Watching the Multiplayer Panel from Blizzcon, I got confused by some of the unit decisions that Blizzard are introducing into HOTS.
Specifically, the Warhound and the Tempest.
The multiplayer panel goes on to explain they felt that the thor was not a good enough counter to the mutalisk, because it was big, bulky and expensive. Furthermore, the tempest was described because Protoss players apparently had trouble with big muta switches in PvZ.
Personally, and I believe my opinion is shared by most of the community, Mutalisks are not overpowered. They're an effective harassment tool, that are dealt with a variety of units from each race. While I agree that the Thor may not be performing up to their standards for anti-mutalisk, the Terran race as a whole, does not seem to have a Mutalisk problem. Likewise, Protoss as a whole also do not have a problem with mass mutas. They have archons, high templar, blink, and phoenixes to help deal with Mutalisks. And all races have the option of applying pressure to the opponent. Regardless of what problems exist in the matchups, I really do not think the mutalisk is the cause of any of those problems.
Which brings me to my point. For the Warhound, why do the Terran need another unit to help with Mutalisks? They handle mutalisks extremely well because of the Marine. You're effectively nerfing Mutalisk harassment, which is something that doesn't really need nerfing in the TvZ matchup. Yes, they are removing the thor, but the warhound is being introduced specifically to be better than the Thor against mutalisks.
My second point regarding the Tempest, is that the unit fulfills no niche. Do Protoss have a hard time with mass mutas? Are archons, high templar, blink, and phoenixes really not enough? Is mass mutalisk such a common strategy that it requires the removal of the carrier and the addition of an all new capital ship? If the niche that the tempest provides is mass AOE-anti air, I really do not see it being built much because as it is now, there are many options to handle mass mutalisks. The only air unit thats being added is the Viper, which is more of a support unit, then an offensive one like the mutalisk.
For those saying, we don't know what HOTS will be like, I agree, but none of the new units and changes revealed so far show any indication of changing the mutalisk dynamic except these 2 units in the 2 matchups.
Am I wrong? Is there something I'm missing? I'm just wondering, what would make Blizzard feel that the problem with the TvZ and PvZ is the mutalisk? I remember in the transition from Starcraft to Starcraft: Brood War, mutalisks were overpowered in Starcraft 1. The addition of the corsair, the valkyrie, and goliath range where to fight against mutalisks, a known problem. In this transition from WOL -> HOTS, the changes they are making do not seem to be solving a problem, but just changing the current status quo.
Edit - It could also be that Blizzard just doesn't want mutalisk harass to be as effective, intentionally changing the flow of the TvZ and PvZ matchups, but aren't mutalisks one of the most spectator friendly units out there?
Umm, the point of the warhound replacing the thor is only for mech play. Mentioning the marine is pointless. The idea was that a mass of mutas would own up a bunch of a thors with magicboxing and essentially be the counter to mech and I guess they didn't want that.
For ZvP if you can amass 30 or so mutas it becomes incredibly difficult to deal with and you're basically forced to have half your army left in your base and if you leave you're basically forced into a base race. I don't think the tempest is the best answer here, it should always have been the phoenix, but mass mutas is definitely not easy to deal with.
I personally can't say I like either of the 2 new units in their new roles because they don't seem very interesting and microable.
I think Blizzard wants to develop a game were 1 unit can't have a dominating grip after the early game. Mutalisks could decide a game on their own, with the new toys zerg gets we might see a bit more diversion in units on the board.
* They justified it in TvZ as magic box being too much for Thors to handle. I don't agree with that assessment. Thor + marine micro is enough imho.
* Protoss "doesn't really need any more units" so they're giving P players something to fill the strange scenario of "40-50 mutalisks." I don't agree with their reasoning either.
I'm primarily a P player nowadays, and I think muta is perfectly dangerous right now without being OP.
I would rather prefer a single goliath like with less range and damage than thor and 10 damage to ground (none of zerg units are mech) than a thor with bigger range and insane ground DPS. For me is OK.
And i don't think mutas are overpowered. Some unit which costs 100 in gas and can die to mineral dump units like flies is not OP. One misclick and your muta flock just dissapear. I don't see how that can be OP.
Protoss do have an issue with mobility, as long as Zerg has time to build up enough Mutalisks to combat cannons with minimal losses. The counter-attack style of Muta-ling can be extremely difficult to play against if the Protoss isn't aggressive enough in the mid-game.
Thors in general are very difficult to play against, even with Zerg's natural counters to them. Shifting the battle to a more easily-combatted unit in the Warhound is the correct move in their eyes, and I have a tendency to agree.
Granted I'm also biased in that the more players switch to Zerg, the greater my advantage through a year's worth of experience in ZvZ.
totally agree with you. I couldnt believe blizz were making these changes to counter the mutalisk, terran in particular were not having any muta trouble at all with the thor. We will have to wait and see what happens with the next game, but all of these nerfs towards the muta makes me worry that it wont be an effective harass anymore, which makes me sad
Your vid shows TvT. Is there a vid about warhounds vs mutalisks? I've heard conflicting information, some people said the splash was ridiculously small and the base damage was bad too. Other people said it was much better than thors. I'd love to see a vid of the air attack in action.
I think in PvZ there is a small problem with the mutalisk. In mass you cannot beat mutas with pheonixes and in low numbers you need to be ahead in pheonix numbers over mutalisks.
