I have returned: StarCraft II

[geno]

You don't even need tanks to counter and kill a zerg after a failed Nydus. Unless the map is Desert Oasis, there is no army a zerg can just instant spawn off 2 base to kill a 2 base terran army+reinforcements barreling at them. In BW, similar situations were handled by extremely fast hive and dark swarm/lurker play. The zerg would defend with a VASTLY inferior army, because the terran just couldn't deal any damage and would lose the majority of the army if they pushed in anyways. There is no such defenders advantage for zerg anymore. Even cliffs are often more of a hindrance than a help with melee only lings and weak roach range.

If you aren't countering a zerg after a drop or nydus, you really should be. Even in extreme situations where the Zerg should be vastly ahead, a Terran counter can outright swing the game full circle to a win 9 times out of 10. I recently saw a game like this between Painuser and Catz, where Catz was ahead pretty much all game, managed to get a 3rd and even 4th/5th up later in the game (he used some tricky 1base hidden mutas into double expand tactics that left pain a bit confused and thus he played less aggressively). Painuser was able to match him expansion for expansion, but was still severely behind. A 2 pronged attack + drop ended up killing like 70% of Painusers army and a bit of his infrastructure, but he just stimmed up the remaining forces + reinforcements and went straight to that 3rd/4th and shut them down without anything to stop him. And with a still functioning economy and pretty good macro, the game was his. It's really the MMM counter that makes drop play extremely risky, because their speed and ability to kill buildings so fast makes them extremely difficult to stop. The tanks at that point are just icing when they get there.

As for the mistakes thing. Yes, pretty much all games are won and lost on mistakes. But an entire tech strategy shouldn't rely on a mistake. If a player like Flash or Jaedong picks up the game, Nydus play would just go extinct. For a player at our level, I think Nydus's are fine, and generally can be pretty effective. Even in the upper echelons, players are just not good enough yet to react flawlessly 100% of the time. But they will get better, and Nydus play as described off 2 base would undoubtedly go extinct (save unforeseen innovation).

I wont really touch on the tank nerf, so far as to say I think they are probably doing the right thing. It's not going to be such a big deal in the end, other than it will make hydras somewhat viable in ZvT again. The bigger change will be the reaper change, which should hopefully let zergs get into the midgame the way they want now (which will mean they will be even more prepared to deal with tanks when they come). I think the least thought out change will be the zealot change. I'm certain the reason they did it was to try to curb 4 gate pressure builds in PvP from being as dominant as they are (particularly the korean 4gate). But the unintended consequences in vZ and vT are going to be pretty big I'd say. Early/proxy marauder aggression is going to be SUPER hard to deal with now, and 6 pools on a number of maps are going to be even worse to deal with for lower level players. The gains just don't seem to be worth it, there has to be a better way to help PvP from stagnating without making such a fundamental change that will really hurt all the other matchups so much.

[Falaras]

You don't have to commit a full force to your Nydus, just like a terran doesn't commit a full force to dropping, the point is to harass and kill some workers or some structures and get them playing defensive and from behind. I somewhat disagree with the tanks comment, if you are building tanks at the numbers where they really become useful you won't be able to just push in and end the game with a counterattack without your tanks. You could gain some ground though by just tank pushing forward a bit. Honestly though, how often does this actually happen? I've never ran accross a zerg that dropped and only a few that Nydus, dropping is just not something you see happen in games often and that will be a determining factor in countering the terran in days to come. It's a good example of how strategies will eventually evolve out of necessity.

It seems we both agree on the reaper change being a needed change that could/will balance TvZ quite a bit (I believe it will make the match up balanced, you may not)

And I really don't believe players will get good enough to make Nydus extinct, remember the less people play it the more suprise it will have when it happens. If it does start to disappear you may see players start using it for the surprise factor at least.

I agree with all your comments on the Zealot change, 4gate has become very popular but its no where near unbalanced and its really just an overreaction. No where am I saying the tank nerf isn't a good idea, what I'm saying is that terran is not that much ahead of Zerg. People like magusPK grossly overstate the balance of TvZ at the moment and even go as far as to use statements like "Terran is overpowered" which would imply Terran is too strong against Protoss which is simply false. Terran has a small advantage in early game, that comes about through a strategy that is getting nerfed, requires high amounts of micro, and isn't so strong that it can't be countered (just causes a lot of pain and some lost resources).

