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On February 13 2024 23:01 jpg06051992 wrote:
Serral is the Flash of SC2, deal with it. If he can make a unit that has been nerfed that many times still be good at the top level it's just a testament to how much of the GOAT he really is.
Serral is so good he'll make anything work I don't think anything should be nerfed because Serral is a god unless the thing becomes so abusive that the game is dramatically out of balance like with Byun's OG reapers. But I guess I'd ask you this: can you think of a single other unit interaction that simply ends the game without a clear and obvious mistake on the loser's side? There are lots of examples of game-ending damage from bad fights, early game mineral line massacres, big disruptor, bane, widow mine shots, etc., but in almost all these examples there is a clear mistake (failure to pay attention to an incoming attack, failure to split, failure to pull back quickly enough, etc.). I guess you can argue that failure to build enough turrets around the map or failure to constantly scan your army is a "mistake", but at best this is a viable strategy only in late game with a super strong orbital count, and it's not even clear (to me at least) whether this kind of insurance policy is worth the cost.
I know not all and not even a majority of burrowed fungals immediately end the game in TvZ, but it is shocking how often it does, and how often it changes the the position for the Zerg from unwinnable to even, or even to winning. To me it's a structural issue of the match-up in which the Zerg can almost always re-max, and the Terran will take a long time to, if they can at all. I'm okay with that if you lose half your army to bad splits or an ill-advised drop, or because of smart backstabs by the opponent, etc. But losing all your ghosts because you aren't constantly scanning and building turrets around the map doesn't seem right to me.
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Northern Ireland26426 Posts
On February 14 2024 00:59 rwala wrote:Show nested quote +On February 13 2024 23:01 jpg06051992 wrote:
Serral is the Flash of SC2, deal with it. If he can make a unit that has been nerfed that many times still be good at the top level it's just a testament to how much of the GOAT he really is. Serral is so good he'll make anything work I don't think anything should be nerfed because Serral is a god unless the thing becomes so abusive that the game is dramatically out of balance like with Byun's OG reapers. But I guess I'd ask you this: can you think of a single other unit interaction that simply ends the game without a clear and obvious mistake on the loser's side? There are lots of examples of game-ending damage from bad fights, early game mineral line massacres, big disruptor, bane, widow mine shots, etc., but in almost all these examples there is a clear mistake (failure to pay attention to an incoming attack, failure to split, failure to pull back quickly enough, etc.). I guess you can argue that failure to build enough turrets around the map or failure to constantly scan your army is a "mistake", but at best this is a viable strategy only in late game with a super strong orbital count, and it's not even clear (to me at least) whether this kind of insurance policy is worth the cost. I know not all and not even a majority of burrowed fungals immediately end the game in TvZ, but it is shocking how often it does, and how often it changes the the position for the Zerg from unwinnable to even, or even to winning. To me it's a structural issue of the match-up in which the Zerg can almost always re-max, and the Terran will take a long time to, if they can at all. I'm okay with that if you lose half your army to bad splits or an ill-advised drop, or because of smart backstabs by the opponent, etc. But losing all your ghosts because you aren't constantly scanning and building turrets around the map doesn't seem right to me.
Any attempt to try and engage a turtling Terran in a TvZ game you can’t break them, only for ghosts to snipe you to death
Scan + obs death into your entire army being EMPed and subsequently pounced on as Toss
Getting your templars EMPed as Toss.
These are just as unforgiving as getting caught with a fungal, and it’s probably harder to set up that 1-2 punch effectively than it is to do some of those mentioned things.
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On February 13 2024 22:55 Ciaus237 wrote:Show nested quote +On February 13 2024 22:46 Infested.rine wrote:
Lol, am I the only one to think that the recent changes to the infestor were nerfs and not buffs? Like smaller range and less damage to have an infestor spawn with a fungal is a buff? I have never seen an infestor pop in a clutch moment to insta-fungal an army.
Either way, no one is able to sharkfestor like Serral. As everyone has said it looks extremely hard, and against clem in the last finals, if you get turrets, they are useless and zerg just can't trade effectively ever.
Sharkfestors are a much needed tool available for only top top performers. No, you are not. Everyone with two braincells to rub together can see that it was an infestor nerf, especially in the late game. A pair of old infestors could blast a clumb of marines, and the damage was enough to chip away at Terran air units. The range nerf also makes them a lot more vulnerable to ghosts, HTs and tanks. People are just very salty that Maru lost, and have figured out that if sharkfestors didn't exist, someone with Maru's control could have slowly pew-pew'd Serral away with no real counterplay.
