Nazara Profile Blog Joined May 2014 United Kingdom 235 Posts Last Edited: 2015-11-05 20:58:51 #1

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Poll: Would you like to change anything to Macro Boosters?



(Vote): Complete removal

(Vote): Make them not necessary but still beneficial (nerf)

(Vote): Back to HotS values (buff)

(Vote): No change at all





Poll: Would you like Overkill Protection / Smart Firing removed?



(Vote): Yes

(Vote): Maybe, if we get to test it first

(Vote): No





Poll: Would you like Smart Cast removed?



(Vote): Yes

(Vote): Yes, if spellcasters are rebalanced as well

(Vote): No





Poll: Would you like High Ground Advantage mechanic introduced?



(Vote): Yes, a random miss chance based

(Vote): Yes, a damage % reducing one

(Vote): Yes, a range based one

(Vote): Yes, but something else (please explain in post)

(Vote): No





Poll: Do you agree that air styles are too strong?



(Vote): Yes

(Vote): No





Poll: What economy model do you prefer?



(Vote): WoL/HotS

(Vote): LotV half patches

(Vote): DH

(Vote): HMH

(Vote): Other (please specify)





Poll: Remove MSC and PO for shorter build times for Gateway units?



(Vote): Yes

(Vote): Maybe, need testing first, but probably yes

(Vote): Maybe, need testing first, but probably no

(Vote): No





Poll: Make Force Field destructible?



(Vote): Yes

(Vote): No





Poll: Bring back Khaydarin Amulet / High Templar energy upgrade?



(Vote): Yes

(Vote): No





Poll: Do you like idea of Mech redesign?



(Vote): Yes

(Vote): Yes, but not the Hellion/Hellbat/Widow Mine changes

(Vote): I like other idea of buffing Mech, not the one in OP

(Vote): No, but some tweaks to Siege Tank/Cyclone are necessary

(Vote): No, Mech is fine





Poll: High Templar's Feedback need a nerf?



(Vote): Yes, increase energy cost

(Vote): Yes, but other way of nerfing

(Vote): No, Feedback is fine





Poll: Do you like the Ghost redesign?



(Vote): Yes

(Vote): Yes, but not the stat/cost changes

(Vote): Yes, but not the ability/spell changes

(Vote): No, I have seen a better idea somewhere else

(Vote): No, Ghost and its Steady Targeting is fine





Poll: Do you like Viper redesign?



(Vote): Yes

(Vote): Only some of it

(Vote): No





Poll: Do you like Infestor's Fungal Growth immobilize redesign?



(Vote): Yes

(Vote): Yes, but with slower attack rate instead of damage

(Vote): No, Fungal Growth is fine





Poll: Do you like Ultralisk changes?



(Vote): Yes, make it faster and smaller

(Vote): Yes, but only make it faster

(Vote): Don't change the speed/size, but nerf +4 armor upgrade back to +2

(Vote): Leave Ultralisk alone





Poll: Do you agree with Lurker redesign?



(Vote): Yes, make it faster with shorter range

(Vote): Some other tweaks are required

(Vote): Lurker is fine as it is





Poll: Is harassment in general getting out of control?



(Vote): Yes

(Vote): Hard to tell

(Vote): No





Poll: If WoL/HotS never had Multiple Building Selection and no Macro Boosts:



(Vote): I would still play SC2 regardless

(Vote): I would still try it at some point anyway

(Vote): I would spent more time deciding if the game is worth picking up

(Vote): Probably I wouldn't try the game

(Vote): I wouldn't play the game at all





Poll: If WoL/HotS had limited unit selection instead of unlimited:



(Vote): I would play the game regardless

(Vote): I would play the game if the limit was between 20-30 for comfort

(Vote): I would play the game as long as the limit is no lower then 12

(Vote): I would most likely not play SC2

(Vote): I would refuse to play without unlimited unit selection





Poll: What do you think about the OP?



(Vote): Great thread! Agree on most things!

(Vote): Good analysis on design flaws, but bad suggestions for improvement

(Vote): Interesting read at least

(Vote): I disagree on many points in the post

(Vote): Go away, don't you dare saying anything wrong about Blizzard









Introduction

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As we all know, there are/were numerous balance and design issues with Starcraft II throughout its life. Broodlord/Infestor, Blink all-ins, 4 Gate PvPs, Swarm Hosts etc... there were plenty of things that could have been prevented if only Blizzard acted in time, some may say. But to me it seems like all this crap could have been stopped long before it reached ladder: with internal testing and spending some more time thinking how a things work and why they work that way. In this thread I would like to discuss design and balance, along with rules that in my opinion should be followed when intoducing new units to the game and rebalancing the old ones. Before I start, I think it is in good manner to introduce myself.

I'm a 26 year old who focused most of his life playing computer games in his spare time. Be it RTS like Age of Empires II, Warcraft series, SC:BW, Dune, Command and Conquer games. Turn based strategies like HoM&M series or Age of Wonders II. Hack 'n' Slashes like Diablo 2, Torchlight. 4x games like Galactic Civilizations II and Civilizations. Also RPGs, be it Final Fantasies, Witchers, Elder Scrolls or D&D based games.

I'm a hardcore gamer, completionist, min-maxer, powergamer, but even more then gamer, I am a designer and a modder. I used to make my own maps, campaigns, mods, classes and balance tweaks to games I play. Working with numbers, as well as analyzing and understanding the game brings me sometimes more joy then playing it. My latest finished project was Community Based Update for Galactic Civilizations II on which I worked on as a part of a small team of passionate gamers. I know a bit on how the balance works.

Having said that, I never achieved anything in SC2. I played through campaigns and only some 1v1s and 2v2s on my friends key. I wasn't Masters. Not even Diamond. I was at most Gold/Platinum when I played SC2, as I could stand my own quite alright playing vs other Platinums. I never played more then 50-60 games - so I didn't have time to improve and get to Masters to satisfy people who are going to call on my low rank. But I have been watching games and lurking on the forums for almost 5 years.

Some may say that if I don't have Master/Grandmaster in SC2 I should not try to balance the game as I lack game knowledge. I disagree. Skill should have nothing to do with balance and design, I do not believe that a Coach needs to be better then the Player. A 60 year old football coach who can hardly run can still be a great coach.

I play Brood War occasionally. Around 20-30 games every season or two on iCCup. I don't mass games. My mechanics are bad - as a Zerg I average 70-85 APM per game. And yet I could hit easily C- if I played more then 60-70 games and was serious about it. Some of you probably laugh. C- or C is a noobland and nothing to be proud of. Well... most people of my level have 150-200 APM. Even in D+ almost noone has less then 120 APM, and if they do, they're Protoss, not Zerg lol. But back to me: I'm 2-3x slower then my opponents and I still beat them, so yeah, I'm proud of myself. For my mechanical lazyness and weak Macro I make up with game sense, strategy, tactics and mind-games. I'm a much better player then most people with the same speed as me (even people in D- show more the 85 APM). Mechanics in Brood War matter but not as much as peple think. Some people overestimate mechanics - Savior was known for his low APM, yet he used to be the best Zerg around.

But that's enough about mechanics and my credentials.



LoTV is going to be released soon. Many people jump on bandwagon flaming Blizzard. Some for the right reasons, some not - I didn't come to blame or defend anyone, but to present my thoughts on game balance and design, on what went wrong and what should have been done differentely. I believe it is too late to fix some core issues without upsetting the balance so late into Beta, we don't have the time before game is released. The time in the beta was spent on simple balance patches, while the only big changes were 12 worker start and "half patches".

Starcraft 2 was and still is in need of drastic changes. We had a chance when we had gone from WoL to HotS, but apart from new units and some balance patches, core of the game had the same flaws, and some other flaws were only amplified. Some of the design choices and omissions left us with engine that cannot perform basic things that SHOULD have been in Starcraft 2 from the start, like moving shot for air and maybe some ground units, or things as dead simple as turret tracking for the Siege Tank.

In here, I want to present my thoughts on the state of the game, provide alternative solutions to common problems, or simply highlight problems for the Blizzard/Starcraft community to see.

There is a lot to talk about, and I spent couple (5-8) of weeks now (25/10 at the time of writing) writing this down. Lately I'm a busy family man, and I do not have as much time as I would like to have for this project. If there are things that have been fixed in later patches, and I ramble on about something long gone, please forgive me. I will proof-read everything once I decide it is the time to post, but there is always a chance that something will slip.





Overkill Protection and its effects on gameplay/balance with slow firing units

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First I would like to talk about Overkill Protection / Smart Fire (SF). SF prevents units from firing if total damage of units within range is greater then their targets HP. In other words, if you have 10 Siege Tanks within range of a damaged (10 HP) Zergling, only one of them will fire at it. If you had 20 Marines, only 2 (enough to 1 shot it) would fire. SF works only for units dealing instanteneous and ray damage like Marine, Siege Tank, Thor's and Viking's ground attack, Void Ray, Immortal etc.. It doesn't work with projectile based units. Smart Fire prevents the loss of effectiveness of units in larger groups - you can compare our SC2 10 HP Zergling being dropped on line of Siege Tanks - only one will fire at it, the rest will wait for other targets to get inside their range. In Brood War this feature didn't exist, and all the units would fire simultaneously, wasting damage, or simply, overkilling.

Logic dictates that the longer the cooldown of unit's attack is, the more it benefits from Overkill Protection. Imagine if Siege Tank had 100 damage but every 3 seconds - every wasted shot hurts. Single wasted shot is not as hurtfull if it deals 16 damage every 0.5 second.

Why overkilling is a good thing in a control oriented game like Starcraft 2? It does 3 important things for us:

- Reduces effectiveness of Deathballs by reducing damage increase per every added unit. Adding 1 more tank to a group of 5 increases damage potential of a single tank more then adding 1 tank to a group of 20. Removing Smart Fire discourages Deathballs by a small degree.

- Some shots are wasted and by that overall DPS is reduced. With less damage, units die slower, there is more time to micro and position your units during the engagement. Many complain about fights in SC2 ending in a matter of seconds - even as removal of SF would probably not increase average time of a fight by more then 10%, 6.5 seconds is still better then 6.

- Also, new unit interactions and micro can arise. Zealots/Zerglings dropped on top of sieged up Tanks or even sending single units to force overkill and protect your main army, or sending a ling to retreat a Lurker burrowed in Siege Tanks range etc.

Removal of SF is not a cure to Deathball play or game ending fights lasting less then 5 seconds, but it helps slightly with these problems.

