StarCraft II Topic

[Alex]

late at night in North America, anyhow. atdsutm is out in the philipines iirc.

 

wow, no wonder it was llike watching matrix run on windows when he's in the game, good guy though

[Pendragon]

[Harakiri Tiger]

Best patch so far as far as the game engine is concerned, but it's a confusing ass balance patch.

[Bakuhatsu Pengin]

SWEEEEEEEEEEEET. 100/100 stim and shields is freaking great.

[Harakiri Tiger]

[SUMERIAN BLOOD GOD]

That Frenzy spell is pretty much useless on anything but the ultralisk. I guess if you made a bunch of infestors you could use it to buff a few corrupters or something but having one hydra/ling/roach/muta/etc. that does 25% more and is immune to all that isn't that helpful. You're better off with fungal growth.

 

I do think this patch has given the ultralisk a purpose now, even if it's filling a very tiny niche, but then they knock it back down at the same time. I think they should have just let the community see if having the pre-patch ultra with force-field mashing capability was too powerful because, until now, it didn't have any use at all and was basically just something you made when you had a bunch of money/gas and wanted to taunt the other guy. I really don't think force-field stomping is a big enough change for it to get where the devs want it, though it is a very nice buff. Force fields are nasty stuff so it's cool to see that there's another option for everyone to deal with them. Massive units don't come in until later too so they'll still see a lot of use, which is great.

 

I'd like to see the ultralisk get something like what the Thor and battlecruisers have. Some spell they can cast that temporarily boosts their damage or attack speed or move speed or something like that. If they do that though then they really do need to have their HP and damage dropped some because it would go from useless to a superpower, haha. Move speed is probably not a good idea since then it could just do a drive-by into a base without worry because of how tough it is and then just wreak havoc while the rest of the army runs up. Since the Thor has to set itself up to use its strike cannons, maybe the ultralisk can do something like bulls do in cartoons and claw its feet at the dirt before it charges in a line to do damage. I think that'd be neat. Who knows how balanced that'd be, though!

 

I like the Overseer changes.

 

Man, M&M is going to be so redick in this patch. Should be fun!!

 

"Removed Copper and added Diamond above Platinum"

So you basically changed...nothing. Awesome. Hahaha.

 

EDIT: "Removed identifier from the character naming process..."

So does this mean that my name is Pretty now and not Pretty.dirty? That sucks.

Edited May 21, 2010 by Gary the Tennis Coach

[Harakiri Tiger]

I don't see how giving Massive units FF Stomping helps any of them. So now you send your Thors in first to die? Charge with the Ultra's in the lead then have FF's pop up behind the Ultra and get your Ultra smashed to bits (faster than before since they're 450HP instead of 600 now)? Collosus can move over their allied units without disturbing them, so that may work to their benefit, but you can't charge with Collosus either. They're too fragile. This new Massive units having FF Stomping is silly if you ask me. It's just going to get people killed as they try to rush FF's.

 

Overseer changes gave me a mindfuck of confusion. I worry about them, but w/e. Terran got buffed way too much this patch. Their ability vs Z and P both went up again.

[LCC]

Forcefield stomping is mostly for retreating and ultra slamming.

[Harakiri Tiger]

It makes sense for retreating, yah.

[Pendragon]

Terran got buffed way too much this patch. Their ability vs Z and P both went up again.

 

I personally don't see a problem with this. Considering that an overseer can basically stop buildings from working and colossi can still mow down marines, this buff was well justified.

 

Like I said, a two marines can't kill a zealot, 4 lings can kill two rines for the same price, etc, so it's time they got some payback. The marines are right above the broodling and right below the SCV when it comes to effectiveness, so anything to enhance them is just fine by me.

 

I consider the ability to micro something that you don't count in how balanced it is, since you can micro with any race.

Edited May 21, 2010 by Pendragon

[Harakiri Tiger]

2 Marines can kill a Zealot, especially if they have Stim. I really don't care about the Marines getting a buff, though. I care about Marauders getting even more powerful early on. Pen, you know very little about the way most units are used in SC2 beyond a Bronze level of play. I highly doubt you know any of the basic Marauder builds out there, such as the Marauder FE and Proxy Marauder. This Stim Pack buff makes the Marauder quite a bit more powerful early on. This makes a large number of early Terran plays much, much more viable than before. Since Terran was already very dominant in the early game before, and weaker in the late game, this doesn't make sense from a balance standpoint.

