The current state of the Widow Mine has some problems. The first problem is that it's difficult to defuse the mine without detection. Since currently the Widow Mine fires an missile at a target in range that is unable to dodge, the only way to go through the area without detection is to sacrifice one unit. The second problem is that when enemy has detection, mine defusing becomes too easy and Widow Mine becomes so ineffective that barely worth its cost.
In my opinion the first problem is solely due to the way Widow Mine attacks and thus can be completely solved by changing it. The second problem seems a little bit complex, but I think the major issue is that when the current Widow Mine set up to block the area it has to risk the Widow Mine itself to enemy's detection, so when enemy use detection to defuse and kill your Widow Mine, what you lost is not only 75 minerals and 25 gases, but also your time to build units to fill the 2 supplies, which you would have filled with 2/3 of a siege tank. This problem combined with the former problem have created a balance dilemma: the unavoidability and the resulted effectiveness of an undetected Widow Mine means that if the Widow Mine is able to survive the detection some how, it would be totally overpowered. However, this dilemma also means that if there is a solution to the former problem, then combined with the solution of the later problem it will solve the two problem without disturbing the balance.
The following solution to the first problem is based on the fact of the similarity of the Widow Mine's missile attacks and the activated spider mine's attacks if you regard the missile as the spider mine itself. The idea is simple: If instead of shooting unavoidable missile the Widow Mine shoots spider mine that behaves similar to the Brood War counterpart then a lot of issue based on the unavoidability of Widow Mine attacks will be solved in a more interesting manner. Currently those issue are: Difficulty to fight for map control against Widow Mine early on without mobile detection. If Widow Mine shoot spider mine that is vulnerable to attacks then mine defusing with ranged units would be possible. This however, will not render Widow Mine useless in pro game since difficulty increase dramatically when several mine attacks simultaneously. Extremely high risk to harass with air unit or drops. If Widow Mine shoot spider mine however, this issue could be solved by adjusting some feature of the spider mine. For example, since spider mine is ground unit it cannot attacks air units directly. It can, however, charge underneath them and explode dealing splash damage. Air units could still dodge it by abusing terrain as spider mine cannot travel across cliff. So again this allows skillful players to dodge mine by micro while Widow Mine has not necessarily lost its anti-air capability.
Although the solution above may decrease the effectiveness of the Widow Mine, with it we could solve the second problem and make Widow Mine more effective in late game while keep its balance undisturbed. The solution of the second problem take one more step further: If the Widow Mine not only shoot spider mine, but set up a spider mine that can attack on its own, then it would no longer requires the Widow Mine to stay at the front and risk itself. Even if the enemy with detection could defuse your spider mine with ease, as long as your Widow Mine itself stay unharmed you could set up another spider mine later. The Widow Mine's ability to set up the spider mine may has a cool down of 40 second, and every Widow Mine might only support one spider mine at a time. The ability could also be energy based, that takes 25 energy which requires 45 second to refuel to set up a spider mine which has a limited lifespan of 45 second. By giving a limited lifespan to the spider mine the Widow Mine is required to constantly replenish the mine field, risking itself, but if you managed to set up the mine field unharmed, the rewording zone control is definitely worth it. The Widow Mine could even has a maximum energy pool of 100 enable it to quickly set a mine field of 4 mines if it have saved enough energy.
With the change above the Widow Mine would have becomes a machine that could set up mine field. What it excels than the previous Widow Mine is that every single one you sneak in and out of their territory without being destroyed gives constant fear to the opponent, even if the mine field has been defused, and stall the enemy and let them wait for detection or defuse with micro one by one. To better fulfill the job the Widow Mine could even have the borrow ability, that allows it to hide in enemy's territory.
So the conclusion is to change the Widow Mine to the following, that both give enemy with sufficient micro to fight it early on, and pose a threat to the enemy even in late game:
Widow mine have 100 maximum energy and 25 initial energy and two abilities: burrow and set up spider mine. Set up spider mine: it cost 25 energy to set up a spider mine at its location. The spider mine has limited hp (allowing mine defusing) and can exist for 45 second before expired. When an enemy comes in range (such as 5), the spider mine activates and unburrow itself, and after a very small period of time (allowing mine defusing), the mine charges towards the enemy and explode, dealing splash damage. The spider mine can be activated by air unit and charges underneath them and explode, although the mine can't travel across cliff, allowing dodging by air unit. The mine can also be activated by invisible ground enemy if they accidentally stepped on the mine (melee range). The mine has zero collision radius. The Widow Mine cannot set up spider mine while burrowed. Burrow: Widow Mine can borrow itself and hide from the enemy.
On December 12 2012 18:46 DeCoup wrote: Don't you think the upgrade changes the way it is used and makes the unit retain usefulness? I don't think any change is needed.
I think the supply cost is still to high late game.
Mech gets rolled over if you don't have a really high amount of tanks or thors depending on how you're playing, and to get a decent number of mines this removes a hell of a lot of tanks/thors.
It's even worse when you need vikings, but can't build them due to having dead supply in mines.
On December 12 2012 18:46 DeCoup wrote: Don't you think the upgrade changes the way it is used and makes the unit retain usefulness? I don't think any change is needed.
I think the supply cost is still to high late game.
I agree. If they truly want to promote board control, which in turn promotes better and more interesting game-play, I think a 0.5 supply completely disposable unit would be more appropriate as opposed to the wacky idea of a 2 supply mine that reloads itself in the current build.
I do appreciate that Blizzard is working with us though. Terran is the board control race after all.
Match up dependent is what i think about the widow mine, it can make or break your tvt games, it can be really good in tvz (probably too strong in that match up) and its completly useless in tvp
i ve won games in tvt just because some widow mine targeted the "right" marine in the middle of a pack so they were severly damaged going into the fight a second later and in tvz it can stop any 2 base low eco allin and stops zerg taking a fast third, plus muta harass is that much harder to pull off
tvp. i dont know, it always feels like i waste my supply and they have early mobile detection with range 6 stalkers so mines get obsolete pretty fast
The first "problem" is not a problem, it is supposed to force detection or at least army spreading while moving. The second problem is down to it's 2 supply.
I say lower the single target dmg to 100 or so and make it 1 supply.
I think that the fundamental issue I have with the widowmine is that it is a persistant unit. Mines in BW were really strong but since they exploded and went away, it was fine. So in order to make widowmines balanced at all, you had to make them cost supplies and quite a lot of resources in order to make up for the persistance. And now you end up with a unit that isnt good enough the first time but if it gets to go off a few times it is.
I don't see a way around changing the actual attack so that it kills the mine itself, but as you pointed out in the op, there are ways around that. Personally I would love to see the warhound back in the game with a substantial nerf to its damage output and an energy bar with the ability to place widow mines, much like you describe. Then the mine can be effective and you will still have some use for the supply in the late game.
remove air and cloak hitting (last one was removed already so blizzard realizes it), make it 1 or even 0,5 supply, remove single target damage (which is completely luckbased in big fights and i dont want a GSL to be decided by the single target damage luckily hitting some ultras or some lings).
this would fix mutas, make them viable in later game stages and the bad luckfactor, which is very bad for a strategy game in which skill should decide who wins, would be removed.
I wish Blizzard would increase the max supply limit by 50 with each of the expansions. Just like TFT increased max supply by 10. I already feel like its too easy to max out, and a 200/200 army is not nearly as scary looking in SC2 as it was in BW.
On December 12 2012 19:58 Rokit5 wrote: I wish Blizzard would increase the max supply limit by 50 with each of the expansions. Just like TFT increased max supply by 10. I already feel like its too easy to max out, and a 200/200 army is not nearly as scary looking in SC2 as it was in BW.
