What units need balance changes?

SC2 is out for 3 weeks now, maybe not the most amount of time, but fairly enough.

Knowing how balance hasn't changed from beta phase, what unit/s do you think (still) require balance changes?

Please leave your bias and inner troll in the closet and be objective.

I'll start with the unit I feel needs a change:

Roach: Its just the kind of unit that feels tapped on. Each of its special abilities feels worthless and the cost-stats ratio unequal.

Its not particularly weak unit, but I think zerglings and hydras do the roach job much better.

I think Blizzard need to find ways to make the roach more interesting and better at its role.

Pretty sure it's been less than two weeks.

I think void rays need a nerf, in terms of how long they can hold a charge. Maybe they should immediately lose their charge when switching from one unit to another.

i strongly disagree about the roach, too early to say about the VR.

i wouldnt mind a tweak of Thors GtA attack; as is its so powerful vs mutas that it deters any mutalisk play to a huge extent.. im ok with cheap ground units being blasted all to hell by tanks etc, but im skeptical about equally rock hard counters vs tier2 units that cost as much as 100 gas.

... idk though, i woudlnt argue this point far at all at this point. its too early to really tell.

.. i think the vast majority of complaints people come with are an expression of the game not playing out as they want it to play out; rarely do people even try to grasp all aspects of a problem before crying imbalance. so be careful.

I just think certain units need more use, or value.

*cough* Mothership *cough*

I would change the void ray, not because it is overpowered in the sense that it can't be countered but because it is just too good all around. As a result, the unit is spammed way too much in team games and no one ever build carriers anymore because they cost way too much for what they can actually provide compared to the void ray.

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Originally Posted by Kimera757

Maybe they should immediately lose their charge when switching from one unit to another.

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That would be a completely crippling nerf. There would be no reason to ever use them.

The Marauder needs something changed. It counters every single starting gateway unit. That shouldn't be the case. No one unit should be a counter to every single T1-1.5 unit of another race.

I don't think there are any needs of "pure" balance changes. But some tweaks maybe.

*Deleted a wall of text here...

I think void rays for example is a bit to good when charged up, but when not charged they have no use at all...

Siege tanks were supposed to be better when not sieged, currently they are not at all... They need to be sieged to be usefull, and then they are a bit to usefull.
I think making them deal full damage only to the attacked target and then a lesser splash to the other units would be fine. But to compensate a better off-siege attack and again increased hp.

Roaches are fine currently, but I think they should have a decreased amount of hp. And make their armor 2 again.

And I also agree with thors, they are to powerfull against mutalisk. Terrans already got towers + marines which are quite good versus them. And thors original anti air are not usefull at all.

But what do I know, I haven't played alot of ladder games yet.

I agree with Todie that Thors are a wee bit too good vs Muta :p.

It's kinda hard to take advantage of Siege Tanks' clunkiness as Zerg when Thors do such a good job of killing lots of Muta really fast. The sad part is that actually, I notice that at high-level play, pros' mutas take a lot longer to die to Thors because they're much better at not keeping them clumped, but at lower tiers of play, Muta are significantly worse against Thors. =/

It can be a frustrating situation because when it comes to Muta vs Thor battles, it doesn't matter if you're Diamond or Silver - there's very little the Terran needs to do to make Thors own Muta. But if you're the Zerg player, then how well the battle goes is almost entirely up to you and your muta control.

It can be quite shocking watching the top Zerg play, because they make it look as if Thors don't hard counter Muta. But when you try doing it, your Muta all just vanish as if a strong gust of wind is all it takes to kill them >_<.



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I think that simply getting rid of the VR's speed upgrade would go a long way to making them more balanced.

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Originally Posted by Hav0x

That would be a completely crippling nerf. There would be no reason to ever use them.

The Marauder needs something changed. It counters every single starting gateway unit. That shouldn't be the case. No one unit should be a counter to every single T1-1.5 unit of another race.

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I agree with this... I just played a game against a Terran that did standard opening and went with quick rack tech lab which forced me to pull out stalkers fast to counter potential reaper harrass on lost temple. The guy ended with mass marauder and I couldnt ever get enough Immortal out and I tried to go Collossi which was a mistake cause he came up late and it couldve meant one of 2 more immortals, not that it woulda changed anything.