So I don't buy this argument mainly because in PvT disruptor, high templar, and colossus can help prevent the Terran from EMP'ing the entire Protoss army, and those units aren't cloaked. In fact, in a lot of TvZ fights the infestors play the same role chillen in the back of the Zerg army to prevent the mass pew-pew, even when not burrowed. Plus snipe was nerfed because it was being abused (I was cool with that nerf).
To me a lot of this comes down to a burrow mechanic that is probably fine for every other unit, maybe not infestor. Alternatively, I think they could fix this by somehow nerfing chain fungal but continuing to allow sharkfestor play.
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On February 14 2024 01:11 rwala wrote:Show nested quote +On February 13 2024 22:55 Ciaus237 wrote:On February 13 2024 22:46 Infested.rine wrote:
Lol, am I the only one to think that the recent changes to the infestor were nerfs and not buffs? Like smaller range and less damage to have an infestor spawn with a fungal is a buff? I have never seen an infestor pop in a clutch moment to insta-fungal an army.
Either way, no one is able to sharkfestor like Serral. As everyone has said it looks extremely hard, and against clem in the last finals, if you get turrets, they are useless and zerg just can't trade effectively ever.
Sharkfestors are a much needed tool available for only top top performers. No, you are not. Everyone with two braincells to rub together can see that it was an infestor nerf, especially in the late game. A pair of old infestors could blast a clumb of marines, and the damage was enough to chip away at Terran air units. The range nerf also makes them a lot more vulnerable to ghosts, HTs and tanks. People are just very salty that Maru lost, and have figured out that if sharkfestors didn't exist, someone with Maru's control could have slowly pew-pew'd Serral away with no real counterplay. So I don't buy this argument mainly because in PvT disruptor, high templar, and colossus can help prevent the Terran from EMP'ing the entire Protoss army, and those units aren't cloaked. In fact, in a lot of TvZ fights the infestors play the same role chillen in the back of the Zerg army to prevent the mass pew-pew, even when not burrowed.
You are using PvT lategame as your example of other forms of counterplay to ghosts existing?
You also don't need mass pewpew. You need one broodlord here and there over the course of 40 minutes. I mean we saw how this played out last when Clem managed his anti-infestor play and beat Serral in the past. We've seen it in dozens of Maru lategames vs non-serral Zergs.
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Or maybe, just maybe, get a Raven ???
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Personally, I love the burrowed infestors as a viewer, they lead to a lot of exciting moments. Even though Maru did eat a lot of fungals, there were also crucial instances of him sniping infestors right when Serral went in with the army. A lot more fun than abduct which only ever is interesting in those scrappy 120 vs 120 supply type of situations where the economies and armies have been worn down and the zerg has to land some good ones to win
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On February 14 2024 00:59 rwala wrote:Show nested quote +On February 13 2024 23:01 jpg06051992 wrote:
Serral is the Flash of SC2, deal with it. If he can make a unit that has been nerfed that many times still be good at the top level it's just a testament to how much of the GOAT he really is. Serral is so good he'll make anything work I don't think anything should be nerfed because Serral is a god unless the thing becomes so abusive that the game is dramatically out of balance like with Byun's OG reapers. But I guess I'd ask you this: can you think of a single other unit interaction that simply ends the game without a clear and obvious mistake on the loser's side? There are lots of examples of game-ending damage from bad fights, early game mineral line massacres, big disruptor, bane, widow mine shots, etc., but in almost all these examples there is a clear mistake (failure to pay attention to an incoming attack, failure to split, failure to pull back quickly enough, etc.). I guess you can argue that failure to build enough turrets around the map or failure to constantly scan your army is a "mistake", but at best this is a viable strategy only in late game with a super strong orbital count, and it's not even clear (to me at least) whether this kind of insurance policy is worth the cost. I know not all and not even a majority of burrowed fungals immediately end the game in TvZ, but it is shocking how often it does, and how often it changes the the position for the Zerg from unwinnable to even, or even to winning. To me it's a structural issue of the match-up in which the Zerg can almost always re-max, and the Terran will take a long time to, if they can at all. I'm okay with that if you lose half your army to bad splits or an ill-advised drop, or because of smart backstabs by the opponent, etc. But losing all your ghosts because you aren't constantly scanning and building turrets around the map doesn't seem right to me.