That's because a 200/200 army in BW could tear the wrong comp up real quick. 200/200 siege tanks + cloaked wraiths for spotting + science vessels could tear a 200/200 gateway army real quick.
On December 12 2012 19:58 Rokit5 wrote: I wish Blizzard would increase the max supply limit by 50 with each of the expansions. Just like TFT increased max supply by 10. I already feel like its too easy to max out, and a 200/200 army is not nearly as scary looking in SC2 as it was in BW.
That's because a 200/200 army in BW could tear the wrong comp up real quick. 200/200 siege tanks + cloaked wraiths for spotting + science vessels could tear a 200/200 gateway army real quick.
afaik, cloaked wraiths are very rare in BW TvP even for spotting, but otherwise what you said is correct. A maxed out BW Terran mech army is extremely difficult to engage for any race.
My biggest problem as a Zerg is how mines shut down any early aggression. With roach/baneling attacks gone, there's nothing to keep Terran players honest.
I wonder if instead of early spores, we should get overseer at tier 1 (with a pre-upgrade speed nerf so that scouting isn't too easy). And obviously they shouldn't shoot up, but I'm pretty sure that'll be fixed next patch.
I proposed an idea earlier but never had any response to it. The problem with the mine is that it is very powerfull when enemy lacks detection thus justifying two supply cost. When detection is on the board mines loose effectiveness. This means the mine becomes a dead end investment.
To make the mine more usable late game I propose adding an late game upgrade to lower the supply cost to one. Do you guys think this would work?
So pretty much saying that with proper counter, the window mine isnt cost effective.
come on lol. Are they any unit that are cost effective vs their proper counter ?
The only thing I would change is : can be trigger by ground only. Cloak or burrowed ground unit can trigger it too. But I am far from pro and maybe I just didnt figure how to deal with it properly yet.
1 supply would be so overpowered for a unit who can one shot nearly all other unit or 20 zergling... Widow mine are already a bit OP, i'm zerg and when I random and do some I always win lol
Guys enough with the ground only. Part of its general design was to allow mech to deal with air easier. It would be a gloryfied siege tank without air attack.
Since clocked units can no long be hit undetected i would say protoss are fine to deal with widow mines. Be it outranging with collosus, Tempest or simply disarming them with loads of Hallusinated propes there will be ways of dealing with them.
For Zerg i would say swarm hosts or obviosly Brood lords late game. So really no problem here either.
I completely agree with the OPs Ananlysis of the current problems with the Widow Mine. And I also feel that the Widow Mine is currently in an awkward spot between being a mine and being a real unit. I think the onlz solution to this problem is to fully change it to the one or the other:
2. Random example for real unit: Minedeployer - Increase cost to 150/75, TL requirement - Minedeployer: can carry max. three Mines simultaneously - Either deploys his Mines like Spidermines, Mines (not targetable, killable when triggered, deploytime 2 seconds) do 30 splash, no extra single target damage, new Mines can be rebought for 25mins, buildtime in the Deployer 20 seconds - Or burrows (burrowtime 3secs) itself without his mines being deployed and functions like current Widow Mine, 250 single target damage and 60 splash, range 6, can be targeted, after shot all three mines are gone and have to be rebought normally
I think both are imaginable, however I really would like to see something along the lines of the second version because on the one hand it would allow for moderate cheap space control without committing supply (it also forces the opponent to do something against it or the minefield will grow bigger and bigger simililarly to creep) and on the other hand it could still be a high risk/high reward type of thing with good single target damage, for example against Immortals, Protoss air, Ultras etc. It would also be more easily balancable by tweaking Mine cost/buildtime or an Upgrade requirement for the singletargetdamage version etc.
I just think the current version is a bad hybrid between a one-time-use mine and a real unit. Tell me what you think.
On December 12 2012 21:22 Pufne wrote: I proposed an idea earlier but never had any response to it. The problem with the mine is that it is very powerfull when enemy lacks detection thus justifying two supply cost. When detection is on the board mines loose effectiveness. This means the mine becomes a dead end investment.
To make the mine more usable late game I propose adding an late game upgrade to lower the supply cost to one. Do you guys think this would work?
On December 12 2012 21:22 Pufne wrote: I proposed an idea earlier but never had any response to it. The problem with the mine is that it is very powerfull when enemy lacks detection thus justifying two supply cost. When detection is on the board mines loose effectiveness. This means the mine becomes a dead end investment.
To make the mine more usable late game I propose adding an late game upgrade to lower the supply cost to one. Do you guys think this would work?
What exactly is a "lategame upgrade" tho ? Even armory seems early for that kind of upgrade.
On December 12 2012 21:22 Pufne wrote: I proposed an idea earlier but never had any response to it. The problem with the mine is that it is very powerfull when enemy lacks detection thus justifying two supply cost. When detection is on the board mines loose effectiveness. This means the mine becomes a dead end investment.
To make the mine more usable late game I propose adding an late game upgrade to lower the supply cost to one. Do you guys think this would work?
What exactly is a "lategame upgrade" tho ? Even armory seems early for that kind of upgrade.
Very valid point. It could have the current beta upgrade to widow mines or weapons/armor 3 or making it fusion core level to further delay it. There are lots of possible ways to delay something if the results it would have on gameplay are good enough.
I would like to see the widow mine as an early harass and area control unit forcing detection and then after detection becoming a defensive unit that helps defend against pushes and then lategame reemerging as an area control and scouting unit without the drawback of a two supply unit thus making it useful again in an lategame 200/200 army.
I use the widow mine only for defense. Its way too hard for me to micro them too. Sieging Tanks/EMPs/Micro Bio AND burrow-micro Mines? ...way too hard! From a balance standpoint I would say the mine is fine. When you oppontent has detection they can be killed without a problem. I could maybe see a range-nerf incoming, because normally 2 Mines are enough to defend your whole base against drops.
On December 12 2012 21:22 Pufne wrote: I proposed an idea earlier but never had any response to it. The problem with the mine is that it is very powerfull when enemy lacks detection thus justifying two supply cost. When detection is on the board mines loose effectiveness. This means the mine becomes a dead end investment.
To make the mine more usable late game I propose adding an late game upgrade to lower the supply cost to one. Do you guys think this would work?
What exactly is a "lategame upgrade" tho ? Even armory seems early for that kind of upgrade.
An upgrade doesn't have to be far in the tech tree to be a late game upgrade. It could simply be very expensive and take a lot of time to research, so researching it just wouldn't be cost effective in early to mid game.
If the upgrade to change the WM's supply to 1 cost 250/250, would you really research it before reaching max supply cap? No, you'd make a bunch of supply depots instead.
On December 12 2012 21:30 AoWGoDLiKe wrote: the supply costs are fine. every single gateunit costs 2 supply, and the widow mine one shots them... as well as many other units
Bad comparison. Protoss units are never supply cheap because they're so beefy and powerful, additionally gateway units don't have a once per 40 seconds attack speed, and aren't hard countered by detection. While the purpose of the mine is to promote board control and force detection having it as 2 supply is a bit odd as it currently makes them "okay" before late-game, and subpar after; the numbers should be tweaked and it should be lowered to 0.5 or 1 supply.
I have a whacky idea that noone seems to have come up with yet. I'm really not sure what the consequences would be, but I figure it would be even more rewarding micro wise. What do you think would happen if Widow Mines weren't cloaked?
I am interested in seeing more games where widow mine is attempted in the late game in every match-up. Very few players I have gone up against have tried to use it in the late game en masse since they were given the upgrade. So, they may be dead supply or no one has given them their fair shake. I think I'll make more of a concerted effort to make a bunch and try it out in each match-up.
