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On September 26 2012 07:59 TheOGBlitzKrieg wrote:Show nested quote +On September 26 2012 06:44 Decendos wrote:On September 26 2012 06:31 TheOGBlitzKrieg wrote:On September 26 2012 04:59 Decendos wrote:On September 26 2012 04:36 TheOGBlitzKrieg wrote:On September 26 2012 03:31 Decendos wrote:On September 26 2012 03:16 TheOGBlitzKrieg wrote:
I think a lot of people are missing the main point. the point is vikings have ground mode now... and why do they have ground mode now? they don't really serve any purpose in ground mode at the moment so why does it even exist... i'd rather have a corruption ability or a graviton beam like the other air to air's than a pointless ground mode... make it worth while to go ground mode... give it some purpose, or just scrap it completely instead of leaving it in as a pointless ability.
edit: and while i'm on pointles abilities blizzard for the love of god can you PLEASE do somethign with the thor's 250mm cannon strike, can we please get an ability that is seen in more than 1-2% of games played on b.net and tournaments... please? they have 12 dps and beat a hydra...seems like their ground attack is superstrong already....it just doesnt beat everything lol. Thank you for not reading my post. in response to your post after reading it, your comparison of a viking vs hydra might not be the best if you're against the viking ground mode receiving a buff. the reason is because everyone complains about how weak the hydra is and blizzard is actually changing the hydralisk. also in a real game you don't see hydra vs viking ground mode. hydra's are utilized behind a strong unit because of their low survivability and high (14.5) dps, vikings are too clunky to be utilized efficiently behind a buffer unit, (you can't fit as many in a space as you can hydras) and in a real game scenario do SUBSTANTIALLY less dps because of this. let alone doing less dps alone, 12dps vs 14.5... vikings have a ground mode, why do they have a ground mode? what was blizzard trying to achieve by giving them this? the air to air units of other races have abilities that clearly show what their role is and they are used much more often to fulfil that role than the viking is used to fulfill their unknown role 12 dps to 14,5 is a bad comparison since viking has a lot more hp and EASILY wins a fight vs hydras. and no you are wrong. hydras are NOT getting buffed! they get speed at hivetech that makes them faster offcreep but still slower as they are now oncreep so the hydra itself will still be the sucky unit and will hopefully get a buff but thats not the topic here. the topic is that vikings are REALLY good antiair and have a ground damage as a bonus if you have killed colossi/BLs etc. you get to have a 12 dps ground attack that is a great buffer with 125 hp (almost as tanky as a roach) for free as a bonus. so dont complain about a unit that is superfine. you terrans should rather discuss widow mines etc. and not one of your best units. 12 dps to 14,5 is a bad comparison since viking has a lot more hp and EASILY wins a fight vs hydras. This is exactly why I said your comparison of a viking vs a hydra might not be the best. You don't fight with hydra's up front, directly vs a unit unless you're a bad player, or the rare 2 base timing. You fight with hydra's behind a roach to tank damage because hydra's have low hp. I was simply stating that hydra's do more DPS than a viking, Especially how much more tightly hydras can clump together in a battle scenario. So... it's not really helping you're argument against viking ground mode receiving a CHANGE to say, "vikings beat hydra's" and no you are wrong. hydras are NOT getting buffed! Okay, please like i mentioned in my previous post, PLEASE read my posts before quoting me and saying i'm wrong... where did i ever say in my post that the hydralisk is receiving a buff? I stated that blizzard is changing the hydralisk because so many people complained. I am fully aware of the speed increase off creep. since you say that it's not a buff, and i never said it was a buff, then i think it's safe to say it's a change to the unit addressing a problem zergs face with hydralisks. more to the topic of this thread, perhaps blizzard can come up with some sort of "change" to the ground viking that can address the problems the ground viking faces, it's clunky so it's dps in a battle scenario is weak directly because of this, and it doesn't have much of a purpose. It already DOES have a purpose: it lets Terran players overproduce Vikings to quickly shut down Colossi, and then use Ground Mode to let those Vikings tank for the Marines.this literally just want's to make me cry how dumb this statement is. the hydra was only an example. like i wrote they do fine vs EVERY ground unit (fine DOESNT mean win because then every T would just build 70 vikings and win every game). after killing colossi they DO tank for MMM. are you kidding me? watch ANY pro stream where 10 vikings = 1250 hp to kill doesnt tank vs zealots. if you say otherwise you never have done it or just use useless arguments to get your vikingbuff which will never gonna happen because it is and AA unit (a great one) and has a good bonus which is ground attack. I wanted to cry because that guy is basically saying the vikings purpose is to allow players to play bad. overbuilding vikings then landing them to to die just to tank for mmm is a very bad starcraft player... you will never see a pro using vikings as tanks, you see them land as an insult after they completely crush a protoss army yeah, but to be used as tanks for mmm? i'm pretty sure blizzard's intention of the ground viking wasn't for them to be used as tanks, especially with their low hp per cost. i'm just trying to figure out what was/is blizzards intention for the ground viking? what is it good at? you say tanking for mmm, it's deffinately not good at that. the fight is either heavily one way and the landed vikings are just their rub it in, or it's the opposite and half the fleet of vikings is dead before they touch the gound while intransition, and the remaining are dead in mere seconds with it's low hp per cost. if blizzard truly intended the ground viking on being a tank for mmm then I would argue that it needs a DRASTIC buff. However, i don't believe this is what they wanted for the ground viking. why is it in the game, what did they want it to do? it's HOTS and now is the time to look at this. it just doesn't make sense to me that they purposely put it in the game to be low armor, low hp per cost meatshield. I just think it could be something that actually serves a purpose if changed, because using ground vikings now just feels so pointless.