You are thinking this because:
1. You watch too many Serral games, he's is by far the best user of burrowed infestors. No other Zerg can consistently it do it like him.
2. I can't think of a single game on top of my head now where one good fungal instantly change the position of game from unwinnable for Zerg to instant Terran GG. It may have happened but it's very rare. Vast majority of time the burrowed infestor fungal play is just nail on the coffin rather than a instant game changer. Serral was usually already in a winning position with massive lead, and his Terran opponents were just hanging by a thin thread, then one last fungal hit is what breaks them. That's how it is 80-90% of the time, and why it gives an impression of "one fungal then instant GG", the reality is the game has already ended at that point.
3. You choose to forget so many other games where burrowed infestors got caught many times and got nothing done, or the fungal lands but there are not enough banelings to instantly charge in to take advantage of it, and Serral (or other Zerg) just lose the game because they have no answer to mass Ghosts in late game, even if they also "didn't make a clear and obvious mistake on the loser's side". Do you just think Terran should just automatically win if they don't make big mistakes? What if Zerg also don't make big mistakes? Why should literally every late game Zerg units to be weak to Ghosts?
3. Maru is actually notorious with playing TvZ where by all accounts he should be dead in the water due to early-mid game disadvantages, but he just refuse to tap out, he would trench up at home, put planetary and turrest everywhere, mass up Ghosts, mine out the map and drag the game out for another 20 mins, then still lose in the end. Some times he will pull a miracle and win, but he lost plenty games like this. Burrowed infestors just allows Zerg to have one high-risk, high-reward and high-skill way to deal with this kind of situations.
If you think Maru's unique ability to turtle and not die is part of fair game design, I don't see why Serral's burrowed infestor play is not. No other Terran and Zerg could play like them anyway.
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Absolutely silly kneejerk topic. Take a deep breath.
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On February 14 2024 00:58 WombaT wrote:
Can’t disagree with much of that, although I do feel there’s a ‘we have to make mech viable’ thing at the dev’s end that just doesn’t exist for other factions.
I don’t disagree with trying to encourage divergent styles don’t get me wrong, but for some reason there’s this pursuit of making mech work that isn’t really extended elsewhere.
With Z and P it’s like, do they have the tools to be competitive? There’s less concern about what those tools are.
I’d argue that some pretty bad Zerg metas actually gave us gameplay that was very stylistically similar to mech, but as it’s Zerg doing it rather than Terran it needed nerfed, apparently.
Any time Protoss skytoss becomes strong, it tends to get nerfed too. It’s not perfectly analogous with mech as air circumvents terrain, and I’m not actually against it being nerfed, but it does play quite similarly too.
It's actually funny that Zerg can play a pretty mechy late game with mobile Spores, BLs, infestor/viper, etc. and play that attrition game. Though Protoss can do it a bit too with batteries, tempests, storm, disruptors, etc.
I guess it's cool each race has a way to play a bit mech-y to a degree.
Imo at least traditionally, Terran is designed around being split into 3 production types: bio, mech, air. So there is a bit of inherent design where because the upgrades are targetted at each one specifically, it's most ideal to focus your army comp around 1 type, with other units being used as possible support.
The way i see Protoss is that it's split into 3 tech types: templar, robo, and stargate.
And with zerg, they're the economy focused race but their units are split between ground and air, and split further into very specific buildings (hydra tech, muta tech, etc.).
I feel that the devs have actually put a lot of effort in successfully making Protoss able to open with or focus on any of the 3 tech choices in all 3 MUs, and pretty much every Zerg unit is usable vs each race. Of course not every choice is viable or standard at high level pro play, but if playing at GM or low level play you can def bring out anything with decent success for fun.
It's true that over time Terran has become more and more of a mixed unit composition race than being very heavily focused on just Bio production or just Mech production. There are lots of different bio mech compositions, and every stargate unit too can provide a lot of nice support. I guess this was actually kinda their goal as I remember David Kim mentioning around HotS that maybe it makes more sense to try to focus on "Terran" rather than sticking to the traditional BW "Bio and Mech" design. The Mech player in me got pretty sad that it sounded like they were giving up until that early LotV patch where based David Kim threw Mech players a huge bone and said let's bring back traditional Mech play and buff the Siege Tank xD
In terms of game design i like allowing as diverse of playstyles as possible, and for the ones that are less fun/exciting for most people I think it's OK to make them a bit weaker, so it's still a thing if someone really vibes with it, without it becoming too prevelant. So I personally also really loved seeing straight to skytoss strategies for Protoss (like, not simply opening Stargate as first tech just for an Oracle or a few phoenixes, but going full out Stargate tech). I think it's still in a pretty good spot though, cus pros still whip it out occasionally with success, and it would be weird if a race can jump straight to mass air units every game.