I find that they are okay for positional control, as long as you are willing to move them around a lot. I personally use them for a lot of bait and switch tactics and can catch players moving in retreat or to engage with well placed mines. The OP assumes a player is either going to be leaving them by themselves and not moving them, or using them in the front of the army. I think before we pronounce a unit a balance nightmare, let's give it a try in as many scenarios instead of theory crafting.
As a Zerg player Id prefer that they reduce the damage dealt or at least make it so it can't hit air. I just don't see how it's fair that I have sacrifice a Muta just to begin harassing Terran. They can reduce the supply cost to compensate for lower damage I guess.
I dont understand the reasoning behind making there be a 1 supply late game upgrade because isnt the reason behind making it 2 supply in the first place was so that it can't be mass in the late game? So if they are going to add a 1 supply upgrade, why dont they just make it 1 supply in the first place. I doubt making it 1 supply would have that much effect on the early game considering that supply isnt much of a problem in the early game because supply only matter in the late game right?
On December 13 2012 03:33 sagefreke wrote: As a Zerg player Id prefer that they reduce the damage dealt or at least make it so it can't hit air. I just don't see how it's fair that I have sacrifice a Muta just to begin harassing Terran. They can reduce the supply cost to compensate for lower damage I guess.
That is because if it doesnt hit air, then mech opening would die to void ray all-in. Reducing the damage dealt would also make the mine useless considering it already neglected in TvP. Although I can agree that it can be very strong TvZ
On December 13 2012 04:00 SheaR619 wrote: I dont understand the reasoning behind making there be a 1 supply late game upgrade because isnt the reason behind making it 2 supply in the first place was so that it can't be mass in the late game? So if they are going to add a 1 supply upgrade, why dont they just make it 1 supply in the first place. I doubt making it 1 supply would have that much effect on the early game considering that supply isnt much of a problem in the early game because supply only matter in the late game right?
On December 13 2012 03:33 sagefreke wrote: As a Zerg player Id prefer that they reduce the damage dealt or at least make it so it can't hit air. I just don't see how it's fair that I have sacrifice a Muta just to begin harassing Terran. They can reduce the supply cost to compensate for lower damage I guess.
That is because if it doesnt hit air, then mech opening would die to void ray all-in. Reducing the damage dealt would also make the mine useless considering it already neglected in TvP. Although I can agree that it can be very strong TvZ
This is such a problematic theme in balancing Mech. All the splash things that work pretty much fine in Mech vs Z or T - Siege Tanks, Hellion/Hellbat, Widow Mines (even Thors AA to some extent) - are either pretty good against T or Z and pretty bad against P, or they are soul-crushingly good against Z or T, and pretty good against P. For example, Hellbats in their current form, just for them to be pretty good against Chargelots, they now just absurdly crush Zerglings. Their units have so much more HP, but only slightly less speed, especially when you factor in things like Blink/Charge/Warp in/Colossus cliff+unit walk/Warp Prisms. EMP is really the only consolation in this dynamic, and it is pretty amazing. Still, it's beyond me at this point how to make these Mech splash units control space like they do vs Z and/or T, against P. Outside of giving them all a +shield damage bonus lol, which I think would be a really sloppy and lame change.
On December 13 2012 04:00 SheaR619 wrote: I dont understand the reasoning behind making there be a 1 supply late game upgrade because isnt the reason behind making it 2 supply in the first place was so that it can't be mass in the late game? So if they are going to add a 1 supply upgrade, why dont they just make it 1 supply in the first place. I doubt making it 1 supply would have that much effect on the early game considering that supply isnt much of a problem in the early game because supply only matter in the late game right?
On December 13 2012 03:33 sagefreke wrote: As a Zerg player Id prefer that they reduce the damage dealt or at least make it so it can't hit air. I just don't see how it's fair that I have sacrifice a Muta just to begin harassing Terran. They can reduce the supply cost to compensate for lower damage I guess.
That is because if it doesnt hit air, then mech opening would die to void ray all-in. Reducing the damage dealt would also make the mine useless considering it already neglected in TvP. Although I can agree that it can be very strong TvZ
This is such a problematic theme in balancing Mech. All the splash things that work pretty much fine in Mech vs Z or T - Siege Tanks, Hellion/Hellbat, Widow Mines (even Thors AA to some extent) - are either pretty good against T or Z and pretty bad against P, or they are soul-crushingly good against Z or T, and pretty good against P. For example, Hellbats in their current form, just for them to be pretty good against Chargelots, they now just absurdly crush Zerglings. Their units have so much more HP, but only slightly less speed, especially when you factor in things like Blink/Charge/Warp in/Colossus cliff+unit walk/Warp Prisms. EMP is really the only consolation in this dynamic, and it is pretty amazing. Still, it's beyond me at this point how to make these Mech splash units control space like they do vs Z and/or T, against P. Outside of giving them all a +shield damage bonus lol, which I think would be a really sloppy and lame change.
Slight delay on tanks attack so they can overkill, increased range, higher dmg, slower firerate, zergs can now force useless shots on a few lings & toss suffer from em more.
I think they are fine. Lategame they have the exactly same problem that all other 50ressource per supply units have. Supplyinefficiency. Time to transition out of them as much as possible I guess...
On December 13 2012 01:13 Hattori_Hanzo wrote: So Terrans should get a weak vulture/reaver? A reaver that spawns spider mines?
How is this superior/entertaining/etc to the current version? Please explain.
The Widow Mine as I proposed is capable of burrow itself and hide from the enemy. When it is setting up mine field there will be only a few second when it is exposed to enemy's sight before it borrow. So if a profesional player is keen enough to predict enemy's movement then every zone his/her opponent has not keep constant sight for 45 second will going to becomes a deadly minefield. So the Widow Mine can not only be used defensively like vulture and reaver in Brood War, but can used offensively to effectively punish enemy that are not keen enough to prevent any loophole in their sight.
On December 13 2012 03:33 sagefreke wrote: As a Zerg player Id prefer that they reduce the damage dealt or at least make it so it can't hit air. I just don't see how it's fair that I have sacrifice a Muta just to begin harassing Terran. They can reduce the supply cost to compensate for lower damage I guess.
That is one of the problems that has been listed in my OP. If Widow Mine set up spider mine that can only splash damage air units by exploding beneath them then air harass unit such as mutas would dodge those mine easily by abusing terrain, and a keen player will not necessarily loss one muta just because he is trying to harass.
As making the widow mine a free asset created by an ability no longer seems to be on the table, it needs to have its supply cost reduced.
For a board control asset, you need to be able to produce them in quantity without greatly weakening your actual army. Reducing the mine to 0.5 supply (baneling class unit) is a good idea. This may require adjusting its damage, but most likely would have little impact except allow terrans to spend more resources on more army. Having more mines will cost more resources- in fact, at the same cost density as banelings.
I am confused why a burrow time reduction is the upgrade they chose for the mine. The mine is supposed to be a positional unit that you pre-place- an upgrade to make it less positional is counterproductive. It's also not a terribly interesting upgrade. An upgrade to give the mine itself a self-destruct ability, or give it some new functionality or significant stat alteration would be better. And also more in accord with other research in the game.
Here's an idea: reduce the mine's supply cost to 0.5. Reduce its attack damage substantially, while still dealing enough damage with splash to be relevant. And give it a researchable self-destruct that it can cast on a target within 5 range that expends the mine, but does its present single-target damage of 160 with 40 splash, which the player must manually activate. On manual cast, after research, it still gibs dropships and other units, but kills the mine.
On December 12 2012 21:22 Pufne wrote: The problem with the mine is that it is very powerfull when enemy lacks detection thus justifying two supply cost. When detection is on the board mines loose effectiveness. This means the mine becomes a dead end investment.
