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Everyone knows that Zerg, Protoss, and Terran bio are all faster than mech. Mech is the slowest, least mobile army in the game. It's the slowest to expand, the most resource-intensive, and the most vulnerable during repositioning.
Now, as soon as your mech army moves out, the Zerg can spam Nydus Worms in your base. The Protoss can easily wait while you're defending your 3rd or 4th base, then use a Mothership to teleport its entire high-damage army directly into your main, instantly destroying all your production buildings, before simply using Recall to get home safely.
Terran mech is already expensive, slow, and cumbersome – it simply cannot trade bases efficiently. But apparently, the balance team thought mech wasn't dying fast enough, so they introduced these two brainless abilities. Do you want Terran to die? Or is the design philosophy simply that mech should never be allowed to leave its base? The moment it moves out, it's doomed!
Honestly, there's this deeply ingrained bias in this game that playing mech is easy. Maybe that was true ten years ago, but for the past decade, the non-stop patches have nerfed mech at every turn, terrified of it being even slightly strong. The result is a playstyle that can barely even move out without immense difficulty. If you turtle defensively, everyone just calls you a turtle and complains. It's a lose-lose situation.
Let's be clear, no mech player enjoys 40-50 minute long games; they're exhausting. But balance team, your design makes it so mech cannot move out. If moving out means certain death, what are we supposed to do?
Mech is the composition that needs a teleport ability the most, the one that can least afford to be caught in a war of movement. And yet, it's the only one without a large-scale, strategic relocation tool. A decade ago, the balance team might have designed mech for players with slower hands to still enjoy the game. But mech today? Heh. One misstep in a skirmish and you're dead. Move out and you get base-traded into oblivion. You genuinely need superior game intelligence and immense patience even to attempt playing it now.
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for people who ask for more bio play, dont you know that 80% of all terran units are mech, and you ask terran player to play bio all day long for over a decade? so whats the point of developers inventing so many mech untis?
arent you bored enough seeing terran mma bio all day long in the pro for over a decade? no creativity and interests at all, just relying on who has a quicker hand!
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On December 08 2015 04:33 NonY wrote:
Every time the mech petitioners go too far with how much they want the whole game to change to suit them, people have to come remind you how ridiculous it all is.
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On November 08 2025 20:15 MJG wrote:Show nested quote +On December 08 2015 04:33 NonY wrote:
Every time the mech petitioners go too far with how much they want the whole game to change to suit them, people have to come remind you how ridiculous it all is.
This is the classic Protoss-apologist mentality — they never read the full context before nitpicking and offering laughable rebuttals. Either that, or they resort to personal attacks when they know they're in the wrong. If you genuinely ask them what part of your argument is incorrect and invite discussion, they just slap a "whiner" label on you and make a quick escape.
These people have no patience for anything. They dabble superficially, and the moment the outside world doesn’t suit their preferences, they throw a tantrum, blame everyone else, and act like total man-children.
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Northern Ireland26307 Posts
On November 08 2025 20:53 bycrazingby wrote:Show nested quote +On November 08 2025 20:15 MJG wrote:On December 08 2015 04:33 NonY wrote:
Every time the mech petitioners go too far with how much they want the whole game to change to suit them, people have to come remind you how ridiculous it all is. This is the classic Protoss-apologist mentality — they never read the full context before nitpicking and offering laughable rebuttals. Either that, or they resort to personal attacks when they know they're in the wrong. If you genuinely ask them what part of your argument is incorrect and invite discussion, they just slap a "whiner" label on you and make a quick escape. These people have no patience for anything. They dabble superficially, and the moment the outside world doesn’t suit their preferences, they throw a tantrum, blame everyone else, and act like total man-children.
As opposed to ‘please make this composition good, for this specific faction because it was in a previous title, that was completely different and even the sequel is 15 years old’?
Why do we need mech to be good? What even is mech? Why not just play another faction?
Assuming tank based, positional defensive styles, it just feels to me Legacy’s eco ramp-up just innately neuters that style of play.
In SC2 more generally, it’s a completely different engine, behaviours are very different, the UI is very different. It’s hard to find a sweet spot between mech being not good enough, and too good. And generally they’ve shown caution and left it not good enough.
I mean relatively speaking, people can still play it to GM level, but it’s definitely not optimal.
More variety would be nice, sure. But overall we’ve got a pretty decently balanced game, and not entirely lacking in variety.
Aside from it being a skeleton crew anyway, why would you retool things much just for the sake of mech?
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so the big return of the tankivac? buff helbats too so the medivacs are double useful.
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Terran already has the biggest "whoops, I don't like this fight" in the game with medievacs. I would say Medievacs are a bigger Town Portal even than actual Recall.