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While its true that Burrowed Infestor is more skill-based than "luck", the idea of having a unit that can do minor splash damage and slow the entire army is not very fun especially against the high mobility army of Zerg. I dont mind if they double the DPS of the spell but cut the slow effect by 50% or so.
What happened in the game on Rahudset was simply that neither side can attack into the other side in a direct fight, and they must find some way to break each other. For Terran its setting up all the defensive structure and keep Zerg from mining more than half of the map, for Zerg its mining more than half of the map as much as they can while setting up ambush when the Terran army move out. Infestor is the best unit for that job, although Burrowed Lurker or Bane can do a similar job but less efficient.
And Serral didnt win before he hit the Fungal shot, he won AFTER he hit those Fungal shot, thats not to say he cant win in other way, but that was the best way for him to win and he execute it well enough.
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On February 14 2024 01:22 CerebrateHector wrote:
Or maybe, just maybe, get a Raven ???
Funny how toss and Zergs constantly have to bring detection everywhere because of widow mines and ghost. Yet terran think they are entitled to not do the same
In case terrans are wondering, yes protoss also has the bring observers constantly against Zerg’s infestor ( yes it can also do game ending damage to the toss) But do you see Protoss complaining about infestor?
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On February 14 2024 01:36 Nasigil wrote:Show nested quote +On February 14 2024 00:59 rwala wrote:On February 13 2024 23:01 jpg06051992 wrote:
Serral is the Flash of SC2, deal with it. If he can make a unit that has been nerfed that many times still be good at the top level it's just a testament to how much of the GOAT he really is. Serral is so good he'll make anything work I don't think anything should be nerfed because Serral is a god unless the thing becomes so abusive that the game is dramatically out of balance like with Byun's OG reapers. But I guess I'd ask you this: can you think of a single other unit interaction that simply ends the game without a clear and obvious mistake on the loser's side? There are lots of examples of game-ending damage from bad fights, early game mineral line massacres, big disruptor, bane, widow mine shots, etc., but in almost all these examples there is a clear mistake (failure to pay attention to an incoming attack, failure to split, failure to pull back quickly enough, etc.). I guess you can argue that failure to build enough turrets around the map or failure to constantly scan your army is a "mistake", but at best this is a viable strategy only in late game with a super strong orbital count, and it's not even clear (to me at least) whether this kind of insurance policy is worth the cost. I know not all and not even a majority of burrowed fungals immediately end the game in TvZ, but it is shocking how often it does, and how often it changes the the position for the Zerg from unwinnable to even, or even to winning. To me it's a structural issue of the match-up in which the Zerg can almost always re-max, and the Terran will take a long time to, if they can at all. I'm okay with that if you lose half your army to bad splits or an ill-advised drop, or because of smart backstabs by the opponent, etc. But losing all your ghosts because you aren't constantly scanning and building turrets around the map doesn't seem right to me. You are thinking this because: 1. You watch too many Serral games, he's is by far the best user of burrowed infestors. No other Zerg can consistently it do it like him. 2. I can't think of a single game on top of my head now where one good fungal instantly change the position of game from unwinnable for Zerg to instant Terran GG. It may have happened but it's very rare. Vast majority of time the burrowed infestor fungal play is just nail on the coffin rather than a instant game changer. Serral was usually already in a winning position with massive lead, and his Terran opponents were just hanging by a thin thread, then one last fungal hit is what breaks them. That's how it is 80-90% of the time, and why it gives an impression of "one fungal then instant GG", the reality is the game has already ended at that point. 3. You choose to forget so many other games where burrowed infestors got caught many times and got nothing done, or the fungal lands but there are not enough banelings to instantly charge in to take advantage of it, and Serral (or other Zerg) just lose the game because they have no answer to mass Ghosts in late game, even if they also "didn't make a clear and obvious mistake on the loser's side". Do you just think Terran should just automatically win if they don't make big mistakes? What if Zerg also don't make big mistakes? Why should literally every late game Zerg units to be weak to Ghosts? 3. Maru is actually notorious with playing TvZ where by all accounts he should be dead in the water due to early-mid game disadvantages, but he just refuse to tap out, he would trench up at home, put planetary and turrest everywhere, mass up Ghosts, mine out the map and drag the game out for another 20 mins, then still lose in the end. Some times he will pull a miracle and win, but he lost plenty games like this. Burrowed infestors just allows Zerg to have one high-risk, high-reward and high-skill way to deal with this kind of situations. If you think Maru's unique ability to turtle and not die is part of fair game design, I don't see why Serral's burrowed infestor play is not. No other Terran and Zerg could play like them anyway.
