Sc2 balance.

Im not sure if any one else has noticed this but, there are only a small number of people playing the beta that means that the stats for each race and unit are skewed because not all players are of the same skill level. True that wont be the case when the game is released either but in the beta there could be a greater number of unskilled players and therefore an over powered unit or strat could go unnoticed because of poor exicution or impropper match making (like placing a bronze player against a gold.)

From what Ive read and heard the majority of the balance changes were unnessisary or came completely out of nowhere and blizzard has been accused for not listening to the community and only using stats for balance. If this is the case then I would like to inform both blizzard and the community that stats arnt as reliable as people think due to the vast number of variables involved to get those numbers.

I would like to point out that the real balance changes wont happen until after the game has been released. Some of the known issues like the Marauder being over powered and the zealot being useless in the early game or the lack of zerg diversity and its diminishing racial identity will begin to show up in the stats once millions of people are playing the game instead of just thousands.

I would also like to point out that Protoss had been nerfed every patch which is fine because there was some issues with units being to strong. Unfortunatly Blizz hasnt added enough buffs to fill in the weaknesses the nerfs have caused. An example of this would be the immortal timing push. Yes it was powerful but because of that build time nerf the immortal is now less of a counter to the marauder timing push done by terrans. The zerg roach supply nerf had a simmilar effect. Yes the roach is still useful but it has effectivly cut the entire zerg army in half despite the fact that roaches are very easily countered my marauders and immortals. The point im trying to get across is the fact that every buff and nerf has effects outside of the intented situations that warrented the change in the first place. an example of this is the stim pack buff. yes it made marines more useful however it also made marauder pushes stronger which is countering the pathetic concussive shells nerf whic hwas implimented to weaken of stop early marauder pushes.

Just though I'd put out my views on how some of the balance is occurring with out counter balances.

But, most of the people playing in beta was chosen in semi-random way, so it's likely that have more than enough unskilled players.

The Immortal sucks balls vs the Marauder. You're never going to have enough to counter that cheap-as-dirt OP unit. Better to send Chargelots with Sentry support, i think.

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Originally Posted by Norfindel

But, most of the people playing in beta was chosen in semi-random way, so it's likely that have more than enough unskilled players.

The Immortal sucks balls vs the Marauder. You're never going to have enough to counter that cheap-as-dirt OP unit. Better to send Chargelots with Sentry support, i think.

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The Immortal does high damage but can't take as many hits as it should. You should have 2-4 in your army supporting those Zealots who are tanking.

actually. The quicker you can get immortals the more you will have. Yes Marauders are dirt cheap and totally op but 5 immortals stand a much better chance than 3. One popular terran strat is marauder/thor and with the FF nerf that combo renders sentries null and void. One of hte reasons why Marauders are over powered is because they benifit from everything the terran player dose. Be it M3 or marauder/thor, hell you can even get away with marauder/raven. there has to be more of a downside to getting thors than a lack of aint air. As for zealots, Im not sure if this was changed or not but Concussive shells will stop zealots from charging.

OP: This has not changed with well executed micro even charging zealots will be pretty well countered. Concussive shells is a dirt cheap 50 50 upgrade with like a ~35sec research time. I play terran and early mm push with about 5 marauders and 3 marines is hard to beat.

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Originally Posted by DemolitionSquid

The Immortal does high damage but can't take as many hits as it should. You should have 2-4 in your army supporting those Zealots who are tanking.

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So, basically, i must send the Zealots to soak damage for the Immortals (which sounds like kind of a joke).
I assume i need to research Charge, also, as otherwise the Terran can kite Zealots and Immortals like forever?
All of this while the Terran double-pumps Marines and builds cheap Marauders.
On most maps i can at least block the ramp and shoot down with ranged units, but in maps like Kulas Ravine, it's even more difficult.
I don't even imagine what do the Zerg players do against M&M&M.

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Originally Posted by Norfindel

So, basically, i must send the Zealots to soak damage for the Immortals (which sounds like kind of a joke).

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Yeah pretty much.

