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On July 22 2026 03:46 Athenau wrote:Show nested quote +On July 22 2026 03:31 BlackEyed wrote:On July 22 2026 00:39 tigera6 wrote:On July 21 2026 18:51 TeamMamba wrote:On July 21 2026 13:47 tigera6 wrote:On July 20 2026 23:47 BlackEyed wrote:On July 20 2026 19:26 Agh wrote:On July 20 2026 15:05 THERIDDLER wrote:On July 20 2026 13:07 BlackEyed wrote:On July 20 2026 09:45 CicadaSC wrote:
Say what you want about the state of Zerg, a world where only Serral is competitive is not healthy for the game or it's players. Yeah, and that's the sad part. But what's even sadder is that a few years ago, when Serral was losing 0-4 to Clem, everyone was perfectly fine with it and called it "balanced." Then Clem loses a few series, and suddenly Terran starts getting buff after buff. And not just minor tweaks - completely insane, unprecedented buffs. What if even this isn't enough and Clem still keeps losing? What's next? Terran starts with 10 workers while every other race starts with 8? When serral lost 0-8 to clem that patch wasn't fine. TvZ was zerg favored that patch. That's why you balanced the game around the entire pro scene instead of just 2 individuals. I don't even know what I'm reading except for people trying to rage bait each other or mislead. their skill level. This patch already brought all of this on itself. Changes like these do nothing but create a massive sense of unfairness. A 300 mineral Command Center? Seriously? I genuinely can't wrap my head around how anyone thought this was a good idea. This isn't just a balance tweak anymore. It's something else entirely - borderline deliberate destabilization of the game. It honestly feels like they're intentionally taking the most frustrating aspects of StarCraft II and making them even worse. Ghosts were already driving everyone insane. It's obvious to anyone being remotely objective that some of their power should be redistributed to other Terran units instead of being concentrated in a single unit. So what do the developers do? They buff the Ghost. After that, what exactly are people supposed to think about them? For some reason buffing Mech and SkyTerran is a taboo within the balance council, they could make a late game upgrade to reduce Terran splash to ally units, another one to negate Viper Abduct to Thor/Tank in Seige mode, or something that buff Bashee/Viking/Libs, all that to make Snipe only deal 50-75 dmg and cost 50 Engr. Instead we have Zerg with another spell that negate 50% range damage (which is from 80% of Terran unit) to buff Ultra rushing with lingbane. They can’t buff most of the mech units you suggested since ghost / lib combo is literally unloseable in tvp. Any buffs in libs does make sense. Doesn’t make sense to buff tank or thors since those are already strong in tvz Not with current Microbial Shroud and Viper if you nerf ghost Snipe, what to stop the Zerg army? It doesnt make sense because you want Zerg to keep wining apparently. Tanks get complete wrecked by Viper or just a couple Lings runby, and Thor is extremely immobile. Zerg will just attack the weak side with their mobility and get more map control. In your mind, Zerg players probably doesnt know how to scout and would charge head first without any spell caster into 10 tanks and 5 Thors wating or something, then saying Tanks and Thors are too strong, lol. If you want proof that Siege Tanks are overtuned, just look at TvT. They've completely warped the matchup to the point where it's honestly painful to watch - it's just one long tank crawl. Terran doesn't need buffs to Tanks, and definitely not to Thors. Thors barely even require any control since they automatically target air units. If anything needs a buff, it's the Raven. Not to the point where people start massing 40 Ravens again like in the old days, but by shifting some of the Ghost's power into the Raven in one way or another. That would make the Ghost less of a universal unit instead of being the answer to basically everything in TvZ. Siege tanks are fine. They're only used in timings in TvP and Zerg has a plethora of ways to deal with mass tanks. There's nothing wrong with TvT being a tank-centric, positional match-up, just like Brood War.
There’s a lot wrong with it, at least the lack of variety. In WoL and HotS, there was actually a choice of what to play, because tankless compositions were still viable. Now TvT is just a dull spectacle with no dynamism and not a shred of tension.
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On July 22 2026 08:19 Agh wrote:Show nested quote +On July 22 2026 07:08 Athenau wrote:
Ghosts don't dominate vipers. EMP is a temporary shutdown and an unfavorable energy trade long term (since vipers have consume) and abduct goes off before snipe, so at best you're trading a ghost for a viper (maybe not even that if the snipe still gets interrupted by the abduct) if both sides are microing.
I think we've reached peak mental gymnastics.
Nah, more like peak inability to parse nuance on your part.
"Dominate" implies a completely one-sided interaction. Neither EMP nor snipe are capable of doing that. And this is witnessed by a) vipers still being made when ghosts are on the field b) still getting some of their spells off.