did you watch flash today? he massively overbuilds vikings in TvP to fastly bring down colossus and instantly lands them after colossus are dead while kiting with his MMM and landing vikings between MMM and warp ins of toss. so flash might disagree with you.
i still dont get the whole discussion though. they are supposed to kill air units and they are good at that. as a bonus they get a really nice bonus. corruptor has corruption which is a bonus but sucks so incredibly more than ground mode vikings.
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On September 26 2012 08:04 Decendos wrote:Show nested quote +On September 26 2012 07:59 TheOGBlitzKrieg wrote:On September 26 2012 06:44 Decendos wrote:On September 26 2012 06:31 TheOGBlitzKrieg wrote:On September 26 2012 04:59 Decendos wrote:On September 26 2012 04:36 TheOGBlitzKrieg wrote:On September 26 2012 03:31 Decendos wrote:On September 26 2012 03:16 TheOGBlitzKrieg wrote:
I think a lot of people are missing the main point. the point is vikings have ground mode now... and why do they have ground mode now? they don't really serve any purpose in ground mode at the moment so why does it even exist... i'd rather have a corruption ability or a graviton beam like the other air to air's than a pointless ground mode... make it worth while to go ground mode... give it some purpose, or just scrap it completely instead of leaving it in as a pointless ability.
edit: and while i'm on pointles abilities blizzard for the love of god can you PLEASE do somethign with the thor's 250mm cannon strike, can we please get an ability that is seen in more than 1-2% of games played on b.net and tournaments... please? they have 12 dps and beat a hydra...seems like their ground attack is superstrong already....it just doesnt beat everything lol. Thank you for not reading my post. in response to your post after reading it, your comparison of a viking vs hydra might not be the best if you're against the viking ground mode receiving a buff. the reason is because everyone complains about how weak the hydra is and blizzard is actually changing the hydralisk. also in a real game you don't see hydra vs viking ground mode. hydra's are utilized behind a strong unit because of their low survivability and high (14.5) dps, vikings are too clunky to be utilized efficiently behind a buffer unit, (you can't fit as many in a space as you can hydras) and in a real game scenario do SUBSTANTIALLY less dps because of this. let alone doing less dps alone, 12dps vs 14.5... vikings have a ground mode, why do they have a ground mode? what was blizzard trying to achieve by giving them this? the air to air units of other races have abilities that clearly show what their role is and they are used much more often to fulfil that role than the viking is used to fulfill their unknown role 12 dps to 14,5 is a bad comparison since viking has a lot more hp and EASILY wins a fight vs hydras. and no you are wrong. hydras are NOT getting buffed! they get speed at hivetech that makes them faster offcreep but still slower as they are now oncreep so the hydra itself will still be the sucky unit and will hopefully get a buff but thats not the topic here. the topic is that vikings are REALLY good antiair and have a ground damage as a bonus if you have killed colossi/BLs etc. you get to have a 12 dps ground attack that is a great buffer with 125 hp (almost as tanky as a roach) for free as a bonus. so dont complain about a unit that is superfine. you terrans should rather discuss widow mines etc. and not one of your best units. 12 dps to 14,5 is a bad comparison since viking has a lot more hp and EASILY wins a fight vs hydras. This is exactly why I said your comparison of a viking vs a hydra might not be the best. You don't fight with hydra's up front, directly vs a unit unless you're a bad player, or the rare 2 base timing. You fight with hydra's behind a roach to tank damage because hydra's have low hp. I was simply stating that hydra's do more DPS than a viking, Especially how much more tightly hydras can clump together in a battle scenario. So... it's not really helping you're argument against viking ground mode receiving a CHANGE to say, "vikings beat hydra's" and no you are wrong. hydras are NOT getting buffed! Okay, please like i mentioned in my previous post, PLEASE read my posts before quoting me and saying i'm wrong... where did i ever say in my post that the hydralisk is receiving a buff? I stated that blizzard is changing the hydralisk because so many people complained. I am fully aware of the speed increase off creep. since you say that it's not a buff, and i never said it was a buff, then i think it's safe to say it's a change to the unit addressing a problem zergs face with hydralisks. more to the topic of this thread, perhaps blizzard can come up with some sort of "change" to the ground viking that can address the problems the ground viking faces, it's clunky so it's dps in a battle scenario is weak directly because of this, and it doesn't have much of a purpose. It already DOES have a purpose: it