To make the mine more usable late game I propose adding an late game upgrade to lower the supply cost to one. Do you guys think this would work?
NOT TRUE. Sure, if you make one or two widow mines as a sneaky early game contain, they suck once detection is out. But if you persist into the midgame and make groups of 6 or 7 widow mines and complement with vikings and maybe a raven, they are fucking powerful. (ZvT). You move them into the minreral line of a new base, and they shut it down forever.
Tbh the only change I see relevant is a nerf to their hitpoints. Buffs? Noooo.
Disclaimer: Haven't tried a focused swarm host response yet. May be that that alleviates the pain tt
I agree that the current state of widow mine makes it hard to balance because of its invisibility and relatively large burst damage, which can be very good in lower leagues but basically useless in higher leagues due to its lack of range and long cools down. I think the problem is that as long as widow mines shoot automated regenerating missiles it is going to be too good in lower leagues if its buffed but terrible in higher leagues. I propose a mode on the widow mine that gives it increased range and less cooldown in return for not being automAted, meaning you'll have to manually attack select and train missiles. This increases the skill ceiling and gives mines the needed buff in pro matches without really effecting casuals so much
Widowsmines aren't a failure imo like the guy above posted.
You can singlehandedly win the game in the first 4 minutes with widow mines. The problem is they get worse and worse. They just need some upgrades to increase their damage and firerate in the lategame. They go from horribly overpowered to weak-as-shit as the game goes on.
Some fuzion core upgrades would help, and while they add it they better put medivak upgrade their as well lol.
I think the issue is that they want the widow mine to be a viable passive board control unit and at the same time be a unit that you can use on the offense. The issue is that they are 2 very different things that require the unit to behave differently so they compromise all over the place.
I had a cool thought about making it like a sc1 reaver. make it slow and vulnerable and lay energy or mineral based mines so you have to run a couple around in a super medivac to keep them safe. This way you could build actual "minefields" instead of the lame board control the current widow mine offers.
Whatever happen I think the widow mine needs more focus in what it is meant to do instead of trying to make it a core all around good unit.
On December 14 2012 04:23 ohampatu wrote: Widowsmines aren't a failure imo like the guy above posted.
You can singlehandedly win the game in the first 4 minutes with widow mines. The problem is they get worse and worse. They just need some upgrades to increase their damage and firerate in the lategame. They go from horribly overpowered to weak-as-shit as the game goes on.
Some fuzion core upgrades would help, and while they add it they better put medivak upgrade their as well lol.
You just answered why the widow mine is a failure.. especially in the context of unit design.
edit - the same symptom that the reapers are falling victim to.
Spider mines need to be 2 supply because they are incredibly cheap for the amount of damage they do to harass at key timings in the game. You have to force terran to have a bloated supply cost in exchange for how safe you make the turtle, and the protection has a definite window where the supply cost is worth it. There seems to be some nice game sense/positioning mechanics for that role that makes the mine interesting to see on the board.
Widow mines don't require mech upgrades to do their job, so its easy to combine them with arbitrary compositions. The burrow upgrade and priority change hasn't really been tested in the metagame yet. Widow mine positioning micro has a lot of potential to be interesting as part of a unit comp in both mech and bio. I haven't seen a lot of experimentation on streams, but it has been fun to use personally.
Widow mine is fine because all you need is detect. Detect is one of the most basic units you can have out on the field. I don't see any valid points in wang's post.
They are not a failure because they haven't even been released retail, yet ... You all wait till the success of burrowed stuff becomes a reality. Burrow-charge, burrow move banes, we need more things that burrow.
A lot of people have been complaining that widow mines are useless vs Protoss, and there are usually two reasons given: that they are out-ranged by stalkers, and that Protoss units are "too beefy" for them to be cost effective. I'm not really interested in the stalker-range argument in this post. I'll focus on the "too beefy" complaint because I don't think anyone has nailed the core of the problem yet.
Technically speaking, since the widow mine 1-shots most units, almost any time it gets a single shot off it is guaranteed to have been cost effective in the sense that, even if it is then destroyed, it has destroyed a unit worth at least equivalent expenditure. Many people have pointed this out. However, it doesn't get at the core complaint. You don't make most units to merely trade roughly equivalent value in unit costs: instead you create units to do some trading, gain an advantage (by killing all the enemy units), and then do as much free damage as possible. Examples of this would be trading a couple of Banshees to kill off a couple of queens (not cost effective) in order to, with your surviving banshee, get a lot of "free" kills. Units are good only if they have, at least in some situations, the potential for this incredibly large upside. The goal is to put some units in the right situations where they can use this large upside.
The mechanics of widow mine damage make finding the right types of situations difficult. The obvious example is one widow mine and a bunch of zerglings. The potential for massive advantage is there if only you can get the widow mine in the right place to meet up with a mass of zerglings. Most commonly you will need to group more than one widow mine in order that the accumulating splash of several mines is able to take out a group of units. Widow mines become amazing when this is possible.
But this sort of situation, apart from zerglings, is rare. So how can widow mines be really useful apart from this? More traditional units get this kind of usefulness whenever they are the last unit standing in an engagement, and they have free reign for a certain amount of time (until reinforcements) to unload their DPS on an economy or infrastructure. But the 40 second cooldown keeps widow mines from being able to go this route. Most often, by the time 40 seconds is up, the opportunity for doing "free damage" is gone. Whatever effectiveness a widow has must therefore be instant.
Instant splash damage against large groups that do not, like zerglings, die from it truly IS a big advantage, but only if there is an opportunity to follow up against the weakened units. Think of it this way: 350 splash damage on 10 roaches vs. 120 (or whatever) to kill the widow mine is a big difference. But what good is the raw damage difference if the roaches all survive to destroy your command center? It becomes a real advantage if a smaller standing army is able to clean up those roaches much quicker because of the initial splash of the widow mine. But this advantage only lasts as long as the splash-damaged units STAY damaged.
So there are some situations where a widow mine can be extremely effective. Now let's talk about the widow mine vs. Protoss. Here the situation changes radically because of one factor: Protoss shield regeneration. Imagine, again, that a widow mine detonates on 10 zealots or stalkers. This force is now 350 hp weaker and when you bring in other units, it will die much more quickly. This is the same as vs. Zerg and vs. Terran. [let's forget medivacs for a moment because you have to actively acquire and use these units, whereas protoss shields is a passive ability]. Yet there is a key difference. Imagine there is a delay in getting your other units into the battle. Against T an Z this makes little difference, the 350 damage is still mostly there in 15 or 20 seconds. But against Protoss, after only 10 seconds, shields start to regenerate, and they regenerate quickly. In less than a minute, the entire 350 splash damage the widow mine produced is gone, and at no investment or attention cost to the Protoss player. That entire 350 splash damage is now worth less than if a single probe had been killed instead.
So that is the real problem. Any unit, to be worthwhile, need to have a huge upside in at least some situations. The widow mine has this by doing massive splash damage, but this advantage is too often nullified by Protoss rapid shield regen. It's not just that Protoss units are "too beefy"; it's that their beefiness is magnified against the way widow mines are most effective. This is all because of shield regen.
Incidentally, aren't we on our way to discovering a solution? What if widow mines had a special ability to do damage that simply ignored shields and was applied directly to HP. This would have the added interesting side effect of making widow mines a sort of hard counter to archons.
Widow Mine is NOT a spider mine. It is a lurker and have most of the strength and weaknesses of lurkers. Lurkers are bad against protoss outside of mass of zealots but amazing against weak and shorter ranged enemies. The other problem with widow mine is the lack of dark swam.....
