Mutalisks legacy

[sandwich_bird]

And look: Irradiate is gone. So it's no longer a real threat. Mutalisks are fast enough to avoid its replacement (HSM).

They still can't take on the m&m group directly. Anyways, 1 HSM might be easier to dodge but 2 well placed HSM launched at the same time are almost impossible to dodge.

Look at some of Jaedong's 2-control group Mutalisk play. Now imagine that this takes less than half of the micro. And imagine that there's no irradiate anymore. And imagine that each Muta does 1 more damage.

Without stack, 1 or 2 microed group doesn't change anything because there is no proper micro possible. The reason why Jaedong groups are successful is because he snipe the enemy units one by one with the help of stacking so that he can get unit superiority without taking much damage. You can't snipe without stacking. If you try to move your mutas back and forth, there will always be a mutalisk that doesn't quite follow and will get killed. Go on, open up starcraft and try it.

Stacking isn't important: getting enough Mutalisks to AoE kill anything they come across is. On the way, you can do some base harassment.

You CAN'T harass without stacking if your enemy place enough defence... And by the time you have enough mutalisks to AoE kill anything you can bet that you're enemy will also have enough counter units to kill all your mutalisks.

Please. Mutalisks can kill turrets easily enough. Especially when built in sufficient numbers.

Yes with STACKING they can. If you take out stacking they can't without suffering a lot of damage.

[DemolitionSquid]

They still can't take on the m&m group directly. Anyways, 1 HSM might be easier to dodge but 2 well placed HSM launched at the same time are almost impossible to dodge.

You think Muta microers will be stupid enough to engage Ravens like that?

Without stack, 1 or 2 microed group doesn't change anything because there is no proper micro possible. The reason why Jaedong groups are successful is because he snipe the enemy units one by one with the help of stacking so that he can get unit superiority without taking much damage. You can't snipe without stacking. If you try to move your mutas back and forth, there will always be a mutalisk that doesn't quite follow and will get killed. Go on, open up starcraft and try it.

You CAN'T harass without stacking if your enemy place enough defence... And by the time you have enough mutalisks to AoE kill anything you can bet that you're enemy will also have enough counter units to kill all your mutalisks.

Yes with STACKING they can. If you take out stacking they can't without suffering a lot of damage.

Your entire argument rests on the ability of Mutas to not stack in SC2, without realizing THEY CAN. Mutas stack just fine in SC2, watch the videos, the devs made sure of it. What Mutas do now is SEPARATE faster than in SC1 without control. Your information is flawed.

[Triceron]

Unlimited unit selection.

Meaning you can have more mutas in a group than Jaedong. Meaning you don't have to micro mutas back and forth to kill that turret, you're literally ONE-SHOTTING it. With ONE control group. Making the mutas was never the problem, the problem was in controlling that many. It was the intense micro involved, not the ability to mass them.

What's fixed is the ability to control them.

[Operatoring]

Mutalisks are fine. They are just less useful and less impressive in SC2.

[DemolitionSquid]

SC2 Mutalisk

Pro: Better control
Con: Weaker

I see no balance problem here.

[Nicol Bolas]

They still can't take on the m&m group directly.

Well, it would be rather difficult to take on a group of units that include non-existent units.

As for taking on Medivacs and Marines, why not? They do slightly more damage in SC2 (10 base damage instead of 9). Marines with the Hp upgrade

Yes with STACKING they can. If you take out stacking they can't without suffering a lot of damage.

Do you even understand what stacking is for?

The purpose of stacking in SC1 is two-fold. First, because the direction of the bounce is partially based on the position of the Mutalisk that fired the shot, stacking allows the bounces to hit the same targets. Second, stacking makes it easier to shuffle Mutalisks up, so that if a targeted Mutalisk becomes unavailable to target (moves out of range), it is less likely to be automatically targeted when the group comes into range again. It also makes focus firing harder if you want to find a particular damaged one.

In SC2, I seriously doubt they'll use the bouncing rules of SC1. As for the other, this is irrelevant if you're using lots of Mutalisk. Remember: current Muta micro is done with at most 8-11 Mutalisks. Even Jaedong microing 2 groups of Mutalisks isn't able to constantly pump them back and forth to take advantage of the second benefit of stacking. He simply accepts that some of them are going to die, but it doesn't matter because his Mutalisks are so numerous that they're rolling over everything.

We're not talking about tiny groups of 8-11 Mutalisks. We're talking about flocks of them, roaming the map in clusters of 20+. 20 Mutalisks will absolutely rape a group of Marines.

And then there's what D-Squid pointed out: stacking isn't removed; it just operates under different rules.

[sandwich_bird]

You think Muta microers will be stupid enough to engage Ravens like that?