He's diamond and I'm silver so it's normal he owns meI guess even if I played maybe best game but it's so hard to counter mass marauder as protoss early on... All you can do really is force field and pray he doesnt get into your base

Void rays are completely fine in 1v1, which is the only thing that should matter for balance discussions. If anything, voids are underpowered in 1v1s, considering that they lose hard to vikings and break even on corruptors. A viking, theoretically, should be able to beat infinite number of void rays because they have greater speed and have greater range, until you invest in flux vanes, which is not an early game move.

Marauders need a slight nerf against Protoss, IMO, since they are way too good with concussive shells and stim.

Immortals need a slight buff to cost/build time. They are not cost efficient against anything except stalkers and tanks. Straight marauders will beat immortals for cost, even without stim. Straight roaches will beat immortals for cost as well. It's generally a bad idea to build immortals against Terran/Zerg except in a few select cases.

I think void rays should have their own special building so you need something else more then the stargate.

Also I think concussion missle didnt phase zealots, rauders are unstoppaple for tier 1 1.5 units

For zerg, idk i think zergs up to speed when it comes to balancing

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Originally Posted by Legion

I think void rays should have their own special building so you need something else more then the stargate.

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So you want to make Dustin Browder's listed Protoss counter to the Marauder even harder to get, along with it being vulnerable to Marines?

No.

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Originally Posted by Hav0x

That would be a completely crippling nerf. There would be no reason to ever use them.

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No it wouldn't. They'd still be very good against high hit point units, but hydralisks and marines would now have a good chance against them.

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Originally Posted by Kimera757

No it wouldn't. They'd still be very good against high hit point units, but hydralisks and marines would now have a good chance against them.

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If void rays are beating your hydras/marines, you're doing it wrong. Even with the charge, marines/hydras will wreck void rays for cost. It's only 10 damage/tick (vs 5 damage/tick for uncharged).

Sounds like something else is the problem, not void rays. Check your macro/micro first.

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Originally Posted by Kimera757

No it wouldn't. They'd still be very good against high hit point units, but hydralisks and marines would now have a good chance against them.

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They ar already pretty much useless when attacked unless the dude has one 3 marines or one stalker and if you only have 1 stalker by the time he has Void Ray you deserve to lose

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Originally Posted by GRUNT

It can be quite shocking watching the top Zerg play, because they make it look as if Thors don't hard counter Muta. But when you try doing it, your Muta all just vanish as if a strong gust of wind is all it takes to kill them >_<.

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Move (move, not attack move) your Mutas over the Thors, and when they are over the Thors use attack move. It's not the best way to use Mutas against Thors, but it's very easy to do and you're able to dominate Thors if you have at least around 3.5-4 Mutas per Thor.

i think the thor damage vs mutas is fine. Im a zerg player myself, and looking at Terran unit composition, the only other unit that can beat mutas is marines… now that we have banelings, marines become extremely difficult to rely on which means terrans would have no good defense against mass muta without thor damage and splash.
Just go roaches or harrass with mutas until you can get ultralisks.

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Originally Posted by Maxa

I think that simply getting rid of the VR's speed upgrade would go a long way to making them more balanced.

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Agreed. Remove this upgrade and you make carriers more viable by reducing the cost / build time of fleet beacon.

I think the supply for a void ray needs to be raised to 4, since they're such heavy hitters and can be massed so easily.

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Originally Posted by Crazy_Jonny

I think the supply for a void ray needs to be raised to 4, since they're such heavy hitters and can be massed so easily.

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Wait they're 3 supply??? WTF! Making them 4 supply would instantly make me happy.

Ok, i'll post exclusively about Toss, because that's what i play:

Zealot: It's fairly ok. It's very good with Charge. Without it, i think it's a bit too much on the slow side, as it can be kited forever easily by almost any ranged unit in the game, and that's a lot of units.

Immortal: needs to be more resistant to damage. Attack should be nerfed to compensate. As it's now, it doesn't helps to soak damage, as it just cannot do it for long. I cannot care less about it's attack, there are other units that can pack a punch, but none of them can really take damage. This unit should be shining agains Terran going Siege Tanks, but it's fairly useless, because shields get eaten in no time by almost all other units, and then it dies without really doing anything.

