EPTOn December 20 2022 11:36 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
I'm a mech only player and I'm sad I'm reminded that Cyclone, Raven, Sensor Tower changes will be nerfing mech directly once again... Banshee will be buffed sure but it was fine already and won't be a core mech unit. Would be nice if we gave a tiny bit of love to Hellions, Hellbats, or Cyclones to make mech more rounded and solid.
For example, why can't we buff Hellion damage from 8 (+6 vs Light) to 9 (+5 vs Light)?
Especially with the Raven nerfs and AA missile nerfs, which also makes Hellion comps/squads weaker.
The fact that this wasn't buffed along with the AA missile nerf is kind of proof that the balance committee isn't putting enough care into addressing side effects of the proposed changes, or are choosing to neglect certain unit comps. Hellions are maybe the unit that pairs best with the Raven because of the mineral and gas ratio. (Other than the Marine, which the AA missile nerf is actually for). I refuse to believe the balance committee wanted the AA missile nerf to also nerf Hellion comps.
Hellion having 9 damage vs non-light will not make them suddenly beat Stalkers, Roaches, Marauders, Queens, or ruin any other interaction. Yet it will be a small change that will still help mech comps regardless, by making Hellion slightly more rounded of a unit.
Also, what if Blue Flame's upgrade was changed from +5 vs Light, to +1 (+4 vs Light) for example?
If Cyclones are going to be worse against armored units like Stalker/Immortal/Roaches, then it would be nice if Hellions were even slightly better vs those units. Doing 10 damage to non-Light units with Blue Flame instead of the current 8 damage would be nice, and it really won't ruin anything.
We can give very significant buffs to Zerg units that are already good and useful, but not even tiny incremental ones that'd help weaker strategies/comps. (Why not buff Sentry damage from 6 to 10, heck even 8, if we want Gateway armies to be stronger?)
I'm a mech only player and I'm sad I'm reminded that Cyclone, Raven, Sensor Tower changes will be nerfing mech directly once again... Banshee will be buffed sure but it was fine already and won't be a core mech unit. Would be nice if we gave a tiny bit of love to Hellions, Hellbats, or Cyclones to make mech more rounded and solid.
For example, why can't we buff Hellion damage from 8 (+6 vs Light) to 9 (+5 vs Light)?
Especially with the Raven nerfs and AA missile nerfs, which also makes Hellion comps/squads weaker.
The fact that this wasn't buffed along with the AA missile nerf is kind of proof that the balance committee isn't putting enough care into addressing side effects of the proposed changes, or are choosing to neglect certain unit comps. Hellions are maybe the unit that pairs best with the Raven because of the mineral and gas ratio. (Other than the Marine, which the AA missile nerf is actually for). I refuse to believe the balance committee wanted the AA missile nerf to also nerf Hellion comps.
Hellion having 9 damage vs non-light will not make them suddenly beat Stalkers, Roaches, Marauders, Queens, or ruin any other interaction. Yet it will be a small change that will still help mech comps regardless, by making Hellion slightly more rounded of a unit.
Also, what if Blue Flame's upgrade was changed from +5 vs Light, to +1 (+4 vs Light) for example?
If Cyclones are going to be worse against armored units like Stalker/Immortal/Roaches, then it would be nice if Hellions were even slightly better vs those units. Doing 10 damage to non-Light units with Blue Flame instead of the current 8 damage would be nice, and it really won't ruin anything.
We can give very significant buffs to Zerg units that are already good and useful, but not even tiny incremental ones that'd help weaker strategies/comps. (Why not buff Sentry damage from 6 to 10, heck even 8, if we want Gateway armies to be stronger?)
speed-mech represents a huge missed opportunity of balance design in sc2. hellions, cyclones and widow mines have such an awesome synergy. those 3 units together are very satisfying to control as part of a speed-mech composition .I never had so much fun playing terran in early LotV, when the meta was still evolving (zergs were slow to realize just how good mass ravagers are :D). none of this matters because speed-mech is too weak to play competitively
on the other hand, starport units are very strong, but they have an incredibly ugly synergy because their unit roles are so confused, and this makes them feel unsatisfying to play with and play against. look at vikings
so godlike in TvT that the whole matchup revolves around them to an annoying and tiresome extent
vP, you just make enough of them to trade, which is fine
waste of supply in vZ, except for the 1 you might build to kill early overlords
I wish I could articulate it better, but it feels so awkward that a supposed air supremacy unit can be so indomitable in one matchup and so thoroughly useless in the other.
that same awkwardness I feel with liberators, because of their comically bad anti-air attack and complete lack of counter-play when an opponent side-steps your liberation zones.