Please explain how, when both players are looking at their units, one "dominates" the other?
Either the ghost spends 150 energy (two EMPs) to burn 200 energy on the viper, and both sides reset back to neutral (can't snipe afterwards because snipe is now 75 energy), or you get a trade with snipe vs abduct. So where's the domination?
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On July 22 2026 08:58 Athenau wrote:Show nested quote +On July 22 2026 08:19 Agh wrote:On July 22 2026 07:08 Athenau wrote:
Ghosts don't dominate vipers. EMP is a temporary shutdown and an unfavorable energy trade long term (since vipers have consume) and abduct goes off before snipe, so at best you're trading a ghost for a viper (maybe not even that if the snipe still gets interrupted by the abduct) if both sides are microing.
I think we've reached peak mental gymnastics. Nah, more like peak inability to parse nuance on your part. "Dominate" implies a completely one-sided interaction. Neither EMP nor snipe are capable of doing that. And this is witnessed by a) vipers still being made when ghosts are on the field b) still getting some of their spells off. Please explain how, when both players are looking at their units, one "dominates" the other? Either the ghost spends 150 energy (two EMPs) to burn 200 energy on the viper, and both sides reset back to neutral (can't snipe afterwards because snipe is now 75 energy), or you get a trade with snipe vs abduct. So where's the domination?
The interaction you're describing is not a neutral interaction. It's a big win for terran. Vipers have 0 utility without energy. Ghosts still do. And the problem isn't an army with say 3 ghosts neutralizing an army with 3 vipers. If this is what we were talking about your argument would be valid. It's an army of 25+ ghosts, and using your example a singular ghost is able to neutralize a viper leaving 24+ ghosts with energy. I don't think people are complaining about the strength of a singular ghost but mass ghost.
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On July 22 2026 08:30 Herringbone wrote:Show nested quote +On July 22 2026 06:33 Balnazza wrote:On July 22 2026 00:39 tigera6 wrote:On July 21 2026 18:51 TeamMamba wrote:On July 21 2026 13:47 tigera6 wrote:On July 20 2026 23:47 BlackEyed wrote:On July 20 2026 19:26 Agh wrote:On July 20 2026 15:05 THERIDDLER wrote:On July 20 2026 13:07 BlackEyed wrote:On July 20 2026 09:45 CicadaSC wrote:
Say what you want about the state of Zerg, a world where only Serral is competitive is not healthy for the game or it's players. Yeah, and that's the sad part. But what's even sadder is that a few years ago, when Serral was losing 0-4 to Clem, everyone was perfectly fine with it and called it "balanced." Then Clem loses a few series, and suddenly Terran starts getting buff after buff. And not just minor tweaks - completely insane, unprecedented buffs. What if even this isn't enough and Clem still keeps losing? What's next? Terran starts with 10 workers while every other race starts with 8? When serral lost 0-8 to clem that patch wasn't fine. TvZ was zerg favored that patch. That's why you balanced the game around the entire pro scene instead of just 2 individuals. I don't even know what I'm reading except for people trying to rage bait each other or mislead. their skill level. This patch already brought all of this on itself. Changes like these do nothing but create a massive sense of unfairness. A 300 mineral Command Center? Seriously? I genuinely can't wrap my head around how anyone thought this was a good idea. This isn't just a balance tweak anymore. It's something else entirely - borderline deliberate destabilization of the game. It honestly feels like they're intentionally taking the most frustrating aspects of StarCraft II and making them even worse. Ghosts were already driving everyone insane. It's obvious to anyone being remotely objective that some of their power should be redistributed to other Terran units instead of being concentrated in a single unit. So what do the developers do? They buff the Ghost. After that, what exactly are people supposed to think about them? For some reason buffing Mech and SkyTerran is a taboo within the balance council, they could make a late game upgrade to reduce Terran splash to ally units, another one to negate Viper Abduct to Thor/Tank in Seige mode, or something that buff Bashee/Viking/Libs, all that to make Snipe only deal 50-75 dmg and cost 50 Engr. Instead we have Zerg with another spell that negate 50% range damage (which is from 80% of Terran unit) to buff Ultra rushing with lingbane. They can’t buff most of the mech units you suggested since ghost / lib combo is literally unloseable in tvp. Any buffs in libs does make sense. Doesn’t make sense to buff tank or thors since those are already strong in tvz Not with current Microbial Shroud and Viper if you nerf ghost Snipe, what to stop the Zerg army? It doesnt make sense because you want Zerg to keep wining apparently. Tanks get complete wrecked by Viper or just a couple Lings runby, and Thor is extremely immobile. Zerg will just attack the weak side with their mobility and get more map control. In your mind, Zerg players probably doesnt know how to scout and would charge head first without any spell caster into 10 tanks and 5 Thors wating or something, then saying Tanks and Thors are too strong, lol. Snipe shouldn't be nerfed against Vipers. That's a totally valid matchup that the Ghost should dominate. My issue (and I assume that of a lot of people) that Ghosts are also the answer to Ultralisks, Brood Lords and Infestors, without any actual hard counter (Lingbane is ofc technically a hard counter, but only with perfect setup). Ghosts are just on the usual scale and I'm not even talking about SC2, I'm talking about gaming in general. Everyone knows that high-damage usually means squishy, anti-caster is usually never anti-tank/brawler, great anti-air is rarely great anti-ground and so on. Ling Bane would be the hard counter if ghosts also didn't have cloak. So you need to add in the overseer. And what's the "hard counter" to the overseer? You got it- the ghost.
