Balance Test Map First off, we wanted to give a big thanks to everyone who participated in testing and provided feedback on the balance test map. We are leaning towards finalizing the below changes, but wanted one last round of feedback and testing from our community.
Terran Widow Mine Splash damage +shield bonus reduced from +40 to +25.
Zerg Hydralisk Health increased from 80 to 90.
Corruptor Movement speed changed from 4.1343 to 4.725. Acceleration speed changed from 3.675 to 4.2. Parasite Spore weapon damage point changed from .1193 to .0446. Assuming that no issues arise, we’ll implement these changes in an upcoming patch.
Reaper Openers in TvZ We have been keeping an eye on Reaper openings in the TvZ matchup and we think some tweaks may be needed here to keep terran from gaining too much advantage in the early game. We are currently thinking that the offensive capabilities of the unit could be reduced a bit, and that changes to the KD8 Charge ability would be a good way to accomplish this. Some options that we have discussed are increasing the cooldown of the ability, or changing the ability to no longer damage structures to increase the effectiveness of static defense options. As always, let us know your thoughts. Ideally this change should be minor enough that we won’t need to add it to the balance test map and can be pushed straight to live.
Widow mine
Poll: Splash damage +shield bonus reduced from +40 to +25
Good (556)
50%
Bad (432)
39%
Undecided/Don't care much (130)
12%
1118 total votes
Your vote: Splash damage +shield bonus reduced from +40 to +25
(Vote): Good (Vote): Bad (Vote): Undecided/Don't care much
Hydralisk
Poll: Health increased from 80 to 90.
Good (478)
53%
Bad (307)
34%
Undecided/Don't care much (120)
13%
905 total votes
Your vote: Health increased from 80 to 90.
(Vote): Good (Vote): Bad (Vote): Undecided/Don't care much
Corruptor
Poll: Movement speed changed from 4.1343 to 4.725.
Bad (404)
46%
Good (365)
42%
Undecided/Don't care much (102)
12%
871 total votes
Your vote: Movement speed changed from 4.1343 to 4.725.
(Vote): Good (Vote): Bad (Vote): Undecided/Don't care much
Poll: Acceleration speed changed from 3.675 to 4.2.
Good (408)
56%
Bad (235)
32%
Undecided/Don't care much (84)
12%
727 total votes
Your vote: Acceleration speed changed from 3.675 to 4.2.
(Vote): Good (Vote): Bad (Vote): Undecided/Don't care much
Poll: Parasite Spore weapon damage point changed from .1193 to .0446.
Good (343)
48%
Bad (204)
28%
Undecided/Don't care much (174)
24%
721 total votes
Your vote: Parasite Spore weapon damage point changed from .1193 to .0446.
(Vote): Good (Vote): Bad (Vote): Undecided/Don't care much
On February 24 2017 07:43 Tyrhanius wrote: I wonder if corruptors buildings harass will become a thing with the speed boost
Not harass. Basetrade. You need at least 6 corruptor to meaningfully damage, quite a lot of supply to dedicate to (and a waste if you are facing ground based composition). And the change changed the acceleration more than velocity (ie they turn sharper but still slower than pheonix/muta/boosted vacs)
Disclamer: I mostly play carriers.
That aside, if they really intend to buff hydras this way and make 1 storm not enough to kill hydras (combined with the speed boost on creep), I wonder how Protosses like me going to match up with it. I personally believe if we lower the upgrade time hydra timing will be sharper and kill most carrier builds before they happen. The economy change has already eliminated several stargate-based timings from HotS. The current "normal" builds of Protoss absolutely requires some sort of pressure to take a third. This new hydra is just roach 2.0 in many ways.
I don't believe the widow mine change is warranted or going to make much a difference.
We'll see how the mine nerf goes. From all I hear, top Korean Terrans are already very unhappy about the state of the match-up, well rather the metagame, specifically the adept (which will be the number #1 beneficiary of the change).
I'm not sure the hydra buff does much and I'm not sure buffing corruptor speed and increasing its DPS is the right way to go about addressing Zerg AA issues. But corruptors moving faster than stimmed marines will probably be hilarious to watch.
I've been in favor of a reaper change since forever. It's so restrictive to map design now. Anything that could have potentially been a good macro map is in danger of being reaperfied in TvZ (and to an extent TvT, although less than before 3.8).
Imo they should wait to see how the liberator nerf affects the mu before doing another patch. Weird that they do another nerf so shortly after the first one, TvP doesn't seem to be that t favored anymore from what I've seen. Also I'd prefer the liberator being nerfed even further or even removed.
Also the corruptor buff is pretty significant for tvz because it makes it much easier to chase medivacs for corruptors. Overall I dislike this patch.
On February 24 2017 07:54 Odowan Paleolithic wrote: That aside, if they really intend to buff hydras this way and make 1 storm not enough to kill hydras (combined with the speed boost on creep), I wonder how Protosses like me going to match up with it.
Old shool phoenix into colossus maybe, a bit like PvT, hydras are not that different from marines, and you don't need stalkers to deal with liberator, so you can invest into more adept/chargelots that are great vs light.
If lurkers, go to disruptors or just a big engage with a lot of adept/chargelots and lift lurkers with phoenix.
I really fear mass adept phoenix style that stats used vs innovation if widowmine splash nerf goes through. Even though it is right to nerf this. I dont want to be overrun by this strat. Maybe something else needs to be adjusted then.
from a design standpoint, mine nerf vs shield and hydra hp buff are great, but i don't like the corruptor speed buff, we really don't need more fast units in the game
Parasite Spore weapon damage point changed from .1193 to .0446.
This is a buff, right?
yeah, dmg point is the delay between the attack order and the attack itself, it's very low for marines and high for hellions, that's why marines can stutter step and hellions can't.
so this buff the corruptor's ability to kite stuff
We'll see how the mine nerf goes. From all I hear, top Korean Terrans are already very unhappy about the state of the match-up, well rather the metagame
What a surprise that people are unhappy with the state of the meta. Is it, the 500th time now?
On February 24 2017 08:30 -NegativeZero- wrote: from a design standpoint, mine nerf vs shield and hydra hp buff are great, but i don't like the corruptor speed buff, we really don't need more fast units in the game
i agree and i just don't want air units strengthened in the game. and any time a ground based anti-air unit gets buffed ( like hte Hydralisk ) i'm happy. i guess can tolerate the Corruptor speed buff if it must happen because its primarily an air superiority fighter.
please consider nerfing the cooldown on the Reaper's Mine.
The GSL has been great. I'm really proud of my Tournament Trophies!
On February 24 2017 08:33 Gwavajuice wrote: I always found unintuitive that reaper's grenade could hit buildings. I wouldn't mind this change implemented.
The thing is, I don't think it really accomplishes the point. Basically, the anti-structure nerf helps making sure people don't outright die to 3-rax. But most people already don't. They fall (far) behind and eventually die to one of the follow-up attacks because they played from behind. Zergs stay on low drone count against mass reapers because they need attacking units, you can't afford to drone until you reach an amount of units you're comfortable with. You're already falling behind in economy. In that situation making a spine isn't going make you fall behind less.
I guess you could argue that making a spine that can't be killed by grenades would allow you to get away with less units to cover your bases. But A), optimally, you want to have enough units to kill the reapers, not just deter them, and B), a single spine isn't that scary.
Parasite Spore weapon damage point changed from .1193 to .0446.
This is a buff, right?
yeah, dmg point is the delay between the attack order and the attack itself, it's very low for marines and high for hellions, that's why marines can stutter step and hellions can't. so this buff the corruptor's ability to kite stuff
We'll see how the mine nerf goes. From all I hear, top Korean Terrans are already very unhappy about the state of the match-up, well rather the metagame
What a surprise that people are unhappy with the state of the meta. Is it, the 500th time now?
diverse race RTS games with more than 2 races take a long time to balance. LotV received a substantial reset after BlizzCon 2016. So its going to take a while.
i'm just happy Blizzard continues to commit resources to the game in the face of ATVI's biggest revenue quarter in its history and announcing 5% layoffs. We're damn fucking lucky Morhaime runs the show.
On February 24 2017 07:34 Drfilip wrote: It looked like nobody had made a TL post about this, so I made this. I hope it is good enough.
i'm too old, lazy and slow to make TL threads. Thx for making this one.
What an odd time to decide reapers need to be addressed. Maybe it is because ByuN was eliminated in the round of 32 in GSL and I haven't been watching too many small cups, but I haven't seen them be abused that much in the professional scene lately. They should have announced they were nerfing reapers during the middle of ByuN vs Dark at Blizzcon, but they probably didn't want to delegitimize ByuN's win.
PvT will be 70% for P if the patch goes through and P receives no nerf. The mine and lib nerf are sound design wise but cumulating both will make T vastly underpowered vs P. A nerf to adepts and maybe prisms will be needed.
I'm ok with the hydra change. The corruptor change seems silly and I don't like to have yet another unit move at the speed of sound but some progamers seemed happy about the change and to see the corruptor become easier to maneuver. So I reserve my judgement on that one.
The changes do look good. I hate widow mines in general so I'm glad to see it gets nerfed. However, I wonder if the change is a bit too much. +40 down to +25. Maybe down to only +30 would be better.
I am ok with the corrupter buff simply because the unit might be more fun to use at that point. That's the important part, fun and rewarding good players over bad players. No idea if it does anything balance wise though (against carriers), probably not.
I don't care about the hp buff on the hydra, it's lazy and doesn't improve the game at all.
The mine buff against shields was a bandaid in the first place. So sure design wise the nerf is good. Balance wise it has to be seen. Adepts might be a problem as others have mentioned.
About reapers: Why does the reaper have grenades in the first place? I don't think there is a good reason for that.
On February 24 2017 09:47 The_Red_Viper wrote: I am ok with the corrupter buff simply because the unit might be more fun to use at that point. That's the important part, fun and rewarding good players over bad players. No idea if it does anything balance wise though (against carriers), probably not.
won't it make Corruptors more useful against the Phoenix?
It would be best if they changed reapers to instead have more long term value. They have by far the least value outside of the mid-game for any gas intensive unit in the game. Their mobility, regen, and grenade ability to harass as well as slow down pushes makes them strong, but once the mid-game comes around, they just are too fragile and have too short of range to be efficient. Maybe if they intend to nerf this unit, they should compensate it with something that will give it more value in the mid-game. (Remember when they changed the sentry to have hallucination without upgrading first? ~ similar situation)
Maybe make the grenade stronger but make it a tech lab upgrade? I'm not totally sure what the right call is but I will say unable to damage structures would be a bad move. In TvZ, spines are relatively cheap in the early game compared 3 rax which cost minerals AND gas. Depending on the map, you'd need AT MOST 2 spines per base. By the time they finish, reapers most certainly will be shut down. They don't do that much damage against enemies that are not light and as I explained earlier, don't have potential to do much afterwards.
But in my personal opinion, a 3 rax isn't too difficult to deal with as zerg and there are multiple ways of dealing with it. For anyone that is struggling, if you respond with roaches, then it is best to morph them to ravagers. This allows you to get a beefy unit (that is also faster than a roach) and spend less LARVA. With speed-lings, (which remember are faster than reapers) you will want to only engage reapers with queens until the point in which you know have enough lings to surround and kill the reapers. Even though you spend more larva fighting them with lings (you also probably have less drones than if you made roach/ravager), you have more potential to catch up to and kill the reapers. A good terran will be active enough to always run from roach/ravager while you're defensive, and counter attack if you push out. With both of these strats, constant queens production is essential.
All changes look great. Corrupters have been such a horrible anti air unit because of their slowness and I can't wait to see if this will change anything vs skytoss which has been untouchable for so long - though there's a high possiblity void rays arons and storm still just floor corrupters but perhaps it's possible to micro better out of storm and vs prasmitic alignment with these changes.
On February 24 2017 10:24 Exquisite7 wrote: In TvZ, spines are relatively cheap in the early game compared 3 rax which cost minerals AND gas. Depending on the map, you'd need AT MOST 2 spines per base. By the time they finish, reapers most certainly will be shut down. They don't do that much damage against enemies that are not light and as I explained earlier, don't have potential to do much afterwards.
But in my personal opinion, a 3 rax isn't too difficult to deal with as zerg and there are multiple ways of dealing with it. For anyone that is struggling, if you respond with roaches, then it is best to morph them to ravagers. This allows you to get a beefy unit (that is also faster than a roach) and spend less LARVA. With speed-lings, (which remember are faster than reapers) you will want to only engage reapers with queens until the point in which you know have enough lings to surround and kill the reapers. Even though you spend more larva fighting them with lings (you also probably have less drones than if you made roach/ravager), you have more potential to catch up to and kill the reapers. A good terran will be active enough to always run from roach/ravager while you're defensive, and counter attack if you push out. With both of these strats, constant queens production is essential.
I am sorry but you probably never played zerg before. Making 2-4 spines for defending reapers is SO expensive and you fall behind by just making them. I watched tons of 3 rax reaper unfortunately because its been around for a year now. I can easily say that speedling & queen defence has significantly more success rate than roaches, both in pro scene and my master 1 ladder experience. Making early roaches makes you fall behind just like spines so it doesn't even matter if you hold the reapers or not(except if its proxy reapers). Reaper granade doesn't contribute anyting positive to the game and should be removed.
On February 24 2017 11:08 xTJx wrote: Been asking this for months and once again: Why does reaper need the grenade to begin with?
Maybe because its hard for design team to accept the fact that their idea was really stupid. Just like invincible nydus and warp prism range. Well, at least tanks don't fly anymore.
On February 24 2017 08:33 Gwavajuice wrote: I always found unintuitive that reaper's grenade could hit buildings. I wouldn't mind this change implemented.
The thing is, I don't think it really accomplishes the point. Basically, the anti-structure nerf helps making sure people don't outright die to 3-rax. But most people already don't. They fall (far) behind and eventually die to one of the follow-up attacks because they played from behind. Zergs stay on low drone count against mass reapers because they need attacking units, you can't afford to drone until you reach an amount of units you're comfortable with. You're already falling behind in economy. In that situation making a spine isn't going make you fall behind less.
