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Great to have some professional input on the state of TvZ mech. Snute's takeaway seems to be that mech is more or less viable, depending of course on the opponent (like any other build). His words are also given substantial weight by the actions of INnoVation and Gumiho, who both incorporated mech into their recent Starleague victories.
The EU-KR Terran dynamic is interesting as well, though I suspect that the "Korean Terran" phenomenon is playing a role there. That being said, bio is still the name of the game and I've yet to see any mass exodus towards mech reminiscent of late 2015. So long as bio remains a viable way of ending the game in the midgame (and it is), I very much doubt we will see a big transition towards mech in TvZ.
As it stands, I'm very happy with the current meta of bio being the go-to default for TvZ while mech represents a minority. Bluntly put, 4M vs LBM is hugely entertaining to watch, while mech....isn't. The novelty is what gives mech its appeal, and while it's certainly refreshing to see some variation in TvZ, the appeal of mech wears off pretty fast once every single game ends in mass Ravens. So the current mostly-bio-plus-some-mech meta is the best of both worlds.
As far as avilo goes......well some semi-pro (if even that much) NA Terran who streams a lot claims one thing and is directly contradicted by the words of a highly accomplished veteran (Snute) plus the actions of two more Korean veterans that are serious contenders for the Terran throne. So yeah. Use your brains, people.
On a related note, regarding the viability of specific Terran builds, INnoVation (as always) is a great bellwether. That counts for double in the case of TvZ, since he is easily the most accomplished TvZ player in the world. The guy won his first GSL with bio TvZ and his second GSL with mech TvZ. Where he goes, Terrans follow.
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On June 29 2017 04:55 pvsnp wrote: As far as avilo goes......well some semi-pro (if even that much) NA Terran who streams a lot claims one thing and is directly contradicted by the words of a highly accomplished veteran (Snute) plus the actions of two more Korean veterans that are serious contenders for the Terran throne. So yeah. Use your brains, people.
why don't you use your brains and actually read what avilo is advocating for? I don't like the guy, but somewhere underneath his outrageous hyperbole ("remove swarm hosts from the game!") he has some sensible ideas about terran mech. avilo's whining, while justified in many ways, unfortunately brings the mech cause more harm than good. people fixate on his trolling and assume that all mech players just want mech to be OP.
avilo wrote: I do not play that style of mech by choice.
[...]
In the current version of SC2, if your opponent starts massing air and you went mech, you now are forced to sit and build 4-5 starports and mass viking/lib/raven since there is no anti-air unit like the goliath available from the factory.
see? nobody wants 2015 turtle mech, ravens, or invincible sky armies. we want a solid ground-to-air AA unit and heightened synergy between the current factory units.
factory-based mech, with some minor sky support, should be able to handle any situation (8 factories, 1 starport). we took 2 steps forward with the siege tank change and thor armour buff. we took 1 massive step back with the cyclone.
avilo thinks factory-vikings are the answer... personally, I don't agree with avilo's viking suggestion. I would prefer to see the core characteristics of the old cyclone reinstated with some adjustments:
- remove Tornado Blaster weapon from the game - movement speed increased to 4.72 - health decreased to 160 - supply cost remains at 3 - reinstate ground-to-ground lock-on - reinstate ground-to-air lock-on - reinstate auto-cast - lock-on deals 200 damage over 14 seconds vs light ground/air - lock-on deals 400 damage over 14 seconds vs armored ground/air - mag-field accelerator increases lock-on damage from 200 to 200 (+200) vs light ground/air, 400 (+400) vs armored ground/air - mag-field launchers increases the cyclone's ground-to-air range from 7 to 9
I believe these adjustments to the cyclone would have wide-ranging positive effects in all match-ups:
1) banshees, medivacs and oracles would have a chance to survive lock-on during early-game harassment. warp prisms would be more punishable.
2) cyclones would be able to kill a liberator with a single iteration of lock-on.
3) renewed synergy between hellions and cyclones, thanks to their similar movement speed.
4) cyclone/mine would take over the thor's role of mutalisk defense. GuMiho's mech defense against mutalisks consists of 2 thors and 2 medivacs. he loads the thors in the medivacs so he can boost and chase after the mutalisks. unfortunately, this forces the mech player into a "soft turtle" phase where we wait for ~160 supply and 2-2 upgrades. thors take time to build, and there is an urgency to follow the thors with tanks because of the threat of a roach/ravager/hydra switch. if we give the role of mutalisk defense to cyclone/mine, this would remove the ground turtling phase and give mech a natural follow-up to the "speedy mech" style afforded by early game hellion/banshee harass. the lock-on upgrade would also allow mech to kite and buy time against a possible roach/ravager/hydra follow-up.
