[Megathread] StarCraft 2

[Deleted]

I would disagree, a hellbat shouldn't be able to 1v1 an armored an unit, they're great against armored units, buildings, and decimate light units. Widow mines are very easy to use and are very hard to deal with, I shouldn't have to play Zerg (the race known for EXTREMELY fast units) by slowly throwing ling after ling in an area to suicide mine sweep, or have a bunch of overseers just to deal with 6-7 mines that cost very little cost to the Terran... that's just not right.

The problem about super speed medivacs isn't so much that they can have a bunch of units inside, it's that it's nearly impossible to kill the medivac (especially as Zerg unless you have mutas, and even then they can outrun them) since they can zip right past static defense and units. Making it an upgrade that you purchase (maybe the caduceus reactor) would make it more of a commitment to the Terran, and then since they committed to super heavy drop play, it'd be more balanced.

And yeah like Kakazam said, Oracles, a harassment unit, shouldn't be able to 1v1 a queen. Skytoss is just overpowered beyond belief, I went against a tempest stalker army (near max upgrades for them) with a max 3 3 3 carrier deathball and destroyed them.

Always pains me to disrupt a lenghty QQ with facts, but Code S RO16 is 7Z / 6T / 3P after Ro32 was 14Z / 11T / 7P. Unless you play Code A or higher, being unable to cope with an army composition is a l2p issue.

[khalltusk]

Today I have truly learned, going with 2/2 marines (stim + combat shield) alone, with around 5-10 ravens, beats Infestors, brood lords, and all that shite.

Macro'ing it was awesome, ..though it was a pain in the ass to split against banelings with infestors around

Teach me your ways. Broodlords and infestors seem to be my krptonite atm :< I keep bouncing between 7-11th in gold league atm.

[Deleted]

Always pains me to disrupt a lenghty QQ with facts, but Code S RO16 is 7Z / 6T / 3P after Ro32 was 14Z / 11T / 7P. Unless you play Code A or higher, being unable to cope with an army composition is a l2p issue.

The problem seems to be that lower Zerg can't cope with the compositions, so either Toss and Terran are just easier to play or the top level zerg are just better than the others in general eg Life and having what seems to be super lings due to his insane micro.


Just seen a post by blizzard saying they are looking to change some stuff soon, most notably trying to change to ZvZ Mutafest by increasing sporecrawler bio damage or getting infestors back in the mix. Also they may change the cost/time of burrow for better use of that early game and giving oracle's a speed boost.

[Deleted]

Generally the assumption of "top level players of race x are just better than the others" is dubious at best. At the end of WoL Zerg were actually ranked higher than players of the other races (Zerg overpresented in higher leagues, underpresented in lower leagues). If some of those patch Zergs complain now, in my eyes that's a good sign.

I am gold league random, so I have no meaningful personal stake whatsoever in this discussion. On the other hand, my worst matchup is TvT, so any Terran nerfs that make some people switch races would be welcome. The possible fixes you quoted all sound perfectly fine.

[Deleted]

Nerf Voidray's.....

Just beat a guy but his handful of Voidrays and Phoenix's must have had 100 kills each.

[Wass]

By a series of real life events that have been transpiring today I feel pretty let down... anyone care to cheer me up?

The WCS EU does a poor job at it atm.

[Deleted]

Wass if it makes you feel any better some fucker in Oz stole my credit card details and bought a 10 thousand dollar Holden. American Express was like "We thought this was a regular purchase". Yeah ok, then why do you phone me to check it's stolen when i go to walmart? Retards. So i've spent 3 hours arguing with some dumbfuck over the phone.

Wow so many complaints during one night, zergs probably just want to go back to how it was in WoL anyway.

Jesus fuck no. Anything but infestor broodlord again. I'd just like to be able to either have to worry about drops, or worry about a billion widowmines littering the map, not both at the same time while also having to rely on a shit composition to take full on confrontations.

I really feel if infestors were faster things would feel better in both TvZ and ZvZ. I don't mean quicker projectiles, just be less dopey as shit so you can get in range to fungal.

Also blizzard considering the buff movement speed of Oracles to make them less useless in midgame and reward control in the early game. I don't think they quite understand their strength. Their speed is already insane. They wont be better in midgame until their damage is slightly reduced and their health buffed a hell of a lot. Right now they're literally bright green glass cannons that either win the game or cost you it.

[Wass]

Holy shit Jess, but I suppose you got the cash back?

[Whitepepper]

Always pains me to disrupt a lenghty QQ with facts, but Code S RO16 is 7Z / 6T / 3P after Ro32 was 14Z / 11T / 7P. Unless you play Code A or higher, being unable to cope with an army composition is a l2p issue.

These may be facts but it still doesn't necessarily show the whole picture. I'd rather see matchup win rates if you wish to use this as some evidence as to the state of balance.