I hate to break it to you, but banelings can be detonated manually, and they don't care about detection. So even if , miraculously, the terran manages to snipe the approximately one bajillion overseers the Zerg can build with all the extra resources they're banking, they'll just explode anyway when the banelings reach them.
On July 22 2026 10:01 Herringbone wrote:Show nested quote +On July 22 2026 08:58 Athenau wrote:On July 22 2026 08:19 Agh wrote:On July 22 2026 07:08 Athenau wrote:
Ghosts don't dominate vipers. EMP is a temporary shutdown and an unfavorable energy trade long term (since vipers have consume) and abduct goes off before snipe, so at best you're trading a ghost for a viper (maybe not even that if the snipe still gets interrupted by the abduct) if both sides are microing.
I think we've reached peak mental gymnastics. Nah, more like peak inability to parse nuance on your part. "Dominate" implies a completely one-sided interaction. Neither EMP nor snipe are capable of doing that. And this is witnessed by a) vipers still being made when ghosts are on the field b) still getting some of their spells off. Please explain how, when both players are looking at their units, one "dominates" the other? Either the ghost spends 150 energy (two EMPs) to burn 200 energy on the viper, and both sides reset back to neutral (can't snipe afterwards because snipe is now 75 energy), or you get a trade with snipe vs abduct. So where's the domination? The interaction you're describing is not a neutral interaction. It's a big win for terran. Vipers have 0 utility without energy. Ghosts still do. And the problem isn't an army with say 3 ghosts neutralizing an army with 3 vipers. If this is what we were talking about your argument would be valid. It's an army of 25+ ghosts, and using your example a singular ghost is able to neutralize a viper leaving 24+ ghosts with energy. I don't think people are complaining about the strength of a singular ghost but mass ghost.
While it's technically true that Ghost have non-zero utility without energy, in the previous three supply iteration they are absolutely terrible combat units for cost and supply, and you'd be better off replacing them with almost anything else in that case. Even at two supply they are bad as far as raw stats go, but they'd be imbalanced due to uninterruptible snipe.
As far as mass ghost, I don't see how, e.g 20 ghosts shutting down 4 or 5 vipers in a head-to-head engagement constitutes domination.
Are ghosts too centralizing in TvZ lategame? Yes. Should it be fixed? Also yes.
But is it reasonable to state that they dominate vipers? No. A unit that dominates another does so at comparable cost and supply.
If you want to expand the context to include actual lategame scenarios, you need to consider the other units involved, and the gamestate as well as the factors that led up to it, which is a different conversation.
