StarCraft 2

[FlareKnight]

Do think the lack of Terran Mech Anti-Air other than Thors (and I suppose Widow Mines) does allow marines to remain a staple of most armies unless someone just go Vikings.

Will be interesting to see what balance changes need to be made now that the units are being handed off onto the pro gamers.

An interesting change just having the mines explode on contact now. No more seeing people singling out a unit and racing him out of the army, just boom!

Surprised to see the Warhounds being so effective against Zerg. At least pretty efficient against Queens/Roaches. Though still seems like zerglings should be able to surround and deal with them pretty effectively.

[SoldierOfDarkness]

Originally Posted by Who

Goliaths were actually used in TvZ to deter Mutalisk play back in Brood War. Their firing rate and range actually offset the fact that Mutas received only 50% damage from them. In fact, I think they'd do better against mutas than Thors in the current game simply because of cost, firing rate and because they can't be magic boxed.

Except we're talking about Starcraft 2 which has different mechanics from Brood War (Notably the armor types which significantly reduces the Goliath's effectiveness against mutas).

Goliaths were also suppose to combat heavy air units anyways and the Viking supports that role.

And so far from what I've seen most players use 2-4 Thors in their armies backed up by marines to handle the mutas anyways.

Warhounds are way too good against Zerg, even though Zerg doesn't have a single mech unit. Most of the streams I watched involved the pro players rushing 5-6 warhounds and marines, which directly counters queen first builds, roach builds and can even hold its own against speedling/baneling builds.

Well that's interesting. Is the Warhound similar to the Roach in that it has a simple normal attack? (No Anti-armored attack)

Surprised to see the Warhounds being so effective against Zerg. At least pretty efficient against Queens/Roaches. Though still seems like zerglings should be able to surround and deal with them pretty effectively.

Well it's a BETA so obviously they are looking to iron things out. I would expect the warhound to be weak against swarms of light zerg units.

Banelings I wouldn't even think about it since they're only good against bio units so they shouldn't be able to wipe out warhounds that easily.

[Pocari_Sweat]

Originally Posted by SoldierOfDarkness

I still don't understand this argument. It's like people are glorifying the Goliath when it isn't that great.

The Goliath's AA weapon is anti-armored which means it'd only be good against heavy air armored units. For Zerg that's the corrupter and brood lord but the Viking alone is better at eliminating those guys. Heck the broodlord can't even target it to begin with and the Viking's air capabilities allows it to react faster.

Which is needed against protoss since void rays, tempests are armored air units. And when Terran is going factory mech, it's unrealistic to have 3/4 armories (these things cost 150/100 each let alone the upgrade costs) upgrading BOTH mech upgrades and air upgrades. Unupgraded vikings won't cut it for lategame. Also Goliaths have the same range as vikings (with charon boosters), fire faster and are cheaper too. Conversely, protoss won't need a lot of gas since they'll be trying to "outexpand" and "swarm" the mech army by outmaneuvering and throwing large amount of cheap gateway units supported by the more expensive stargate or robotics units as support.

The Thor fills the other AA weapon in dealing with light armored air units which is the Muta. Therefore the Goliath would be useless in a fight as it cannot match against Mutas and the Viking fills its role better. The Thor's heavy HP and firepower makes it a strong unit in Ground combat so long as it's supported.

The Thor overall is a bad unit. They used to have a niche in TvZ during the muta/ling/bane era but good zergs would just magic box them and then lol. They needed marine support to be effective. Also the bloody things are so fat and slow and mutas were so fast so I question their value in their first place. Rather build moar siege tank for factory production time.

I don't see where the Warhound would come in though against the Zerg since it's speciality is anti-mech(which begs the question why would Blizz add in a unit that's only good against a certain race?

The warhound is a stupid unit in design. It's overpowered against protoss ground to the point it's a factory based marauder (which brings about more 1a microless dumbing down) but without the ability to shoot air, that's a real concern.