I guess you could argue that making a spine that can't be killed by grenades would allow you to get away with less units to cover your bases. But A), optimally, you want to have enough units to kill the reapers, not just deter them, and B), a single spine isn't that scary.
I suppose it won't kill creep tumors either, which could be huge in early game....
On February 24 2017 11:41 ilikeredheads wrote: Ro8 GSL has shown how stupid mass adepts phoenix with warp prism is, so I think the widow mine nerf is overkill.
how many TvP games have occurred so far in the GSL RO8? 5?
Hydralisk buff + Corruptor buff: many happy Zergs!
Mine nerf: PvT will probably start leaning toward Protoss again? Phoenix-Adept might become the go-to after this patch. It will be also interesting to see how well Chargelot openings might fare after this change.
Reaper nerf: some people are saying that since one of the reasons people don't make static-d against triple rax reapers is because the grenades demolish static-d (on top of the mobility of reapers), it would be interesting to see how well static-d work out against triple rax reapers if the KD8 grenade doesn't do damage to structures anymore. This is definitely an out-of-the-box idea (since it looks so bad on paper), it might be interesting if this somehow proves to be a sufficient change.
I am skeptical that the implementation of the widow mine nerf will "fix" or balance the PvT matchup. I actually tend to foresee it drastically swinging the MU into Protoss' favour due to the recent Liberator nerf.
Well thanks i guess blizz. Good thing 3.8 made mech viable ! Corru/hydra buff is the nail in the coffin for mech TvZ, and while mechVP was getting interesting, mine nerf makes it obsolete. So back to bio every game? Great.
Buff zerg. I like it, totally. Nerf mines. I don't think that is makes sense. They are so random sometimes. Reaper. How about to take away grenades from start and make it as upgrade in a tech lab? it's gives more time, and not so annoying. Barrack -> Reaper -> Tech lab -> Grenade upgrade (xx sec + xx minerals/xx gas).
I agree with Classic, nerf Widow mine, as he said, they have too high damage for the cost. The terran doesnt even feel the hurt from losing widow mines because they are so cheap. ie. increase their cost or decrease their damage.
On February 24 2017 08:04 Charoisaur wrote: Imo they should wait to see how the liberator nerf affects the mu before doing another patch. Weird that they do another nerf so shortly after the first one, TvP doesn't seem to be that t favored anymore from what I've seen. Also I'd prefer the liberator being nerfed even further or even removed.
Also the corruptor buff is pretty significant for tvz because it makes it much easier to chase medivacs for corruptors. Overall I dislike this patch.
On February 24 2017 13:02 Togekiss wrote: I am skeptical that the implementation of the widow mine nerf will "fix" or balance the PvT matchup. I actually tend to foresee it drastically swinging the MU into Protoss' favour due to the recent Liberator nerf.
These changes are entire irrelevant to the issues that have plagued SC2 since the swarmhost patch.
My post from the previous update still applies:
On February 11 2017 11:55 avilo wrote: Same thing i wrote in every previous community update thread from months ago still applies as the developers still leave many unaddressed balance issues in the game in favor of doing things completely irrelevant or flat out wrong like buffing hydras or nerfing more mech units (mines vs P).
So i think people really need to see that it really is MONTHS as usual since the last patch that actually did anything to this game. The rest of the updates are flat out bullshit PR from blizzard and an excuse to not actually iterate and patch their game.
Everything i've written over the past months (and years) still applies today to why SC2 has fallen as an e-sport and will continue to until people start calling out blizzard for their bullshit and get them to replace their lead balance dev with someone that knows the game much better.
On January 17 2017 04:20 avilo wrote: Mech still worse on the "mech patch" than it ever has been. Swarmhosts currently are worse than the old ridiculous swarmhost that took over the game.
Virtually zero mech games at pro level. And if the Z knows about how to abuse swarmhosts it's always a loss.
On January 23 2017 02:46 PharaphobiaSC wrote: No wonder they don't talk to anyone from the community... SC2 might dodged the toxicity bullet (which is being raised Avilo anyway), but it is the most negative community in the gaming industry.
There is nothing that Blizzard can do because it's double edge sword, u satisfy one ppl and 10 other started flaming and being vocal.
At this point I'm glad they keep the money and casual updates rolling. But I would not be suprised that one day someone retired from Blizzard will publicly agrees with me with fact that working with this community which is like 95% negative about anything Blizz came with was "pain in the a*s"
I started playing in late hots, but I still belive the main source of problem for SC2 is the diversed and negative community..
P.S: I'm glad that at least BW guys working together and are somehow united and I wish same thing would happen to SC2 but at this point I almost lost all the hope
I disagree with this, because ever since LotV beta, they have not even had a guiding light for their own game. They aren't working towards a design goal. This isn't growing pains. They have never worked on a solution to the problems. They don't have a long term plan.
They are simply trying to deal with balance issues as they come, and dealing these PR updates every week, disguised as working with the community, when in reality they do whatever they want in the end anyway.
The straw that broke the camels back was in LotV beta when the lead designer straight up said that he chose against the better design of the game in order to please "some people in the community that has a false perception". Its his JOB to give us the best damn design he is capable of. And he intentionally made the choice against doing that.
Since then, they have never came back on track. They promise us major "design" changes, and give us a half baked balance update where most the changes are reverted in the end anyway. They don't have any long term plan at all, and that's destined to fail.
Sorry, but there's no way in hell I'm going to support a development team that does not even take the time to develop a solid plan for the games future. I gave them more money than I should have, and will not be giving them anymore unless they somehow regain strong leadership. This team has proven their not capable. The leader designer did not give us the best design he could, and when that happens, everything else underneath falls apart.
You can say it's just "negativity in the community", but the level of incompetence that this team has shown, is unlike anything I've ever seen out of Blizzard. Ever.
Yep, exactly. It's not the community being negative in response to changes. It's the community responding to terrible change, after change, after change that doesn't impact the game or address blatant issues.
Enough with the SJW: SC2 edition please. If someone is doing a terrible job call them out on it.
Why are swarmhosts not addressed yet after the "mech viability" patch? Invincible nydus? 8 armor ultras left in game for 1+ yr. Warp prism pick-up? Parasitic bomb? Mass ravens? 3 rax reaper?
List goes on. We've gone in circles for years now. Myself, you, others have tried the nice guy lovey dovey approach MANY a time. It falls on deaf ears and every now and then SC2 blizzard will simply put out a "PR community update" that essentially says a whole of of nothing and then they do a whole lot of nothing.
How else should the community respond when the updates/patches are infrequent as hell and when they do come up they always miss the mark every time?
This game has no direction in terms of balance and it hasn't for years. The fact we're all destined to watch the same 16 marine drop game ever since the swarmhost patch proves they have no idea what they're doing and a refusal to listen and acknowledge the problems.
I mean if it wasn't clear enough that they don't want to listen - i was banned from the battle.net forums for posting feedback about 3 rax reaper a while ago because they don't want your feedback or mine anymore. They (meaning dkim?) will patch balance as they see fit, regardless if the entire community wants things like mech viability for years.
That is the honest to god truth. It's depressing, but oh well.
The most recent "huge game update" for "mech viability" made mech worse than it ever has been and should more appropriately be called the "swarm host patch."
A lot of other people that play mech have tried for years to ask for mech viability and this entire last 1-2 months try to get blizzard to acknowledge swarmhosts are ridiculous vs mech atm. Still no word after 3 community updates. How do we even know some of the developers play their own game atm or get feedback from playtesters when they don't even acknowledge how ridiculous swarmhosts are?
On January 20 2017 11:04 avilo wrote: Are people really fine with blizzard completely ignoring the absurdity of swarmhosts and carriers while simultaneously saying they are going to nerf 3 mech units? @_@ i mean come on..."mech viability" right...
On January 20 2017 05:01 avilo wrote: I really just wanna write my post as a one liner and write: "the developers don't play their own game anymore."
But i guess i'll just elaborate as usual and write the same post i have for over 1+ yr now of problems that have not been addressed with the game and the latest problems / balance issues that aren't addressed:
-carriers too strong, interceptor cost needs revert -3 rax reaper coinflip is still in the game for some reason -invulnerable nydus worm still in the game -new swarmhost is ridiculously broken versus both protoss and mech -infestor burrow cast is perma cloak....that needs to be reverted -baneling buff way over the top, unneeded -BC teleport cooldown way too low -tempest still an oppressive lategame unit vs all races -warp prism pick-up range is still too much
Those are issues that need looking at. The priority being swarmhosts and carriers.
It's absurd to me that the update jay wilson I MEAN david kim just put out says nothing about addressing swarmhosts, and then in the same post wants to simultaneously nerf TWO MECH UNITS ROFL.
Mech was made near unplayable on patch 3.8 because of swarmhost/carrier. Now they wanna nerf tanks and mines for no reason? Disgusting.
On January 17 2017 04:20 avilo wrote: Mech still worse on the "mech patch" than it ever has been. Swarmhosts currently are worse than the old ridiculous swarmhost that took over the game.
Virtually zero mech games at pro level. And if the Z knows about how to abuse swarmhosts it's always a loss.
On December 09 2016 14:51 avilo wrote: Every game vs Zergs that know how to abuse is them massing 100% swarmhost. Not that fun. I have a 75% winrate vs Protoss massing pure swarmhost off 2 base. There is nothing the opponent can do to respond because i swarmhost bomb a base, and then escape thru nydus network and keep doing it till they die.
Worst patch in history of Sc2. i mean curropter buff? cmooon. widow need no nerf, liberator need no nerf. maby hydra is ok but shittyy patch. / protoss
why don't you remove disruptor? it's kind of op...it can kill bunch of army without expense. i really hate all-kill unit like burrowed fungal infester/disruptor/widowmine/high templar/cheap banelings. they take tension away from the game scene. and nerf phoenix. it is disaster to T and Z. before corrupter came out pheonix can kill so many drones that zerg die of hunger. and they can destroy terran units with combination of adept. unless you nerf pheonix, dont nerf widowmine. it is only hope for terran.
On February 24 2017 13:02 Togekiss wrote: I am skeptical that the implementation of the widow mine nerf will "fix" or balance the PvT matchup. I actually tend to foresee it drastically swinging the MU into Protoss' favour due to the recent Liberator nerf.
Widow Mine Splash damage +shield bonus reduced from +40 to +25.
Honestly this is not severe enough. I think most of us agree that HotS was quite balanced even though it suffered from some design issues. Mb the balance suffered a bit, when they decided to destroy the Swarm Host, but overall this era of SC2 was the most balanced. In Korea the master race was Protoss, they pretty much dominated actually. With players like Stats, herO, Zest, sOs, Parting, Rain, Myungsik, Classic, Patience, Trap, Dear and more, though at a tier below. Right now who're there? Stats? sOs? herO? okay..and Terran dominate PvT. Innovation was never a great TvP player honestly, he's a master at TvZ and TvT, but his TvP has always had huge weakness against cheesy play, or to getting P R O T O S S E D as twitch/reddit would say. Whenever TvP favours Terran there Innovation is again winning everything. Lets say PvT is currently 42% for Protoss right now on Aligulac, it shouldn't be far off, but it seems that this community would rather keep a 42% for Protoss winrate than a 51% for Protoss. Even though 51% would suggest better balance. The issue with TvP IMO is that Terran has both the stronger straight-up-fighting capabilities AND the surperior mobile force. Usually in Starcraft 2 we see a strong dynamic with one player going for the stronger immobile composition and the other player going for a much faster mobile composition and utilizes counter-attacks as a means to delay the mobile composition until eventually his explosive economy wins, equals or loses to the greater efficiency in trading from the immobile composition.
Blizzard seems determined to do the changes which impacts the game the least in terms of gameplay, while fixing the issues of balance and this patch is exactly that. I would like that instead they should try and fix the problems the game faces in terms of being frustrating, while also fixing the balance. So here's some changes I would like and you can agree or disagree with the changes, but I think the approach is important to look at.
Liberator: *Requires Tech Lab. *AG damage increased from 75->85. *AA damage increased from 5->7.
Widow Mine: *Shields damage removed from Primary target and Splash. *Now deals +35 Mechanical damage to the Primary target.
So for one it's a 'bundles' change, meaning that we change up multiple things at the same time that compliment each other. Banshee's not requiring Tech Lab would be a huge problem in TvT, if it was the only thing we considered changing, but because it's a bundles change we have already accounted for that. Widow Mines now deal 160 dmg vs Mechanical units, so we've made the counter already. Banshees would probably still be very strong, but it is TvT and they've always had a huge impact, Widow Mines merely is here to save the day, so that it doesn't become a Banshee fest. Mb people will open Ravens+Banshees now, so that the small squad can scour around killing off Widow Mines. Furthermore 160 vs Mechanical Widow Mines would be the answer to all the doom dropping shenanigans that we see and that derail the matchup from a beautiful chess game into YOLO madness.
People can already see that this suggested patch would have a huge balance change up in TvP and it might even make Protoss favoured, I'm not one to say. I will say though that the strongest composition for Protoss after this change would probably be Phoenix+Adepts, which is already a very strong composition. Now the question comes, is it okay for this composition to reign over the matchup, if it's still somewhat close to 50%? It would make it so that Protoss is now surperior when it comes to the mobile compositions, since the Widow Mine doesn't make it so that Adepts fall off heavily when we enter the mid-later stages of the game. Furthermore Chargelots are now reintroduced to the matchup and along with that comes the High Templar, be it in the form of Archons or through Storm Tech. We honestly don't know how Terran would play out if this change would go through, would Terran significantly slow down and make the slow invincible army of death? I think it would be pretty interesting, it could also be that Terrans would just go Maru style and try and end it before Storm+Chargelots hit. Anyways it's all speculative and unless we try it out on a test map it's rough to tell. Banshees could become a strong opener in TvP that players can mix in, which would be really interesting, though it will never become mainstay simply because of the Phoenix. Liberators go back to 2 shotting Stalkers, but you cannot have a single reactored Star Port, or 2 for that matter that pump out Medivacs/Vikings/Liberators for your hearts content any longer. I think 2 Star Ports pumping out 4x Liberators every 43 second is way too much and I think Terran is too favoured when it comes to this stage of the game. With Tech Lab requirement Terran slowly climbs towards the kill all army, but it is a kill all army. I think it's kind of cool to have Terran have the super strong late game with Liberators, Battlecruisers and Ghosts, but the climb is so fast with Reactored Liberators and so strong that it never even gets to Battlecruisers and even Ghosts.