Void Ray: the most useless unit when it's uncharged (and that's like 10 seconds in a game where every second counts). When charged, it's really powerful, so much that it costs a ton of resources, and it's very slow without the upgrade, really short-ranged, and the charge time must take so long.
As it's now it's almost a base breaker. You get there, the counter-attack takes enough time to get there, they charge, then eat everything in their path. If the counter-attack arrives quickly, they're utterly destroyed, unless you built a lot of those things. Cheese as hell.
It doesn't needs to be so extreme. It could have a decent attack vs Armored uncharged, and a good one charged, and take less time to charge, while sucking vs Light the whole time. At least then you would be able to use it in a real battle, without them been killed before they even get a charge.
Another option, would be to make a reverse-Void Ray. One that has a powerful attack, that then lowers, and must stop attacking for a cooldown period to regain the powerful attack, so it would be a hit-and-run unit that requires micro to use effectively, instead of been one that you fear to move much, and lose it's charge, because it's then useless.

Archon: it's useless. Dies in no time. But i don't use HTs much, as Robotics or Air looks much more tempting to go.

Mothership: too slow. Make it go faster, and we can talk. Also, it cannot really cast much to be a unit limited to 1. Seriously, i could build 2 Arbiters to use in two different fronts, cast more, and have a spare if one of them died. The good side of the Mothership, is that at least it has more HP and the gas cost isn't much more than that of the Arbiter, but that's all. It dies very fast anyways, because Blizzard went too trigger-happy with some air units (Void Ray, Viking).

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Originally Posted by Twilice

And I also agree with thors, they are to powerfull against mutalisk. Terrans already got towers + marines which are quite good versus them. And thors original anti air are not usefull at all.

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I personally think it's too "specialized". Light airs = Banshees, Phoenixes, Raven, Mutalisks.
of which you see the most are Banshees and Mutas, for thors to deal double dmg against them and suck against everything else

I don't necessarily think Thors need a nerf against muta, but I think that if the Thor isn't nerfed, then Turrets need a nerf. Otherwise Muta harass can be shut down too easily.

Not many people use Infestors heavily, but I think they will become quite popular in some time. If this happens, I think infestors may require a nerf to their infested Terran spell. Maybe make it cost 30 energy?

I also agree that Marauders are far too effective against all of the gateway units. Perhaps if Immortals were buffed, their effectiveness against Marauders would balance things out.

I am not sure the Voidray is imba. But I do have to admit, I get really pissed losing to voidrays for some reason. So, emotionally I hate them, but when I think about it objectively, I don't see much need for manipulating the Voidray. Voidrays are costly, and very vulnerable in small numbers. If you let your opponent mass a bunch of Voidrays, that is your fault.

I don't think that individual units themselves need to be tweaked out as much as certain builds vs certain races need to be evaluated and worked without screwing over the other MU's.

Zerg vs Terran: Mech play vs Zerg needs serious attention. I cannot play Terran for the life of me. I suck horribly as a Terran player. I was able to nearly slaughter my friend who is a plat. Zerg player. This is something that needs to be looked into


Protoss vs Terran: Bio ball / ghost builds are something that needs a bit of attention. As it sits right now, marauders do a hell of a job ripping apart all protoss T1. Add ghosts to the mix, you have an army of marauders blowing holes through your very expensive wet paper bags. VRs, Colossus, and HTs are suitable counters for this, however, if ghosts are able to land the EMP, its lights out. Its nice knowing that all it takes is a bunch of cranked out dudes with machine guns to take out the most sophisticated alien T3 technology. Someone call Jeff Goldbloom and tell him that his virus idea is out, and crack and cocaine is in!

But seriously

But I am not an expert on stat for stat. I realize that my gameplay is not perfect and that we all have our weak points in this game. But if you ask me what feels overly strong right now, those two builds are it for me.

I agree about the Archon. It dies very quickly, its almost melee range and does not do the amount of damage it did in SC1.

Also ghosts totally negate Archons and considering they are a lot easier and faster to get than science vessel ever was it comes as no shock.

Yeah they weren't used in SC1 against terran also, but that does not mean they should be useless again vs terran and whats even more concerning is that they also suck against zerg now.
So they need some kind of boost, maybe more shields or higher armor and attack range.

