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United States4883 Posts
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The Warhound: Did We Make a Mistake?
(The thread that started it all: "Why the warhound should NOT be balanced")
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=367581
Introduction: With the recent buffs for MsC, reapers, and the inherent buffs to protoss early game, the terran early game is becoming harder and harder to pull off, especially for meching players. In addition, although the midgame of mech has improved greatly with widow mines and hellbats, the mech army still has trouble moving out on the map at any point before 160 supply without the danger of engaging cost-inefficiently. In addition, most players playing mech complain that a single mistake (i.e. a misplaced tank, getting caught unsieged, not having mines in place in time, etc) will cost you the game with no chance to claw your way back with micro or clever tactics. While mech players are still having success with gas openings that kill a lot of workers or slow, creeping mech compositions, there is no room for error or allowance for success, particularly in the early and mid-game. Quite honestly, a lot of what mech needs is a mid-tier all-purpose unit to counter the really tricky units like immortals, blink stalkers, or archons and allow mech to secure map control more safely.
Ironically, the warhound fits perfectly in this role.
The main arguments about the warhound originally were:
1) It is a "1a unit", meaning that it has no real skill attached to it. It attacks into mechanical units, auto-casts Haywire Missiles, and crushes them. No amount of tweaking numbers will fix that the warhound has no real micro potential aside from pulling back weakened units.
Counterargument: + Show Spoiler +Certainly the warhounds needed some huge nerfing, but an all-around unit like the roach, marine, or stalker that relies primarily on splits, positioning, and concaves has never been a bad thing for the game. If any particular change could be made, Haywire Missiles could be given a longer range and require manual activation (much like the old 250mm Strike Cannons), which would encourage players to have to spend extra APM to use and then reposition correctly. It might take some playing around with the damage of Haywire Missiles (as a manual cast could encourage mass sniping of immortals or something).
2) The role of the warhound overlaps far too much with the marauder. It is an anti-armor unit with a fairly fast move speed and attack. In fact, the marauder is a better unit, being both cheaper and coupled with stim and concussive shells.
Counterargument: + Show Spoiler +If marauders and warhounds came from the same tech tree, they would definitely overlap. Currently, if you're going bio, you certainly benefit from avoiding warhounds and sticking with marauders as they benefit from Stim, Concussive Shells, and upgrades. If you're going mech, it makes little sense to add marauders to your composition, investing in Stim and Concussive Shells, and units that don't benefit from your upgrades. In biomech situations, certainly marine/warhound could be a strong composition in the early parts of the game, but marauders would always be a part of compositions with focus on the lategame.
3) Warhounds are just uninteresting units, they don't do anything interesting. Why don't they drop mines or have some kind of GtA transformation mode? Even marines with Stim or roaches with Burrow and regen have more interesting potential.
Counterargument: + Show Spoiler +Tweaking numbers can easily make the warhound interesting. Lowering the range of the warhounds to 3 or 4 would completely, wildly change the way they are used. Giving them a machine gun attack instead of a projectile attack completely changes the nature of unit kiting. Giving Haywire missiles a lower range and forcing warhounds to get inside their attack range to use it makes it interesting. Giving it speed and reducing its HP makes it a unit great at kiting. There are all kinds of way to redesign the unit some to make it more interesting.
Conclusion: While we never necessarily meant for the warhound to be completely ditched for good with no replacement, maybe we went too far by asking that it be completely removed from the game before playing with numbers or design changes first. Looking at all the problems terrans are having right now, especially with the rather stale metagame in HotS, we see that the warhound would fill a lot of holes well as well as freshening up terran strategy. Could we at least agree that Blizzard could have tried harder? Maybe we could send out a cry to Blizzard. We hated the tempest and oracle and almost had them removed, but they've turned out to be protoss's saving grace...maybe we should take a second look at the warhound.
Sidenote about me:
+ Show Spoiler + I'm a masters level protoss player that's been following the beta fairly closely both on streams and through the forums, written various articles, etc. I've had somewhat flip-floppy opinions on HotS, but overall I have mostly supported 1) better space control and 2) positional balance over unit balance. While I was originally a hater of the warhound, I found it necessary to write this up and ask the community what they think. Articles: Positional BalanceSkillIndividual FreedomTanks, Widow Mines, And Space Control
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I agree that something like the Warhound should be put back for Terran. They do need another earlygame unit option. It should come out at armory tech so that it won't come out too early, and a range nerf is in order.