So why would you give the composition that is all about positioning a tool to save positioning-errors?
And honestly: After the initial reaction, did anyone really enjoy that meta a few years back when BC-Rushing into Teleport was all the hot talk? Getting your Eco raided by BCs that could TP out of any pinch was just weird
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zerglings are the unit with the least HP and range...every other race can beat zerglings with just mineral units due to their higher range and HP. its time to add additional HP and range to zerglings
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On November 09 2025 03:17 Balnazza wrote:
Terran already has the biggest "whoops, I don't like this fight" in the game with medievacs. I would say Medievacs are a bigger Town Portal even than actual Recall.
So why would you give the composition that is all about positioning a tool to save positioning-errors?
And honestly: After the initial reaction, did anyone really enjoy that meta a few years back when BC-Rushing into Teleport was all the hot talk? Getting your Eco raided by BCs that could TP out of any pinch was just weird
BC is totally a joke under current patch which buffs insanely on corruptor and storm fleet
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On November 08 2025 22:50 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On November 08 2025 20:53 bycrazingby wrote:On November 08 2025 20:15 MJG wrote:On December 08 2015 04:33 NonY wrote:
Every time the mech petitioners go too far with how much they want the whole game to change to suit them, people have to come remind you how ridiculous it all is. This is the classic Protoss-apologist mentality — they never read the full context before nitpicking and offering laughable rebuttals. Either that, or they resort to personal attacks when they know they're in the wrong. If you genuinely ask them what part of your argument is incorrect and invite discussion, they just slap a "whiner" label on you and make a quick escape. These people have no patience for anything. They dabble superficially, and the moment the outside world doesn’t suit their preferences, they throw a tantrum, blame everyone else, and act like total man-children. As opposed to ‘please make this composition good, for this specific faction because it was in a previous title, that was completely different and even the sequel is 15 years old’? Why do we need mech to be good? What even is mech? Why not just play another faction? Assuming tank based, positional defensive styles, it just feels to me Legacy’s eco ramp-up just innately neuters that style of play. In SC2 more generally, it’s a completely different engine, behaviours are very different, the UI is very different. It’s hard to find a sweet spot between mech being not good enough, and too good. And generally they’ve shown caution and left it not good enough. I mean relatively speaking, people can still play it to GM level, but it’s definitely not optimal. More variety would be nice, sure. But overall we’ve got a pretty decently balanced game, and not entirely lacking in variety. Aside from it being a skeleton crew anyway, why would you retool things much just for the sake of mech?
you dont even just play mech only one game at all, do you?
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Northern Ireland26307 Posts
I play bio like a real man
Not my point though. Why should the game risk being unbalanced just to make mech better? With bizarre changes that are counter to what mech’s identity is meant to be?
What is mech, to you, and why does it need made more viable?
I’m of the opinion that it would be nice to have that slow push, positional style that’s less APM intensive be viable, sure. But it’s not like Blizzard haven’t tried tons of times over the years. And sometimes those were awful changes IMO. I’ve never been a fan of the cyclone and that was stuck in the game to help mech out explicitly.
More so to appease the mech crowd than basically anyone else in fact. Balance whining can be obnoxious of course, but at least bio players, Toss and Zerg players are generally wanting a balanced, varied game and not demanding a very specific playstyle, with specific units be good.
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On November 09 2025 15:04 bycrazingby wrote:Show nested quote +On November 09 2025 03:17 Balnazza wrote:
Terran already has the biggest "whoops, I don't like this fight" in the game with medievacs. I would say Medievacs are a bigger Town Portal even than actual Recall.
So why would you give the composition that is all about positioning a tool to save positioning-errors?
And honestly: After the initial reaction, did anyone really enjoy that meta a few years back when BC-Rushing into Teleport was all the hot talk? Getting your Eco raided by BCs that could TP out of any pinch was just weird BC is totally a joke under current patch which buffs insanely on corruptor and storm fleet
The current patch is already "a few years back"? Damn, time flies.
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Northern Ireland26307 Posts
On November 09 2025 03:17 Balnazza wrote:
Terran already has the biggest "whoops, I don't like this fight" in the game with medievacs. I would say Medievacs are a bigger Town Portal even than actual Recall.
So why would you give the composition that is all about positioning a tool to save positioning-errors?
And honestly: After the initial reaction, did anyone really enjoy that meta a few years back when BC-Rushing into Teleport was all the hot talk? Getting your Eco raided by BCs that could TP out of any pinch was just weird
Respect to whatever innovator(s) figured that opener out, very creative to rush a tier 3 heavy air unit in such a manner and make the transitions work.