The design of protoss is the real problem where, there is less positional play against it possible since it takes the minimum amount of space, fears the least from alpha damage, is least vulnerable to splash and ignore terrain more often then not and everything become a hp and damage grind.
Without giving tanks/mine 'absurd' alpha damage (100 for tanks at current price, ~200 for mines), I don't think positional play against protoss would work that well.
Dragoons were so big and clumsy that it needed huge surface area to attack that alpha strike worked because it is possible to alpha-kill dragoons faster then 2nd line dragoons can fill the space, while mine/vulture had big HP and can not be ignored. That is a far cry from super packed protoss formations in SC2, where 400+ resource units take zero space and gets into range easily.
On December 14 2012 10:06 President Dead wrote: Widow mine is fine because all you need is detect. Detect is one of the most basic units you can have out on the field. I don't see any valid points in wang's post.
They are not a failure because they haven't even been released retail, yet ... You all wait till the success of burrowed stuff becomes a reality. Burrow-charge, burrow move banes, we need more things that burrow.
You've missed my point. Defusing current Widow Mine safely not only need detection, but also units that outrange it. It would be a serious problem when you harass with air unit because both Protoss and Zerg has no mobile air unit that can defuse Widow Mine safely (Phoenix can't hit ground and its graviton beam is too close, Void Ray is too slow for harass, Mutalisk is outranged by Widow Mine, Brood Lord is too slow, let along any kinds of drops). This means that currently Widow Mine not only work too well in early map control, but also too well against (air) harass that effectively shut down almost any kinds of harass even with detection. And the resulting costs in both resources and supplies means it is not effective to hamper the enemy at other location beside behind your base. So the reason that it is difficult to balance Widow Mine is that its capability is too strong when enemy cannot simply disarm these mine which consequently result its impuisance late game at the front or flank, and simply decrease its supply cost is not a way to balance it. If you insist that Widow Mine's ability to stop harass definately worth its cost even in late game then perhaps you are right. But harass is always an entertaining part of Starcraft 2 and a couple of Widow Mine that cancels harass almost completely is not a way to make it more entertaining. I'd rather have a more versatile Widow Mine which is not insolubly effective against aur harass and more effective against something else.
On December 14 2012 12:37 imEnex wrote: The widow mine is either really effective or useless. That's how the unit just works.
Yep, it is a gimmick. Like a Cloaked Banshee or Dark Templar rush. Either you show up and do tons of damage, or you get shut down because your opponent was prepared and are now behind. There isn't much of an inbetween. The thing about the Widow Mine is that the Burrow is just half of the gimmick, the other half is the way it does damage. It does huge damage, but then nothing for 40 seconds...
So either it changes the game with said damage, or you've wasted your resources.
On December 14 2012 11:15 SWPIGWANG wrote: Widow Mine is NOT a spider mine. It is a lurker and have most of the strength and weaknesses of lurkers. Lurkers are bad against protoss outside of mass of zealots but amazing against weak and shorter ranged enemies. The other problem with widow mine is the lack of dark swam......
You hit the nail on the head!
Avilo uses drilling claw mines as cover for his vikings as they kite against corrupters. Cleaning them out as they inadvertently wandered into WM range.
Past 15min, I can't access youtube.com from where I am.
It trade very cost efficently in almost every situation. There must exist ways to deal with it. Is a very good unit either for offensive or defensive purposes, either for lategame with the upgrade, or early to press, or to zone.
Even avilo, one of the most T biased guys I read here says is ok, so it should be at least fine, lol.
On December 14 2012 16:51 Belha wrote: Wm is really good right now.
It trade very cost efficently in almost every situation. There must exist ways to deal with it. Is a very good unit either for offensive or defensive purposes, either for lategame with the upgrade, or early to press, or to zone.
Even avilo, one of the most T biased guys I read here says is ok, so it should be at least fine, lol.
I know!
The counter to widow mines is a range 6 unit followed by a range 11 detector. That's its counter. That's all there is too it.
Why is there so much QQ? It's no more OP than cloaked banshees, cloaked ghost EMPs, DTs and banelings!
On December 14 2012 12:37 imEnex wrote: The widow mine is either really effective or useless. That's how the unit just works.
Yep, it is a gimmick. Like a Cloaked Banshee or Dark Templar rush. Either you show up and do tons of damage, or you get shut down because your opponent was prepared and are now behind. There isn't much of an inbetween. The thing about the Widow Mine is that the Burrow is just half of the gimmick, the other half is the way it does damage. It does huge damage, but then nothing for 40 seconds...
So either it changes the game with said damage, or you've wasted your resources.
True, but compare the resources you need to spend on them to banshees or dts, its just too low of an investment. Theyre incredibly strong in the early game, and against air harass as well. Especially vs mutas
On December 14 2012 12:37 imEnex wrote: The widow mine is either really effective or useless. That's how the unit just works.
Yep, it is a gimmick. Like a Cloaked Banshee or Dark Templar rush. Either you show up and do tons of damage, or you get shut down because your opponent was prepared and are now behind. There isn't much of an inbetween. The thing about the Widow Mine is that the Burrow is just half of the gimmick, the other half is the way it does damage. It does huge damage, but then nothing for 40 seconds...
So either it changes the game with said damage, or you've wasted your resources.
True, but compare the resources you need to spend on them to banshees or dts, its just too low of an investment. Theyre incredibly strong in the early game, and against air harass as well. Especially vs mutas
There's enough solutions posted in the last three weeks to deal with widow mines and still go muta. - Point man muta - Overlord sac
If you still want to enjoy ZOMG MUTAS OWNZ J00 TROLLOLOLOL, feel free to stick with WoL, you won't be missed.
On December 14 2012 12:37 imEnex wrote: The widow mine is either really effective or useless. That's how the unit just works.
Yep, it is a gimmick. Like a Cloaked Banshee or Dark Templar rush. Either you show up and do tons of damage, or you get shut down because your opponent was prepared and are now behind. There isn't much of an inbetween. The thing about the Widow Mine is that the Burrow is just half of the gimmick, the other half is the way it does damage. It does huge damage, but then nothing for 40 seconds...
So either it changes the game with said damage, or you've wasted your resources.
True, but compare the resources you need to spend on them to banshees or dts, its just too low of an investment. Theyre incredibly strong in the early game, and against air harass as well. Especially vs mutas
There's enough solutions posted in the last three weeks to deal with widow mines and still go muta. - Point man muta - Overlord sac
If you still want to enjoy ZOMG MUTAS OWNZ J00 TROLLOLOLOL, feel free to stick with WoL, you won't be missed.
yeah those suggestion that tell you to walk in overseerspeed above ground and tell you to sac 1 muta = 100 gas for 1 mine = 25 gas. and those suggestion that also dont tell that ling bling muta is EXACTLY the same as in WoL while not only widow mine as a counter is new in HOTS but also: medivac healing buff, medivac speedbuff, hellbat raping lings, widow mine raping lings, blings and mutas. so mutaplay would be way harder to do even if widow mine wouldnt hit air, hell even if widow mine wouldnt exist at all ling bling muta would be a lot harder to play because of MMM and hellbat.
On December 14 2012 12:37 imEnex wrote: The widow mine is either really effective or useless. That's how the unit just works.
Yep, it is a gimmick. Like a Cloaked Banshee or Dark Templar rush. Either you show up and do tons of damage, or you get shut down because your opponent was prepared and are now behind. There isn't much of an inbetween. The thing about the Widow Mine is that the Burrow is just half of the gimmick, the other half is the way it does damage. It does huge damage, but then nothing for 40 seconds...
So either it changes the game with said damage, or you've wasted your resources.