5) cyclones would have some micro potential again. right now, cyclones have the same micro potential as a missile turret. how can anyone think this unit is fun to use? Tornado Blaster is pure fucking cancer. how can terran players get any satisfaction from controlling a slow 1A mech marine? you traded in a glass cannon for a literal photon cannon that can move when it's not firing. it blows my mind that people were not up in arms about this change. I guess terran players kept quiet because it did more damage...
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On June 29 2017 06:27 SHODAN wrote:Show nested quote +On June 29 2017 04:55 pvsnp wrote: As far as avilo goes......well some semi-pro (if even that much) NA Terran who streams a lot claims one thing and is directly contradicted by the words of a highly accomplished veteran (Snute) plus the actions of two more Korean veterans that are serious contenders for the Terran throne. So yeah. Use your brains, people. why don't you use your brains and actually read what avilo is advocating for? I don't like the guy, but somewhere underneath his outrageous hyperbole ("remove swarm hosts from the game!") he has some sensible ideas about terran mech. avilo's whining, while justified in many ways, unfortunately brings the mech cause more harm than good. people fixate on his trolling and assume that all mech players just want mech to be OP. Show nested quote +avilo wrote: I do not play that style of mech by choice.
[...]
In the current version of SC2, if your opponent starts massing air and you went mech, you now are forced to sit and build 4-5 starports and mass viking/lib/raven since there is no anti-air unit like the goliath available from the factory.
see? nobody wants 2015 turtle mech, ravens, or invincible sky armies. we want a solid ground-to-air AA unit and heightened synergy between the current factory units. factory-based mech, with some minor sky support, should be able to handle any situation (8 factories, 1 starport). we took 2 steps forward with the siege tank change and thor armour buff. we took 1 massive step back with the cyclone. avilo thinks factory-vikings are the answer... personally, I don't agree with avilo's viking suggestion. I would prefer to see the core characteristics of the old cyclone reinstated with some adjustments: - remove Tornado Blaster weapon from the game - movement speed increased to 4.72 - health decreased to 160 - supply cost remains at 3 - reinstate ground-to-ground lock-on - reinstate ground-to-air lock-on - reinstate auto-cast - lock-on deals 200 damage over 14 seconds vs light ground/air - lock-on deals 400 damage over 14 seconds vs armored ground/air - mag-field accelerator increases lock-on damage from 200 to 200 (+200) vs light ground/air, 400 (+400) vs armored ground/air - mag-field launchers increases the cyclone's ground-to-air range from 7 to 9 I believe these adjustments to the cyclone would have wide-ranging positive effects in all match-ups: 1) banshees, medivacs and oracles would have a chance to survive lock-on during early-game harassment. warp prisms would be more punishable. 2) cyclones would be able to kill a liberator with a single iteration of lock-on. 3) renewed synergy between hellions and cyclones, thanks to their similar movement speed. 4) cyclone/mine would take over the thor's role of mutalisk defense. GuMiho's mech defense against mutalisks consists of 2 thors and 2 medivacs. he loads the thors in the medivacs so he can boost and chase after the mutalisks. unfortunately, this forces the mech player into a "soft turtle" phase where we wait for ~160 supply and 2-2 upgrades. thors take time to build, and there is an urgency to follow the thors with tanks because of the threat of a roach/ravager/hydra switch. if we give the role of mutalisk defense to cyclone/mine, this would remove the ground turtling phase and give mech a natural follow-up to the "speedy mech" style afforded by early game hellion/banshee harass. the lock-on upgrade would also allow mech to kite and buy time against a possible roach/ravager/hydra follow-up. 5) cyclones would have some micro potential again. right now, cyclones have the same micro potential as a missile turret. how can anyone think this unit is fun to use? Tornado Blaster is pure fucking cancer. how can terran players get any satisfaction from controlling a slow 1A mech marine? you traded in a glass cannon for a literal photon cannon that can move when it's not firing. it blows my mind that people were not up in arms about this change. I guess terran players kept quiet because it did more damage... Viable doesn't mean you like the strategy, or that it's your preferred strategy, or even that it's a fun strategy. Viable means that a player can win with the strategy against another player of approximately equal skill.
While I agree with some of what you said about mech AA, especially the Cyclone (it is a stupid unit w/o micro potential confined to the early game), mech as it currently stands has been proven (by the words of Snute and the actions of INnoVation/Gumiho) to be viable. No, it is not perfect. No, it is not significantly better than bio (in fact I'd argue it's slightly worse). But at the highest level of Starcraft 2 TvZ, mech is viable.
That was, and still is, my point.
Incidentally, while I am not a huge fan of TvZ mech, I am a massive fan of TvT mech. The endless Marine-Tank doom drops that define the contemporary TvT meta are incredibly dull to watch and coinflippy to play. Bio vs Mech TvT, on the other hand, was amazing to watch and thrilling to play. I cite the legendary duel of TaeJa vs INnoVation on Newkirk Precinct, which to this day is still the greatest single game of Starcraft ever played.