Notice that so far I spoke almost only about Siege Tank, it is because I want to come back to some of those points later when I touch its subject, but the general idea applies to the rest of the units with Smart Fire, but it is easier to visualize it on Siege Tank model.

tl:dr

Overkill / Smart Fire makes deathballs more efficient and contribute to deathballing.





Warp Gate>Gateway, Chronoboost and bandaids as their consequence.

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Force Fields were hated since their introduction. Formerly to help Protoss in their early game, so Protoss wouldn't die to rush tactics, but also to split enemy army effectively halving DPS of Zerg/Terran and winning the game for Protoss. Blizzard tried some bandaids for it - increasing burrow speed, making Massive units destroy FF, and lastly, designing a unit with a sole purpose of fighting FF (the unit in question now is being redesigned as a Liberator/Tank/Lurker siege stopper which I think is silly). Lets not to forget about Photon Overcharge and lately Pylon Overcharge, which don't just help with defence - PO simply shuts down any kind of early game pressure/harassment. Implementation of a hero unit - Mothership Core (MSC) - is also a widely debated.

But why does Protoss need early game protection, if most units in the game have same or similiar stats as they had back in Brood War, where Protoss was fine or even was the primary agressor? Because Warp Gate (WG). Let me explain - Protoss production is centered around Warp Gate and that is the "standard" Protoss production rate of units required to keep up with Terran and Zerg. Someone thought that Gateway is not enough, that P needs a new fancy way of making units - and that is fine by itself. Now, Warp Gate produces units faster then Gateway and can spawn units anywhere on the map. Spawning units on the map is fine as an upgrade, but Gateway being so inferior to WG is a bad design. There is no benefit of choosing Gateway over Warp Gate. None whatsoever. Producing early game units from Gateway is inefficient - Zealots are warped 35% faster with WG, Sentries by 15% and Stalkers by 31%. It means that before switching to WG, Protoss produces his units at lower rate then other races. While WG is balanced in mid and late game, Gateway is lacking. Terran can produce much more units thanks to Reactor, while Zerg with Injects can spend a lot of extra larva on attacking units. Gateway in the meantime is still just a Gateway. Because Gateway production is slow compared to increased production of Zerg and Terran, and everything was balanced around Warp Gate build times, Protoss cannot field same amount of units as effectively as other races. Early rushes and timing attacks would kill Protoss outright because Gateway production without Chronoboost is not enough compared to what other races have. That is, in my opinion, the reason why FF is invulnerable, easy to spam and comes so early in the game.

So what about Mothership Core and Pylon/Photon Overcharge? Its existence is a result of three separete issues: one of the WG (already discussed), one of drops (which will not be discussed just yet), and the last one being the Chronoboost. Heresy! Or is it? Lets think about what Chronoboost does: it speeds up the rate of production (economy), alternate production (army), or technology. You can be very flexible with it:

- Boost Probe production, gaining an edge against players who play too safe

- Boost upgrade/gates/WGs for a powerfull timing attack/all in

- Boost Probe production while going for a less powerfull timing attack but better economy to gain lead in mid-late game

- Boost a unit production and its upgrades/tech for harassement

- Boost a random building (Nexus/Cybernetics Core/Robo) to fake your techpath/build.

And many more, but boosting one dimension (army/tech/economy) comes at a cost of falling behind in another.

Protoss without Chronoboost is mediocre when it comes to economy (no MULE, cannot convert army production for extra probes like larva), army production or tech/upgrades. Yes, attack/shield/armor upgrades can be boosted and finished faster then those of other races, but because of a possibility of CB, crucial tech has been slowed down in order nerf all-ins. Think about how Blink and WG research time was increased as a result of strong cheese play. But, both of those (or at least WG) are necessary for Protoss just to not fall behind and stay in game if playing standard. Both are painfully slow to research if you're not all-inning. But can still hit quickly if you CB them, which led in the past to exploiting it in the Blink all-in era. This is why Protoss cannot be balanced as long as there is Chronoboost - standard play can be very economical but at the same time is too slow to keep up with the enemy army and tech, resulting in P having to rely on FF, MSC and its PO for defence in the early game. Yet in a same way harass and all-in/cheese is way too strong if it is boosted. There is no middle ground in Protoss strategy. And that my dear is exactly why so many people don't like to play agains Protoss - because with Chronoboost, there are many more timings to which you have to adapt in order not to lose vs Protoss, making their cheese/all-ins stronger, but not helping Protoss as much while playing standard. And in order to give Protoss some defensive advantage, MSC with Photon Overcharge was introduced.

tl:dr

Protoss being gimmicky is a consequence of Chronoboost - either cheese is too strong, or standard play too weak, as balancing between the two is next to impossible. P needs Force Field and a hero unit (Mothership Core) with Pylon cannons to play standard game and not to die when if not cheesing. Gateway producing units at much lower rate then Warp Gate is also a big contributor to this (or rather, Larva Inject, Reactors and Techlab switching make Gateway production much worse in comparison).

With Chronoboost the PvP looks like safe>>>aggressive>>>greedy>>>safe, without it will be more like safe>>aggressive>>greedy>>safe, which would reduce a bit the coinflip nature of PvP, even if just a little bit.







Bringing micro to Force Field

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Lets get back to the Force Field for a moment. They are bandaid, most will agree, but they don't have to be this way. I advice against removing Force Fields, but champion for their redesign. I've seen those threads many times, someone bringing up same complaint now and again - Force Fields (FF) preventing micro on opponents side, or rather micro being one dimensional. And I fully agree with it - you cannot micro agains FF. You can either go back home because you're not getting up that ramp, or you can retreat your units so that you can take the engagement with the Protoss in a position where you have enough room to manouver around FF with the rest of your units - simply flank from different directions... which takes a lot more APM and skill then simply throwing a couple of FF on the ground in a neat line.

Are the Force Fields OP? That is not what interests me and I have no desire to find out. I'm more interested in how to make it so that the opponent can micro against it without using a gimmick like Ravager bile.

- Give Force Field 3 armor, 80 HP (for example) and change it to a neutral unit (destructible) when spawned. It has to be targeted manually (so your units will do nothing unless ordered to attack) so there is some basic micro involved, has to have enough armor to make it viable against early cheese/rush, but HP low enough to be disposed of relatively quickly with higher tiered units. Its armor should not be classified as light, nor armored, nor building, so no bonus damage is applied to it, and all units big and small, anti-light and anti-armored destroy it equally fast, or equally slow. Armor and HP values are subject to balance ofc.

- You could also allow Sentries to target friendly Force Field with their normal attack and "heal" it by attacking it. You can even make it so that FF have low HP, a relatively high armor (2-3), and Sentries "heal" is necessary to keep FF up. With low amount of HP (30-50) it could be destroyed easily and Protoss will have to target different FFs to prevent the enemy from getting up that wide ramp on a silly map.

In my opinion it gives some opportunity to micro against the FF without making it terribly bad and easy to break through. Also second suggestion offers some counter micro for the Protoss player as well. It gives players some more degree of control, some more micro opportunity, while keeping FFs job intact. It also allows a band-aid of Ravager a chance to be redesigned as a more "zergy" unit, to fill some other role in Zerg arsenal. A Zerg unit with long range and MOBA like skill shots just doesn't fly with me, but that is my personal opinion.

If this Force Field is not enough for the Protoss to protect themselves against super early rush openings, maybe Protoss should consider altering their openings a little? Or simply some of the build times should be slighly altered to help them? Or even slight buff to Gateway units? Anything is possible, but i firmly believe with a bit of creativity Force Fields won't be hated so much, if their design is altered in a good way, allowing counterplay and micro on both sides.

tl:dr

Force Field prevents equal micro opportunisties, and requires much more APM/skill on the opponent side to play against it. Making it vulnerable could create interesting interactions while still keeping it as a good defensive spell.





"Press hotkey not to die" abilities

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While we are discussing Force Field, I want to address something else that comes out from Sentry. Guardian Shield (GS). In no way an ability with "fire and forget" mechanic is good for a game like Starcraft. Even Blizzard realized it when they changed Immortals shield ability to auto-cast. Guardian Shield though is still a "click to buff", a no-brainer ability. It's so easy to use it that a monkey could do it. It's one of those abilities that are being turn on by default without thinking. So here's my proposition, a very simple one.

Guardian Shield

- Cast on the ground where the Sentry is located, or with a small (1-2) range cast, does not follow the Sentry

- Benefits only ground units (to prevent enemy air units from flying in)

- Benefits enemy units as well (to make it less zero thinking cast)

- Radius can be lowered from 4 to 3 to make each GS more valuable or the energy cost could go up to 100

This way there is at least a minimum of thinking required when using GS because enemy can force you out of position and gain buffs. It also can fail miserably vs melee units unless you block them from getting inside: more micro involved for both players as Protoss tries to deny any melee units the bonus armor and other player actively tries to get his melee inside the GS.

But why nerf Sentries abilities, if Sentry is being used less anyway? What actually prevents players from building Sentries early in the game is their really high gas cost. I believe their cost and maybe stats should be lowered. For example, 50 mineral and 50 gas cost, but a bit lower speed (2.25->2), shields and health (both 40->30).

Another ability that works exactly like Guardian Shield is Void Rays Prismatic Alignment. Remember how Void Ray had to charge up before, with different charge levels, each increasing Void Ray's damage by small amount? Boy it was interesting to watch Marine vs Void Ray micro. It was a much better design - there was also some degree of decision making involved, on how do I charge, on a builiding or workers? When to engage, and when to wait for a better opportunity. Void Rays were more interesting, now you just press the button. This means that the only decision making boils down to "should I used the power up, or not yet in case he is only baiting the Prismatic Alignment?". Maybe Void Rays had some balance problems, but small changes with numbers would be sufficient. For example:

- Void Ray range down to 5 (so it gives Marines better chance to actually do something), with maybe a 100/100 (or even 125/125) +1 range upgrade in Cybernetics Core.

- cost and supply nerfs reverted

- 3 stages of charge:

1. 6 (+4 vs armored)

2. 7 (+6 vs armored)

3. 8 (+8 vs armored)

- each charge up lasts for 3-4 seconds, if Void Ray does not attack anything within that period, it loses one charge

- everything else about the ability remains the same.

- numbers are subject to balance of course

tl:dr

Guardian Shield is the same kind of a brain-fart ability like previous iteration of Immortal Shield (or Barrier, or however it was called). Same can be said about the Void Ray, which used to be interesting to watch, and forced some micro on both sides, and its problem was maybe only with the numbers like range, damage etc.. "Press X to benefit" spells should have no place in Starcraft 2, they could be altered to involve at least a minimum of decisionmaking or micro.