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Originally Posted by 0mar

If void rays are beating your hydras/marines, you're doing it wrong. Even with the charge, marines/hydras will wreck void rays for cost. It's only 10 damage/tick (vs 5 damage/tick for uncharged).

Sounds like something else is the problem, not void rays. Check your macro/micro first.

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You sound like a StarCraft I elitist.

In SC II, there's this thing called "AMM" which matches you against people of approximately equal skill. If I can play fairly against every other unit type, I find it hard to believe that the problem, somehow, is my skill. I'm playing against other people with similar micro and macro skills. Try addressing the actual problem.

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Originally Posted by Kimera757

You sound like a StarCraft I elitist.

In SC II, there's this thing called "AMM" which matches you against people of approximately equal skill. If I can play fairly against every other unit type, I find it hard to believe that the problem, somehow, is my skill. I'm playing against other people with similar micro and macro skills. Try addressing the actual problem.

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The Void Ray sucks vs Marines. It costs 250 minerals, which means that you can afford 5 Marines per Void Ray, and use the gas for something else. If you see Void Rays (scout often, scan if necessary), build Marines like crazy. Marines are weak vs Zealots, but with some Marauders to take the hits and slow them, Terran infantry is quite powerful vs Protoss. Stim would destroy Void Rays still faster.
Note that most Protoss players will build Stargates far from the rest of their buildings, to avoid seeing them easily with one scan over the base.

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Originally Posted by Kimera757

You sound like a StarCraft I elitist.

In SC II, there's this thing called "AMM" which matches you against people of approximately equal skill. If I can play fairly against every other unit type, I find it hard to believe that the problem, somehow, is my skill. I'm playing against other people with similar micro and macro skills. Try addressing the actual problem.

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The actual problem is your micro/macro/build order. If a silver/gold league player consistently loses to a 6 pool rush, the problem isn't the 6 pool, but something with the build order of that player. I'm not that great of a player, but I do know that if I lose to something, there were probably 7 different things I could have done differently to stay in the game.

Secondly, the AMM doesn't mean every match you face will be balanced. There's a huge range of micro/macro skills at the lower levels. Some players know only how to macro, others micro, some others are really good at a single build order, etc etc. You have to look at the top level of play if you want to see balance (which I'm nowhere near, I just know my limitations).

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Originally Posted by Kimera757

You sound like a StarCraft I elitist.

In SC II, there's this thing called "AMM" which matches you against people of approximately equal skill. If I can play fairly against every other unit type, I find it hard to believe that the problem, somehow, is my skill. I'm playing against other people with similar micro and macro skills. Try addressing the actual problem.

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Some people just struggle against certain builds. It doesn't mean a certain unit is OP, it just means you need to learn the proper counters.

Actually, this game I've realized is incredibly balanced. You just have to learn how to play and scout more often.

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Originally Posted by RedPineApple

Zerg vs Terran: Mech play vs Zerg needs serious attention. I cannot play Terran for the life of me. I suck horribly as a Terran player. I was able to nearly slaughter my friend who is a plat. Zerg player. This is something that needs to be looked into

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THANK YOU.

Seriously, having now played from Bronze league to Gold, I have noticed the following.

1) Bronze league is ALL Zerg, with a few Protoss. I was shocked to see no Terran. I slaughtered everyone.

2) Silver League is mostly Terran. I saw some Protoss in there, but virtually I'm the only Zerg player. Almost every loss I have suffered has been to the Terran, with the expection of 2.

3) There are no Zerg in Gold, its all Terran. You die every time.

The Terran are a disgrace of balancing. The ability of Reapers to kite/insta-kill buildings is disgraceful, it should be researched to give them that bomb thing against buildings. The Marauder is death incarnate with the Punisher grenade that slays armored units, meaning Zerglings, Banelings, Ultras, and Roaches are out. Leaves you with Hydras, which are now immensely overpriced and cost 2 food. Thor's eviscerate Mutalisks (but who really cares, when you have beefed up Marines to take them apart). Without Spawn Broodling, there is no way to counter the Thor (you'll notice on their SC2 page, they're the only unit without a strength/weaknesses section). How is this balanced at all???