[Bweigelt]

Couple things

1. Nydus worms are totally being misused. For some reason you almost never see Zerg take a third and make a nydus worm to that base instead of trying to attack with it. Some of the Koreans have started doing stuff like this where they use them for defense and mobility instead of attacking in the opponents base.

2. Any imbalance with TvZ is pretty much non-existent at anything less than 1300+ diamond. At any level under that the skill levels of the players isn't high enough for things like 5 rax reaper to be a true threat. Despite all the attack move jokes that build takes some insane micro and apm to pull off properly. It's so funny when I'll play a zerg as T and out macro them the whole game, and watch them make a ton of mistakes and then bitch about imbalance at the end. I'd like to see an actual game from a let's say 500 diamond player that he loses purely because of imbalance and not a whole ton of mistakes he makes. Hell the most popular game for the imbalance argument right now is Mondragon vs BratOK, and even in that Mondragon basically throws the game once he gets ahead with three stupid mistakes and everyone cries Terran OP. All the whining is hilarious because most of it comes from people who never played BW and come from things like WoW that have always been a huge whine fest. You can actually see it slipping into BW discussions as well. Suddenly there seems to be cries of Terran OP their as well, in a 12 year old game that is considered the best balanced RTS ever. I assume when the next patch comes something else will come up for them to cry about and we'll have to listen to them complain at every turn for something that doesn't even effect 99% of them.

EDIT: To Geno, I agree on the Zealot nerf, it makes no sense right now. I think their will probably be other changes they haven't listed that will put that change into perspective otherwise it just seems totally out of place.

[Falaras]

Oh god yes about that WoW comment. Imbalance crying happens nearly every patch or expansion in WoW and is almost never justified, the same arena compositions that dominated before continue to dominate even though half the forum is filled with "X is overpowered" posts.

[geno]

@Bweigelt
I think Nydus's for 3rds on islands could be really powerful for ZvT, as drops aren't going to be able to do much if the zerg knows they're comng. He can bring his army, or even just like 12 lings to the island and kill units as they drop before they ball up.

As for Nydus's to take other thirds? I don't see the point. If zergs can't take and hold a third near them, I don't see how a nydus will help. It will only cost a ton of resources and eat away at your army size. You're better off spreading your creep so you can get an actual surround (with no real defender's advantage, trying to defend from your choke ends up hurting you more than helping, outside of giving you more time to build). Then you just have to hope they don't kill the tumors and you have enough to defend. I rarely see zergs losing because their army is caught out of place, I see them losing bases because their armies get walked over outright.

@Falaras
I have no idea what you are talking about with the tank numbers thing, you don't need 10 tanks for them to be effective. Two tanks could be a game-ender. Hell, one siege tank can be devastating. Their biggest benefit is to do damage while your main army of MMM is able to kite units around, most predominantly banelings. So it's not so unrealistic to expect the terran to be able to reinforce with pure MMM and be able to destroy your base. Not all tank based strategies are pure mech, and I'd argue the most effective ones are often tank+MMM. This is particularly true when Nydus based strategies are involved, as the threat of mutalisks, and thus the need for Thors, is significantly reduced.

You're right that you don't need to commit your full force for a nydus to do damage. That could be a good harass technique in its own right if the cost were worth it. But it's just not. You are not only losing the handful of units, you are also losing the money invested in the nydus network and worm. The investment could pay off with more usage later, but at that point right after the first attack, you are still behind in both economy and more importantly, army size. Say you do some good damage, kill like 10 workers and a couple depots with a small group of roach ling before losing the nydus and the units in their base. That handful of units will have done zero damage to the main terran army. What's to stop them from using that army advantage right then and there to put the nail in the coffin, or at least deal so much damage that you can't get back in the game (marauders TEAR up buildings).