I was inspired while watching Top Gun to redesign vikings after the F-14 Tomcat, to resolve its identity crisis. I want it to have an exciting (but limited) AA attack, while preserving and maximizing its versatility as a disposable harass unit, like we all imagined it would be when it was first revealed in the pre-release of SC2. I borrowed ideas from BW's spider mine ability, which is limited but powerful, and the vulture's secondary role as cannon-fodder / harass-fodder:
VIKING
- dramatically increase aerial movement speed to Very Fast, or at least give it a movement speed upgrade in the techlab
- remove Lanzer Torpedoes AA attack. replace with gatling cannon AA attack. this reduces the viking's standard AA attack from 9 to 6
- new AA weapon: SEEKER MISSILES! 2 x long-range, high single-damage (no splash) sidewinder missiles that cannot be replenished, just like an F-14 tomcat. missile comes out and stays immobile in front of the viking for a short time while charging up, then rapidly moves and explodes at the target. targeted unit lights up red when targeted. I'm not sure whether the missile should be dodgeable and fizzle out if the target unit moves out of range, or if the missile itself should be snipable in mid-air (with lowest possible target priority, so that the opponent is rewarded for precise control), but it's fun to imagine that missile becomes more reliable when used at close range instead of max range (introducing an exciting risk / reward mechanic).
- tweak viking HP / gatling gun dmg until the balance is sweet
I love this idea because seeker missiles were fun, fun, fun. utterly broken as a raven attack because ravens could replenish them to infinity in the lategame, but the idea was good.
edit: I think the reason why it's so godlike in one matchup, useless in another, is because the viking was given the wrong combination of strengths and weaknesses. it's slow AF and must stop to attack, but it can shoot from a long way away + spot for tanks. terran is the only race that doesn't have a fast air control unit, like mutas and phoenix / oracle, so I think the viking is the best candidate to fill that empty role. vikings are anti-fun in TvT. who has more vikings than the opponent is not compelling gameplay and this is not the viking we were promised during SC2's pre-release.
there are lots of good ideas to be stolen from movies like Terminator (the aerial Hunter-Killer vehicles during the flashback sequence) and games like Thunderforce, that have so many interesting and original weapon upgrades. idk, the whole terran sky army just feels so lazy and band-aided at this point. liberators are finicky to control, and I feel weary every time I watch a pro terran attempt to pre-emptively unsiege a liberator and move it out of harm's way (it NEVER works). there has to be some kind of counter-counter play that makes it not such a 1-dimensional siege unit. should it even be a siege unit in the first place? I don't know... maybe the problem is siege mode and not its inherent role as a siege unit. tempests work just fine as a siege unit without having to become static missile turrets, and I quite like the idea of the liberator being a medium-range, mobile siege unit to differentiate itself from the other siege types in SC2.
LIBERATOR
- remove Defender Mode, replace with Hunter Mode. in Hunter Mode, the liberator's movement speed is dramatically reduced. Concord Cannon (rail gun) inflicts single target damage to ground units in a conal area in front of the liberator (a cone, not a circle like we currently have with liberation zones). liberators can rotate 360 degrees while in Hunter Mode. reduce the air-to-ground attack damage of the rail gun by half, but now it fires twice as fast.