Yeah because the Zerg player will know exactly what the Terran player is doing and will see the Ravens come from miles aways because obviously they can see through the fog of war

Your entire argument rests on the ability of Mutas to not stack in SC2, without realizing THEY CAN. Mutas stack just fine in SC2, watch the videos, the devs made sure of it. What Mutas do now is SEPARATE faster than in SC1 without control. Your information is flawed.

THEY CAN'T. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HykMJE52HRw This is a Zerg player at 8:40 trying to micro his muta like in SC1 and obviously failing. You can see it even better at 9:00 when his taking on the Thor.

Now look at how it's supposed to be done: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkxlPD3ddD0

Well, it would be rather difficult to take on a group of units that include non-existent units.

I was obviously talking about it's replacement: marine & medivac...

As for taking on Medivacs and Marines, why not? They do slightly more damage in SC2 (10 base damage instead of 9). Marines with the Hp upgrade

You answered the question yourself. Marines now have the Hp upgrade and even without it, they easily destroy a group of mutalisk with the help of stim. Stim makes the whole difference.

Do you even understand what stacking is for?

Yes, this:

Second, stacking makes it easier to shuffle Mutalisks up, so that if a targeted Mutalisk becomes unavailable to target (moves out of range), it is less likely to be automatically targeted when the group comes into range again. It also makes focus firing harder if you want to find a particular damaged one.

is exactly what I was talking about when saying this:

You can't snipe without stacking. If you try to move your mutas back and forth, there will always be a mutalisk that doesn't quite follow and will get killed.

even though it wasn't as clear.

In SC2, I seriously doubt they'll use the bouncing rules of SC1. As for the other, this is irrelevant if you're using lots of Mutalisk. Remember: current Muta micro is done with at most 8-11 Mutalisks. Even Jaedong microing 2 groups of Mutalisks isn't able to constantly pump them back and forth to take advantage of the second benefit of stacking. He simply accepts that some of them are going to die, but it doesn't matter because his Mutalisks are so numerous that they're rolling over everything.

We're not talking about tiny groups of 8-11 Mutalisks. We're talking about flocks of them, roaming the map in clusters of 20+. 20 Mutalisks will absolutely rape a group of Marines.

They won't because we're not talking here about 20 vs 20, we're talking about 20 vs what 40? 50? The Terran player will always have more units than the Zerg player if the Zerg goes muta UNLESS the zerg player can properly harass. Since he CAN'T because as shown above the mutas don't react well enough, this is not gonna happen. Since he can't harass, guess what? It's the Terran that's gonna move out and so will force the Zerg to engage his forces with his mutas.

Jaedong can mass all those mutas because he properly harass the Terran first. If his harassement would fail, the Terran player would take the lead and so he wouldn't be able to pump out all those mutas because obviously the Terran, knowing that he just messed up the whole Z strategy, would move out. Now I agree that if you let the Zerg get the "mass effect" number with his mutalisks there's nothing the Terran player can do but like I said, if you can't harass and the Terran is not a noob, this is not gonna happen.

[electricmole]

demolition squid and nicol bass wants sc broodwar 1.5 and not sc2 wings of liberty.

Man, zerg NEW attack units please! Don't worry guys you will still be good w/ the new zerg just play them for years just like how you played the sc1 zerg.

[Nicol Bolas]

THEY CAN'T. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HykMJE52HRw This is a Zerg player at 8:40 trying to micro his muta like in SC1 and obviously failing.

OMG, the horror! You can't Muta micro exactly like in SC1! Stop the presses! And Stalkers don't walk around drunkenly if you leave them alone for 2 seconds! The catastrophe!

Guess what? You're going to have to figure out how to micro again. You know, what with this being a new game and all.

Furthermore, stacking and the patrol micro that allows the back-and-forth attack movement are not the same thing! They are two different things, based on two entirely different glitches.

The Terran player will always have more units than the Zerg player if the Zerg goes muta UNLESS the zerg player can properly harass. Since he CAN'T because as shown above the mutas don't react well enough

This is a limited and limiting thought. You're basically operating under the assumption that Mutalisks are 100% ineffective unless you can use them exactly as they were used in SC1.

This is the same mode of thought that allows people to believe that good pathing is bad for the game, or that you need to add mindless busywork instead of meaningful choices to make effective macro. It comes from a basic failure of imagination: the inability to see what could be due to being too busy looking at what is.

demolition squid and nicol bass wants sc broodwar 1.5.

You've killed the straw man. Congratulations. Our actual positions on the matter were elsewhere, but bravo for defeating those hapless, straw-stuffed opponents.

BTW, if you're going to contribute something worthless to the thread and attack people for positions that they don't hold, you could at least take the time to spell their names right. It's one thing to be useless and make points that are wholly without merit, but you don't have to be sloppy about it. Character assassination is a time-honored tradition; and while your attempt here was laughable at best, you should at least take the time to get the people's names right.

[Draco]

The problem with discussing the viability of the Mutalisk is that it's rather contingent on the micro-skills of the player. We haven't seen the full capability of Muta control just yet.