak, built an armory, yadayadayada.
there is no confusion about what units Z should be making mid/late-game in response to T. in fact, T is the most predictable race in terms of core compositions. once T has selected bio, he is locked into bio for the rest of the game. once T has selected mech, same story. mech-to-bio transitions are niche to HotS-era proleague.
as far as I can see, nobody in this thread is calling for T to have a wider range of harass options, tricky openers or deceptive plays vZ. nobody is calling for T to have powerful tech-switches, either.
some thoughts on mech vZ post-patch...
lock-on cyclones have been elevated to a core unit vZ. they now have excellent synergy with hellions, widow mines and banshees, thanks to their similar movement speeds and distinct roles. they are a direct answer to swarm hosts.
pre-patch mech vZ had degraded to a numbers game involving unmicroable unit interactions. tornado blaster cyclones could not shoot while moving, so were unable to chase down swarm hosts or shuffle vs ravagers. the only option for mech was to turtle with hellbats, tanks and thors, using medivac pick-ups to keep expensive units alive, while you gear up for one big punch, ideally as 2-2 hits. lock-on cyclones have completely done away with this turtle style.
cyclones need hellions, hellions need cyclones, and both need widow mines in certain situations. the improved synergy of these units, used in the speedy "battle mech" style, does not aggregate with tanks. why? because tanks are sitting ducks without hellbats (in hellbat mode) and cyclones are sitting ducks without hellions (in hellion mode).
this is what avilo is so pissy about. he wants tanks to be the be-all and end-all. if he was sincerely playing the (mostly) tankless battle-mech style, he would be laughing at swarm hosts. the only reason for mech terrans to build tanks post-patch vZ is when lurkers or infestors are on the field. on 3 bases, you might want 2-3 tanks used defensively to secure bases, but that's it! avilo wants tanks to be the answer to EVERY zerg ground unit.
I'm happy for tank-based styles to be completely unviable at the highest level of mech vZ - and that's coming from someone who's played mech vZ since WoL! speed-mech afforded by lock-on cyclones is a much better fit with the design philosophy of sc2: intense, cut-throat, fast-paced action all over the map.
I completely understand your frustations about mech lobbyists. it's true... avilo and co. just want terran to be OP. I'm even more angry at them than you are! mech lobbyists kept their mouths shut when the cyclone was gutted at the end of 2016. they didn't care that such a unique factory unit had been degraded to a 1-A mech marine, so long as it scored them some easy wins. the way I see it, they robbed me of a fun style vZ for 2 years. I relentlessly argued for lock-on to be reinstated in literally every balance thread since 2016. you're welcome, protoss players! now pay up cuz you owe me exactly 1 goliath
how do you feel about reasonable mech lobbyists who want terran to have a non-infantry play-style available vP, one that is fun to play and fun for you to play against? and which does not upset the balance of TvZ? would you be on-board with that? or am I just uncreative?
On December 10 2018 08:41 VamosSC wrote: Terran has so many strong options vs P and you all seem to want to make Straight up mech super powerful? Its called mix in some bio with the mech, Tanks are great, widow mines, even hellions have a big role. Point is, there are plenty of really strong factory units, just going pure factory is almost never good
sorry but isn't they have been asking for pure mech and no bio bullshit involving for years?.don't comment like you have no clue what is happenig in this forum and throw out random stuffs like that.get lost...and give up your anti mech ideal if you really had one because it ain't gonna work.that ideal have not been working for over 5 damn years!
//the mass tempests strats clearly is still beatable with teaja/byun pure ghosts and vikings old shit strats plus raven tho.but they are ghosts not thors.i really dislike any air to air solution so viking being a little less cost effect versus new tempests is fine by me.lets give thors jim raynor's nitro boost or something ??
That would require bio nerf, because if you make pure mech doable, then imagine what happens when you combina mech and bio...
You know what happens?
Nothing happens.
People said that after they removed tankivacs and buffed tanks and guess what? Nothing happened, mech and bio can both be perfectly viable.
So what's the point of the recent whine since MECH IS VIABLE? Either it's not fully viable as some claim, or is fully viable as you claim. So far I am on the side of "it's not fully viable" as P myself. And I play in a wooden league where everything should work, yet mech players has to be a league above me But maybe I'm just lucky on bad meching Terrans
So, meching community, can you finally decide whether it is viable or isn't?
I don't know if you are trolling or do you really think you are smart with such an obviously dumb statement...
A SHODAN said, every mech player that isn't an Avilo wannabe knows that mech is viable in TvZ and TvT and that it has never been viable vsP.
Viability isn't an absolute statement, this is a game with 3 races after all.
Well I agree, but then don't say it's viable when the biggest whines in this thread is TvP mech. It's not FULLY viable. If the mech should becoma fully viable(PvT included), then it would require bio nerf. IMO
On December 14 2018 04:54 VamosSC wrote: Also, Avilo is a very solid player (compared to most non-pros) , but he has always chosen to play HIS play style, regardless of whether it is the most viable/effective play style. If you choose to do that, you can't complain when it doesn't always work out.
On December 14 2018 04:54 VamosSC wrote: Also, Avilo is a very solid player (compared to most non-pros) , but he has always chosen to play HIS play style, regardless of whether it is the most viable/effective play style. If you choose to do that, you can't complain when it doesn't always work out.