[Deleted]

Holy shit Jess, but I suppose you got the cash back?

No not yet, they're arguing with me it's a legit purchase at this point. I'm currently on hold to speak to someone in senior fraud management and have been for 2 hours.

One way or the fuckin other i'm getting my credit back by the end of the day. Technically it's not my money because it's a credit card, which is good. But I'm not paying the bill that's for sure.

Oh and i ordered a couple mech keyboards to be sent with my new computer to the UK for when i move back because long story short, it's more expensive to have my current rig shipped there than it is to buy a new one and insure the transit. Amazon decided to ignore the bit where i wanted it delivered from the uk to the uk, and sent it from the uk to los fucking angeles.

I think our days are equally full of shit

Oh and about the hellbats and mines thing whoever was talking about it being a l2p thing - Yeah sure that's fine. I personally think though for the cost of the mine they are way too effective and do way more than intended to.
An open question to terrans - Is there ever a time in TvZ or TvP where you don't think it's worth making at least a couple of mines?
Hellbats i don't really have a problem with at all. They're slow moving, easily kited. I'm not so sure about being able to drop 2 from 1 vac though. They don't take long to waste drones even alone and there's rarely a time even if you react instantly, that you wont lose a few drones to the hellbats which can then get dropped from one base to the other. Limiting mech units to just 1 per Vac i'd like to at least see tested and see how it works out.
But really as a whole it's nothing that CANT be dealt with, i just think their cost is rather lenient compared to how much havoc they can cause. Just knowing a widow mine is on the field forces you to get plenty of extra overseers or spore crawlers to detect.

[Wass]

Well, being half german and an avid football fan, my day surely was brightened.

Please feel free to keep telling how you progress with that fraud Jess. That's quite the tale.

Nerfing bats to 1 per medivac is probably gonna make them never be used again. It's better to just drop bio at that point and get like 3-4 sure drone kills.

And the widow mine IS always worth having. A few on the map NEVER hurts. I'm actually glad about it - because now I have (besides the hellbats later on) a use for the factory in TvP except scouting.

[MerinPally]

I could make a lot of anti german comments because I'm British but maybe now's not a good time

About the whole Hellbat and Widow Mine issue... I don't really think it's an issue. If you look carefully enough you can see Widow Mines anyway in a similar way that a keen eye will spot an Observer. The only problem with that is playing on Daybreak because the tileset makes it exactly the same colour and they are 100% impossible to spot with the human eye in some places. With regards to P dealing with them it's really not an issue. Not so sure about T but I imagine it can't be that bad as with SCV's having 45 health rather than 40, the splash damage won't kill them. Against Z it's a pain yeah but with speedlings you can do a lot of baiting, and those things are expendable to the highest degree. Those things rock for T and those that use them always do better than those without I find. Can be hidden well and be a real annoyance like a Reaper just more deadly.

With Hellbats... I don't know, not something I really have to deal with often. A pain against zealots but just focus fire them is all I ever did and it seemed ok :/ If I had Phoenix and he had no medivacs I'd just pick them up.

[Deleted]

That's a fair point regards factory in TvP. The Widow Mine always worth having seems to me like a problem though. Units being practically mandatory never appealed to me. That's why i hated GGLord Infestor back in wings. Infestors were just so good you got them regardless. The thing with limiting to one per drop btw, wasn't to make drops useless, but make you more committed to them so to bring 2 medivacs for a drop rather than one. It just feels to me like it's too easy to get away with making a mine or hellbat drop every game because they practically guarantee damage for little cost.

But really in the grand scheme of things i don't think it makes a massive amount of difference. I'd just like to see some sort of variance in TvZ that wasn't "ok we're into midgame time to drop all the things all the places and make the zerg hate life" I'd like to be having big 1 on 1 engagements more often than just endless defense of drops

The only problem with that is playing on Daybreak because the tileset makes it exactly the same colour and they are 100% impossible to spot with the human eye in some places.

I deliberately Veto Daybreak for that reason. I absolutely hate Daybreak as Zerg. Easy to be dropped on, 3rd has the most ridiculous choke to try and defend from and the flank is like going from London to Wales to get to Oxford. [It's fucking long]

[-Zait-]

I disagree with all of this except maybe about Demuslim. As a zerg player I feel mines and hellbats are fine. Is your hellbat complaint that they kill roaches 1v1? Medivac speed is fine and it's fine that they can get away as well. The problem is the damage the medivacs can carry in them. Either the cargo size of the vacs should be smaller, say reduced from 8 to 6, or the unload time per unit should be increased. Those would be my suggestions for fixes. Also you're wrong about mutas and vacs. Medivacs have the same speed as mutas during boost, after boost runs out the mutas can catch them.

