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Thanks @Wombat xD
Like others mentioned, BC opener vs just a normal banshee opener (especially with the buffed speed upgrade) is much more vulnerable to early busts if they scout what you're doing.
Even if they don't know what you're doing, if they're not greedy they'll have enough queens, spores, and know to pull drones away from your BC thus losing very few drones. If you get Yamato you can trade and get free Queen/corruptor kills sure but unfortunately compared to how fast Zerg can grow (especially knowing that you won't have a strong ground army to fight straight up), it isn't really worth it and you'll fall behind compared to doing a build that puts on more real pressure and threat.
If they make a few Corruptors to stop your BCs, I think the previous Cyclones were more useful for that specific timing. Making 2-4 Cyclones meant that the first ~6 Corruptors that arrive lead to 2-4 of them being insta killed without being able to retreat. The new Cyclone isn't able to do that, the Corruptors can back off without much losses. The new Cyclone also doesn't do enough dps vs Corruptors if they force a fight. The Corruptors will still be able to sac themselves to kill your BCs, meaning you're left with Cyclones vs Roach/Ravager without enough tanks to support.
This is my understanding at least xD. BC opener is fun and cool but even watching it in GSL it seems Zergs figured out how to defend vs it years ago already. 3 years ago it was still used pretty commonly in GSL, but already at that point it usually resulted in the Terran being behind, and occasionally even-ish.
Going cloak banshees just seems like it gives you similar enough harass potential and ability to kill workers, you get to scout earlier, you're safer vs early rushes, you can't soft-counter them like you can with adding corruptor tech for BCs, it's cheaper and faster tech, and we also have the cheaper and faster banshee speed upgrade now. And and we now have the new Cyclone which pairs well with speed banshees.
I think once in a while a BC opener could catch them off guard if you hide it well and they go a bit greedy, but it's not to be used as a standard opener.
Also I'm glad Artosis likes the new patch! Liked how he said that it feels like a David Kim patch. I know what he means and I agree, also respect to him for respecting David Kim like that.
If the balance council improved this much, and delivered as good of a patch as this, then I'm feeling quite happy and hopeful for what might come in the future!
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Northern Ireland20833 Posts
On March 12 2024 12:18 Yoshi Kirishima wrote: Thanks @Wombat xD
Like others mentioned, BC opener vs just a normal banshee opener (especially with the buffed speed upgrade) is much more vulnerable to early busts if they scout what you're doing.
Even if they don't know what you're doing, if they're not greedy they'll have enough queens, spores, and know to pull drones away from your BC thus losing very few drones. If you get Yamato you can trade and get free Queen/corruptor kills sure but unfortunately compared to how fast Zerg can grow (especially knowing that you won't have a strong ground army to fight straight up), it isn't really worth it and you'll fall behind compared to doing a build that puts on more real pressure and threat.
If they make a few Corruptors to stop your BCs, I think the previous Cyclones were more useful for that specific timing. Making 2-4 Cyclones meant that the first ~6 Corruptors that arrive lead to 2-4 of them being insta killed without being able to retreat. The new Cyclone isn't able to do that, the Corruptors can back off without much losses. The new Cyclone also doesn't do enough dps vs Corruptors if they force a fight. The Corruptors will still be able to sac themselves to kill your BCs, meaning you're left with Cyclones vs Roach/Ravager without enough tanks to support.
This is my understanding at least xD. BC opener is fun and cool but even watching it in GSL it seems Zergs figured out how to defend vs it years ago already. 3 years ago it was still used pretty commonly in GSL, but already at that point it usually resulted in the Terran being behind, and occasionally even-ish.
Going cloak banshees just seems like it gives you similar enough harass potential and ability to kill workers, you get to scout earlier, you're safer vs early rushes, you can't soft-counter them like you can with adding corruptor tech for BCs, it's cheaper and faster tech, and we also have the cheaper and faster banshee speed upgrade now. And and we now have the new Cyclone which pairs well with speed banshees.