- Avilo - Solid player
These two things are mutually exclusive. Pick one
he reached wcs ro32 a few times. GM mechanics, platinum game sense and potato league personality
On December 14 2018 04:50 VamosSC wrote: From my perspective, I'd be okay with tweaking a few things (for example switching Thors with Goliaths) just to make things more fun from a design perspective. But as a public service announcement to Mech lobbyists, when Protoss or Zerg players hear "make mech more viable", all we really are hearing is "buff the shit out of terran by giving an already very strong race more options".
You need to realize that the more solid options that are given to any race, the stronger they will automatically be because they will have the ability to vary play styles more and be unpredictable. Now thats not necessarily a bad thing (all races should have some variability). However, I personally feel that Terran has many solid options already. I completely disagree with the argument that Terran is forced to only do the same thing every game. If you think Terran has limited options you are IMO just very uncreative.
I agree with you on this much: T has a choice of 2 strong play-styles vZ: bio and speed-mech.
within those 2 play-styles, T has a broad selection of strong openers vZ: harass, timing pushes, all-ins and greed.
no matter how T opens vZ, the branches will always converge into 2 predictable unit compositions:
BIO core composition = marines, marauders, medivacs mid-game support unit = choice of tanks or widow mines late-game special units = liberators and ghosts in the late-game.
MECH: core composition = hellion, cyclone mid-game support unit = choice of banshees or widow mines late-game special units = tanks to counter infestors. hellbats, thors and vikings to counter brood lords
the question is, which of those things makes T strong? is it the choice of 2 play-styles? or is it the many branches of harass options, timing pushes, all-ins and greedy plays which lead to those core compositions?
I strongly disagree with the notion that having 2 possible play-styles - bio and mech - makes T unpredictable. it is easy to scout whether terran is going bio of mech. it is not so easy to scout if T made a 3rd CC, finished cloak, built an armory, yadayadayada.
there is no confusion about what units Z should be making mid/late-game in response to T. in fact, T is the most predictable race in terms of core compositions. once T has selected bio, he is locked into bio for the rest of the game. once T has selected mech, same story. mech-to-bio transitions are niche to HotS-era proleague.
as far as I can see, nobody in this thread is calling for T to have a wider range of harass options, tricky openers or deceptive plays vZ. nobody is calling for T to have powerful tech-switches, either.
some thoughts on mech vZ post-patch...
lock-on cyclones have been elevated to a core unit vZ. they now have excellent synergy with hellions, widow mines and banshees, thanks to their similar movement speeds and distinct roles. they are a direct answer to swarm hosts.
pre-patch mech vZ had degraded to a numbers game involving unmicroable unit interactions. tornado blaster cyclones could not shoot while moving, so were unable to chase down swarm hosts or shuffle vs ravagers. the only option for mech was to turtle with hellbats, tanks and thors, using medivac pick-ups to keep expensive units alive, while you gear up for one big punch, ideally as 2-2 hits. lock-on cyclones have completely done away with this turtle style.
cyclones need hellions, hellions need cyclones, and both need widow mines in certain situations. the improved synergy of these units, used in the speedy "battle mech" style, does not aggregate with tanks. why? because tanks are sitting ducks without hellbats (in hellbat mode) and cyclones are sitting ducks without hellions (in hellion mode).
this is what avilo is so pissy about. he wants tanks to be the be-all and end-all. if he was sincerely playing the (mostly) tankless battle-mech style, he would be laughing at swarm hosts. the only reason for mech terrans to build tanks post-patch vZ is when lurkers or infestors are on the field. on 3 bases, you might want 2-3 tanks used defensively to secure bases, but that's it! avilo wants tanks to be the answer to EVERY zerg ground unit.
I'm happy for tank-based styles to be completely unviable at the highest level of mech vZ - and that's coming from someone who's played mech vZ since WoL! speed-mech afforded by lock-on cyclones is a much better fit with the design philosophy of sc2: intense, cut-throat, fast-paced action all over the map.
I completely understand your frustations about mech lobbyists. it's true... avilo and co. just want terran to be OP. I'm even more angry at them than you are! mech lobbyists kept their mouths shut when the cyclone was gutted at the end of 2016. they didn't care that such a unique factory unit had been degraded to a 1-A mech marine, so long as it scored them some easy wins. the way I see it, they robbed me of a fun style vZ for 2 years. I relentlessly argued for lock-on to be reinstated in literally every balance thread since 2016. you're welcome, protoss players! now pay up cuz you owe me exactly 1 goliath
how do you feel about reasonable mech lobbyists who want terran to have a non-infantry play-style available vP, one that is fun to play and fun for you to play against? and which does not upset the balance of TvZ? would you be on-board with that? or am I just uncreative?
I generally support reasonable mech lobbyists, I do agree that variation in play styles across races makes the game more fun.
On December 14 2018 04:50 VamosSC wrote: From my perspective, I'd be okay with tweaking a few things (for example switching Thors with Goliaths) just to make things more fun from a design perspective. But as a public service announcement to Mech lobbyists, when Protoss or Zerg players hear "make mech more viable", all we really are hearing is "buff the shit out of terran by giving an already very strong race more options".