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On July 22 2026 06:33 Balnazza wrote:Show nested quote +On July 22 2026 00:39 tigera6 wrote:On July 21 2026 18:51 TeamMamba wrote:On July 21 2026 13:47 tigera6 wrote:On July 20 2026 23:47 BlackEyed wrote:On July 20 2026 19:26 Agh wrote:On July 20 2026 15:05 THERIDDLER wrote:On July 20 2026 13:07 BlackEyed wrote:On July 20 2026 09:45 CicadaSC wrote:
Say what you want about the state of Zerg, a world where only Serral is competitive is not healthy for the game or it's players. Yeah, and that's the sad part. But what's even sadder is that a few years ago, when Serral was losing 0-4 to Clem, everyone was perfectly fine with it and called it "balanced." Then Clem loses a few series, and suddenly Terran starts getting buff after buff. And not just minor tweaks - completely insane, unprecedented buffs. What if even this isn't enough and Clem still keeps losing? What's next? Terran starts with 10 workers while every other race starts with 8? When serral lost 0-8 to clem that patch wasn't fine. TvZ was zerg favored that patch. That's why you balanced the game around the entire pro scene instead of just 2 individuals. I don't even know what I'm reading except for people trying to rage bait each other or mislead. their skill level. This patch already brought all of this on itself. Changes like these do nothing but create a massive sense of unfairness. A 300 mineral Command Center? Seriously? I genuinely can't wrap my head around how anyone thought this was a good idea. This isn't just a balance tweak anymore. It's something else entirely - borderline deliberate destabilization of the game. It honestly feels like they're intentionally taking the most frustrating aspects of StarCraft II and making them even worse. Ghosts were already driving everyone insane. It's obvious to anyone being remotely objective that some of their power should be redistributed to other Terran units instead of being concentrated in a single unit. So what do the developers do? They buff the Ghost. After that, what exactly are people supposed to think about them? For some reason buffing Mech and SkyTerran is a taboo within the balance council, they could make a late game upgrade to reduce Terran splash to ally units, another one to negate Viper Abduct to Thor/Tank in Seige mode, or something that buff Bashee/Viking/Libs, all that to make Snipe only deal 50-75 dmg and cost 50 Engr. Instead we have Zerg with another spell that negate 50% range damage (which is from 80% of Terran unit) to buff Ultra rushing with lingbane. They can’t buff most of the mech units you suggested since ghost / lib combo is literally unloseable in tvp. Any buffs in libs does make sense. Doesn’t make sense to buff tank or thors since those are already strong in tvz Not with current Microbial Shroud and Viper if you nerf ghost Snipe, what to stop the Zerg army? It doesnt make sense because you want Zerg to keep wining apparently. Tanks get complete wrecked by Viper or just a couple Lings runby, and Thor is extremely immobile. Zerg will just attack the weak side with their mobility and get more map control. In your mind, Zerg players probably doesnt know how to scout and would charge head first without any spell caster into 10 tanks and 5 Thors wating or something, then saying Tanks and Thors are too strong, lol. Snipe shouldn't be nerfed against Vipers. That's a totally valid matchup that the Ghost should dominate. My issue (and I assume that of a lot of people) that Ghosts are also the answer to Ultralisks, Brood Lords and Infestors, without any actual hard counter (Lingbane is ofc technically a hard counter, but only with perfect setup). Ghosts are just on the usual scale and I'm not even talking about SC2, I'm talking about gaming in general. Everyone knows that high-damage usually means squishy, anti-caster is usually never anti-tank/brawler, great anti-air is rarely great anti-ground and so on.
My guess is that, the best way to nerf Ghost is reduce the range of Snipe, so that they dont directly counter BLord, and it would be riskier to have mass Ghost sniping the Zerg ground unit without getting caught by Fungal + Banes. Having said that, I do think Terran need buff in other way against Zerg lategame.
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On July 22 2026 10:38 Athenau wrote:Show nested quote +On July 22 2026 08:30 Herringbone wrote:On July 22 2026 06:33 Balnazza wrote:On July 22 2026 00:39 tigera6 wrote:On July 21 2026 18:51 TeamMamba wrote:On July 21 2026 13:47 tigera6 wrote:On July 20 2026 23:47 BlackEyed wrote:On July 20 2026 19:26 Agh wrote:On July 20 2026 15:05 THERIDDLER wrote:On July 20 2026 13:07 BlackEyed wrote:
[quote]
Yeah, and that's the sad part. But what's even sadder is that a few years ago, when Serral was losing 0-4 to Clem, everyone was perfectly fine with it and called it "balanced." Then Clem loses a few series, and suddenly Terran starts getting buff after buff.
And not just minor tweaks - completely insane, unprecedented buffs.
