Mutalisks legacy

[Nicol Bolas]

The answer to almost everything you are talking about can be summed up as follows:

THIS IS STARCRAFT II

There is no 3-Hatch Muta. There are no timing windows at all (you have to have a functioning metagame to have a timing window. Timing windows are based as much on knowing what standard play is as unit and building production times/costs). There is no M&M anymore!

So this early-game scenario you're talking about, where M&M aggressively attack the Zerg base? Yeah, that's pure nonsense. It's just Marines. Or if the Terran has teched to StarPorts, then that gives the Zerg plenty of time to have a Lair + something else out. Without Medivacs, Stim means "my units die faster." If you're somehow talking about Marines and Marauders, the Terran has to be mining quite a bit of gas to keep that up. Oh, and Marauders can't shoot Mutalisks, so they're dead-weight in a Mutalisk fight.

The scenarios you envision are based on SC1 thinking. They don't exist. They don't make sense in the context of SC2. Where Hydralisk do +3 more damage to Marines than they did in SC1 (and still cost the same as they did before). Where Roaches and Hydras easily own the hell out of Marines. Where, now that your bases are safe, you are free to harass with as many Mutas as you want.

You believe that, if Mutalisks are not out by a certain time, they are instantly shut down by tech. Such a thing is simply not evidenced by the game. Can a Terran throw down enough Turrets to keep Mutalisks at bay? Yes. Will it cost a lot of money? Yes. Are the Zerg the fastest race at tech-switching, even faster now that they have more larva? Yes. And doesn't that mean that, the instant you salvage those turrets, I can have 8 Mutalisks in eggs ready to tear your economy a new one? Yes. Which means you can't salvage those turrets, unless you want Mutalisks in your base.

Mutalisks are an economic threat throughout the game.

As for direct combat, they have their uses. However, and this is the thing you seem to forget: Mutalisks and Corruptors come from the same building. So if you're going for Medivacs and/or Ravens, a Mutalisk build can quickly turn into a Corruptor build with few resources lost. Indeed, if you have some Mutalisks already, adding a couple of Corruptors still gives you the benefit of the corruption mechanic, while letting you make use of your existing Mutalisks. Also, Mutalisks can dodge HSM better than any other unit in the game.

Marauders can't even shoot back against Mutalisks, so Mutas discourage Marauder-heavy builds against Zerg. This is good, since Marauders are pretty dangerous units. Marauder+Thor is a very gas heavy build; better to contain them with Mutalisk harass before it gets off the ground.

And all of that assumes that there are no other abilities that combo well with Mutalisks. If the acid spores are in, this only makes Mutalisks more powerful.

Who says the Terran is turtleing when the player has more than 12 marines?

That's the situation you described: 48 Marines vs. Mutalisks. Since the Mutalisks are harassing, the only way 48 Marines can be attacking them is if those Marines are in the Terran base. If they've got 48 Marines in their base, they're turtling hard.

Mid-game wise it's more plausible, except that the Terran can HSM your entire Mutalisk group fairly quickly after he has spotted your Mutalisks with Sensor towers.

Mutalisks can dodge HSM better than any unit in the game. It is no threat to them, and no Terran worth their salt would burn that Raven energy on them. Better to use either of the Raven's other two abilities.

Harassment NEEDS to be cost-effective

Cost-effective harassment isn't "can defeat an equal number of enemy units." Cost-effective harassment means "can cause enough economic damage to exceed how much resources I put into my harassment units." So again, it doesn't matter how much damage Mutalisks can do to a Marine ball; it matters how much damage they can do to SCVs.

Hell, picking off a Mule alone is probably worth one Mutalisk. Just jumping in and picking off their Mules every X seconds is cost-effective Mutalisk harassment.

Sorry, could you give your source? SC wiki cites two sources saying it has 45 hp, which was my basis for this estimation.

I checked the history of that article. The source the Wiki cited for the Marine's 40 Hp before it was changed in early September was Karune. After that, the source cited for the Marine's 45 Hp was the SCII Armory. That was around the time of BlizzCon, so I'd be willing to accept that they changed it back to 45.

If we can't speculate on unknowns and unknowables, maybe we shouldn't do so on Acid Spores at all. We have NO INFORMATION on how it works, except on how much more damage units affected by it take.

But that's something. We know that, at the last time we got info, Overseers had an ability that caused a number of units to get 5 acid spores, thus causing them to take 5 extra damage from each attack. This is known.

There are unknowns surrounding it. But assuming that the ability is so energy-costly that it's useless or requires so much research that it can't be comboed with Mutalisks, or whatever is silly. You can assume whatever you like. But I don't have to indulge your assumptions.

I assume that Blizzard isn't stupid. That if they have such an ability, it will be priced appropriately. It will affect a reasonable number of units. Which means it will be able to be used with Mutalisks to do terrible, terrible damage on groups of units.

