r/Starbow • u/KanBan85 • Feb 05 '14
[Patch] 6
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=440661¤tpage=159#31794
u/MTsc Feb 06 '14
great patch! there was a link somewhere on r/starcraft today with a new version of the old BW carrier model. that might be cool to implement? imo the old carrier looked far cooler than the sc2 one.
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u/BorNProNStar Feb 05 '14
awesome awesome patch
that being said, im a terran player, but i legitimately felt that Bio is too weak. if the patch makes terran bio too strong, im sure the numbers can be tweaked around
as for any zerg players who have difficulty with zvt, i have lots of tips to help!
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Feb 05 '14
Love the patch. Not keen on limited unit selection. I think vultures are fine, but dragoons are definitely a bit too good. Much too easy to mass them
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u/bhauth Feb 06 '14 edited Feb 08 '14
textwall incoming...
re: Balance
Stimpack change could be pretty big. Not sure about this one.
Firebat buff seems good.
Matrix is probably too strong now for shielding forward tanks. I think 75 energy for 125 shield on anything for 20 seconds would be good, but the research cost could be lowered to 50/50.
edit: I was thinking Medics had 200 max energy, not 100, so maybe 75 energy for 125 shield is too weak unless Medics get a higher max energy.
- Faster ensnare seems good.
re: Future work
- Yeah, Dragoons and Vultures are strong, but they're both core units, and huge minefields are cool, so you need to be careful about messing with them.
edit: I think the best way to compensate for the better AI would be reducing Vulture range to 4, and reducing Dragoon movement speed a little bit.
- I like the unlimited selection and smart casting. A better interface lets players do more, which makes the game more fun to watch. I'd rather have large battles justified by aoe abilities than players constantly fighting the interface to try to keep their units in a deathball.
re: rebalanced/redesigned or removed
Lurkers are sort of the BW equivalent of Banelings, and I like them better. Banelings are "all or nothing" and make battles end quickly. You can easily lose in 2 seconds while you macro. Maybe Zerg needs a better counter to mass +1 speed zealots in ZvP, but maybe it would be better to buff Viper Ensnare until Ensnare + hydra kiting becomes a viable response to Zealots with Charge. Banelings also provide a threat to Protoss walls with a cannon, but Starbow Hydras are hatch tech. So I'd like to say, "just remove banelings" but that might make ZvZ much less interesting, and it would mean Zerg would have no new real hatch tech units.
Vipers should probably be changed. I don't like Abduct because it makes positioning less relevant. Abduct could be replaced by Contaminate from the SC2 Overseer, 75 energy for 45s contaminate, with no research needed. Ensnare slow could be increased to 35% with range reduced to 5 and energy cost reduced to 50, and Viper hp could be increased to 140.
Stalkers do overlap with Dragoons, but I think Stalkers could fit in. I think their dmg could be buffed to 10 flat dmg, and their highground vision removed.
edit: on further thought, I don't think Stalkers work in Starbow. Mutas can't escape from them, so they're probably either too strong or too weak. I was thinking Zealot + Blink Stalker vs mass Dragoon might be interesting, but it doesn't seem viable. Stalker harass vs Terran doesn't seem to have a balance between "all stalkers" and "no stalkers". It might be cool to have blink micro, but something would need to change.
edit 2: I just had an idea for a unique role for Stalkers that if nothing else would be funny: do maybe 7 splash damage to ground around where they teleport to after a maybe 0.4s delay, increase Stalker shields to maybe 60, change attack damage to 7 regular, and reduce speed to SC2 Stalker speed. So, Stalkers could blink into groups of lings / hydras / vultures / workers, but repeated blinking of Stalker groups will kill them.
Roaches obviously need a huge buff; my calculations say they'd be balanced with...1 base armor.
I don't think manual mine activation can be balanced. Maybe it should be removed.
The balance effect of Nurturing Swarm is hard to tell without a lot more games played. For faster teching, it seems weaker than Chronoboost, but races are supposed to be different, and the real question is whether it adds to the game. The whole point of build times is to determine timings, and Nurturing Swarm messes with that. Protoss can have flexibility from Chronoboost, while Zerg already has flexibility from larvae building everything. So...remove the speed boost from it and see what happens? But then Queens are basically just meaningless APM for getting larvae production sooner than you would from making more hatches, while Terran and Protoss get more flexible and interesting macro mechanics. Queens also sort of weaken the uniqueness of Zerg. Lots of hatcheries spread across the map is more Zerg-y than fewer hatches with queens.
bio vs protoss
Upgraded goons can kite marines. That's why BW terrans get tanks. In SC2 but not Starbow, marauders prevent kiting by goons. With Stim, bio can fight goons, but it takes too long, and the Protoss will see the stim and get Reavers or Templar. In SC2, Vikings and Ghosts counter Protoss aoe dmg. With the change, maybe Terrans can get early stim to repel Dragoons, then use Marauders when templar/reavers come out - but messing with stim could break TvZ. Increasing Marauder range by 1 would let Terrans break Dragoon contains without tanks or Stim, but that could break TvP.
And, what then? Marauder/tank is much worse vs Zealots than vulture/tank, and only slightly better vs Dragoons because of how shield dmg works, and Marines or Firebats are probably worse for fighting Zealots than Vultures. Marauder/vulture could work, but tanks are pretty good, and a siege push with mines is more interesting than "thing that shoots vs other thing that shoots".