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On June 29 2017 09:39 pvsnp wrote:Show nested quote +On June 29 2017 06:27 SHODAN wrote:On June 29 2017 04:55 pvsnp wrote: As far as avilo goes......well some semi-pro (if even that much) NA Terran who streams a lot claims one thing and is directly contradicted by the words of a highly accomplished veteran (Snute) plus the actions of two more Korean veterans that are serious contenders for the Terran throne. So yeah. Use your brains, people. why don't you use your brains and actually read what avilo is advocating for? I don't like the guy, but somewhere underneath his outrageous hyperbole ("remove swarm hosts from the game!") he has some sensible ideas about terran mech. avilo's whining, while justified in many ways, unfortunately brings the mech cause more harm than good. people fixate on his trolling and assume that all mech players just want mech to be OP. avilo wrote: I do not play that style of mech by choice.
[...]
In the current version of SC2, if your opponent starts massing air and you went mech, you now are forced to sit and build 4-5 starports and mass viking/lib/raven since there is no anti-air unit like the goliath available from the factory.
see? nobody wants 2015 turtle mech, ravens, or invincible sky armies. we want a solid ground-to-air AA unit and heightened synergy between the current factory units. factory-based mech, with some minor sky support, should be able to handle any situation (8 factories, 1 starport). we took 2 steps forward with the siege tank change and thor armour buff. we took 1 massive step back with the cyclone. avilo thinks factory-vikings are the answer... personally, I don't agree with avilo's viking suggestion. I would prefer to see the core characteristics of the old cyclone reinstated with some adjustments: - remove Tornado Blaster weapon from the game - movement speed increased to 4.72 - health decreased to 160 - supply cost remains at 3 - reinstate ground-to-ground lock-on - reinstate ground-to-air lock-on - reinstate auto-cast - lock-on deals 200 damage over 14 seconds vs light ground/air - lock-on deals 400 damage over 14 seconds vs armored ground/air - mag-field accelerator increases lock-on damage from 200 to 200 (+200) vs light ground/air, 400 (+400) vs armored ground/air - mag-field launchers increases the cyclone's ground-to-air range from 7 to 9 I believe these adjustments to the cyclone would have wide-ranging positive effects in all match-ups: 1) banshees, medivacs and oracles would have a chance to survive lock-on during early-game harassment. warp prisms would be more punishable. 2) cyclones would be able to kill a liberator with a single iteration of lock-on. 3) renewed synergy between hellions and cyclones, thanks to their similar movement speed. 4) cyclone/mine would take over the thor's role of mutalisk defense. GuMiho's mech defense against mutalisks consists of 2 thors and 2 medivacs. he loads the thors in the medivacs so he can boost and chase after the mutalisks. unfortunately, this forces the mech player into a "soft turtle" phase where we wait for ~160 supply and 2-2 upgrades. thors take time to build, and there is an urgency to follow the thors with tanks because of the threat of a roach/ravager/hydra switch. if we give the role of mutalisk defense to cyclone/mine, this would remove the ground turtling phase and give mech a natural follow-up to the "speedy mech" style afforded by early game hellion/banshee harass. the lock-on upgrade would also allow mech to kite and buy time against a possible roach/ravager/hydra follow-up. 5) cyclones would have some micro potential again. right now, cyclones have the same micro potential as a missile turret. how can anyone think this unit is fun to use? Tornado Blaster is pure fucking cancer. how can terran players get any satisfaction from controlling a slow 1A mech marine? you traded in a glass cannon for a literal photon cannon that can move when it's not firing. it blows my mind that people were not up in arms about this change. I guess terran players kept quiet because it did more damage... Viable doesn't mean you like the strategy, or that it's your preferred strategy, or even that it's a fun strategy. Viable means that a player can win with the strategy against another player of approximately equal skill. While I agree with some of what you said about mech AA, especially the Cyclone (it is a stupid unit w/o micro potential confined to the early game), mech as it currently stands has been proven (by the words of Snute and the actions of INnoVation/Gumiho) to be viable. No, it is not perfect. No, it is not significantly better than bio (in fact I'd argue it's slightly worse). But at the highest level of Starcraft 2 TvZ, mech is viable. That was, and still is, my point. Incidentally, while I am not a huge fan of TvZ mech, I am a massive fan of TvT mech. The endless Marine-Tank doom drops that define the contemporary TvT meta are incredibly dull to watch and coinflippy to play. Bio vs Mech TvT, on the other hand, was amazing to watch and thrilling to play. I cite the legendary duel of TaeJa vs INnoVation on Newkirk Precinct, which to this day is still the greatest single game of Starcraft ever played.
sorry, got my wires crossed on the "viable" thing.