lets Terran players overproduce Vikings to quickly shut down Colossi, and then use Ground Mode to let those Vikings tank for the Marines.this literally just want's to make me cry how dumb this statement is. the hydra was only an example. like i wrote they do fine vs EVERY ground unit (fine DOESNT mean win because then every T would just build 70 vikings and win every game). after killing colossi they DO tank for MMM. are you kidding me? watch ANY pro stream where 10 vikings = 1250 hp to kill doesnt tank vs zealots. if you say otherwise you never have done it or just use useless arguments to get your vikingbuff which will never gonna happen because it is and AA unit (a great one) and has a good bonus which is ground attack. I wanted to cry because that guy is basically saying the vikings purpose is to allow players to play bad. overbuilding vikings then landing them to to die just to tank for mmm is a very bad starcraft player... you will never see a pro using vikings as tanks, you see them land as an insult after they completely crush a protoss army yeah, but to be used as tanks for mmm? i'm pretty sure blizzard's intention of the ground viking wasn't for them to be used as tanks, especially with their low hp per cost. i'm just trying to figure out what was/is blizzards intention for the ground viking? what is it good at? you say tanking for mmm, it's deffinately not good at that. the fight is either heavily one way and the landed vikings are just their rub it in, or it's the opposite and half the fleet of vikings is dead before they touch the gound while intransition, and the remaining are dead in mere seconds with it's low hp per cost. if blizzard truly intended the ground viking on being a tank for mmm then I would argue that it needs a DRASTIC buff. However, i don't believe this is what they wanted for the ground viking. why is it in the game, what did they want it to do? it's HOTS and now is the time to look at this. it just doesn't make sense to me that they purposely put it in the game to be low armor, low hp per cost meatshield. I just think it could be something that actually serves a purpose if changed, because using ground vikings now just feels so pointless. did you watch flash today? he massively overbuilds vikings in TvP to fastly bring down colossus and instantly lands them after colossus are dead while kiting with his MMM and landing vikings between MMM and warp ins of toss. so flash might disagree with you. i still dont get the whole discussion though. they are supposed to kill air units and they are good at that. as a bonus they get a really nice bonus. corruptor has corruption which is a bonus but sucks so incredibly more than ground mode vikings.
air vikings are supposed to kill air units, corruptors are supposed to kill air units, corruption ability is supposed to help corruptors kill massive units, ground vikings are supposed to... ? be a low hp per cost clunky slow suicide unit?
edit* i'll check out flash's game when i can, i didn't catch it. but i'm sure it's just like every other time i see landed vikings vs protoss, when a protoss makes a mistake and the battles pretty much already over before the vikings land and the landed vikings just help motivate the player to GG, kind of like how players drop mules after a battle, maybe that's what their purpose is
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This would be a good idea, from what I've played mech still gets easily rolled over. I may not be playing it well but another unit to mix in could help it a lot.
Has anyone else noticed that widow mines HAVE to be on a separate hot key? Otherwise when theyre burrowed you cant move a move your army.
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Guys, the Viking is the Goliath.
Same dps, same movement speed and used to have the same base armor.
Why they're Goliath-1, they're ship upgrades not vehicle upgrades. They now have no base armor.
They're ineffective clumped up. They NEED to transform to hit air that's 1 to 3 free shots from any unit.
I propose a researchable hybrid mode that flies that shoots both air and ground but terrible mobility, same dps as wraith (8).
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On September 26 2012 08:04 Decendos wrote:Show nested quote +On September 26 2012 07:59 TheOGBlitzKrieg wrote:On September 26 2012 06:44 Decendos wrote:On September 26 2012 06:31 TheOGBlitzKrieg wrote:On September 26 2012 04:59 Decendos wrote:On September 26 2012 04:36 TheOGBlitzKrieg wrote:On September 26 2012 03:31 Decendos wrote:On September 26 2012 03:16 TheOGBlitzKrieg wrote:
I think a lot of people are missing the main point. the point is vikings have ground mode now... and why do they have ground mode now? they don't really serve any purpose in ground mode at the moment so why does it even exist... i'd rather have a corruption ability or a graviton beam like the other air to air's than a pointless ground mode... make it worth while to go ground mode... give it some purpose, or just scrap it completely instead of leaving it in as a pointless ability.