I think once in a while a BC opener could catch them off guard if you hide it well and they go a bit greedy, but it's not to be used as a standard opener.
Also I'm glad Artosis likes the new patch! Liked how he said that it feels like a David Kim patch. I know what he means and I agree, also respect to him for respecting David Kim like that.
If the balance council improved this much, and delivered as good of a patch as this, then I'm feeling quite happy and hopeful for what might come in the future! No problem sir!
As per the bolded yeah that at least intuitively makes sense, I’d be intrigued to hear what the real elite Terran pros think of course, I do kinda miss there being more regular SC talk shows where you did get a bit more insight there.
But yeah SC2 is quite a phase-driven game to begin with, and it feels BC Battlemech is really especially locked into discrete phases and how they intersect. Merely putting them out of sync even a little can turn a strat from old reliable to borderline unviable, at least at the highest level.
As it was even before, it 100% wouldn’t work without BCs being able to teleport off that bat.
And look obviously you never want to throw units away, but it feels having a strat that is so dependent on keeping units alive and giving consistent value is just going to be quite brittle.
Most popular meta strats have at least one component being something if not always completely expendable, then at least not catastrophic to lose cheaply. Be it lings, be it harassing MMM, be it a huge chunk of manly, manly Zealots
BC thru battlemech it feels you really can’t afford to lose either component cheaply. Lose the BCs and you’re losing a chunk of money and their consistent ability to pop in and do damage and retreat. Lose your battlemech once and you’re either getting pounced on immediately, or you’re ceding a ton of map control for a period while you build it back up. You can’t cost-efficiently poke around with a small amount of cyclones/hellions once the mid game is in in nearly the way you can with even 1 or 2 medivacs as you lack the retreat potential and sustain.
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On March 11 2024 05:12 Archeon wrote:Show nested quote +On March 11 2024 02:35 Vision0 wrote: Who said queen will be less efficient against other units ?
It s not because queens would be splitted in two complementary units that the balance will suddenly slip.
The mecanism of warp gate is broken because of the new economy introduced with 12 workers, in doing this insanity, developpers have killed build orders and put to the trash most of the no-warp gate strategy/pressure.
But let s not discuss about the 12 workers, even if we put this aside, queen remain the only unit able to deal with the other best units along the game and without any building requirement or gas. (until very middle end game at least)
For Warp gate upgrade, Time of warpgate units has to inverted with gateway units cooldown. (This is part of chapter "decrease fire rate of all units by 25%) By the way, if not reverse to 9 workers, warpgate upgrade is removed and gateway now acquire the warpgate function ON/OFF (gateway minerals cost from 150 to 200)
Ofc i prefer return to 9 workers and it has to be tested without changing the cost of gateway buildings. And i mpretty sure most of the pro prefer a 9 workers start (or 6) than 12 The only no-warp-gate strategy/pressure I remember from before 12 workers is 2 gate zealot all-in, which is the equivalent of a ten-pool. Good riddance tbh, all in all I find the 12 workers a large improvement in part because most of the pre-ten worker all-ins got removed. I also don't think warpgate is that much of a problem anymore after consecutive nerfs and if we want to change Protoss way of aggression nerfing their counters or reducing tech building costs to open up build possibilities is a preferable way than making P about gateway units again. I have to admit that I don't get how Protoss air is kept unchanged when void rays only see a little use in PvP and are garbage in the other two matchups and phoenix are a niche build in both MUs too.
Yes, I agree that build orders before-10-workers was garbage but the result of adding 6 workers (instead of 4) is that all races retarded their build order by about fifteen or twenty seconds. Then Zerg has been widely favored because as they are more willing to run ahead in economy.
While the 11' SCV could built the barrack and the 12' probe could buit the stargate, all BO were retarded which help Zerg to expand and now everybody forgot the 12-workers change (note : i like modification of mineral quantity in mineral field),
To the question : is a relation between 12-workers and queen issue ? i would say YES, like most of players in SC2 community.
The 12 workers change come from 2.5.0 balance patch during LotV Beta.