More band-aids and super long tooltips that will have to be implemented (sarcasm)

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Warp Gate warping time and units taking more damage when warped in. Blizzard wanted to balance defensive and offensive warpins, and came up with a solution which is not elegant and it only gives new players another set of numbers that they have to remember. Different warp-in times for Pylons out in the open, different for Warp Prism and different for Pylons powered by Nexus/Warp Gate is bad. How are you going to notify a completely new player to this mechanic? Send him to a website? All the information to understand the game should be in the game. And tooltips which take half the screen prove only that you have messed up somewhere.

I have seen this sort of tweak on the forum before and I thought of it myself as well. Why not just make it, so the bigger the distance from the Nexus (completed of being built), the longer it takes to warp-in units. There can even be a small tooltip just by the cursor that says how long it will take to warp-in. There could be a 6-10 range around Nexus that warp-in units in fixed time (1-2 seconds), and after that the time increases with range away of that radius. Simple, elegant solution. With it, there is no need to have different times for Warp Prisms and Pylons. It is easy to understand for newcomers.

tl:dr

New players should not be bombarded with information that is there because someone wanted to complicate things. Stuff should be easy to remember and understand, instead of having players resort to googling for anwsers. If there is a simple solution to a problem, use it, but don't overcomplicate things.





Protoss anti-drop defense

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How can Protoss defend against the drops? The most common defense is using Photon Overcharge/Pylon, which requires a hero-like unit in the game. It could be moved to the Nexus, or some more spammable unit like Oracle/Sentry, but in my opinion a "click to prevent harass and early game rush" ability is a bad design. If one of the races in the game needs such a band-aid, there is something wrong with this race's production if it cannot keep up with others - which I believe I covered enough of when talking about the Gateway/Warp Gate. But even then, how can you defend against the drop if your units are out in the field fighting the enemy on the frontlines? Photon Cannons.

But they are expensive, you need at least 2 to cover your mineral line, and they don't protect you from the drops at all. In Brood War, a Marine is 2 shotted by a Cannon - but in SC2 it takes 3 shots to kill a Marine. Another thing is, Marauder with its +armored damage demolishes cannons with ease, and it is able to tank considerable amout of damage. Cannons are not as good at protecting as they are in Brood War - Hydralisks have been replaced with Roaches, Marines got Marauder support etc. Cannons are not able to dish out the damage they need to protect the base. They are more tanky, yes - they have extra 50 shield and 50 health, but its the damage that is the problem - Cannon cannot kill a unit that is being healed with a Medivac.

Yet at the same time Cannon cannot be buffed in damage without increasing its cost, or reducing its total HP. Increasing the cost will make FFE much harder to pull off, while reduction of HP will make it vulnerable and useless against bigger groups of units. If I could rebalance the Cannon, I would decrease its total HP from 300 to 250, but increase damage from 20 to 23-25. That is more offtopic, because either way Cannon is not sufficient to protect your base.

What unit can be warped-in, and can single handedly deny, or at least protect the mineral line untill reinforcements arrive? High Templar that is. But HT does not have enough energy to cast the Storm, right? Well, what about if we bring back Khaydarin Amulet, after all, offensive warp-ins have been severely nerfed with the warp-in time.

Khaydarin Amulet upgrade would help Protoss immensily with drop defense. Because of long warp-in time, High Templars won't be used as much for harassment anyway. There is no reason for HT not to have an energy upgrade like other spellcasters.

tl:dr

Bring back Khaydarin Amulet for High Templar - since it cannot be used offensively or in harassment as it is so easy to pick it off when it is warping-in, the main reason why it was removed in a first place, but it will help Protoss defend the drops and hopefully we will take one step towards removing some of the band-aids that just don't belong in the game.





Smart Cast and spellcaster balance

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Smart Cast (SC) is in my opinion bad for the game, but please listen to what I have to say about it before making any judgements. Some may say we should not use archaic UI, that Smart Cast is a step into right direction - to the future. But there are also steps backwards that are preventing Starcraft 2 from reaching greatness:

- Because of how easy it is to cast spells and abilities, spells are easy to use and their potential increases with each additional spellcaster. Without SC every additional spellcaster gives you less value for money, as every additional unit requires more and more APM and it becomes excessively harder and harder to use its abilities with each extra unit. SC causes casters to be easily massable - Raven clouds, mass Infestor, you name it, those were the cause of Smart Cast and great scaling of casters, without the drawbacks like lack of APM to control them.

- SC necessitates the nerf of abilities or buffs to core units. Think how Psionic Storm went from 112 damage in Brood War to 80 in SC2. How Fugal Growth lost range and later became projectile, how EMP drains 100 shield instead of compete depletion, how Marine got so much extra health since Brood War to make bio viable vs all compositions, and how radius of EMP and Storm has also decreased. But it doesn't end on AoE abilities - single target spells are equally easy to abuse: Snipe has gone from 45 damage to 25+25 vs Psionic, Neural Parasite gone from 9 to 7 range. All of the abilities that deal damage or immobilize/disable got nerfed pretty hard. Not only because of the pathing/unit clumping - otherwise single target spells would be unchanged. Its the ease of casting that magnifies the problem of clumping, or even is the problem itself.

Whithout SC you have to find your High Templar, click on it, press the hotkey and move mouse back where you want to cast Psionic Storm. If you want to cast another storm but your HT depleted his energy, you have to select another HT, see if he has enough energy, if not, find next one, if yes, move mouse back and cast a new Storm. With SC you just select a group of units press the hotkey and click like a madman where you want your Storms. Without SC a pro can dish out at most 3, maybe 4 Storms per second. An amateur probably 1 or 2. With SC both can throw even 10-15 Storms or more per second (depends only on how fast you can click and how much energy is stored). Skill floor rises, but skill ceiling drastically decreases. A Plat/Diamond (maybe even Gold) player can throw Storms/Fungals/EMPs in same way and with almost the same effectiveness as a pro. And when a casual player can do same job "microing" spellcasters just like a pro, you end up with..

No wow factor. "If I can do almost the same thing as a pro, I'm not going to care" mentality. It doesn't matter that a pro can macro at the same time, or send a Dropship and unload it somewhere in opponents base, because those actions are not as clearly visible to the viewer. What's worse a Master player can do very similiar job to a pro when it comes to microing units, and also shift que a Dropship to attack a base before a fight. And while it is true that pros will do it a bit better, is not something to be excited about because the gap between a pros and an amateur execution is not big enough. A spectactor won't see how good a macro of a player is when there is a battle going on, and people don't care about things they don't see. People are also less concerned with pure mechanics - you don't hear teenagers screaming when a pro Zerg keeps energy on his Queens below 25 throughout the game, the teenagers scream when they see sick micro. And I'm not talking about ability/spell spam, which can be done by high Diamond players with same ease as what pros do it, but about things like splitting units, and shifting unit positions throughout the engagement. Unfortunately, because the fights are over in seconds and it's better to simply let units do their job without disturbing them, all the spectactor see is abilities being thrown and units dying in seconds without positional micro involved. Simply put, Marine vs Baneling micro is interesting to watch because it involved micro that is harder to perform then ability spam. It could be even more entertaining if it lasted a bit longer then 2 seconds, but that's different issue.

Second issue is that weak but massable spells cause abilities to become less impactful. Less exciting to watch. There's less interest. And it's bad viewer experience. Units barely take damage from a single spell, so spells are less impactful. Because of the easy casting, multiple spells being cast are less spectacular because even lower level players can do that. To get the point across, lets bring some analogical example. If in basketball the ring was twice the size, we would get much more points, but scoring an individual point would be so much less exciting to watch.

The game has been balance around Smart Cast since WoL, so rapidly cutting it out would shake up the balance quite a bit. Probably it's not worth doing it so far into the development. But I sincererly hope that if Blizzard makes another Starcraft or Warcraft game, it will be without Smart Casting, as it is bad for everyone. Pros don't have as much to differenate themselves from amateurs, and spectactors get less fun from watching. Both those things are not good for the games future.

tl:dr

Smart Cast means spells need to be weaker, and weaker spells are not exciting to watch or play with. Smart Cast means a Master player can be as good as a pro when it comes to caster micro, which further adds to "meh, if I can do it like a pro, then pro are not that great".





Balancing with Infestor spell examples and redesigning a spell that prevents micro

+ Show Spoiler +

Infestor as a whole is quite underperforming. While we most definetely don't want the revival of Broodlord/Infestor, fact is Infestor could use some rebalancing and redesigning.

Fungal Growth seems hard to balance out on the first glance. On one hand, immobilizing effect is deadly, but it is hard to get a good shot with the projectile. The ability therefore becomes "hit or miss", meaning that having only 1 Infestor is gambling and you need more of them to ensure that you use Fungal Growth (FG) effectively, or rather at all. In my humble opinion, casters should be on the battlefield as support units - High Templar is never massed, and you only need a few for them to be effective. Even a single HT can do its job fine, storming units or feedbacking Dropships. You cannot say the same about the Infestor. You need a number of them to be effective, unless you wait for the opponent to make a mistake and not look at his army sitting on creep for longer then 2 seconds. Neural Parasite on the other hand is totaly worthless as its range prevents it from being useful. Infected Terran is weak without armor and attack bonuses.



FG prevents micro from the opponent, which is bad in a game that focuses so much on control/micro. It is frustrating to play against. If it lands, it becomes one of the scariest abilities in the game. Imagine a Deathball of units being massacred by spread out Lurkers and Banelings without a way of escaping. Yeah, in right circumstance it is very powerful. Still, to me, any ability/spell that removes micro without good reason is bad for the game, especially since Smart Cast makes it so easy to carpet bomb units with spells. Therefore, I believe a much better design for Fungal Growth is to not immobilize, but to slow down units affected by it by 50% just like Concussive Shells. In case of units with speed upgrades, any unit would just revert its movement speed back to unupgraded kind, or we can just slap 50% movement reduction onto all and be equal. To balance it out, the projectile speed could be increased by 75-150% and duration changed to 8-12 seconds. The projectile should also follow the unit it has been cast on, or we can just go without the projectile altogether and revert it to how it used to be, an instant effect spell. With such changes, even a single Infestor has a bigger chance of getting his FG on his target. At the same time, enemy can still split/micro his affected units, only not as effectively because of the of the slow effect. While projectile should be fast, range of the FG should not be bigger then 9 or 10, with 9 being a good starting point to see if range can stay or should be increased or decreased.