edit: and while i'm on pointles abilities blizzard for the love of god can you PLEASE do somethign with the thor's 250mm cannon strike, can we please get an ability that is seen in more than 1-2% of games played on b.net and tournaments... please? they have 12 dps and beat a hydra...seems like their ground attack is superstrong already....it just doesnt beat everything lol. Thank you for not reading my post. in response to your post after reading it, your comparison of a viking vs hydra might not be the best if you're against the viking ground mode receiving a buff. the reason is because everyone complains about how weak the hydra is and blizzard is actually changing the hydralisk. also in a real game you don't see hydra vs viking ground mode. hydra's are utilized behind a strong unit because of their low survivability and high (14.5) dps, vikings are too clunky to be utilized efficiently behind a buffer unit, (you can't fit as many in a space as you can hydras) and in a real game scenario do SUBSTANTIALLY less dps because of this. let alone doing less dps alone, 12dps vs 14.5... vikings have a ground mode, why do they have a ground mode? what was blizzard trying to achieve by giving them this? the air to air units of other races have abilities that clearly show what their role is and they are used much more often to fulfil that role than the viking is used to fulfill their unknown role 12 dps to 14,5 is a bad comparison since viking has a lot more hp and EASILY wins a fight vs hydras. and no you are wrong. hydras are NOT getting buffed! they get speed at hivetech that makes them faster offcreep but still slower as they are now oncreep so the hydra itself will still be the sucky unit and will hopefully get a buff but thats not the topic here. the topic is that vikings are REALLY good antiair and have a ground damage as a bonus if you have killed colossi/BLs etc. you get to have a 12 dps ground attack that is a great buffer with 125 hp (almost as tanky as a roach) for free as a bonus. so dont complain about a unit that is superfine. you terrans should rather discuss widow mines etc. and not one of your best units. 12 dps to 14,5 is a bad comparison since viking has a lot more hp and EASILY wins a fight vs hydras. This is exactly why I said your comparison of a viking vs a hydra might not be the best. You don't fight with hydra's up front, directly vs a unit unless you're a bad player, or the rare 2 base timing. You fight with hydra's behind a roach to tank damage because hydra's have low hp. I was simply stating that hydra's do more DPS than a viking, Especially how much more tightly hydras can clump together in a battle scenario. So... it's not really helping you're argument against viking ground mode receiving a CHANGE to say, "vikings beat hydra's" and no you are wrong. hydras are NOT getting buffed! Okay, please like i mentioned in my previous post, PLEASE read my posts before quoting me and saying i'm wrong... where did i ever say in my post that the hydralisk is receiving a buff? I stated that blizzard is changing the hydralisk because so many people complained. I am fully aware of the speed increase off creep. since you say that it's not a buff, and i never said it was a buff, then i think it's safe to say it's a change to the unit addressing a problem zergs face with hydralisks. more to the topic of this thread, perhaps blizzard can come up with some sort of "change" to the ground viking that can address the problems the ground viking faces, it's clunky so it's dps in a battle scenario is weak directly because of this, and it doesn't have much of a purpose. It already DOES have a purpose: it lets Terran players overproduce Vikings to quickly shut down Colossi, and then use Ground Mode to let those Vikings tank for the Marines.this literally just want's to make me cry how dumb this statement is. the hydra was only an example. like i wrote they do fine vs EVERY ground unit (fine DOESNT mean win because then every T would just build 70 vikings and win every game). after killing colossi they DO tank for MMM. are you kidding me? watch ANY pro stream where 10 vikings = 1250 hp to kill doesnt tank vs zealots. if you say otherwise you never have done it or just use useless arguments to get your vikingbuff which will never gonna happen because it is and AA unit (a great one) and has a good bonus which is ground attack. I wanted to cry because that guy is basically saying the vikings purpose is to allow players to play bad. overbuilding vikings then landing them to to die just to tank for mmm is a very bad starcraft player... you will never see a pro using vikings as tanks, you see them land as an insult after they completely crush a protoss army yeah, but to be used as tanks for mmm? i'm pretty sure blizzard's intention of the ground viking wasn't for them to be used as tanks, especially with their low hp per cost. i'm just trying to figure out what was/is blizzards intention for the ground viking? what is it good at? you say tanking for mmm, it's deffinately not good at that. the fight is either heavily one way and the landed vikings are just their rub it in, or it's the opposite and half the fleet of vikings is dead before they touch the gound while intransition, and the remaining are dead in mere seconds with it's low hp per cost. if blizzard truly intended the ground viking on being a tank for mmm then I would argue that it needs a DRASTIC buff. However, i don't believe this is what they wanted for the ground viking. why is it in the game, what did they want it to do? it's HOTS and now is the time to look at this. it just doesn't make sense to me that they purposely put it in the game to be low armor, low hp per cost meatshield. I just think it could be something that actually serves a purpose if changed, because using ground vikings now just feels so pointless. did you watch flash today? he massively overbuilds vikings in TvP to fastly bring down colossus and instantly lands them after colossus are dead while kiting with his MMM and landing vikings between MMM and warp ins of toss. so flash might disagree with you. i still dont get the whole discussion though. they are supposed to kill air units and they are good at that. as a bonus they get a really nice bonus. corruptor has corruption which is a bonus but sucks so incredibly more than ground mode vikings.
Flash stopped overbuilding after there was templar tech along with colo.
At the timing before templar tech, overmaking viking is good because they can trade inefficiently against the stalker/colo, while your bio survives and mops everything else.
But with storm, which Killer never made, it is not longer possible to get that same efficient exchange with overmade vikings. Because storm makes it way too inefficient, so vikings have to move with the terran army.That's why you saw a much more conservative viking count in the late game, just enough to make sure there is consistent DPS going onto the colo.
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Would really really love to see Blizzard play with this idea.
If they do buff the assault mode I feel it would require some sore of sacrifice to make sure they don't become OP like in the Beta. Maybe significantly increasing they transform time, or only allowing them to transform twice all game. Something along those lines. But would be really awesome. Totally agree with everyone stating that upgrades would need to carry over or some compromise made.