Economy income change at start :
Another thread on Reddit about 12 workers (I M NOT ALONE, <3 BOOMER)
https://www.reddit.com/r/starcraft/comments/1772wfl/new_economy_is_the_one_single_reason_for_why/
List of classic PROTOSS Build Order in HotS:
https://www.osirissc2guide.com/starcraft-2-protoss-build-orders.html
A common answer will be (google research)
In line with this goal, doubling the starting worker count increases the resource gathering rate at the start, and this allows players to access their desired buildings, units, and upgrades quicker.
We can t ignore the fact that Zerg can develop faster since 2015. we have to request a change from 12 to 10 especially because we have the PTR server. The duration of SC2 games won t be affected by removing 2 workers at start, the old protoss build orders could shine again and the queen issue must be solved like that.
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Then, Would crowfunding be possible to organize such an event?
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On March 12 2024 11:09 tigera6 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 12 2024 05:14 Charoisaur wrote:On March 12 2024 01:23 tigera6 wrote: Btw what has happened to the BC opening, either into Bio or into Mech? Even Gumiho hasnt done much of that lately, while it was looking quite promising a few years ago. I thought with the Cyclone change, they would give BC a much better protection against Corruptor. Why would the Cyclone change help, they are much worse against Corruptors now? I believe you only need 2-3 Reactor Factory to make Cyclone against Corruptor, coupled with Turret, that should give BC enough protection imo. I saw a couple of Mech opening with Banshee speed upgrade, and thought BC could do better than Banshee against Zerg. Well, the biggest threat to BC openings are Roach Ravager Corruptor timings and neither new or old Cyclones are sufficient against them. That's why Maru used to go tanks after BC openings when he played that style like in that infamous series vs Reynor at DH Valencia. Why he has mostly abandoned that I'm not sure, but BC into Cyclone wouldn't work
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A great step in the right direction! Also very glad to see at least a few standard maps in the pool. Oceanborn, Site Delta, Goldenaura, great maps.
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Are there any streamers playing on the PTR?
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On March 14 2024 23:55 Garnet wrote: Are there any streamers playing on the PTR?
Pig has been playing quite a bit on stream, Nathanias too
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On March 14 2024 08:32 sidasf wrote: A great step in the right direction! Also very glad to see at least a few standard maps in the pool. Oceanborn, Site Delta, Goldenaura, great maps.
Bad take. There are tons of unused standard maps like Starchild (winner of TLMC17). No content is bad content. I loved and most people I know loved when we got 9 new maps last time.
I can only watch so many pro games on the same map before it starts to be repetitive. Made even worse by the fact that the older the map the less likely to be vetoed
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On March 08 2024 07:22 Xamo wrote: I mostly like the changes, with some exceptions: - Drop lord's should not get a buff, Zerg is already extremely mobile on offense with Nydus Worrns - Why not decreasing WM damage vs shields instead of the radius? This way it would not affect TvZ - Is the council memeing with the Sentry buff? At this point I just think they want to maintain their perfect record of never buffing any Protoss unit vs T or Z...
Because Widow Mine needs an absolute nerf, not just one against protoss. It's such a stupidly cheap, low APM unit to use. 25 gas and it kills endless hordes of ling bane while the zerg break's his finger microing zerglings every time just to not lose half of his army.
On March 08 2024 14:24 CMS_Flash wrote: WTF, heaviest window mine nerf ever w/ no meaningful compensation. How can Terrans fight ling/bane/muta or chargelots?
I swear some people completely and utterly ignore the fact that the last patch existed. You know, the one where baneling got nerfs to damage AND hp. Oh and infestors got nerfed damage (now being brought back to their former casting range), lurkers nerfed too. In it's current state terran bio is VERY powerful, an AOE nerf to widow mines won't make terran weak or unable to deal with ling/bane/muta.
On March 08 2024 05:23 JJH777 wrote: Nerfing lib range and buffing fungal range seem questionable. Ranged libs are the main unit Terran uses to zone out infestors during lategame and that interaction is being changed in both directions. Mine radius nerf feels like it will help zerglings way more than probes.