True, but compare the resources you need to spend on them to banshees or dts, its just too low of an investment. Theyre incredibly strong in the early game, and against air harass as well. Especially vs mutas
There's enough solutions posted in the last three weeks to deal with widow mines and still go muta. - Point man muta - Overlord sac
If you still want to enjoy ZOMG MUTAS OWNZ J00 TROLLOLOLOL, feel free to stick with WoL, you won't be missed.
yeah those suggestion that tell you to walk in overseerspeed above ground and tell you to sac 1 muta = 100 gas for 1 mine = 25 gas. and those suggestion that also dont tell that ling bling muta is EXACTLY the same as in WoL while not only widow mine as a counter is new in HOTS but also: medivac healing buff, medivac speedbuff, hellbat raping lings, widow mine raping lings, blings and mutas. so mutaplay would be way harder to do even if widow mine wouldnt hit air, hell even if widow mine wouldnt exist at all ling bling muta would be a lot harder to play because of MMM and hellbat.
You make it sound like its the Terran's fault for Zerg wanting to use outdated builds. I'm sure roach/speedling mid-game BO works real well with oracles out. *sarcasm*
On December 14 2012 12:37 imEnex wrote: The widow mine is either really effective or useless. That's how the unit just works.
Yep, it is a gimmick. Like a Cloaked Banshee or Dark Templar rush. Either you show up and do tons of damage, or you get shut down because your opponent was prepared and are now behind. There isn't much of an inbetween. The thing about the Widow Mine is that the Burrow is just half of the gimmick, the other half is the way it does damage. It does huge damage, but then nothing for 40 seconds...
So either it changes the game with said damage, or you've wasted your resources.
True, but compare the resources you need to spend on them to banshees or dts, its just too low of an investment. Theyre incredibly strong in the early game, and against air harass as well. Especially vs mutas
There's enough solutions posted in the last three weeks to deal with widow mines and still go muta. - Point man muta - Overlord sac
If you still want to enjoy ZOMG MUTAS OWNZ J00 TROLLOLOLOL, feel free to stick with WoL, you won't be missed.
yeah those suggestion that tell you to walk in overseerspeed above ground and tell you to sac 1 muta = 100 gas for 1 mine = 25 gas. and those suggestion that also dont tell that ling bling muta is EXACTLY the same as in WoL while not only widow mine as a counter is new in HOTS but also: medivac healing buff, medivac speedbuff, hellbat raping lings, widow mine raping lings, blings and mutas. so mutaplay would be way harder to do even if widow mine wouldnt hit air, hell even if widow mine wouldnt exist at all ling bling muta would be a lot harder to play because of MMM and hellbat.
You make it sound like its the Terran's fault for Zerg wanting to use outdated builds. I'm sure roach/speedling mid-game BO works real well with oracles out. *sarcasm*
rofl. well thought out argument. so you dont want mutas ever to be used again in ZvT. thats a good argument lol :D
I still think it would be much better as an actual mine that sacrificed itself when it detonates with a lower supply cost. Either a cheap mine for 1 supply or something like zerglings, that you get two for 1 supply.
The current model doesn't make sense as it's just a movable turret and not a mine at all, plus it doesn't balance well with regards to detection. You NEED detection to get rid of the mine now, making one mine delay the third base from zerg too much, plus a mine in front of a wall is too good against zerg early on. Against protoss on the other hand mines just absolutely suck because you trade 1 for 1 at most gaining a small gain but you often just lose the mine without doing anything at all, plus making mines removes your ability to be aggressive at all which is crucial for terran against protoss.
I'd much rather see mines costing 75/50 but you would get two, they would however just die upon detonation doing slightly less damage than now. They would be better against protoss because you're mine often gets killed there anyway plus they would not be as rediculous against zerg early on because you could actually detonate them with lings. Of course a couple changes would be needed, for example hallucinations wouldn't detonate them anymore, but overall it would be a much better design. Making it weaker against zerg early on and buffing it against toss while also retaining some lategame use is what they need. Lower supply is only way to do that.
On December 14 2012 21:35 Markwerf wrote: The current model doesn't make sense as it's just a movable turret and not a mine at all, plus it doesn't balance well with regards to detection. You NEED detection to get rid of the mine now, making one mine delay the third base from zerg too much, plus a mine in front of a wall is too good against zerg early on.
Against protoss on the other hand mines just absolutely suck because you trade 1 for 1 at most gaining a small gain but you often just lose the mine without doing anything at all, plus making mines removes your ability to be aggressive at all which is crucial for terran against protoss.
Board control is the point of a tunneling rocket shooting robot. By your complaint, the unit is successful in its purpose. Congratulations, now deal with it, like Terran dealt with EMP nerf, mana back on Thor nerf, medivac acceleration nerf, etc
The current model doesn't make sense as it's just a movable turret and not a mine at all, plus it doesn't balance well with regards to detection. You NEED detection to get rid of the mine now, making one mine delay the third base from zerg too much, plus a mine in front of a wall is too good against zerg early on.
Ok, I grow tired of this argument. There is no armed forces in the world that would not LOVE to have a reusable, remote controled land mine that they could move on its own. Two of the largest problems with landmines are deploying them and cleaning them up after. SC2 is in the fucking future where the mine no longer needs to be deloyed, it deloys itself.
And the US army would call it a mine, not a burrow rocket launcher or some other dumb name.
It would be very hard to balance since the way you proposed it early game you should be able to kill the spidermines with good micro but only a limited amount of units, that will force the spider mine to have a fairly small amount of hp resulting in them being pretty bad lategame since the damage output of a deathball is so high unless you grant the mines an upgrade for lategame, I don't think they are gonna be useful.
If we want to see how mines can be useful and why they are not useful now, we should look at how they were useful in brood war:
In brood war, mines were planted by vultures and were mostly used in the TvP matchup. Protoss could get observers and it was very easy for them to clear out mine fields. This was not surprising to the terran and it didn't really hurt him that much; the whole point of mines were to slow the advance of the protoss army so that the terran could reposition their slow mech army to confront the protoss in a favorable way. Mines in BW were pretty much disposable.
In HotS, mines are not planted by a unit and are instead a unit themselves that takes up production time and supply. When mines die, it hurts the terran. Production time and resources are lost. The mines are harder to clear out in the early-game because of when they can be produced and their stats, but then become pretty trivial to clear out as the game goes on and higher-tech armies are produced.
The problem is that the widow mine is currently suffering from an identity crisis. If it was supposed to be an army deterrent/mech spacing unit like the spider mine of BW was, then it HAS to be laid by a unit. Mech is already slow to ramp up and taking up valuable factory production time is not good, especially when you have to replace them when they are killed. If they want to keep it as a space control unit for mech, they really need to decide what they are going to do with the hellion, because if they give it the ability to lay mines it will be able to do way too much.
The other identity of the widow mine right now, is an anti-air unit. Since the thor is so bad as mech anti-air, widow mine was added to help with that. However, widow mines anti-air is not good for the game because it is a stealth unit that deals splash damage and air units always clump up. Not to mention its just a wierd mechanic for an air unit because you when you engage you have to burrow your widow mines underneath the attacking air.
I really think that Blizzard has designed themselves into a corner with this one. If they add something like the goliath to deal with mech's anti-air problems then people will complain they are making the game too much like BW, and if they make the widow mine able to be laid from a unit, they will also be making the game too much like BW. So they are stuck in this awkward middle-ground with the widow mine making it a pretty bad unit :/
And the US army would call it a mine, not a burrow rocket launcher or some other dumb name.