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Originally Posted by Norfindel

I assume i need to research Charge, also, as otherwise the Terran can kite Zealots and Immortals like forever?

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In the same way he needs to research Stim and Shield and Shells.

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Originally Posted by Norfindel

All of this while the Terran double-pumps Marines and builds cheap Marauders.

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Which why I LOVE LOVE LOVE Templar vs Terran right now. Zealot/Sentry in to HT is SICK.

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Originally Posted by Norfindel

On most maps i can at least block the ramp and shoot down with ranged units, but in maps like Kulas Ravine, it's even more difficult.

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Everyone knows KR is a shitty map.

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Originally Posted by DemolitionSquid

In the same way he needs to research Stim and Shield and Shells.

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Uh, yes, but they have the upgrades right in the Lab. I need to build the Core, wait it to finish, and then the Council.

What i don't understand, is how Blizzard "felt that they overnerfed the Marauder" with the Concussive Shell upgrade. To begin with, it slows units too much, and doesn't even requires any micro at all, as it's autocasted. The only autocasted attack ability in the whole game.

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Originally Posted by DemolitionSquid

Everyone knows KR is a shitty map.

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Yeah, i will seriously consider voting against it.

I find it odd that the Marauder's concussive shells only cost 50/50 too. It needs a cost increase to balance out the Marauder because as is it is definitely too strong, especially since pretty much every unit it's gonna face in the early game is vulnerable to its effects. Maybe if the Marauder was 50 gas instead of just 25, and the shell upgrade was 100/100 or even 150/150, would help a bit?

I think concussive shells are crucial to marauder survival in mid game. In early game, it is a lil too strong. I agree Drake that a nerf is in order, but 100/100 is too much. Maybe making it cost 50/100 pressures the T to choose between making the extra 2 marauders or the 1 very beneficial upgrade which becomes staple in mid game.

The current "nerf" on concussive shells is way too accessible.

Another way is to keep the cost but make the time more like 45-50 secs build time.

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Originally Posted by Norfindel

as it's autocasted. The only autocasted attack ability in the whole game.

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What about charge for zealots? it's autocast as far as I know...

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Originally Posted by Deane

What about charge for zealots? it's autocast as far as I know...

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I think what he meant was its not an attack ability. It doesn't augment their attack at all, only their movement.

Concussive shells aren't autocast geez. It is an inherent passive property of the Marauders attack. Charge and Heal are examples of abilities that uses autocast.

My biggest beef is that alot of the racial identity has been thrown out. zerg units anrt swarmy enough and alot of toss units are to fragile or too weak. Spamming storm dose seam to whiddle the number of marauders down but the point remains that there is no cost effective counter to marauders. Every know counter measure to them put the defender behind. having to get teir 2.5 and 3 units to counter a 1.5 with out getting completely steam rolled is ridiculous. Another thing I dont get is that Blizz said that rays are the counter to marauders so Toss starts to use them then Rays get nerfed. Almost every Toss and zerg nerf and terran buff effects the marauders. zealot nerf, forge nerf, sentry nerf, Void ray nerf, immortal nerf, collosus nerf, Templar nerfs, Roach nerfs, hydra nerf, ultra nerf. It all make the marauder stronger because now those units are less effective at stopping them. A strat that is clearly op is the proxy reaper int omass marauder Because it froces Toss to get stalkers that are countered by marauders. It a one two punch that renders Toss T1 completely useless And that needs to be changed. The only way it could fail is due to poor exicution of the terrans part or the Toss is just that good. I also feel that Toss and zerg have to work alot harder for their wins than terran dose. Mules are spamable, spawn larva and to a lesser extent chrono boost arnt.

I think what Blizz is trying to do is to take all micro management and skill out of Terran play, while pushing zerg and toss players to the limit of their skills till they become experts in every aspect of micro/macro and everything. Then they will use these freshly trained masterminds as psychic generals in an intergalactic war that is about to commence but not yet made it to public news :D

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Originally Posted by Deane

What about charge for zealots? it's autocast as far as I know...

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mmm... I see how that can be taken as an attack ability, but really is just a variation of the Leg implants upgrade from BW.

