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#Post#: 1600--------------------------------------------------
Re: Perhaps Tanklings Are Overtuned
By: Speed Date: January 10, 2021, 2:25 pm
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[quote author=WMaster link=topic=160.msg1593#msg1593
date=1610305467]
I don't quite see how the change would specifically encourage
bunkering. The way I see it, you might choose between getting
enough DPS to propel them or to invest into enough defense.
Reapers I think could do well against early Tankling aggression
as they do not require energy which would otherwise be drained
quickly. Combining them with an Armory so they profit from +2
damage might also help.
[/quote]
Reapers are not something you want to make too much, apart from
the recent change to penetrating laser they have no upgrades and
very poor scaling into the mid / late game. Making an armory is
50/100 and takes 40seconds, simply too much money for a very
unflexible buff-aura.
[quote author=WMaster link=topic=160.msg1593#msg1593
date=1610305467]
What also could help is for Firebats to be available a bit
sooner so they can help with any type of light unit mass. I'm
thinking they could come directly with the Tech Lab, or a
possibility to train a single Firebat at higher cost available
from the start, lets say a cost of 100 gas and 0 minerals. I
think the latter option could be quite nice, it slows down the
tech for Terran, but allowing, for when the situation suits it,
to defend against early masses.
Let me know what you think of the Firebat options. Perhaps make
another topic for it if it's detailed.
[/quote]
Tbh the first thing I thought when reading / seeing new firebat
design was "omg those would be SOOOOOOO good at holding early
pressure, but sadly they are locked behind T2 so can't be used
for that."
There is some risks to this (I say "risk", but really I can
nearly guarantee you it will happen):
-Early focus being pretty meaningless other than forcing that
early firebat and annoying the terran.
-Unfocused terran getting fast firebat to have a tank for the
front small spines to handily take it out with a small force of
unupgraded units, granting the opportunity to deal damage very
early on, at the expense of investing into some units that could
have been skipped otherwise to upgrade refinery faster.
-Unexperienced players just getting a firebat for no reason.
-Zergs complaining their early all-in is much worse x) (This
one will happen 100%, even if the firebat is super expensive).
I will probably do some stream at some point explaining some
power spikes and their issues while showing replays, started
sorting some today, now I just need to be bored enough to talk
about zerg hex mechanics for like 1h-2h. While being aware that
like 5 people will watch that and only 1 will maybe understand
half of it. x)
#Post#: 1601--------------------------------------------------
Re: Perhaps Tanklings Are Overtuned
By: Ecanos Date: January 10, 2021, 2:31 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
[quote author=Turb007 link=topic=160.msg1599#msg1599
date=1610309804]
[quote author=WMaster link=topic=160.msg1593#msg1593
date=1610305467]
There seems to be debate on what Tanklings should be meant for,
however I would like to try out for them to be some sort of
early bunker buster. So it may reduce focus on players not
creating walls, because they would otherwise be the only viable
target.
I don't quite see how the change would specifically encourage
bunkering. The way I see it, you might choose between getting
enough DPS to propel them or to invest into enough defense.
Reapers I think could do well against early Tankling aggression
as they do not require energy which would otherwise be drained
quickly. Combining them with an Armory so they profit from +2
damage might also help.
[/quote]
"problem with tanklings right now is that instead of breaking
turles and walls they are used to snipe eco buildings of
expanding terrans aka rafineries and fruit farms
they also render any posibility of early micro with scvs
repairing fruit farms to tank some dmg and so on totaly
imposible as they just bust thru any farm unless like 4-5 svs
repair it" - Adam
^ This. There is no way to hold even 2 outer gases vs mass
tankling/creeper early game, can't really even hold more than 2
or 3 fruit farms unless you make an absurd amount of scvs.
Therefore its best to just turtle/bunker with 1 outer gas with
the con yard. Which, as I stated earlier, tanklings do NOT
counter (which is what you're trying to make them do) and
they'll be even more worthless vs bunkers if you decrease their
dps.
Reapers take far too long to kill tanklings with their high hp
and reapers low attack speed. You'd need to make an absurd
amount of them off of no eco because you can't hold fruit farms
(and are therefore stuck with sheep farms without the sheep but
sheep farms take far to long to build with only 1 gas). Yes
plenty of reapers and penetrating would be good against them,
but thats a 350 gas investment + gas for reapers + gas cost of
sheep farms all on top of only having 1 outer gas. Tanklings hit
far too early to have anywhere near close to any of that. Hence,
encouraging bunkering.
I'm certainly not trying to sound like a dick or anything btw.