You need to realize that the more solid options that are given to any race, the stronger they will automatically be because they will have the ability to vary play styles more and be unpredictable. Now thats not necessarily a bad thing (all races should have some variability). However, I personally feel that Terran has many solid options already. I completely disagree with the argument that Terran is forced to only do the same thing every game. If you think Terran has limited options you are IMO just very uncreative.
I agree with you on this much: T has a choice of 2 strong play-styles vZ: bio and speed-mech.
within those 2 play-styles, T has a broad selection of strong openers vZ: harass, timing pushes, all-ins and greed.
no matter how T opens vZ, the branches will always converge into 2 predictable unit compositions:
BIO core composition = marines, marauders, medivacs mid-game support unit = choice of tanks or widow mines late-game special units = liberators and ghosts in the late-game.
MECH: core composition = hellion, cyclone mid-game support unit = choice of banshees or widow mines late-game special units = tanks to counter infestors. hellbats, thors and vikings to counter brood lords
the question is, which of those things makes T strong? is it the choice of 2 play-styles? or is it the many branches of harass options, timing pushes, all-ins and greedy plays which lead to those core compositions?
I strongly disagree with the notion that having 2 possible play-styles - bio and mech - makes T unpredictable. it is easy to scout whether terran is going bio of mech. it is not so easy to scout if T made a 3rd CC, finished cloak, built an armory, yadayadayada.
there is no confusion about what units Z should be making mid/late-game in response to T. in fact, T is the most predictable race in terms of core compositions. once T has selected bio, he is locked into bio for the rest of the game. once T has selected mech, same story. mech-to-bio transitions are niche to HotS-era proleague.
as far as I can see, nobody in this thread is calling for T to have a wider range of harass options, tricky openers or deceptive plays vZ. nobody is calling for T to have powerful tech-switches, either.
some thoughts on mech vZ post-patch...
lock-on cyclones have been elevated to a core unit vZ. they now have excellent synergy with hellions, widow mines and banshees, thanks to their similar movement speeds and distinct roles. they are a direct answer to swarm hosts.
pre-patch mech vZ had degraded to a numbers game involving unmicroable unit interactions. tornado blaster cyclones could not shoot while moving, so were unable to chase down swarm hosts or shuffle vs ravagers. the only option for mech was to turtle with hellbats, tanks and thors, using medivac pick-ups to keep expensive units alive, while you gear up for one big punch, ideally as 2-2 hits. lock-on cyclones have completely done away with this turtle style.
cyclones need hellions, hellions need cyclones, and both need widow mines in certain situations. the improved synergy of these units, used in the speedy "battle mech" style, does not aggregate with tanks. why? because tanks are sitting ducks without hellbats (in hellbat mode) and cyclones are sitting ducks without hellions (in hellion mode).
this is what avilo is so pissy about. he wants tanks to be the be-all and end-all. if he was sincerely playing the (mostly) tankless battle-mech style, he would be laughing at swarm hosts. the only reason for mech terrans to build tanks post-patch vZ is when lurkers or infestors are on the field. on 3 bases, you might want 2-3 tanks used defensively to secure bases, but that's it! avilo wants tanks to be the answer to EVERY zerg ground unit.
I'm happy for tank-based styles to be completely unviable at the highest level of mech vZ - and that's coming from someone who's played mech vZ since WoL! speed-mech afforded by lock-on cyclones is a much better fit with the design philosophy of sc2: intense, cut-throat, fast-paced action all over the map.
I completely understand your frustations about mech lobbyists. it's true... avilo and co. just want terran to be OP. I'm even more angry at them than you are! mech lobbyists kept their mouths shut when the cyclone was gutted at the end of 2016. they didn't care that such a unique factory unit had been degraded to a 1-A mech marine, so long as it scored them some easy wins. the way I see it, they robbed me of a fun style vZ for 2 years. I relentlessly argued for lock-on to be reinstated in literally every balance thread since 2016. you're welcome, protoss players! now pay up cuz you owe me exactly 1 goliath
how do you feel about reasonable mech lobbyists who want terran to have a non-infantry play-style available vP, one that is fun to play and fun for you to play against? and which does not upset the balance of TvZ? would you be on-board with that? or am I just uncreative?
You might be being uncreative
What I don't think Terran players understand is how powerful their infantry is. So when "reasonable" mech lobbyists demand that Terran have a non-infantry option for everything, they are ignoring the gifts blizzard gave to Terran in the form of their ridiculously efficient infantry units that have the potential to punch way above their weight in supply.
Terran can't have everything. They already have so much. Their units are all ranged, pound-for-pound very powerful, extremely scalable, synergize well with each other. and Blizzard is supposed to just buff mech, which is already extremely efficient on paper and viable in practice, because spoiled Terran want to be able to fight everything with it?
Do you see protoss players asking for pure gateway armies or pure robo armies (lol) to be viable? or to nerf lurkers because lurker backbone in the army = dead protoss ground armies?
On December 14 2018 04:50 VamosSC wrote: From my perspective, I'd be okay with tweaking a few things (for example switching Thors with Goliaths) just to make things more fun from a design perspective. But as a public service announcement to Mech lobbyists, when Protoss or Zerg players hear "make mech more viable", all we really are hearing is "buff the shit out of terran by giving an already very strong race more options".