Overall feels like Zerg got buffed more in ZvT than Protoss in PvT.
Don't mean to pick on you, but how is buffing fungal range questionable, at all? Not only is it only getting reverted simply to it's former range before the last patch, but infestors don't even have auto attacks like HT/Ghost. Terran and Protoss get babysat with their spellcasters but god forbid we revert a range nerf to zerg spellcasters which have no such training wheels. Come on now.
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yo terran cabal,
as a QoL, can you make the in-game clock run with a speed proportional to the game speed? show 'game time', not real time, so by practicing a build slowly on fast/normal game speed, the timings in replay (or just glancing at the game clock, checking benchmarks) would make sense?
thank you!
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On March 08 2024 11:16 Antithesis wrote:Good patch. I think the general direction is just right. Here is Harstem's view of it, and I largely agree. It's also amusing that Harstem directly argues against some TL.net's favorite opinions, such as that TvZ is zerg-favored and that building ravens in TvZ is out of the question for principled reasons. Show nested quote +On March 08 2024 10:55 jinjin5000 wrote:On March 08 2024 10:47 WombaT wrote:On March 08 2024 10:37 jinjin5000 wrote:On March 08 2024 10:35 WombaT wrote:On March 08 2024 10:31 jinjin5000 wrote:On March 08 2024 10:30 WombaT wrote:On March 08 2024 10:23 jinjin5000 wrote:On March 08 2024 10:20 WombaT wrote:On March 08 2024 10:15 jinjin5000 wrote: [quote]
sc2 is full of these frustrating aoe esports units, but touching them just now when it posed not much of problem in pro PvT while it has bigger implication of TvZ just because protoss redditors whined enough is just poor man.
Adjust mines/other unfun aoe units in a big patch all together at once instead of proving balance council will 100% be influenced by community brigading is terrible showing and only encourages repeat of what has been happening for months beforehand. I'm just sick of the whining on the subreddit that has been plaguing reddit for months now. It has never been this bad historically ever but moment redditors realize they have influence over balance like current one, it will just get worse. And it has been terrible for past few months. Can't wait for repeat forever now.
I get it, its frustrating unfun unit. But all this proves is that those spam posting whine posts with obvious alt accounts/trying to justify it on recent buff or pro performance was just annoying to see as they are clearly pushing their own agenda to their own benefit lol. Fair but as the pro scene is gradually winding down I mean there’s something to be said for making the game a bit more enjoyable at a casual level. The game’s been balanced based of a pro level of play for like forever ideally you balance around both with more emphasis on pro level but being too swung by community brigading when most of them are not affected by said balance/dont even know implication of their whine nerfs have me doubting on listening to community at all. I mean to a certain degree sure, equally how many of these changes proposed were things the Reddit community were screaming for? Any changes proposed that reddit community screamed for getting through is 1 more than it should ever be. What ones? TL is slightly less balance whiny than Reddit, the latter I don’t really frequent that often. Basically none of these proposed changes strike me as things people were vociferously advocating for. So what are these changes that Reddit whining have apparently pushed to the PTR testing level? past like 5 months of reddit was just pure whining about widow mines and notable members of diamond protoss community trying really hard to link it to pro games/any means to justify it, with stemmed from "why did widow mines get buffed?!" last patch. It was pretty clear they took the opportunity to whine and ran with it despite the change on mine having 0 effect on what was killing them inf irst place. and all this did was prove that whining on reddit works. It was daily half of frontpage for months. Just widow mine posts after widow mine posts. if it's going to change, change it in a bigger patch that deals with all these concerns without specifically advocating the one community whine posts clump. Address multiple at once without acknowledging a particular event. All this did was give them approval and set a precedence Isn’t that what they’re potentially doing here? Tbh I don’t personally like it, I didn’t like the last couple of patches either where they changed like 8 things at once in a big patch rather than gradually doing targeted changes but more frequently. How does one assess the effectiveness of one change if there’s a bunch running alongside it etc I'm fine with them touching unit itself, but not fine with the sole change to be targeted for widow mine clearly because reddit whined it. It's just rewarding that. If they were going ot change it, they should have addressed multiple unit of similar fashion and avoid acklowedging the direct influence balance whining on reddit has. If you dislike nerfs being whined into existence, why don't you mention the infestor nerf in the same breath? The past weeks have seen a comical amount of whining about the infestor here on TL (but, notably, not on Reddit), although it is essentially only a single player in the world – the best player in the world – who can use them to their full potential. I disagree with the Infestor burrow nerf. This is actually what Blizzard wanted by cheating and making the Infestor able to Fungal while Burrowed. But I don't agree that only Serral is able to do this, he just made a new meta and now we already see every top Zerg utilize sharkfestors. I think it's cool, mb it's too strong, I dno. But the worst part is buffing the Fungal range at the same time, this is the biggest cabal move and if this goes through Zerg will never lose a late game again to Protoss.