1. I mostly watch GSL so I’m actually talking much more so about guys like Rogue, Dark, and Solar than Serral. As I said, I don’t think Serral’s play proves anything. Also said this doesn’t rise to the level of Byun’s reapers since I view this as a systemic issue not a player OP issue. It sounds like maybe you disagree given that you’re attributing this to Serral’s unique play. In which case I presume you feel the reapers should not have been nerfed as everyone understood that no one but Byun could play with reapers like that (it was silly to watch players like Maru try).
2. I also can’t think of a single game that’s ever gone from unwinnable Zerg position to instant Terran GG. Not sure where you found that strawman to argue with.
3. I literally don’t understand your argument here. Plenty of things get nothing done, and plenty of things can be costly, burrowed investors included. As I said, I’m not aware of another unit interaction that embodies the uniquely punishing swinginess of burrowed infestor fungal, and you don’t attempt to dispute that.
3.? So if this were truly a “high-risk, high reward” strat that was designed to exclusively punish turtling, you’d only see it in those scenarios and I’d be a total fan because I hate Maru’s boring ass turtling play. But it’s not. As game 2 showed you can get like 12 infestors sniped and it would be neither too risky nor too costly. A baneling bust or a ravager rush would be a much better example of a high risk, high reward strategy.
I didn’t talk about Maru and I said it’s not about Serral, and you’re going off on weird tangents about both. I described why I find this specific unit interaction problematic. It sounds like you disagree, which is fine, but honestly I have no clue why based on what you wrote.
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On February 14 2024 02:43 FFXthebest wrote:Show nested quote +On February 14 2024 01:22 CerebrateHector wrote:
Or maybe, just maybe, get a Raven ??? Funny how toss and Zergs constantly have to bring detection everywhere because of widow mines and ghost. Yet terran think they are entitled to not do the same In case terrans are wondering, yes protoss also has the bring observers constantly against Zerg’s infestor ( yes it can also do game ending damage to the toss) But do you see Protoss complaining about infestor?
I actually think this Raven point is a good one because I don’t think it’s reasonable to ask Terran to have to constantly scan their army and/or build turrets everywhere to not die to burrow infestor. But it may be reasonable to expect Terran to build a couple ravens. I *think* the reason it’s not is that when your ravens inevitably die, it probably means one or more of your medivacs died, and you can’t reactor out new medivacs while building a new raven without also disrupting tank production since you’ll need one of the factory tech labs unless somehow you’re also playing marauder tech. Not sure all this tech switching is viable versus Zerg remax.
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On February 14 2024 01:20 Ciaus237 wrote:Show nested quote +On February 14 2024 01:11 rwala wrote:On February 13 2024 22:55 Ciaus237 wrote:On February 13 2024 22:46 Infested.rine wrote:
Lol, am I the only one to think that the recent changes to the infestor were nerfs and not buffs? Like smaller range and less damage to have an infestor spawn with a fungal is a buff? I have never seen an infestor pop in a clutch moment to insta-fungal an army.
Either way, no one is able to sharkfestor like Serral. As everyone has said it looks extremely hard, and against clem in the last finals, if you get turrets, they are useless and zerg just can't trade effectively ever.
Sharkfestors are a much needed tool available for only top top performers. No, you are not. Everyone with two braincells to rub together can see that it was an infestor nerf, especially in the late game. A pair of old infestors could blast a clumb of marines, and the damage was enough to chip away at Terran air units. The range nerf also makes them a lot more vulnerable to ghosts, HTs and tanks. People are just very salty that Maru lost, and have figured out that if sharkfestors didn't exist, someone with Maru's control could have slowly pew-pew'd Serral away with no real counterplay. So I don't buy this argument mainly because in PvT disruptor, high templar, and colossus can help prevent the Terran from EMP'ing the entire Protoss army, and those units aren't cloaked. In fact, in a lot of TvZ fights the infestors play the same role chillen in the back of the Zerg army to prevent the mass pew-pew, even when not burrowed. You are using PvT lategame as your example of other forms of counterplay to ghosts existing? You also don't need mass pewpew. You need one broodlord here and there over the course of 40 minutes. I mean we saw how this played out last when Clem managed his anti-infestor play and beat Serral in the past. We've seen it in dozens of Maru lategames vs non-serral Zergs.