In regards to Protoss it's difficult going mech against them as Terran to begin with and I see the Warhound as a way of opening up mech against Protoss. And it's balanced by the fact you need either Vikings or Marines to back them up. Another problem with Protoss is feedback and unfortunately the Thor and BC have that so it's not a good idea to use them from experience.

Well in mech was THE standard composition there. Despite common belief, the reason why mech wasn't viable is not because siege tanks are shit (they still do the same dmg to light units compared to their BW counterparts) but because WoL's buffer units hellions are rather awful in direct combat compared to their vulture counterpart. Hellion fired in the line, which is really bad in direct combat and they had 90 hp. Battle hellions in HoTs change the attack to a cone shape (meaning it'll hit a lot more units in direct combat) as well as a 50% increase in hp. This gives siege tanks at least 2-3 more volleys before their buffer units die.

Second is the absence of mines for board control. In WoL, it was a menace to deal with blink stalkers and warp prisms harass but with the prescence of widow mines (which instantly explode now!) terrans get a variation of spider mines back. This is going to make mech likely the a viable alternative against P now for particularly small or choke maps, whilst on big open maps marine/marauder/medivac/viking/ghost will still be used. Along with probably widow mines for board control (these things seriously rock now).


And as for TvZ in general, with the exception of certain maps, be it BW or WoL right now, mech is not the standard composition TvZ since if Zerg finds out they can just outexpand you or do roach drops and since spider mines/widow mines aren't in the game, they are a bitch to control. Marine backbone supported by siege tanks, medivacs and then viking + raven/marauder in the lategame (depending if broodlords or ultras respectively) has been for BW and for WoL and will most likely be the standard composition in HoTs. Reason? Marines are stupid good against Zerg units overall and throughout the whole game. Mutalisks? Marines just laugh at them. Mutalisks are close to dead in the current metgame of TvZ usage unless Terran uses banshees. Thors are just bad units. They used to have a niche in TvZ during the muta/ling/bane era but good zergs would just magic box them and then lol. They needed marine support to be effective. Also the bloody things are so fat and slow and mutas were so fast so I question their value in their first place. Rather build moar siege tank for factory production time.


Regardless, I think a lot of things will be changed during the beta. At the very least I'm foresseing a nerf to Tempest range (22 is stupid imo, siege tank has 13 in comparison) whilst a damage increase to compensate since they are rather pathetic in direct combat, a nerf to Swarm hosts since they are absolutley wrecking protosses atm (infested terrans were already strong, but now with swarm hosts you don't even need to trade energy, just trade cooldowns...) and a nerf to Warhounds ground damage (just give us goliaths ffs lol).

[Who]

Originally Posted by SoldierOfDarkness

Except we're talking about Starcraft 2 which has different mechanics from Brood War (Notably the armor types which significantly reduces the Goliath's effectiveness against mutas).

Goliaths were also suppose to combat heavy air units anyways and the Viking supports that role.

And so far from what I've seen most players use 2-4 Thors in their armies backed up by marines to handle the mutas anyways.

I still don't really see Goliaths doing that much worse. They still do 16 damage a shot without the armor damage bonus (22 with 3/3 upgrades), and you can easily get 2-3 for the cost of a Thor (assuming production facilities are in set up). There's also the mobility advantage.

I'm not one of those people with complaints about not having the Goliath in, since I do prefer Thors, even in TvZ. Thors are really rare in Marine/Tank play nowadays though. However, they're amazing in Mech TvZ, as MVP demonstrated at IEM. 3/3 Thors can fight Brood Lords rather well and shred everything else. TvP is a non-issue for the most except for massed Tempests, which I happened to see on a stream. The Tempests just chewed through a Viking/Tank/Thor army while being supported by a few Stalkers and Templar.

Originally Posted by SoldierOfDarkness

Well that's interesting. Is the Warhound similar to the Roach in that it has a simple normal attack? (No Anti-armored attack)

I believe the base damage is 23 per shot with a 1.3 second cooldown, completely separate from the Haywire Missiles ability.

Originally Posted by SoldierOfDarkness

Well it's a BETA so obviously they are looking to iron things out. I would expect the warhound to be weak against swarms of light zerg units.

