What the fuck is a “toast”? (As seen in the patch notes)
And I’m happy to see the ultralisk splash works like that. Admittedly, it looks a bit silly, but with splash like that, it wouldn’t matter how many SCVs you have repairing a Thor.
Wow the ultralisk “bug” is a pretty big deal. It’ll probably get nerfed, where the splash from a command center will only come out a range of 2.5 from the center of a command center, instead of the edge.
3 ultralisks and large group zerglings could not take out a planetary fortress with repairing SCV’s before… it was so stupid. This little change is probably just as good as all the other changes combined, as you can actually counter an attacking terran late game now, or at least force him to defend expansions with real units.
I really felt the difference with the tanks today in TvT. Took a few shots to kill Marauders.
Marauders are armored aren’t they? Shouldn’t that mean tank damage to Marauders remains the same?
Ultralisks have always done the same damage to thors with scvs repairing though. The patch only change the way ultralisks attack buildings.
I thought the base damage was decreased overall. It sure felt like there was a difference.
It’s such a pain in the ass to watch old replays now. Maybe I just need a new rig.
Ouch I forgot how the old replays force you to load the old patch info, I need to finish up those SRK Open games
Also, Tank damage went from 50 to 35 (+15 armored). Since Mauraders are armored, they still take 50 damage the same pre-nerf. Marines can now survive a shot though, as can zerglings with +1 armor (versus non +1 weapon tank). Zealots will probably fare better as well, especially chargelots to close that distance
I don’t really see there being any huge balance shifts because of this patch, has any zergs felt the slower reapers and slower zealots really change anything to help you guys out? I mean I’ve already transitioned to cannon contain as my basic opening versus zerg, which I can’t imagine is any less annoying than 2 gate
They still do the same amount of damage to Marauders. However it takes 2 shot to kill a SCV, Marine, or Reaper now and 3 shots to kill a Ghost or Hellion. For the most part TvT will be played exactly the same except that Marines are now a more viable mineral sink when you’re low on gas.
In retrospect the Siege Tank change won’t really affect any match-ups drastically. It just means that it will take a few more to reach a critical mass against non armored units. What really makes them good is their range and splash, so once a critical mass is reached most other units will die before getting in range to do any damage. I’m perfectly fine with this as long as the other two races have ways to break Siege Tank lines. TvT is nearly all about how you break the opponents Siege Tank line. Protoss has quite a few ways to break Siege Tank lines with Immortals, Zealots with Charge, Stalkers with Blink, Phoenixes with Graviton Beam. Zerg doesn’t have such tools, in fact the only reliable way to break a properly supported Siege Tank line is with Brood Lords, but that’s late game tech to counter something available to the Terran in the early/mid game. I think Blizzard should focus less on trying to nerf the Siege Tank damage and focus more on just giving ways to break a Siege Tank line. A perfect example is allowing the Infestor to use all of it’s abilities while burrowed.
Like I said before this balance patch is very underwhelming since it didn’t really balance anything. I never found 2 gate zealot pressure to be that hard to deal with as Zerg, Reaper harass on the other hand was hell, but Blizzard got the wrong memo on how to fix them. Apparently they thought that making the Reaper come out slower would fix everything but the real problem is that the Reaper is faster and out ranges every unit that Zerg could have at that time (which is why I’m suggesting a range increase on the queen).
Admittedly the BC nerf was probably smart since no race outside of Terran (with vikings) had a cost effective counter to them. As for your cannon contain it is a bit annoying since it forces 1 base strats but I am trying to figure out how to deal with it. Overall this patch was less about balance (despite being called a balance patch) and is more about features since absolutely nothing was changed match-up wise.
Well, you know what helps break tank lines? Zerglings with +1 carapace, because they don’t get gibbed instantly anymore. At least until the terran gets mech weapons. Hydras needing to get hit 3 times by siege instead of 2 is a pretty big deal, since they do so well against both marines/marauders, and any air.
Maybe that balance change won’t matter in a lot of games (specifically the shorter ones), but little stuff like that adds up bigtime in longer games.
You know what I just realized, Infested Terrans are 50 HP, so that now when you drop some onto some mauraders or into a tank line, the tanks have to fire 2 shots to kill it instead of 1, which means twice as much friendly fire splash damage (since they’re getting hit for the Armored Bonus). Makes that tactic a lot better for sure.
As for the cannon contain, my brother managees to spine crawler push his way out each game, but it is a really viable way to slow down him down and allows me a free expansion.
Just watch out for the wary 1 base zerg. Hiding a spire/nydus successfully will usually win the game out right for me against Protoss players that do that now.
You do realize that all this means is that Terran needs to add 1 more Siege Tank to reach a critical mass. Once that point is reached units like Zerglings and Hydralisks will still die before getting into range to do damage.
You use burrow roaches to get close unless they behind a wall.
that means there’s a small window where zerg can do stuff before terran gets +1 attack. after that its back to the same old rape. i dont play zerg or anything, but i imagine its not fucking pretty when the slaughter begins.
yeah I’ve gotten good and making sure to keep vision in my base for fighting off nydus worms. It’s definitely a good counter attack maneuver for zerg though to nydus and counter attack for a quick win. Spire is less deadly though because I’ve already got cannons up so if I see you with mutas and I put a few cannons in my mineral line I’m not really scared. What does suck is I feel really blind when doing this, because I get a really late robo bay for observers. I’m toying with the idea of getting hallucinate before Warp Gate just so I can keep an eye on what zerg is doing, but typically they bust out of their base before I’d be at that tech level anyway. I’ll start to get nervous if I don’t see them bust out.
One neat trick I’ve seen is for zerg to send out a second drone, not to scout but to take a hidden expansion for when they get cannon contained, and then protoss doesn’t expect to get a flood of roaches/lings in their base before the contain is broken because he never saw the drone leave
Why must everyone just presume that the terran in a TvZ having to invest more money into tanks than before means nothing? That’s money that isn’t invested in something else, and tanks still can’t shoot mutas last i checked.
Does that mean TvZ is super balanced or something now? No, of course not. But it’s awfully presumptuous to assume that a big change like that “won’t effect any matchup”.
The biggest reason zergs didn’t build hyrdas before against terran was siege 2 shotting them. Now they don’t.
One of the most important thing in games like Starcraft 2 is momentum. They do the changes this way, focusing on the early game, because the early game transforms the later game.
The idea is to give Zerg an easier time getting their economy going with less of a threat from Zealots, and less of a threat from early Reapers. Then they can evaluate how a now healthier Zerg race does
Well that and the fact that when you consider the siege tank range compared to the hydra speed off creep you realize that hydras have a hard time getting close enough regardless to do anything useful.
Well that and the fact that when you consider the siege tank range compared to the hydra speed off creep you realize that hydras have a hard time getting close enough regardless to do anything useful.
Wish Hydras still had the speed boost upgrade…
Any thoughts on my replays btw?