No, you were making the claim that there would be no counterplay to pew-pew without sharkfestor. There would be and is in lots of scenarios is my point, including with non-burrowed infestor.
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Northern Ireland26426 Posts
On February 14 2024 11:02 rwala wrote:Show nested quote +On February 14 2024 02:43 FFXthebest wrote:On February 14 2024 01:22 CerebrateHector wrote:
Or maybe, just maybe, get a Raven ??? Funny how toss and Zergs constantly have to bring detection everywhere because of widow mines and ghost. Yet terran think they are entitled to not do the same In case terrans are wondering, yes protoss also has the bring observers constantly against Zerg’s infestor ( yes it can also do game ending damage to the toss) But do you see Protoss complaining about infestor? I actually think this Raven point is a good one because I don’t think it’s reasonable to ask Terran to have to constantly scan their army and/or build turrets everywhere to not die to burrow infestor. But it may be reasonable to expect Terran to build a couple ravens. I *think* the reason it’s not is that when your ravens inevitably die, it probably means one or more of your medivacs died, and you can’t reactor out new medivacs while building a new raven without also disrupting tank production since you’ll need one of the factory tech labs unless somehow you’re also playing marauder tech. Not sure all this tech switching is viable versus Zerg remax.
Just have an extra Starport with a tech lab. Worst case scenario you can swap it out, or alternatively you have 3x medivac production if you don’t need a raven for infestors.
I have seen some experimentation, and I get there’s less synergy than straight MMM(+M), it seems to me that Ravens would hugely pay off economically by letting you clear creep without burning scans so you can mule that much harder. Plus, in TvZ at least they’re pretty untouchable with a bit of babysitting until hydras are out. Plus you can do harassment with them. At the tip top level you’ll probably get more done with auto-turrets than non-range libs.
Hey, there must be a reason, maybe it’s just too awkward to fit in. Do it early and it’s delaying medivacs and your ability to pressure, too late and it’s too risky to have out on the same field as hydras and whatnot.
Something that drives me insane about the game, going back to the first point is people set up for optimal production for a predicted level of income. Which is fine, makes sense obviously to some degree.
But it leaves gaps for specific situations, this would be one. I feel the biggest is when Toss need both an obs for detection, and some kind of power unit from a robo, or a prism. But are frequently bottlenecked on one robo. You don’t have to constantly pump out units from double robo, but it helps to have the option for an emergency.
I mean players will happily gamble on expensive doom drops, build a million missile turrets, or sac 10-15 zealots on runbys that don’t do anything, what’s the extra cost of a single additional production building, even if it does turn out to be redundant?
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On February 14 2024 01:07 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On February 14 2024 00:59 rwala wrote:On February 13 2024 23:01 jpg06051992 wrote:
Serral is the Flash of SC2, deal with it. If he can make a unit that has been nerfed that many times still be good at the top level it's just a testament to how much of the GOAT he really is. Serral is so good he'll make anything work I don't think anything should be nerfed because Serral is a god unless the thing becomes so abusive that the game is dramatically out of balance like with Byun's OG reapers. But I guess I'd ask you this: can you think of a single other unit interaction that simply ends the game without a clear and obvious mistake on the loser's side? There are lots of examples of game-ending damage from bad fights, early game mineral line massacres, big disruptor, bane, widow mine shots, etc., but in almost all these examples there is a clear mistake (failure to pay attention to an incoming attack, failure to split, failure to pull back quickly enough, etc.). I guess you can argue that failure to build enough turrets around the map or failure to constantly scan your army is a "mistake", but at best this is a viable strategy only in late game with a super strong orbital count, and it's not even clear (to me at least) whether this kind of insurance policy is worth the cost. I know not all and not even a majority of burrowed fungals immediately end the game in TvZ, but it is shocking how often it does, and how often it changes the the position for the Zerg from unwinnable to even, or even to winning. To me it's a structural issue of the match-up in which the Zerg can almost always re-max, and the Terran will take a long time to, if they can at all. I'm okay with that if you lose half your army to bad splits or an ill-advised drop, or because of smart backstabs by the opponent, etc. But losing all your ghosts because you aren't constantly scanning and building turrets around the map doesn't seem right to me. Any attempt to try and engage a turtling Terran in a TvZ game you can’t break them, only for ghosts to snipe you to death Scan + obs death into your entire army being EMPed and subsequently pounced on as Toss Getting your templars EMPed as Toss. These are just as unforgiving as getting caught with a fungal, and it’s probably harder to set up that 1-2 punch effectively than it is to do some of those mentioned things.