TvZ is the matchup I know the least about. 2 Starport Banshee is an actual build, though probably not too strong. Even though it becomes 1 Starport with a Reactor, you still cannot Research Cloak at the same time, since that would require a Teb Lab, it would change some timings up though. Liberators will have to be used a lot more diligently, since you cannot simply spam them anymore. It's legitimately a nerf to the TY Ghost+Liberator style, but most likely a buff to TvZ Mech, since Banshees are used quite heavily there.
Anyways I don't think I'm all knowing, but the Corruptor speed buff will destroy the balance of Vikings vs Phoenix vs Corruptors. Hydras while it would be nice vs Carriers, it still destroy the interaction between Zerg and Protoss ground battles, if Corruptors and Hydralisks are buffed, where will Mech go?
Reaper Openers in TvZ
I still think Grenades are the fun part about the Reaper. Give the Reaper some bonus Health, remove it's Combat Regeneration, and give Reapers a late game upgrade, which massively increases the Grenades damage dealt to structures.
I never understood the worries about the Mine. It's high risk, high reward. Good players can outmaneuver them, or even use them to their own advantage, eg. by heading 1/2 Zerglings into the Terran's units.
From a viewing perspective, they have a nice, small element of uncontrollability. It's also the only unit in the game that has it. Maybe that's why purist dislike it. But i do!
I agree that with these nerfs, Phoenix-Adept will shred Terrans in the near future. But apparently that's the way Blizzard wants to go. So let's see!
I´m very suspicious that the corruptor buff is going to strike down the innocent bystander called TvZ in an attempt to tone down the strength of carriers. Zerg is in no way struggling in ZvT and the transition from the terran mid to late game infrastructure is still quite hard to do.
The mine nerf is beyond ridicilous. If you take a look at the recent pro matches phoenix adept wins a disturbingly high percentage of games in extremely dominating fashion and mines are the primary counter to that. Why on earth are we trying to go back to mass adept spam again?
On a sidenote the idea of nerfing reaper grenades vs buildings so you can use static defense is the dumbest suggestion I´ve heard in a very long time. This is some serious low level understanding of how the game works.
On February 24 2017 19:19 Jj_82 wrote: I never understood the worries about the Mine. It's high risk, high reward. Good players can outmaneuver them, or even use them to their own advantage, eg. by heading 1/2 Zerglings into the Terran's units.
From a viewing perspective, they have a nice, small element of uncontrollability. It's also the only unit in the game that has it. Maybe that's why purist dislike it. But i do!
I agree that with these nerfs, Phoenix-Adept will shred Terrans in the near future. But apparently that's the way Blizzard wants to go. So let's see!
The entire issue with the widow mine is that it is a low risk high reward unit.
This is because:
It costs 75/25 It can be carted around by a medivac, another unit with minimal tech cost It can 1 shot 6 workers if the opponent is distracted It requires specific tech (detection) to fully deal with Reactored out of a factory which reduces the "tech cost" of the unit present in other high reward units (dts, oracles when not transitioning to nix, mutas in pvz, nydus)
I believe that ideally strong players should be able to micro around them however there are some positions where it is unrealistic to spot the line before the wm can be dodged. + Show Spoiler +
https://clips.twitch.tv/dltlsgud2/SuperSnakeANELE Innovation is not a great (protoss) player, but this demonstrates a position that I mean
On pheonix adept being OP Give terran a little time to figure out how to effeciently work drilling claws into their builds and they'll be fine once they hit 180 supply. (I get the sense that the reaction to nix adept is based mostly on sOs and stats in gsl but if you have other examples please PM them to me)
On February 24 2017 19:19 Jj_82 wrote: On pheonix adept being OP Give terran a little time to figure out how to effeciently work drilling claws into their builds and they'll be fine once they hit 180 supply. (I get the sense that the reaction to nix adept is based mostly on sOs and stats in gsl but if you have other examples please PM them to me)
The strength of phoenix adept is to be able to hold 3 bases with a high worker count much quicker than the terran. Talking about a counter at 180 supply is kinda silly. It´s like having lib range from the start and saying you have a proper counter when you get tempest.
And phoenix adept isn´t new, it was the best PvT build for most of lotv.
On February 24 2017 19:48 MLuneth wrote: On pheonix adept being OP Give terran a little time to figure out how to effeciently work drilling claws into their builds and they'll be fine once they hit 180 supply.
Please show me a game where a pro Terran loses to phoenix/adept when the Protoss let them get to 180 supply on any patch.
Again: can anybody tell me why reapers have grenades to begin with? IIRC blizzard wanted to make the reaper have impact in the midgame, well all the grenades did was creating the cheese/allin possibility (and most of the time you can transition perfectly fine) Spamable aoe on an early game unit which can jump cliffs and heals itself out of combat. Just think about that for a second
On February 24 2017 19:19 Jj_82 wrote: On pheonix adept being OP Give terran a little time to figure out how to effeciently work drilling claws into their builds and they'll be fine once they hit 180 supply. (I get the sense that the reaction to nix adept is based mostly on sOs and stats in gsl but if you have other examples please PM them to me)
The strength of phoenix adept is to be able to hold 3 bases with a high worker count much quicker than the terran. Talking about a counter at 180 supply is kinda silly. It´s like having lib range from the start and saying you have a proper counter when you get tempest.
And phoenix adept isn´t new, it was the best PvT build for most of lotv.
The point of 180 supply terran is that you can play similarly to Zerg in ZvT with the old ultralisk, survive and macro to a point where your army comp is so much better than theirs. Nix Adept has certainly always been on the periphery of the pvt meta but it certainly wasn't an mainstay for the period of Zest (PvT) dominance of first half 2016.
On February 24 2017 19:19 Jj_82 wrote: On pheonix adept being OP Give terran a little time to figure out how to effeciently work drilling claws into their builds and they'll be fine once they hit 180 supply. (I get the sense that the reaction to nix adept is based mostly on sOs and stats in gsl but if you have other examples please PM them to me)
The strength of phoenix adept is to be able to hold 3 bases with a high worker count much quicker than the terran. Talking about a counter at 180 supply is kinda silly. It´s like having lib range from the start and saying you have a proper counter when you get tempest.
And phoenix adept isn´t new, it was the best PvT build for most of lotv.
The point of 180 supply terran is that you can play similarly to Zerg in ZvT with the old ultralisk, survive and macro to a point where your army comp is so much better than theirs. Nix Adept has certainly always been on the periphery of the pvt meta but it certainly wasn't an mainstay for the period of Zest (PvT) dominance of first half 2016.
The difference there is that the zerg economy was better than the terran one from start to finish and nothing in the terran arsenal in 3.8 powerspikes nowhere near as much as ultras did.
And I don´t get the second part, 3 base adepts was always the core of PvT in lotv and in early 2016 the adepts weren´t nerfed yet and you didn´t even need the phoenix component.
On February 24 2017 19:19 Jj_82 wrote: On pheonix adept being OP Give terran a little time to figure out how to effeciently work drilling claws into their builds and they'll be fine once they hit 180 supply. (I get the sense that the reaction to nix adept is based mostly on sOs and stats in gsl but if you have other examples please PM them to me)
The strength of phoenix adept is to be able to hold 3 bases with a high worker count much quicker than the terran. Talking about a counter at 180 supply is kinda silly. It´s like having lib range from the start and saying you have a proper counter when you get tempest.
And phoenix adept isn´t new, it was the best PvT build for most of lotv.
The point of 180 supply terran is that you can play similarly to Zerg in ZvT with the old ultralisk, survive and macro to a point where your army comp is so much better than theirs. Nix Adept has certainly always been on the periphery of the pvt meta but it certainly wasn't an mainstay for the period of Zest (PvT) dominance of first half 2016.
That's a silly argument though. If the Terran gets to 180 supply and the Protoss still hasn't transitioned out of phoenix/adept, the Protoss is gonna lose. Drilling claws or not. If the Protoss transitions - which most of the time ends up being a colossus transition (though some players like Trap prefer Storm) - it's a different story obviously (but even then, if it's a colossus transition, drilling claws mines after a significant nerf are still not what you want). But pure phoenix/adept games almost never get to 180 supply for anyone. Sometimes because the Protoss defense goes wrong and they die very quickly (e.g. TY vs Stats game 3 in GSL), but mostly because the Protoss attacks at some point and one player loses or they trade so much their supply gets reset.
Phoenix/adept was the favorite strat of herO and Myungsik for most of 2016, it was fairly common in the first year of LotV. Obviously before the adept damage nerf it was a lot more prevalent. And fun fact actually, Myungsik used phoenix/adept to destroy a drilling claws centered build by Maru in GSL season 2.
On February 24 2017 20:27 Psychobabas wrote: Yet ANOTHER random balance change post by blizzard.
On February 24 2017 20:01 The_Red_Viper wrote: Again: can anybody tell me why reapers have grenades to begin with? IIRC blizzard wanted to make the reaper have impact in the midgame, well all the grenades did was creating the cheese/allin possibility (and most of the time you can transition perfectly fine) Spamable aoe on an early game unit which can jump cliffs and heals itself out of combat. Just think about that for a second
I think the Grenade is fun, it adds skill, unpredictibility and utility to the unit. I think the Combat Regeneration is the troublesome part and what allows Mass Reapers to snowball to the degree that it does.
On February 24 2017 20:01 The_Red_Viper wrote: Again: can anybody tell me why reapers have grenades to begin with? IIRC blizzard wanted to make the reaper have impact in the midgame, well all the grenades did was creating the cheese/allin possibility (and most of the time you can transition perfectly fine) Spamable aoe on an early game unit which can jump cliffs and heals itself out of combat. Just think about that for a second
I think the Grenade is fun, it adds skill, unpredictibility and utility to the unit. I think the Combat Regeneration is the troublesome part and what allows Mass Reapers to snowball to the degree that it does.
How is it fun though? Reapers aren't used unless you wanna build a lot early on and spam the grenades. Other than that the purpose of the reaper is to scout, which is why i think the healing isn't that bad simply because you can use it again if you don't lose it. Grenades though? Way too spammable. Changing the cd is not the right way either because to have an impact you would need to increase it by a lot. At that point you can just give the reaper max amount of grenades
Why aren't reapers used later in the game? Because marines are simply better. You have mobility with medivacs so the cliff jumping becomes irrelevant, reapers cost gas, etc. The reaper is fine as a scout unit, no need to change that
It's fun the same way Corrosive Bile is fun, it's a small minigame within the game where both players have a say in the outcome. I think the Reaper has too much power early on with snowballing like you do, but I would rather the unit be more than just a scout. That sounds a bit boring to me.
On February 24 2017 21:04 ejozl wrote: It's fun the same way Corrosive Bile is fun, it's a small minigame within the game where both players have a say in the outcome. I think the Reaper has too much power early on with snowballing like you do, but I would rather the unit be more than just a scout. That sounds a bit boring to me.
I think an ability is fun when it's strong on its own and not too spammable. CD is one thing, but when you simply build a lot of the spellcasters it doesn't matter all that much anymore if the spell has a few seconds more cd. IMO smartcasting is bad for the game because it doesn't allow for strong spells, spamming simply becomes too easy. Happened with so many abilities already and every time the ability got nerfed instead of changing the smartcasting approach to something else. Another way would be to make it harder to get the spellcasters (increase supply/cost) but i don't like that either because it also nerfs the timing/strength of low caster numbers.
I think spammable spell design works for mobas (even though dota guys probably hate the lol approach), but for rts where you have to manage so much else, two armies which simply spam stuff at each other is incredibly boring imo
I know that smartcasting will never change though, so the best solution i can hope for is giving each reaper a max amount of grenades. Not sure about the number, should be fairly low though.
On February 24 2017 21:33 Foxxan wrote: There are other ways than removing smartcast for spells to not be as spammable.
Do you want every cd to be extremely high? That sounds awful to me tbh (because as i said, the number of spellcasters you build is oftentimes more relevant than if the cd is a few seconds higher) Other approaches? Pls elaborate
On February 24 2017 19:19 Jj_82 wrote: I never understood the worries about the Mine. It's high risk, high reward. Good players can outmaneuver them, or even use them to their own advantage, eg. by heading 1/2 Zerglings into the Terran's units.
From a viewing perspective, they have a nice, small element of uncontrollability. It's also the only unit in the game that has it. Maybe that's why purist dislike it. But i do!
I agree that with these nerfs, Phoenix-Adept will shred Terrans in the near future. But apparently that's the way Blizzard wants to go. So let's see!
On February 24 2017 21:33 Foxxan wrote: There are other ways than removing smartcast for spells to not be as spammable.
Do you want every cd to be extremely high? That sounds awful to me tbh (because as i said, the number of spellcasters you build is oftentimes more relevant than if the cd is a few seconds higher) Other approaches? Pls elaborate
Nah cooldowns are pure shit initself. Iam talking more about if a spell hits next to one other spell of the same type, it could lose value
Lets take storm: Cast storm on location a first, then b immedaitely after. The storm on location b now loses value since they are close to each other. What value? Many numbers to play with i guess. Aoe range, damage. Eh cant think of more but there must be more than that.
On February 24 2017 20:01 The_Red_Viper wrote: Again: can anybody tell me why reapers have grenades to begin with? IIRC blizzard wanted to make the reaper have impact in the midgame, well all the grenades did was creating the cheese/allin possibility (and most of the time you can transition perfectly fine) Spamable aoe on an early game unit which can jump cliffs and heals itself out of combat. Just think about that for a second
I think the Grenade is fun, it adds skill, unpredictibility and utility to the unit. I think the Combat Regeneration is the troublesome part and what allows Mass Reapers to snowball to the degree that it does.