Banelings I wouldn't even think about it since they're only good against bio units so they shouldn't be able to wipe out warhounds that easily.

The most common build right now in the beta for TvZ (in part because the maps are terrible) is to rush Warhounds and support it with 15-20 marines. Zerg needs the banelings to prevent the Terran from just 1a-ing into his bases with such high DPS.

[SoldierOfDarkness]

Originally Posted by Pocari_Sweat

Which is needed against protoss since void rays, tempests are armored air units. And when Terran is going factory mech, it's unrealistic to have 3/4 armories (these things cost 150/100 each let alone the upgrade costs) upgrading BOTH mech upgrades and air upgrades. Unupgraded vikings won't cut it for lategame. Also Goliaths have the same range as vikings (with charon boosters), fire faster and are cheaper too. Conversely, protoss won't need a lot of gas since they'll be trying to "outexpand" and "swarm" the mech army by outmaneuvering and throwing large amount of cheap gateway units supported by the more expensive stargate or robotics units as support.

Yeah the thing with Terrans is once you pick a path you have to stick to that path since all of the upgrades are separate from one another unlike Zerg and Protoss...perhaps that's why they are trying to bring in a marauder-like unit on the mech side.

The Thor overall is a bad unit. They used to have a niche in TvZ during the muta/ling/bane era but good zergs would just magic box them and then lol. They needed marine support to be effective. Also the bloody things are so fat and slow and mutas were so fast so I question their value in their first place. Rather build moar siege tank for factory production time.

Well usually the idea was that if the Zerg placed a huge emphasis on Mutas then his army wouldn't be that great to begin with. When I see Mutas I would use turrets to hold them off and then start attacking his base since Mutas cannot deal upfront.

The warhound is a stupid unit in design. It's overpowered against protoss ground to the point it's a factory based marauder (which brings about more 1a microless dumbing down) but without the ability to shoot air, that's a real concern.

I don't understand this part about the 1A thingy. Terran requires a lot of micro and that's why I don't play much anymore because I simply couldn't keep up the APM. Heck I find Protoss and Zerg easy 1A to begin with. You just said it yourself that for Zerg all they have to do is magic box so instead of hitting 1A they just click and then hit stop.

And as for TvZ in general, with the exception of certain maps, be it BW or WoL right now, mech is not the standard composition TvZ since if Zerg finds out they can just outexpand you or do roach drops and since spider mines/widow mines aren't in the game, they are a bitch to control. Marine backbone supported by siege tanks, medivacs and then viking + raven/marauder in the lategame (depending if broodlords or ultras respectively) has been for BW and for WoL and will most likely be the standard composition in HoTs. Reason? Marines are stupid good against Zerg units overall and throughout the whole game. Mutalisks? Marines just laugh at them. Mutalisks are close to dead in the current metgame of TvZ usage unless Terran uses banshees. Thors are just bad units. They used to have a niche in TvZ during the muta/ling/bane era but good zergs would just magic box them and then lol. They needed marine support to be effective. Also the bloody things are so fat and slow and mutas were so fast so I question their value in their first place. Rather build moar siege tank for factory production time.

Well then that's where the warhound comes in. Blizzard obviously wants to give Terrans a more mobile mech since it's so immobile and slow and the tanks are just pathetic to begin with.

The problem with the Viking is that despite it's stats similar to a Golaith and doing similar DPS on the ground, it can fly so upgrading its armor and HP to a Goliath may make it OP. Perhaps they could do an armor upgrade research that would make it a tough unit on the ground?

Regardless, I think a lot of things will be changed during the beta. At the very least I'm foresseing a nerf to Tempest range (22 is stupid imo, siege tank has 13 in comparison) whilst a damage increase to compensate since they are rather pathetic in direct combat, a nerf to Swarm hosts since they are absolutley wrecking protosses atm (infested terrans were already strong, but now with swarm hosts you don't even need to trade energy, just trade cooldowns...) and a nerf to Warhounds ground damage (just give us goliaths ffs lol).