On March 09 2024 03:09 goldensail wrote: A game like SC2 should: 1) avoid units that can deal instant game-changing AOE damage 2) encourage fast-paced play rather than the other way around
Disruptor is one of the worst such examples of "how not to design a unit", but at least it can't cloak and the novas are now smaller. Widow mines can cloak, but are only effective against low health units - now nerfed. Infestors can deal AOE damage AND immobilize (deadly vs. Terran bio) AND neural (deadly vs. mech/sky) AND cloak!
Serral has used it way too effectively for at least a couple of years, despite people claiming otherwise (a KoB game between Serral and Maru from ~2 years ago comes to mind, in which a single fungal to a balled up group of bio did the trick), it's just that in this year's Katowice the abuse has become so obvious that even the balance council can no longer ignore it. And what did they do? Make infestor movements a bit easier to see but hey let's increase fungal range!
And to all those folks claiming Terran can just build a Raven and the threat will be gone - THINK about the fact that infestors are mostly used in the late game, and how difficult it is to keep slow moving Ravens relevant and alive in late game TvZ: you must spread them out (so they can detect at the perimeter in several different directions) but also tracking the main army (so as to be relevant; also otherwise they get one shot by a few corruptors/queens/hydras) - all this when nearly every other Terran unit needs to be micro'ed? If the answer is so obvious don't you think the best Terrans would've tried it already?
1) I disagree, the Disruptor is an awesome highlight creating unit. People complain about death balls and strong AoE is how we nerf death balling. Some AoE's are still too strong like the Fungal and Baneling AoE, but AoE needs to be strong and players should learn to split up their units vs. these abilities. 2) It should be possible to play many types of games, Mech as well as Bio. Many players still adore the Avilo Raven playstyle and SH playstyles. It was sickening when it was most games, but Starcraft should be more than a horse race click on space as fast as you can, game.
On March 09 2024 12:01 Nebuchad wrote:Show nested quote +On March 09 2024 11:30 lokol4890 wrote:On March 09 2024 10:41 WombaT wrote:On March 09 2024 10:39 highsis wrote: Why are we buffing zerg when they are clearly the strongest race at the moment? ZvP has no issue? Seriously?
ZvP isn’t actually that bad at the minute, Protoss are doing OK there although maybe struggling a bit in PvT This keeps getting brought up yet in both main tournaments of 2024, as well any probably most premier tournaments of 2023, zergs kept bopping protosses. But that's not relevant to current times as there were recent patches that changed the way ZvP works. I would agree with Wombat's assessment that ZvP is generally fine right now. So keep ZvP mostly as is, the problem is that they're going in the opposite direction and buffing Zerg, so Protoss will perform even worse vs. Z at high lvls. Not to mention that they're messing with TvZ, which is another cabal move. They say they think ZvP and ZvT is fine atm, but clearly the changes do not agree with this.