for me, the holy grail of mech TvT is Mvp vs Innovation on Akilon Wastes
youtu.be
8 SCVs vs 30 SCVs.
"he may as well GG" - Artosis
15 minutes later
"the humiliated Innovation army is now retreating" - Tasteless
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On June 28 2017 23:28 Liquid`Snute wrote:There's already plenty of games of gumiho on youtube. A lot of the series between gumiho and myself and soo and gumiho on wardi's channel for example will give you a somewhat nuanced view of mech vs zerg. Surprise surprise, mech both wins and loses. It's still in the process of being figured out. Swarm host can appear ridicilous, same goes for vipers and terran ground or ravens. +++ + Show Spoiler ++ Show Spoiler ++ Show Spoiler ++ Show Spoiler ++ Show Spoiler ++ Show Spoiler +The issue with swarm host on the sub-top level is that hosts appear ridicilous to play against if you don't know exactly how to approach it from the get-go with a high level of skill (6200+ MMR?). Mech is also harder to play compared to mass swarm host on the sub-top level, so the most vocal players will most likely always state that swarm hosts are broken. Personally i think mech is slightly inferior to bio, but i also know that a simple showmatch won't necessarily provide the answers people are looking for. It takes a decently large sample size of scenarios and situations with different openings, perhaps a replay pack of 20-50 games. There are ways to delay the onset of swarmhost such as turboshee, banshee into 2thordrop, and there are also ways for zerg to delay their own swarm host (3base, heavy roach ravager hydra viper before swarm host etc.). There are ways out such as mass muta switch, and switching from sky terran to ground etc. And more... People don't look at large enough samples and a lot of the time the zerg makes mistakes. Right now, players in KR are indeed struggling with Mech, but from watching streams I can tell that both sides are making some pretty silly mistakes and that a lot of the time the games on average aren't as un-even as either side might think. But if you know that your opponent will always play mech from the start, or if you know that a zerg will only play roach hydra viper and no swarmhost or ONLY swarmhost no matter what for example, then yes it's easy to make either side look disgusting. There aren't enough broadcast games to give a clear picture. Personally I think destroying mech terrans on EU is super easy for the most part. But word from KR is that mech is hard. So.. hard to tell.
I think swarmhost are very ridiculous at all levels of play. There should not be any army in the game that consists of essentially one tech unit that requires no money to utilize and essentially generates free money and can freely escape across the map while attacking over terrain like a reaper for free.
And before your or anyone try to say i'm biased or something i'm being very objective - ravens are just as bad as swarmhost once you get 10+ of them because there's no downside at all to just "making more ravens" or "making more swarmhosts." Units like this in RTS dissuade either side from doing anything and you're fighting with free unit generators rather than trading unit for units that cost income.
Roach/hydra versus mech is fair because both players are interacting with the other player's units and making trades that cost income.
Mass swarmhost up to 20+ swarmhosts that are flying free locusts every 30 sec is not fair or balanced because you're essentially generating a free army of roach/hydra every 30 seconds. Normally you'd have to actually fight your opponent and risk losing units that cost money. With swarmhosts there is no such risk because you can launch locust from 3 screens away. I would say the same argument applies to mass raven when you have 10+ of them. You just spam auto-turrets/seeker and it turns into the tedious game of picking off units 1 by 1 instead of fighting your opponent.
KR Zergs do not know how to abuse SH like NA/EU Zergs do to show how ridiculously broken it is. There's also the factors that 99% KR Terran play bio instead of mech, and they basically have zero game knowledge or practice on what to do versus mech. Zero nydus play in the finals of Soo vs Gumiho, and if you or anyone is saying Soo went into that series expecting mech...yet still doesn't know to abuse nydus and swarmhosts...
The fact is balance isn't dictated at all by any 1 series of games. Game balance/design for SC2 is more of a "what is fair and balanced for players, and how the game can be strategically diverse." Swarmhosts are oppressive to the point they remove a lot of strategic diversity of Terran just solely because they exist in their current state. They are oppressive to mech being playable, and too easy to use. The counter-measures to swarmhosts require an insane amount of skill compared to the zero amount of skill required to simply "MAKE SWARMOSTS."
The swarmhost really no one can defend as a balanced unit in it's current state, and i'd be willing to debate anyone about it. And what you said snute about you personally finding mech Terrans easy to play vs on EU...it's because you understand how to abuse SH/viper like a lot of other NA/EU Zergs, but for some reason KR Zergs don't seem to quite grasp how strong these units are late game and they do really theoretically bad things like keep massing pure roach and corruptors.
Whenever i off-race on ladder with Z vs T and the Terran goes mech...it's basically a freewin because i know how to abuse mech so easily since i play it so often with my main race.
I will say though, if both players know the theoretical late game Zerg / mech late games....the game becomes really really bad because it's ends up being ghosts sniping vipers 1 by 1 or vipers abducting units 1 by 1 or units getting seekered 1 by 1 for the next 40 minutes with nothing happening because all of these units are energy based units.