Whereas Roaches take down small groups of Marines cost to cost, Marines in larger balls are way more deadly thanks to focus fire.

No, they're not. 170 Hp is a lot. The regen doesn't even have to factor into it; 100 Minerals for a 170 Hp unit is a better deal than the Protoss get out of the Zealot. Add to that the fact that Roaches do a good 14 damage to Marines, and stimming them won't seem like such a good idea. Even with +3 attack, it still takes 22 shots to kill a Roach. 11 Marines stimmed can 2-shot them, but the Roaches will be killing them a lot faster.

Terrans really want Marauders to deal with Roaches.

[KadajSouba]

The answer to almost everything you are talking about can be summed up as follows:

THIS IS STARCRAFT II

Failure

The answer to everything is nothing is final. Period.

Everything here is speculation an nothing more. Those ones that use to post something as fact or that dedicate their entire posts just to negate other posts, well thats just... stupid...

Just check the above post... if u dont fall asleep first...

[Nicol Bolas]

Just check the above post... if u dont fall asleep first...

Because posting a well-reasoned argument is so much worse than using random ellipses and idiotic Internet l33t-sp34k like "u" instead of typing 2 extra letters

At least my post contributed something to the conversation at hand besides bile.

[Triceron]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vvin...eature=related

Mutalisks enter play near the end of that clip. It's more or less how I imagine Mutas would be used, as harassment tools to compliment zerg play. I'm just using this as an example of how they'd be used, as a supplementary raiding force, not standing toe to toe with a group of enemy AA.

[Perfecttear]

It's been quite a while since i made this thread, and i'm not updated on everything that has been discussed in the last time, so i have some questions, that get tto he point

So who thinks that the mutalisk will have the same importance in the zerg army as in sc1?
Does anybody think there should be made some changes to the mutalisk, (slight or drastic), that change its gameplay and or change how they will be used?

[LegacyofTerra]

The answer to almost everything you are talking about can be summed up as follows:

THIS IS STARCRAFT II

There is no 3-Hatch Muta. There are no timing windows at all (you have to have a functioning metagame to have a timing window. Timing windows are based as much on knowing what standard play is as unit and building production times/costs). There is no M&M anymore!


The scenarios you envision are based on SC1 thinking. They don't exist. They don't make sense in the context of SC2.

The base units are still there, have still valid strategies and probably preferred by the majority of players coming into SC II. Metagame is, want it or not, influenced by SC 1. In Theorycraft, Lurker Zergling/swarm should have owned m&M bad, but it merely put it on equal footing.
Your argument could just as well have been for Mass BattleCruiser rush, since there is no more M&M and no metagame, so noone will know what to do.
This is a different game with similar units, and the only way Stim Marines work is en masse anyway. 2-shoting lurkers is no small thing, by the time roaches are out, you might as well attack with 24 to make that a 1 shot.

But that all is beside the point. The point is, the mutas inherent badness comes from there never being a game situation where you should have 1200 gas for relatively ineffectual fooling around IN SC 2. The entire point of the new Nydus Worm mechanics is to allow for huge harassment of the enemy base with minimal cost. Several units can bash the Mutalisks hard once they arrive, making you lose a lot of money. WATCH competitive SC, tell me how often you see Mutaharass late/mid game? And if you don't, why might that be? Isn't the mutalisk every bit as strong as the Mutalisk in SC 2 there? Is Irradiate that huge a factor? Can't the Zerg do a plague in the mineral line? Ensnare workers? you don't see it, because it's a huge investment that does not pay off.
Even more so in SC 2 where gas is twice as costly as in SC 1 and Mutas are a lot harder to handle than in SC 1. Mutas are awful harassment units.

You believe that, if Mutalisks are not out by a certain time, they are instantly shut down by tech. Such a thing is simply not evidenced by the game.

Is that so? Well, I'll be damned, your proof is staggering. Please elaborate at least. Is building 4 turrets in ones main and natural-line really that huge a loss? From my estimates, that's 800 minerals vs. X 100min X100 gas for mutas. Enough Marines means you can skimp on those turrets.I made my case on the insane amount of resources mutas cost, that Zerg probably do not want to waste money on things that have a good chance of getting slaughtered and that the counters for mutas are either things the player will want anyway or can easily get really cheaply. Unless resources don't matter in SC 2 anymore, in which case I should never have made this argument. BGH is something people love playing, after all.

As for the Raven, I couldn't disagree more. Karune on the exact same topic has merely said Zerg players have time to react, not that it's not cost-effective to use HSM, if you get to a certain range. The fact that Mutalisks are the best units to avoid it is negated by their vulnerability to it. Mutalisks in SC 1 were the best Zerg unit to avoid Irradiate, since they were agile enough to avoid Science vessels, could get away from the irradiated unit under almost any circumstances and were easy to accompany with Scourge, as the Scourge could be stacked with it. However, Irradiate still neutered Mutalisks near useless.