On March 11 2024 06:33 Nasigil wrote: The root of the whole "Queens defend everything" problem dates back to the very beginning of SC2, when Blizzard decided to push Hydras later into Lair tech and made Roaches the early ranged unit for Zerg. Suddenly Zerg doesn't have any early game mobile anti air units other than Queens. You have to rely on Queens and Spores for all the potential Phoenix, Voidrays, Oracles, Banshees, Medivacs plays in early game. So they had to buff the Queens, until at some point Zerg found out that Queens were buffed to a point that mass Queens became the answer to almost all early aggressions.
You can't nerf Queens now because that's the only thing Zerg could rely on for early game defense.
Yet another example of SC2 design team's attempt at deviating from BW ended up backfiring...
Zergs will happily accept nerfs to Queens if you give them BW Hydras back. They can give Queens a weakness, like making it a Light, or Armoured unit, so that it doesn't defend everything without scouting. Or conversely do as I have suggested many times. Buff the Queens defensive ability, but nerf the Creep cost, so that you don't get a nice side effect of massing Queens as defence.
On March 11 2024 09:10 Vindicare605 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 11 2024 07:28 ejozl wrote: Hi, I'm still catching up on reading the previous pages. What are your thoughts on changing the Cyclone from armoured to light, would this be a good change? The object is so that Phoenix and Oracles pwn them, making Star Gate openers viable. I think it's not a problem vs Ling/Bane, because that hellion+more comp should already get wrecked by Banes if they connect. And yes Adepts would own them, but they would also own Stalkers. I find Stalker vs Cyclone battles so dull, because it's basically Stalker vs Stalker.. I think Adept vs Cyclone/Hellion would be more interesting and then we let Cyclones pwn Stalkers. What are your thoughts? No dice. If they are Light they don't take bonus damage from Siege Tanks and Marauders. They're already strong enough in the TvT match up that they are borderline oppressive. It's very funny that the page just before the comment I wrote, people were alrdy discussing Cyclone as a Light unit. But don't you think that a new weakness against Hellion, will make it more dynamic, rather than just Mech is buffed? Another thing that buffs Mech this patch is the nerf to Liberator range, now Thors will outperform Liberators.
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Northern Ireland20833 Posts
I’m curious as to how the feedback change works out. I hadn’t considered the scenario of clumped Vipers, and how a feedback that isn’t casting on a zero energy unit can dovetail with rapid fire so you can spam it on an area and hit desired targets rather than burning all your mana.
It’s not a change in isolation as regards late-game PvZ with Infestors having that little extra range, so how the casters negate each other and other threats will be an interesting dance.
Situationally I can see this being quite strong against medivacs, you can now spam feedback and mouse over a small area and cast once per medivac if you’re quick.
Definitely a stronger buff in theory than I’d initially thought, although quite how strong remains to be seen
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The latest iteration removed the Cyclone upgrade scaling buff, and nerfed Infestor unburrow time a bit more (lul).
So basically Terran takes substantial nerfs to mines, libs, and cyclones (the new version is unambiguously worse), Zerg gets an infestor sidegrade, and protoss gets an observer buff.
Definitely a Zerg cabal patch.
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a pro zerg cabal move would be like
setting scv health at 40 (why is it 45 anyways?) reducing or removing the mine shield damage (does not one shot oracle)
so P would be able to fuck up T scv lines big time with adept/oracles
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Pretty comical that the only Protoss buff that had any significant impact at all in PvZ is the one that gets removed.
On the topic of rapid fire, IMO it doesn't make sense that if we're going to allow this "feature" in SC2, that it only applies to select abilities. If it's problematic to have it enabled for all spells then it should be disabled for all spells. It doesn't make sense to only allow certain abilities to take advantage of it.
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On March 21 2024 04:52 Vindicare605 wrote: Pretty comical that the only Protoss buff that had any significant impact at all in PvZ is the one that gets removed.