I totally agree. Nerf or remove regeneration and keep the grenades like they are.
On February 24 2017 21:33 Foxxan wrote: There are other ways than removing smartcast for spells to not be as spammable.
Do you want every cd to be extremely high? That sounds awful to me tbh (because as i said, the number of spellcasters you build is oftentimes more relevant than if the cd is a few seconds higher) Other approaches? Pls elaborate
Nah cooldowns are pure shit initself. Iam talking more about if a spell hits next to one other spell of the same type, it could lose value
Lets take storm: Cast storm on location a first, then b immedaitely after. The storm on location b now loses value since they are close to each other. What value? Many numbers to play with i guess. Aoe range, damage. Eh cant think of more but there must be more than that.
Interesting approach but also quite complex imo. I prefer solutions which are more intuitive to understand.
On February 24 2017 20:01 The_Red_Viper wrote: Again: can anybody tell me why reapers have grenades to begin with? IIRC blizzard wanted to make the reaper have impact in the midgame, well all the grenades did was creating the cheese/allin possibility (and most of the time you can transition perfectly fine) Spamable aoe on an early game unit which can jump cliffs and heals itself out of combat. Just think about that for a second
I think the Grenade is fun, it adds skill, unpredictibility and utility to the unit. I think the Combat Regeneration is the troublesome part and what allows Mass Reapers to snowball to the degree that it does.
I totally agree. Nerf or remove regeneration and keep the grenades like they are.
I mean removing the healing would obviously help a ton, but it would also weaken scouting reapers. I prefer to not touch the utility of scouting reapers and remove the dumb spamming of grenades
Interesting approach but also quite complex imo. I prefer solutions which are more intuitive to understand.
Blizzard wont change this. Either way, it might sound complex but it really isnt if you would design spells which you see with your eyes that something happens when you spam them next to each other. Would most likely become inutive that way.
It's not lame at all. With your approach a spell has x unique stats depending how far you wanna go. (spamming 4 close to each other, does the 4th spell lose strength compared to the 3rd, etc) How close do these have to be to each other, etc It's extremely complex and not intuitive by any means
On February 24 2017 22:49 Gwavajuice wrote: Half the people think widow mine nerf is too big, the other half thinks it's not enough.
Excellent patch I'd say...
As far as design goes, I'd say it's a very sound idea. But I'm quite certain it will trigger some months of Protoss total dominance of the match-up. I'm talking 60-70% dominance ; libs were nerfed, mines will be nerfed, the only thing T has now that helps compared to what they had last year is a kinda stronger tank. Meanwhile most P tools were untouched and buffed chargelots should now have a place again in the mu.
Would be lying if I said I was entirely unhappy about the mu shifting so heavily in favor of P. I'll be the one getting easier wins.
I'm pretty sure P will get some nerfs (probably on adepts and/or prisms) after the mu shifts too hard towards P though, and then the mu should hopefully be alright again.
Interesting approach but also quite complex imo. I prefer solutions which are more intuitive to understand.
Blizzard wont change this. Either way, it might sound complex but it really isnt if you would design spells which you see with your eyes that something happens when you spam them next to each other. Would most likely become inutive that way.
Well i guess that could work. I still personally prefer it if the spell always has the same range, the same dmg, etc. Like if i kinda mess up the first storm i don't wanna be penalized additionally through my second storm being way worse. And if it is not substantially worse then you can still spam it. Not that i think that solution doesn't have any potential, but it still seems too complex to me for a game like starcraft. But yeah without a concrete implementation to look at it's hard to argue one way or another imo.
On February 24 2017 21:33 Foxxan wrote: There are other ways than removing smartcast for spells to not be as spammable.
Do you want every cd to be extremely high? That sounds awful to me tbh (because as i said, the number of spellcasters you build is oftentimes more relevant than if the cd is a few seconds higher) Other approaches? Pls elaborate
Nah cooldowns are pure shit initself. Iam talking more about if a spell hits next to one other spell of the same type, it could lose value
Lets take storm: Cast storm on location a first, then b immedaitely after. The storm on location b now loses value since they are close to each other. What value? Many numbers to play with i guess. Aoe range, damage. Eh cant think of more but there must be more than that.
Interesting approach but also quite complex imo. I prefer solutions which are more intuitive to understand.
On February 24 2017 20:01 The_Red_Viper wrote: Again: can anybody tell me why reapers have grenades to begin with? IIRC blizzard wanted to make the reaper have impact in the midgame, well all the grenades did was creating the cheese/allin possibility (and most of the time you can transition perfectly fine) Spamable aoe on an early game unit which can jump cliffs and heals itself out of combat. Just think about that for a second
I think the Grenade is fun, it adds skill, unpredictibility and utility to the unit. I think the Combat Regeneration is the troublesome part and what allows Mass Reapers to snowball to the degree that it does.
I totally agree. Nerf or remove regeneration and keep the grenades like they are.
I mean removing the healing would obviously help a ton, but it would also weaken scouting reapers. I prefer to not touch the utility of scouting reapers and remove the dumb spamming of grenades
Easiest thing imo would be to (1) remove the knockback from the grenade or (2) remove damage.
Option (1) would make Reapers more harass centric with less escapability and (2) would make it more scouting focused with less damage.
I think that it's simply the combination of harassment potential and escapability which makes this unit akward to balance. This goes back to the general theme that units with mixed roles—harass and scout in this case—always seem to cause balance issues. I laid this out in another community feedback a while back.
Personally, I favor (2) because the Reaper should simply be an early scout with minimal harassment potential. Option (1) might work just as well though, because it would be easier to micro against Reapers. Zerg for example could simply counter with Ling surround since Reapers wouldn't be able to catapult themselves or the Lings away.
On February 24 2017 22:49 Gwavajuice wrote: Half the people think widow mine nerf is too big, the other half thinks it's not enough.
Excellent patch I'd say...
As far as design goes, I'd say it's a very sound idea. But I'm quite certain it will trigger some months of Protoss total dominance of the match-up. I'm talking 60-70% dominance ; libs were nerfed, mines will be nerfed, the only thing T has now that helps compared to what they had last year is a kinda stronger tank. Meanwhile most P tools were untouched and buffed chargelots should now have a place again in the mu.
A tank that's barely better at killing adepts than last year and can no longer be micro'd to account for shading on top of it.
The mine nerf is definitely risky for balance. But probably the right step for design.
On February 24 2017 22:49 Gwavajuice wrote: Half the people think widow mine nerf is too big, the other half thinks it's not enough.
Excellent patch I'd say...
As far as design goes, I'd say it's a very sound idea. But I'm quite certain it will trigger some months of Protoss total dominance of the match-up. I'm talking 60-70% dominance ; libs were nerfed, mines will be nerfed, the only thing T has now that helps compared to what they had last year is a kinda stronger tank. Meanwhile most P tools were untouched and buffed chargelots should now have a place again in the mu.
A tank that's barely better at killing adepts than last year and can no longer be micro'd to account for shading on top of it.
The mine nerf is definitely risky for balance. But probably the right step for design.
yeah, the logical step after that one is a straight adept / warp prism nerf that will help PvZ too. So I'm OK with going through some months of P dominance vT if it means we get a better game overall afterwards.
On February 24 2017 21:33 Foxxan wrote: There are other ways than removing smartcast for spells to not be as spammable.
Do you want every cd to be extremely high? That sounds awful to me tbh (because as i said, the number of spellcasters you build is oftentimes more relevant than if the cd is a few seconds higher) Other approaches? Pls elaborate
Nah cooldowns are pure shit initself. Iam talking more about if a spell hits next to one other spell of the same type, it could lose value
Lets take storm: Cast storm on location a first, then b immedaitely after. The storm on location b now loses value since they are close to each other. What value? Many numbers to play with i guess. Aoe range, damage. Eh cant think of more but there must be more than that.
Interesting approach but also quite complex imo. I prefer solutions which are more intuitive to understand.
On February 24 2017 22:17 StarscreamG1 wrote:
On February 24 2017 20:41 ejozl wrote:
On February 24 2017 20:01 The_Red_Viper wrote: Again: can anybody tell me why reapers have grenades to begin with? IIRC blizzard wanted to make the reaper have impact in the midgame, well all the grenades did was creating the cheese/allin possibility (and most of the time you can transition perfectly fine) Spamable aoe on an early game unit which can jump cliffs and heals itself out of combat. Just think about that for a second
I think the Grenade is fun, it adds skill, unpredictibility and utility to the unit. I think the Combat Regeneration is the troublesome part and what allows Mass Reapers to snowball to the degree that it does.
I totally agree. Nerf or remove regeneration and keep the grenades like they are.
I mean removing the healing would obviously help a ton, but it would also weaken scouting reapers. I prefer to not touch the utility of scouting reapers and remove the dumb spamming of grenades
Easiest thing imo would be to (1) remove the knockback from the grenade or (2) remove damage.
Option (1) would make Reapers more harass centric with less escapability and (2) would make it more scouting focused with less damage.
I think that it's simply the combination of harassment potential and escapability which makes this unit akward to balance. This goes back to the general theme that units with mixed roles—harass and scout in this case—always seem to cause balance issues. I laid this out in another community feedback a while back.
Personally, I favor (2) because the Reaper should simply be an early scout with minimal harassment potential. Option (1) might work just as well though, because it would be easier to micro against Reapers. Zerg for example could simply counter with Ling surround since Reapers wouldn't be able to catapult themselves or the Lings away.
Hm yeah i thought about that as well. There are definitely a few ways to make it less of a balance issue. We shouldn't forget about TvT though tbh, there mass reaper strats can also work quite well. In general i think the grenade isn't needed and only really adds nonsense to the early game. It has no impact on the usefulness of the unit in the midgame. I also do not think that the early game interactions it creates are interesting or fun, it's basically more or less spamming grenades to zone/do dmg while the other guy cannot respond with much.
On February 24 2017 21:33 Foxxan wrote: There are other ways than removing smartcast for spells to not be as spammable.
Do you want every cd to be extremely high? That sounds awful to me tbh (because as i said, the number of spellcasters you build is oftentimes more relevant than if the cd is a few seconds higher) Other approaches? Pls elaborate
Nah cooldowns are pure shit initself. Iam talking more about if a spell hits next to one other spell of the same type, it could lose value
Lets take storm: Cast storm on location a first, then b immedaitely after. The storm on location b now loses value since they are close to each other. What value? Many numbers to play with i guess. Aoe range, damage. Eh cant think of more but there must be more than that.
Interesting approach but also quite complex imo. I prefer solutions which are more intuitive to understand.
On February 24 2017 22:17 StarscreamG1 wrote:
On February 24 2017 20:41 ejozl wrote:
On February 24 2017 20:01 The_Red_Viper wrote: Again: can anybody tell me why reapers have grenades to begin with? IIRC blizzard wanted to make the reaper have impact in the midgame, well all the grenades did was creating the cheese/allin possibility (and most of the time you can transition perfectly fine) Spamable aoe on an early game unit which can jump cliffs and heals itself out of combat. Just think about that for a second
I think the Grenade is fun, it adds skill, unpredictibility and utility to the unit. I think the Combat Regeneration is the troublesome part and what allows Mass Reapers to snowball to the degree that it does.
I totally agree. Nerf or remove regeneration and keep the grenades like they are.
I mean removing the healing would obviously help a ton, but it would also weaken scouting reapers. I prefer to not touch the utility of scouting reapers and remove the dumb spamming of grenades
Easiest thing imo would be to (1) remove the knockback from the grenade or (2) remove damage.
Option (1) would make Reapers more harass centric with less escapability and (2) would make it more scouting focused with less damage.
I think that it's simply the combination of harassment potential and escapability which makes this unit akward to balance. This goes back to the general theme that units with mixed roles—harass and scout in this case—always seem to cause balance issues. I laid this out in another community feedback a while back.
Personally, I favor (2) because the Reaper should simply be an early scout with minimal harassment potential. Option (1) might work just as well though, because it would be easier to micro against Reapers. Zerg for example could simply counter with Ling surround since Reapers wouldn't be able to catapult themselves or the Lings away.
Hm yeah i thought about that as well. There are definitely a few ways to make it less of a balance issue. We shouldn't forget about TvT though tbh, there mass reaper strats can also work quite well. In general i think the grenade isn't needed and only really adds nonsense to the early game. It has no impact on the usefulness of the unit in the midgame. I also do not think that the early game interactions it creates are interesting or fun, it's basically more or less spamming grenades to zone/do dmg while the other guy cannot respond with much.
I don't see how the grenade is needed either. At least removing the knockback would be good. It looks silly and indeed doesn't add much : the hope was probably to see some cool reaper usage in the mid/lategame but as we all know this is not realistic.
For the reaper remove grenade damage. But suggestions to nerf or remove the healing make the unit pointless - it is a scouting unit. I am happy to have a unit whose purpose is to scout in the early game, and has no later utility - not every unit needs to be viable later game.
Lib nerf, Mine nerf, and a tank nerf (unable to pick up sieged - tanks die to shade/blink/disruptor) means that the matchup swings to Protoss dominance - OK as long as it is not 8 months until the Blizztards fix the matchup.
I will switch to watching for a while to see how bad it gets before thinking about playing.
On February 24 2017 23:36 DeadByDawn wrote: For the reaper remove grenade damage. But suggestions to nerf or remove the healing make the unit pointless - it is a scouting unit. I am happy to have a unit whose purpose is to scout in the early game, and has no later utility - not every unit needs to be viable later game.
Lib nerf, Mine nerf, and a tank nerf (unable to pick up sieged - tanks die to shade/blink/disruptor) means that the matchup swings to Protoss dominance - OK as long as it is not 8 months until the Blizztards fix the matchup.
yeah removing the healing is really a silly suggestion imo. You can tone it down if needed but without the healing capacity the reaper just won't be an efficient scout anymore.
I disagree a bit that the Reaper *has* to be an early game scout only unit. Because this means it HAS to be really good at that or no one will ever build them and that allows for these 3rax Reapers and probably why they have this weird grenade.