I still don't see the issue with the Warhound. If that's the case they'll probably nerf them a bit but since they are only ground attack units that means they'll be vulnerable to air so wouldn't that make it balanced?

[Paranoid Android]

What's strange is that with aggressive mech being viable, siege tank is losing its shine. Battlehellion + warhound + viking is so much more mobile that supercedes how good siege tanks are vs ground units.

Should warhounds get -1 range? Like the awkward old immortal role where you have a high-dmg vs armor unit but it's in the front lines.

I think tempests need a semi-original speed disability nerf. Notice how thors' ground attack takes a long time to prepare but almost no recoil? Tempest by default, flies with its cannon charged up. It fires immediately on demand and then enters a very long recoil.

I suggest something like Tempest speed reduced to 25% when in recoil. Description would be 'losing engine powers during it's charging sequence'. The problem is taking down a tempest when you didn't go air. It's stupid to be forced to go air because your opponent goes air. This slow-down after attacking makes tempests nearly impossible to be used for kiting against ground units.

-===========-

I think the damage on swarm host isn't as obscene as its gas cost. 200/150/4 imo. The fact that a Zerg is building them with the same gas cost of a mutalisk and then suddenly camping a huge army of 8~12 high-dps invisible spawners outside your base a minute after infestation pit. They need a slow down on how fast and how many can be made to give players some reaction time.

[Pocari_Sweat]

Originally Posted by SoldierOfDarkness

I still don't see the issue with the Warhound. If that's the case they'll probably nerf them a bit but since they are only ground attack units that means they'll be vulnerable to air so wouldn't that make it balanced?

I just stated my issue above. Without a factory based AA (and not thors, since they slow, fat and have terrible AA damage other than vs light) Terran has no factory based AA means they will have to rely on unupgraded vikings since it's unrealistic to have both mech and air upgrades. And like you said, once terran chooses a path (bio or mech) they have to stick to it since transitioning into the other is near impossible (albeit be severly behind in upgrades due to how terran upgrades work - separated for inf, mech and air)

Warhounds don't have AA and overpowered on the ground. And like Paranoid Android said, Battlehellion+ warhound + viking is moreorless a "1a Protoss like deathball" because it takes away the leapfrogging ability of siege tanks which uses micro and skill and spectator-wise much more interesting to see. Much better to see a battlehellion + siege tank + [some factory based AA unit that is cheap and is good against armour air] army ala vulture + siege tank + goliath which used the siege tank as the backbone for dps but being skillful to see since you had to leapfrog groups of tanks, vultures for anti-light/screening support and goliath for anti-air support.

With warhounds... its more or less 1a since they don't need leapfrogging and they are almost better than siege in every way but range. More dps, more health, less supply and cheaper... That to me is poor design since it takes away the siege tank role which is by design a superior unit. It's the same argument for the reaver vs collosi argument and you'll see how "hated" the collosus is around the sc community for its 1a nature.

I don't know but this is just a personal suggestion, but if blizzard so advanent on not giving us a cheap factory based AA and wants terrans to use vikings, maybe merge the mech and air upgrades together - instead of veh wep, veh arm, ship wep, ship arm ... merge them to mechanical weapons, mechanical armour and to compensate make it 150/150 for level 1, 225/225 for level 2 and 300/300 for level 3, instead of the 100/100, 175/175 and 250/250 respectively.

Regardless something needs to be done about warhounds ground damage and tempest's range since it gives terran an huge advantage in the early/mid game and a huge disadvantage in the lategame... sounds like WoL amplified where terran lategame is bollocks...

[SoldierOfDarkness]

I just stated my issue above. Without a factory based AA (and not thors, since they slow, fat and have terrible AA damage other than vs light) Terran has no factory based AA means they will have to rely on unupgraded vikings since it's unrealistic to have both mech and air upgrades. And like you said, once terran chooses a path (bio or mech) they have to stick to it since transitioning into the other is near impossible (albeit be severly behind in upgrades due to how terran upgrades work - separated for inf, mech and air)

Unfortunately that seems to be the problem that we're stuck with in regards to Terran and the Viking suffers from that. Fortunately for the Viking though it's more than capable of handling heavy aerial units in sufficient numbers and not gas intensive.