Edit: Haywire missiles should also be scrapped in place of another ability.
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no we didn't make a mistake - move on.
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Lets make this thread more interesting instead of instantly putting it down. What changes/redesigns do you guys think will be great for the Warhound?
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Yes I think the removal of the Warhound was a mistake, an overreaction by the community. Perhaps there were design flaws, but I have a question. Why was the warhound changed from its original design position in the first place? Originally it was to be the new mech anti-air unit, a mobile threat.
Can someone remind me why did blizzard go away from this? I feel like a lot of mech's problems stem from the unreliability of anti-air, which currently comes from only two sources, the slow and expensive thor, and the recently nerfed widow mine, which only works if they happen to fly over it. Why should the warhound not be a unit which is quick and strong against air, while being a fairly weak ground fighter?
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nope. it was an excellent decision to remove the warhound. just need to balance the numbers on protoss.
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I agree that Terran may need another "new" unit in HotS but I don't really think it is in the mech line. Your counter arguments are strong but shouldn't we find something that Terran needs more?
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On January 05 2013 09:40 SC2John wrote:The main arguments about the warhound originally were:1) It is a "1a unit", meaning that it has no real skill attached to it. It attacks into mechanical units, auto-casts Haywire Missiles, and crushes them. No amount of tweaking numbers will fix that the warhound has no real micro potential aside from pulling back weakened units.Counterargument: + Show Spoiler +Certainly the warhounds needed some huge nerfing, but an all-around unit like the roach, marine, or stalker that relies primarily on splits, positioning, and concaves has never been a bad thing for the game. If any particular change could be made, Haywire Missiles could be given a longer range and require manual activation (much like the old 250mm Strike Cannons), which would encourage players to have to spend extra APM to use and then reposition correctly. It might take some playing around with the damage of Haywire Missiles (as a manual cast could encourage mass sniping of immortals or something).
Counter Counterargument: "All-around" units like the Roach, Marine and Stalker you mention have lots of micro involved. The Warhound doesn't require the same micro, is about the same as Thor or Immortal, which is move into range and hope you do are stronger than your opponent. While your Haywire Missile idea is interesting, I can't see how it would be balanced, especially vs Siege Tanks in TvT. Warhounds would become walking Siege Tanks. You might argue then the Missiles could be made weaker, but if they get too weak, then the unit doesn't work. Too strong, then they are walking Siege Tanks.
Why not just let Tanks do their job and have other Factory Units just support Tanks?
Furthermore, Mech play is traditionally based around positioning and it is exciting because it is different. Knowing where and when you siege your tanks takes skill and is a different than stutter stepping, Blink micro ect. To allow the Warhounds to be microed like those other "all-around" units would mean that Factory play is no longer based on when and where you position your siege tanks, but how well you can stutter step ect. That reduces variation, which is bad.
I'd rather see the Warhound return and replace the Hellbat, by doing big damage to Light Units and also move Javelin Missiles from the Thor to the Warhound for anti-air versus light units, while leaving the big anti-air cannons on the Thor.
That would really help Terran Mech I think.
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There is a gap in the mech arsenal against protoss but if it is the warhound i'm not so sure. It's an alternative but i think that there could be other more exciting new units that could help about terran mech.
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Just bring back the goliath in one form or another  it fills this role just fine without being too all round and having more emphasis on AA. Thor needs to go, warhound should not come back with same design (antiground/antimech)
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United States4883 Posts
On January 05 2013 10:06 BronzeKnee wrote:Show nested quote +On January 05 2013 09:40 SC2John wrote:The main arguments about the warhound originally were:1) It is a "1a unit", meaning that it has no real skill attached to it. It attacks into mechanical units, auto-casts Haywire Missiles, and crushes them. No amount of tweaking numbers will fix that the warhound has no real micro potential aside from pulling back weakened units.Counterargument: + Show Spoiler +Certainly the warhounds needed some huge nerfing, but an all-around unit like the roach, marine, or stalker that relies primarily on splits, positioning, and concaves has never been a bad thing for the game. If any particular change could be made, Haywire Missiles could be given a longer range and require manual activation (much like the old 250mm Strike Cannons), which would encourage players to have to spend extra APM to use and then reposition correctly. It might take some playing around with the damage of Haywire Missiles (as a manual cast could encourage mass sniping of immortals or something). Counter Counterargument: "All-around" units like the Roach, Marine and Stalker you mention have lots of micro involved. The Warhound doesn't require the same micro, is about the same as Thor or Immortal, which is move into range and hope you do are stronger than your opponent. Furthermore, Mech play is traditionally based around positioning and it is exciting because it is different. Knowing where and when you siege your tanks takes skill and is a different than stutter stepping, Blink micro ect... To allow the Warhounds to be microed like those other "all-around" units would mean that Factory play is no longer based on when and where you position your siege tanks, but how well you can stutter step ect... That reduces the variation of the game, and it is bad.
