StarCraft 2

[Demongod86]

Originally Posted by Alaya

Void Ray seems too strong right not. Every Protoss match up seems to have to go for Void Ray. Pretty sure it might get nerfed or else someone needs to come up with hard counter.

Here's a hard counter: anything not called Battlecruiser or Carrier that attacks air.

[SaintessHeart]

Originally Posted by Alaya

Void Ray seems too strong right not. Every Protoss match up seems to have to go for Void Ray. Pretty sure it might get nerfed or else someone needs to come up with hard counter.

It would depend on the number of Void Rays on the target. They make good annoyances due to their binary increment on their DOTs.

Put a fast hitting zealot in groups and send them to their supply line, while planting down the VRs and Phoenixes at a tech-tree upgrade structure, like Academy in midgame. Not a bad idea to throw your opponent off his nerve and force him to make irrational decisions.

[Alaya]

The problem with Void Ray right now is that it's come out so fast that any unit capable of counter it is not very effective. Take marine for an example, right now, with good micro, void ray would win against 2 to 3 marines because of it's recently damage buff. And if you are good enough with your build, then you could get a void ray out before other could produce enough counter units.

Here's example:
Whire-Ra VS Jinro Game 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xaPfUx5ka0k

Whire-Ra VS Jinro Game 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bHbx0qS0sU


Well, the second game, Jinro doesn't play so good too so it's even worse than game 1. But these two replays should show how powerful Void Ray right now (but I would not say it's OP just yet).

[Lostdreams]

Originally Posted by Alaya

The problem with Void Ray right now is that it's come out so fast that any unit capable of counter it is not very effective. Take marine for an example, right now, with good micro, void ray would win against 2 to 3 marines because of it's recently damage buff. And if you are good enough with your build, then you could get a void ray out before other could produce enough counter units.

Here's example:
Whire-Ra VS Jinro Game 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xaPfUx5ka0k

Whire-Ra VS Jinro Game 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bHbx0qS0sU


Well, the second game, Jinro doesn't play so good too so it's even worse than game 1. But these two replays should show how powerful Void Ray right now (but I would not say it's OP just yet).

The most effective counter against void rays I've found as Terran/Zerg is spore crawler/missile turrets. Terran with a combination of reactor core and turrets can fend them off, but Zerg really don't get the AA fast enough.

[felix]

Missile Turrets are not the counter to Void Rays. You need a lot of them and the toss player can just charge on his units and then get in range. There's this trick where if you are fast enough you can attack/stop a few times to charge and it won't hurt the unit. It goes with out saying you can just make hallucinations and use that as well.

Terran Counter to Void Ray is Viking. Its got +2 more range and the 2.75 movement speed beats the 2.25 Void Rays have.
For Zerg, I'd say Hydralisk is best.
Protoss probably has the toughest time with them.

[Archon_Wing]

You'll need some turrets against early void ray harasses; it'll slow them down a lot if they're wasting time shooting down turrets. The real reason is that you are typically massing marauders against Protoss and starport may not be ready yet. Marines are fine against void rays.

For Zerg, it's called scouting.

[felix]

Originally Posted by Archon_Wing

Marines are fine against void rays.

Not that great anymore.

[Archon_Wing]

Originally Posted by Alaya

The problem with Void Ray right now is that it's come out so fast that any unit capable of counter it is not very effective. Take marine for an example, right now, with good micro, void ray would win against 2 to 3 marines because of it's recently damage buff. And if you are good enough with your build, then you could get a void ray out before other could produce enough counter units.

Here's example:
Whire-Ra VS Jinro Game 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xaPfUx5ka0k

Whire-Ra VS Jinro Game 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bHbx0qS0sU


Well, the second game, Jinro doesn't play so good too so it's even worse than game 1. But these two replays should show how powerful Void Ray right now (but I would not say it's OP just yet).

Originally Posted by felix

Not that great anymore.

Well, they still work fine. It is 50 mineral units vs a 250/150 one. It's not surprising you need a couple of marines to take out one.

The Protoss simply outplayed the Terran in the first game with a perfect counter attack and use of force fields; T was just caught out of position and utterly surprised.

2nd game, well rush failed. gg. Out of curiosity, why didn't he wall?

I don't think either game suggests Void rays are too strong; from my view it was just one player playing better and anticipating a rush, and countering.
Edit:
But anyhow, I think if we are to blame anything; I would blame the maps for having such close air rush distances.

Of course, this may be a sign of a larger problem. Quoting David Kim (I assume you all know who that is)

It's hard to balance Terran and Protoss. It's hard for a Terran to beat a Protoss, and we still can't fix that. That's the matchup we're focusing on right now. There will be a patch soon once we decide on a direction to balance that matchup.

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/view...opic_id=121495

[felix]

Originally Posted by Archon_Wing

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/view...opic_id=121495

Q. Every time there is a new strategy in the beta, it gets nerfed. Are you trying to stop new strategies from being created?