Vibe wise it was pretty bloody silly.
I can only imagine how frustrating those games were to play for Zoigs, especially as the follow-up was frequently battlemech, with the fun binary interaction of either getting on top of cyclones, or being constantly poked and kited to death.
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On November 09 2025 20:12 WombaT wrote:
I play bio like a real man
Not my point though. Why should the game risk being unbalanced just to make mech better? With bizarre changes that are counter to what mech’s identity is meant to be?
What is mech, to you, and why does it need made more viable?
I’m of the opinion that it would be nice to have that slow push, positional style that’s less APM intensive be viable, sure. But it’s not like Blizzard haven’t tried tons of times over the years. And sometimes those were awful changes IMO. I’ve never been a fan of the cyclone and that was stuck in the game to help mech out explicitly.
More so to appease the mech crowd than basically anyone else in fact. Balance whining can be obnoxious of course, but at least bio players, Toss and Zerg players are generally wanting a balanced, varied game and not demanding a very specific playstyle, with specific units be good.
Can you please abstain from this sexist rethoric? It's pretty dumb to frame something as 'manly' or 'unmanly', especially with the inference that one thing is more difficult than the other.
You can make your argument entirely without relying on that initial statement.
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Mech needs teleportation? Yeah let's give a style no weaknesses.
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I understand the sentiment here, though thematically teleportation for mech would be quite silly, of course.
To be consistently good, Mech needs ways to handle the expansion pace of LotV as a slower composition, similar to how Protoss armies that are slower than Bio and Zerg handle it.
Protoss has these tools:
- Warp Gate for reinforcements that don't have to travel all the way from the main base.
- Recall to both retreat slow expensive units and reinforce from anywhere.
- Mineral-only Warp Prisms that offer a ton of utility without competing in gas cost with the more expensive Protoss combat units.
- The ability to stall and threaten large armies with fewer units to buy time for reinforcements. Shield Batteries, Forcefields, and (to a lesser extent) Stasis Wards all are stalling tools, and Disruptors and High Templar are great units for threatening larger armies.
Mech isn't without strengths, but simply does not have the same flexibility that slow Protoss armies have with the above tools combined. Medivacs are more costly for Mech than for Bio since Mech combat units are more gas-intensive, so Mech struggles with reinforcing a multi-front situation and retreating its more expensive units. A couple of Siege Tanks can threaten run-bys when paired with good sim city, but without higher numbers they don't have the same threat against large clumped mobile armies like Disruptors and High Templar offer. Widow Mines have too low of a range to fill this role effectively.
WoL Mech actually had the foundation of a potentially potent Mech in a LotV context, but these capabilities were removed in the context of HotS because they allowed for extremely strong turtling and overpowered mass Raven strategies. I would like to see some of these abilities brought back and maybe tweaked in a LotV context since the expansion pace discourages turtling, and the power of mass Raven has not been tested in the context of the current game state.
WoL Mech had:
- PDD which could stall for reinforcements and allow time for a smaller amount of Mech units to do more work against larger armies. PDD was removed, but is actually tweakable for balance by giving its laser a cooldown, which causes a single PDD to be unable to block all incoming projectiles from large armies, tempering its effectiveness.
- Seeker Missiles which had the potential to threaten larger clumped armies similar to how Disruptors can. I don't know the best way to tweak Seeker Missiles, but playing with higher Raven supply cost, making Seeker Missiles cost something like 15/15 besides their energy cost, and giving their casting time a significant cooldown are ways to potentially temper the mass Raven issue.
- Thor ground cannons, which were an alternative area threat that could fill a similar role to Disruptors and Storm.
Another ability that was tested and removed that I believe still has potential is the Repair Drone. It could potentially provide some stalling potential similar to Shield Batteries, without being the combination of mobility and healing that Medivacs provide for Bio which may be too strong for Mech.
Since Ravens are flying units, they provide some of that mobility flexibility for some of these tools. However, that might not be sufficient in the context of LotV as it stands, and the ideal situation would be one where Ravens support the Mech army rather than become the Mech army through being massed. To that end, I wouldn't be opposed to a dropship that is cheaper or Mineral-only that does not heal but could be more easily affordable for Mech compositions than Medivacs, to help with some of the mobility issues. No Tankivacs, though!
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On November 10 2025 00:49 Creager wrote:Show nested quote +On November 09 2025 20:12 WombaT wrote:
I play bio like a real man
Not my point though. Why should the game risk being unbalanced just to make mech better? With bizarre changes that are counter to what mech’s identity is meant to be?
What is mech, to you, and why does it need made more viable?