On another note, while we stay with Fungal Growth, I want to say that having a cheap spell (75) dealing small amounts of damage over relatively short period is bad because it encourages players to mass a certain caster. Remember when Fungal was instantenous, you locked down a group of marines and then casted another Fungal to kill them, without a chance for the Terran to micro against it? Yeah, exactly. If Fungal did more damage, but over a longer period, massing of Infestors would not be as efficient. But then again FG would have to have a higher energy cost to balance extra damage and duration, no? And if we did that, wouldn't we end up with some warped version of a Brood War Plague? Yes, we would.

Plague is a good spell actually, much better designed then FG. While it deals 300 damage over 25 seconds (ingame seconds), it doesn't kill the unit, leaving it with 1 hp instead. That made the Plague worthless to cast multiple times, contrary to Fungal Growth. In SC bio can be healed, mech repaired, zerg can regenerate, while Protoss at least doesn't suffer shield damage. Units are not immobilized, which means you can save them if you micro correctly and retreat. In that regard, Plague is a superior design. So how can we take good things about it, and mix it into Fungal Growth? Lets recap with previous changes, and keep everything in one place. Reworked Fungal Growth:

- Range up to 9.

- Much faster projectile (+75-150%) or the projectile follows targeted unit (prefferably both).

- Slow effect instead of immobilize effect.

- Slight radius increase (+10-25%)

- Duration increased to 8-12 seconds.

- Damage over 8-12 seconds (real time seconds), increased to 60-90 or 40-60 (7.5 or 5 damage per second) but

- Fungal Growth doesn't kill the target, leaving it with 1 hp.

- Units with 1 hp hit with another Fungal Growth cast on them can either die or FG can have no effect, subject to balance.

- Possibly FG needing and upgrade before its usable, or an upgrade for FG to deal its damage in the first place.

With such set of effects FG will be used a lot more as a "poke and cast on enemy deathball if you can", but should still get a lot of screen time on the battlefield. Opponent is granted an option to micro with the Fungal Growth effect on, and skill is not stupidly underpowered or overpowered, which is better for everyone. Balance can be achieved tweaking last 4 points, without playing with range/speed of projectile which I think should be long/fast accrodingly.

On the side note, duration of engagements could be increased by changing Fungal Growth from dealing damage to slowing attack speed, with similiar rules to what Ensnare done in Brood War. I believe longer engagements are better and more interesting to watch then putting more and more high or "terrible, terrible" damage abilities into the game so everything dies within seconds, but this might be too much of a change for Blizzard, plus it is too similiar to Ensnare, and we all now Blizzard is very recluctant when introducing old stuff into the game. Which is a shame, because Ensnare could be much easier to balance and make for better ability to watch it on streams and play against, as it increases duration of battles and isn't so overpowered by making units completely immobile.

tl:dr

Fungal Growth is a pain to balance because of the immobilizing effect. Changing it to do something else (like slow effect) makes it a lot easier, also a couple of changes to the way Fungal hits the target makes even single Infestor strong, and reduces effectivenes of massed Infestor vs a couple of them.

Also, cheap spells that cause damage are not good because they encourage masses of spellcasters, which are uninteresting to watch compared to normal unit interactions and movement.

Bonus: Less buffing and damaging abilities, more nerfing "status effects" is a better philosophy because it prolongs engagements.



Neural Parasite has gone from 9 range to 7 range, or in other words, from useful to useless. What if Blizzard could try range 8 for this spell? It's still beta, so we could try it for at least a week or two, no? If it is too strong, we could tweak it in some other way then nerfing range. Simple thing like increasing energy cost to 125 or even 150 could balance them out. Yes, making such a big energy cost can cause turtling with Infestors in order to save up energy and to mass NP enemy army with some timing push (I don't see it, but everything is possible in SC2 meta lol [sarcasm]), but keep NP on 7 range and you will almost never see it. Range 8 and increased energy cost seems like a good tweak to otherwise unused ability. In the unlikely even that Neural Parasite is still bad on 8 range, maybe casting while burrowed should be implemented. There are so many ways of nerfing and buffing skills, not only range/radius/damage - even 7.5-8 range but cast while burrowed would help to get more airtime for this interesting ability. First time I saw a player (don't remember who, maybe Fruitdealer, dunno) NP terran ghost and then casting EMP on the rest of the Ghosts to prevent them from sniping Broodlords, I thought "wow, this is cool". I think that was back when Infestor Broodlord with spores and slow pushing wasn't invented yet, and the start of the show was the Neural Parasite. It was exciting to watch, will Ghosts snipe/EMP Infestors, or will the Infestor get the first shot of his Neural Parasited Ghost? Unfortunately, NP was cut from 9 to 7 range somewhere after that game.

And this is why I don't like Blizzards approach, they either overbuff or overnerf things. They don't reduce range by 1 to see if then need to adjust it further, but by 2 or they don't increase energy cost, but instead make ability deal half its original damage etc.

tl:dr

Dear Blizzard, it would be great if you nerfed OP stuff in time, but gradually introducing elegant solutions, and not after months of waiting but slapping interesting spell or unit into oblivion with nerfs.



Infected Terran... I think it's good if they are not used much, and I would not change them in any drastic way. Infected Terrans with upgrades were suffering from same design flaw as Swarm Hosts - free units, which are never good for the game. Free units have to be weak by definition - they do not cost anything, so they have to be weaker then units with a cost. That creates the "useless in low numbers, but strong in critical number" playstyle that we have also seen during the Swarm Host era. Free units are either useless, or cause turltling if they are not.

Infestor could get some new ability - personally I would love to see the return of Infest Command Center, which would spawn larva at half or full rate of a Hatchery, but without the option of the Inject, if it stays in the game, and maybe the option to build the Infested Terrans there for low cost.

Or simply replace it with Ensnare or Parasite of Brood War Queen, if there are no changes to Fungal Growth. Parasite, while not contributing much to army vs army fight, is a really cool idea that softly counters units by revealing their location, removing them from the main army or causing them to be used in suicidal attacks to get rid of the "map hacking" unit(s).





Air units superiority and forced "sky" gameplay

+ Show Spoiler +

Next thing I want to discuss is the focus on air units and making it possible for "skytoss" or anything "sky" to exist in the first place. Lets compare air units of Brood War for each race:

Protoss:

- Corsair: AoE AtA, some ground utility with an upgrade (Disruptor Web)

- Scout: weak AtG, strong AtA

- Arbiter: Caster/Support

- Carrier: Capital ship

Zerg:

- Mutalisk: all rounder

- Devourer: designated tank/AtA superiority battleship

- Guardian: slow siege unit

- Scourge: suicidal AtA unit

Terran:

- Science Vessel: support unit/caster

- Wraith: all rounder, weaker then Mutalisk, makes up for it with cloak

- Valkyrie: AoE AtA

- Battle Cruiser: Capital ship

As you can see, each race has sort of an all rounder (Muta, Wraith, Scout), but other then that there are notable differences. Zerg has the only siege and suicidal unit (Guardian and Scourge) and Terran/Protoss have the only Capital ships. Both Capital ships funcion differently: Battle Cruiser is a tank with powerfull ability, while Carrier is a more of a "stay in the back" unit.

Zerg has superior all rounder (Mutalisk), but both T and P have great AoE AtA (Valkyrie, Corsair) that deal efficiently with it. Both of those AoE AtA are vulnerable to Scourge, until they reach critical mass of 5-7. Terran and Protoss have the only spell flying support, with Arbiters being much rarer and not massable as opposed to Science Vessels.

Zerg can only maintain air superiority if combination of Mutalisks and Scourge cloning is used, because Devourers come way to late to be of any use (unless late game PvZ happens). Scourges are strong but need to be microed and split before they can pose a threat to a pack of T and P AoE units. If the game lasts long enough, Devourers can fight back and regain air dominance. By then Terran and Protoss can switch to an all out Capital ship production, with Terran Capital ship in need of support to fight against mass Scourge, and Protoss Carrier in need of detection against cloaked Wraith attacks.

The only forms of flying harassement units are Mutalisk and Wraith, and while Mutalisk beats Wraith in effectiveness, Wraith has cloak which can at least even up the fight and forces micro on both sides.

Simply put, there is a good degree of diversity between units, and every race feels unique having access to different types of air units.

The only harass units in the game are:

- Mutalisks (they come late and are relatively easily repelled if scouted)

- Wraith (come early but can be very easily repelled if scouted)

- Corsair (only vZ, and can be repelled with ease if scouted)

All of those units are still easy to defend against even if you don't prepare specifically for them, with the exception of Mutalisk which can end the game if not scouted. Wraith and Corsair might put you in disadvantage, and Corsair need the support of other units (DT, Reaver) to do game ending damage.



Now lets see what units each race has in SC2:LotV

Protoss:

- Pheonix: AtA, counters light, some utility with the pick-up ability, can be a harass unit

- Void Ray: AtA, AtG, counters armored, formerly counters massive, formerly used only as a harass unit

- Oracle: Mostly used as a harass unit, can help with detection as a Support/Caster

- Tempest: Siege unit

- Carrier: Capital ship

- Mothership Core/Mothership: Hero unit / band-aid / Capital ship

Zerg:

- Mutalisk: All rounder

- Corruptior: designated tank, AtA, counters massive

- Broodlord: Siege unit

- Viper: Support/Caster

Terran:

- Viking: Mainly AtA, counters armored, can be used as a harass vs Z

- Banshee: AtG, mainly used as a harass unit, can be a part of certain compositions, ability to cloak

- Raven: Support/Caster

- Battle Cruiser: Capital ship

- Liberator: Siege unit, AoE AtA vs light

My point is, races become less distinctive and more rounded. Everyone has a siege unit (Liberator, Tempest, Broodlord), designated AtA (Corruptor, Pheonix/Void Ray, Viking) and a caster/support (Viper, Raven and Oracle/Mothership/MSC). There is a total of 4 Protoss units that can be used for harass, 2 for Terran and 1 for Zerg. Everyone has some sort of vs armored unit (Viking/Void Ray, Corruptor to some extent). At the same time AoE have almost dissapeared until LotVs introduction of a Liberator (Valkyrie with AtG) and melee AtA in nowhere to be seen (poor Scourge).

Air units are stronger, easier to mass and complement each other more then ever. Before, only Mutalisks could stand their own against Protoss and Zerg ground based anti-air, now Banshees, Void Rays, Liberators and of course Mutalisks are all at least somehow efficient vs ground unit compositions, not only as harass/cheese builds.