With all of this being said, are swarmhosts/ravens unbeatable? Of course not, it's winnable for both the Z and T. THe better question is, "is this the type of gameplay that is healthy for SC2 players, viewers, and community?" The answer is: fuck no, there needs to be changes.
Also, on another note...i think what you said about how the game is way easy essentially if you 100% know the opponent will go mech before the game starts...is exactly why mech is not in a "viable" state at the moment.
A "viable" strategy is a strategy you can go into a game with even if your opponent knows you will do it yet still be effective with it. The best examples with this are ling/bane/muta and bio play. An opponent can know you are going to go for these strategies and yet both strategies remain effective and can win or lose the game without being insanely hard countered by 1 unit.
Mech on the other hand...the amount of games i play on ladder that are people literally metagaming because they see "avilo" and they immediately go up to swarmhosts and then i have to "metagame their meta" with speedshee or weird ass builds...all of this issue is created by the fact that swarmhosts hard counter an entire style and that should be addressed.
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Mech isnt funny to watch
It's just about frustration and impotence.
Wow what a great siege up you really deserve your gsl finals gg
When bio is entertaining. You just have to see the reactions after the blizzcon finals, people who didnt know much about the game were impressed, i'm not sure they would have been seeing this type of match.
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On June 29 2017 06:27 SHODAN wrote:Show nested quote +On June 29 2017 04:55 pvsnp wrote: As far as avilo goes......well some semi-pro (if even that much) NA Terran who streams a lot claims one thing and is directly contradicted by the words of a highly accomplished veteran (Snute) plus the actions of two more Korean veterans that are serious contenders for the Terran throne. So yeah. Use your brains, people. why don't you use your brains and actually read what avilo is advocating for? I don't like the guy, but somewhere underneath his outrageous hyperbole ("remove swarm hosts from the game!") he has some sensible ideas about terran mech. avilo's whining, while justified in many ways, unfortunately brings the mech cause more harm than good. people fixate on his trolling and assume that all mech players just want mech to be OP. Show nested quote +avilo wrote: I do not play that style of mech by choice.
[...]
In the current version of SC2, if your opponent starts massing air and you went mech, you now are forced to sit and build 4-5 starports and mass viking/lib/raven since there is no anti-air unit like the goliath available from the factory.
see? nobody wants 2015 turtle mech, ravens, or invincible sky armies. we want a solid ground-to-air AA unit and heightened synergy between the current factory units. factory-based mech, with some minor sky support, should be able to handle any situation (8 factories, 1 starport). we took 2 steps forward with the siege tank change and thor armour buff. we took 1 massive step back with the cyclone. avilo thinks factory-vikings are the answer... personally, I don't agree with avilo's viking suggestion. I would prefer to see the core characteristics of the old cyclone reinstated with some adjustments: - remove Tornado Blaster weapon from the game - movement speed increased to 4.72 - health decreased to 160 - supply cost remains at 3 - reinstate ground-to-ground lock-on - reinstate ground-to-air lock-on - reinstate auto-cast - lock-on deals 200 damage over 14 seconds vs light ground/air - lock-on deals 400 damage over 14 seconds vs armored ground/air - mag-field accelerator increases lock-on damage from 200 to 200 (+200) vs light ground/air, 400 (+400) vs armored ground/air - mag-field launchers increases the cyclone's ground-to-air range from 7 to 9 I believe these adjustments to the cyclone would have wide-ranging positive effects in all match-ups: 1) banshees, medivacs and oracles would have a chance to survive lock-on during early-game harassment. warp prisms would be more punishable. 2) cyclones would be able to kill a liberator with a single iteration of lock-on. 3) renewed synergy between hellions and cyclones, thanks to their similar movement speed. 4) cyclone/mine would take over the thor's role of mutalisk defense. GuMiho's mech defense against mutalisks consists of 2 thors and 2 medivacs. he loads the thors in the medivacs so he can boost and chase after the mutalisks. unfortunately, this forces the mech player into a "soft turtle" phase where we wait for ~160 supply and 2-2 upgrades. thors take time to build, and there is an urgency to follow the thors with tanks because of the threat of a roach/ravager/hydra switch. if we give the role of mutalisk defense to cyclone/mine, this would remove the ground turtling phase and give mech a natural follow-up to the "speedy mech" style afforded by early game hellion/banshee harass. the lock-on upgrade would also allow mech to kite and buy time against a possible roach/ravager/hydra follow-up. 5) cyclones would have some micro potential again. right now, cyclones have the same micro potential as a missile turret. how can anyone think this unit is fun to use? Tornado Blaster is pure fucking cancer. how can terran players get any satisfaction from controlling a slow 1A mech marine? you traded in a glass cannon for a literal photon cannon that can move when it's not firing. it blows my mind that people were not up in arms about this change. I guess terran players kept quiet because it did more damage...