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I'd be fine with making the transformation faster, or maybe the change from 12x1 to 6x2 attack so they scale better with upgrades. Vikings on the ground are actually decent as it is, being roughly equivalent to two marines. Contrary to what a vocal minority of people in this thread are saying, transforming to ground mode is a far better ability than corruption or graviton beam.
I play random and quite frankly am suprised terrans think ground mode vikings are so weak when I see them used in ground mode quite frequently in pro level games.
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I think the biggest problem is not Viking's damage, but health. Viking has only 125 health but Armored. It is one of the most vulnerable unit in the game when it is on the ground. The ground damage is OK on my view.
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I can get behind a buff to landed vikings. That or a merging of the air+ground mech upgrades into ground and air machine upgrades that apply to both. Vikings are actually a really cool unit, and Terran seems to be getting a transformer theme with the addition of the battle hellion. A buff to the landed viking would be a great, as long as it keeps it "mech". The problem I see is that it can just lift and fly so easily that it would be nearly impossible to balance and it would be very mobile compared to standard mech.
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The fact that Terran have the most expensive production buildings and thus have the hardest time transitioning seems to suggest to me that their units should be the easiest to upgrade. A lot of the problems with late game Terran play in WoL seem like they would at least be helped somewhat by combining ship and ground mechanical weapons upgrades, which would make a transition into viable late game air compositions a bit easier, compensating for what I do think is a macro disadvantage in the late game for Terran.
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The late game role of Goliaths was to limit harass as Sc:BW mech was quite immobile.
Of course Siege tanks were much more powerful then and a single 200/200 ball was not needed.
Which is why I'm suggesting a siege mode for Vikings.
This fills the gap in the HOTS Terran army that a Widow mine could fill, albeit more expensively (loss of the mine).
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Good find. I did not even think about the viking when I hear "Hots"
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On September 26 2012 05:07 SupLilSon wrote:Show nested quote +On September 26 2012 04:48 Acritter wrote:On September 26 2012 03:16 TheOGBlitzKrieg wrote:
I think a lot of people are missing the main point. the point is vikings have ground mode now... and why do they have ground mode now? they don't really serve any purpose in ground mode at the moment so why does it even exist... i'd rather have a corruption ability or a graviton beam like the other air to air's than a pointless ground mode... make it worth while to go ground mode... give it some purpose, or just scrap it completely instead of leaving it in as a pointless ability.
edit: and while i'm on pointles abilities blizzard for the love of god can you PLEASE do somethign with the thor's 250mm cannon strike, can we please get an ability that is seen in more than 1-2% of games played on b.net and tournaments... please? It already DOES have a purpose: it lets Terran players overproduce Vikings to quickly shut down Colossi, and then use Ground Mode to let those Vikings tank for the Marines. And this is the wrong thread for discussing Strike Cannons, but I already discussed it here. You're kidding right? 90% of the time you overproduce Vikings you're screwed... Vikings are laughable on the ground against Protoss
Of course it's still possible to overproduce. If it wasn't, the Viking would be overpowered. What Ground Mode does is allow you a lot more leeway. If there was no ground mode, Terran players would have to have EXACTLY the right number of Vikings or lose engagements badly.
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I recently thought about Blizzard taking the warhound out of the game and the following musing, that mech may never be a viable option in the TvP metagame.
While the widowmine and the battle-hellion seem to improve the situation of Mech-TvP at the moment, I was still not content with the current state of the metagame. For I have no access to the Beta, I am speaking from a viewer's point of view.
In my opinion, Mech is lacking some salt, literally speaking. Because it is unlikely for the warhound to return, some other units may have to take its role. I then took a closer look at the existing units and a simple thought crossed my mind.
There are many cool features in starcraft 2 who never really crossed the border between „important for the gameplay in general“ and „gimmicky/important only in special situations“:
Look for example at the Colossus Cliffwalk – a nice idea, which negated by the lack of cliffs in most open battlefields.
Another example is the use of burrow roaches – originally designed to burrow roaches in a battle and give them the chance to regenerate life super fast. This is negated by a change of the roach concept in general.
Another one of those gimmicky abilities may be the viking's ability to transform. The viking is mainly used as a capable long range anti air fighter and it does fullfill this role suitably. But Ground-Vikings have little to no influence to the gameplay, because they do not fullfill a role and/or because they totally lack punch and/or hitpoints.
To me, it seems very interesting to change something about that. By including a single uprade to its damage, the viking could be of use for a meching player and also for the viewers.
There are some possibilities to buff the Viking damage in a way, that it could replace the warhound's role as anti mech unit.
Before I will give you some examplary ideas, it is of course important to mention, that this buff should be balanced very carefully, because the viking is and will be a low cost, fast produced unit.
Here are some ideas to buff ground viking:
Change the Damage Mechanics
Vikings do 12 damage. Actually, they are designed to do 2*6 Damage. This would buff the viking vs immortals to a small amount.
Give the viking haywire missile
The haywire missile (previously from the warhound) should be weakned appropriately, for vikings are more mobile and versatile.