Total of air units increased from 12 to 15, but air units are much better at their roles then they were before - Guardian was much weaker and fragile then Broodlord, Valkyrie is a Liberator without ground mode, Viking and Banshee is a Wraith split into 2 units, each stronger at their job, Corruptor comes earlier then Devourer making it much more common, Mothership is an improved Arbiter (albeit Recall to Nexus instead to Mothership doesn't feel so good). Every air unit is used now and again (maybe Tempest not as much, but whatever). In Brood War Scout and Devourer were not seen very often, so the total number of air units probably looks more like 10 vs 14/15, which is a 40-50% increase. Don't get me wrong, having a good variety is good for the game (if units don't overlap), but because there is so many of them, races lose their weaknesses and sometimes it may feel like ground units act as a support to air.

Air units should be less effective then ground units. A 100 minerals 100 gas air unit should always lose to a 100 minerals 100 gas ground unit. It should be quite even only vs 75/50 or 75/75 in one on one fight. The reason for this is air units basic design and feature: they ignore terrain and are able to move freely around the map. This increase in mobility compared to ground units necessitates them being less cost/supply efficient then ground troops. Without it, there would be no point in producing any ground army, because why would you, if you can make go to air and ignore wall off and simply march/fly into opponents base. So yes, air needs to be weaker then ground. Mobility is a big balancing tool that is underused or largely ignored in Starcraft 2.

Air vs Air battles are boring to watch. It is hard to distinquish which player has the advantage, positioning is not important, micro is practically invisible to the viewers, and its almost impossible to disengage. It is a chaotic mess and that shouldn't have place in a game like Starcraft, or at least not too often. Air vs Ground might be interesting if there is micro involved on both sides, But not ability micro, which I already covered when talking about Smart Cast. We need movement micro, but for that the moving shot is needed, something that hasn't been implemented very well in SC2, because the main and defining feature of all air units, moving-shot, has been, oops, forgot to be coded into the game engine. Seriously, I cannot phatom how some of the basic things that defined what made Brood War great have been just... well... wasted? I hope that in the future, when Blizzard or any other AAA developer makes another RTS, they won't make the air units as bland and OP as in Starcraft 2 games.

The reason I bring this up is because Blizzard's approach to put more and more air units into the game scares me. It makes me worry about the future of Starcraft 3 and Warcraft 4. End game compositions consisting of Broodlord+support, Liberator+support or even mass Carrier are alright, but not if it's the one and only, the ultimate way of playing the game.

tl:dr

Not every game should end with someone going air, such things should only happen in specific matchups or only in 1/10 games, but no more. Ground based armies are infinately more fun to watch.

Air units should be less supply and cost efficient then ground units, by as much as 50%, and no less then 20%. Otherwise everyone gonna transition into air anyway.

For more information about moving shot, I direct you to this article by LaLuSh:

Next thing I want to discuss is the focus on air units and making it possible for "skytoss" or anything "sky" to exist in the first place. Lets compare air units of Brood War for each race:Protoss:- Corsair: AoE AtA, some ground utility with an upgrade (Disruptor Web)- Scout: weak AtG, strong AtA- Arbiter: Caster/Support- Carrier: Capital shipZerg:- Mutalisk: all rounder- Devourer: designated tank/AtA superiority battleship- Guardian: slow siege unit- Scourge: suicidal AtA unitTerran:- Science Vessel: support unit/caster- Wraith: all rounder, weaker then Mutalisk, makes up for it with cloak- Valkyrie: AoE AtA- Battle Cruiser: Capital shipAs you can see, each race has sort of an all rounder (Muta, Wraith, Scout), but other then that there are notable differences. Zerg has the only siege and suicidal unit (Guardian and Scourge) and Terran/Protoss have the only Capital ships. Both Capital ships funcion differently: Battle Cruiser is a tank with powerfull ability, while Carrier is a more of a "stay in the back" unit.Zerg has superior all rounder (Mutalisk), but both T and P have great AoE AtA (Valkyrie, Corsair) that deal efficiently with it. Both of those AoE AtA are vulnerable to Scourge, until they reach critical mass of 5-7. Terran and Protoss have the only spell flying support, with Arbiters being much rarer and not massable as opposed to Science Vessels.Zerg can only maintain air superiority if combination of Mutalisks and Scourge cloning is used, because Devourers come way to late to be of any use (unless late game PvZ happens). Scourges are strong but need to be microed and split before they can pose a threat to a pack of T and P AoE units. If the game lasts long enough, Devourers can fight back and regain air dominance. By then Terran and Protoss can switch to an all out Capital ship production, with Terran Capital ship in need of support to fight against mass Scourge, and Protoss Carrier in need of detection against cloaked Wraith attacks.The only forms of flying harassement units are Mutalisk and Wraith, and while Mutalisk beats Wraith in effectiveness, Wraith has cloak which can at least even up the fight and forces micro on both sides.Simply put, there is a good degree of diversity between units, and every race feels unique having access to different types of air units.The only harass units in the game are:- Mutalisks (they come late and are relatively easily repelled if scouted)- Wraith (come early but can be very easily repelled if scouted)- Corsair (only vZ, and can be repelled with ease if scouted)All of those units are still easy to defend against even if you don't prepare specifically for them, with the exception of Mutalisk which can end the game if not scouted. Wraith and Corsair might put you in disadvantage, and Corsair need the support of other units (DT, Reaver) to do game ending damage.Now lets see what units each race has in SC2:LotVProtoss:- Pheonix: AtA, counters light, some utility with the pick-up ability, can be a harass unit- Void Ray: AtA, AtG, counters armored, formerly counters massive, formerly used only as a harass unit- Oracle: Mostly used as a harass unit, can help with detection as a Support/Caster- Tempest: Siege unit- Carrier: Capital ship- Mothership Core/Mothership: Hero unit / band-aid / Capital shipZerg:- Mutalisk: All rounder- Corruptior: designated tank, AtA, counters massive- Broodlord: Siege unit- Viper: Support/CasterTerran:- Viking: Mainly AtA, counters armored, can be used as a harass vs Z- Banshee: AtG, mainly used as a harass unit, can be a part of certain compositions, ability to cloak- Raven: Support/Caster- Battle Cruiser: Capital ship- Liberator: Siege unit, AoE AtA vs lightMy point is, races become less distinctive and more rounded. Everyone has a siege unit (Liberator, Tempest, Broodlord), designated AtA (Corruptor, Pheonix/Void Ray, Viking) and a caster/support (Viper, Raven and Oracle/Mothership/MSC). There is a total of 4 Protoss units that can be used for harass, 2 for Terran and 1 for Zerg. Everyone has some sort of vs armored unit (Viking/Void Ray, Corruptor to some extent). At the same time AoE have almost dissapeared until LotVs introduction of a Liberator (Valkyrie with AtG) and melee AtA in nowhere to be seen (poor Scourge).Air units are stronger, easier to mass and complement each other more then ever. Before, only Mutalisks could stand their own against Protoss and Zerg ground based anti-air, now Banshees, Void Rays, Liberators and of course Mutalisks are all at least somehow efficient vs ground unit compositions, not only as harass/cheese builds.Total of air units increased from 12 to 15, but air units are much better at their roles then they were before - Guardian was much weaker and fragile then Broodlord, Valkyrie is a Liberator without ground mode, Viking and Banshee is a Wraith split into 2 units, each stronger at their job, Corruptor comes earlier then Devourer making it much more common, Mothership is an improved Arbiter (albeit Recall to Nexus instead to Mothership doesn't feel so good). Every air unit is used now and again (maybe Tempest not as much, but whatever). In Brood War Scout and Devourer were not seen very often, so the total number of air units probably looks more like 10 vs 14/15, which is a 40-50% increase. Don't get me wrong, having a good variety is good for the game (if units don't overlap), but because there is so many of them, races lose their weaknesses and sometimes it may feel like ground units act as a support to air.Air units should be less effective then ground units. A 100 minerals 100 gas air unit should always lose to a 100 minerals 100 gas ground unit. It should be quite even only vs 75/50 or 75/75 in one on one fight. The reason for this is air units basic design and feature: they ignore terrain and are able to move freely around the map. This increase in mobility compared to ground units necessitates them being less cost/supply efficient then ground troops. Without it, there would be no point in producing any ground army, because why would you, if you can make go to air and ignore wall off and simply march/fly into opponents base. So yes, air needs to be weaker then ground. Mobility is a big balancing tool that is underused or largely ignored in Starcraft 2.Air vs Air battles are boring to watch. It is hard to distinquish which player has the advantage, positioning is not important, micro is practically invisible to the viewers, and its almost impossible to disengage. It is a chaotic mess and that shouldn't have place in a game like Starcraft, or at least not too often. Air vs Ground might be interesting if there is micro involved on both sides, But not ability micro, which I already covered when talking about Smart Cast. We need movement micro, but for that the moving shot is needed, something that hasn't been implemented very well in SC2, because the main and defining feature of all air units, moving-shot, has been, oops, forgot to be coded into the game engine. Seriously, I cannot phatom how some of the basic things that defined what made Brood War great have been just... well... wasted? I hope that in the future, when Blizzard or any other AAA developer makes another RTS, they won't make the air units as bland and OP as in Starcraft 2 games.The reason I bring this up is because Blizzard's approach to put more and more air units into the game scares me. It makes me worry about the future of Starcraft 3 and Warcraft 4. End game compositions consisting of Broodlord+support, Liberator+support or even mass Carrier are alright, but not if it's the one and only, the ultimate way of playing the game.tl:drNot every game should end with someone going air, such things should only happen in specific matchups or only in 1/10 games, but no more. Ground based armies are infinately more fun to watch.Air units should be less supply and cost efficient then ground units, by as much as 50%, and no less then 20%. Otherwise everyone gonna transition into air anyway.For more information about moving shot, I direct you to this article by LaLuSh: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/starcraft-2/433944-depth-of-micro



Oracle, Banshee, Hellion/Hellbat, Widow Mine, Tank Drop, Nydus Worm etc. - harass gone wild

+ Show Spoiler +

Banshee deals almost 19.2 DPS to workers, Oracle 21.6. 3 Hellions 1 shot workers, same as one Widow Mine. There is so many things that are broken in this game and I do not know why has nobody brought this up before, or at least I haven't seen it in the threads I read. Why do you think Banshee and Oracle has so much DPS to be able to kill a worker every 2 seconds? Why Hellions are able to roast 10 workers with a single shot? The reasons are simple - and one of it is worker mining efficiency. Now I'm not talking about HMH or DH or worker pairing. I'm talking about how much minerals/gas can a worker shift on its single trip.