It's interesting that you want the cyclone kind of reverted or pseudo reverted to how it used to be.
I dunno how many of you guys remember cyclones in LOTV Beta but...aggressive mech was actually viable you could go pure tank/cyclone/hellion in action packed games with aggression in multiple places on the map. Admittedly the original version was slightly overpowered in terms of range and lock-on...but it was a much healthier play style and it was really good anti-air.
You could counter carrier interceptors in LOTV beta with pure cyclones. It was fuckin amazing. But then for some reason, as usual, Blizzard decided they hated mech.
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On June 29 2017 13:33 avilo wrote:Show nested quote +On June 29 2017 06:27 SHODAN wrote:On June 29 2017 04:55 pvsnp wrote: As far as avilo goes......well some semi-pro (if even that much) NA Terran who streams a lot claims one thing and is directly contradicted by the words of a highly accomplished veteran (Snute) plus the actions of two more Korean veterans that are serious contenders for the Terran throne. So yeah. Use your brains, people. why don't you use your brains and actually read what avilo is advocating for? I don't like the guy, but somewhere underneath his outrageous hyperbole ("remove swarm hosts from the game!") he has some sensible ideas about terran mech. avilo's whining, while justified in many ways, unfortunately brings the mech cause more harm than good. people fixate on his trolling and assume that all mech players just want mech to be OP. avilo wrote: I do not play that style of mech by choice.
[...]
In the current version of SC2, if your opponent starts massing air and you went mech, you now are forced to sit and build 4-5 starports and mass viking/lib/raven since there is no anti-air unit like the goliath available from the factory.
see? nobody wants 2015 turtle mech, ravens, or invincible sky armies. we want a solid ground-to-air AA unit and heightened synergy between the current factory units. factory-based mech, with some minor sky support, should be able to handle any situation (8 factories, 1 starport). we took 2 steps forward with the siege tank change and thor armour buff. we took 1 massive step back with the cyclone. avilo thinks factory-vikings are the answer... personally, I don't agree with avilo's viking suggestion. I would prefer to see the core characteristics of the old cyclone reinstated with some adjustments: - remove Tornado Blaster weapon from the game - movement speed increased to 4.72 - health decreased to 160 - supply cost remains at 3 - reinstate ground-to-ground lock-on - reinstate ground-to-air lock-on - reinstate auto-cast - lock-on deals 200 damage over 14 seconds vs light ground/air - lock-on deals 400 damage over 14 seconds vs armored ground/air - mag-field accelerator increases lock-on damage from 200 to 200 (+200) vs light ground/air, 400 (+400) vs armored ground/air - mag-field launchers increases the cyclone's ground-to-air range from 7 to 9 I believe these adjustments to the cyclone would have wide-ranging positive effects in all match-ups: 1) banshees, medivacs and oracles would have a chance to survive lock-on during early-game harassment. warp prisms would be more punishable. 2) cyclones would be able to kill a liberator with a single iteration of lock-on. 3) renewed synergy between hellions and cyclones, thanks to their similar movement speed. 4) cyclone/mine would take over the thor's role of mutalisk defense. GuMiho's mech defense against mutalisks consists of 2 thors and 2 medivacs. he loads the thors in the medivacs so he can boost and chase after the mutalisks. unfortunately, this forces the mech player into a "soft turtle" phase where we wait for ~160 supply and 2-2 upgrades. thors take time to build, and there is an urgency to follow the thors with tanks because of the threat of a roach/ravager/hydra switch. if we give the role of mutalisk defense to cyclone/mine, this would remove the ground turtling phase and give mech a natural follow-up to the "speedy mech" style afforded by early game hellion/banshee harass. the lock-on upgrade would also allow mech to kite and buy time against a possible roach/ravager/hydra follow-up. 5) cyclones would have some micro potential again. right now, cyclones have the same micro potential as a missile turret. how can anyone think this unit is fun to use? Tornado Blaster is pure fucking cancer. how can terran players get any satisfaction from controlling a slow 1A mech marine? you traded in a glass cannon for a literal photon cannon that can move when it's not firing. it blows my mind that people were not up in arms about this change. I guess terran players kept quiet because it did more damage... It's interesting that you want the cyclone kind of reverted or pseudo reverted to how it used to be. I dunno how many of you guys remember cyclones in LOTV Beta but...aggressive mech was actually viable you could go pure tank/cyclone/hellion in action packed games with aggression in multiple places on the map. Admittedly the original version was slightly overpowered in terms of range and lock-on...but it was a much healthier play style and it was really good anti-air. You could counter carrier interceptors in LOTV beta with pure cyclones. It was fuckin amazing. But then for some reason, as usual, Blizzard decided they hated mech.
what I really love about the old cyclone is the effect it had on gas expenditure and mech infrastructure.
right now, mech players are forced to open 1-1-1 and spend a small fortune on starport units before they can even think about a ground army. this is necessary for several reasons... let's run up the costs.