 

Now, this isn't saying that the buff the Marines recieved isn't useful. It's actually doubled up, though. Most early marines against Protoss are acquired for the reason of stopping Void Ray harass. The Void Ray received a nerf in range so that Marines could fight it, though. This is doubling up. Not only can they Stim earlier, but they can also achieve the Combat Shield upgrade earlier. The Combat Shield upgrade doesn't bother me so much, though, as I don't see it coming into play during the first five minutes. While all these two major changes affect are the Void Ray opening, they affect it too strongly. Shitty players, like just about everyone at ACU, will lose to any number of things. This is including very retarded things that should never succeed, such as the Photon Cannon rush that doesn't work at high level play anywhere in the world. The thing is that at very high levels of play, currently, the Void Ray is not anywhere near as deadly as people make it sound.

 

This entire balance conception seems to be based off of trying to balance the races at all levels of skill, which is idiotic. BW was not balanced at all levels of skill, especially not in reference to the amount of effort put in by specific races to win. It exposed its balance later on at a higher level of play. The level of balance it had early on was enough to sustain interest in the game and provide motivation to improve skills, but only idiots believe BW was every truly balanced. At the furthest ends of possibility it's nowhere near balanced.

 

What I'm saying is that Blizzard needs to pick one specific point of Skill and Ability and balance SC2 for that point. I certainly don't agree with this attempt to balance it to everyones whining about everything being over powered. Fucking StarCraft Racism. It has the potential to ruin this game.

 

 

 

PS: I don't agree with the ability to Corrupt buildings and I'm fairly certain that ability will be removed. Collosus no longer rock Marines anywhere near as hard as they did pre-Patch 11. You also should not be making that many Marines against a Zealot/Stalker/Sentry/Collosus based army. That's a very stupid move to make in general when you have much better options. No one in Last Raven tries to counter a Lightweight OB + RS Sniper Bipedal with a Heavyweight OB-less Tank with Pixie3. Micromanagement is an extremely important factor in balance.

Edited May 21, 2010 by Niji
Addressed some other comments.

[Pendragon]

Well, you know me Niji. I can't stand losing to a zerg rush or protoss proxy gate, even if I prepare for it, so I'll admit I'm biased when it comes to these nerfs and buffs. I greatly dislike the other races so much.

 

For instance, I got Void Ray rushed alot in the past few weeks. Then they micro out of range of my marines and actually kill my vikings before they even get close. So really, they almost became unkillable, being able to move and attack much like phoenixes. So the range nerf I felt was justified.

 

I do agree that they're starting to imbalance the units out of the comfort zone however.

 

But even if it makes the Terrans OP in future patches, I just can't say no to a Terran buff. The day I do is the day I stop loving Armored Core, so they should instead do like Alex suggested and just counterbuff the other races.

 

*flies a kite into an Ultralisk, killing it on impact*

Edited May 21, 2010 by Pendragon

[LCC]

Getting cheaper ups doesn't mean shit against proxy rushes anyway. Then if your earlier push doesn't work your late game is exactly the same as it was before. The lower cost does open up the timing window a bit tho.

 

Marines have always sucked in small numbers; it's when you get a large amount of them that stuff tends to melt when it charges it at you. The only reason people don't go pure marine+dship/ghost/raven is because of collosi.

 

Void rays can be countered with an early ground push, no? Then just tech to vikings.

I've never seen void rays kill vikings on their own. Vikings outranged rays before the patch even hit. If you're fighting in large numbers you generally want to retreat and wait for the charged up attack to cooldown after focusing down 2-3 rays. Rays have shitty acceleration iirc.

 

I'd be a lot happier with lower gas cost tanks. 125 is too much. Go back to 100 yo.

[Alex]

If you're fighting in large numbers you generally want to retreat and wait for the charged up attack to cooldown after focusing down 2-3 rays. Rays have shitty acceleration iirc.

 

They generally cool down after they roll over your undefended base though? microing Viking will work splendid now with the range nerf and all.

 

I can see frenzy being used in battles, 25 EN, with full 200 EN you get 8 buffs from 1 infestor, and 24 from 3, 25% extra damage on 24 whatever unit means 600% total, 6 more unit worth of damage, depend on the situation I can see it used to turn the tide of battle, though I guess it depends on whether the energy is better spent on mass buff or fungal, in the end I guess we'll see when pro Zs play.

 

In regard to this patch, it's not applied yet? I didn't get an update yet, they have a message about maintenance soon, map publishing is going to be a riot! damn dota hahahaha, a half assed shoddy sniper map is already out, but the FoW doesn't quite work like before, yet, I guess we'll see Pen play a lot more SCII now that tower defense is transferred over.

Edited May 21, 2010 by Alex

[Harakiri Tiger]

Getting cheaper ups doesn't mean shit against proxy rushes anyway. Then if your earlier push doesn't work your late game is exactly the same as it was before. The lower cost does open up the timing window a bit tho.