Why is it relevant, you may ask. Lets think about it for a second: a single worker shifts 4 minerals. Because Blizzard wanted good looking mining and implemented worker pairing, and worker AI was improved from previous game, mining efficiency was too big. The income was out of control because a base saturated with 16 workers yield much more minerals in Starcraft 2 with improved worker movement/AI then in Brood War. This was problematic because it altered all unit and tech interactions and Blizzard was not prepared to work from scratch. And who can blame them, units were mostly balanced in Brood War, there was no need to start from zero when designing the Marine, Siege Tank or Gateway build times. The stats were filled in, bulk of balance work was done for them already. So instead of making AI less efficient in mining, or altering how long workers mine a patch, they reduced how much a worker yields per trip. Seems like simple and sensible thing to do, does the job, income can be easily altered, everyones happy. Yet, that same exact change had a profound effect on worker killing and harassment effectiveness.

No longer killing a single worker cuts 8 mineral per trip per worker, now you need to kill 2 workers to achieve same effect of reducing your oponents income. As we know, and what has been further investigated by hicctl in his thread (http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/sc2-strategy/495035-overlooked-facts-of-harassment), the more workers you kill, the bigger effect it has on your opponents economy. So one would think, if individual worker mines less then it was in Brood War (4 down from 8), then strenght of harassment from Brood War is inadequate to deal sufficient amount of damage to opponent economy to justify investement in tech/unit/timing. Or in simple words, because now you need to kill almost twice as many workers to reduce enemy income by same amount, harass units need to be stronger to compensate for the cuts to your own economy when you decide to go for an agressive opening instead of a greedy one. But there are two other reasons why Oracle is killing worker in 2 seconds.

Banshee having such a high DPS is most likely a result of this exact reasoning (increased worker to income ratio), but high DPS could also be attributed to early game defense. Banshee, which is supposed to be a form of Wraith replacement, needs not only to score kills, but also avoid newly introduced units and techs that are encountered in almost every game. Even when if Banshee build is not scouted, there is a big chance of some kind of defence waiting for it anyway. Marines being reactored increases their production rate by a big margin with a relatively low investement, also bio is a very common style which provides good AtA. Queen provides a basic AtA for the Zerg and at least one is protecting each base. Banshee simply had to be a better unit in order to deal any kind of economical damage. If Wraith with its Brood War stats was in the game instead of the Banshee, Wraith openings would simply fail because some base defense is almost always there by default. The only way for Wraith to be viable could be in TvZ matchup, where Wraith can not only try to score some Drone kills (1-3, probably no more then that), but most of the time only some Overlord kills and scout denial as a result. So instead of a Wraith we ended up with high range, high AtG damage dealer which can cloak. And it would be fine if we didn't need to make the AtG damage so big to make the unit playable.

Another contributor is lack of a good moving shot. Wraith has terrible stats but it is still a good unit because it can be microed against Hydralisks. Its ground attack is very weak, but if it was any stronger, the unit would be broken and OP. Could make much a better core unit and be included in more compositions, if and, only if it was not microable as it is but with stronger AtG. And same rule applies to the Banshee and Oracle as well: If there was even a chance to micro units better (again, moving shot), range of those units along with their DPS could go down a bit, making it still good in harassment role without the "terrible terrible damage" which causes those units to obliterate workers in seconds. They would be even more worthless as a part of an army, but then again if there only were some late game upgrades for those units (simple example: Banshee cloak being constant), that would not be the case. All within reason ofcourse. And again I have to stress "late game" upgrades, if any, and not for cheap.



Mining difference, bigger chance to meet opposition and less microability of air units makes it somehow necessary to increase harass unit's effectivness, otherwise who would open with an aggressive build, if it can very easily fail and it is hard to perform, when if you choose less aggressive opening you end up with much bigger army/economy in the mid-game. Banshee could be made less strong vs ground, but given an air attack, making it still good as a harass opening vZ. It would simply be like a Wraith with better ground attack to account for the Queen.

I got a bit distracted, so I'll get back to the point I wanted to make: harass units may have high DPS because Blizzard thinks that harass units will be put against the Queen or MSC or a pack of Marines - and often they are in the lower leaques. But better playes (Silver+? Gold+?) know when to engage and when to avoid taking damage, which is what a harass unit job is by definition - kill as many workers as you can, avoid taking hits and get out. So when there is an Oracle, or a Banshee, or a flying Tank, or Hellions that are designed with DPS big enough to kill enough workers when a Queen or Photon/Pylon Overcharge damages them, the problem arises, because if you rush those units and skimp on economy(Chronoboost, Techlab/Reactor switching, cutting workers etc), there simply might not be enough, if any, defense at all in time to prevent you from killing half of the workers that you opponent has in total. Some may not build an extra Queen so early and die. Some may go for a Mech build and die without Marines, or make too many Marauders to protect themselves from some other stupid cheese/all-in like Adept attacks and get killed by air units. Some may have their Stalkers somewhere else then mineral line for a split second. Because even if you have the correct units to counter such cheese, if your units are out of position you will lose a lot before you move your forces back, and the stupidly high DPS vs workers is to blame for it.

tl:dr

Blizzards mistake was trying to change the formula: workers mining at different rate, units that everyone has to build (Queen, MSC), that are used as base defense, and increasing damage vs workers in so many places to counteract that. It just doesn't work very well as a whole, and there are always things that are going to be unbalanced until the "default" base defense is removed from the game, or until killing a single worker matters more, but killing a whole bunch of them relies more on your skill and not on build order win.





High Ground Advantage, positional play and and map making.

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High Ground Advantage (HGA) should be in this game, because it creates much better system to have defenders advantage in the game. Without it we have Queens that have been buffed over the years (range etc), or MSC and its "click to kill cheese and aggression" button. There are band-aids to help players defend their bases against easy to perform rush builds. I believe that HGA should be in the game. Now, some people say that RNG (random number generator) should not have a place in Starcraft 2, and I have seen other propositions to implement it. I'll go through the 2 most common that I have seen on the forums, before I

Units shooting uphill have lower damage: Now this one could work in a very good way, or disastrous one, because of the high armour values on some units, and low damage values on others. It all depends when what is calculated. Lets say, we have a Marine shooting a Roach with upgrades, 2 armor total. Lets say our Marine has only 6 damage per shot, and the penalty for shooting uphill is 33% (to make it rounded for the sake of the argument). Our Marine does now only 4 damage per shot, and only 2 damage per shot to our Roach. So now our Marine does only 2/6 or 33% of its original damage, making defenders advantage very big. If, on the other hand, we could make it so the armor is counted first, our Marine would deal 4 damage (6 - 2 armor), and the reduction of 33% could kick in after that, reducing it to 3 (4 * 66%=3.666666..=3 rounded down). Second example is much better, because it doesn't punish low damage units and is more or less equal to all kinds of units.

Units shooting downhill have increased damage: While is has the same principle as the one above, it magnifies the problem of engagements ending in few seconds, which gives less room for players to show off their micro, and frustrates newbies who send their army on a-move somewhere and didn't look for 3 seconds, loosing their entire army, It's simply bad.

Range reduced shooting uphill or range increased shooting downhill: They're not bad per se, but they don't increase the time of engagements by any sort of clearly visible magnitude, while they can be very annoying to play against and may be confusing for new (maybe even old) players because you have to "remember" 2 different ranges for each unit - level and uphill/downhill. There are simply better options.

Random miss chance when firing uphill: Or in other words, the Brood War high ground mechanics, This mechanic can significally increase the time of engagements, which I and probably the majority of community will agree is good for the game. It is exciting because you don't know if one player will beat another players army that already in position. There is a big "what will happen next", the uncertanity, which is what keep people watching the game. The suspense is what keeps the view count high in every sport, and this is missing in Starcraft 2, because once you see a small army on a hill being pushed by a bit bigger army attacking it from the downhill, you can tell who is going to win. With random miss chance, you cannot always tell who is going to win, which is believe is good. At the same time I have to tell about the flaw of this solution - it can be frustrating when your Tank or another long range unit misses 3 times in a row, and you cannot open up the passage to some part of the map that has been cut off by the enemy units. It is exciting, yes, but sometimes can take enjoyment away.

I believe the two best ways to implement HGA is random miss chance and reduction of damage when shooting uphill, but only when applied after the armor penalty. Random miss chances advantage is randomness and not being so punishing to low damage units, while reductions advantage is reliability. We need HGA because positional play can be very interesting, not boring. There is a lot of focus on mechanics in Starcraft 2, and strategical play is suffering. Bringing HGA could give us the much needed defenders advantage (think PvP and all the band-aids to prevent 4G vs 4G that came later), and hopefully with it in place, some of the band-aids can go away. And if the band-aids go away or are nerfed at least, maybe we can also nerf harassment units damage a bit here and there.

With HGA in the game, I believe it should a bit less up to Blizzard, but more to the map-makers to balance the game. Small changes to maps can skew the races balance a lot, I would be great if the SC2 map-makers looked at what worked in Brood War maps. Not to simulate it, but to learn from it and its mistakes and evolution. Learn how change to expansions ramp or entrance can change the balance, how having open middle or chokes change the matchups. Think before maps are designed, and write down what works and what doesn't. Simply make better maps.

tl:dr

Bring some form of HGA to the game, it can make the game only more, not less exciting. Also, design the maps with HGA in mind.





The Siege Tank and the Mech style

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I already covered it a little bit, but I would like to come back to the issues of the Siege Tank (ST). Fist of all, positional play is a lot less viable in SC2 then in other games. Some of it is because there is no High Ground Advantage. Some of it is because of the way maps are layed out, with multiple paths going everywhere, not allowing you to get and hold an access to expansions. And without positional play, there is no Mech. Yes, there are people that are happy that Cyclone is a unit that shoots when you move it around. People that are happy with Siege Tanks being picked up in Siege mode and dropped in it as well. But I think we lost something that was dear to many strategists. The real Mech style. What Mech style in Brood War represented, was a slow moving, largely immobile ball/cloud of death, that was very, very strong defensively, and could be broken by abusing its vulnerability (lack of mobility) by expanding more then Mech player. Mech player didn't have to be super quick, or have the best micro in the world. He had to outsmart his opponent with strategical play and careful placement of his/her units. It was truly so much different style than highly mobile Bio play. And that was the true Mech.