Without instant warp in storm you now have to have templars waiting by mineral fields to charge up to use storm against mutas which is dangerous as they can easily be picked off.
Archons are good but its hard for archons to hit the mutas and navigate around the protoss bases as fast as the mutas especially with wall offs on the ramp etc so the mutas can just keep running away.
Blink is ok at defending but you cant keep defending or the typical zerg muta strat is to double/triple expand and if protoss attacks force a base trade, in this situation it is incredibly hard for protoss to actually win a base trade vs mutas.
So i would say the tempest gives a solid defence and eventually offensive option against mutas for protoss.
It's probably for the low league 3v3/4v4 games where you give the zerg huge masses of gas and he makes 80 mutas that kill everything at minute 10.
other than that ionno. I'd rather they buff archons/phoenixes than add tempest. even then i don't feel mutalisk is too good. for terran the addition of both shredder and goliath v0.2 seems redundant as well. these things will probably change though.
speaking as a diamond protoss player I can say that the problem with mutas in p v z is the following:
1) If you don't have a critical mass of pheonix, mutas completely wreck them. 2) High templar storms can be easily dodged by the fast moving muta, and then you're screwed 3) Archons have tiny range of 3, it is incredibly easy to dodge them with mutas. 4) It is incredibly difficult to defend against MASS muta with stalker, because if you keep your whole stalker ball together mutas can simply fly to a location where your stalkers aren't. You need to often "get lucky" with a blink to catch the mutas. If you split up your stalkers, a MASS ball of mutas can outright kill them.
Personally, I don't even like the tempest, i would prefer a range buff to air for archons as a fix for the muta problem.
I think you are underplaying the strengths of a mutalisk in ZvP. Stalkers are the protoss equivalent of a marine vs mutalisks. However the main problem is is that we cannot produce stalkers as fast as terran make marines and there is also the fact that marines are significantly less costly than stalkers. Stalkers are also easily cleaned up by large amounts of mutas.
The other option for protoss is Pheonixes.This is not viable because by the time we start pheonix production zerg will have 8-10 mutas. There is also the fact that pheonixes seem to be made to clump up and Mutalisks have bounce. You may know that 1 pheonix can kill infinite mutalisks but I think that no one can micro well enough in a 1 pheonix vs 20 muta scenario even ignoring the fact that they need to warp in and macro. However if you scout the mutas early and opend Stargate you can use pheonixes with chrono.
We can also build canons however this is not as effective as turrets as we cannot repair them. This means you just clean up the 2-3 canons and then you have got free reign until the stalkers come.
Archons are also not too good as they require to be very close to the mutas. They have three range. All the muta player has to do is fly away when they see an archon.
This leaves the HT. It is very hard to storm a unit as fast as the mutas and you need to be constantly aware of the threat. It is also hard to storm flying units even with flyer help.
This leaves protoss with either having to all-in push when we see mutas. Defend and max out and a-move, Get to the Mothership and archon toilet the mutas. As you can see they are not particularly good options :D
Thors are fine as it is right now. When have you ever seen a decent mech push get demolished by mutas? That's right magic boxing is great when thor numbers are low but ecomes close to irrelevant against mech push ZvT
Anyone who has a problem with Mutalisks is just not doing a great job or have tried enough.
Seriously there is not a huge problem with Mutalisks, it's not like Mutalisks win more games than Blink Stalkers/Marine rushes yet we do not see a unit for zerg to counter either of these (since all their changes are late game). So it's just populism from Dustin Browder imo to appeal to the less than grandmaster players.
On October 25 2011 18:23 firehand101 wrote: totally agree with you. I couldnt believe blizz were making these changes to counter the mutalisk, terran in particular were not having any muta trouble at all with the thor. We will have to wait and see what happens with the next game, but all of these nerfs towards the muta makes me worry that it wont be an effective harass anymore, which makes me sad
Well I don't consider mutas OP but the best strategy in ZvT is massing mutas to the point where you get like 30-40 of them and constantly engange into army trades with the terrans and try to presserve your mutas while sacrificing lings to kill off their tank numbers to force terrans to reproduce them and delay the mass ghost. I'm not a zerg,but I'm pretty sure this is how IdrA plays recently and how he was able to beat Bomber. A lot of Koreans play like this as well I believe.
they go from good unit to: "all i can do now is base race and hope he doesnt bring probes + have money banked"
protoss can make extremely cost efficient compositions vs any zerg army comp. the tempest scares me even more, will it even be possible to stop a maxed protoss army x.x
One thing I don't entirely like about Mutalisks in SC2 is how effective they are when massed. Balance aside, it just looks and feels weird. I know that Zerg use Mutas as a crutch in ZvT especially, but ideally I would prefer huge Muta clouds to be undesirable.
On that note, I do understand why they would want to give Protoss a straight-up answer to huge Muta numbers, because nowadays the answer is simply "don't let it happen". None of the Protoss anti-Muta measures are especially good against like 30+ Mutas. However, their solution is really dumb. Protoss already have an "anti-Muta" air unit, so why not accomplish the same thing by buffing the Phoenix, for example by giving it an upgrade on the Fleet Beacon that enables an energy-based anti-light aoe attack? If there's one thing Protoss does not need, it's extremely expensive reactionary units.
Besides, buffing Phoenix makes for better gameplay, as they're way more interesting than huge a-move wonders like the Tempest.
EPT