Finally, as a surprise strategy? I just don't see it. A surprise strategy is something you can hide until the last moment. A 1 base muta tech (where you hope they don't scout the spire or assume one when they see your lair) may count as a surprise strategy. The first time you see their mutas may be when they are in your mineral line and you've got 4 marines to defend with no turrets or thors on the way. How about a Nydus? ehhh. Even if they do hide the network, they just CANNOT hide the spawning nydus. When the top level players prove their minimap awareness to be as good as the current BW progamers, a nydus spawning in will be instantly reacted to, even if that means sending a small group of SCVs to kill it (which they can). For a surprise strategy to be good, it needs to be hard to defend when you don't know its coming. Not the case for a Nydus right now as far as I'm concerned.

[Falaras]

I'm not really comfortable with 1 tank versus banelings, sure it will tear through some but banelings are just so strong against MMM only a small amount need to honestly contact with your marines. As far as suprises go, the less a player sees it the less training they have to react to it, sure it won't be like a brand new thing where you GG on the spot but you may have a problem dealing with it. Don't forget you can retreat through Nydus also and the cost really isn't that bad, if you kill 4 workers you already payed for the mineral cost of 2 nydus.

I think you are kind of underestimating the life of a Nydus also, it has 200 health and 1 armor, SCVs are only going to hit for 4 damage on it, so you would need 50 hits to take out a Nydus before it pops up with SCVs. If you fail you just exposed all your workers to incoming forces also. I have no doubt it is possible with a full mineral line and quick timing but getting 50 hits off on one worm in 20 seconds (realisticly 10-15 considering reaction time) doesn't seem very easy.

[Kaylia]

Finally, lolllll @ uncounterable mutalisks. 2 Thors and maybe 20~ marines could probably take out 100+ mutalisks, lol. In large enough numbers and with the magic box technique, mutas are very strong, but cost for cost, they are not really an option against a Terran army built to counter them. They excel considerably more when they get effective harass in and are mixed with a supporting cast (that pretty much has to include banelings to deal with the marines), but by no means are they uncounterable.

Terran are not very mobile compared to zerg, and you have to use that to your advantage when you play. An handful of muta usually let you get map control unless the terran is playing perfectly with all his units, and quite frankly, it rarely happen.

I'm not saying there is no imbalance in zvt, but people crying now will continue to cry in the future, because these imbalance arent as big as they pretend.


This game do need more unit like defiler though. It feel like it's too hard to flip a bad situation around on zerg and terran.

[Falaras]

I would like to call attention to a very nice replay I found, day9 started some of it on his daily and I tracked it down to see how it ended and I was more than happy to see what happened. The terran went Tank, Marine, Marauder, non 5 rax reaper harassment, some helion harass, and the zerg stayed mobile (Both nydus and drop play including baneling drops on tanks). The base advantage I would say was in the terrans favor almost while he got his third later it was the gold. I think we can agree both the players in the replay are currently very good progamers. Also some nifty play from the zerg (3rd hatch in base, not overreacting to harass, ect)

http://www.sc2rep.com/replays/show/id/791

Sorry if I just ruined it all for you.

[geno]

Like I said, 3+ base play from Zerg can handle anything as far as I'm concerned, there are just so many more options. I saw a bit of that replay during his daily (coincidental since I actually don't really watch him that often). Cool (fruitseller) is such an amazing player, probably the best zerg in the world right now. It's not easy to do what he does, but he certainly makes it look easy.

[Falaras]

Well while most of those replays did eventually turn into 3 base play he managed to do very well while being confined for 1 or 2 bases for long periods of time. And the larve wasn't really a problem because of in-base hatches. You can also see some things that are being developed to try and counter the terran, such as fast infestors which you so rarely see. Maybe in a few weeks people will suddenly find that they can time an infestation pit to vs Terran allowing them to expand to three base pretty easily, I just want to come back to that idea that the game is constantly changing and different counters and unit compositions will continue for show up for quite a while. Calling something overpowered because a proper counter hasn't been found yet seems a little wrong to me.

[geno]

I'm not really comfortable with 1 tank versus banelings, sure it will tear through some but banelings are just so strong against MMM only a small amount need to honestly contact with your marines. As far as suprises go, the less a player sees it the less training they have to react to it, sure it won't be like a brand new thing where you GG on the spot but you may have a problem dealing with it. Don't forget you can retreat through Nydus also and the cost really isn't that bad, if you kill 4 workers you already payed for the mineral cost of 2 nydus.