I get that there are some Terran-favored maps that enable dumb turtle strats, but in general it's on the Terran to prevent the Zerg from mopping the map with creep and taking the extra bases, not the other way around. You can't turtle on 4 bases and win as Terran on most maps because while your trades are efficient they aren't *that* efficient. And you generally can't defend more than 4 bases without incredibly active play that pushes the creep back and denies the zerg the extra bases. In other words, in most cases turtle is not really a viable strategy because if you truly turtle, the creep is out of control, and the zerg is mining out your side of the map as you're attempting to turtle on the 4 bases you can viably defend.
I don't agree that ghost snipe is just as unforgiving as burow fungal simply because of Zerg remax, and especially post snipe nerf. I do agree on EMP versus Toss. Not so much the mana drain EMP effect, which is annoying but rarely game-ending, but the shield drain, which often feels like too much, especially against robo units that can't really be rebuilt effectively. I like the EMP radius reduction nerf and honestly I'd be okay simply not allowing shield reduction with EMP but that might be too dramatic of a change.
For sure you're right that it's harder to keep track of and manage sharkfestor rather than the normal play of having infestor come up from the back of your army and fungal, and yet this is beside the point because I think we know toss would love to have the option of HT shark around with the opponent's army and terran would love to have ghost shark around too, even if harder to manage.
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On February 14 2024 11:51 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On February 14 2024 11:02 rwala wrote:On February 14 2024 02:43 FFXthebest wrote:On February 14 2024 01:22 CerebrateHector wrote:
Or maybe, just maybe, get a Raven ??? Funny how toss and Zergs constantly have to bring detection everywhere because of widow mines and ghost. Yet terran think they are entitled to not do the same In case terrans are wondering, yes protoss also has the bring observers constantly against Zerg’s infestor ( yes it can also do game ending damage to the toss) But do you see Protoss complaining about infestor? I actually think this Raven point is a good one because I don’t think it’s reasonable to ask Terran to have to constantly scan their army and/or build turrets everywhere to not die to burrow infestor. But it may be reasonable to expect Terran to build a couple ravens. I *think* the reason it’s not is that when your ravens inevitably die, it probably means one or more of your medivacs died, and you can’t reactor out new medivacs while building a new raven without also disrupting tank production since you’ll need one of the factory tech labs unless somehow you’re also playing marauder tech. Not sure all this tech switching is viable versus Zerg remax. Just have an extra Starport with a tech lab. Worst case scenario you can swap it out, or alternatively you have 3x medivac production if you don’t need a raven for infestors. I have seen some experimentation, and I get there’s less synergy than straight MMM(+M), it seems to me that Ravens would hugely pay off economically by letting you clear creep without burning scans so you can mule that much harder. Plus, in TvZ at least they’re pretty untouchable with a bit of babysitting until hydras are out. Plus you can do harassment with them. At the tip top level you’ll probably get more done with auto-turrets than non-range libs. Hey, there must be a reason, maybe it’s just too awkward to fit in. Do it early and it’s delaying medivacs and your ability to pressure, too late and it’s too risky to have out on the same field as hydras and whatnot. Something that drives me insane about the game, going back to the first point is people set up for optimal production for a predicted level of income. Which is fine, makes sense obviously to some degree. But it leaves gaps for specific situations, this would be one. I feel the biggest is when Toss need both an obs for detection, and some kind of power unit from a robo, or a prism. But are frequently bottlenecked on one robo. You don’t have to constantly pump out units from double robo, but it helps to have the option for an emergency. I mean players will happily gamble on expensive doom drops, build a million missile turrets, or sac 10-15 zealots on runbys that don’t do anything, what’s the extra cost of a single additional production building, even if it does turn out to be redundant?
I think I'm persuaded by this. I wouldn't be in favor of further burrow infestor nerf until there was some demonstrated case that raven play is not a viable counter.
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