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On November 10 2025 05:32 WombaT wrote:
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
These are fair questions.
Regarding Ghostmech, it has strengths, but it's not Ghostbio strong. Well-controlled Ghosts can certainly help alleviate some compositional weaknesses in Mech by providing an answer to some of Mech's weaknesses to certain units (and providing extra damage against Shields with EMP), but Ghosts don't make up for the weaknesses of Mech in the multi-front LotV context that Bio shines so brightly in.
I suppose my question in response would be, "Is it impossible to allow Mech to compete in a multi-front context whilst maintaining some weaknesses?" To me, the answer to that question is the same as the question for Protoss. I do believe it is possible to allow Protoss to compete in a multi-front context whilst maintaining weaknesses. Ultimately, for all of Protoss's bandaids, Zerg and Bio are still more mobile and have strengths that Protoss armies do not have. Whether or not the current state of the game is balanced between the races is another question, as is the question of whether or not the things filling those gaps for Protoss are the best things that could be filling those gaps (I would agree that they are not), but ultimately 2 things are true:
- The gaps for Protoss are filled.
- The gaps being filled for Protoss does not mean that Bio and Zerg compositions don't have their own unique strengths.
I believe the same could be accomplished for Mech.
Regarding "best of both worlds" - there is a reason why Bio/Tank is not currently as popular as Bio in the non-mirrors. That style has always had the tradeoff of limiting the strengths of Bio's mobility in order to take advantage of the zoning capabilities of Tanks (which lategame Bio has often used Liberators for instead in LotV, which as flying units have higher mobility than Tanks). The "best of both worlds" idea is an illusion because when mixing them, you cannot avoid also mixing in the weaknesses.
- More Tanks means less Ghosts/Vikings/Medivacs for Bio. Pick whether you want to reduce everything Ghosts do, reduce anti-air and vision support, or reduce healing and drop potential. You could say the same for Liberators, but Liberators are more versatile for harassment and are also easier to retreat than Tanks and so do not need to be babysat by the Bio army to the same degree.
- A meaningful number of Tanks will always be a liability if left alone, so at least some portion of the Bio army needs to stay close to the Tanks if the Tanks are out on the map. This means the Bio army is not unfettered in its ability to swing from one side of the map to the other or from one expansion to another so easily, it must play a more "rubber band" playstyle that allows it to return to wherever the Tanks are if needed, else risk losing the investment into the Tanks.
- On the other side, a Bio/Tank army is almost never going to have the same efficiency in a straight-up army clash as a Mech composition. Whatever supply is tied up in Bio means less supply tied up in Mech units, and because of the upgrade split between Bio and Mech, ultimately one part of the army is most likely going to have an upgrade deficit compared to if either Bio or Mech alone were committed to. The strength of Mech over Bio is better supply efficiency in those straight-up engagements at the cost of Bio's mobility.
Now, I do think the biggest concern is the potency of Ravens. Ravens largely don't care about upgrades. Bio into mass Raven was not an unheard-of strategy in the past. Ghost/Raven was ridiculously strong at some points in SC2's history. To deal with this, I do think some things can still be explored, though:
- Any/all of the things I mentioned in my previous post to temper the power of some of the Raven's most potent historical abilities, including considering a supply cost increase for the Raven.
- Possibly splitting some of those abilities into a different/new unit or structure so that, in the case of a unit, more supply and spellcasting management is required to use all of the abilities, or in the case of a structure, of course the potency is limited to wherever that structure is built.
- Leaning into the mobility compatibility drawback of Mech and Bio by giving the Raven a slower movement speed. This also forces splitting the Ravens to cover the multi-front situations that show up in the context of LotV.
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How 'bout we buff the lock-on cd from 6->4, this way mech has a mobile way to keep up with the expansion rate of the other styles, and in a mechy-feely kind of way. Even in bw not all of mech is immobile, vultures are ones of the fastest units of the game.
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On November 10 2025 05:40 Jealous wrote:Show nested quote +On November 10 2025 05:37 WombaT wrote: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.
Sure, whatever makes you sleep at night. Might want to queue that update to your world view while you're at it, your current version seems quite outdated.
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May I also suggest a new spell for the raven, "Repair all army"? Costs 100 Energy and instantly repairs all your mech units to full health. I think it would really suit the underpowered Terran race and fix some of the issue this absolutely valid composition has! The idea with teleportation, of course, also sounds wonderful - really matches the Terran race identity, too! Maybe add chronoboost to the CC? Those BCs take an awfully long time to build!
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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.  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.
This is an amazing description of Mech balance whiners.
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Northern Ireland26013 Posts
On November 10 2025 17:32 Creager wrote:Show nested quote +On November 10 2025 05:40 Jealous wrote:On November 10 2025 05:37 WombaT wrote: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. Sure, whatever makes you sleep at night. Might want to queue that update to your world view while you're at it, your current version seems quite outdated.
There is an often an implication or association with asinine, or unwise behaviour when manliness is invoked. Or of prideful stubbornness, which intersects pretty neatly with conceptions of toxic masculinity.
I mean a dude getting drunk and punching a bear is, neither wise nor admirable, it is however, manly as fuck.
Granted, the rabbit hole goes deep and this thread is ostensibly about mech, so I won’t ramble too much.
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Northern Ireland26013 Posts
On November 10 2025 19:19 MJG 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. 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. This is an amazing description of Mech balance whiners.
It’s almost too perfect!
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Northern Ireland26013 Posts
On November 10 2025 16:10 ejozl wrote:
How 'bout we buff the lock-on cd from 6->4, this way mech has a mobile way to keep up with the expansion rate of the other styles, and in a mechy-feely kind of way. Even in bw not all of mech is immobile, vultures are ones of the fastest units of the game.
There’s a real fundamental lack of synergy between the cyclone and the tank. They end up clashing, where the primarily tank/vulture combo work together really well, mines are pretty good.
Cyclones pump out damage at quite some range, as do tanks. But cyclones ideally you want to be constantly moving into range and kiting backwards, tanks want to be slowly, methodically pushing forwards.
They simply don’t work all that well together. It’s a bit awkward.
Battlemech can be fun, and the micro itself is easier than bio, but if anything, at least at a high level you almost have to be more active with your cyclone/hellion squad than with bio.
So you run into the problem of how to move around in sync that’s more pronounced than say, marine/tank.
Successful battlemech into mech games tend to fit the same pattern where the cyclone/hellion ball runs around for 10 minutes straight and does enough damage to the (usually) Zerg to gradually swap out the ball to enable a big tank-based deathball to be made, which then just kills them/or becomes unbreakable. It’s like a game of 2 phases in that sense.
Now, there’s nothing innately wrong with that, but it’s a high-APM style that requires constant micro and consistent aggression to work. Isn’t that precisely the issue people have with playing bio, and why they want a slower, more methodical option?
Also in general I’m just not a massive fan of cyclones anyway, so am wary of buffing them. What usually happens is we just get tons of mass cyclone play, and not tank-based mech.
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Mech units should have teleportation plus detection. And, Blizzard should team up with Logitech to offer a new macro programmable mouse so Mech formations can move and attack together throughout the battlefield in 1 preprogrammed click.
They can use the profits from the mice to fund the GSL and Wardi's events.
On a serious note: I go Mech 50% of the time. My ladder record approximately matches my skill level. Leave Mech alone ... It is fine.
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EPT