Make the missile an ability and enable more micro for the pros.
Give the viking extra damage vs mechanical through upgrade
Just like the hellion. For example 2 * + 5 vs. Mechanical, research the upgrade in the armory or starport's techlab.
Here are some additional design twichtes, that might we could think about:
Slow Ground Movement Speed: The Viking is fast enough in the air, and mech units are supposed to be slow. Also, it would make the viking vulnerable vs HSM. This way, it will not be ridiculously overpowered in TvT.
Range: I have no idea wether shorter or longer range are better concerning the resulting balance situation
Make the viking a factory unit:
One could inverse the idea behind the viking and we let it start as a ground unit in the factory and research the flight upgrade at the starport.
Remember:
The viking will not be the „do-it-all“ unit! It still has the feeling of a specialized unit. In the Air, it targets massive Units, on the ground it targets mechanical units. You will never win a game with just a-click vikings. You need to analyse the situation and decide accordingly.
In addition, this is kind of a small change, a simple upgrade to be included and it could help the game a lot. The buffed viking could enable:
Land-and-start-Micro
Hit and run
Sniping
„Real“ decision between flight mode and ground mode.
Defence vs Blink Stalker Harass
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On September 26 2012 20:22 _eXodus_ wrote:
I recently thought about Blizzard taking the warhound out of the game and the following musing, that mech may never be a viable option in the TvP metagame.
While the widowmine and the battle-hellion seem to improve the situation of Mech-TvP at the moment, I was still not content with the current state of the metagame. For I have no access to the Beta, I am speaking from a viewer's point of view.
In my opinion, Mech is lacking some salt, literally speaking. Because it is unlikely for the warhound to return, some other units may have to take its role. I then took a closer look at the existing units and a simple thought crossed my mind.
There are many cool features in starcraft 2 who never really crossed the border between „important for the gameplay in general“ and „gimmicky/important only in special situations“:
Look for example at the Colossus Cliffwalk – a nice idea, which negated by the lack of cliffs in most open battlefields.
Another example is the use of burrow roaches – originally designed to burrow roaches in a battle and give them the chance to regenerate life super fast. This is negated by a change of the roach concept in general.
Another one of those gimmicky abilities may be the viking's ability to transform. The viking is mainly used as a capable long range anti air fighter and it does fullfill this role suitably. But Ground-Vikings have little to no influence to the gameplay, because they do not fullfill a role and/or because they totally lack punch and/or hitpoints.
To me, it seems very interesting to change something about that. By including a single uprade to its damage, the viking could be of use for a meching player and also for the viewers.
There are some possibilities to buff the Viking damage in a way, that it could replace the warhound's role as anti mech unit.
Before I will give you some examplary ideas, it is of course important to mention, that this buff should be balanced very carefully, because the viking is and will be a low cost, fast produced unit.
Here are some ideas to buff ground viking:
Change the Damage Mechanics
Vikings do 12 damage. Actually, they are designed to do 2*6 Damage. This would buff the viking vs immortals to a small amount.
Give the viking haywire missile
The haywire missile (previously from the warhound) should be weakned appropriately, for vikings are more mobile and versatile.
Make the missile an ability and enable more micro for the pros.
Give the viking extra damage vs mechanical through upgrade
Just like the hellion. For example 2 * + 5 vs. Mechanical, research the upgrade in the armory or starport's techlab.
Here are some additional design twichtes, that might we could think about:
Slow Ground Movement Speed: The Viking is fast enough in the air, and mech units are supposed to be slow. Also, it would make the viking vulnerable vs HSM. This way, it will not be ridiculously overpowered in TvT.
Range: I have no idea wether shorter or longer range are better concerning the resulting balance situation
Make the viking a factory unit:
One could inverse the idea behind the viking and we let it start as a ground unit in the factory and research the flight upgrade at the starport.
Remember:
The viking will not be the „do-it-all“ unit! It still has the feeling of a specialized unit. In the Air, it targets massive Units, on the ground it targets mechanical units. You will never win a game with just a-click vikings. You need to analyse the situation and decide accordingly.
In addition, this is kind of a small change, a simple upgrade to be included and it could help the game a lot. The buffed viking could enable:
Land-and-start-Micro
Hit and run
Sniping
„Real“ decision between flight mode and ground mode.
Defence vs Blink Stalker Harass
well said. blizzard brought in the warhound for a purpose, to fill in a role that made mech more viable. It didn't work out so they scrapped it, but they still seem like they want to fill that purpose... the viking is already a very great and widely used unit, it makes mech a possibility right now as the anti air of mech. The ground mode doesn't feel like it serves a role however. The main roles that we see from ground mode now that the ground viking are good at, are worker harrasment, and to hold off early hellions TvT. Those are really the only things that they're good at. So many people are saying they are good tanking units for bio, however this just isn't true. They have low armor and low hp per cost, they weren't designed to be a tanking unit, they are being utilized that way by bad players who use it as a last resort, but people don't build vikings to use as damage tanks, they build mauraders, thors, and bc's for this... ground mode isn't a bonus, it's an ability put in the game for a reason, and right now, those reasons, or roles if you will, are very unclear. Even their harrasment ability isn't the best, Players don't build vikings to ground mode harras, they utilize marine drops, which are far better and a easier to micro.