[...] We patched cheese rushes since it's beta. We might have responded differently if the Game was already released. The point of beta is to gather data. 50% of the TvP involved cheese rushes, so we had to patch it to get the data we need.

I'm reading this as: "we will make a patch to blow your mind close to release date"

[Archon_Wing]

I wish.

But before we go "X is overpowered", we have to consider maps too.

There's a reason why the pro leagues in Korea don't use the Blizzard maps; and that's because the Blizzard maps are not particularly balanced. It turned out balance required like perfect symmetry where a mineral that had a slightly slower mining rate would make all the difference in progamer games where anything makes a diffrence.

When you have crap like in Hunters (Some natural expos don't have gas), and BGH where some bases can be cliffed while others can't be the outcome of the game can be heavily dictated by luck against 2 equally skilled players.

On the other hand, there was no way to map makers could see how the metagame would evolve 5 years in the future, so it's really not their fault.

Blizzard has made a number of efforts to encourage balance. For example, Units now spawn in the direction of your rally point. In Starcraft 1, They always came out on the bottom, which meant if you walled in sc1, sometimes units come out on the "wrong" side, and it sucked.

I would like addons to be able to be build on the left side (It'd help, since some map spots allow your walling rax to have space for an addon, but others don't...); that would also help map balance issues.

But in any case, a lot of the SC2 maps have very short air rush distances and much longer ground rush distances-- this obviously makes Air rushes stronger. The air units themselves are not too strong, it's just that the maps promote that kind of strategy plus crap is so much more mobile in this game.

Reapers aren't air units, but short air rush distances make them stronger since they aren't hindered by many terrain problems. On close spots on Metalopolis and LT, it gets pretty stupid, since reaper rushes can come really really fast.

So all and all, I think it might be better to have bigger maps

[AvianWing]

Originally Posted by Archon_Wing

Blizzard has made a number of efforts to encourage balance. For example, Units now spawn in the direction of your rally point. In Starcraft 1, They always came out on the bottom, which meant if you walled in sc1, sometimes units come out on the "wrong" side, and it sucked.

But coming out of the wrong side was awesome, especially...

Jaedong vs Fantasy Bacchus OSL semi

Damn that was good.

[felix]

Originally Posted by Archon_Wing

I would like addons to be able to be build on the left side

Personally I think addons should be able to be built on any of the 4 sides. Probably the argument they have against it is that it becomes confusing which building they power.

[Archon_Wing]

Originally Posted by AvianWing

But coming out of the wrong side was awesome, especially...

Jaedong vs Fantasy Bacchus OSL semi

Damn that was good.

Lol... nice "wall" He really should have known better than to do that. True, the map design was BS, but as a pro, there's no excuse. Anyhow, that series probably shows to me why Jaedong is a multi-time champion, and Fantasy is just another good player.

[AvianWing]

It really isn't any different from any other map. It's just cheesy fantasy with his early vulture, when he should have walled with barrack, supply, supply like everyone else does. Perfect revenge for bunker rushing JD out of proleague grand final ace game.

Regardless, positional advantage is still something inherent on non-2 player maps, such as the natural pointing towards the enemy's main. I don't see how this can ever be fixed, unless we have maps that have 4-fold symmetry.

[felix]

This is a inherit problem of 4-player maps. In 2-player maps its easy as map designer to just do some sort of Top/Bottom or Left/Right symmetry (which solves most issues), but 4-player maps are just more exiting with expanding to mains (and different expansion patterns in general), scouting location, distance etc. Ironically 4-player maps like that with 4 players playing are only really good in FFA.

A game like starcraft sure is map design hell...

[Alaya]

A little bit of clarification, I didn't say that Void Ray is OP yet. However, I thinks it's powerful enough to warrant that most protoss player will go with void ray in any match up. It could be good, it could be bad, depends on how quick people come up with counters. But I expect a slight nerf to it.

[Kaioshin Sama]

These ultra serious and intense play-by-plays of Starcraft slay me. I don't even think the average hockey game commentary is that excited outside of a scoring chance.

[felix]

Originally Posted by Kaioshin Sama

These ultra serious and intense play-by-plays of Starcraft slay me. I don't even think the average hockey game commentary is that excited outside of a scoring chance.

Its fun since people usually root for their favorite race or their favorite play style. When said player wins for whom you share interest with you get a sense of satisfaction. So basically: you have to get into the game mechanics before you get into having fun spectating. Similar to how it is with sports, you won't like it if you never played it, since you only know it from face value. Well, I guess today everyone just roots with their home team regardless of how idiotic they are, but w/e.

[Eisdrache]

Originally Posted by AvianWing

But coming out of the wrong side was awesome, especially...

Jaedong vs Fantasy Bacchus OSL semi

Damn that was good.

That's hilarious specially if you understand a bit of korean. The commentators shouting "Oh he is waiting with some lings to catch the vulture and THEREEEEEEEEEEE HEEEE GOES ;AAAAAAA;" (repeat twice) xD

[Lostdreams]

I wonder how the future of SC2 will turn out with Kespa not reaching a deal with Blizzard.