You need to realize that the more solid options that are given to any race, the stronger they will automatically be because they will have the ability to vary play styles more and be unpredictable. Now thats not necessarily a bad thing (all races should have some variability). However, I personally feel that Terran has many solid options already. I completely disagree with the argument that Terran is forced to only do the same thing every game. If you think Terran has limited options you are IMO just very uncreative.
I agree with you on this much: T has a choice of 2 strong play-styles vZ: bio and speed-mech.
within those 2 play-styles, T has a broad selection of strong openers vZ: harass, timing pushes, all-ins and greed.
no matter how T opens vZ, the branches will always converge into 2 predictable unit compositions:
BIO core composition = marines, marauders, medivacs mid-game support unit = choice of tanks or widow mines late-game special units = liberators and ghosts in the late-game.
MECH: core composition = hellion, cyclone mid-game support unit = choice of banshees or widow mines late-game special units = tanks to counter infestors. hellbats, thors and vikings to counter brood lords
the question is, which of those things makes T strong? is it the choice of 2 play-styles? or is it the many branches of harass options, timing pushes, all-ins and greedy plays which lead to those core compositions?
I strongly disagree with the notion that having 2 possible play-styles - bio and mech - makes T unpredictable. it is easy to scout whether terran is going bio of mech. it is not so easy to scout if T made a 3rd CC, finished cloak, built an armory, yadayadayada.
there is no confusion about what units Z should be making mid/late-game in response to T. in fact, T is the most predictable race in terms of core compositions. once T has selected bio, he is locked into bio for the rest of the game. once T has selected mech, same story. mech-to-bio transitions are niche to HotS-era proleague.
as far as I can see, nobody in this thread is calling for T to have a wider range of harass options, tricky openers or deceptive plays vZ. nobody is calling for T to have powerful tech-switches, either.
some thoughts on mech vZ post-patch...
lock-on cyclones have been elevated to a core unit vZ. they now have excellent synergy with hellions, widow mines and banshees, thanks to their similar movement speeds and distinct roles. they are a direct answer to swarm hosts.
pre-patch mech vZ had degraded to a numbers game involving unmicroable unit interactions. tornado blaster cyclones could not shoot while moving, so were unable to chase down swarm hosts or shuffle vs ravagers. the only option for mech was to turtle with hellbats, tanks and thors, using medivac pick-ups to keep expensive units alive, while you gear up for one big punch, ideally as 2-2 hits. lock-on cyclones have completely done away with this turtle style.
cyclones need hellions, hellions need cyclones, and both need widow mines in certain situations. the improved synergy of these units, used in the speedy "battle mech" style, does not aggregate with tanks. why? because tanks are sitting ducks without hellbats (in hellbat mode) and cyclones are sitting ducks without hellions (in hellion mode).
this is what avilo is so pissy about. he wants tanks to be the be-all and end-all. if he was sincerely playing the (mostly) tankless battle-mech style, he would be laughing at swarm hosts. the only reason for mech terrans to build tanks post-patch vZ is when lurkers or infestors are on the field. on 3 bases, you might want 2-3 tanks used defensively to secure bases, but that's it! avilo wants tanks to be the answer to EVERY zerg ground unit.
I'm happy for tank-based styles to be completely unviable at the highest level of mech vZ - and that's coming from someone who's played mech vZ since WoL! speed-mech afforded by lock-on cyclones is a much better fit with the design philosophy of sc2: intense, cut-throat, fast-paced action all over the map.
I completely understand your frustations about mech lobbyists. it's true... avilo and co. just want terran to be OP. I'm even more angry at them than you are! mech lobbyists kept their mouths shut when the cyclone was gutted at the end of 2016. they didn't care that such a unique factory unit had been degraded to a 1-A mech marine, so long as it scored them some easy wins. the way I see it, they robbed me of a fun style vZ for 2 years. I relentlessly argued for lock-on to be reinstated in literally every balance thread since 2016. you're welcome, protoss players! now pay up cuz you owe me exactly 1 goliath
how do you feel about reasonable mech lobbyists who want terran to have a non-infantry play-style available vP, one that is fun to play and fun for you to play against? and which does not upset the balance of TvZ? would you be on-board with that? or am I just uncreative?
You might be being uncreative
What I don't think Terran players understand is how powerful their infantry is. So when "reasonable" mech lobbyists demand that Terran have a non-infantry option for everything, they are ignoring the gifts blizzard gave to Terran in the form of their ridiculously efficient infantry units that have the potential to punch way above their weight in supply.
Terran can't have everything. They already have so much. Their units are all ranged, pound-for-pound very powerful, extremely scalable, synergize well with each other. and Blizzard is supposed to just buff mech, which is already extremely efficient on paper and viable in practice, because spoiled Terran want to be able to fight everything with it?
Do you see protoss players asking for pure gateway armies or pure robo armies (lol) to be viable? or to nerf lurkers because lurker backbone in the army = dead protoss ground armies?
What year is it?? Bio nowadays is relying on the freedom circles and tanks more than ever Previous patch was the weakest patch for MMM and all mech s buffs clearly didn't help terran bios in late game at all MMM can only trade even(I don't even think it can trade even lol) with p or z armies in mid game is not the MMM I used to know I am sure as shit bios in lotv was balanced by one unit named liberator and the dev team wanted to get rid of that
On December 14 2018 04:50 VamosSC wrote: From my perspective, I'd be okay with tweaking a few things (for example switching Thors with Goliaths) just to make things more fun from a design perspective. But as a public service announcement to Mech lobbyists, when Protoss or Zerg players hear "make mech more viable", all we really are hearing is "buff the shit out of terran by giving an already very strong race more options".