If Charge wouldn't be automatically triggered, it would be too powerful, as you could dodge things like Psi Storm, skip chokes, and run away/into anything very quickly.

Still, there's a difference between having something automatically casted over an enemy unit and Charge, but the definition of "Autocasted" is obscure enough that it can be taken as one.

Charge is on the Twilight Council, costs 200m 200g, takes 140 time to complete and accelerates the Zealot (a lot when near an enemy).
Concussive Shells is on the Tech Lab, costs 50m 50g, takes 60 time to complete, and slows down any unit attacked by the Marauder a big deal (maybe even has a small AoE, but with melee units you only need to slow the front ones, anyways).

I think charge should make zealots immune to the slow atleast while charging anyways. as it is now charge lots can still be kited because the stow stops the zealot before it charges. Marauders dont need slow they still do insane damage with out it due to their high dmg out put, high hp and range, not to mention they are almost as cheap as zealots. Mules bring in minerals at a large rate therefore a terran can save money on Scvs. They dont even need Scvs to mine because they can just spam mules and because of that excess minerals they can afford the mass marauders and now the upgrades that go with them. Another thing I dont find fair is that terran dont need as much gas as zerg or toss. Marauders, vikings, tech labs and reactors are all cheap on gas and hellions and marines dont even need gas. Thats almost half of the terran army. you could by those units like crazy and still have enough gas to make tanks, thors, banshees, ravens, ghosts, or BCs.

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Originally Posted by whitefire

My biggest beef is that alot of the racial identity has been thrown out. zerg units anrt swarmy enough.

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Not sure what you mean "swarmy" enough. I keep my Hatcheries producing bonus larva all the time with a Queen always on standby at each of them, and produce masses of Zerglings, Hydras and sometimes Mutalisks and overwhelm the opponent.

What I mean by swarmy is the indivudually zerg units are supposed to be weak but in a group they are powerful. They sacrificed individual strength for strength of the collective whole. Now you have roaches that are strong on their own and very expensive food wise. Zerg units got a bit stronger individually but now cost mroe and done have as much synergy with each other. In sc1 the hydra was the most cost effective zerg unit because it was T1 cheap andvery easy to support you has combos like ling/hydra, hydra/lurker/defiler and my personaly fav the Hydra/gardian. now that they are teir 2 they have less synergy because they cost more and move slower. Ya they work well with roaches but thats about it. Mutas and lings are too fast for the new hydra and it damages unit synergy.

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Originally Posted by whitefire

In sc1 the hydra was the most cost effective zerg unit because it was T1 cheap andvery easy to support you has combos like ling/hydra, hydra/lurker/defiler and my personaly fav the Hydra/gardian. now that they are teir 2 they have less synergy because they cost more and move slower. Ya they work well with roaches but thats about it.

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Are you serious? I've used Hydras extensively when I play Zerg and they're still highly effective against most any unit. With the new damage system they do full damage now against small units and in tandem with Zerglings utterly crush the opponent. Ling/Hydra is just as effective as it was in SC1 in my experience. As for Hydra/Guardian, haven't tried it yet, or whatever the guardian's replacement is. Being tier two makes sense the way I've seen them before because if they had been at tier one still, even with the increased cost, they'd be a bit too strong. Queens to let you produce extra larva. You could have two dozen Hydralisks in a few minutes without any need for a Lair. Moving the Hydra to tier two makes them later tech and not as readily available.

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What I mean by swarmy is the indivudually zerg units are supposed to be weak but in a group they are powerful.

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That is still very much the same.

With charge, you can turn the auto-cast function off; that's part of what makes it an auto-cast ability, as opposed to a passive ability (like concussive shells). Of course, in practice hardly anyone ever chooses to do this.

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Originally Posted by Norfindel

mmm... I see how that can be taken as an attack ability, but really is just a variation of the Leg implants upgrade from BW.

If Charge wouldn't be automatically triggered, it would be too powerful, as you could dodge things like Psi Storm, skip chokes, and run away/into anything very quickly.