With warhounds... its more or less 1a since they don't need leapfrogging and they are almost better than siege in every way by rage. More dps, more health, less supply and cheaper... That to me is poor design since it takes away the siege tank role which is by design a superior unit. It's the same argument for the reaver vs collosi argument and you'll see how "hated" the collosus is around the sc community for its 1a nature.

The only issue I see with the Warhound is that it's making the siege tank more or less obselete so obviously something needs to be done in order to maintain it's role as a mobile mech in between the Hellion and the Siege tank itself.

[Who]

Too bad Blizzard stated that they're satisfied with the Warhound because it satisfies their vision of a general, all-around go to unit from the Factory. Don't expect too big a nerf for this unit.

[SoldierOfDarkness]

I highly doubt that.

Everytime Terran gets something new or tries something new, Zerg QQs and it gets nerfed to hell.

Everytime Zerg gets something new or tries something new, Terran QQs and they tell Terran to learn to play and adapt.

[paladinenvec]

Originally Posted by SoldierOfDarkness

I highly doubt that.

Everytime Terran gets something new or tries something new, Zerg QQs and it gets nerfed to hell.

Everytime Zerg gets something new or tries something new, Terran QQs and they tell Terran to learn to play and adapt.

Oh yes i really hate this =/ not to mention that you need a lot of APM in order to be a decent terran player.

[Pocari_Sweat]

Originally Posted by SoldierOfDarkness

I highly doubt that.

Everytime Terran gets something new or tries something new, Zerg QQs and it gets nerfed to hell.

Everytime Zerg gets something new or tries something new, Terran QQs and they tell Terran to learn to play and adapt.

Not exactly Zerg, but the best [worst] example of that was when after Thorzain won a tournament using a revolutionary Thor-backbone army in TvP, the Thor was immediately nerfed.

Or for another example... when best player of the world back then (for about half a year) IM_MVP finally popularized a viable lategame composition against Zerg in the form of mass ghosts... blizzard nerfed the ghost to oblivion to the point it's pretty much not used in TvZ anymore. And just prior to the nerf Dongraegu (who by that time took over Nestea as the best Zerg in the world) was using ling/bane/ultra with infestor comps that would roll over the mass ghost style, but blizzard went ahead and nerfed it anyway.


Btw, balance aside (which is atrociously in Zerg favour due to the stupid queen range buff which was NOT needed considering the matchup was widely recognized as the best spectator wise and also balanced at 51%/49% in Korea (Terran ever ever slightly), I think TvZ is turning out to be the worst non-mirror matchup now. It's practically Terrans going 3 CC and Zerg's get 3 hatches w/o gas defending with PURE QUEENS (spend all larvae on drones) whilst Terran does a max army make or break doom push on the Zerg's 4th (just prior to the snorefest Broodlord/Infestor deathball) to decide the game. Where's my frakeen marine/medivac/tank vs ling/bane/muta microwars that was the cream of the SC2 era which NO ONE got sick of watching because it was just amazing. GJ Blizzard for fucking it up.

PvZ is not much better in that lategame is determined by a fail or win mothership vortex. I guess TvP is still decent... until protoss gets deathball status and 20+ warpgates kick into play.

/rant

[Archon_Wing]

Innovation is bad. Play the game like Blizzard intended, or they nerf bat will hit.

The grand majority of the community, myself included, are terrible players and have knee jerk reactions to whoever's winning the most with the latest fad. They should not be listened to. Nipping the bud of innovation is bad. Imagine if modern Blizzard balanced BW, lol

P players are like Noe fans.

[Kyuu]

Originally Posted by Archon_Wing

P players are like Noe fans.

Hey! He should have chosen chicken girl!

[Pocari_Sweat]

What does True Tears go to do with Starcraft 2 or Blizzard

Anyways, rejoice Terrans. In Hots, Ravens get a speed increase from 2.25 to 2.5 and an acceleration boost from 2 to 2.25 and HSM energy cost reduced from 125 to 100. That means ravens move faster and can launch 2 seeker missiles each!

