[Megathread] StarCraft 2

[cudomix]

Drop play is counter to Swarm Hosts, they're even more slow than siege lines (and you should think of them as siege line, you don't want to attack into it), people make same mistake now as with tanks in early WotL. Warhounds are basically Terran roaches, cheap and powerful, they should be bumped to 3 food to prevent massing (dumb design for unit in the first place). Locusts hp should be nerfed a bit to make proper support for SH more important. Protoss got the stick because most their stuff got countered, while they haven't gained anything useful in return.

[Fuzzzie]

Drop play is counter to Swarm Hosts

I've seen a lot of Swarm Host siege lines being supported by ling/hydra ground armies. While drop play can be effective, usually the opponent is too busy sending everything they have to their front door to just hold the line. The saving grace is that if you do break a swarm host line then it's GG.

[-Zait-]

The beta so far as I see it now.

Terran: Forget about building bio. Forget about the barracks all together. Your marine is now a hellion and your marauder is now a warhound. Win the game before they wise up and build mutas or void rays. Widow mines will work well at lower levels of play, but I can't see them fooling many people in tournaments.

Zerg: Build Swarm Hosts. That's pretty much all you have to do. You can easily contain and starve out most players. Forget about the viper. If ever something was going to get massively nerfed by Blizzard then this is it. Fast Hydras are still kinda bad off creep.

Protoss: Short end of the stick. Tempests are pretty much useless. The range is nice, but unless you float them off-map they can get taken down very easy. Oracle is even more useless. For all the hard work you put in to lock out minerals it's easily countered and they have the HP of a sentry. I can't see pre-ordain being used anywhere really. Most protoss are going to keep building observers because they already need robo tech to win anyways.

All in all, very worried. It's still very early beta though, so I'm expecting things to change. Swarm host cost needs to go up. They should also do something like make it visible when burrowed but take less damage. Terran feels kinda the same except you're meching now rather than building bio. I think that may balance out eventually. Protoss need the most help. They feel a bit weak. They also got screwed for units which is causing very few protoss players to even be bothering with this expansion.

If anything something like the oracle would have gone over better with terran. Terran already has lots of A-Move deathball units. A caster unit, especially a more mobile one would have been fun. Protoss needed the early-mid game attack unit. something a little beefier than a stalker but with maybe less damage. Having to invest in stargate to get new units is just a wrong move. The viper for zerg is kinda useless now. It will probably get more use once swarm hosts are nerfed down to the ground. The cloud ability (forgot its name) is great when chained with fungals. Swarm hosts, as much as I like them and as fun as they are will not stay the way they are.

Good thing beta is beta :3 Remember how ridiculous things seemed in WoL beta?

And I disagree about what you said about Swarm Hosts, you need mass amounts of them to make them any good, and even if you do have a lot, if Terran gets lots of tanks, or Protoss gets 4-5 Colossus, the Locusts die to quickly to do any severe damage. And even if you don't have tanks/colossus, you can always just walk around the army to the Zerg base, or use Raven HSM to blast them out of the ground since they're fairly squishy.

But yeah Protoss is sad now, Tempests are useless since they attacks slower than a lobotomized turtle, and Oracles can be 4 shot by Queens... (x"

[Fuzzzie]

And I disagree about what you said about Swarm Hosts, you need mass amounts of them to make them any good, and even if you do have a lot, if Terran gets lots of tanks, or Protoss gets 4-5 Colossus, the Locusts die to quickly to do any severe damage. And even if you don't have tanks/colossus, you can always just walk around the army to the Zerg base, or use Raven HSM to blast them out of the ground since they're fairly squishy.

Not really. Especially if you set the swarm hosts to attack from different directions. Even with 8 Colossus they have to be micro'd back and forth a lot to even make a dent in units that are basically free. The units lost disparity in many games I've seen is just too much to call it balanced. Void rays are a good counter, Battleships would be too, but it's kinda unfair to have to go deep tier 3 to counter and mid game unit.

[Fuzzzie]

Wow! They just removed Warhounds from the latest patch. carriers are back though!

[Nomzter]

Are you kidding? wtf
nvm checked TL, damn thats nice that the carrier is back

[Haleth]

I just got a beta key. Thought it was a fake mail but all links were legit so I checked it out and yup.

It's weird because I didn't tick the box that I was interested in Starcraft betas, nor did I ever play any Starcraft game before.

[Fuzzzie]

I wonder if they're just removing it for now until they tweak it or if they have something else in mind. With widow mines being kinda useless and the battle hellion being somewhat situational, it kinda puts terran in the same boat as protoss as far as new units are concerned. The more games i watch, the less and less I see of new units. Kinda not boding well for the expansion.

[PizzaSHARK]

Good thing beta is beta :3 Remember how ridiculous things seemed in WoL beta?

Remember how ridiculous things were after live release, when garbage players like MorroW were taking games off players that were already much better than he was because of how retarded 5rax reaper, pre-nerf Stimpack, pre-nerf Concussive Shells, and other crap were?