Mech was composed of units that supported each other by each doing it's dedicated job. Tank was the main ground damage dealer, with its powerful AoE, but was vulnerable to air attacks, was immobile and ineffective when not in Siege Mode. Goliath was a dedicated long range Anti-Air unit, with less then impressive, slow and weak ground attack. Vulture was the most mobile unit, but also with lowest DPS - but thanks to mines, Mechs big weakness of friendly fire could be reduced thanks to it ability. Melee units were disposed of with mines. Air units with Goliaths. Tanks destroyed other ranged units on the ground. Science Vessels provided detection and could be used to snipe other casters with EMP. They supplemented and helped each other, but the chain is only as strong as its weakest link.

Attacking with air units without sufficient amount of Goliaths ended bad for the Mech. Masses of flanking melee units tore through Goliaths and Tanks without mines and cheap Vultures to block them. Catching the Mech ball when the Tanks are unsieged put Terran in big disadvantage. It was interesting to watch and play with, or play against.

The "problem" with SC2 mech is that it doesn't resemble that style. Mech in SC2 is too similiar to Bio, or the way Protoss play. There is much less strategy involved. If everything looks and plays in the same way, it becomes less interesting. There is also less choice for the players to differenate their style of play.

Mech doesn't need Goliath from Brood War to work like it used to. It needs units with clear job descriptions, weaknesses and different movement speeds, and also less overlap between them. Flying Siege Tank is therefore an anti-thesis of Mech as a style of play because it makes it possible to ignore Tank's two biggest weaknesses. And SC2 "mech" is not really what Mech is supposed to be like.

- You can change Tanks position without going first into the vulnerable unsieged mode, and you cut significant amount of time doing it, greatly increasing Tanks mobility. Not to mention, it looks fucking stupid.

- The Cyclone is not a bad unit vs air, but it is not weak vs ground either. It doesn't need support of a Tank that much to fight ground, while itself is not that great in protecting Tank lines from hit and run tactics because of its range and not the biggest DPS vs air.

- Hellion/Hellbat protects against masses of light units, but that is it. It is only thanks to unit clump that they can protect the Mech ball from massable melee units (Zealot/Zergling).

- Widow Mine does similiar job as a Vulture, protecting the ball from melee. It is also ridiculously strong vs clumped air, while still being great vs ground. It overlaps with Cyclone anti-air, and Hellion/Hellbat vs melee and friendly fire reduction. Also, having high (5) range, it overlaps with Siege Tank, doing high damage to a single target while in its primary, immobile attack mode.

- Thor can both block enemy units with its size and it is quite alright vs air. It therefore overlaps with the Cyclone and Widow Mine anti-air job, Hellion/Hellbat and Widow Mine job of preventing melee from overruning Tanks.

- Raven doesn't snipe casters in any way. PDD makes ranged units suck even more vs Tank line. Turret provides some high DPS defense, but has to be placed on unoccupied tiles which makes it unusable in battle, and usable only for turtling/harassment. Seeker Missile had a lot of reworks, current one being too slow to prevent casters from dealing damage, and only used to annoy ground forces. But even then, Raven is a good support unit all around.

- Ghost can snipe casters, both with its snipe ability, and with EMP rounds. Unfortunately, casters and their spells are nerfed massively because of the Smart Cast, so anti-caster is not as neccessary as it was in Brood War. Ghost is not a bad addition per se, but doesn't contribute from mech upgrades and requires a spare techlab on Barracks.



There is a set of rules that needs to be followed in order to make it viable.

1. First rule is simple, we need 4 basic "mech" units to fill up 4 positions:

Anti-ground glass cannon unit that need to be babysitted

Anti-air unit

Melee stopper/surround preventer/damage "tank"

Support detector/caster killer

2. Anti-ground unit needs to be highly efficient and "OP" compared to other units in its price range. It cannot have any means of attacking or protecting itself from air.

3. Either anti-air, anti-ground, or both needs to be highly immobile and slow. Along with the one above, in means that Mech player cannot push out early and rush the opponent, but has to gather the composition of efficient anti-ground and other units solely for its protection.

4. Melee preventer is a unit that is either quite big in size, has a high DPS but very short range attack, or has some sort of slow/distraction effect on opponents units. Or a combination of those traits.

5. Melee preventer has also low HP, is light, not armored, and has relatively low cost and low to no gas cost - it is the first line unit that is hit most by Anti-Ground unit's splash attacks.

6. Support unit has next to no combat value on its own, is used as a detector, has relatively high gas cost, is highly mobile and counters casters.

7. Mech units in one core (vs ground, vs air) or more categories need to be a bit more expensive in cost but also more supply efficient then average unit. This makes Mech this scary force that takes time to prepare, but 200/200 Mech force needs to be killed with larger supply of units (240? 260?), but 200/200 Mech force should also cost more then 200/200 force made up from other, non-Mech units.



So how can we fix mech? Here is my proposition, which is one of many, maybe not the best one, but as long as you work with above points, you shouldn't have too many problems.

Some ideas may seem similiar to what Brood War did, it is intentional, because it simply did work. Some things are balanced taking into account removed macro mechanics, which I would like to discuss later.

Tank:

- 35 damage + 35 vs armored when sieged

- no more Overkill Protection/Smart Targeting

- cannot be picked up when in Siege mode OR after being picked up in Siege Mode, it is dropped unsieged with 2 second cooldown before first attack.

- siege/unsiege time increased by 10-20%

- 10-20 HP less

- 2-2.5 supply

Fills the role of a heavy DPS hitter that is very immobile and need to be babysitted, as it can be easily killed on its own. Removal of Overkill Protection makes it scale worse in the late game (or when massed), but overall buffs make it better in the early game. If it is too strong as a rush opening/cheese, Siege Mode research can be reintroduced.

Cyclone:

- cost down to 125/75

- can be reactored

- HP down to 130-140

- 16-20 air damage (+2 every upgrade), 1 second cooldown, 7 range

- 10-13 ground damage (+1 every upgrade), 1 second cooldown, 6 range

- Lock-On (or any other name, Steady Targeting would be fine for example) is a researchable passive ability that increases air range when Cyclone is not moving up to 9-10 range over time (example: +1 range every 2 seconds), and reduces air range back to 7 when Cyclone is moving (example: 1 range lost for every 1 second of movement)

- 2-2.5 supply

- no longer automatically attacks while moving

- has turret tracking

- same movement speed as a tank or 0-20% faster

Fills the role of a anti-air unit. Cost, HP and supply is reduced to allow it to be produced early in the game without having to wait for a good economy first. Ground attack is much worse to prevent it from becoming a unit which is good vs everything, which was a bad design. I also believe that automatic shooting on the move is bad as it doesn't encourage micro, it makes the unit mico for itself without players input which is just plain stupid.

Hellion/Hellbat:

- 75 Mineral cost

- Hellion can deploy a single Widow Mine, which cannot be replaced. Mines cannot be deployed in Hellbat mode.

- an additional upgrade increases available mines from 1 to 2 (or 3, subject to balance)

- radius and size increased by 5-15%

- Hellbat is no longer biological

- Hellbat HP reduced to 120 from 135

- Hellion targeting range down to 4 from 5 - fire length remains the same

- Hellbat base ground damage down from 18 to 14-16

Widow Mine:

- Drilling Claws removed from the game

- doesn't target workers and casters

- 100 splash damage

- single target damage removed

- Overkill Protection removed

- can aquire clocked units, but do not reveal clocked units (allows mine drag)

- range down to 3

- targets only ground units

- mine unburrows when locking on target (0.75 second lockdown duration), allowing it to be targeted without detection

- each mine can attack only once, and pounces onto its target during which time it can still be targeted and destroyed

- mine has 30-40 HP

- mine still follows the target it locked down on even if it exits range before lockdown is finished

It works like Vulture from Brood War while still being relatively different. It is cheaper then current Hellion -> more massable, but also bigger in size to block melee units better. Widow Mine is changed to work like Spider Mine -> with Siege Tank and Liberator another source of "mobile" positional control unit is uneeded, as the units overlap too much. Removal of anti-air prevents it from being a "build 2-3 mines and your Tanks are invulnerable to air with a few Cyclones/Thors/Liberators" formula. Changing it to non-reusable mine brings more decision making and strategy to its use. Additional upgrade can be added, so that once burrowed, mines can be unburrowed and repositioned.

Raven:

- gains EMP from Ghost at 100 energy cost, has to be researched first

- PDD has 30 hp and 250 energy, each point of damage shot down/blocked reduces energy by same amount, PDD loses 5 points of energy per second until it stops working. PDD requires 75 energy to cast and follows the unit it has been cast on - can be cast on a unit to follow it or on the ground as normal.

- Auto-Turret removed from the game

- HP up to 175-185

- movement speed buff reduced by 10-20%

PDD is a more balanced version of the current ability, which is discriminatory - it is bad vs fast attacking, low damage units, but makes high impact, high cooldown units efficiency a lot less useful. It should also be a lot less useful in turtling. EMP move to Raven is going to be discussed in more detail in "Ghost vs High Templar - two hard counters gone wrong". With the Parasitic Bomb, Raven needs more health, not speed that has been buffed so much not so long ago - a unit that is so expensive should never be so fragile, unless its abilities have a longer range then of a similiarly priced unit. Every race has an air unit that specializes in anti-air, so Raven's HP has to be increased at least to 175 imho.





Ghost vs High Templar - two hard counters gone bad

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Ghost is a unit that is used to counter High Templar with EMP. Problem is, High Templar is a unit that is used to counter Ghost with its Feedback. That produces a bad unit interaction, in which Ghost hard counters High Templar, and Templar can hard counter Ghosts if and only if they are not microed correctly. Snipe/EMP can instantly dispose of Ghost. Feedback can kill a Ghost outright. Snipe/EMP/Storm/Feedback is not a micro game - it is a Clicker Heroes game

You click, and the spell is almost instanteneous. Range of each spell predeterminates who is going to come out ahead, as EMP usually hard counters HT, hard. In the same way, Feedback hard counters other spellcasters - Infestors, Vipers and Ravens, but also normal units that happen to have abilities like Medivacs or Banshees. I already discusses earlier the Smart Cast in SC2, and I believe without it, those bad interactions would not be as common, as every Feedback/EMP has to be cast individually, forcing players who will never break some of the APM barriers to make a choice then casting Storm or Feedback. Spellcasting becomes more taxing, but spells can be made stronger, and everyone should still be happy.