You need to realize that the more solid options that are given to any race, the stronger they will automatically be because they will have the ability to vary play styles more and be unpredictable. Now thats not necessarily a bad thing (all races should have some variability). However, I personally feel that Terran has many solid options already. I completely disagree with the argument that Terran is forced to only do the same thing every game. If you think Terran has limited options you are IMO just very uncreative.
I agree with you on this much: T has a choice of 2 strong play-styles vZ: bio and speed-mech.
within those 2 play-styles, T has a broad selection of strong openers vZ: harass, timing pushes, all-ins and greed.
no matter how T opens vZ, the branches will always converge into 2 predictable unit compositions:
BIO core composition = marines, marauders, medivacs mid-game support unit = choice of tanks or widow mines late-game special units = liberators and ghosts in the late-game.
MECH: core composition = hellion, cyclone mid-game support unit = choice of banshees or widow mines late-game special units = tanks to counter infestors. hellbats, thors and vikings to counter brood lords
the question is, which of those things makes T strong? is it the choice of 2 play-styles? or is it the many branches of harass options, timing pushes, all-ins and greedy plays which lead to those core compositions?
I strongly disagree with the notion that having 2 possible play-styles - bio and mech - makes T unpredictable. it is easy to scout whether terran is going bio of mech. it is not so easy to scout if T made a 3rd CC, finished cloak, built an armory, yadayadayada.
there is no confusion about what units Z should be making mid/late-game in response to T. in fact, T is the most predictable race in terms of core compositions. once T has selected bio, he is locked into bio for the rest of the game. once T has selected mech, same story. mech-to-bio transitions are niche to HotS-era proleague.
as far as I can see, nobody in this thread is calling for T to have a wider range of harass options, tricky openers or deceptive plays vZ. nobody is calling for T to have powerful tech-switches, either.
some thoughts on mech vZ post-patch...
lock-on cyclones have been elevated to a core unit vZ. they now have excellent synergy with hellions, widow mines and banshees, thanks to their similar movement speeds and distinct roles. they are a direct answer to swarm hosts.
pre-patch mech vZ had degraded to a numbers game involving unmicroable unit interactions. tornado blaster cyclones could not shoot while moving, so were unable to chase down swarm hosts or shuffle vs ravagers. the only option for mech was to turtle with hellbats, tanks and thors, using medivac pick-ups to keep expensive units alive, while you gear up for one big punch, ideally as 2-2 hits. lock-on cyclones have completely done away with this turtle style.
cyclones need hellions, hellions need cyclones, and both need widow mines in certain situations. the improved synergy of these units, used in the speedy "battle mech" style, does not aggregate with tanks. why? because tanks are sitting ducks without hellbats (in hellbat mode) and cyclones are sitting ducks without hellions (in hellion mode).
this is what avilo is so pissy about. he wants tanks to be the be-all and end-all. if he was sincerely playing the (mostly) tankless battle-mech style, he would be laughing at swarm hosts. the only reason for mech terrans to build tanks post-patch vZ is when lurkers or infestors are on the field. on 3 bases, you might want 2-3 tanks used defensively to secure bases, but that's it! avilo wants tanks to be the answer to EVERY zerg ground unit.
I'm happy for tank-based styles to be completely unviable at the highest level of mech vZ - and that's coming from someone who's played mech vZ since WoL! speed-mech afforded by lock-on cyclones is a much better fit with the design philosophy of sc2: intense, cut-throat, fast-paced action all over the map.
I completely understand your frustations about mech lobbyists. it's true... avilo and co. just want terran to be OP. I'm even more angry at them than you are! mech lobbyists kept their mouths shut when the cyclone was gutted at the end of 2016. they didn't care that such a unique factory unit had been degraded to a 1-A mech marine, so long as it scored them some easy wins. the way I see it, they robbed me of a fun style vZ for 2 years. I relentlessly argued for lock-on to be reinstated in literally every balance thread since 2016. you're welcome, protoss players! now pay up cuz you owe me exactly 1 goliath
how do you feel about reasonable mech lobbyists who want terran to have a non-infantry play-style available vP, one that is fun to play and fun for you to play against? and which does not upset the balance of TvZ? would you be on-board with that? or am I just uncreative?
You might be being uncreative
What I don't think Terran players understand is how powerful their infantry is. So when "reasonable" mech lobbyists demand that Terran have a non-infantry option for everything, they are ignoring the gifts blizzard gave to Terran in the form of their ridiculously efficient infantry units that have the potential to punch way above their weight in supply.
Terran can't have everything. They already have so much. Their units are all ranged, pound-for-pound very powerful, extremely scalable, synergize well with each other. and Blizzard is supposed to just buff mech, which is already extremely efficient on paper and viable in practice, because spoiled Terran want to be able to fight everything with it?
Do you see protoss players asking for pure gateway armies or pure robo armies (lol) to be viable? or to nerf lurkers because lurker backbone in the army = dead protoss ground armies?