I think you are kind of underestimating the life of a Nydus also, it has 200 health and 1 armor, SCVs are only going to hit for 4 damage on it, so you would need 50 hits to take out a Nydus before it pops up with SCVs. If you fail you just exposed all your workers to incoming forces also. I have no doubt it is possible with a full mineral line and quick timing but getting 50 hits off on one worm in 20 seconds (realisticly 10-15 considering reaction time) doesn't seem very easy.

The one tank was an exaggeration, but yeah 2-3 tanks is MORE than enough, particularly when stim is researched so you can see that stutter step micro take out whatever the tanks don't. Also, the mineral cost isn't particularly significant, it's all gas cost. 200 for the network, 100 for EACH worm you spawn, that is huge. 3 mutalisks, or 6 hydras is a VERY significant dent in army size right off the bat. Then on top of that, you pretty much have to assume you are going to lose some units when retreating even if you do get the nydus and your full harass force in. Zerg's have a hard enough time holding off that 2 base timing attack when they are devoting all of that money to units.

As for the nydus life, I'm really not. It does depend on the map, but it is possible even with a slightly slow reaction, to kill a nydus while its spawning with workers only. If it's pretty close, you could even kill the nydus with 4-5 workers if you pull quickly. If its farther away (farthest I tested it on was Blistering all the way behind the grass by the rocks), it takes an instant reaction and all your workers, but you can also. More significantly, you do a lot of damage to the nydus. That is only important because nydus worms unload units fairly slowly, one at a time. Which means, if the worm is being attacked, you have to decide if you want to unload or not, because the worm will generally die before you finish unloading everything you want (particularly if you are doing a zergling heavy force). If you do unload, you are definitely going to lose those forces that did get out with no way to get back. And this is all with workers only. Reinforcing units around the base are inevitable as well, so even if you do let a couple lings get out before you take down the nydus, those workers are plenty safe, and actually help to destroy the attack by taking hits and being a shield of sorts.

I've done this countless times as protoss in team games, utilizing my workers to shut down nydus's as they are spawning so they at max get out only a small fraction of their force and end up losing it to my army. Of course, in team games, I can't just run straight to their base and counter on my own, but I pretty much always come out ahead when I see a zerg player trying to use a Nydus on me.

[geno]

edit: abusing my accidental double post to add response!

Well while most of those replays did eventually turn into 3 base play he managed to do very well while being confined for 1 or 2 bases for long periods of time. And the larve wasn't really a problem because of in-base hatches. You can also see some things that are being developed to try and counter the terran, such as fast infestors which you so rarely see. Maybe in a few weeks people will suddenly find that they can time an infestation pit to vs Terran allowing them to expand to three base pretty easily, I just want to come back to that idea that the game is constantly changing and different counters and unit compositions will continue for show up for quite a while. Calling something overpowered because a proper counter hasn't been found yet seems a little wrong to me.

I just want to point out here, even if there is a counter out there (which is certainly not unlikely, its very early in the game's life) to some of the more abusive strategies, there is still good reason to complain. Chance of winning isn't everything with a game like this. There has to be some consideration for spectator value, and how fun/easy the game is to play. PvZ I think has got this mastered as far as I'm concerned. Extremely entertaining, hands down the best games I've seen so far as a spectator have been PvZs. The other matchups are definitely good as well, but I find the best games you'll find from them are generally more epic comeback wins / creative strategies rather than just close tense games. Otherwise, it's just complete domination, or really poor mistakes defining a lot of games (mainly TvZ).

And then there is just how fun it is to play. It's no secret playing terran is a different experience than playing zerg/protoss. It's actually not surprising to me that they are the most played race, even if they are perfectly balanced. What other race has as many openings as terran? It's way more rewarding getting to play the aggressor and being safe enough to not have to worry about being harassed yourself. There are plenty of ways to survive the harass as zerg and take the game from terran, but it's not easy and is definitely a frustrating experience. With the exception of the recently popular 5 roach push, there are just so few ways to feel like you are in control of that matchup. It's not too much better with protoss either until you are teching past gateway units and have some more flexibility.