The US Army would come up with the most retarded official name you could imagine, like Self-Deploying Automated Explosive Distributor or SDAED. And then the people using it would come up with an affectionate but somewhat ironic nickname, such as calling the robot "Binky." The rest of the military will come up with a normal name for it like Widow which becomes commonplace. And the people it is being used against would give it a name drenched in the blood of those who fell to it, and the rage and fear of facing unfair, uncounterable economic, technological, and military hardware like "spiderbomb" or "manhax."
Anyway, as said earlier, the mine is having an identity crisis about whether it wants to be a lurker or anti-air.
The best way to resolve this problem is to make the mine the lurker (and not hit air units), and to add a terran unit that attacks air units, and is made from the factory. 100% this is the ideal solution, and it was part of the original idea of the Warhound that it would attack air units. At some point it became a mechanical marauder, and was overpowered and boring as hell, and got cut.
Many of these points could apply to other cloaked or burrow type units as well. For example DTs, very strong until the opponent gets detection then pretty weak.
I don't think that by itself is a problem, but the fact that you can lose your whole army from the splash damage they do is. If they lower the splash and it mostly strong single target damage vs "big" units it can be balanced.
And the US army would call it a mine, not a burrow rocket launcher or some other dumb name.
The US Army would come up with the most retarded official name you could imagine, like Self-Deploying Automated Explosive Distributor or SDAED. And then the people using it would come up with an affectionate but somewhat ironic nickname, such as calling the robot "Binky." The rest of the military will come up with a normal name for it like Widow which becomes commonplace. And the people it is being used against would give it a name drenched in the blood of those who fell to it, and the rage and fear of facing unfair, uncounterable economic, technological, and military hardware like "spiderbomb" or "manhax."
Anyway, as said earlier, the mine is having an identity crisis about whether it wants to be a lurker or anti-air.
The best way to resolve this problem is to make the mine the lurker (and not hit air units), and to add a terran unit that attacks air units, and is made from the factory. 100% this is the ideal solution, and it was part of the original idea of the Warhound that it would attack air units. At some point it became a mechanical marauder, and was overpowered and boring as hell, and got cut.
+1
Exception is my belief, Widow mines NEED to hit air, all three races in HoTs now have fast flying things of doom that can come out early enough to roflstomp the mineral line.
Given that it takes at least three bases AND 15 in-game minutes to have a decent uninterrupted production rate, if widow mines can't shoot air, a meching Terran HAS TO have a decent marine count to hold off, mass muta/bling multi-prong (lol, good luck with that). Which is why WoL Terrans have great difficulty going mech due to a HUGE "KICK ME" window in the early-mid game.
And the US army would call it a mine, not a burrow rocket launcher or some other dumb name.
The US Army would come up with the most retarded official name you could imagine, like Self-Deploying Automated Explosive Distributor or SDAED. And then the people using it would come up with an affectionate but somewhat ironic nickname, such as calling the robot "Binky." The rest of the military will come up with a normal name for it like Widow which becomes commonplace. And the people it is being used against would give it a name drenched in the blood of those who fell to it, and the rage and fear of facing unfair, uncounterable economic, technological, and military hardware like "spiderbomb" or "manhax."
Anyway, as said earlier, the mine is having an identity crisis about whether it wants to be a lurker or anti-air.
The best way to resolve this problem is to make the mine the lurker (and not hit air units), and to add a terran unit that attacks air units, and is made from the factory. 100% this is the ideal solution, and it was part of the original idea of the Warhound that it would attack air units. At some point it became a mechanical marauder, and was overpowered and boring as hell, and got cut.
+1
Exception is my belief, Widow mines NEED to hit air, all three races in HoTs now have fast flying things of doom that can come out early enough to roflstomp the mineral line.
Given that it takes at least three bases AND 15 in-game minutes to have a decent uninterrupted production rate, if widow mines can't shoot air, a meching Terran HAS TO have a decent marine count to hold off, mass muta/bling multi-prong (lol, good luck with that). Which is why WoL Terrans have great difficulty going mech due to a HUGE "KICK ME" window in the early-mid game.
Even still, mech is laughable in the late game if you survive that horrendous early/mid game. Super turbo medivac makes you not want to mech anymore due to medvaic just flying straight into your base. You need twice the number of turrets. Zerg has the viper which is damn good against mech and lastly but not least we got protoss....yup dont even need to explain anything here.
Even still, mech is laughable in the late game if you survive that horrendous early/mid game. Super turbo medivac makes you not want to mech anymore due to medvaic just flying straight into your base. You need twice the number of turrets. Zerg has the viper which is damn good against mech and lastly but not least we got protoss....yup dont even need to explain anything here.
I've seen Avilo use WM to good effect by positioning 3-4 WM at the flanks or vikings on patrol.
Even still, mech is laughable in the late game if you survive that horrendous early/mid game. Super turbo medivac makes you not want to mech anymore due to medvaic just flying straight into your base. You need twice the number of turrets. Zerg has the viper which is damn good against mech and lastly but not least we got protoss....yup dont even need to explain anything here.
I've seen Avilo use WM to good effect by positioning 3-4 WM at the flanks or vikings on patrol.
Well I think your refering to TvT and ya I know those are the solution but with the medivac buff mech became much harder since mech got nothing. I am not saying that due to the medvaic buff it became unviable in tvt but because of the medivac buff, mech is less viable now or harder to pull off.
On December 15 2012 04:47 Xanbatou wrote: If we want to see how mines can be useful and why they are not useful now, we should look at how they were useful in brood war:
In brood war, mines were planted by vultures and were mostly used in the TvP matchup. Protoss could get observers and it was very easy for them to clear out mine fields. This was not surprising to the terran and it didn't really hurt him that much; the whole point of mines were to slow the advance of the protoss army so that the terran could reposition their slow mech army to confront the protoss in a favorable way. Mines in BW were pretty much disposable.
In HotS, mines are not planted by a unit and are instead a unit themselves that takes up production time and supply. When mines die, it hurts the terran. Production time and resources are lost. The mines are harder to clear out in the early-game because of when they can be produced and their stats, but then become pretty trivial to clear out as the game goes on and higher-tech armies are produced.
The problem is that the widow mine is currently suffering from an identity crisis. If it was supposed to be an army deterrent/mech spacing unit like the spider mine of BW was, then it HAS to be laid by a unit. Mech is already slow to ramp up and taking up valuable factory production time is not good, especially when you have to replace them when they are killed. If they want to keep it as a space control unit for mech, they really need to decide what they are going to do with the hellion, because if they give it the ability to lay mines it will be able to do way too much.
The other identity of the widow mine right now, is an anti-air unit. Since the thor is so bad as mech anti-air, widow mine was added to help with that. However, widow mines anti-air is not good for the game because it is a stealth unit that deals splash damage and air units always clump up. Not to mention its just a wierd mechanic for an air unit because you when you engage you have to burrow your widow mines underneath the attacking air.
I really think that Blizzard has designed themselves into a corner with this one. If they add something like the goliath to deal with mech's anti-air problems then people will complain they are making the game too much like BW, and if they make the widow mine able to be laid from a unit, they will also be making the game too much like BW. So they are stuck in this awkward middle-ground with the widow mine making it a pretty bad unit :/
I agree with you completely.
I started a topic about my views on the widow mine yesterday, but a mod decided it wasn't a good topic for discussion (lol) and moved it to blogs.
The design progress of the widow mine has been all over the place. It started out as a quite good concept as a high area damage one-time-use mine. The problem was the countdown timer of 10s , lol. The intentions was to make it ineffective as a combat unit while also not being massable to prevent abuse. The 2 supply and 10s timers helped in this regard.
Now it mostly makes sense to only use mines as a combat unit, especially in the later stages of the game. A lack of a clear design and enough confidence and resolve to push the unit where it needs to be has caused the mine to end up where it is currently.