 

A lot of people use 1-2 Maruader early pushes and FE's that work very well. Those pushes revolve around Concussive and fast Stim. This just makes Stim faster by quite a bit, while allowing you to continue producing earlier on. The Proxy Marauder's is probably going to be affected by this the most. This makes those proxies much, much easier since you normally have to sacrifice so much in your economy to pull them off.

 

Terran has always had a very, very powerful early game vs Protoss. TvP has been a broken matchup for quite a long time, not imbalanced. It's been plainly broken. Terrans that play right win during the first five minutes win outright and P can't do much about it. Protoss who play right during the post-five minute marker win outright and T can't do much about it. This just makes it even worse. I can understand the desire to buff Marines, but Marines were already buffed by debuffing Void Rays. They were buffed again by making Combat Shield cheaper. They were buffed again by making the Collosus no longer kill rines in one attack. The matchup isn't being fixed, it's being broken even more than it was already broken. I'd prefer it to be imbalanced rather than broken.

 

Going back to the Marauder FE, though. The reason that started to die down lately was because of early Void Ray harass. It forced the T to make some Marines, which forced him to defend his base for a while and prevented him from a free FE that the P couldn't match. It is true that the Void Ray harass could lock a T down too effectively before this patch. This patch fixed that by making it easier to get Stim and by lowering Void Ray range. I don't believe that both changes should have been implemented, though. It's overkill. One or the other. Not both. Especially since Stim affects both Marines and Marauders.

 

Marines have always sucked in small numbers; it's when you get a large amount of them that stuff tends to melt when it charges it at you. The only reason people don't go pure marine+dship/ghost/raven is because of collosi.

 

Pretty much, though Sentry/Chargelot is still super effective vs Marines, too.

 

Void rays can be countered with an early ground push, no? Then just tech to vikings.

I've never seen void rays kill vikings on their own. Vikings outranged rays before the patch even hit. If you're fighting in large numbers you generally want to retreat and wait for the charged up attack to cooldown after focusing down 2-3 rays. Rays have shitty acceleration iirc.

 

Protoss can be countered by an early timing push, hahaha. But yes, if you scout the VR's you can typically hard counter the player. It involved a pretty early scout, though. Now you can just make 4 Marines and get Stim and you're good. Vikings are poor vs a Void Ray until you get more. 1 Void Ray can kill 2 Vikings pretty quickly, even if it enters the fight uncharged. Void Rays do 35 damage (fully charged) per tick and they tick off 2x as fast as Vikings. I think it was 35, anyway.

 

I'd be a lot happier with lower gas cost tanks. 125 is too much. Go back to 100 yo.

 

I have no idea how this would affect the game, but I know that there are few Z players that would appreciate that change. Hahaha. I play P and T, though, so I wouldn't complain.

 

=3

[SUMERIAN BLOOD GOD]

I still want my bull-rushing ultralisk, haha. I just think that'd be hilarious to implement.

except the anvil explodes at the end.

[█␢█]

Let Frenzy be a researchable Ultra skill and give them energy. Maybe shorten the time down a tad to like 10-15 seconds instead of 30 seconds and I think it would be better than how things are now. Like Gary said, Frenzy is only useful on the Ultra for Z.

[atdsutm]

ultralisk nerf killed the ultralisk and its buffs didnt weight more than the nerfs. that includes frenzy.

 

450 hp makes it paper thin, and adding a AOE damage reduction from 100% to 35% makes it even worse. ultras die quicker and deal less damage to a group of units. not to mention terran/protoss bio can easily heal after every fight.

 

terran buff was unnecessary.

 

infested terrran ability uses too much energy for a 50 hp 8 damage single unit.

 

TERRAN is overbuffed, and the unnecessary changes were...

 

siege tank HP

banshee HP

stim upgrade cost

shield upgrade cost.

cute thors.

 

if terrans need anything, its a marauder nerf.

 

atm MM timing push kills protoss now

 

and the ultralisk should have been like this

Edited May 22, 2010 by atdsutm

[Harakiri Tiger]

SC2 is suffering from an overwhelming amount of engine bugs post-Patch 13. I am not playing SC2 until the next patch.

[Alex]

I've been stuck unable to perform anything except exiting the game everytime I boot the game up, meh... map publishing sucks too

[LCC]

I managed to lag freeze my game by myself when testing against the ai.

[SUMERIAN BLOOD GOD]

I managed to click the connect button a bunch of times and got two different boxes that made my processor jump to 80-90% and vaguely told me why it was impossible for me to get on.

 

!!!!!

[atdsutm]

just buff the fucking ultralisk FFS no pseudo buff/nerf

[Harakiri Tiger]

[Pendragon]

Everyone gets a buff but the terrans?

 

You just had to take away my victory from last patch, didn't you Blizzard?

 

You Communists.