But lets go back to Feedback. Where does it come from, and how did it look like? It comes from Dark Archon in Brood War, an expensive 3-tier unit that costs 250 minerals, 200 gas, so it is more expensive then an Ultralisk or Reaver, and only Battlecruiser and Carrier cost more. So yes, it is an expensive and rare unit. What about Feedback? In Brood War it has 10 range, costs 50 energy and other than that, it is the same spell as in SC2. So how having Feedback fits with the Starcraft 2 Smart Cast on a relatively cheap unit that is High Templar? It works in Brood War because of the following reasons:

- it is only available on a high supply unit (4 is a lot in brood war) and very expensive unit (250/200)

- it is not massable because of above and lack of Smart Cast

- it is not massable because Dark Archon has no damage abilities on his own.

Let me focus a bit on the last point, by giving a couple of examples:

- BW: Queen - has spawn Broodling (150), killing some of the units types instantly, but has no damage dealing spells on its own

- BW: Science Vessel - has EMP and Irradiate, but Irradiate does not kill anything instantly and deals damage over time

- BW: High Templar - has no one-hit-KO abilities

- BW: Dark Archon - has Mind Control and Feedback, so two one-hit-KO abilities, but no damage dealing on its own

- BW: Defiler - has Plague which deals damage over time, no one-hit-KO abilities

- BW: Arbiter - has Stasis which immobilizes but also makes units invulnerable at the same time. No damage dealing spells

No spellcaster has a click and kill spell while having damage dealing spells at the same time. Now lets look at some SC2 spellcasters:

- HT: Feedback one-hit-KO (1hKO), Storm

- Viper: Abduct 1hKO, Parasitic Bomb

- Infestor: Neural Parasite 1hKO, Fungal Growth, Infested Terrans

- Raven: Seeker Missile 1hKO and Auto-Turret, BUT Seeker Missle does not work instantly

- Ghost: EMP 1hKO and Snipe 1hKO



Feedback and other 1hKO spells don't work in SC2 because it is available on a cheap, quite massable units that do damage on their own and are too easy to use properly because of Smart Casting.

Feedback counters Battlecruisers, Banshees, Medivacs, Infestors, Ravens and used to even counter Thors. It is simply too easily accesible and spammable. Instant spells that kill units with a single click are not micro. It is not a show off of skill, but fast clicking. It is not impressive when someone does that, because anyone can do it, even in Silver league or lower.

So how can we "fix" feedback? Well, if feedback was not accessible easily, and was available on a costly unit, simple solution would be to decrease its availability in half. 100 energy per cast, voila - more costly then Storm, bringing more decision making into the game - should I disable enemy spellcaster unit and prevent its spells/abilities, or Storm his units and deal damage? I believe this soft nerf to Feedback would be welcome.

So what about EMP? Terran needs it because from Brood War to SC2, Protoss technology has improved drastically. While in Brood War shields were taking full damage from attacks, now they only take whatever the base damage is. So if Tank deals 35+15 damage, now it only does 35 damage to Zealot's shields, not "full" damage which would be 35+15=50, like it would happen with BW shield. Terran needs EMP because Blizzard wants Bio viable in every matchup. In order to achieve that, they introduced us a Barracks unit that has more HP then Factory units (Marauder), so Terran ball is not decimated by Storm. To further prevent Storm from being effective, they gave us EMP on a bionic, mineral heavy unit (Ghost). And because Minerals are so easy to gather because of the Mule, Ghost can be produced in big numbers. Storm was also nerfed both in damage and radius from BW, and Marine's got an upgrade to its HP (55 total, 40 in Brood War). Just like Feedback casting is not impressive, neither is EMPs which can be cast from long range and only require fast clicking after pressing one button. Would it work better without Smart Cast? I believe so.

But another reason why EMP is so strong, is because Ghost is a very small unit that is hard to distinquish from other Bio when clumped and hard to snipe. It is frustrating to play against, when you struggle to see where the Ghosts are, with different spells being cast and Medivacs flying on top of them. I believe the EMP spell needs to be moved on a bigger, easier to spot unit - the Raven. It is big, flying, easy to target, mobile, and costs more gas, which reduced the massability aspect.

Raven already has a dissapointing spell - Auto-Turret. In past it had stuipid duration, making it good only for turtling. Now it has bigger damage, but short duration. Unfortunately, it cannot be placed during the battle because its placement works same as placing buildings - it there are units on the ground, the spell is useless. If we remove it and give EMP to Raven, we can kill two birds with one stone. Energy requirement should be higher, at 100 or 125 energy - it is a powerful ability, with long range, that turns casters into dead weight - 75 energy is just not enough.

Another reason why EMP should be moved, is because with it being on Ghost, Mech style of play is suffering having no good spellcasters on its own. A Raven flying over Bio army doesn't look as bad as a group of Ghosts tagging along Siege Tanks, Cyclones, Vikings and Hellions.

tl:dr

"Click and kill" spells are too common and cheap when it comes to energy requirement. I already discussed Neural Parasite before, I'm also going to talk about Abduct later, but the point is, they are not interesting to watch, frustrating to play against, they don't bring joy when you perform them yourself and being massable and easy to use with Smart Cast removes some of the decision making aspects of the game. This kind of abilities should be either on very expensive units which do not contribute themselves to damage dealing, or the requirements for energy should be way higher.

Ghost is a unit that is used to counter High Templar with EMP. Problem is, High Templar is a unit that is used to counter Ghost with its Feedback. That produces a bad unit interaction, in which Ghost hard counters High Templar, and Templar can hard counter Ghosts if and only if they are not microed correctly. Snipe/EMP can instantly dispose of Ghost. Feedback can kill a Ghost outright. Snipe/EMP/Storm/Feedback is not a micro game - it is a Clicker Heroes game https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clicker_Heroes You click, and the spell is almost instanteneous. Range of each spell predeterminates who is going to come out ahead, as EMP usually hard counters HT, hard. In the same way, Feedback hard counters other spellcasters - Infestors, Vipers and Ravens, but also normal units that happen to have abilities like Medivacs or Banshees. I already discusses earlier the Smart Cast in SC2, and I believe without it, those bad interactions would not be as common, as every Feedback/EMP has to be cast individually, forcing players who will never break some of the APM barriers to make a choice then casting Storm or Feedback. Spellcasting becomes more taxing, but spells can be made stronger, and everyone should still be happy.But lets go back to Feedback. Where does it come from, and how did it look like? It comes from Dark Archon in Brood War, an expensive 3-tier unit that costs 250 minerals, 200 gas, so it is more expensive then an Ultralisk or Reaver, and only Battlecruiser and Carrier cost more. So yes, it is an expensive and rare unit. What about Feedback? In Brood War it has 10 range, costs 50 energy and other than that, it is the same spell as in SC2. So how having Feedback fits with the Starcraft 2 Smart Cast on a relatively cheap unit that is High Templar? It works in Brood War because of the following reasons:- it is only available on a high supply unit (4 is a lot in brood war) and very expensive unit (250/200)- it is not massable because of above and lack of Smart Cast- it is not massable because Dark Archon has no damage abilities on his own.Let me focus a bit on the last point, by giving a couple of examples:- BW: Queen - has spawn Broodling (150), killing some of the units types instantly, but has no damage dealing spells on its own- BW: Science Vessel - has EMP and Irradiate, but Irradiate does not kill anything instantly and deals damage over time- BW: High Templar - has no one-hit-KO abilities- BW: Dark Archon - has Mind Control and Feedback, so two one-hit-KO abilities, but no damage dealing on its own- BW: Defiler - has Plague which deals damage over time, no one-hit-KO abilities- BW: Arbiter - has Stasis which immobilizes but also makes units invulnerable at the same time. No damage dealing spellsNo spellcaster has a click and kill spell while having damage dealing spells at the same time. Now lets look at some SC2 spellcasters:- HT: Feedback one-hit-KO (1hKO), Storm- Viper: Abduct 1hKO, Parasitic Bomb- Infestor: Neural Parasite 1hKO, Fungal Growth, Infested Terrans- Raven: Seeker Missile 1hKO and Auto-Turret, BUT Seeker Missle does not work instantly- Ghost: EMP 1hKO and Snipe 1hKOFeedback and other 1hKO spells don't work in SC2 because it is available on a cheap, quite massable units that do damage on their own and are too easy to use properly because of Smart Casting.Feedback counters Battlecruisers, Banshees, Medivacs, Infestors, Ravens and used to even counter Thors. It is simply too easily accesible and spammable. Instant spells that kill units with a single click are not micro. It is not a show off of skill, but fast clicking. It is not impressive when someone does that, because anyone can do it, even in Silver league or lower.So how can we "fix" feedback? Well, if feedback was not accessible easily, and was available on a costly unit, simple solution would be to decrease its availability in half. 100 energy per cast, voila - more costly then Storm, bringing more decision making into the game - should I disable enemy spellcaster unit and prevent its spells/abilities, or Storm his units and deal damage? I believe this soft nerf to Feedback would be welcome.So what about EMP? Terran needs it because from Brood War to SC2, Protoss technology has improved drastically. While in Brood War shields were taking full damage from attacks, now they only take whatever the base damage is. So if Tank deals 35+15 damage, now it only does 35 damage to Zealot's shields, not "full" damage which would be 35+15=50, like it would happen with BW shield. Terran needs EMP because Blizzard wants Bio viable in every matchup. In order to achieve that, they introduced us a Barracks unit that has more HP then Factory units (Marauder), so Terran ball is not decimated by Storm. To further prevent Storm from being effective, they gave us EMP on a bionic, mineral heavy unit (Ghost). And because Minerals are so easy to gather because of the Mule, Ghost can be produced in big numbers. Storm was also nerfed both in damage and radius from BW, and Marine's got an upgrade to its HP (55 total, 40 in Brood War). Just like Feedback casting is not impressive, neither is EMPs which can be cast from long range and only require fast clicking after pressing one button. Would it work better without Smart Cast? I believe so.But another reason why EMP is so strong, is because Ghost is a very small unit that is hard to distinquish from other Bio when clumped and hard to snipe. It is frustrating to play against, when you struggle to see where the Ghosts are, with different spells being cast and Medivacs flying on top of them. I believe the EMP spell needs to be moved on a bigger, easier to spot unit - the Raven. It is big, flying, easy to target, mobile, and costs more gas, which reduced the massability aspect.Raven already has a dissapointing spell - Auto-Turret. In past it had stuipid duration, making it good only for turtling. Now it has bigger damage, but short duration. Unfortunately, it cannot be placed during the battle because its placement works same as placing buildings - it there are units on the ground, the spell is useless. If we remove it and give EMP to Raven, we can kill two birds with one stone. Energy requirement should be higher, at 100 or 125 energy - it is a powerf