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 InoyouS2 July 02 2012 22:57. Posts 1005 | Profile # |
Firstly to point out this isn't a balance whine or anything of the sort, but simply something I've noticed from recent metagame and Blizzards changes in some of the more recent patches (I think the metagame at the moment has a bigger impact).
Let me explain what I mean by this:
After reading several posts discussion TvP/TvZ balance as of recent, it suggests that Terran must be the most aggressive race, and use mobility to it's advantage to cripple the Zerg or Protoss economy early on in order to prevent going into the late-game. The reason for this is because both Protoss and Zerg have race specific macro-mechanics that allow them to quickly change their endgame compositions, therefore the Terran must be more time-attack based with their army compositions, and keep them as hidden from the enemy as possible until the opportune time to strike.
However, lately I have noticed a lot of posts discussing how Terran should react to late-game army compositions, and it seems that both Zerg and Protoss compositions require hard-counters in order to be dealt with effectively, and the only way for Terran to cost-effectively engage a late-game force from either race is to have a balanced composition that reflects the army mix of the other races.
An example in TvP would be anticipating or scouting colossus and having to produce vikings in order to stand a chance, however over-producing vikings may mean that chargelots and stalkers in the mix will crush your ground force due to superior numbers. In TvZ Terran army compositions must change rapidly to properly counter the late-game Ultralisk or Broodlord timings, as without specialised units in your army for each, you will be very hard pressed to hold an attack.
A problem I've noticed for Terran is that it is becoming increasingly more reactive to the other races compositions, but the Terran race mechanics have by far the slowest production, making reactive play extremely difficult and it seems to me to be the wrong direction for TvZ or TvP to go at the moment.
What I expect to see in the near future (before HotS comes out) is for Terrans to move away from creating larger armies, to more timing-attack specific builds that allow them to keep an efficient production and be the aggressor, as I don't think reactive play will work out.
TL;DR: what do you think about Terran as a race and how it should cope with late-game Z & P composition/tech switches?
Poll: Are Terran becoming a reactionary race?Yes, they are more reactive now, due to balance changes. (330) 66% No, they are as aggressive now as before. (95) 19% Yes, they are more reactive now, due to metagame changes. (46) 9% No, economic styles of TvX are just becoming preferable due to metagame changes. (15) 3% No, economic styles of TvX are just becoming preferable due to balance changes. (15) 3% 501 total votes Your vote: Are Terran becoming a reactionary race? (Vote): Yes, they are more reactive now, due to balance changes.
(Vote): No, they are as aggressive now as before.
(Vote): Yes, they are more reactive now, due to metagame changes.
(Vote): No, economic styles of TvX are just becoming preferable due to metagame changes.
(Vote): No, economic styles of TvX are just becoming preferable due to balance changes.
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| Beaza Germany. July 02 2012 23:01. Posts 155 | Profile # |
| terran needs to be aggressive because they have the least powerful lategame. |
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| iky43210 United States. July 02 2012 23:06. Posts 2011 | Profile Blog # |
| It's both. Terran HAS to be aggressive early/mid game, and must be reactive late game if they want to stand a chance |
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| Antares_ Poland. July 02 2012 23:06. Posts 263 | Profile # |
| Yes, Terran have become more reactive than before due to both balance and metagame changes. Just look at DeMuslim yesterday. Everything he did was revolving around playing to the style of his opponent. He couldn't force his Zerg opponents to play particular strategy, because 6 queen opening with 5 range is so rock solid, that you can't break it no matter what you throw at it. Protoss is pretty much the same. Z and P can easily punish T for being greedy, yet Terran can only try to be more greedy than his opponent. That's why it has become so difficult to play Terran lately. Just look at the tournament results during last 2 months or even OSL qualifier tonight - 12 qualified - 6 Zerg, 4 Protoss, 2 Terran... |
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| AxionSteel Australia. July 02 2012 23:08. Posts 6321 | Profile # |
| Yeah definitely, not saying imbalanced, but that's the way Terran is being played these days. |
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| InoyouS2 July 02 2012 23:10. Posts 1005 | Profile # |
On July 02 2012 23:06 iky43210 wrote:
It's both. Terran HAS to be aggressive early/mid game, and must be reactive late game if they want to stand a chance
The problem with doing both is that to be reactive you need to build up the proper infrastructure to accommodate fast tech switches. But if you open tech-heavy your economy or early-game pressure will be a lot weaker.
Again, I'm not sure if this is due to metagame or due to balance, but Terran race-design seems to indicate that fast tech-switches are not a good idea, because the macro mechanics just can't properly support it. |
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| Noocta France. July 02 2012 23:10. Posts 8759 | Profile # |
Always been like that past a certain time in both match up.