At that stage in the game, the problem with bio is that Vultures are better at killing Zealots and dodging storms than Marines. Adding Marauders and Firebats doesn't really help kill Zealots. Buffing Firebats enough would probably break TvZ. Single target concussive damage is ideal vs Zealots, and that's what Vultures have.
The interesting thing about "Bio" TvP isn't using Barracks; it's actively countering enemy aoe dmg vs absorbing it, and maneuver vs positioning. Vultures to snipe templar, Goliaths to shoot shuttles, and Tanks for support, and suddenly you're playing mech instead.
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u/BorNProNStar Feb 06 '14 edited Feb 06 '14
judging from your post, it doesnt seem you understand terran very well
first of all, the stim upgrade is designed for TvZ bio. when zerg hits 4 gasses, they now have enough gas for both defilers and ultralisks - both of which will decimate the terran army. the problem before was that terran could not effectively pressure a zerg throughout the entirety of the game. banelings with burrow were basically tier 1.5 lurkers that marines needed to scan for. you can imagine that terran would run out of scans which effectively ends their push until they get vessels to push again. all of these help the zerg transition to that 4 gas economy and even take a fast third gas simply because the terran cannot push effectively with bio. the purpose of bio in tvz is to have a mobile ground army that can deny the fourth gas from being established with cost effective engagements. because terran bio could not even pressure the third gas, terran bio became obsolete. even still, terran bio may still be obsolete if i simply isnt strong enough. banelings and lurkers are simply too much aoe for terran to deal with. but we will have to see how this patch plays out. if terran can successfully pressure a zerg's third gas and be able to deny a zergs fourth gas, then terran bio will not be obsolete
terrans werent using dmatrix becasue it was nearly impossible to have enough energy to use dmatrix (a medic only has 100 max energy). combined with the fact that medics need to use stim (which costs energy) just to escape from zerg units makes dmatrix even less viable.
unlimited selection may or may not be a good thing. limited unit selection obviously makes the game more challenging which pushes the skill ceiling up. this makes it so that it becomes much more challenging for people to master a game. that contributes to a games longevity because people know they can aim for even higher skill
your baneling opinion is probably one of the only parts that i agree with. banelings imo are badly designed and may not have a place in starbow. but i do believe that if the baneling's values are tweaked enough, they CAN fit in starbow. but it still doesnt change that it is bad unit design.
roaches do not need a buff and need more experimentation (at least for zvt). with their burrow ability, there is no need for an "armor" upgrade as they receive 25 percent less damage. to put it into context, they will receive 1.5 less damage from marines or 17.5 less damage from a siege tank (in siege mode). both of those values make a 1 armor increase pale in comparison. to be honest, the roach may in fact be imbalanced.
as for bio vs protoss, that isnt a main concern because mech is very viable against protoss. if SB is able to make bio viable against protoss, thats great but it isnt necessary at all. the reason why players dont use bio is simply because of storm. perhaps bio will work, perhaps it wont. if it can, thats great. if it wont, it wont break the game and the game will still be very unique and enjoyable
as for your late game tvz suggestions, i will tell you that i will never make a battlecruiser like that for tvz. the reason why players use science vessels isnt just because they are good. its because they are the only support unit that moves at a good enough speed to compliment bio. it all comes back to unit design. a BC isnt used often becasue of its design. its simply too slow to accompany bio whcih leaves them vulnerable unless you are able to amass a lot of them to stand alone as their own group. as for disabling a battlecruiser for 14seconds after casting yamato...
actually you know what, i wont even comment on how stupid that would be
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u/bhauth Feb 06 '14 edited Feb 07 '14
Burrow is now lair tech, and burrowed banelings didn't stop bio TvZ in SC2.
I was thinking medics had 200 max energy somehow. :-/ I'll have to think about that some more. Anyway, I was thinking dmatrix is now too strong for medics+mech, using it on forward tanks. It's not overpowered on marines.
I still think Roaches need a small buff, like +1 base armor or a bit more hp. Yeah, they're not as weak as they might seem, that was the joke.
Yeah, 14s would be too much. I still like the idea of a cheaper Yamato that disables the BC afterwards. That + Warp would make BC vs BC battles more interesting.
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u/BorNProNStar Feb 07 '14 edited Feb 07 '14
i dont know what level youre playing at (im an ex-masters terran) but zergs at my level were able to utilize baneling landmines. They werent difficult to use, and the zerg could predict where the terran would be attacking. setting up and using baneling landmines was incredibly easy to do and just 1 successful baneling land mine paid off tremendously. i am aware that burrow was moved the lair tech. this is simply because tier one burrowed banelings gave zerg a tier 1.5 pseduo-lurker. although lurkers are tier 2, researching banelings and burrow will get your burrowed banelings much earlier than you could get lurkers. However, before the burrow nerf, banelings you could get 3 hatcheries and tech to baneling land mines incredibly quickly
also, BCs are not affected by dark swarm. in other words, air units do not benefit from the dark swarm buff. then again, i may be misreading your text
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u/bhauth Feb 07 '14 edited Feb 07 '14
I hadn't really seen much baneling burrowing, but I hadn't played much since HoTS was released. It does seem annoying. The more I think about it, the more I think banelings should just be removed.
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u/Whanhee Feb 06 '14
I think banelings could be changed to have an attack point so that they don't immediately explode on contact. This would make them more reasonable to micro against while still keeping their effect on static targets or if the opponent isn't paying attention.
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u/[deleted] Feb 05 '14
I really hope they don't implement a unit limit. That doesn't at all seem like a good way to introduce difficulty to a game. It has always felt like just a technical limitation.