I really think this unit if tweaked can become the unit that fills the role that blizzard was looking to fill with the warhound. a role that will bring mech into more matchups, (primarily TvP)
these changes you mention look decent, blizzard would have to balance these very carefully as you stated, but it just feels like the ground mode viking has potential for this.
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On September 26 2012 20:22 _eXodus_ wrote:
Make the viking a factory unit:
One could inverse the idea behind the viking and we let it start as a ground unit in the factory and research the flight upgrade at the starport.
Just this bit here is a really bad idea. The reason is that you would make vikings for their ability to deal with machanical units like stalkers, but as soon as a colossus transiation happens you just take off.
The reason you can't tech switch from colossus to carrier / sky protoss is that the counter is already on the field in decent numbers.
Protoss MUST tech switch into HT storm and if you see the vikings have been killed off you switch back into colossus. Thats the information game that is going on during PvT.
By making vikings a good ground unit terran never have to worry about colossus switches. They just get those vikings and then get ghosts, blindly.
What protoss do doesn't matter at this point. I cannot stress this enough.
It's bad if ANY race can just make a magic composition which automatically coutners every tech route of a different race.
This is why ghosts got nerfed in TvZ. Because the counter to zerg tech was enough ghosts.
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On September 26 2012 08:04 Decendos wrote:Show nested quote +On September 26 2012 07:59 TheOGBlitzKrieg wrote:On September 26 2012 06:44 Decendos wrote:On September 26 2012 06:31 TheOGBlitzKrieg wrote:On September 26 2012 04:59 Decendos wrote:On September 26 2012 04:36 TheOGBlitzKrieg wrote:On September 26 2012 03:31 Decendos wrote:On September 26 2012 03:16 TheOGBlitzKrieg wrote:
I think a lot of people are missing the main point. the point is vikings have ground mode now... and why do they have ground mode now? they don't really serve any purpose in ground mode at the moment so why does it even exist... i'd rather have a corruption ability or a graviton beam like the other air to air's than a pointless ground mode... make it worth while to go ground mode... give it some purpose, or just scrap it completely instead of leaving it in as a pointless ability.
edit: and while i'm on pointles abilities blizzard for the love of god can you PLEASE do somethign with the thor's 250mm cannon strike, can we please get an ability that is seen in more than 1-2% of games played on b.net and tournaments... please? they have 12 dps and beat a hydra...seems like their ground attack is superstrong already....it just doesnt beat everything lol. Thank you for not reading my post. in response to your post after reading it, your comparison of a viking vs hydra might not be the best if you're against the viking ground mode receiving a buff. the reason is because everyone complains about how weak the hydra is and blizzard is actually changing the hydralisk. also in a real game you don't see hydra vs viking ground mode. hydra's are utilized behind a strong unit because of their low survivability and high (14.5) dps, vikings are too clunky to be utilized efficiently behind a buffer unit, (you can't fit as many in a space as you can hydras) and in a real game scenario do SUBSTANTIALLY less dps because of this. let alone doing less dps alone, 12dps vs 14.5... vikings have a ground mode, why do they have a ground mode? what was blizzard trying to achieve by giving them this? the air to air units of other races have abilities that clearly show what their role is and they are used much more often to fulfil that role than the viking is used to fulfill their unknown role 12 dps to 14,5 is a bad comparison since viking has a lot more hp and EASILY wins a fight vs hydras. and no you are wrong. hydras are NOT getting buffed! they get speed at hivetech that makes them faster offcreep but still slower as they are now oncreep so the hydra itself will still be the sucky unit and will hopefully get a buff but thats not the topic here. the topic is that vikings are REALLY good antiair and have a ground damage as a bonus if you have killed colossi/BLs etc. you get to have a 12 dps ground attack that is a great buffer with 125 hp (almost as tanky as a roach) for free as a bonus. so dont complain about a unit that is superfine. you terrans should rather discuss widow mines etc. and not one of your best units. 12 dps to 14,5 is a bad comparison since viking has a lot more hp and EASILY wins a fight vs hydras. This is exactly why I said your comparison of a viking vs a hydra might not be the best. You don't fight with hydra's up front, directly vs a unit unless you're a bad player, or the rare 2 base timing. You fight with hydra's behind a roach to tank damage because hydra's have low hp. I was simply stating that hydra's do more DPS than a viking, Especially how much more tightly hydras can clump together in a battle scenario. So... it's not really helping you're argument against viking ground mode receiving a CHANGE to say, "vikings beat hydra's" and no you are wrong. hydras are NOT getting buffed! Okay, please like i mentioned in my previous post, PLEASE read my posts before quoting me and saying i'm wrong... where did i ever say in my post that the hydralisk is receiving a buff? I stated that blizzard is changing the hydralisk because so many people complained. I am fully aware of the speed increase off creep. since you say that it's not a buff, and i never said it was a buff, then i think it's safe to say it's a change to the unit addressing a problem zergs face with hydralisks. more to the topic of this thread, perhaps blizzard can come up with some sort of "change" to the ground viking that can address the