Gotta adapt to Colossi or Templar, and Broodlords or Ultralisk. |
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| ZenithM France. July 02 2012 23:10. Posts 9135 | Profile # |
| In TvZ it probably has. But in TvP, it is always as aggression based as before. |
| | MarineKing is my way of Terran. |  |
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| FinalForm United States. July 02 2012 23:12. Posts 420 | Profile # |
| Most Terran aren't sure right now. Hence all the losing. |
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| owlofhell July 02 2012 23:16. Posts 17 | Profile # |
Truth is, nothing really changed, except the length of the games.
Terran is still lead singer in TvZ and TvP for first 15 minutes in to the game, meaning that terran chooses the strategy and protoss/zerg adapts to it (this relates more to zerg, protoss kinda does its thing, but usually terran dictates eraly-midgame engagments in TvP). But when things get to tier 3, its up to terran to compose correct mix of units to effectively deal with maxed out more powerul armies of protoss and zerg. Why this is happening?
Main dps dealer of terran is Tier 1/2 units, while both protoss and zerg relies more and more on tier 3 high-tech units to deal massive damage, keeping lower tier units as a support unit.Thats why terran have an advantage early/mid game and is able to dictate how game will play out further, while in the lategame he needs some precise counters to powerful opponents units, in able to keep his main damage dealers alive.
In short, the only thing that changed, is probability of average game going into the lategame scenario. All buffs/nerfs and even map pool helped to prevent/weaken allins and harass in the early/mid game for all races. Therefore, a lot more games end up going into the lategame, where terran needs to build correct amount of "responsive" units.
So would i say that terran becane a reactionary race? No, at least not more than it used to be. Just the situation in the game, when terran needs to play reactionary (which is rather hard with terran production, as you mentioned), started to come up much more often. |
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| SilSol Sweden. July 02 2012 23:21. Posts 2665 | Profile # |
| The terran in SC2 is so diff than SC1 it's like day and night! Feels like Terran needs more new strategies early game. |
| | twitter: SILSOLsc2 play both NA and EU |
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| Kull of Atlantis Turkey. July 02 2012 23:27. Posts 98 | Profile # |
| The problem is, by design, terran is the last race that can be effectively reactive. Because of it's unit production mechanic (unlike warp-in and larva) if terrans want to be reactive, they are always behind compared to times when protoss and zerg want to play reactive. Last edit: 2012-07-02 23:34:33 |
| | King Kull must die! | |
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| Lorch Germany. July 02 2012 23:31. Posts 2239 | Profile # |
Terran has just always been super strong early/mid game. Matter of the fact is that for like the first year of this game over 50% of all games ended at that point.
Combine that with the fact that ghosts don't just murder anything t3 anymore like they used to terran has really been in an uncomfortable spot lategame. There might be some battlecruiser/raven/ghost army that would be super cost efficient and really good at dealing with anything lategame and allowing terran to be less reactionary, the issue is that no one has really figured out a great way to transition into anything even close to mass starport lategame, but imo thats more of an issue of no one having figured it out then it not being possible in a solid/safe way.
Imo terran has become really good at dealing with lategame toss by getting some rediculous 20 ghost, 20 marauder 20 vikings composition and then just mass nuking/droping everywhere and emp blanking the entire toss army.
Eventually the same will happen in tvz, it's just that between zerg becoming a lot safer to just makro up with and ghosts no longer being the universal answer to all lategame problems terrans just haven't really found the needed answer.
Also there are situation in every matchup for every single race where it has to play more reactionary then the others, starcraft is a game of racial imbalance, that includes that some situations are "harder" and some are "easier" for a certain race and sometimes they have to react more than their opponent, but that is just part of starcraft. I really wish the community as a hole would accept these as just parts of the game instead of using the fact that a certain situation is harder for one race as an argument for imbalance, similiar to how having to be more reactionary in a situation really doesn't mean anything besides it's literal sense.
Overall though yes given that terrans could just mass shit and be fine no matter what their opponent did they have to play a lot more reactionary nowadays, which imo is a very good thing for the state of starcraft 2 in general. |
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| FeyFey Germany. July 02 2012 23:36. Posts 4957 | Profile # |
terran is the slowest race to change their tech by far, but that doesn't change the fact that you have react to your opponent with every race. Terran played aggressive because it was easier then tech switching and reacting to the opponent. Reacting as terran is hard, but not impossible. Lategame you have to prepare your switch before the opponent even is on the way of teching to the switch, then you will probably beat it cost efficient though, otherwise you will lose alot of resources from fighting inefficient and tech switching.
Terran was always this way, so no terran didn't become more reactionary, but the aggressive playstyle got almost as hard to pull off. Luckily the other races are highly predictable and you can see from the upgrade timing what is going on. And once all your production is out Terran becomes unbeatable. Late late game is the true terrans strength. If its a high base count situation or a low income situation, because we went through all of our tech up to this point we can react perfectly in a timely manner.