150/100 for the starport 150/75 for a viking
the viking is absolutely essential for denying intel from the zerg and to prevent/delay nydus rushes. of course, it would be a massive over-investment to build a starport just for 1 viking, so our meching terran is tricked into building more crap from the starport in order to make the investment worth it. GuMiho typically builds 1 viking, followed by a combination of 2 or 3 other air units, depending on the map:
200/400 for raven/raven 400/300 for banshee/banshee with cloak 400/350 liberator/banshee with cloak
by the time all that is over, you've spent at least 1000 minerals and 475 gas on the starport. yet another spending obstacle in our struggle to build a ground-based mech army...
that was all different with the old cyclones. with the old cyclones, you could skip the starport entirely and open double factory. Innovation opened double factory reactor/techlab every game, with a quick mag-field accelerator upgrade. I can't emphasize enough how good this for the infrastructure and pacing of ground mech styles. gas expenditure was going in all the right places. and, of course, you could snipe overlords from the ground.
another big effect they had on gas expenditure... the old cyclone was not at the mercy of weapons upgrades. if you can get by on cyclones, you do not have to rush for double armory. you just need 1 armory. this made the synergy between hellion/mine/cyclone so fucking perfect.
2 of those units deal spell damage, so you can delay the weapons upgrade for quite some time. hellions in hellion mode do not benefit much from weapons upgrades. in fact, we want hellions primarily to guard the cyclones from lings and soak damage from roaches/queens.
if hellion/mine/cyclone is viable in the early/mid-game, you can spend the extra gas on more factories, techlab upgrades, and only 1 armory. what does this all mean? no more turtling. faster factories, strong and mobile ground presence, more movement all across the map, more skirmishes, more kiting, more action!
big missed opportunity for the TvZ match-up. I guess not many are nostalgic about this style. it was only just starting to gain traction in the pro Korean scene before the cyclone was suddenly changed to a mech marine. I wish I saved more replays of me playing this style... this is the only one I could salvage:
http://lotv.spawningtool.com/18403/
one more funny thing about cyclone-based mech vZ is that you could legit take a long-distance 4th on the opposite side of the map, just like in Brood War. what the fuck are roach/hydras gonna do? walk all the way across Frost and snipe a planetary? not when you have the best kiting unit in the game picking off units left and right, poised and ready to raid your hatches!
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On June 28 2017 23:28 Liquid`Snute wrote:There's already plenty of games of gumiho on youtube. A lot of the series between gumiho and myself and soo and gumiho on wardi's channel for example will give you a somewhat nuanced view of mech vs zerg. Surprise surprise, mech both wins and loses. It's still in the process of being figured out. Swarm host can appear ridicilous, same goes for vipers and terran ground or ravens. +++ + Show Spoiler +https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FRBvg-wicw + Show Spoiler +https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2mqdxOQl40 + Show Spoiler +https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFNcPZNfY5M + Show Spoiler +https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyQy9IyorYo + Show Spoiler +https://youtu.be/CSDqIj-nHmM?t=9m41s + Show Spoiler +https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KuFssqo6Aig The issue with swarm host on the sub-top level is that hosts appear ridicilous to play against if you don't know exactly how to approach it from the get-go with a high level of skill (6200+ MMR?). Mech is also harder to play compared to mass swarm host on the sub-top level, so the most vocal players will most likely always state that swarm hosts are broken. Personally i think mech is slightly inferior to bio, but i also know that a simple showmatch won't necessarily provide the answers people are looking for. It takes a decently large sample size of scenarios and situations with different openings, perhaps a replay pack of 20-50 games. There are ways to delay the onset of swarmhost such as turboshee, banshee into 2thordrop, and there are also ways for zerg to delay their own swarm host (3base, heavy roach ravager hydra viper before swarm host etc.). There are ways out such as mass muta switch, and switching from sky terran to ground etc. And more... People don't look at large enough samples and a lot of the time the zerg makes mistakes. Right now, players in KR are indeed struggling with Mech, but from watching streams I can tell that both sides are making some pretty silly mistakes and that a lot of the time the games on average aren't as un-even as either side might think. But if you know that your opponent will always play mech from the start, or if you know that a zerg will only play roach hydra viper and no swarmhost or ONLY swarmhost no matter what for example, then yes it's easy to make either side look disgusting. There aren't enough broadcast games to give a clear picture. Personally I think destroying mech terrans on EU is super easy for the most part. But word from KR is that mech is hard. So.. hard to tell. thanks for the replays and for the very level-headed stance
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On June 29 2017 13:31 DieuCure wrote:Mech isnt funny to watchIt's just about frustration and impotence. Wow what a great siege up you really deserve your gsl finals gg When bio is entertaining. You just have to see the reactions after the blizzcon finals, people who didnt know much about the game were impressed, i'm not sure they would have been seeing this type of match. You have no idea what you are talking about dude
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i personally find GSL Code S level Terran Mech entertaining. I find Gumiho's matches very entertaining. not sure how others feel about it.
playing against a Turtler-Mecher is frustrating for me in Diamond League, however, i do not think this warrants any changes from Blizzard.