Although I haven't always had this viewpoint and I may not have it for very long....
I think positional mech in SC2 may just be...impossible? Maybe it's best that we have some kind of a mobile way to play mech, where we control space with packs of units covered by siege tanks and mines, than to try to focus on having perfect positioning in order to play. All of the other strategies of all other matchups have this in common. The only thing that doesn't allow for micro or tactical genius to pull through is terran mech. In addition, maybe we could MAKE warhound interesting instead of just dismissing it as kind of a beefy unit with an anti-mech attack?
And to those that say Immortals are not microed at all: let's go watch some PartinG games on Ohana and then let's talk about this truthfully. (Not at all comparing warhounds to immortals here, I'm just point out that Immortals can definitely be interesting).
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United States4883 Posts
On January 05 2013 09:48 porygon361 wrote:
I agree that something like the Warhound should be put back for Terran. They do need another earlygame unit option. It should come out at armory tech so that it won't come out too early, and a range nerf is in order.
Edit: Haywire missiles should also be scrapped in place of another ability.
On January 05 2013 09:55 porygon361 wrote:
Lets make this thread more interesting instead of instantly putting it down. What changes/redesigns do you guys think will be great for the Warhound?
Thank you. And yes, you're totally right, Haywire Missiles should probably just be scrapped in favor of something a little more interesting. I just assumed that some kind of soft counter to immortals would be fairly good, and Haywire Missiles was all I had to go on.
On January 05 2013 10:03 algorithm0r wrote:
I agree that Terran may need another "new" unit in HotS but I don't really think it is in the mech line. Your counter arguments are strong but shouldn't we find something that Terran needs more?
Like what? The bio tech path is pretty clearly laid out. The air tech for terran is already pretty strong (although there are some serious transitioning problems (and the raven shhhhh!)). The only thing really lacking for terran is solid factory play, in my opinion.
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On January 05 2013 10:13 SC2John wrote:Show nested quote +On January 05 2013 10:06 BronzeKnee wrote:On January 05 2013 09:40 SC2John wrote:The main arguments about the warhound originally were:1) It is a "1a unit", meaning that it has no real skill attached to it. It attacks into mechanical units, auto-casts Haywire Missiles, and crushes them. No amount of tweaking numbers will fix that the warhound has no real micro potential aside from pulling back weakened units.Counterargument: + Show Spoiler +Certainly the warhounds needed some huge nerfing, but an all-around unit like the roach, marine, or stalker that relies primarily on splits, positioning, and concaves has never been a bad thing for the game. If any particular change could be made, Haywire Missiles could be given a longer range and require manual activation (much like the old 250mm Strike Cannons), which would encourage players to have to spend extra APM to use and then reposition correctly. It might take some playing around with the damage of Haywire Missiles (as a manual cast could encourage mass sniping of immortals or something). Counter Counterargument: "All-around" units like the Roach, Marine and Stalker you mention have lots of micro involved. The Warhound doesn't require the same micro, is about the same as Thor or Immortal, which is move into range and hope you do are stronger than your opponent. Furthermore, Mech play is traditionally based around positioning and it is exciting because it is different. Knowing where and when you siege your tanks takes skill and is a different than stutter stepping, Blink micro ect... To allow the Warhounds to be microed like those other "all-around" units would mean that Factory play is no longer based on when and where you position your siege tanks, but how well you can stutter step ect... That reduces the variation of the game, and it is bad. Although I haven't always had this viewpoint and I may not have it for very long.... I think positional mech in SC2 may just be...impossible? Maybe it's best that we have some kind of a mobile way to play mech, where we control space with packs of units covered by siege tanks and mines, than to try to focus on having perfect positioning in order to play. All of the other strategies of all other matchups have this in common. The only thing that doesn't allow for micro or tactical genius to pull through is terran mech. In addition, maybe we could MAKE warhound interesting instead of just dismissing it as kind of a beefy unit with an anti-mech attack? And to those that say Immortals are not microed at all: let's go watch some PartinG games on Ohana and then let's talk about this truthfully. (Not at all comparing warhounds to immortals here, I'm just point out that Immortals can definitely be interesting).