So, I think its fine to assume the game is more or less balanced and just encourage creativity to solve all the problems. But there is more to consider than balance with a game like this.

[Falaras]

That is actually a very good point that it's also about how fun the game is, and if people actually made that point I would agree. I would also say, if you don't find it fun switch races. I certainly never found Zerg fun but absolutely love Terran and Protoss (I only wish I had time to figure protoss out), I assume some people find Zerg to be extremely fun though. Sure I don't enjoy TvT match ups (Tank Viking Tank Viking Tank Viking) but I find ways to make them fun maybe change the play style up a bit and honestly once I get past the "Ugh, TvT" thought I more focus on the game and do tend to have fun. Also most people find it to be fun to win and not so much to lose, this lends itself directly into the idea of chance of winning as you put it. Sure its not fun to deal with an early harass, I can understand that, but then you come back with your three base macro and tear him to pieces with Baneling+Ling+Muta and its very satisfying, maybe even more so than a non-harass win.

Honestly I would say they are the most played race due to the fact its the race you learn through the campaign. I certainly chose terran because I actually knew how to play it after completing the campaign a few times, not because of some imbalance or harassment ability (I started out in the gold league, I don't think anyone in that league knows what harass means!) I don't really regret my decision, not because of balance or anything, but because I dislike some ways the other races play personally (And queens piss me off).

[Misuicide]

I love playing zerg. They are by far my favorite race. I am probably best at them. I play random all the time too, I like the get the feel of all races. I'm pretty good with all 3. I find Protoss is my weakest.
I need to get better at my roach/ultra/BL play, and woo, zerg will tear it up!

[Syntex]

Couple things

1. Nydus worms are totally being misused. For some reason you almost never see Zerg take a third and make a nydus worm to that base instead of trying to attack with it. Some of the Koreans have started doing stuff like this where they use them for defense and mobility instead of attacking in the opponents base.

2. Any imbalance with TvZ is pretty much non-existent at anything less than 1300+ diamond. At any level under that the skill levels of the players isn't high enough for things like 5 rax reaper to be a true threat. Despite all the attack move jokes that build takes some insane micro and apm to pull off properly. It's so funny when I'll play a zerg as T and out macro them the whole game, and watch them make a ton of mistakes and then bitch about imbalance at the end. I'd like to see an actual game from a let's say 500 diamond player that he loses purely because of imbalance and not a whole ton of mistakes he makes. Hell the most popular game for the imbalance argument right now is Mondragon vs BratOK, and even in that Mondragon basically throws the game once he gets ahead with three stupid mistakes and everyone cries Terran OP. All the whining is hilarious because most of it comes from people who never played BW and come from things like WoW that have always been a huge whine fest. You can actually see it slipping into BW discussions as well. Suddenly there seems to be cries of Terran OP their as well, in a 12 year old game that is considered the best balanced RTS ever. I assume when the next patch comes something else will come up for them to cry about and we'll have to listen to them complain at every turn for something that doesn't even effect 99% of them.

EDIT: To Geno, I agree on the Zealot nerf, it makes no sense right now. I think their will probably be other changes they haven't listed that will put that change into perspective otherwise it just seems totally out of place.

I'll agree that the imbalance between the races is most obvious at high end play but that doesn't mean it doesn't affect all levels at some point.

Zerg not being able to choke is a huge problem, that on top of no real good units to take advantage of it early(lolroachrange3) sucks.

Add to that the overall synergy of terran units and the disadvantage that melee units have with the formation of balls and slow as shit hydras and any good upgrades other then ling speed all require a lair to get when terran gets them a bit earlier like slow/stim/shield/nitro ect.

The way I see it now is like this, Terran are the Death Knight of SC2 and zerg is the other class. DK on release was overtuned and they put a lot of attention to making it a very versatile class mainly because it was the campaign race for 90% of the missions so they had to but since zerg wasn't even playable they kinda put it to the side.