- remove Lexington Rockets (the laughably weak AA attack). replace with a rebalanced version of the old AA attack that inflicted strong splash against clumps of muta / corruptor / interceptors, but was weak vs single targets like colossus and brood lords.
to me, this clearly defines the viking as an exciting semi-suicidal single-target AA fighter, with strong secondary use as a harass unit thanks to its increased speed. it'll be a lot more satisfying to land vikings in the opponent's base now, and will give mechplay the drop option it so badly needs (thors in medivacs? c'mon, that shit is goofy AF). at the same time, you have a clearly defined AA splash from the liberator, which leaves the thor kinda obsolete on the ground. congrats, you are now free to redesign the thor or delete it from the game entirely. cyclones have more than enough potential to compensate for that loss.
remove thors from the game? (or make it a fun Mothership type unit for 4v4 reasons)
Javelin Missiles replaced by a dignified liberator AA attack
250mm Punisher Cannons replaced by buffed and tweaked cyclones.
CYCLONE
- gas cost reduced from 100 to 75
- lock-on autocast attack priority fixed to armored > light
- Typhoon Missile Pod changed to Typhoon Missile Pods plural (the cyclone fires twice and can attack 2 targets at once).
- Typhoon Missle Pod damage reduced from 18 to 10 (or maybe 12... test it)
- new upgrade: Charon Boosters. increases the golia-- erm, the cyclone's lock-on activation-range by 1 against both air and ground units. careful not to confuse "activation range" with the actual attack-range of lock-on.
- Mag-Field Accelerator: increases the attack speed of the first 4 shots of the cyclone's lock-on. damage bonus changed from +20 vs armored to +10 vs armored only
WIDOW MINE
reduce the supply cost of widow mines from 2 to 1, but make it destruct upon firing so that it can't be used over and over (see my hellbat suggestion below, which goes some way towards compensating for this loss of defensive staying power). I'm sure there are ways to tweak widow mines further, like decreasing its build time so that they can reinforce more quickly. the point is that widow mines eventually become fodder in the big mid / lategame fights anyway. preserving mines only matters when you're harassing with them in the early game. might as well just embrace it for what it is: a mine. mines explode. that is their identity in warfare and it's always been goofy AF that we have mines with a survival instinct in SC2. I think speed mech would benefit from faster production, and I won't particularly miss early widow mine drops vP. those widow mine drops shouldn't be the crutch that early game TvP revolves around. it's dumb and needs to go. I'd rather have effective and speedy landed vikings instead.
and maybe slightly buff blue flame like Yoshi suggested.
HELLBAT
one last thing, while I was thinking about different siege types and siege modes: hellbats seem like a far better candidate for static mode than the liberator ever did. I think the hellbat should leave its penguin ancestry behind and instead become a gargoyle, with its wings folded, like the ones you see forebodingly guarding the heights of cathedral towers. in hellbat mode, instead of waddling around like a duck and spraying cones of fire, what if the hellbat became THE SHREDDER? completely immovable, but with a circular fiery death-zone like we saw from the shredder in HotS pre-release. obviously you can set aside the dumb mechanic of being inactive when friendly units are in range, and obviously do not include give it burrow / cloak either. swap the hellbat's limited mobility for absolute immobility, reduce its HP (equal to the hellion's squishiness) and make its attack zone a wide circle (but not stupidly strong like the shredder's radiation field). this would harmonize well with siege tanks and become the versatile defensive option for mech whenever terran is hard on the defensive. it's past time we made the most of terran's Transformers gimmick.
also, with this change to the hellbat, the widow mine and the viking, I think it would make a lot of sense to remove the smart salvos upgrade and simply make hellions and vikings transform quickly right from the get-go.
to me, these sorts of ideas would help clearly define the roles of factory / starport and overall refine the synergy of those units. I think it also helps that the assets for seeker missile and the shredder's radiation zone are already in the game, so maybe it's not too farfetched to hope for some design changes so late into SC2's lifespan?
P.S. the most blatant failure of the current balance team is their failure to address the most complained-about annoyance of ghosts and especially the raven taking top priority in the command card, over marines and marauders. it tells me that they either don't care about terran, or that terran doesn't have a voice on the balance council and they simply can't comprehend the most basic elements of gameplay from a terran perspective.