What year is it?? Bio nowadays is relying on the freedom circles and tanks more than ever Previous patch was the weakest patch for MMM and all mech s buffs clearly didn't help terran bios in late game at all MMM can only trade even(I don't even think it can trade even lol) with p or z armies in mid game is not the MMM I used to know I am sure as shit bios in lotv was balanced by one unit named liberator and the dev team wanted to get rid of that
I'm not saying that MMM alone can get a Terran through an entire match (and I dont think it should be able to either). Same way gateway units often need heavy support. in fact without HT/distruptor, both of which are relatively unreliable as good micro and tactics can render them ineffective, they struggle to trade evenly with many compositions. and just lol @ MMM not being able to trade. stimmed bio destroys everything protoss has unless disruptor (got nerfed vs terran) or HT and at that point you just use superior mobility of your MMM to attack multiple sites as well as good micro to bait disruptor and HT abilities
but anyway I'm talking about Terran players who want to just ignore such a strong component of their race and think that it's fair that another component of their race (factory armies) be viable against literally everything.
I dont get this whole "mech terran" mindset. Ts arent mech players...they are terran players.
god forbid that terran is able to win a game vP using only the factory and starport... I mean, come on! those 2 tech trees only account for 75% of terran's entire unit ensemble. god forbid that terran is able to win a game vP without marines and marauders
god forbid that terran is able to win a game vP using only the factory and starport... I mean, come on! those 2 tech trees only account for 75% of terran's entire unit ensemble. god forbid that terran is able to win a game vP without marines and marauders
Let's apply this logic on Zerg and Protoss, shall we? How about Protoss being able to win without AoE units? AoE units are nowhere near 25 % of their arsenal, right? Show me how you win a lategame without any splash damage as Protoss.
How about Zerg being able to win without Hive units. It's fine. WHo needs broodlords, ultralisks or vipers
Or how about Protoss being able to win without gateway units? How about Zerg being able to win without the "hatchery" units? (roach/zergling/baneling and I will still give them the queen )
god forbid that terran is able to win a game vP using only the factory and starport... I mean, come on! those 2 tech trees only account for 75% of terran's entire unit ensemble. god forbid that terran is able to win a game vP without marines and marauders
Let's apply this logic on Zerg and Protoss, shall we? How about Protoss being able to win without AoE units? AoE units are nowhere near 25 % of their arsenal, right? Show me how you win a lategame without any splash damage as Protoss.
How about Zerg being able to win without Hive units. It's fine. WHo needs broodlords, ultralisks or vipers
Or how about Protoss being able to win without gateway units? How about Zerg being able to win without the "hatchery" units? (roach/zergling/baneling and I will still give them the queen )
Oh noez, it doesn't work.
1.- Gateway styles are a thing and they are very viable, you can also play protoss without making a single stargate unit.
2.- Zerg can play without huge amounts of their tech tree, like spire, roach warren, baneling nest and ultralisk cavern.]
Tech trees don't work the same, and mech IS a thing and will ALWAY BE a thing, people using these arguments, it has entire design choices in the form of upgrades and units made specifically to BE a thing (for example the fact that terran is the only race with 2 mineral only units, 1 for mech and 1 for bio).
On December 18 2018 22:24 BerserkSword wrote:
Do you see protoss players asking for pure gateway armies or pure robo armies (lol) to be viable? or to nerf lurkers because lurker backbone in the army = dead protoss ground armies?
Yes?... I mean are you new or something? The inclusion of the adept, the buff to chargelots and the changes on sentry and stalker were done specifically because protoss players ASKED for more gateway centric strats.
god forbid that terran is able to win a game vP using only the factory and starport... I mean, come on! those 2 tech trees only account for 75% of terran's entire unit ensemble. god forbid that terran is able to win a game vP without marines and marauders
Let's apply this logic on Zerg and Protoss, shall we? How about Protoss being able to win without AoE units? AoE units are nowhere near 25 % of their arsenal, right? Show me how you win a lategame without any splash damage as Protoss.
How about Zerg being able to win without Hive units. It's fine. WHo needs broodlords, ultralisks or vipers
Or how about Protoss being able to win without gateway units? How about Zerg being able to win without the "hatchery" units? (roach/zergling/baneling and I will still give them the queen )
Oh noez, it doesn't work.
I mean, good job bending my logic to justify your hyperbolic cherry-picked examples.
Protoss has 4 damage-dealing AoE units: high templars (psi storm), archons, colossi and disruptors. 4 out of 18 protoss units are damage-dealing AoE units.
4 out of 18 = 22.22%
I included observers and warp prism in that tally - but if we exclude non-fighting units, then AoE units account for exactly 25% of P's arsenal. lol
P builds 6 units from the Gateway: zealot, stalker, adept, sentry, dark templar, high templar.
T builds 4 units from the Barracks: marine, marauder, reaper, ghost.
the Barracks is home to a specialty scouting unit which is only built once during a standard game vP. the removal of tornado blaster cyclones also extinguished the reaper's role in proxy cheese. that brings the total number of playable raxx units down to 3
P being able to win without gateway units is not comparable to T being able to win without raxx units.
why?
because gateways produce double the number of playable units because gateways have strong overlapping synergies with robo / twilight / stargate because gateways produce both biological and mechanical units (stalker + disruptor / colossus = mech) because gateways are closer to the hatchery than the barracks in terms of production design
the barracks, on the other hand, has limited synergy with the rest of T's tech tree.
