SK Planet PL S2 May Roster

On May 18 2012 12:27 Ideas wrote:

while your analysis of the BW matchups seems a bit dated, I have to repeat that the units in SC2 zerg aren't nearly as fun to play with (or to watch) as in BW. all of the fun units that zerg had were removed and all the new units aren't nearly as fun (and most units that stayed aren't as fun either: zerglings/mutas/hydras). while it's true that I haven't watched that much SC2 in the last year or so, whenever I do most games still seem boring and suffer from the same problems that they did from the start: boring unit interactions, death balls, too hard to make comebacks.

I feel like ZvT gets way too much credit from SC2 fans because it's the only non-mirror matchup that doesn't always have big death balls and "win the first battle -> instantly win game" syndrome, but the general battles just aren't that interesting for the most part (at least compared to BW ZvT). mutas are fucking shitty to watch/play with in sc2 since they can't be micro'd nearly as precisely. while watching marine micro vs banelings is the one saving grace in pretty much all of SC2 micro-wise, I would argue that it's about on par with watching marines split vs lurkers. HOWEVER, lurkers have about 5x more versatility compared to banelings. and then sc2 zvt is missing equivelents to so many little things that make the match-up so great in BW: scourge vs vessels, irradiate, swarm. drops are so much more exciting in BW because they have a much higher risk/reward ratio: drops can do far more damage in BW (harder for zerg to send ground forces to respond, far fewer workers, etc) but there is much more risk (scourge can easily take out a dropship, making a dropship means you are NOT making a vessel, etc).

also BW ZvZ is an amazing thing even though it's mostly just 3 units, becuase each of those 3 units have an insane amount of depth to them and reward fine control very well. You can spend years practicing control of mutas/lings/scourge to become better at controlling them, whereas perfect control of those units in SC2 can be mastered in about 5 minutes.

although I'd like to point out that it's not JUST about making a cool unit. it's about that unit's relationship with the units that it fights. Take the dragoon and the stalker for example. On paper, the stalker should be way cooler than the dragoon because it it basically the same unit but has blink. However I always find myself much more interested in dragoons than stalkers. This is because the dragoon has much more interesting unit encounters than the stalker. most of the time the stalker just spends it's time in a big death ball attacking other ranged units that are in a death ball, while occasionally it will go do some harass or defend some harass (oh, and you can blink back weakened stalkers COOL YOU CANT DO ANYTHING LIKE THAT WITH OTHER UNITS).

Then when you look at the dragoon, it does a lot of different stuff. In PvP it functions similarly to stalkers, being used mostly in the big army or defending vs reaver harass. However in PvT you have dragoons interacting with spidermines and vultures. most of the early to mid game dragoons are moving around hte map clearing out mines and defending vs vulture or dropship harass. Dragoons usually destroy vultures can need to be careful not to get surrounded by too many as vultures are super fast. dragoons can be micro'd properly to avoid dying to mines. and then in the main battles there's the cool dynamic of dragoons/zeals vs vultures/tanks, where a sort of rock/paper/scissors happens, but then players can overcome that by placing good mines or clearing out mines well, or using zeal bombs/ vessels/ arbitors/ etc. In PvZ it's not as cool as in PvT but good micro is rewarded by not letting dragoons get surrounded by zerglings or by killing lurkers with dragoons and tanking as little damage as possible by focusing down lurkers 1 at a time from the best angle. the most boring battles in BW ZvP are when it's a huge dragoon/templar army vs a huge hydra army, where the only micro comes from storm casting/dodging. and that is pretty much what most battles in SC2 look like.

So maybe if HoTS added something as cool and dynamic as spidermines (or just spidermines straight up) a lot of units that sorta seem stale now would become a lot more fun to play with and watch, but so far nothing blizzard has shown of HoTS looks like they will even come close to that.

sorry to go off on a bit of a rant but I always get pissed off when SC2 fans say that a matchup is so great because more than 3 units per race are used. these units as of now still act and function very similar and for the most part do not have the cool dynamics and excitement of BW, even when the BW matchups for the most part do not have as much unit variety.

Username
Password
	Remember Me

SK Planet PL S2 May Roster - Page 5