I'd be fine with the unit being toned a bit offensively early on (get rid of current grenade) but it having a lategame upgrade available. I still fondly remember having a squad of lategame Reapers in WoL that could devastate worker lines and snipe Pylons. The lategame upgrade (requires Armory and E-Bay or something like that) could give the Reaper its +Light damage and anti-building grenades back.
On February 24 2017 08:04 Charoisaur wrote: Imo they should wait to see how the liberator nerf affects the mu before doing another patch. Weird that they do another nerf so shortly after the first one, TvP doesn't seem to be that t favored anymore from what I've seen. Also I'd prefer the liberator being nerfed even further or even removed.
Also the corruptor buff is pretty significant for tvz because it makes it much easier to chase medivacs for corruptors. Overall I dislike this patch.
pretty much this. its too early to see the real impact of the liberator nerf in the matchup. Also, the corruptor buff will affect TvZ in a bigger way than what they are thinking imo, and i dont want to see stronger air units.
in the topic of the reaper, was the damage to buildings even a issue?? at this point make the grenade tech lab requirement or just remove it.
On February 24 2017 21:33 Foxxan wrote: There are other ways than removing smartcast for spells to not be as spammable.
Do you want every cd to be extremely high? That sounds awful to me tbh (because as i said, the number of spellcasters you build is oftentimes more relevant than if the cd is a few seconds higher) Other approaches? Pls elaborate
Nah cooldowns are pure shit initself. Iam talking more about if a spell hits next to one other spell of the same type, it could lose value
Lets take storm: Cast storm on location a first, then b immedaitely after. The storm on location b now loses value since they are close to each other. What value? Many numbers to play with i guess. Aoe range, damage. Eh cant think of more but there must be more than that.
Interesting approach but also quite complex imo. I prefer solutions which are more intuitive to understand.
On February 24 2017 22:17 StarscreamG1 wrote:
On February 24 2017 20:41 ejozl wrote:
On February 24 2017 20:01 The_Red_Viper wrote: Again: can anybody tell me why reapers have grenades to begin with? IIRC blizzard wanted to make the reaper have impact in the midgame, well all the grenades did was creating the cheese/allin possibility (and most of the time you can transition perfectly fine) Spamable aoe on an early game unit which can jump cliffs and heals itself out of combat. Just think about that for a second
I think the Grenade is fun, it adds skill, unpredictibility and utility to the unit. I think the Combat Regeneration is the troublesome part and what allows Mass Reapers to snowball to the degree that it does.
I totally agree. Nerf or remove regeneration and keep the grenades like they are.
I mean removing the healing would obviously help a ton, but it would also weaken scouting reapers. I prefer to not touch the utility of scouting reapers and remove the dumb spamming of grenades
Easiest thing imo would be to (1) remove the knockback from the grenade or (2) remove damage.
Option (1) would make Reapers more harass centric with less escapability and (2) would make it more scouting focused with less damage.
I think that it's simply the combination of harassment potential and escapability which makes this unit akward to balance. This goes back to the general theme that units with mixed roles—harass and scout in this case—always seem to cause balance issues. I laid this out in another community feedback a while back.
Personally, I favor (2) because the Reaper should simply be an early scout with minimal harassment potential. Option (1) might work just as well though, because it would be easier to micro against Reapers. Zerg for example could simply counter with Ling surround since Reapers wouldn't be able to catapult themselves or the Lings away.
Hm yeah i thought about that as well. There are definitely a few ways to make it less of a balance issue. We shouldn't forget about TvT though tbh, there mass reaper strats can also work quite well. In general i think the grenade isn't needed and only really adds nonsense to the early game. It has no impact on the usefulness of the unit in the midgame. I also do not think that the early game interactions it creates are interesting or fun, it's basically more or less spamming grenades to zone/do dmg while the other guy cannot respond with much.
I don't see why the grenade is needed either. But, given the pace of the "balance process", removal is out of the picture at least until the end of this year. :D
On February 24 2017 23:36 DeadByDawn wrote: For the reaper remove grenade damage. But suggestions to nerf or remove the healing make the unit pointless - it is a scouting unit. I am happy to have a unit whose purpose is to scout in the early game, and has no later utility - not every unit needs to be viable later game.
Lib nerf, Mine nerf, and a tank nerf (unable to pick up sieged - tanks die to shade/blink/disruptor) means that the matchup swings to Protoss dominance - OK as long as it is not 8 months until the Blizztards fix the matchup.
I will switch to watching for a while to see how bad it gets before thinking about playing.
Tbh, I hope that it does. Maybe this will get them think about the purpose of Adepts and they will consider reworking the shade.
It's funny how this buff will help corruptor beat skytoss very little (somewhat more microable vs storms i suppose?), while it's the perfect buff for it to overpower vikings. ZvT air battles rely a lot on vikings being able to kite corruptors, especially when you're playing mech.
For a little reminder, the viking has 3.85 move speed. Just like a ravager off creep. 4.7 is MORE than a stimmed marine.
Can someone explain how we'll be supposed to kite stimmed marines with ravagers?
Its about time..Zerg is truly in bad shape at the moment ..Thanks Blizz for addressing the issues we are facing.. Hopefully the changes will shed some light for Zergs out there ! keep on fighting! <3 GL HF out there!
the game doesnt look good atm - it's not "elegant" if u know what i mean. Too much worker harass focused, adepts are a bad design imo, sh hard counter mech whitch last patch was designed to make viable. Zerg seems op yet zerg players cant win games latelly - game design seems bad right now. Look at sos quaterfinals games - very dissapointing imo, only the last game was good; the game seems balanced but it's not in a good spot - it's just my personal feeling and I've been following the scene non stop from wol beta. Hard to point one thing that's wrong...
On February 25 2017 03:25 Barnabaszu wrote: the game doesnt look good atm - it's not "elegant" if u know what i mean. Too much worker harass focused, adepts are a bad design imo, sh hard counter mech whitch last patch was designed to make viable. Zerg seems op yet zerg players cant win games latelly - game design seems bad right now. Look at sos quaterfinals games - very dissapointing imo, only the last game was good; the game seems balanced but it's not in a good spot - it's just my personal feeling and I've been following the scene non stop from wol beta. Hard to point one thing that's wrong...
On February 24 2017 20:01 The_Red_Viper wrote: Spamable aoe on an early game unit which can jump cliffs and heals itself out of combat. Just think about that for a second
its Red Alert 3 inside a Starcraft game! maybe they can give the Reaper a sword too! its the problem with game sequels in general you have to come up with new cutting edge stuff like Colos, Reapers, Motherships to stretch the boundaries of how you think about the game. Then, the end result comes off as gimmicky.
i play SC2 with a bunch of people who love RTS and have very little free time. We play 2v2s together. We all have every game in the trilogy and we all play WoL 2v2s as a group together. As long as Blizzard keeps maintaining the WoL servers there is really nothing Blizzard can do to help us.
although i play and enjoy LotV 1v1s i can't talk these people into playing LotV 2v2s.
On February 24 2017 23:36 DeadByDawn wrote:I am happy to have a unit whose purpose is to scout in the early game, and has no later utility - not every unit needs to be viable later game.
i'd like Attack Dogs and Russian WarBears as well.. but it'll never happen... alas i can only dream.
See that is what i meant No talk about the reaper, the ability, how it affects the game or anything I never played Red Alert 3 so that reference is lost on me. I care about sc2 though and in sc2 the reaper got a grenade because people wanted the unit to be relevant after the early game. Well that did not happen, instead we got TvT gamble and TvZ abuse. I think the design failed.
On February 25 2017 03:45 The_Red_Viper wrote: See that is what i meant No talk about the reaper, the ability, how it affects the game or anything I never played Red Alert 3 so that reference is lost on me. I care about sc2 though and in sc2 the reaper got a grenade because people wanted the unit to be relevant after the early game. Well that did not happen, instead we got TvT gamble and TvZ abuse. I think the design failed.
it does a nice job of dealing with zerglings at the very start of the game. so i don't know about removing the ability. how about removing all of the Reaper's abilities except cliff jumping and just improving its basic attack and health stats?
i think its a symptom of sequel-itis. if its RA3 its the 3rd game in the series and Red Alert is by its nature a gimmicky game/franchise. My view of what should be done with the Reaper is earlier in the thread.
On February 25 2017 03:25 Barnabaszu wrote: the game doesnt look good atm - it's not "elegant" if u know what i mean. Too much worker harass focused, adepts are a bad design imo, sh hard counter mech whitch last patch was designed to make viable. Zerg seems op yet zerg players cant win games latelly - game design seems bad right now. Look at sos quaterfinals games - very dissapointing imo, only the last game was good; the game seems balanced but it's not in a good spot - it's just my personal feeling and I've been following the scene non stop from wol beta. Hard to point one thing that's wrong...
And on top of that, instead of buffing Zerg's ground AA (Hydra health buff won't do shit vs Airtoss they are worthless vs Carriers), they are buffing Zerg air units, like this game really needs more aerial end game situations?
Skyterran was a thing, everyone despised it, nerfed..
Skytoss is still a thing, everyone despises it, Blizzard trying not to nerf Protoss air but buff Zerg air..
Zerg air army was OP in WoL? Well that obviously means with a buffed Brood Lord now we need buffed Corruptors with regenerating Mutas for the sake of balance..
This balance team is CLUELESS and have been scrambling since this mech patch, what the hell are they even trying to accomplish? Aircraft 2 ?
After mulling over the back and forth with the The_Red_Viper i propose that every Reaper ability gets removed except cliff jumping. To compensate for this simply improve the Reaper's basic attack and health stats. If that means its basic stats must be improved to keep the early game balanced then do that. If this makes the Reaper too "massable" later on in the game then increase its supply cost to 2.
this change to the Reaper also helps new players, less hard core players, and makes the game easier to learn.
On February 25 2017 03:58 eviltomahawk wrote: Buffing speed and subtle micro elements is probably one of the most innocuous ways for Blizzard to buff the Corruptor.
good point. if the current Hydra buff and Corruptor buff do not provide enough anti-air for Zerg I'm in favour of another Hydralisk buff. Preferably a buff to its anti-air weapon.
On February 24 2017 07:49 PinoKotsBeer wrote: Why hide the poll results?
I thought the poll results would be possible for anyone to show. Didn't realize that I had the power. My line of thought was that some people want to see the results before voting while others wanted to see them after voting. Well, you live and you learn.
1) It will make mech, which is already very weak in TvZ and TvP, completely extinct. You will never see a mech game outside of TvT ever again.
2) It will make Terran weak overall even though the game is balanced at the very top. Current GSL top 4 is perfectly balanced with 2 Protoss, 1 Zerg, 1 Terran.
Maybe it is for the best. Every coffin needs a nail.
On February 25 2017 04:37 MockHamill wrote: This patch will achieve two two things:
1) It will make mech, which is already very weak in TvZ and TvP, completely extinct. You will never see a mech game outside of TvT ever again.
2) It will make Terran weak overall even though the game is balanced at the very top. Current GSL top 4 is perfectly balanced with 2 Protoss, 1 Zerg, 1 Terran.
Maybe it is for the best. Every coffin needs a nail.
Mech is always going to be weak as long as units like the Viper (exists literally only to hard counter mech imo it sucks vs everything else except yanking Colossus/Disruptor which is pretty much like mech anyways) and the Swarm Host (absolutely horrible vs anything except mech which it borderline hard counters) are in the game in their current incarnation.
They can buff tank damage all day long, but at the end of the day, Abduct and Blinding Cloud makes it all a moot point.
One beef I have with the current mech design is how pathetic Banshees are as the game goes on but how powerful they are when caught unprepared, it's like the Dark Templar effect all over again.
Regarding the reaper: I am of the opinion that 1) the grenade damage should be drastically lowered, perhaps removed. 2) an upgrade to the reapers, which gives grenades damage boost (preferably a lot vs buildings, since I liked the late game reaper base destruction of WoL low leagues) to be available at the tech lab. The upgrade could have an armory or factory requirement. 3) an upgrade to reapers, which gives them a vs light attack boost to be available at the tech lab with an engineering bay or even a +1 infantry weapons requirement.
Make them weaker in the early game but allow them to be used in the late game by us low tiered players. They were really fun to use in WoL.
These changes just make tvp feel very unfun. I'm very opposed to. Widow mine nerf. As the match stands right now widow mines are often critical not only for harassment but for many defensive holds. Needing widow mines both heavily nerfs Terran harassment and weekend terran to allins. It's not the right change to fix the match up. Buff Protoss if they are to week but don't touch the widow mine. Currently both t and p have ways to vaporize workers with a nerf to the widowmine but no adjustment to Dts or orcles, all of the harassment advantages will be in Protoss's hands. Terran will likely adapt by relying on 100% on timing attacks creating gameplay resembling the days of pulling the boys. That era sucked don't bring it back! A if these changes go through I will pro ably race switch since playing Terran at anything below pro level will suck.
On February 25 2017 05:04 Drfilip wrote: Regarding the reaper: I am of the opinion that 1) the grenade damage should be drastically lowered, perhaps removed. 2) an upgrade to the reapers, which gives grenades damage boost (preferably a lot vs buildings, since I liked the late game reaper base destruction of WoL low leagues) to be available at the tech lab. The upgrade could have an armory or factory requirement. 3) an upgrade to reapers, which gives them a vs light attack boost to be available at the tech lab with an engineering bay or even a +1 infantry weapons requirement.
Make them weaker in the early game but allow them to be used in the late game by us low tiered players. They were really fun to use in WoL.
Make them weaker in the early game but allow them to be used in the late game by us low tiered players.
This is exactly what the balance team needs to do and it's pretty painful that they haven't, granted, all of us here remaining are more then used to that.
On February 25 2017 04:37 MockHamill wrote: 2) It will make Terran weak overall even though the game is balanced at the very top. Current GSL top 4 is perfectly balanced with 2 Protoss, 1 Zerg, 1 Terran.
that is not enough data to proclaim perfect balance at the very top.
mockhamill is a diamond/low master mech user who only wants to see low apm mech playstyles buffed/better and probably still refuses to play bio. It's weird, because mech is so unfun for everyone else except the terran, but somehow this concept is diffiicult to grasp for him.