I’m of the opinion that it would be nice to have that slow push, positional style that’s less APM intensive be viable, sure. But it’s not like Blizzard haven’t tried tons of times over the years. And sometimes those were awful changes IMO. I’ve never been a fan of the cyclone and that was stuck in the game to help mech out explicitly.
More so to appease the mech crowd than basically anyone else in fact. Balance whining can be obnoxious of course, but at least bio players, Toss and Zerg players are generally wanting a balanced, varied game and not demanding a very specific playstyle, with specific units be good. Can you please abstain from this sexist rethoric? It's pretty dumb to frame something as 'manly' or 'unmanly', especially with the inference that one thing is more difficult than the other. You can make your argument entirely without relying on that initial statement.
i agree he can make his entire argument without his initial statement, but you said absolutely nothing on topic with this post and made no on topic argument at all. can you please abstain from attempting to derail conversations to nitpick at common phrasing?
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On March 05 2017 03:19 Jealous wrote:
In this episode of Monthly Mech Viability Whine Thread, we have the same posters making the same complaints they've made for months, all with little to no statistical or empirical evidence! Players who reach M and GM with Mech who still think that their homogenous, uninspired, turtle-oriented style of play is getting the shaft are here to answer any logical counter-arguments you have with the same shriveled up explanations and whinefests that you've grown to expect and detest! Tune in again next month, when you will hear the same issues brought up again and again from people who lack a sense of realism when it comes to Blizzard's approach to the game, how others play and want to play, and lack the basic objectivity necessary to talk about balance!
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Northern Ireland26307 Posts
On November 10 2025 04:50 NinjaDuckBob wrote:
I understand the sentiment here, though thematically teleportation for mech would be quite silly, of course.
To be consistently good, Mech needs ways to handle the expansion pace of LotV as a slower composition, similar to how Protoss armies that are slower than Bio and Zerg handle it.
Protoss has these tools:
- Warp Gate for reinforcements that don't have to travel all the way from the main base.
- Recall to both retreat slow expensive units and reinforce from anywhere.
- Mineral-only Warp Prisms that offer a ton of utility without competing in gas cost with the more expensive Protoss combat units.
- The ability to stall and threaten large armies with fewer units to buy time for reinforcements. Shield Batteries, Forcefields, and (to a lesser extent) Stasis Wards all are stalling tools, and Disruptors and High Templar are great units for threatening larger armies.
Mech isn't without strengths, but simply does not have the same flexibility that slow Protoss armies have with the above tools combined. Medivacs are more costly for Mech than for Bio since Mech combat units are more gas-intensive, so Mech struggles with reinforcing a multi-front situation and retreating its more expensive units. A couple of Siege Tanks can threaten run-bys when paired with good sim city, but without higher numbers they don't have the same threat against large clumped mobile armies like Disruptors and High Templar offer. Widow Mines have too low of a range to fill this role effectively.
WoL Mech actually had the foundation of a potentially potent Mech in a LotV context, but these capabilities were removed in the context of HotS because they allowed for extremely strong turtling and overpowered mass Raven strategies. I would personally like to see the return of some of these abilities brought back and maybe tweaked in a LotV context since the expansion pace discourages turtling, and the power of mass Raven has not been tested in the context of the current game stage.
WoL Mech had:
- PDD which could stall for reinforcements and allow time for a smaller amount of Mech units to do more work against larger armies. PDD was removed, but is actually tweakable for balance by giving its laser a cooldown, which causes a single PDD to be unable to block all incoming projectiles from large armies, tempering its effectiveness.
- Seeker Missiles which had the potential to threaten larger clumped armies similar to how Disruptors can. I don't know the best way to tweak Seeker Missiles, but playing with higher Raven supply cost, making Seeker Missiles cost something like 15/15 besides their energy cost, and giving their casting time a significant cooldown are ways to pore temper the mass Raven issue.
- Thor ground cannons, which were an alternative area threat that could fill a similar role to Disruptors and Storm.
Another ability that was tested and removed that I believe still has potential is the Repair Drone. It could potentially provide some stalling potential similar to Shield Batteries, without being the combination of mobility and healing that Medivacs provide for Bio which may be too strong for Mech.
Since Ravens are flying units, they provide some of that mobility flexibility for some of these tools. However, that might not be sufficient in the context of LotV as it stands, and the ideal situation would be one where Ravens support the Mech army rather than become the Mech army through being massed. To that end, I wouldn't be opposed to a dropship that is cheaper or Mineral-only that does not heal but could be more easily affordable for Mech compositions than Medivacs, to help with some of the mobility issues. No Tankivacs, though!