In the following discussion to my 'blog' post I came with a clear suggestion how to improve the widow mine. Here it goes:
I will follow Blizzard's intentions to have it as a standalone unit. This means it has to be able to move itself and relocate. I will give the unit 0 supply but make it cost 50 minerals each with a 40s build time from a factory. This prevents early mine abuse and requires the player to invest in extra factories for mine production. This balances out the 0 supply. It can be reactored. The mine is now a suicide unit, does hit cloaked unit but no longer hits air units. The single target damage is removed but the splash damage is increased to 100 to all units, even friendly, within a 2.5 radius. The range is reduced to 3. The first enemy unit that comes within 5 range of a mine is lit up with a red laser dot and a buzzing sound it heard but the mine is not revealed. This gives the unit cool charateristics and warns the enemy to avoid the mine. The attack is a bit delayed so you get the chance to split units or put the targeted unit close to an enemy unit.
The 0 supply cost makes minefields away from your army viable now. In fact, the increased splash damage makes you think twice about having mines with your army.
The widow mine being easy to deal with even with detection is simply not true. I don't know if your playing against GMs, but I would love to see how you deal with widow mines in their current state against GM. They are insanely good in the late game.
I agree with what the OP says, but I feel like he is also overcomplicating this issue. The fact of the matter is the entire concept of the widow mine is imbalanced. (I am a zerg player so the only matchup I care about / am talking about is ZvT) People are saying things like "the widow mine is a positional control unit". But really what the widow mine is a counter to everything that is zerg. corruptors trying to defend broods from vikings..make widow mines, Muta harass... make widow mines... Mass Ling...make widow mines...zerg trying to take a fast third without gas... make widow mines.. The ONLY situation in TvZ where make widow mines is not at least part of a good solution is if zerg was going mass overseer hydralisk with the range upgrade, which would get destroyed by everything else the terran has....
Its almost like Dustin Browder was making a list of every complaint that Terran players have ever had about TvZ and then was like hey why dont we just make one unit that fixes everything for terran players.
Now I am not denying that there are ways to micro and beat widow mines etc.. but isn't this the same discussion we had about the infestor.... people were like "its not that infestor is so overpowered its just that there was no downside to just building a mass amount of infestors in any situation no matter what". Isn't that exactly what the widow mine is now..that no matter what the situation is, (in tvz) getting widow mines
If you dont agree with me, before you just flame my post, please watch some pro terran players (like ryung) use widow mines, and watch how every single game he plays is heavily influenced by whether or not he has widow mines with 20 kills on them.
Do other zerg players agree with me? Am I crazy? I feel like this unit is just as overpowered as the infestor, except there is no micro required to use it except for burrowing it and unburrowing it.
Widow mines give a Thor based army some splash, and can soften up the air enough to allow Thors to clean up an air composition. Widow mine also allows Thors to retreat from a position without getting chased down and picked off. I don't think a tank heavy composition properly leverages the mine mechanic because you can't retreat fluidly, and you can't screen the mines while they are getting into position without taking massive friendly fire. Thors do really well with a pack of mines leading an aggressive move.
In order to be effective, positional units have to be STRONG. You are trading mobility and flexibility for absolute strength.
People who complain that units like BW siege tanks, or mines in HOTS are very effective against lots of things simply don't understand that you don't actually have to attack directly into these units. Widow mines are useless if you just don't go near them, and they are useless if you have the forces to clear them up if there are no supporting enemy units.
This is mitigated somewhat with the burrow upgrade, when terran players can actually run mines quite close to enemy units and burrow, but I think this should be changed.
On December 17 2012 12:21 ledarsi wrote: In order to be effective, positional units have to be STRONG. You are trading mobility and flexibility for absolute strength.
People who complain that units like BW siege tanks, or mines in HOTS are very effective against lots of things simply don't understand that you don't actually have to attack directly into these units. Widow mines are useless if you just don't go near them, and they are useless if you have the forces to clear them up if there are no supporting enemy units.
This is mitigated somewhat with the burrow upgrade, when terran players can actually run mines quite close to enemy units and burrow, but I think this should be changed.
Lol just dont go near the widow mine he says. The point is the widow mine HAS flexibility and mobility (with the upgrade), they can attack air and ground, so they dont need any support at all after they are burrowed. Spider mines in bw were positional control units, but they could be taken out with detection and air units, so they required that you use them in an intelligent way with support or else they could just be cleaned up no problem. Once a widow mine is burrowed in HOTS, on its own there is no way it is just dealt with easily. Even if you have detection and (keep in mind the only thing that is cost effective that zerg has to deal with widow mines is hydras with range because they outrange mines) units to deal with it, it still requires a lot of care and attention. This effectively means that zerg does not have any kind of decent answer to widow mines until well into lair tech, while the widow mine is available much much earlier than that.
and i forgot to add in my previous post that above all the widow mine is cloaked so now whenever terran has a factory on the map, which as we all know is a very rare occurrence, it means that terran basically has map control until you get overseer + hydras. Its obvious that a giant siege tank line is something that you can just avoid. But please explain to me how that is anything like having a cloaked unit that counters everything except for overseer + hydra that you can build with no tech whatsoever.
yes thats my point you are agreeing with me right? I mean think about it in the early game, any kind of factory opening, as zerg you just cant be active with groups of lings anymore to get map control. It doesnt even matter if the terran actually makes widow mines, because all your lings are dead if they do until you have detection. So even if they dont make widow mines just the fact that they can make them completely changes the way zerg have to play.
On December 13 2012 02:14 blarkh wrote: I have a whacky idea that noone seems to have come up with yet. I'm really not sure what the consequences would be, but I figure it would be even more rewarding micro wise. What do you think would happen if Widow Mines weren't cloaked?
You'd have to increase the range of the unit to 6 in order to stop Stalkers and Marauders from clearing them out, but at least a non-cloaked Widow Mine wouldn't be as much as a hard counter to Banshees, Medivacs and Mutalisks if all they did was deter flight paths instead of hard counter air play by virtue of having a surprise and first stike advantage.
The problem tho' is that it becomes very easy for a Zergling to just dance by and activate all of them, so maybe you'd have to give them the option to turn off auto-fire again?
I feel the current widow mine is fine the way it is, except for the priming time. It should be lowered for it's supply and cost to encourage more usage late game since the AI can be easily abused with more experienced players. As for other suggestions, having a single use mine may not be that good since, it's usefulness is reduced even further because the presence of a priming mine can still encourage investment in detection and fear of moving out before clearing the unarmed mine.
this is what I am thinking when it comes to the widow mine
-Delay from when mine is triggered to when the pay load hits increased by X amount of time. (consideration: buffing the mine to compensate for this nerf) reasoning: It is unreasonable for fast units to always have slow detectors lagging behind them just because of the threat that they could move over a mine field at any time. For example even if you always paired a flock of mutalisks with an overseer the overseer is much slower then the mutalisks even if it has the speed upgrade, meaning just the threat that widow mines can exist will slows down the mutalisk flock to only move at the speed of an overseer, therefore negating the point of the mutalisk's high speed. Alternatively you could rolls the dice and hope the terran didn't make mines or placed them poorly but why bother when it is safer to just make a slow ass death ball that can easily have detection keep up with it. In conclusion making the delay between trigger and hit being much slower allows your more speedy units to safely move around assuming you have the awareness and micro skills needed to pull back out of range or focus fire the second you trigger the mine.
-alternative way to solve this issue is to make the mine somewhat visible when borrowed. A detector should still be needed to actually attack the mine tho. reasoning: This clearly works by letting you just avoid the mine and judge if it good to attack or not.