I have absolutely no faith in Blizzard's ability to balance a game - any game - until six months to a year after release.

---------- Post added 2012-09-15 at 06:16 AM ----------

I wonder if they're just removing it for now until they tweak it or if they have something else in mind. With widow mines being kinda useless and the battle hellion being somewhat situational, it kinda puts terran in the same boat as protoss as far as new units are concerned. The more games i watch, the less and less I see of new units. Kinda not boding well for the expansion.

The cynic in me says the expansion will be intentionally Zerg-favored, just like WoL was Terran-favored for a long time, and Heart of the Void will be heavily Protoss-favored. Then, after they've sold all the units they can expect to sell, maybe they'll work on actually balancing the game... or maybe they'll just push out Starcraft 3. It'd make sense; they've shown precedent by doing it with World of Warcraft expansions.

It's possible I'm just being a cynic, though.

[Fuzzzie]

The cynic in me says the expansion will be intentionally Zerg-favored, just like WoL was Terran-favored for a long time, and Heart of the Void will be heavily Protoss-favored. Then, after they've sold all the units they can expect to sell, maybe they'll work on actually balancing the game... or maybe they'll just push out Starcraft 3. It'd make sense; they've shown precedent by doing it with World of Warcraft expansions.

It's possible I'm just being a cynic, though.

The Protoss exp isn't expected until 2014 so I'm not so sure. It would be pretty bad for eSports if they rushed things too much. I expect this expansion to be in beta for some time actually. As it stands right now, I would say Zerg has the early and mid game locked down pretty good. Terran had a bit of an edge with the warhounds, but I think they removed it because it was replacing the barracks all together. If it was to go back in and be a armoury required and maybe cost more, I think terrans would still use it, but it wouldn't replace bread and butter units.

Widow mines are another thing that needs to be fixed to be useful. I suggest maybe doing 1/2 damage unburrowed. That way if you're walking them with your army they aren't entirely useless.

I guess I'll have to wait and see more games after the changes to see whats up. I'm still pretty worried that a lot of new units aren't being used. It may just be that players are learning when to use them, or it may be that they just suck and wont be used.

[cudomix]

Widow mines will completly shut any protoss agression early game, they're cost effective 1v1 vs any gateway unit (unless you lead with probes, in which case you're at econ disadvantage). They also can deny expansions and scouting
Warhound removal may be a good thing, only problem terran faces atm are late game zealots, which battle hellion solves. I could see Thor energy removal to make it less countered by high templar, and mech would be in decent place. Locust range nerf is easily solved with some overlord creep and proper positioning, which is a good thing for strategy.

Reaper buff is nice, they'll be more useful in midgame. Personally, id's like to see science vessel back, with lockdown and irradiate, it would be nice buff for late game terran, without impacting early game (where terran shines).

[-Zait-]

It's kinda cool that Protoss are having their Stargate expanded on, I hope they keep the Carrier. Sky Protoss is so cool to watch/play. And I wonder if they're going to replace the Warhound with anything, or just mess with it until it isn't OP. And honestly that Hellion change is bizarre to me, why not just have two different buttons to press, one for hellions to spawn in speed mode, and one for them to spawn in battle form.

[Fuzzzie]

It's kinda cool that Protoss are having their Stargate expanded on, I hope they keep the Carrier. Sky Protoss is so cool to watch/play. And I wonder if they're going to replace the Warhound with anything, or just mess with it until it isn't OP. And honestly that Hellion change is bizarre to me, why not just have two different buttons to press, one for hellions to spawn in speed mode, and one for them to spawn in battle form.

In the latest patch they announced that the carrier is back.

Problem with protoss air is it's something you've got to start early and invest almost totally into. Unless you're going for a few early phoenixes for harassment you'll pretty much be going either stargate or gateway. I don't see a lot of situations where working both is very viable.

[Had88]

WCS Europe so great, I can't imagine how great the WCS World Finals will be.

[Fuzzzie]

WCS Europe so great, I can't imagine how great the WCS World Finals will be.

good, but the music between matches is god awful.

[SilentStocket]

good, but the music between matches is god awful.

In your opinion

[Had88]

they played the best song ever in a break...

[Verdugo]

they played the best song ever in a break...

Figured they would be playing Korean song on Starcraft 2 torunament.

[Fuzzzie]

In your opinion

Fair enough.. maybe if it wasn't the same 5 songs over and over again it wouldn't be as bad. At least they give you the courtesy of telling you when the next match starts so you can mute the crap.

[-Zait-]

In the latest patch they announced that the carrier is back.

Problem with protoss air is it's something you've got to start early and invest almost totally into. Unless you're going for a few early phoenixes for harassment you'll pretty much be going either stargate or gateway. I don't see a lot of situations where working both is very viable.

I meant that I hope they don't remove the Carrier in a future balance patch. And yeah that's true you'd have to invest everything in it, but with so many options for air now, I think it'll be a lot more fun to watch than a big colossus ball. At least while the pros are seeing if Air is viable aha.