On February 25 2017 06:45 Comedy wrote: mockhamill is a diamond/low master mech user who only wants to see low apm mech playstyles buffed/better and probably still refuses to play bio. It's weird, because mech is so unfun for everyone else except the terran, but somehow this concept is diffiicult to grasp for him.
Thinking your personal opinion is the truth is sad.
Many people love playing mech, many people love playing against mech, and many people love to watch mech be played at the top levels.
On February 25 2017 06:45 Comedy wrote: mockhamill is a diamond/low master mech user who only wants to see low apm mech playstyles buffed/better and probably still refuses to play bio. It's weird, because mech is so unfun for everyone else except the terran, but somehow this concept is diffiicult to grasp for him.
Thinking your personal opinion is the truth is sad.
Many people love playing mech, many people love playing against mech, and many people love to watch mech be played at the top levels.
Nice try though
People love playing against mech? Since when, this morning? News to me!
On February 25 2017 06:45 Comedy wrote: mockhamill is a diamond/low master mech user who only wants to see low apm mech playstyles buffed/better and probably still refuses to play bio. It's weird, because mech is so unfun for everyone else except the terran, but somehow this concept is diffiicult to grasp for him.
Thinking your personal opinion is the truth is sad.
Many people love playing mech, many people love playing against mech, and many people love to watch mech be played at the top levels.
Nice try though
People love playing against mech? Since when, this morning? News to me!
Oh my, sarcasm ! That really must make your point very pertinent. Some people do like playing against mech, some people don't. When i played Ptak on the ladder he said he really liked playing against mech.
Also "I don't like playing against this" isn't a valid point in discussing viability. I don't like playing against mutas, but that doesn't mean i'm gonna assume everybody does, and that if mutas weren't viable i wouldn't try to argue it's a good thing.
On February 25 2017 06:45 Comedy wrote: mockhamill is a diamond/low master mech user who only wants to see low apm mech playstyles buffed/better and probably still refuses to play bio. It's weird, because mech is so unfun for everyone else except the terran, but somehow this concept is diffiicult to grasp for him.
Thinking your personal opinion is the truth is sad.
Many people love playing mech, many people love playing against mech, and many people love to watch mech be played at the top levels.
Nice try though
People love playing against mech? Since when, this morning? News to me!
Oh my, sarcasm ! That really must make your point very pertinent. Some people do like playing against mech, some people don't. When i played Ptak on the ladder he said he really liked playing against mech.
Also "I don't like playing against this" isn't a valid point in discussing viability. I don't like playing against mutas, but that doesn't mean i'm gonna assume everybody does and say that nerfing the lib AA was a bad thing.
Vibe also said he likes playing against mech much more than playing against bio.
And to add to your point, they are thinking of nerfing WM wich a makes zealot/HT syles viable again, a style that was not fun to watch or play against and was only fun for the protoss player.
When I think of the games I win with mass reapers, and the games I lose to mass reapers and the games I watch people win or lose with/to mass reapers I never ever got the impression (and also don't recall ever hearing anybody say it): "if granades wouldn't damage buildings, the result of this game would have been different." Yet, precisely this is what the think about loudly. It's like they are making a sport out of it to make their efforts as frustrating as possible for their customers.
They also need to stop buffing hydras. Eventually this will break the unit. It's not like Z needs to be pulled out of a 30% win rate all time low.
The corruptor buff ... I totally fail to comprehend that. Cyclones have been nerfed, liberators have been nerfed, quenns got a range buff and now corruptors will be 100% unkiteable and can run away from marines and widow mines easily. It also helps a decent amount vs. seaker missles and even a little vs. yamato cannon. Together with the hydra buff this is such a massive boost to ZvT air it is unbelievable. As if TvZ had been imba strong for centuries. #ParasiticBomb
I really cannot even begin to comprehend the corruptor buffs.
On February 25 2017 06:45 Comedy wrote: mockhamill is a diamond/low master mech user who only wants to see low apm mech playstyles buffed/better and probably still refuses to play bio. It's weird, because mech is so unfun for everyone else except the terran, but somehow this concept is diffiicult to grasp for him.
Thinking your personal opinion is the truth is sad.
Many people love playing mech, many people love playing against mech, and many people love to watch mech be played at the top levels.
Nice try though
People love playing against mech? Since when, this morning? News to me!
Oh my, sarcasm ! That really must make your point very pertinent. Some people do like playing against mech, some people don't. When i played Ptak on the ladder he said he really liked playing against mech.
Also "I don't like playing against this" isn't a valid point in discussing viability. I don't like playing against mutas, but that doesn't mean i'm gonna assume everybody does and say that nerfing the lib AA was a bad thing.
Vibe also said he likes playing against mech much more than playing against bio.
And to add to your point, they are thinking of nerfing WM wich a makes zealot/HT syles viable again, a style that was not fun to watch or play against and was only fun for the protoss player.
Good point. I don't think zealots/HTs will be a thing again outside of allins or timing attacks (liberators, mine still dealing a good amount of splash), but this style is only fun for the protoss player. Glad they nerf the mine against toss, not so glad if it means +2 defense zealots/HTs allins again.
On February 25 2017 06:45 Comedy wrote: mockhamill is a diamond/low master mech user who only wants to see low apm mech playstyles buffed/better and probably still refuses to play bio. It's weird, because mech is so unfun for everyone else except the terran, but somehow this concept is diffiicult to grasp for him.
Thinking your personal opinion is the truth is sad.
Many people love playing mech, many people love playing against mech, and many people love to watch mech be played at the top levels.
Nice try though
People love playing against mech? Since when, this morning? News to me!
Oh my, sarcasm ! That really must make your point very pertinent. Some people do like playing against mech, some people don't. When i played Ptak on the ladder he said he really liked playing against mech.
Also "I don't like playing against this" isn't a valid point in discussing viability. I don't like playing against mutas, but that doesn't mean i'm gonna assume everybody does and say that nerfing the lib AA was a bad thing.
Vibe also said he likes playing against mech much more than playing against bio.
And to add to your point, they are thinking of nerfing WM wich a makes zealot/HT syles viable again, a style that was not fun to watch or play against and was only fun for the protoss player.
Good point. I don't think zealots/HTs will be a thing again outside of allins or timing attacks (liberators, mine still dealing a good amount of splash), but this style is only fun for the protoss player. Glad they nerf the mine against toss, not so glad if it means +2 defense zealots/HTs allins again.
WM nerf is sound design wise, I can understand the frustation of protoss players losing huge chunks of army to WM, specially since their units aren't as mobile and nimble as zerg units, who can deal with them easily.
I do hope they give us something in return, design wise, making bio, medivacs, libs and WM is a fun style, but it gets stale, much like how both in WOL and HotS you could only go bio/medivac/viking/ghost in TvP, and everything else sucked balls.
Widow Mine nerf is needed. The nerf to liberators (which affected harassing Libs mostly) was not enough to bring the most imbalanced matchup since WoL release TvZ back to baseline. I trust blizzards data. Hydra buff is good, zerg isn't in the best of shape. Though I do think swarmhosts will need to be looked at soon.
The Widow Mine nerf is long overdue, and should be separated from the other changes. The bonus to shields makes it really difficult to balance. I think the Hydralisk should remain the same, and that changing it would be a big mistake. I don't buy the premise for the Corruptor change, and the changes seem more like a QoL change.
On February 24 2017 07:43 Tyrhanius wrote: I wonder if corruptors buildings harass will become a thing with the speed boost
Not harass. Basetrade. You need at least 6 corruptor to meaningfully damage, quite a lot of supply to dedicate to (and a waste if you are facing ground based composition). And the change changed the acceleration more than velocity (ie they turn sharper but still slower than pheonix/muta/boosted vacs)
Disclamer: I mostly play carriers.
That aside, if they really intend to buff hydras this way and make 1 storm not enough to kill hydras (combined with the speed boost on creep), I wonder how Protosses like me going to match up with it. I personally believe if we lower the upgrade time hydra timing will be sharper and kill most carrier builds before they happen. The economy change has already eliminated several stargate-based timings from HotS. The current "normal" builds of Protoss absolutely requires some sort of pressure to take a third. This new hydra is just roach 2.0 in many ways.
I don't believe the widow mine change is warranted or going to make much a difference.
First, Can you guys actually begin in tweaking balance by tradeing one nerf of a Unit with a buff of the same Unit? Then it would feel less "unfair" if a Unit gets a change. For example if damage to shields is an issue. Test to tune it down but give something back to that Unit at the same time. For example less friendly Fire damage or reduced Upgrade cost or faster burrow from the getgo or whatever seems reasonable.
Second, i wish you would revise previous balance changes on a regular basis to check if they are still necessary. It may be that a very old changes are outdated behause some other Units undergone major changes as well making these old changes obsolete. For example think of removing the siege upgrade for the Tank with Hots. It was a good think back then, but it may be much more effective to reintroduce this Upgrade again more so then tweaking the Medivac capacity to avoid Doom dropping....
On February 25 2017 14:21 Zulu23 wrote: First, Can you guys actually begin in tweaking balance by tradeing one nerf of a Unit with a buff of the same Unit? Then it would feel less "unfair" if a Unit gets a change. For example if damage to shields is an issue. Test to tune it down but give something back to that Unit at the same time. For example less friendly Fire damage or reduced Upgrade cost or faster burrow from the getgo or whatever seems reasonable.
.....
That would also buff the unit vs Zerg, which would be unfair aswell
On February 25 2017 21:37 egrimm wrote: Nerf to +shield on WMs warmly welcomed from design standpoint. If balance in PvT is the concern then why not also nerf adepts? Win - Win situation.
this is imo the best solution. Adepts are problematic in every mu anyway.
Maybe the mine nerf could be delayed and some adept nerf added to a balance test map ? The hydra and corruptor buffs seem a lot more innocuous and should be able to be incorporated to the game rather harmlessly.
Why should WM do more dmg to Protoss than to Zerg & Terran? This decision by blizzard always baffles me.
The whole Protoss race is designed to have more shields than base health, less base health than zergs & terrans units, while trading dps for shield regen. This has been the way since BW.
On February 25 2017 21:37 egrimm wrote: Nerf to +shield on WMs warmly welcomed from design standpoint. If balance in PvT is the concern then why not also nerf adepts? Win - Win situation.
this is imo the best solution. Adepts are problematic in every mu anyway.
Maybe the mine nerf could be delayed and some adept nerf added to a balance test map ? The hydra and corruptor buffs seem a lot more innocuous and should be able to be incorporated to the game rather harmlessly.
I second this. However I have rather mixed feelings about hydra and corruptor changes. Something obviously should be done about turtle air strategies against zerg but I'm not conviced this is the way. However might as well try them out, this is what PTR should be for anyway, no?
Altough if we were after creating the best possible gameplay then hydras should be redesign for 1supply/hatch tech unit and carriers changed to perfrom siege than dmg dealer role insted of changing corruptors imho.
On February 24 2017 20:01 The_Red_Viper wrote: Again: can anybody tell me why reapers have grenades to begin with? IIRC blizzard wanted to make the reaper have impact in the midgame, well all the grenades did was creating the cheese/allin possibility (and most of the time you can transition perfectly fine) Spamable aoe on an early game unit which can jump cliffs and heals itself out of combat. Just think about that for a second
ravagers at terran's natural before even 2 marines showed up after reaper opener, think about that for a sec...
On February 25 2017 21:37 egrimm wrote: Nerf to +shield on WMs warmly welcomed from design standpoint. If balance in PvT is the concern then why not also nerf adepts? Win - Win situation.
I'd prefer a collossus nerf. adepts aren't that much of a problem anymore.
On February 25 2017 21:37 egrimm wrote: Nerf to +shield on WMs warmly welcomed from design standpoint. If balance in PvT is the concern then why not also nerf adepts? Win - Win situation.
I'd prefer a collossus nerf. adepts aren't that much of a problem anymore.
I've seen INnoVation and TY complain about the strength of adepts this week, haven't heard anything about colossi (a unit that is still weaker in a fight than its HotS counterpart) from a player that good.
On February 25 2017 21:37 egrimm wrote: Nerf to +shield on WMs warmly welcomed from design standpoint. If balance in PvT is the concern then why not also nerf adepts? Win - Win situation.
I'd prefer a collossus nerf. adepts aren't that much of a problem anymore.
I don't see in which world colossi are a problem. Disruptors transition after 3 colossi are strong but nothing worrisome if you ask me. On the other hand, mass adepts floods are already kinda problematic and will undoubtedly be broken if the mine nerf goes through. So all in all, some adept nerf (more severe than the vision change that didn't really do much ; not cancellable shade or straight nerf to the unit) would be a wiser move in complement to the WM nerf imo.
Colossi aren't a problem, just badly designed. Instead of having instantly value you need a critical mass, otherwise the bio player can easily snipe them. Aka a deathball unit.
On February 24 2017 20:01 The_Red_Viper wrote: Again: can anybody tell me why reapers have grenades to begin with? IIRC blizzard wanted to make the reaper have impact in the midgame, well all the grenades did was creating the cheese/allin possibility (and most of the time you can transition perfectly fine) Spamable aoe on an early game unit which can jump cliffs and heals itself out of combat. Just think about that for a second
ravagers at terran's natural before even 2 marines showed up after reaper opener, think about that for a sec...
Well you cannot be more allin than that though. I also dislike ravagers so there is that
The movement speed buff to corruptor is not good. Corruptors are already very strong. If it flies faster, other units won't be able to counter micro. We have a very nice dynamic at the moment between corruptor and other air units. Corruptors zone out, counter units micro around.
On February 24 2017 20:01 The_Red_Viper wrote: Again: can anybody tell me why reapers have grenades to begin with? IIRC blizzard wanted to make the reaper have impact in the midgame, well all the grenades did was creating the cheese/allin possibility (and most of the time you can transition perfectly fine) Spamable aoe on an early game unit which can jump cliffs and heals itself out of combat. Just think about that for a second
ravagers at terran's natural before even 2 marines showed up after reaper opener, think about that for a sec...