On the topic of rapid fire, IMO it doesn't make sense that if we're going to allow this "feature" in SC2, that it only applies to select abilities. If it's problematic to have it enabled for all spells then it should be disabled for all spells. It doesn't make sense to only allow certain abilities to take advantage of it. True but then make warp in Work Like with rapid fire (maybe Not the rate of it) anyways If you mean they should fix it in a way that would Return Warp ins to be clicked again per unit.
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Even the Observer is a sidegrade.
SCV hp used to be 60, but it was OP for allins. I wish SCV's had 50 or smth HP, but we alrdy see SCV pulls once in a while.
I agree with Vindi. Feedback change is even listed as a bug, and now they refuse to "fix" it. It's so stupid. I'd rather they remove the rapid fire help and make it more worthwhile to play actual Starcraft, change back Snipe so that mana isn't refunded when it cancels. And I would also say reduce the omega-vision bonus that Overseer and Observer siege grants, so that it is just as good to patrol them as sieging them.
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On March 21 2024 06:18 ejozl wrote: I agree with Vindi. Feedback change is even listed as a bug, and now they refuse to "fix" it. It's so stupid.
The rapidfire changes have become completely divorced from the idea of which things need fixing. Somehow, despite the feedback target filter being inconsistent with other instant-cast abilities, it is not being fixed to avoid the strength of rapidfire. But interference matrix which was already consistent with abilities in its class like the literally identical Anti-Armour missile (same cost, same projectile method, same command card on same unit etc) or Yamato, is now being changed to be inconsistent with these abilities/ other projectile weapons and have special target filters which grant rapidfire.
It’s… unfortunate.
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Oh damn they're changing the Cyclone changes? At least the Cyclone keeps its +20 HP, but now I feel that Cyclones/Mech won't be good enough TvP now...
Instead of +2 vs all to +1 vs all, why not make it +1 (+1 vs Mechanical)? That'd be a nice middleground that wouldn't make it OP vs Zerg, but still help vs Protoss and slightly benefit Mech TvT vs Bio. You know Bio players aren't going to get +1 for Cyclones haha.
If they're going through with this, it would be really cool if they gave Hellions/Hellbats some love. Change the 8 damage (+6 vs Light) to like 9 damage (+5 vs Light), and/or change Blue Flame so that it gives like 2 damage (+3 vs Light) instead of just +5 vs Light. Just to give a tiny bit of extra damage to Mech players, since Bio players won't be making more than a few Hellions in any MU, even if these buffs go through (they already want their minerals for Marines). Anti-Armor nerf already affected Hellion openings for Mech which were already super niche and not super viable. Would be cool to have some more hellion openers for Mech, so it's not just Cyclone spam.
I wanna say again but I really dislike being able to rapid fire so many abilities. That only allows mass spellcaster to be more powerful and scale better. When it comes to things like Feedback that are anti-spellcaster, things can now become a volatile all-or-nothing kind of scenario. Imagine if for example all your Ghosts get Feedback'd if you don't pay attention for a second or they get their feedbacks first before you EMP. Or if Ravens mass disable (I think it's OK balance wise, the Raven does lack lategame power, but this still wouldn't make lategame Ravens any helpful in TvZ, while making it potentially a little dumb for TvT or TvP lategame). It should be more like you have to split a few spellcasters and then carefully control 1-2 of them at a time, instead of balling things up and spamming all your spells.
Also... I totally agree that Ghost snipe shouldn't refund mana when it cancels. I forgot that was a thing. Imagine if Seeker Missiles would refund mana if snipe gets cancelled. It doesn't seem necessary at all? If you retreat out of range of snipe, then reward the Zerg for making the Terran committ the 50 energy for it. It adds a bit more interesting risk:reward and decision making so that Terran doesn't just spam a ton of snipes instantly. That'd probably be a change that can finally bring down the Ghost's efficiency and power to a more fair level. (You could even make it a Light unit so banelings are more effective vs them, since there is nothing Zerg has that counters or does well vs Ghosts).
Edit:
"Hurricane Thrusters" upgrade renamed to "Hurricane Engines" / Icon updated (The Cyclone doesn't have thrusters)"
Ok, my respect is regained
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