The weakest point is still our production though, if we lose this its over. But Blizzard could do us a favor and make it easier to survive the lategame after the other races have it fairly easy against terran in the early mid game. Because we have to play so greedy to keep up with the other races greed, but they can punish us so fast for it, while we don't have it that easy. |
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| SnowFox2ne1 United States. July 02 2012 23:36. Posts 52 | Profile # |
Terran isn't reactionary really. They just don't control the tempo of the game. They have to prepare for the protoss or zerg units and act accordingly or die. Reactionary in the sense of the game is definitely zerg, as they have the choice of drones or units; making them focus purely on economy or aggression/defending.
The reason terran are not reactionary is because if you make 3 CC, there is no reaction to a 2 base all in or a nexus cancel all in. You are just dead. The way the other races are built, they can increase their production or use delay tactics via mechanics of the race. If you see an attack coming, you can warp in ff or stop droning and make nothing but units. As many production facilities a terran has, is what he can do. There is no chrono, having a 3rd hatch and not droning it, or a ff to wait for another round of waro ins.
By design terran are meant to remain fairly consistent in economy and units, which is why they should be aggressive constantly. The other races mechanics allow for a more abusive macro based game. Which is why ZvP/PvZ is so stupid in the current meta. A 2 base all in, or how good the vortex is late game. This is why Terran get annoyed and may seem reactionary; if they don't do something, they die. |
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| Starshaped Sweden. July 03 2012 00:12. Posts 575 | Profile Blog # |
On July 02 2012 23:36 FeyFey wrote:
terran is the slowest race to change their tech by far, but that doesn't change the fact that you have react to your opponent with every race. Terran played aggressive because it was easier then tech switching and reacting to the opponent. Reacting as terran is hard, but not impossible. Lategame you have to prepare your switch before the opponent even is on the way of teching to the switch, then you will probably beat it cost efficient though, otherwise you will lose alot of resources from fighting inefficient and tech switching.
Terran was always this way, so no terran didn't become more reactionary, but the aggressive playstyle got almost as hard to pull off. Luckily the other races are highly predictable and you can see from the upgrade timing what is going on. And once all your production is out Terran becomes unbeatable. Late late game is the true terrans strength. If its a high base count situation or a low income situation, because we went through all of our tech up to this point we can react perfectly in a timely manner.
The weakest point is still our production though, if we lose this its over. But Blizzard could do us a favor and make it easier to survive the lategame after the other races have it fairly easy against terran in the early mid game. Because we have to play so greedy to keep up with the other races greed, but they can punish us so fast for it, while we don't have it that easy.
It is precisely the production that makes Terran awful at late late game.
Whereas the Zerg and Protoss can instantly remax after a fight, the Terran cannot. This means Terran can never afford to lose a single engagement, or he gets rolled, and it means he can never press an advantage because if there is a fight where the Terran comes out ahead the opponent can instantly remax and stomp what's left, so the Terran has to back off despite having won a fight and slowly remax for himself, and the game continues.
If Blizzard was serious about lategame SC2 they would remove/nerf warpgate and allow less larave to be stacked per hatchery imo. Either that or make Terran production less terrible. |
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| iaguz Australia. July 03 2012 00:16. Posts 1265 | Profile Blog # |
Terran isn't 'the reactive race' it's more that Zerg isn't it anymore.
Races adapt to each other through the course of each game and the metagame as a whole. |
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| Berceno Spain. July 03 2012 00:23. Posts 391 | Profile # |
all races are reactive, all rts games are the same, scout-act scout-act
On July 03 2012 00:12 Starshaped wrote:
Whereas the Zerg and Protoss can instantly remax after a fight, the Terran cannot. This means Terran can never afford to lose a single engagement, or he gets rolled, and it means he can never press an advantage because if there is a fight where the Terran comes out ahead the opponent can instantly remax and stomp what's left, so the Terran has to back off despite having won a fight and slowly remax for himself, and the game continues.
If Blizzard was serious about lategame SC2 they would remove/nerf warpgate and allow less larave to be stacked per hatchery imo. Either that or make Terran production less terrible.
well this is not true, how can protoss remax off 12-16 gates ?? |
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| Viserion Finland. July 03 2012 00:25. Posts 290 | Profile # |
| Terran is the reactionary race when it comes to higher tech units while Terran has no unit that your opponent has react to in the later stage of the game. |
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| tuho12345 July 03 2012 00:29. Posts 4328 | Profile Blog # |
| TvZ is more about sitting back and getting to 3 CC ASAP to me right now. Not trying to harass cuz Queen buff is a joke... |
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