Good points. WoL was just a slower game, that certainly helped too. Both in terms of eco ramp-up versus tech and being spread to 3 bases almost immediately, but just units and unit behaviour in general. Yeah you could still outmanouvere, but it was more of a dance. Even something like medivac boost being there subsequently, it’s simply just faster to load up and dive for a gap than it is to unsiege and reposition, and with less of a risk, because you can be fast enough to do a 180 and back out if units or static D are in position.
And that’s just one ability, there’s a whole lot more that just speed up the pace and advantage of more mobile armies versus mech.
Good points on Toss, but the thing is, that’s less of a stylistic or strategic thing, that’s just how the entire faction is built. I personally think in ways it’s held together by bandaids in ways, and I mean this sincerely it’s a miracle it’s as balanced and fun as it is despite some calls. But broadly, that’s just how Toss plays.
Same with Zerg in terms of identity, of course, exceptions exist but. Toss has potent timing attacks, gateway units that don’t scale super well and a reliance on various specialist tech units. Zoigs are speedy, mobile, trade and grow.
Which leads us to the mech ‘problem’. Terran’s general identity and core design is very potent core units that are extremely microable, and in general a shitload of units that require good micro and scale well with it, and this lends itself to big pushes, or picking apart the opponent with aggressive multitasking.
Now mech? I mean it’s cool and iconic, but it ain’t that. And, with each expansion Terran has become yet better suited to the aforementioned style.
Aside from what I said earlier about eco more generally, I think the tricky problem Blizz has, and has generally always had, is developing essentially two completely different identities/playstyles for one faction, and avoiding overlap.
In short, how do you make both equally potent, without making some hybrid best of both worlds approach, not be ridiculous? If you’re a player with the requisite micro and positional chops, that could be pretty brutal if there’s a misstep in a patch. I mean Ghostmech is pretty good already, what if the mech part is meaningfully stronger? To take one example.
Blends can work, marine/tank wars are pretty beloved for a reason and TvT probably is the most unique mirror in terms of testing a different skillset from the non-mirrors
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Northern Ireland26307 Posts
On November 10 2025 00:49 Creager wrote:Show nested quote +On November 09 2025 20:12 WombaT wrote:
I play bio like a real man
Not my point though. Why should the game risk being unbalanced just to make mech better? With bizarre changes that are counter to what mech’s identity is meant to be?
What is mech, to you, and why does it need made more viable?
I’m of the opinion that it would be nice to have that slow push, positional style that’s less APM intensive be viable, sure. But it’s not like Blizzard haven’t tried tons of times over the years. And sometimes those were awful changes IMO. I’ve never been a fan of the cyclone and that was stuck in the game to help mech out explicitly.
More so to appease the mech crowd than basically anyone else in fact. Balance whining can be obnoxious of course, but at least bio players, Toss and Zerg players are generally wanting a balanced, varied game and not demanding a very specific playstyle, with specific units be good. Can you please abstain from this sexist rethoric? It's pretty dumb to frame something as 'manly' or 'unmanly', especially with the inference that one thing is more difficult than the other. You can make your argument entirely without relying on that initial statement.
Members of the Terran ‘Master race’ have been riffing off that for 15 years so it was poking fun at them, not my own position.
But yeah fair point, misjudged attempt at humour on my part
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On November 10 2025 05:37 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On November 10 2025 00:49 Creager wrote:On November 09 2025 20:12 WombaT wrote:
I play bio like a real man
Not my point though. Why should the game risk being unbalanced just to make mech better? With bizarre changes that are counter to what mech’s identity is meant to be?
What is mech, to you, and why does it need made more viable?
I’m of the opinion that it would be nice to have that slow push, positional style that’s less APM intensive be viable, sure. But it’s not like Blizzard haven’t tried tons of times over the years. And sometimes those were awful changes IMO. I’ve never been a fan of the cyclone and that was stuck in the game to help mech out explicitly.
More so to appease the mech crowd than basically anyone else in fact. Balance whining can be obnoxious of course, but at least bio players, Toss and Zerg players are generally wanting a balanced, varied game and not demanding a very specific playstyle, with specific units be good. Can you please abstain from this sexist rethoric? It's pretty dumb to frame something as 'manly' or 'unmanly', especially with the inference that one thing is more difficult than the other. You can make your argument entirely without relying on that initial statement. Members of the Terran ‘Master race’ have been riffing off that for 15 years so it was poking fun at them, not my own position. But yeah fair point, misjudged attempt at humour on my part
FWIW I think it's fine. We have lore surrounding an individual known as the ManToss. The word "manly" is not a slur. Personal insecurities are not a reason for censorship in a public forum.
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