My main gripe is that I can't set the pace of the match but I have to react to my opponent and that Terran can steamroll someone with a cheap amount of units. There was a game I watched recently that had a 6 base zerg lose to a 3 base terran simply because of how cost effective MMM is(they were both pretty high rated). Something is wrong here...

[Falaras]

Using Death Knight as an example, high level arena play did not change with the introduction of the "overpowered" death knight. I can't relate too well to DKs but I can relate to Ret Paladins, the forums where FLOODED with crying about how overpowered they where but whenever someone tried to use them in high level PvP they got roflstomped all over the place. Its a band wagon effect where people will see something they don't know how to beat and go to the forums and start saying "x is overpowered" and then more people will just keep repeating this. One big problem was Ret paladins didn't freakin exist in PvP before the release of WOTLK so no one knew how to even fight them, let alone win. Starcraft 2 is seeing this happen right now, one person decided to start saying something is overpowered and it snowballed out of control because people haven't figure out how to fight it.

[Rhyis.]

Maybe it's because I'm a super noob, but I find this game to be one of the few balanced RTS games out there. It's essentially one big rock, paper, scissors game. Everything seems to have a counter.

[quannum]

Mondragon vs BratOK.

really good example of what falaras just said, imo. there was on avg. 6 unchecked ravens that whole game that the "Terran OP" crowd just glazes over. both guys made mistakes, mondragon just made a tiny bit more.

I don't see how, in general, competitive gaming can get past the basic problem of "varied and balanced". we see it here, fighting games, mmos,...

[Maguspk]

I'm sorry but you are flat out wrong. Most players recognize that the terrans ability to 5 rax reaper forcing zerg into a defensive state is too powerful at the moment but its being fixed. You are over here going "NERF MARAUDERS OMG TERRAN OP", just about any intelligent player will agree nerfing marauders would completely and totally demolish terran. I'm sorry you just run into seige tanks and die but try...not doing that? Again you are blowing this way out of proportion, terran has a SLIGHT advantage over zerg that helps them at the highest level of play, and thats only for now. Zergs will adapt and figure out what to do and I even bet some day soon people will be going "OMG ZERG POWERFUL NERF NERF" because honestly that is what people do. At least Geno is making a decent arguement based on real discussion and not "my race is so good but I lose, but its ok its just underpowered!". I feel that a lot of what Geno is saying about the zerg having to get their expansions up (while I also think if you do it right 1 base play is not really that bad) will be fixed by the reaper nerf. You will also notice that the 3 harassing units for Terran are just harassing units, helions and reapers have no real place in normal play, and unless you are trying 1/1/2 or something banshees do not either. Zerg does not have that problem, every one of their units has a place and a build to make it work. I feel that this should give terran the harassing advantage if they have so many units dedicated to it.

Edit: And your talk of the terran players making mistakes? Every player makes mistakes, boxer makes mistakes, idrA makes mistakes, that's how the game actually ends because you can't be perfect at everything. Maybe you thought that countering while that nydus was popping up in your base was a good idea at the time, but it wasn't, this shit does happen in every single game.

haha, I don't mention Marauders at all there lol. If you take a comment like 'Now they should nerf Maraudres and I'll be happy ;p' seriously, then you must have poor reading comprehension. Also find it funny how you say Hellions have no place in normal play. Tell that to TLO and his Hellion build. Since you obviously are failing the see the only point I've tried to make in every post, here it is for your dumb ass spelled out quite simply: Siege Tech allows the Terran player to play extremely defensively and even defend locations very well with few supply, this affords them the opportunity to pace the games they play, this just happens to be especially true for the zerg match up. Also you make the assumption repeatedly that I am complaining from experience on ladder, I don't even fucking ladder, I just watch replays occasionally from GSL (SC2) and BW (OSL Finals, OMFG 4 pool hahaha), I don't have time to grind out points on ladder. The fact that siege tech is like the biggest flaw with the ZvT matchup is acknowledged by every Zerg player worth their salt and Blizzard acknowledges it too, you're making no sense trying to say 'it's fine' in all your posts when literally every source besides Mr. Falaras agrees on this point.

[Syntex]

Broodlords a T1 unit.

Problem solved.