4M / liberator is core 3-base MMM / tank is borderline playable on certain maps (Dreamcatcher, Stasis)
T's flagship units are obsolete in this match-up. thors, unplayable. battlecruisers, unplayable.
can you beat P without marines? no can you beat P without marauders? no
can you beat T without zealots? yes
8-gate +1 gladept / immortal all-in gladept / phoenix all-in disruptor drop into blink / disruptor 3-gate prism into blink / disruptor oh, and then you have map-specific compositions like phoenix / disruptor / cannon / carrier on 16-bit. I watched GuMiho lose over and over to this on stream
god forbid that terran is able to win a game vP using only the factory and starport... I mean, come on! those 2 tech trees only account for 75% of terran's entire unit ensemble. god forbid that terran is able to win a game vP without marines and marauders
Let's apply this logic on Zerg and Protoss, shall we? How about Protoss being able to win without AoE units? AoE units are nowhere near 25 % of their arsenal, right? Show me how you win a lategame without any splash damage as Protoss.
How about Zerg being able to win without Hive units. It's fine. WHo needs broodlords, ultralisks or vipers
Or how about Protoss being able to win without gateway units? How about Zerg being able to win without the "hatchery" units? (roach/zergling/baneling and I will still give them the queen )
Oh noez, it doesn't work.
I don't think this comparison is accurate at all. Terrans don't look at the set of units that exist in the game, pick some of them they don't like and say "I want to win without using any of those units". All they want is a playstyle that's fundamentally different from standard bio play and it just makes the most sense that this alternative playstyle is a factory-centric playstyle because barrack-heavy play will always play out the same. We see Zerg and Protoss players also ask for alternative playstyles like Range vs Melee Zerg, Ling Bane Muta vs Ling bane Hyra, Collossus play, Disruptor play or Gateway HT centric play.
god forbid that terran is able to win a game vP using only the factory and starport... I mean, come on! those 2 tech trees only account for 75% of terran's entire unit ensemble. god forbid that terran is able to win a game vP without marines and marauders
Let's apply this logic on Zerg and Protoss, shall we? How about Protoss being able to win without AoE units? AoE units are nowhere near 25 % of their arsenal, right? Show me how you win a lategame without any splash damage as Protoss.
How about Zerg being able to win without Hive units. It's fine. WHo needs broodlords, ultralisks or vipers
Or how about Protoss being able to win without gateway units? How about Zerg being able to win without the "hatchery" units? (roach/zergling/baneling and I will still give them the queen )
Oh noez, it doesn't work.
I don't think this comparison is accurate at all. Terrans don't look at the set of units that exist in the game, pick some of them they don't like and say "I want to win without using any of those units". All they want is a playstyle that's fundamentally different from standard bio play and it just makes the most sense that this alternative playstyle is a factory-centric playstyle because barrack-heavy play will always play out the same. We see Zerg and Protoss players also ask for alternative playstyles like Range vs Melee Zerg, Ling Bane Muta vs Ling bane Hyra, Collossus play, Disruptor play or Gateway HT centric play.
Of course it's not accurate, but I just used the logic Shodan used. He insisted to look at all the units as the whole and pick 75 % of them I believed the amount of smileys made it clear that it was just using that logic ad absurdum to show it's a nonsense view.
I get they want mech style to be working, but they have to accept that they're not fighting just Blizzard, part of the community doesn't want the mech to happen either. To have mech viable there would have to be big redesign, mostly because PvT units interaction. And this is simply not happening, SC2 doesn't have that big player base to allow Blizzard to spend big time for the redesign. At the same time Blizzard cannot make angry all the lower leage players(who are THE MAJORITY of players) where mech is mostly turtle play into 200/200 3/3 amove. And making the mech even stronger will get players more angry down there. FFS the a-move Protoss is still a thing and makes people angry even nowadays and it's nowhere near mech level passivness in the lower leagues. And you can't solve this issue easily and respnding with "learn to play" doesn't help either when you play a playstyle that's this annoying.
good job on another misrepresentation of the mech lobby's proposals - in particular, the suggestion that all mech lobbyists want passive turtle play into 200/200 3/3 A-move
On December 14 2018 13:11 SHODAN wrote: I'm happy for tank-based styles to be completely unviable at the highest level of mech vZ - and that's coming from someone who's played mech vZ since WoL! speed-mech afforded by lock-on cyclones is a much better fit with the design philosophy of sc2: intense, cut-throat, fast-paced action all over the map.
why should mech lobbyists take seriously a peddlar of straw mans, inexactitudes and hyperbole? why don't you engage with the real balance suggestions put forward by mech lobbyists?