Immortals in PvZ are totally different than Immortals in PvT. When you play vs Mech you want to get your Immortals in range as quickly as possible to do damage, and you want them unencumbered by lots of Gateway units or Forcefields. Against Zerg it is the opposite. You want to keep Roaches away, and you use Gateway units and Forcefields to achieve this. You can also micro with the Warp Prism. Damage is dealt far slower in general in PvZ than PvT, allowing for more micro opportunities. With EMP and Marines, the opportunities in PvT are very limited because units die so quickly on both sides.
The whole idea behind positional play is not that need to play perfect to make it work, but that positional units are far stronger when positioned than normal units. Thus the interesting dynamic occurs where both sides are playing totally different playstyles. One with slow moving powerful units, and one with less powerful by fast moving units. The problem with positional play in SC2 is that the positional units are hard countered by non-positional units (Immortals countering Siege Tanks for instance). That makes no sense at all.
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It seems to me that on the one hand, Terran needs something. You can't launch an expansion and only give terran half a unit. However the Warhound was an outrageously bad unit, pretty much on the level with the Marauder in terms of 1A stupidity. Not to mention that even a cursory balance test would show mass Warhound crushes literally any Protoss composition, making them grossly overpowered.
Blizzard does not get it, and I am running out of hope that they ever will. It could be that Blizzard qua Blizzard simply does not care, since their real cash cow is World of Warcraft, and Starcraft is just the B-list and gets little resources or attention, and they are doing their best with what they have.
The design team seems to relish boring units. The Marauder, the Roach, the Colossus... practically every addition is a subtraction from the game's depth by flattening player choice. The Warhound was the same, and it needed a wholesale rework. Removing it was a good solution- although a complete redesign would have had the same effect, but also given Terran players a new toy. A 2 supply anti-air walker is all we Terran players really want.....
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On January 05 2013 10:33 ledarsi wrote:
It seems to me that on the one hand, Terran needs something. You can't launch an expansion and only give terran half a unit. However the Warhound was an outrageously bad unit, pretty much on the level with the Marauder in terms of 1A stupidity. Not to mention that even a cursory balance test would show mass Warhound crushes literally any Protoss composition, making them grossly overpowered.
Blizzard does not get it, and I am running out of hope that they ever will. It could be that Blizzard qua Blizzard simply does not care, since their real cash cow is World of Warcraft, and Starcraft is just the B-list and gets little resources or attention, and they are doing their best with what they have.
The design team seems to relish boring units. The Marauder, the Roach, the Colossus... practically every addition is a subtraction from the game's depth by flattening player choice. The Warhound was the same, and it needed a wholesale rework. Removing it was a good solution- although a complete redesign would have had the same effect, but also given Terran players a new toy. A 2 supply anti-air walker is all we Terran players really want.....
THe best thing that could happen for the esport of starcraft was if blizzard changed the business model of starcraft and found a way to monetize esports more efficiently. This would motivate them to hire better employees. The current one's are way too incompetent.
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no it wasn't a mistake.
the core of terran mech must be centered around the siege tank. not a marauder in a gundam suit.
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Again and again, I'm seeing evidence that Blizzard had really good design goals going into alpha, but then back tracked on nearly all of them by beta. I'm not sure why they doubted themselves so intensely, but their doubt cost us the initial design of every new unit but the Viper, but just barely the Viper at that.
The Carrier is stepping on the Tempest's toes, the Widow Mine is a balance nightmare, the Swarm Host is dead. It goes on and on. I don't know what the Hell happened, but all the problems in the beta can be attributed to Blizzard redefining the roles of all their new units.
When it comes to the Warhound, I'm not sure what Blizzard is going to do to make Mech a viable option against Protoss and Zerg, but the Warhound does seem awfully convenient for that aim.