problems the ground viking faces, it's clunky so it's dps in a battle scenario is weak directly because of this, and it doesn't have much of a purpose. It already DOES have a purpose: it lets Terran players overproduce Vikings to quickly shut down Colossi, and then use Ground Mode to let those Vikings tank for the Marines.this literally just want's to make me cry how dumb this statement is. the hydra was only an example. like i wrote they do fine vs EVERY ground unit (fine DOESNT mean win because then every T would just build 70 vikings and win every game). after killing colossi they DO tank for MMM. are you kidding me? watch ANY pro stream where 10 vikings = 1250 hp to kill doesnt tank vs zealots. if you say otherwise you never have done it or just use useless arguments to get your vikingbuff which will never gonna happen because it is and AA unit (a great one) and has a good bonus which is ground attack. I wanted to cry because that guy is basically saying the vikings purpose is to allow players to play bad. overbuilding vikings then landing them to to die just to tank for mmm is a very bad starcraft player... you will never see a pro using vikings as tanks, you see them land as an insult after they completely crush a protoss army yeah, but to be used as tanks for mmm? i'm pretty sure blizzard's intention of the ground viking wasn't for them to be used as tanks, especially with their low hp per cost. i'm just trying to figure out what was/is blizzards intention for the ground viking? what is it good at? you say tanking for mmm, it's deffinately not good at that. the fight is either heavily one way and the landed vikings are just their rub it in, or it's the opposite and half the fleet of vikings is dead before they touch the gound while intransition, and the remaining are dead in mere seconds with it's low hp per cost. if blizzard truly intended the ground viking on being a tank for mmm then I would argue that it needs a DRASTIC buff. However, i don't believe this is what they wanted for the ground viking. why is it in the game, what did they want it to do? it's HOTS and now is the time to look at this. it just doesn't make sense to me that they purposely put it in the game to be low armor, low hp per cost meatshield. I just think it could be something that actually serves a purpose if changed, because using ground vikings now just feels so pointless. did you watch flash today? he massively overbuilds vikings in TvP to fastly bring down colossus and instantly lands them after colossus are dead while kiting with his MMM and landing vikings between MMM and warp ins of toss. so flash might disagree with you. i still dont get the whole discussion though. they are supposed to kill air units and they are good at that. as a bonus they get a really nice bonus. corruptor has corruption which is a bonus but sucks so incredibly more than ground mode vikings.
I only saw Flash vs Killer in GSL. But I didn't see Flash landing his Vikings in TvP engagements. I saw him trading Vikings cost-ineffectively against Stalker+Colossi so he could lure away all the Zealots and kill them for free with his bio. Normally trading gas for minerals is a bad idea, but lategame TvP is so mineral intensive for the Terran that it kinda makes sense. But that doesn't work against Storm (or Stargate, but who goes Stargate)...Flash was lucky that Killer never got storm in any of those games.
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The problem with the viking isn't that it is weak, or that it is expensive. Its numbers are low, but tolerable. And the cost is high, but essentially comparable to a stalker. The problem is the unit is clunky, very much unlike the stalker, which is very fluid. The only thing the viking needs is to become fluid and rewarding to use and control well. In a game with quick response time and fluid control, it really does stick out as being incredibly clunky. When ordered to land, it eventually comes to a stop, and then descends vertically, slowly, where it is a very slow and boring stand-and-shoot unit.
I would like to see the viking able to move while lifting and landing, and able to move and fire while on the ground. This might go hand in hand with a speed buff on the ground, and maybe a nice retro thruster effect beneath its "legs." Coupled with giving the viking cliff jump and fluid motion on the ground, this would make the viking a much more finesse-based unit, and much more pleasant and rewarding to control. Also, make the viking land or lift immediately when given the order, maintaining its direction and velocity in either case.
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Yes, it costs 3x the cost of marines discounting gas, but does two times their unstimmed dps landed and +1 range?
They are expensive, I agree a minor buff such as attack while moving could help them as meat shields for tanks or thors.
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On September 27 2012 15:04 Hattori_Hanzo wrote:
Yes, it costs 3x the cost of marines discounting gas, but does two times their unstimmed dps landed and +1 range?
They are expensive, I agree a minor buff such as attack while moving could help them as meat shields for tanks or thors.
BUT THEY FLY!!!!!
OMFG stop overlooking the fundamental issue that the viking is the CHEAPEST FLYING UNIT IN THE GAME!
With no assault mode at all it would be a well balanced, well priced unit.
This retarded shit is like complaining that maruaders are cheaper than stalkers. Stalkers can shoot UP. That matters a LOT.
Phoenix cost 150/100 and can only lift a unit when they have the energy, cannot harm buildings and cannot harm massive units, but that's ok because they FUCKING FLY!!!!
When will you idiots stop pretending that vikings CAN'T fly so that you can ask for a buff to their ground mode.
"Herp derp, but if you pretend that vikings can't fly then they are SUPER expensive and even cost GAS!!"
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EPT