1) anti-plasma cannons upgrade for siege tanks. 150/150 cost, armory requirement, 121 second research time. 2) replace thors with goliaths - or - heavily redesign the thor with goliaths in mind
you complain about making the mech "even stronger". do you acknowledge that mech is strong vZ and completely unplayable vP? great, so please explain to me how bonus damage to shields would upset the balance of TvZ. zerg units don't have shields, right? do you acknowledge that thors are completely obsolete in the current patch? do you acknowledge the factory / starport AA identity crisis? great, so please explain to me how goliaths are a bad idea
and no, sc2 shouldn't be balanced around bronze league. everything is imba and OP in bronze league
good job on another misrepresentation of the mech lobby's proposals - in particular, the suggestion that all mech lobbyists want passive turtle play into 200/200 3/3 A-move + Show Spoiler +
On December 14 2018 13:11 SHODAN wrote: I'm happy for tank-based styles to be completely unviable at the highest level of mech vZ - and that's coming from someone who's played mech vZ since WoL! speed-mech afforded by lock-on cyclones is a much better fit with the design philosophy of sc2: intense, cut-throat, fast-paced action all over the map.
why should mech lobbyists take seriously a peddlar of straw mans, inexactitudes and hyperbole? why don't you engage with the real balance suggestions put forward by mech lobbyists?
1) anti-plasma cannons upgrade for siege tanks. 150/150 cost, armory requirement, 121 second research time. 2) replace thors with goliaths - or - heavily redesign the thor with goliaths in mind
you complain about making the mech "even stronger". do you acknowledge that mech is strong vZ and completely unplayable vP? great, so please explain to me how bonus damage to shields would upset the balance of TvZ. zerg units don't have shields, right? do you acknowledge that thors are completely obsolete in the current patch? do you acknowledge the factory / starport AA identity crisis? great, so please explain to me how goliaths are a bad idea
and no, sc2 shouldn't be balanced around bronze league. everything is imba and OP in bronze league
You do realize I didn't write that? It's your misintepretation of my text. Read more carefully and don't react to just key words when your keyword filter is broken.
I will write it again.
In the LOWER LEAGUES mech games often goes into turtle play into 200/200 3/3/ amove to victory.
LOWER LEAGUES are the important KEY WORDS.
LOWER LEAGUES
Is it more clear now?
And I thought this
At the same time Blizzard cannot make angry all the lower leage players(who are THE MAJORITY of players) where mech is mostly turtle play into 200/200 3/3 amove.
cannot be misinterpreted.
Edit> Just to be super clear - what I wrote is that you need to fight Blizzard team to do reasonable balance changes and at the same time you need to fight all the players who have versus mech experience mostly as the turtle play(which is not a small part) and Blizzard cannot piss off lower league players so higher league players can play mech games. I didn't write anything you suggest I had written.
Blizzard cannot piss off lower league players so higher league players can play mech games.
I did not know we balanced the game around not pissing people off in the lower leagues? But if that is the case I am a lower league player and all off this pisses me off:
So I expect all off the above to be nerfed as soon as possible in order to make the game more enjoyable. I am sure that everyone that thinks just like me agrees.
good job on another misrepresentation of the mech lobby's proposals - in particular, the suggestion that all mech lobbyists want passive turtle play into 200/200 3/3 A-move
On December 14 2018 13:11 SHODAN wrote: I'm happy for tank-based styles to be completely unviable at the highest level of mech vZ - and that's coming from someone who's played mech vZ since WoL! speed-mech afforded by lock-on cyclones is a much better fit with the design philosophy of sc2: intense, cut-throat, fast-paced action all over the map.
why should mech lobbyists take seriously a peddlar of straw mans, inexactitudes and hyperbole? why don't you engage with the real balance suggestions put forward by mech lobbyists?
1) anti-plasma cannons upgrade for siege tanks. 150/150 cost, armory requirement, 121 second research time. 2) replace thors with goliaths - or - heavily redesign the thor with goliaths in mind
you complain about making the mech "even stronger". do you acknowledge that mech is strong vZ and completely unplayable vP? great, so please explain to me how bonus damage to shields would upset the balance of TvZ. zerg units don't have shields, right? do you acknowledge that thors are completely obsolete in the current patch? do you acknowledge the factory / starport AA identity crisis? great, so please explain to me how goliaths are a bad idea
and no, sc2 shouldn't be balanced around bronze league. everything is imba and OP in bronze league
1) anti-plasma cannons upgrade for siege tanks. I think that this idea is very inelegant, the siege tank already has an attack modifier vs armoured with this upgrade it would be the only unit in the game with two attack modifier. This would also be a direct buff to bio tank in TvP, not that bio tank is particularry good in TvP right now but it still is something to note.
2) replace thors with goliaths - or - heavily redesign the thor with goliaths in mind I think it's pointless to discuss this idea. Blizzard didn't bring the Goliath into 1vs1 in the last 8 years, they won't do it in the next 8 years either. The Thor is here to stay and with it its biggest weakness, its unit model.
It's not only mech who struggle in TvP, bio too has problems vs Protoss late game. The big difference is that bio has a lot more early game options than mech. I think the big problem for both bio and mech in late game TvP is the new Tempest. They render libs nearly useless and without libs bio can't fight against all the splash dmg protoss has and the units who are supposed to counter them aren't realy doing it at the moment. Thors became trash as soon the toss has enougth Tempest to two shot them and vikings can't catch the Tempest anymore.
A good and easy solution would be a nerf to the Tempests attack range. 15(air)/10(ground) -> 13(air)/9(ground) fights against Thors will be a lot harder especially with low Tempest numbers, also a combination of Thors and libs will be way harder to crack because the Thors don't have to expose themself as much inorder to gard the libs. Vikings will also have a easier time and if that's not enougth they could nerf the Tempest dmg vs non massiv units.