When you're playing at my level of multitasking and APM with my weak keyboard mechanics .. some degree of frustration will sometimes be part of the game; there is nothing Blizzard can do about it. furthermore, i'm too lazy to make my keyboard mechanics better.
if i complained like some people in this thread i'd be demanding the removal of the Zergling.
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On June 30 2017 02:56 JimmyJRaynor wrote: i personally find GSL Code S level Terran Mech entertaining. I find Gumiho's matches very entertaining. not sure how others feel about it.
playing against a Turtler-Mecher is frustrating for me in Diamond League, however, i do not think this warrants any changes from Blizzard.
When you're playing at my level of multitasking and APM with my weak keyboard mechanics .. some degree of frustration will sometimes be part of the game; there is nothing Blizzard can do about it. furthermore, i'm too lazy to make my keyboard mechanics better.
if i complained like some people in this thread i'd be demanding the removal of the Zergling. Ofcourse you say all this, proofing that you dont know what you are even reading in this thread then. And ofcourse you think the RTS genre is declining with this knowledge of yours. A healthy RTS GAME revolves around micro vs micro, and healthy decisions as "where to trade, where to attack, where to defend". With little to no hardcounters. If you read very very carefully you will understand that the swarmhost and raven does the opposite of this. SC2 is a really unhealthy RTS game and the only thing to make it healthy IS TO CHANGE THE GAME.
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On June 30 2017 03:19 Foxxan wrote: SC2 is a really unhealthy RTS game and the only thing to make it healthy IS TO CHANGE THE GAME. When LotV first came out there was too much air play at my level of play; i think they've fixed that issue. I'm happy with the game as it is and i like the GSL.
On June 30 2017 03:19 Foxxan wrote: And ofcourse you think the RTS genre is declining with this knowledge of yours. A healthy RTS GAME revolves around micro vs micro, and healthy decisions as ... so you think the RTS genre is doing well? is that your point here? if the RTS genre is doing well there must be good alternatives to SC2 that have been released in the last 7 years. Let me know one of those good alternatives and i'll try it out. For now, I'm happy with SC2.
On June 30 2017 03:19 Foxxan wrote: proofing that you dont know what you are even reading in this thread Snute's perspective was clear. I understood it. and demonstrated that understanding in my post commenting on his insights.
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JimmyJRaynor you are the most high horse, ivory tower, big asshole i have ever seen. Every 2 posts you shit a little on other posters, aggressively or passively.
I used to think that you just love SC2 and you look to defend it, but that it's not the case. You are looking to create drama and conflict.
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your "create drama" claim is the only drama here. i am providing feedback to Blizzard in my posts.
i provided a rebuttal to this claim "you dont know what you are even reading".
if there is a specific line item i've misread or misunderstood i prefer to be corrected. the general comment "you don't know what you are reading" adds nothing to the discussion and is tantamount to the "shit a little on other posters" issue you bring up. pot? kettle?
so, is there something specific i'm misreading? if so, maybe we can clear that up and provide more high quality feedback to Blizzard to help make SC2 a better game
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On July 01 2017 02:13 JimmyJRaynor wrote: your "create drama" claim is the only drama here. i am providing feedback to Blizzard in my posts.
i provided a rebuttal to this claim "you dont know what you are even reading".
if there is a specific line item i've misread or misunderstood i prefer to be corrected. the general comment "you don't know what you are reading" adds nothing to the discussion and is tantamount to the "shit a little on other posters" issue you bring up. pot? kettle?
so, is there something specific i'm misreading? if so, maybe we can clear that up and provide more high quality feedback to Blizzard to help make SC2 a better game I am here to help, so of course i am going to help you.
Let's both start by not lecturing people about what is right, wrong, fun, etc. Let's both try to understand that just by sayng the same thing over and over (like RTS is not popular) is not going to help us, them, the thread, or anyone. Let us agree that we are not as smart as we think we are, and the smater and the more objective we try to be, the more Sappire will make fun of us
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we can now ignore yesterday's claim "you dont know what you are even reading" because it adds nothing.... and nothing of substance came of it.... just useless flaming.
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On July 01 2017 03:19 JimmyJRaynor wrote: we can now ignore yesterday's claim "you dont know what you are even reading" because it adds nothing.... and nothing of substance came of it.... just useless flaming. Can you refrain from now on from making such post then?I will be there if you don't. Always watching, always looking out for starcraft i am
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I started playing sc2 recently again and jesus they changed those swarmhosts, blue flame hellions couldn't do anything when I kept catching them off guard rip ;;.
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