On February 26 2017 00:48 The_Red_Viper wrote: Colossi aren't a problem, just badly designed. Instead of having instantly value you need a critical mass, otherwise the bio player can easily snipe them. Aka a deathball unit.
You describe the situation, where both sides have uneven army. The terran has a lot of marauders and protoss has nothing to stop them. In an even scenario terran has not enough marauders, if he tries to catch collossus, he loses a lot of units, when protoss retreats with his collossus.
Watch games of stats vs terran. He plays collossus based and has a lot of success. If it was easy to stop 1-2 collossus, terranes would kill stats easily.
On February 26 2017 00:48 The_Red_Viper wrote: Colossi aren't a problem, just badly designed. Instead of having instantly value you need a critical mass, otherwise the bio player can easily snipe them. Aka a deathball unit.
You describe the situation, where both sides have uneven army. The terran has a lot of marauders and protoss has nothing to stop them. In an even scenario terran has not enough marauders, if he tries to catch collossus, he loses a lot of units, when protoss retreats with his collossus.
Watch games of stats vs terran. He plays collossus based and has a lot of success. If it was easy to stop 1-2 collossus, terranes would kill stats easily.
Ok sure it's not that easy to simply kill the colossus in standard play, but how often do we see one or two colossi being a little bit out of position and a small group of bio taking them out? I think that's a problem tbh. It creates the deathball phenomenon. Disruptors are more bursty which is better in this regard, the problem of that unit is that you simply cannot guarantee that it does any dmg at all.
On February 25 2017 21:37 egrimm wrote: Nerf to +shield on WMs warmly welcomed from design standpoint. If balance in PvT is the concern then why not also nerf adepts? Win - Win situation.
I'd prefer a collossus nerf. adepts aren't that much of a problem anymore.
I don't see in which world colossi are a problem. Disruptors transition after 3 colossi are strong but nothing worrisome if you ask me. On the other hand, mass adepts floods are already kinda problematic and will undoubtedly be broken if the mine nerf goes through. So all in all, some adept nerf (more severe than the vision change that didn't really do much ; not cancellable shade or straight nerf to the unit) would be a wiser move in complement to the WM nerf imo.
just from what I see in pro games terran rarely wins if protoss gets a big army with 3-4 collossus without having taken any damage. Especially Stats' games in the GSL and on his stream show this. I realize that Stats is really good and it might not be because collossi are to strong but I just hate watching those games where one player turtles with collossi and the other player desperately tries to make something happen before the deathball becomes to strong.
adepts on the other hand are strong but lose their value over time so if you can hold on you should be fine,
another reason why I want collossi to be nerfed might be that I'm absolutely terrible against collossus play and my tvp winrate dropped by 20% when collossi became the meta again
On February 24 2017 20:01 The_Red_Viper wrote: Again: can anybody tell me why reapers have grenades to begin with? IIRC blizzard wanted to make the reaper have impact in the midgame, well all the grenades did was creating the cheese/allin possibility (and most of the time you can transition perfectly fine) Spamable aoe on an early game unit which can jump cliffs and heals itself out of combat. Just think about that for a second
ravagers at terran's natural before even 2 marines showed up after reaper opener, think about that for a sec...
On February 25 2017 21:37 egrimm wrote: Nerf to +shield on WMs warmly welcomed from design standpoint. If balance in PvT is the concern then why not also nerf adepts? Win - Win situation.
I'd prefer a collossus nerf. adepts aren't that much of a problem anymore.
I don't see in which world colossi are a problem. Disruptors transition after 3 colossi are strong but nothing worrisome if you ask me. On the other hand, mass adepts floods are already kinda problematic and will undoubtedly be broken if the mine nerf goes through. So all in all, some adept nerf (more severe than the vision change that didn't really do much ; not cancellable shade or straight nerf to the unit) would be a wiser move in complement to the WM nerf imo.
just from what I see in pro games terran rarely wins if protoss gets a big army with 3-4 collossus without having taken any damage. Especially Stats' games in the GSL and on his stream show this. I realize that Stats is really good and it might not be because collossi are to strong but I just hate watching those games where one player turtles with collossi and the other player desperately tries to make something happen before the deathball becomes to strong.
adepts on the other hand are strong but lose their value over time so if you can hold on you should be fine,
another reason why I want collossi to be nerfed might be that I'm absolutely terrible against collossus play and my tvp winrate dropped by 20% when collossi became the meta again
Are we talking about nerfing Colossus because of design or balance reasons? If design then I agree - I'd not only nerf it but probably just straight remove it from the game. However I think we are talking about compensating the nerf for WMs and in this case I believe that nerfing Colossus to balance WM is wrong approach. Why? Because WM nerf will indirectly buff adept compositions mostly apedt+phoenix and Colossus nerf will obviously nerf robot based compositions. So as a result the ratio between robot based armies and adept based will change heavily. In other words all Protosses will go for adept/phoenix because it will become much better because of both WM and Colossus nerfs which will hurt diversity of compositions imho.
On February 25 2017 21:37 egrimm wrote: Nerf to +shield on WMs warmly welcomed from design standpoint. If balance in PvT is the concern then why not also nerf adepts? Win - Win situation.
I'd prefer a collossus nerf. adepts aren't that much of a problem anymore.
I don't see in which world colossi are a problem. Disruptors transition after 3 colossi are strong but nothing worrisome if you ask me. On the other hand, mass adepts floods are already kinda problematic and will undoubtedly be broken if the mine nerf goes through. So all in all, some adept nerf (more severe than the vision change that didn't really do much ; not cancellable shade or straight nerf to the unit) would be a wiser move in complement to the WM nerf imo.
just from what I see in pro games terran rarely wins if protoss gets a big army with 3-4 collossus without having taken any damage. Especially Stats' games in the GSL and on his stream show this. I realize that Stats is really good and it might not be because collossi are to strong but I just hate watching those games where one player turtles with collossi and the other player desperately tries to make something happen before the deathball becomes to strong.
adepts on the other hand are strong but lose their value over time so if you can hold on you should be fine,
another reason why I want collossi to be nerfed might be that I'm absolutely terrible against collossus play and my tvp winrate dropped by 20% when collossi became the meta again
Are we talking about nerfing Colossus because of design or balance reasons? If design then I agree - I'd not only nerf it but probably just straight remove it from the game. However I think we are talking about compensating the nerf for WMs and in this case I believe that nerfing Colossus to balance WM is wrong approach. Why? Because WM nerf will indirectly buff adept compositions mostly apedt+phoenix and Colossus nerf will obviously nerf robot based compositions. So as a result the ratio between robot based armies and adept based will change heavily. In other words all Protosses will go for adept/phoenix because it will become much better because of both WM and Colossus nerfs which will hurt diversity of compositions imho.
On February 26 2017 03:52 Dumbledore wrote: What's the logic behind the speedruptors?
Zergs have problems with carriers in the late game ZvP, but instead of nerfing carriers Blizzard finds it more entertaining to make Corruptors more viable and reward players who micro better with them. It may effect ZvT though, as ling bane corruptor and other mid game compositions which involves the corruptor may turn more viable.
Balance seems to be perfectly fine right now, tbh. GSL semifinals have 2 Protoss, 1 Zerg, 1 Terran. Aligulac shows every single match within +/- 2% of 50%.
I really don't know why Blizzard feels the need to make adjustments to anything besides the Carrier right now. Hope they won't go into effect until after Katowice at least.
On February 26 2017 05:14 pvsnp wrote: Balance seems to be perfectly fine right now, tbh. GSL semifinals have 2 Protoss, 1 Zerg, 1 Terran. Aligulac shows every single match within +/- 2% of 50%.
I really don't know why Blizzard feels the need to make adjustments to anything besides the Carrier right now. Hope they won't go into effect until after Katowice at least.
Aligulac is unreliable. Several posters have already said in other feedback update threads that it shouldn´t be used and people still quote it. And balance is far from "perfectly fine" . Maybe decent or maybe okay would be fitting but not "perfectly fine" .
Aligulac is unreliable. Several posters have already said in other feedback update threads that it shouldn´t be used and people still quote it. And balance is far from "perfectly fine" . Maybe decent or maybe okay would be fitting but not "perfectly fine" .
Of course Aligulac is unreliable. I was one of those posters saying how unreliable it is. But do you have anything better?
Aligulac + Progames combined can give us a decent approximation of how the balance is doing, and right now it's okay-ish. But when has balance ever been better than so-so? Okay-ish balance qualifies as perfectly fine because that's about as good as it will ever get.
Aligulac is unreliable. Several posters have already said in other feedback update threads that it shouldn´t be used and people still quote it. And balance is far from "perfectly fine" . Maybe decent or maybe okay would be fitting but not "perfectly fine" .
Of course Aligulac is unreliable. I was one of those posters saying how unreliable it is. But do you have anything better?
Aligulac + Progames combined can give us a decent approximation of how the balance is doing, and right now it's okay-ish. But when has balance ever been better than so-so? Okay-ish balance qualifies as perfectly fine because that's about as good as it will ever get.
yeah the current state of balance is ok. I don't think there has ever been a really good era balance-wise, when nobody was rightfully complaining about some strong issue. I even think that when such periods of time happened, it was because something genuinely problematic had not been figured out (eg blink sentries in HotS PvZ). But if someone remembers something that comes close to a balance golden age, I'll be glad to hear your ideas.
yeah the current state of balance is ok. I don't think there has ever been a really good era balance-wise, when nobody was rightfully complaining about some strong issue. I even think that when such periods of time happened, it was because something genuinely problematic had not been figured out (eg blink sentries in HotS PvZ). But if someone remembers something that comes close to a balance golden age, I'll be glad to hear your ideas.
Yeah my thoughts exactly. As far as I can remember, there has never been any time in Starcraft history where nobody was complaining. Right now is pretty much as close as we will ever be.
Which is why I'm not too happy that Blizzard wants to change things. It can only get worse, and in a few months I don't doubt some other gamebreaking issue will come up because the balance team (and all the whiners) couldn't settle for good enough.
So the current state of the game balance wise is ok. Oh ok. Big words without saying much at all. As always! How about you explain what balance is to you first. Then you give context how each mu builds up so one could actually determine if that is balance or not for themself.
Thats my answer to this question
Of course Aligulac is unreliable. I was one of those posters saying how unreliable it is. But do you have anything better?
This is to anyone that says "balance is ok" without giving context. And that i never hear from anyone, its just general talk about some statistics.
This is how you talk balance. Not by numbers or statistics but context, information and analysing
Are you saying that statistics are worthless? Regardless of whether people like them or not, the numbers are very clear. Of course their context, external factors like skill level, online/offline, etc, etc must be taken into account, but they are still an objective measurement that everyone must acknowledge as having meaning.
If you are rejecting the statistics, then please tell me how you can replace them with an equivalent universal objective foundation. Context is information. Statistics is information. Analysis is subjective.
Without an objective foundation, you have nowhere to stand. Statistics provides us that foundation from which we can then expand upon with analysis, with playstyle, with opinion, so on and so forth. But without a foundation it all comes crashing down.
Why does it have to be universal objective foundation? That feels so wrong to me. The majority dont know how to analyse a game well enough, therefore it would be a minority objective foundation instead.
You give context and analyse, and you show how you analyse. And you go from there.
Iam not saying statistics are worthless but they are not #1 when it comes to how well the balance is.
Why does it have to be universal objective foundation? That feels so wrong to me. The majority dont know how to analyse a game well enough, therefore it would be a minority objective foundation instead.
You give context and analyse, and you show how you analyse. And you go from there.
Iam not saying statistics are worthless but they are not #1 when it comes to how well the balance is.
Because everyone plays the same game. There has to be a reason everyone understands, even if they don't agree with it or don't like it, or else you are arbitrarily placing higher value on some (subjective) opinions over others. That's the whole point of objective; so that nobody can deny its validity when you place higher value on some (more objective) opinions over others. A 50% winrate is objective. "Terran feels too strong" is not.
Analysis is subjective, and if we rely solely on subjective analysis for balancing, then the game winds up balanced around whomever can best persuade others that their analysis is most legitimate. All analysis has to be evaluated against an objective standard, and in this case the standard is how well an analysis can identify solutions that bring statistics to equilibrium.
I am not saying statistics are the be all and end all of balance, but they are certainly an important part. Not the only part, but an important one.
If balance = 50% winrates then sure balance is ok. But it's a fact zerg hasnt been able to win vs skytoss since hots was released. Its a fact zerg had totally shit t3 anti air. Its a fact that 3.8 patch had major overhauls for each race and the zerg one got completly reversed and the patch actually made zerg a lot worse compared to before 3.8, when Surprise Surprise, the numbers also showed balance but zerg was infact way stronger than now
these changes make total sense except to people who dont play zerg
Mh i misunderstood that sentence. Thats why i talked about analysing. Either way, statistics doesnt evne have to be important. I want to say that statistics are useless without the context.
Purely looking at winrates are worthless, yeah i really think so. It doesnt say how one race wins. If zerg needs to all-in every match or alot of matches to win, then already something is wrong and just because its 50/50 in statistic balance doesnt mean that the balance of the game is in fact shit.
So to really talk about balance, context, information and analysing is key. But no one do it. Is it really to hard? I have never seen anyone actually do it, ever.
You start the game by building economy. This is objective, isnt it. You build workers, make supply to make even more workers, maybe an expansion.
Yeah its hard to do this, its really hard but i feel its necessary to do so to make the balance of the game as good as possible.
You need knowledge, and you need to know how to think about it. You probably need some programs as well to help your memory.
The hardest part i think is to determine what a human is capable of, and what human should you look at? The single person in the world that can micro marines like no one else? Or should you look at one step below instead for it? Maybe that is infact impossible to know. I think in a case like this you dont look at current humans to determine, you look at the human brain instead and try to come to a conclusion what is "human possible" instead of "inhuman possible" when infact talking about humans.