What if even this isn't enough and Clem still keeps losing? What's next? Terran starts with 10 workers while every other race starts with 8? When serral lost 0-8 to clem that patch wasn't fine. TvZ was zerg favored that patch. That's why you balanced the game around the entire pro scene instead of just 2 individuals. I don't even know what I'm reading except for people trying to rage bait each other or mislead. their skill level. This patch already brought all of this on itself. Changes like these do nothing but create a massive sense of unfairness. A 300 mineral Command Center? Seriously? I genuinely can't wrap my head around how anyone thought this was a good idea. This isn't just a balance tweak anymore. It's something else entirely - borderline deliberate destabilization of the game. It honestly feels like they're intentionally taking the most frustrating aspects of StarCraft II and making them even worse. Ghosts were already driving everyone insane. It's obvious to anyone being remotely objective that some of their power should be redistributed to other Terran units instead of being concentrated in a single unit. So what do the developers do? They buff the Ghost. After that, what exactly are people supposed to think about them? For some reason buffing Mech and SkyTerran is a taboo within the balance council, they could make a late game upgrade to reduce Terran splash to ally units, another one to negate Viper Abduct to Thor/Tank in Seige mode, or something that buff Bashee/Viking/Libs, all that to make Snipe only deal 50-75 dmg and cost 50 Engr. Instead we have Zerg with another spell that negate 50% range damage (which is from 80% of Terran unit) to buff Ultra rushing with lingbane. They can’t buff most of the mech units you suggested since ghost / lib combo is literally unloseable in tvp. Any buffs in libs does make sense. Doesn’t make sense to buff tank or thors since those are already strong in tvz Not with current Microbial Shroud and Viper if you nerf ghost Snipe, what to stop the Zerg army? It doesnt make sense because you want Zerg to keep wining apparently. Tanks get complete wrecked by Viper or just a couple Lings runby, and Thor is extremely immobile. Zerg will just attack the weak side with their mobility and get more map control. In your mind, Zerg players probably doesnt know how to scout and would charge head first without any spell caster into 10 tanks and 5 Thors wating or something, then saying Tanks and Thors are too strong, lol. Snipe shouldn't be nerfed against Vipers. That's a totally valid matchup that the Ghost should dominate. My issue (and I assume that of a lot of people) that Ghosts are also the answer to Ultralisks, Brood Lords and Infestors, without any actual hard counter (Lingbane is ofc technically a hard counter, but only with perfect setup). Ghosts are just on the usual scale and I'm not even talking about SC2, I'm talking about gaming in general. Everyone knows that high-damage usually means squishy, anti-caster is usually never anti-tank/brawler, great anti-air is rarely great anti-ground and so on. Ling Bane would be the hard counter if ghosts also didn't have cloak. So you need to add in the overseer. And what's the "hard counter" to the overseer? You got it- the ghost. I hate to break it to you, but banelings can be detonated manually, and they don't care about detection. So even if , miraculously, the terran manages to snipe the approximately one bajillion overseers the Zerg can build with all the extra resources they're banking, they'll just explode anyway when the banelings reach them. Show nested quote +On July 22 2026 10:01 Herringbone wrote:On July 22 2026 08:58 Athenau wrote:On July 22 2026 08:19 Agh wrote:On July 22 2026 07:08 Athenau wrote:
Ghosts don't dominate vipers. EMP is a temporary shutdown and an unfavorable energy trade long term (since vipers have consume) and abduct goes off before snipe, so at best you're trading a ghost for a viper (maybe not even that if the snipe still gets interrupted by the abduct) if both sides are microing.
I think we've reached peak mental gymnastics. Nah, more like peak inability to parse nuance on your part. "Dominate" implies a completely one-sided interaction. Neither EMP nor snipe are capable of doing that. And this is witnessed by a) vipers still being made when ghosts are on the field b) still getting some of their spells off. Please explain how, when both players are looking at their units, one "dominates" the other? Either the ghost spends 150 energy (two EMPs) to burn 200 energy on the viper, and both sides reset back to neutral (can't snipe afterwards because snipe is now 75 energy), or you get a trade with snipe vs abduct. So where's the domination? The interaction you're describing is not a neutral interaction. It's a big win for terran. Vipers have 0 utility without energy. Ghosts still do. And the problem isn't an army with say 3 ghosts neutralizing an army with 3 vipers. If this is what we were talking about your argument would be valid. It's an army of 25+ ghosts, and using your example a singular ghost is able to neutralize a viper leaving 24+ ghosts with energy. I don't think people are complaining about the strength of a singular ghost but mass ghost. While it's technically true that Ghost have non-zero utility without energy, in the previous three supply iteration they are absolutely terrible combat units for cost and supply, and you'd be better off replacing them with almost anything else in that case. Even at two supply they are bad as far as raw stats go, but they'd be imbalanced due to uninterruptible snipe. As far as mass ghost, I don't see how, e.g 20 ghosts shutting down 4 or 5 vipers in a head-to-head engagement constitutes domination. Are ghosts too centralizing in TvZ lategame? Yes. Should it be fixed? Also yes. But is it reasonable to state that they dominate vipers? No. A unit that dominates another does so at comparable cost and supply. If you want to expand the context to include actual lategame scenarios, you need to consider the other units involved, and the gamestate as well as the factors that led up to it, which is a different conversation.
The Ghost always has been too omni-potent against Zerg due to how Snipe works (with or without the shot delay), but that being said, we've had mass Raven in the old days, which was deemed so oppressive that both PDD and HSM were removed/replaced, although the old Infestor was arguably even better (no-projectile instant Fungal + Infested Terran spam).