As for Oracles, I think they are fine as well. If an oracle can't 1v1 a queen then it becomes absolutely useless as a harassment unit in the zerg matchup. Also, did you just suggest that skytoss is op based on your experience in a protoss mirror match???

Edit: I'm playing around with the unit tester and the only armored unit I've found that a firebat can beat 1v1 is a marauder. Both the roach and the stalker came out on top. This was at equal upgrades.

Yeah I meant that hellbats are very good against roaches, the main unit that Zerg uses to defend against hellbats and hellions, shouldn't be able to be killed so easily in a big battle scenario, and they do a surprising amount of damage to buildings. In my opinion at least. Also they're just so so very good for a 100 mineral cost, and the ability to pump them out two at a time.

Regarding oracles, I disagree, a unit that is used mainly for harassment shouldn't be able to 1v1 a Queen, the Zerg's main AA. Reapers and Hellions are harassment units mainly, and they can't 1v1 a queen, they use their speed to kill workers which is fine because once the Queen waddles over to them, they have to leave or move around carefully to take out the workers. Banshees can't 1v1 a Queen (I'm pretty sure), but they're also pretty expensive, and slow for a flying unit, they also have one ability which is really expensive to get and takes a while... now Oracles are very fast, they have three abilities, one of which can eviscerate a worker line in seconds, and can 1v1 a Queen. I don't think that's right.

---------- Post added 2013-04-23 at 04:50 PM ----------

Always pains me to disrupt a lenghty QQ with facts, but Code S RO16 is 7Z / 6T / 3P after Ro32 was 14Z / 11T / 7P. Unless you play Code A or higher, being unable to cope with an army composition is a l2p issue.

The game isn't just centered around players for GM, Blizzard always says they try and balance the units for both average and top top top notch players. And I'm talking about it from playing Protoss and going into battles where Terran has marines and vikings, Zerg has hydra corrupter, and protoss has tempest stalker, or any variation of that comp. A carrier deathball, or tempest/storm comp DESTROYS these, despite the fact they're all VERY good AA units. That's ridiculous.

Also QQ=/=Opinions and ideas. Never once did I yell at Blizzard, or angrily demand changes.

Also I really hope they don't buff the spore crawler again, make the Hydra more viable, or carefully make Infestor's quick enough to be able to catch Mutas.

[cudomix]

Banshees can't 1v1 a Queen

Actually, Banshee kills Queen if it gets 1st shot in. Oracles are also really fragile for their cost (150/150), they need to kill at least 6 workers each to break even if we factor in lost mining time, static defenses make them cost inefficient, (ab)use spore crawlers.

[Deleted]

The game isn't just centered around players for GM, Blizzard always says they try and balance the units for both average and top top top notch players.

Mostly true but they do put most of their changes in the solve issues in the professional scene. They do make changes for ease of play for lower level players, but they wont break high level play for the sake of low leaguers.

Which is good, because the minute they do that Starcraft will start to die off as an e-sport. It's currently, imo, the most interesting and developed e-sport and i hope it stays that way. It certainly has more depth than League that's for sure.

In other news they took then 10 thousand dollar charge off my card from some random asshole buying a car in oz with my details. Took 7 hours of complaining but hey it's done.

About the oracle thing btw, problem is if you force the zerg to build Spore Crawlers, just one in each base, you've already made up a lot of the cost of the oracle. If you pick off any workers past that it's paid for itself. With oracles the thing is not to commit too hard to them. One is usually enough to deal damage or force a reaction. It becomes a coin flip win/lose game if you commit further to the oracle play after the first. In the case of unscouted proxy oracles disregard all the above and collect ladder points because the zerg is most likely fucked.

[Charge me Doctor]

Actually, Banshee kills Queen if it gets 1st shot in. Oracles are also really fragile for their cost (150/150), they need to kill at least 6 workers each to break even if we factor in lost mining time, static defenses make them cost inefficient, (ab)use spore crawlers.

If enemy countered your oracles with static defense you can use them to scout map, they are super fast, has detection, can insagib zerlings and banelings.
Also, if you are afraid of queens, make an phoenix to lift her up while oracle ravages mineral line.

And i noticed that some players always make two oracles to harass workers, but i prefer using one against protoss, two against terran, and oracle+phoenix(or two) against zerg

[Shadowsz]

Quick question, does viper cloud work on air units, and do they limit the range of abilities aswell? (seeker missile)

[Deleted]

I'm not sure about their ability to limit range of seeker missile, but they certainly reduce their range until they move out of the cloud. The hard bit is getting a viper close to said air without it being disintegrated.

[Shadowsz]

I'm not sure about their ability to limit range of seeker missile, but they certainly reduce their range until they move out of the cloud. The hard bit is getting a viper close to said air without it being disintegrated.

i need to find out if they limit ability range, if they do then muta viper would be a viable lategame build vs terran.

right now i'm getting eradicated every time i play vs terran with good raven play