Because some humans can infact be inhuman. Its rare but it happens. It roughly means that the persons brain has a connection to do this thing that it is close to one of a kind. You cant balance a game around that can you.
I want to believe it would be possible to get atleast a 90% balance of a game, not 100%. Not a bad number. So again, just showing me the statistic balance means jack shit to me. No, it means something i can give that, it can give hint and its some fast information, yeah, alright its not totally worthless without context but without context its just that, some hints.
Foxxan, you are talking about balance in play styles, aren't you? Not balance in win rate. I think you are in a minority to not mean balance in win rate when talking about balance. Many people use the words 'design' or 'style' when talking about stuff that aren't win rates. You gave an example of a need to all-in a lot. That is about viable strategies. It seems to me that you would like more play styles to be viable for the different races (which is a thing I think the design team is trying to accomplish).
On February 24 2017 07:54 Odowan Paleolithic wrote:
On February 24 2017 07:43 Tyrhanius wrote: I wonder if corruptors buildings harass will become a thing with the speed boost
Not harass. Basetrade. You need at least 6 corruptor to meaningfully damage, quite a lot of supply to dedicate to (and a waste if you are facing ground based composition). And the change changed the acceleration more than velocity (ie they turn sharper but still slower than pheonix/muta/boosted vacs)
Disclamer: I mostly play carriers.
That aside, if they really intend to buff hydras this way and make 1 storm not enough to kill hydras (combined with the speed boost on creep), I wonder how Protosses like me going to match up with it. I personally believe if we lower the upgrade time hydra timing will be sharper and kill most carrier builds before they happen. The economy change has already eliminated several stargate-based timings from HotS. The current "normal" builds of Protoss absolutely requires some sort of pressure to take a third. This new hydra is just roach 2.0 in many ways.
I don't believe the widow mine change is warranted or going to make much a difference.
Storm already leaves hydras alive.
I mean, sure, but a strong breeze will finish them off.
I'm in agreement with the distinction between balance and design. Balance refers strictly to winrates, what percentage of games is won or lost. How is irrelevant to balance.
What you are talking about is playstyle, how people win, which is dependent on design.
Two different issues, though they are connected to some extent.
What I am saying is that the current balance is fine, because wins/losses are roughly evenly distributed. Design is much trickier and more subjective.
On February 26 2017 19:33 Drfilip wrote: Foxxan, you are talking about balance in play styles, aren't you? Not balance in win rate. I think you are in a minority to not mean balance in win rate when talking about balance. Many people use the words 'design' or 'style' when talking about stuff that aren't win rates. You mentioned zerg having trouble vs skytoss. That is about viable strategies. You gave an example of a need to all-in a lot. That is also about viable strategies. It seems to me that you would like more play styles to be viable for the different races (which is a thing I think the design team is trying to accomplish).
I do actually mean balance of the game. Not sure i mentioned zerg having trouble vs air.
Look lets take that same example: 50/50 between tvz and terran wins all their games by playing standard. While zerg wins all its matches with all-ins and cheese.
Lets say you come to the conclusion that zerg cant win by playing standard, then this is to me a very big imbalance in the game that needs to be adressed no matter if the statistics says 50/50 for a long time. No race shouldnt have to relie on rng to win, its that simple.
looking at the Poll results we have a very divided community.
Nathanias published this little talk about the Community Update yesterday. I recommend watching it.
Lets add Nathanias's comments on the Reaper to The_Red_Vipers comments on the Reaper.
On February 24 2017 20:01 The_Red_Viper wrote: Spamable aoe on an early game unit which can jump cliffs and heals itself out of combat. Just think about that for a second
please remove the grenade and the Health Regeneration from the Reaper. Bring back the WoL Reaper. Alter its stats so its useful early game and an effective scouting unit. IF you can find a way to alter its stats to be useful in early game and occasionally has a mid-game role then even better. The unit is so gimmicky right now, so hard to control and learn. On top of that much better players like Nathanias have really well thought out criticisms of the unit. Just blow it up and start with the WoL Reaper.
My 50-100 APM Silver//Gold friends think the Reaper and many other aspects of LotV is too complicated. I played 2v2s for 1/2 the day Sunday. it was all in WoL because all my clan mates are WoL only players. They own every game in the trilogy and they stick to WoL for multiplayer.
Nathanias seems fairly unbiased, i like these videos quite a bit. I also agree that we should just be content with the reaper being a scouting unit initially. As i said before, i don't think you can change that role unless you completely change the game. (because the reaper WOULD be good in the midgame if medivacs didn't exist and the game was designed in a way the cliff jumping would be more impactful, right now it's only good early game)
I mean there is the potential to create a useful ability for the unit, but it has to be good enough so you rather build reapers which cost gas over more marines/medivacs. I don't see it.
I have hope that this game eventually at some day will turn to the better as people start discussing the right stuff.
The issue about SC2 is not if at some point at the end of a match the winrates are 50/50. It is about all little details that you meet on the way there. It is about if the game is fun to play and which mechanics take away the fun, not if that mechanic helps to create artificial balance in matchups and metagames with other absolute non fun game mechanics.
On February 27 2017 23:42 The_Red_Viper wrote: Nathanias seems fairly unbiased, i like these videos quite a bit. I also agree that we should just be content with the reaper being a scouting unit initially. As i said before, i don't think you can change that role unless you completely change the game. (because the reaper WOULD be good in the midgame if medivacs didn't exist and the game was designed in a way the cliff jumping would be more impactful, right now it's only good early game)
I mean there is the potential to create a useful ability for the unit, but it has to be good enough so you rather build reapers which cost gas over more marines/medivacs. I don't see it.
Re: Reaper. can't they just play with "rate of fire", "how far it shoots" , "health/light/armour/psionic", "armour level" and other basic stats to create a role for the Reaper so that it can go back to the WoL Reaper; As you've already noted the Reaper's behaviour is so convoluted.. its just so gimmicky...
the current Reaper belongs in the ultra-gimmicky super-stupid-on-purpose Red Alert Franchise. it does not belong in an SC franchise or any other serious C&C franchise.
I mean reapers would need something marines/marauders don't already provide if you want reapers to be impactful in the midgame. That's the reason they included the grenades, they thought the knockback would be useful against banelings,etc The truth is that there is no reason to stop building marines/marauders/medivacs and focus on reapers.
The way I want to go about it is to give it a use in the late game instead of the mid game. So by removing the Combat Healing, the unit obviously needs some kind of early game compensation and my choice would be to up it's health by 10 points or so. It should still help the Zerg player early game, since every point of damage you do to the Reaper is permanent until Medivacs come out. The unit loses a lot of traction by then, since Medivac Boost drops is a lot stronger than cliff jumping and also Marines are just more cost efficient. But then there should be a late game upgrade which ups the Grenades damage towards structures marginally. So you can run around finishing off Hatcheries, Pylons and Protoss Tech with a pack of Reapers.
An interesting suggestion I've seen is removing the damage from grenades so they just knock back units without damaging them. Seems like the most elegant solution to the reaper problematic (next to removing the grenade completely). It doesn't really affect standard reaper openers since the damage of a single grenade is negliglibe anyway - but it massively nerfs mass reaper builds.
On February 28 2017 18:55 ejozl wrote: The way I want to go about it is to give it a use in the late game instead of the mid game. So by removing the Combat Healing, the unit obviously needs some kind of early game compensation and my choice would be to up it's health by 10 points or so. It should still help the Zerg player early game, since every point of damage you do to the Reaper is permanent until Medivacs come out. The unit loses a lot of traction by then, since Medivac Boost drops is a lot stronger than cliff jumping and also Marines are just more cost efficient. But then there should be a late game upgrade which ups the Grenades damage towards structures marginally. So you can run around finishing off Hatcheries, Pylons and Protoss Tech with a pack of Reapers.
Although removal of combat healing might help in TvZ at the smae time it is quite needed in TvP to allow reaper to scout protoss base more than once.
Generally speaking reaper has a lot of small, strange mechanics which affects to some extent all matchups however some of them has much bigger impact in one matchup some in other which makes reaper hard to balance. Combat healing is needed to scout in TvP however it makes reaper rushes in TvZ stronger and makes this strategies much easier to snowball. Granades dealing dmg has little impact in TvP but is crucial in TvZ for reaper openers. Granades knockback effect is needed in TvP so reaper can easier manouver in Protoss base and avoid being sniped by adepts/stalkers but at the same time in TvZ allows to heavily slow down Zerg counter all-in with roaches/Ravagers vs reaper rushes to a point were people wonder if it is not too much. and there is cliff jump which is crucial for current reaper iteration so it has any use at all and at the same time makes reaper rushes really hard to hold and makes mapmaking much harder (a lot of contraints).
Reaper is really strange, gimmicky and hard to balance unit which performs small but crucial role and at the same time is a part of some really questionable early game strategies.
On February 24 2017 20:01 The_Red_Viper wrote: Spamable aoe on an early game unit which can jump cliffs and heals itself out of combat. Just think about that for a second
please remove the grenade and the Health Regeneration from the Reaper. Bring back the WoL Reaper. Alter its stats so its useful early game and an effective scouting unit. IF you can find a way to alter its stats to be useful in early game and occasionally has a mid-game role then even better. The unit is so gimmicky right now, so hard to control and learn. On top of that much better players like Nathanias have really well thought out criticisms of the unit. Just blow it up and start with the WoL Reaper.
My 50-100 APM Silver//Gold friends think the Reaper and many other aspects of LotV is too complicated. I played 2v2s for 1/2 the day Sunday. it was all in WoL because all my clan mates are WoL only players. They own every game in the trilogy and they stick to WoL for multiplayer.
Really good video - I especially agree with Nathanis about everything he said concerning Reapers and WMs. Well presented thought process.
On February 27 2017 13:33 JimmyJRaynor wrote: looking at the Poll results we have a very divided community.
I think it mostly means the proposed changes are unconvincing at best. When a change that was really called for and sensible gets made it usually gets much higher "good" percentages.
the current Reaper belongs in the ultra-gimmicky super-stupid-on-purpose Red Alert Franchise. it does not belong in an SC franchise or any other serious C&C franchise.
This, I don't know how many times the community can clamor for real and elegant Reaper changes at this point without getting results. Why not..
1. Above poster already said remove damage entirely so it provides the knock back but nerfs mass reaper 2. Nerf regen at the very least, mass Reaper wouldn't be nearly as bad if you could actually kill them. 3. Go back to WOL Reapers entirely
They made corruptors great again! I like this buff, helping zerg to fight the opponent's air superiority.
Theres no question that Corruptors sucked and needed buffs, but Starcraft at this point is turning into an air superiority battle and it's not good for the game. Air armies are already so powerful and pretty much necessitate nerfs. Skyzerg was broken in WoL and it necessitated huge nerfs and the literal castration of the Infestor. Skyterran became popular but it was cancer and now Liberators are nerfed for it. Skytoss is popular but it's cancer and now Blizzard is buffing things around it so they can fix it without nerfs.
See what I'm saying? Having super strong air units just isn't good for SC2, the battles aren't interesting because of the way collision works, micro means little, it's more about who has the upfront better firepower.
Yeah the mass air battle are stupid and the ground counters to it are very limited per race. Also making everything faster isnt always the solution it disconnects the player from the battles since everything is over in a blink. As a terran player i like it that they are looking at the reaper. But when they will nerf the reaper, what kind of openers does terran have left? a lot of builds got a lot weaker/almost not worth to do anymore.
With any luck IEM will be an opportunity for Blizzard to take a hard look at the current state of balance. How the tournament progresses is anybody's guess of course, but in terms of representation (at the moment) it seems that Protoss is doing just fine and in no need of any help. Same for Terran. It's Zerg that's suffering, and pretty exclusively in ZvP.
Though top Korean Zergs like ByuL and soO aren't there, and of course Terran winrates are always misleadingly high at global events because the best Korean Terrans are peerless among foreigners.
While i do agree that mass reaper is dumb. Im worried about reaper nerfs, Reapers are a critical component of TvZ. they allow terran to delay zergs third, and poke for scouting nerfing grenade hurts this important non cheesy reaper scouting in adition to the cheesy alling plays you can make with the unit.
On February 28 2017 19:05 Charoisaur wrote: An interesting suggestion I've seen is removing the damage from grenades so they just knock back units without damaging them. Seems like the most elegant solution to the reaper problematic (next to removing the grenade completely). It doesn't really affect standard reaper openers since the damage of a single grenade is negliglibe anyway - but it massively nerfs mass reaper builds.
I think this would be a much better place to start than removing grenade completely, allows reaper to keep the positional utility of grenade which is crucial for their early game scouting role while realy nerfing allin reaper play.
If you really wanted to keep the grenade, what about changing it to a flashbang grenade?
Removes the cheesy knockback and does no damage; instead it blinds the units caught in the radius for a couple seconds. Sort of like blinding cloud but less duration and smaller radius (and it's not an effect on the ground - it only affects the units that were there when it went off). This would have some use in early game fights but also it would make the reaper relevant later in the game.
They're nerfing the Reaper's grenade cooldown from 7 seconds to 14 seconds, and the change is going to go live alongside the other changes mentioned last week.
Balance Update
Thanks to everyone who provided feedback on the proposed Reaper changes from last week’s update. After reading over your feedback we are increasing the cooldown of the KD8 Charge from 7 to 14 seconds to reduce the offensive capability of Reaper-heavy openers, while still allowing the unit to function as a scout in smaller numbers. At the moment, we are planning for this change to go live in an upcoming patch with the Widow Mine, Hydralisk, and Corruptor changes that have been on the balance test map. We'd like to implement this soon so that players have time to prepare and adjust to the new units before other major tournaments commence. We welcome your thoughts and feedback.
On the ladder (diamond 2) I defend 3 rax reaper with ease (I'm a zerg player).
Byun used it several times yesterday (I think 4), and lost only 1 of those games, so may be some nerf was necessary, but I don't consider it to be so OP. Players like Nerchio which go for roaches anyway deflect it quite easily.