Still, there's a difference between having something automatically casted over an enemy unit and Charge, but the definition of "Autocasted" is obscure enough that it can be taken as one.

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Originally Posted by Drake Clawfang

Are you serious? I've used Hydras extensively when I play Zerg and they're still highly effective against most any unit. With the new damage system they do full damage now against small units and in tandem with Zerglings utterly crush the opponent. Ling/Hydra is just as effective as it was in SC1 in my experience. As for Hydra/Guardian, haven't tried it yet, or whatever the guardian's replacement is. Being tier two makes sense the way I've seen them before because if they had been at tier one still, even with the increased cost, they'd be a bit too strong. Queens to let you produce extra larva. You could have two dozen Hydralisks in a few minutes without any need for a Lair. Moving the Hydra to tier two makes them later tech and not as readily available.



That is still very much the same.

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I never said that hydras are weak quite the opposit actually. They are still very cost effective and with the new damage system they rip appart their old counters with ease. What I ment is that you have to do more work by spreding tumors instead of just one speed upgrade. If you think about it though the new creep is a speed boost for all zerg groung forces so its probably a better trade off. I keep seeing threads about zergs losing to terran ground really easily, especially siege tanks, and I have to wonder if this is the reprocussions of a lack of dark swarm. As stated earlyer zerg units are weak and tanks will rip them to shreds with out dark swarm of some other means of softening the damage.

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Originally Posted by Maxa

With charge, you can turn the auto-cast function off; that's part of what makes it an auto-cast ability, as opposed to a passive ability (like concussive shells). Of course, in practice hardly anyone ever chooses to do this.

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No, you have autocasted abilities that cannot be deactivated also. IIRC, WC3 has some of them, like Ensnare in the spider-like demon.

It's semantics, really. Would you call an ability that automatically nerfs an enemy unit on attack passive? I wouldn't. Passive abilities are the ones that affect the unit himself, and are always in effect.

Concussive Shells cannot be deactivated because there won't be any point into doing that. It's like having a switch to do half damage, why would you activate that?

For example, if the Queen from BW autocasted Ensnare would you say it's passive?

What i meant, is that it's the only ability that's automatically applied to an enemy unit. If that's not autocasted, i don't know what it is.
So, it happends to be applied when it attacks? So what? It's still automatically applied to an enemy. If you remove the attack would you call it a passive ability?

The crypt fiend's web ability can be deactivated.

Both auto-cast and passive abilities can be used without the player having to manually activate them. But auto-cast abilities typically have cooldowns, a mana requirement or both (a zealot can only charge once every 10 seconds; a crypt fiend can only cast its web every 12 seconds). That's why you're given the option to turn off auto-cast abilities, so that, if you want, you can be selective about precisely when you want to use them. This is the crucial distinction underlying auto-cast mechanics. (In fact, Blizzard's battle.net site actually defines autocast abilities as precisely those which have on-off toggles: link.)

By contrast, passive abilities (concussive shell, spell immunity, etc.) typically have no cool downs or mana requirements. They're always active, and as a result you never really "cast" them; this is also why it doesn't make sense to talk about "auto" casting them. What's significant about passive abilities, as opposed to ordinary or auto-cast abilities, is that you never decide to use them.

I agree that this is partly a question of semantics. Still, I think that the distinction is instructive. Moreover, my first post directly refutes your claim that charge is "automatically triggered"; strictly speaking, charge isn't automatically triggered, since you have the choice to turn off auto-cast and exercise discretion over its use.

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Originally Posted by Norfindel

No, you have autocasted abilities that cannot be deactivated also. IIRC, WC3 has some of them, like Ensnare in the spider-like demon.

It's semantics, really. Would you call an ability that automatically nerfs an enemy unit on attack passive? I wouldn't. Passive abilities are the ones that affect the unit himself, and are always in effect.

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Originally Posted by Norfindel

If Charge wouldn't be automatically triggered, it would be too powerful, as you could dodge things like Psi Storm, skip chokes, and run away/into anything very quickly.

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Allright, i stand corrected.

It's still the only ability automatically applied over an enemy unit.