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United States4883 Posts
On January 05 2013 10:28 BronzeKnee wrote:Show nested quote +On January 05 2013 10:13 SC2John wrote:On January 05 2013 10:06 BronzeKnee wrote:On January 05 2013 09:40 SC2John wrote:The main arguments about the warhound originally were:1) It is a "1a unit", meaning that it has no real skill attached to it. It attacks into mechanical units, auto-casts Haywire Missiles, and crushes them. No amount of tweaking numbers will fix that the warhound has no real micro potential aside from pulling back weakened units.Counterargument: + Show Spoiler +Certainly the warhounds needed some huge nerfing, but an all-around unit like the roach, marine, or stalker that relies primarily on splits, positioning, and concaves has never been a bad thing for the game. If any particular change could be made, Haywire Missiles could be given a longer range and require manual activation (much like the old 250mm Strike Cannons), which would encourage players to have to spend extra APM to use and then reposition correctly. It might take some playing around with the damage of Haywire Missiles (as a manual cast could encourage mass sniping of immortals or something). Counter Counterargument: "All-around" units like the Roach, Marine and Stalker you mention have lots of micro involved. The Warhound doesn't require the same micro, is about the same as Thor or Immortal, which is move into range and hope you do are stronger than your opponent. Furthermore, Mech play is traditionally based around positioning and it is exciting because it is different. Knowing where and when you siege your tanks takes skill and is a different than stutter stepping, Blink micro ect... To allow the Warhounds to be microed like those other "all-around" units would mean that Factory play is no longer based on when and where you position your siege tanks, but how well you can stutter step ect... That reduces the variation of the game, and it is bad. Although I haven't always had this viewpoint and I may not have it for very long.... I think positional mech in SC2 may just be...impossible? Maybe it's best that we have some kind of a mobile way to play mech, where we control space with packs of units covered by siege tanks and mines, than to try to focus on having perfect positioning in order to play. All of the other strategies of all other matchups have this in common. The only thing that doesn't allow for micro or tactical genius to pull through is terran mech. In addition, maybe we could MAKE warhound interesting instead of just dismissing it as kind of a beefy unit with an anti-mech attack? And to those that say Immortals are not microed at all: let's go watch some PartinG games on Ohana and then let's talk about this truthfully. (Not at all comparing warhounds to immortals here, I'm just point out that Immortals can definitely be interesting). Immortals in PvZ are totally different than Immortals in PvT. When you play vs Mech you want to get your Immortals in range as quickly as possible to do damage, and you want them unencumbered by lots of Gateway units or Forcefields. Against Zerg it is the opposite. You want to keep Roaches away, and you use Gateway units and Forcefields to achieve this. You can also micro with the Warp Prism. Damage is dealt far slower in general in PvZ than PvT, allowing for more micro opportunities. With EMP and Marines, the opportunities in PvT are very limited because units die so quickly on both sides. The whole idea behind positional play is not that need to play perfect to make it work, but that positional units are far stronger when positioned than normal units. Thus the interesting dynamic occurs where both sides are playing totally different playstyles. One with slow moving powerful units, and one with less powerful by fast moving units. The problem with positional play in SC2 is that the positional units are hard countered by non-positional units (Immortals countering Siege Tanks for instance). That makes no sense at all.
Okay, I totally agree with that sentiment. I'm honestly totally fine with a tank buff, but I revived the idea of the warhound to say that perhaps we don't need to mess with tanks, maybe we can just fill in the holes with another unit. I honestly think terran has air under control between turrets, mines, thors, and vikings...I just think the biggest issue is big blink stalker early-game armies, immortal/zealot midgame armies, and big chargelot/archon balls: the ground armies that trade evenly with mech, which, as you say, is ridiculous.
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What they announced at Blizzcon looked really good- I agree Virid. And then.... something happened.
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No. Not only did it overlap with the marauder and marine, it was also making the thor partially redundant. The playstyle it encouraged was turning mech into a more deathbally version of bio. The whole design of the Warhound was not mech like, it was bio like. It didn't add to positional play at all.
Part of their original design was to completely counter siege tanks, just as the same with the immortal. This would ruin TvT pretty much.
You could call for a complete redesign in role, but what role can it possibly fill in mech? Putting number tweaking and balance aside, we now have the meatshield/fodder unit (hellbat), the seige and dps unit(tank), the anti air (new thor), harassment and quick burst damage(hellion and widow mine). What else is there?
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EPT