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/view...opic_id=366873


Now Blizzard, all you need to do is change the range from 6 to 9 (to make it in line with storm and fungal) and wola, terran has a viable lategame transition unit.

[paladinenvec]

Originally Posted by Pocari_Sweat

What does True Tears go to do with Starcraft 2 or Blizzard

Anyways, rejoice Terrans. In Hots, Ravens get a speed increase from 2.25 to 2.5 and an acceleration boost from 2 to 2.25 and HSM energy cost reduced from 125 to 100. That means ravens move faster and can launch 2 seeker missiles each!

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/view...opic_id=366873


Now Blizzard, all you need to do is change the range from 6 to 9 (to make it in line with storm and fungal) and wola, terran has a viable lategame transition unit.

That's pretty awesome, with this change i will not need that many ravens in my army in order to defend the imbastor/corruptor/broodlord push...

[Archon_Wing]

Originally Posted by Pocari_Sweat

What does True Tears go to do with Starcraft 2 or Blizzard

Anyways, rejoice Terrans. In Hots, Ravens get a speed increase from 2.25 to 2.5 and an acceleration boost from 2 to 2.25 and HSM energy cost reduced from 125 to 100. That means ravens move faster and can launch 2 seeker missiles each!

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/view...opic_id=366873


Now Blizzard, all you need to do is change the range from 6 to 9 (to make it in line with storm and fungal) and wola, terran has a viable lategame transition unit.

Oh good. If we wanted more animu references, ravens are clearly the Minko to the SV's Hiromi. Kinda sad that it would still be inferior to irradiate against the likes of BLs still.

[Vallen Chaos Valiant]

For those with a NicoNico account:
http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm18827067

And the source of the MMD Zerg models:
http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm18822438

[DonQuigleone]

Lately I've been playing 2v2 with a friend; me as zerg, him as terran.

We already have a decent opening with Hellions/Zergling rush, but we don't really know what to build in mid and late game, as unit combos.

Any ideas what Terran and Zerg units work well together, and cover each other's weaknesses?

[Archon_Wing]

When I was still playing it'd be Mutalisks, and later Brood Lords with your average terran army of bio and some tanks. Add in some infestors for stupidity. Brood Lords are retardedly OP so any thing terran has that can shoot down air units and provide a meatshield is fine (ie viking/tank)

There is no way both players can defend both their mineral lines from mutas and launch a proper offense against you.

Also, from what I've noted, queens got +2 range in the past year, so they are like no early timing window weakness that Terran can use against Zerg? How do you beat that? Why was I stupid enough to main Terran anyways?

Just a small note:

Originally Posted by SoldierOfDarkness

Except we're talking about Starcraft 2 which has different mechanics from Brood War (Notably the armor types which significantly reduces the Goliath's effectiveness against mutas).

Goliaths were also suppose to combat heavy air units anyways and the Viking supports that role.

Goliaths also suffered an attack penalty in BW vs mutalisks (only 50%), and actually weren't particularly cost effective against mutas once numbers got big enough and the gluve wurm hit everywhere. However, they are niche in deterring early mutalisk harass due to them being a bit durable for their cost. You can't pick off goliaths in BW as easily as you can marines. Compare this to the thor which can drag its sorry ass to the mineral line AFTER mining's been halted for a few years so you can cry over throwing away early game resources (which are more valuable) on a factory (with armory) that could have been more useful doing, oh I don't know, floating in the corner on the map so your enemy wastes 5 more minutes trying to eliminate you from the game after the Zerg laughs their off pissing over your base with fungal growths (Has this changed yet?)

In addition, BW's missile turrets were incredibly cheap. They died fast but bought excellent amounts of time.

The viking doesn't really provide this, since it's expensive and you simply can't get enough out to do anything meaningful against an earlier mutalisk harass.

Sometimes it's very situational. En masse, goliaths weren't very hot, but a player that knew to build just the right amount benefited greatly. As an added bonus, mech play in sc1 shat on lurkers and quick hive which were popular to cheese a win out of you.