The problem I see is that in a macro game split-map scenario Terran has very little choice other than to turtle with PF/Ghost/Lib, because Zerg spellcasters are otherwise too oppressive against what Terran has, I'm specifically referring to lategame compositions here playing a similar turtle style.
Battlecruiser? -> Yoink
Sky-Terran in general? -> Fungal + Parasitic Bomb both fuck you up real bad
Mech? -> Blinding Cloud + Microbial Shroud + Yoink
Ghost aside none of what Terran has to offer spellcasting-wise has really good utility against Zerg and for Zerg it feels no matter what Spellcaster they put on the battlefield everything is useful, both offensively and defensively.
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The Ghost always has been too omni-potent against Zerg due to how Snipe works (with or without the shot delay), but that being said, we've had mass Raven in the old days, which was deemed so oppressive that both PDD and HSM were removed/replaced, although the old Infestor was arguably even better (no-projectile instant Fungal + Infested Terran spam).
I would assume the reason why these lategame Terran units (be it the Ghost or the Raven) feel so oppressive is the game-state they create. Ghosts currently counter practically everything Zerg needs to break the Terran hold, so without your Vipers, Ultralisks, Brute Lords and so on you are essentially just running Zerglings into Marines supported by Medievacs, Tanks, Liberators and Mines...so essentially, you are not doing anything anymore.
The idea behind a good army composition should be that A counters X and has a weakness to Y, that is covered by B, which weakness Z is counter by...and so on. But if A, B and C counter X, Y, Z, but the counter to ABC is G, so XYZ can do whatever they want...that's oppressive.
"Dominate" implies a completely one-sided interaction. Neither EMP nor snipe are capable of doing that. And this is witnessed by a) vipers still being made when ghosts are on the field b) still getting some of their spells off.
But they are still a counter. A unit doesn't need to "dominate" all other units to be completly broken, just being a counter to literally every Tech unit alone is a problem.
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On July 23 2026 05:41 Balnazza wrote:Show nested quote +The Ghost always has been too omni-potent against Zerg due to how Snipe works (with or without the shot delay), but that being said, we've had mass Raven in the old days, which was deemed so oppressive that both PDD and HSM were removed/replaced, although the old Infestor was arguably even better (no-projectile instant Fungal + Infested Terran spam). I would assume the reason why these lategame Terran units (be it the Ghost or the Raven) feel so oppressive is the game-state they create. Ghosts currently counter practically everything Zerg needs to break the Terran hold, so without your Vipers, Ultralisks, Brute Lords and so on you are essentially just running Zerglings into Marines supported by Medievacs, Tanks, Liberators and Mines...so essentially, you are not doing anything anymore. The idea behind a good army composition should be that A counters X and has a weakness to Y, that is covered by B, which weakness Z is counter by...and so on. But if A, B and C counter X, Y, Z, but the counter to ABC is G, so XYZ can do whatever they want...that's oppressive. Show nested quote +"Dominate" implies a completely one-sided interaction. Neither EMP nor snipe are capable of doing that. And this is witnessed by a) vipers still being made when ghosts are on the field b) still getting some of their spells off. But they are still a counter. A unit doesn't need to "dominate" all other units to be completly broken, just being a counter to literally every Tech unit alone is a problem.
While SC2 is designed around hard-counters maybe it's not too bad to think in the other direction and leaning more into soft-counters instead, because further over-complicating unit interactions just leads to an ever longer growing chain of band aid fixes, which ultimately make the game worse instead of improving it. If this is even doable without having to also lower the overall damage output or change how mana/energy works, so touching some very fundamental aspects that determine the game's identity and how it feels to play, I have no idea. And it's very unlikely to happen, anyway.
My point is that while I have no issue with well-timed and placed spells changing the outcome of an engagement, a general theme that we have witnessed time and again over the whole lifecycle of SC2 is that there's at least one matchup where eventually people figure out a way to consistently get to a (often) spellcaster-centric lategame army composition that makes it VERY challenging for the opponent to win against.
And I don't know a good solution to this dilemma, because on one hand I feel sprinkling in a couple of casters into your comp should be impactful, meaning the spells need to meet a certain power threshold as this also can create tension and excitement for both viewers and players alike, but it makes massing them problematic.
On the other hand lowering that power threshold significantly would make spellcasters likely more mass-able without becoming oppressive, but that would also remove their viability in mid-game situations where you can't really afford training substantial amounts of them. Also from a viewer perspective this would be likely far less exciting.
Limiting unit counts for certain units seems like a horrible fix, as in my opinion this only artificially restricts creativity and freedom of choice of playstyles for players to express themselves.