I cannot WAIT for the next balance patch. I see the Terran getting nerfed back into line after being (for some reason) built up in the beta, and the Zerg getting some nice buffs (which for some reason they didn't get in the beta).

-Dread_Reaper

I think one thing that would help immortals is splash damage range one a bit like archon have right now. At least it would make them more useful against Marauder and roaches that way...

Right now if I see a Terran player going Marauder I just tech up to void ray and try to destroy their base when they move to attack me

]In my honest opinion, nothing is imbalanced unless it can not be beat. Even if something is tougher to fight against, it does not make it imbalanced it just makes it a good strategy. Neither zerglings or banelings are armored units and therefore do not get the full damage from a marauder. The reasons banelings are weak against them is because it takes too many to kill a marauder because of its HP. A marauder only does 10 damage to any unit not armored. A viable way to deal with them as zerg is zerglings. A viable way to deal with them as protoss are zealots and sentries. It takes 17 hits for a marauder to kill a zealot. Five hits to get rid of the shields, and then 12 hits after that because of the zealots 1 natural armor. Immortals are not necessarily the tanks of the protoss fleet, they are the heavy hitting dps as well. If you have a wall of zealots, with sentries, stalkers, and immortals behind that kiting will not matter all that much regardless of how fast zealots are without charge and when Marauders have concussive shells.
All in all since there is no one race and no one strat that is unstoppable the game is pretty balanced. If something gives you trouble, just try something else against it and keep trying new stuff until you find something that works for you against it. Fungal growth and storm eat bio ball terran. Drops of all kind work well against any turtling player. The answer is not always go straight into where they are defended, you need to sneak around to where they are not. Dont be afraid to just keep trying new stuff to see if there is anything differently you can do against whatever it is that you are losing to. It is still early and new things are being discovered all the time. If something needs to be changed in the game it will be, until then try to find a way to beat everyone.

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Originally Posted by Wankey

Actually, this game I've realized is incredibly balanced. You just have to learn how to play and scout more often.

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For emphasis, I quoted.

The problem with the Terrans is that they are resource light (even gas-light at the start of the game), can build two basic units at the same time for 50m 50g instead of the cost of a new building, and can get a lot of minerals really fast. The amount of units they can build for the cost it costs, the damage they deal, and the damage they can tank is just not very well into the reasonable area (when all this factors are added, not every one by itself).
Obviously, it can be beaten, but it's quite difficult. Infantry has became a lot more powerful without really going any more expensive than before.

mother ship is just a useless waste of a flying paper plate powered by a crystal. all it can do it soak up damage while it cloaks everything. like are u serious? i paied 400m and 400g and waited 160 seconds just so my units can be like babies and hide while the mother ship gets killed. and its not even compatable with carriers as the vortex just takes in all your interceptors making your carries a useless waste of a flying bowl just like the flying plate. i mean like seriously! ppl make mother ships and carriers together its suppose to go hand and hand in the tech tree but all the mother ship does is kills ur carriers.

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Originally Posted by kyr200

mother ship is just a useless waste of a flying paper plate powered by a crystal. all it can do it soak up damage while it cloaks everything. like are u serious? i paied 400m and 400g and waited 160 seconds just so my units can be like babies and hide while the mother ship gets killed. and its not even compatable with carriers as the vortex just takes in all your interceptors making your carries a useless waste of a flying bowl just like the flying plate. i mean like seriously! ppl make mother ships and carriers together its suppose to go hand and hand in the tech tree but all the mother ship does is kills ur carriers.

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Adun forbid we create a writing system with grammatical rules like capital letters to begin sentences, or a preference to not start sentences with "and."

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Originally Posted by Kammalleri

I think one thing that would help immortals is splash damage range one a bit like archon have right now. At least it would make them more useful against Marauder and roaches that way...

Right now if I see a Terran player going Marauder I just tech up to void ray and try to destroy their base when they move to attack me

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This would be a mistake, as splash damage would make give the immortal strength against precisely the units which should counter it (lings, marines, etc.). For that matter, I wasn't aware that people found the immortal underpowered.

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Originally Posted by DemolitionSquid

Adun forbid we create a writing system with grammatical rules like capital letters to begin sentences, or a preference to not start sentences with "and."

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and we are forbidden 2 use periods 2 state wether or not our sentences have ended or not