Cost-effective harassment isn't "can defeat an equal number of enemy units." Cost-effective harassment means "can cause enough economic damage to exceed how much resources I put into my harassment units." So again, it doesn't matter how much damage Mutalisks can do to a Marine ball; it matters how much damage they can do to SCVs.

Hell, picking off a Mule alone is probably worth one Mutalisk. Just jumping in and picking off their Mules every X seconds is cost-effective Mutalisk harassment.

I've answered the cost-effective bit already, but the MULE elimination is just another reason why Mutalisks are BS. First off, you do not know at which expansion the Mule will be. Second, the amount of minerals the MULE at max brings in, should be less than your combined mineral+Gas cost, as Gas is two times more costly than before. Third, it might already be close to disappearing by the time you arrive to take it out.It's really hard to take out an equivalent amount of gatherers because Mutalisks cost a huge amount of gas. If I saw Mutaharass at any point, attacking the opposing base seems a much better option than fending the mutas off with all my forces, since the opponent has just placed himself behind by a large margin.

I checked the history of that article. The source the Wiki cited for the Marine's 40 Hp before it was changed in early September was Karune. After that, the source cited for the Marine's 45 Hp was the SCII Armory. That was around the time of BlizzCon, so I'd be willing to accept that they changed it back to 45.

At least we can agree on that. Thank you.

But that's something. We know that, at the last time we got info, Overseers had an ability that caused a number of units to get 5 acid spores, thus causing them to take 5 extra damage from each attack. This is known.

There are unknowns surrounding it. But assuming that the ability is so energy-costly that it's useless or requires so much research that it can't be comboed with Mutalisks, or whatever is silly. You can assume whatever you like. But I don't have to indulge your assumptions.

I assume that Blizzard isn't stupid. That if they have such an ability, it will be priced appropriately. It will affect a reasonable number of units. Which means it will be able to be used with Mutalisks to do terrible, terrible damage on groups of units.

Where do you take the "a number of units" from? The SC wiki sources only mention "a unit." I know you'd like the ability to work in a certain way, but it might serve another purpose. Like taking down Capital ships or Thors. And even if everything is like what you said, you're better off using other units (with the possible exception of air, that I'm willing to agree on), like Zerglings, because mutalisk damage will be too focused and they will die a lot quicker. You are way to certain of an ability you know nothing about, sorry.

No, they're not. 170 Hp is a lot. The regen doesn't even have to factor into it; 100 Minerals for a 170 Hp unit is a better deal than the Protoss get out of the Zealot. Add to that the fact that Roaches do a good 14 damage to Marines, and stimming them won't seem like such a good idea. Even with +3 attack, it still takes 22 shots to kill a Roach. 11 Marines stimmed can 2-shot them, but the Roaches will be killing them a lot faster.

Terrans really want Marauders to deal with Roaches.

It's actually a win-win situation for Terrans. Critical masses of Marines will break through roach lines, unless the Zerg keeps pumping ground Units. If this happens, the Terran player can build Marauders and whoever microes/uses the abilities of their units better, wins. As it should be. If they go Mutalisks instead, you win. Simple as that.Anyway, you need the gas for other things.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vvin...eature=related

Mutalisks enter play near the end of that clip. It's more or less how I imagine Mutas would be used, as harassment tools to compliment zerg play. I'm just using this as an example of how they'd be used, as a supplementary raiding force, not standing toe to toe with a group of enemy AA.

I'll admit if the Terran goes for a nuke rush, the harassment will be successful. Happy?

[LegacyofTerra]

It's been quite a while since i made this thread, and i'm not updated on everything that has been discussed in the last time, so i have some questions, that get tto he point

So who thinks that the mutalisk will have the same importance in the zerg army as in sc1?
Does anybody think there should be made some changes to the mutalisk, (slight or drastic), that change its gameplay and or change how they will be used?

As I've posted continuously, I think the Mutalisk should be scrapped for many of the reasons you yourself have given.

[Triceron]

I'll admit if the Terran goes for a nuke rush, the harassment will be successful. Happy?

Definately, considering nukes are much easier to obtain in SC2.

[LegacyofTerra]

Definately, considering nukes are much easier to obtain in SC2.

Glad I could improve your day .

[KadajSouba]

Because posting a well-reasoned argument is so much worse than using random ellipses and idiotic Internet l33t-sp34k like "u" instead of typing 2 extra letters

When u have nothing to say... go for the grammar. So reasonable argument...

Back to topic, in a few words, i think that the main change to the muta is that it wont cover all ur air needs, as for the actual build of the game. By making the corruptor a unit apart, and not a muta evolution, the game play for this unit will change a bit... but just a little. Of course i hope that they change this for the game release.