I always would've liked SC2 to share more similarities to BW in it's patching philosophy, but maybe we really need the round-robin 'everyone gets a car' balancing approach that WoW PvP has always had.
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2.5 supply ghost 
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That is why pvz is still the best matchup to watch and play since it actually has some strategy and counter plays.
If toss sees ultra, they have to start building immortals
If toss sees lurkers or brood they need to start building tempest
Not the cause for Terrans, let’s just mass ghosts and pew pew everything. Literally mindless matchup
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On July 24 2026 15:55 TeamMamba wrote:
That is why pvz is still the best matchup to watch and play since it actually has some strategy and counter plays.
If toss sees ultra, they have to start building immortals
If toss sees lurkers or brood they need to start building tempest
Not the cause for Terrans, let’s just mass ghosts and pew pew everything. Literally mindless matchup
Terran needs to be stronger than Zerg at some point of the game, it is how the game works. If Zerg is stronger in the lategame, the matchup is broken, as Zerg is the most reactive defensive race with the best map vision.
When snipes stopped countering BLs back in WoL, Terrans were effectively removed from deep tournament runs. If you want Terran to be weaker in the lategame, they need a window to win earlier, and I don't think you want that. Forcing Zerg to end the game before a critical Terran Army is assembled is a good thing IMO.
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On July 26 2026 19:36 Slydie wrote:Show nested quote +On July 24 2026 15:55 TeamMamba wrote:
That is why pvz is still the best matchup to watch and play since it actually has some strategy and counter plays.
If toss sees ultra, they have to start building immortals
If toss sees lurkers or brood they need to start building tempest
Not the cause for Terrans, let’s just mass ghosts and pew pew everything. Literally mindless matchup Terran needs to be stronger than Zerg at some point of the game, it is how the game works. If Zerg is stronger in the lategame, the matchup is broken, as Zerg is the most reactive defensive race with the best map vision. When snipes stopped countering BLs back in WoL, Terrans were effectively removed from deep tournament runs. If you want Terran to be weaker in the lategame, they need a window to win earlier, and I don't think you want that. Forcing Zerg to end the game before a critical Terran Army is assembled is a good thing IMO.
Definetly not wrong, but you are contradicting yourself and kind of describe an issue:
You say Zerg is "the most reactive defensive race", which I think is generally accepted as true. Kind of counter-intuitive, but that is what it is. But then you expect the most defensive race to kill the Terran before the Lategame, because then Terran is stronger.
Why does the "defense" Race need to win before a timer? What is it even defensive for then? Defending yourself to die anyway?
In any game-design, be it RTS, Cardgames or whatever, the "aggressor" usually has the timer. Eventually every aggressive build runs out of steam and when the defender survived long enough, the defender now has the upper hand. If the aggressor however never runs out of steam, but actually picks up power the longer the game goes - that's just broken gamedesign.
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On July 26 2026 19:36 Slydie wrote:Show nested quote +On July 24 2026 15:55 TeamMamba wrote:
That is why pvz is still the best matchup to watch and play since it actually has some strategy and counter plays.
If toss sees ultra, they have to start building immortals
If toss sees lurkers or brood they need to start building tempest
Not the cause for Terrans, let’s just mass ghosts and pew pew everything. Literally mindless matchup Terran needs to be stronger than Zerg at some point of the game, it is how the game works. If Zerg is stronger in the lategame, the matchup is broken, as Zerg is the most reactive defensive race with the best map vision. When snipes stopped countering BLs back in WoL, Terrans were effectively removed from deep tournament runs. If you want Terran to be weaker in the lategame, they need a window to win earlier, and I don't think you want that. Forcing Zerg to end the game before a critical Terran Army is assembled is a good thing IMO.
It's not that Terran needs to be stronger in the lategame, but that the win conditions should be different for Terran and Zerg. Terran should be stronger in heads-up engagements where both armies are properly set up because two out of their three power units (liberators, tanks, ghosts) need to siege and the third is extremely fragile, and because their production is slow, expensive, and can't mass produce arbitrary unit mixes on a dime. Terran is naturally channeled into being the defender in the lategame.
As a consequence Terran should be favored when they manage to successfully split the map and contain the Zerg to even or +1 bases, and they can grind out an attrition win with repeated cost-efficient engagements. Zerg should win when they prevent Terran from splitting the map, and can either use their superior mobility to catch the Terran army out of position, or use their accumulated economy advantage to break the Terran positions inefficiently.
Despite what certain people will tell you, this has been more or less the dynamic in TvZ for years now, and it's _not_ the same as "win before your opponent gets to x", which is, and has always been, bullshit.
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On July 24 2026 15:55 TeamMamba wrote:
That is why pvz is still the best matchup to watch and play since it actually has some strategy and counter plays.
If toss sees ultra, they have to start building immortals
If toss sees lurkers or brood they need to start building tempest
Not the cause for Terrans, let’s just mass ghosts and pew pew everything. Literally mindless matchup
This is a terrible mis-conception, most Protoss has 1 goal in mind, and that is get to lategame Golden Skytoss army composition with the Mothership Robo support. That is the equivalent of Terran Mech + Ghost lategame army, but the problem is Protoss have a good path toward their latgame army, Terran cant transition from full Bio into Mech efficiently and quickly enough, they need a huge bank and time to do such thing. Yes, an army of Thor + Lib + Blue Flame Hellbat and some Tanks would only need a handful of Ghost to be a great lategame army. The problem? It would take Terran 15-20 minutes to get to that point with the current Meta.
Maybe you can blow our mind and show the world how Terran can move away from their 8 Racks- 2 Factory - 1 Starport setup into a full Mech build with good efficiency and timing.
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It doesn't have to be any way, but for most of history zerg was trying to get ahead with drones and then would muster up the OP late game comp of bl/inf and perhaps some ultras or lurkers. It's however a better dynamic in more recent time, since perhaps infested terrans were removed, or bl got the more recent nerf - that zerg defends trying to get ahead on drones, then gets on a timer to break terran before they themselves get their ultimate composition. I think this dynamic is better, though ghost turtling was alrdy strong, now they cheapened CC's and gas is way more limited, so who knows where it stands now. But I think the interaction would be better if the now unbreakable snipe was set at 7 range similar to its attack range, putting the ghost in more vulnerability, or needing the ghost to be on the winning side before they get all their value from snipe. This way brood lords and lurkers outrange, so you need thor/tank as well to get to that unbeatable comp. That you almost only need ghost and planetaries poses a bit of a problem.
I'd like to see ghosts not get refunded energy, 50e snipe that is inescapable, but needs the 7 acquisition range.
The ravens weren't removed because they were broken btw, this is always some revisionist thinking that because something is gone it means it was broken. PDD and turret durations were heavily nerfed to nerf late game turtling, until pdd was ultimately scrapped. Seekers saw changes and trying to put raven into a supporting role, they gave it an unstackable debuff. Neither seekers, pdd's, archon toilet, graviton catapult, infested terran (pre-anti air missile), old swarm hosts, or even warhounds were scrapped because they were OP, but because they wanted to go another way with the game, no thing cannot be changed into a balanced state, though it might rip the thing of its original intent.
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I came up with a fair nerf. Since the Command Center only costs 300 minerals now, Orbital Command should lose its ability to fly. Terran would still be able to expand early with a fast CC, but morphing it into an Orbital would become a meaningful commitment. You'd actually have to defend it instead of just lifting it off and waiting for the danger to pass.
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On July 27 2026 06:38 ejozl wrote:
But I think the interaction would be better if the now unbreakable snipe was set at 7 range similar to its attack range, putting the ghost in more vulnerability, or needing the ghost to be on the winning side before they get all their value from snipe. This way brood lords and lurkers outrange, so you need thor/tank as well to get to that unbeatable comp. That you almost only need ghost and planetaries poses a bit of a problem.
I'd like to see ghosts not get refunded energy, 50e snipe that is inescapable, but needs the 7 acquisition range.
I think that's just too harsh of a nerf in a vacuum. Abduct is 9 range, Fungal 10 and you're going to need to have the ghosts closer to the frontlines where it's more likely they get hit by the broodlings or by ling/bane or even by your own splash. It'll be much easier for Zerg to punish Terran, but Terran will struggle to retaliate at all. Even if you force a retreat, the ghosts won't get in range.
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On July 27 2026 13:44 BlackEyed wrote:
I came up with a fair nerf. Since the Command Center only costs 300 minerals now, Orbital Command should lose its ability to fly. Terran would still be able to expand early with a fast CC, but morphing it into an Orbital would become a meaningful commitment. You'd actually have to defend it instead of just lifting it off and waiting for the danger to pass.
What? You are messing with some defining features of the game now! Terran needs more buildings and space, but some of them can fly. That is simply the way it works.
The 300mineral CC was a weird change too, tbh.
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On July 27 2026 18:13 Slydie wrote:
What? You are messing with some defining features of the game now! Terran needs more buildings and space, but some of them can fly. That is simply the way it works.
And Protoss' defining feature was warpgate and yet here we are
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EPT