I've liked a lot of the recent changes and am super glad this
game is being updated now and I like a lot of the new ideas. But
I just don't see this specific change being good in any way -
because again, tanklings need to be further BUFFED in order to
be an actual bunker buster - which leaves expanding terrans even
more helpless as fruit farms, gases, etc are nuked down
instantly within the first minutes of the game.
[/quote]
agree and attackspeed of tankling is fast :D
#Post#: 1606--------------------------------------------------
Re: Perhaps Tanklings Are Overtuned
By: deorai037 Date: January 10, 2021, 3:19 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
Their snipe damage is nuts imo. It needs to be nerfed by a
*lot.* A handful of tanklings snipe buildings way, way, way too
quickly. +9? I mean.... isn't that a little overkill? Even +4
damage would be plenty in the early game, imo; slowlings manage
to bring down walls with +2/3 attack.
The changes to tanklings have not been very good imo. In games
where there's two competent terrans on one side, they're still
bad; tankling spam eco is still far worse than standard eco and
gets the Z killed. In games where there's one competent terran
on the Z's side, they aren't doing anything that mass
creeper/mass slowlings haven't already been doing; making that
terran's life miserable/forced into 1/0 gas play. Mostly, in the
latter case, life is just worse for the focused Terran player,
especially since tanklings now massacre weaker Terran players to
boot.
If anything, I think higher-damage tanklings will heavily,
heavily encourage turtling. Compare them to upgraded creepers:
upgraded creepers have always been able to break down unattended
walls, but terrans have been able to respond to them because
they take time to ramp up their damage. Tanklings can bring down
walls quickly enough/snipe buildings quickly enough that most
normal terrans won't have enough time to notice and respond; in
response they'll be more likely to turtle, not less.
At absolutely no point should your designated "bunker buster"
unit *also* be a spammable unit with higher HP and low
time-to-kill on buildings. The more I play this patch the more I
feel absolutely ticked off at this patch. As soon as you're just
a little bit short on DPS, you pretty lose your entire base
within seconds, so there's far less time to respond to a broken
wall as well.
#Post#: 1608--------------------------------------------------
Re: Perhaps Tanklings Are Overtuned
By: Mett Gaming Date: January 10, 2021, 4:01 pm
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The issue that makes tanklings so incredibly hard to hold is the
following:
They are superior at denying early eco. That means as a focused
terran you basically have only in base eco to start with. That
means 60Gas/min and maybe 30-40 minerals/min for the first 5-6
minutes. That is half or a third of what a terran would normally
have by that time. With the lower resources you are now dealing
with a very hard to kill unit that the zerg can just spam out.
First supply of 5 tanklings produces 36hp/s 5*50hp/7s. Let's
just say your starting units cancel out the other spawners.
Reapers do 5,7 dps. So you would need 7 reapers just do deal
with the output mathematically. Yes it will not always produce,
ideally it would because that means you are pushing out
Let's say 5 tanklings spawn at a time. That is 250hp. 7 reapers
with their 5,7 dps will take 6,25 as in probably 7 seconds to
kill them. In 7 seconds those 5 tanklings can chew through any
building that is not repaired by at least 3 scvs. And
potentially actually kill a reaper or two. So you'd probably
need twice the ammount of reapers.
Now I'm not a mathematical genius but 14 reapers cost 280
minerals. Considering you start out with 12, I don't think
reapers could be considered a cheap counter, just because they
don't drain any energy. I think I can produce 12 reapers by 6-7
mins maybe. What if the zerg builds another supply of tanklings
like so many do? Do I now need another 20 reapers to deal with
this? ok that might be another 5 minutes. And after 11mins of
struggleing to stay alive with just reapers I'm not gonna be
willing or able to push out and kill the zerg.
Can you see how it is so much more inviting upon seeing the
first sign of tanklings just to hop back into base and start
charging my techlab?
if you want them to be wallbusters at least reduce their hp by
half down to 25. Normally you'd use shock troopers with your
reapers to defend as normal units take one ground pulse and 1 or
two shots from anything else. Enabling you to hold on to at
least one gas for quite a while. Tanklings take 3 ground pulses
to be killed.
Edit: found a better vid showcasing how you can hold at least 1
Gas no matter what the zerg throws at you. Until Tanklings show
up.
@WMaster: this is what the situation looks like on the ground.
And I'm not only a decent (that hurt deorai >:() player, I'm
also one of the best at holding early pressure.
HTML https://youtu.be/rtkZsVqSi0E
#Post#: 1609--------------------------------------------------
Re: Perhaps Tanklings Are Overtuned
By: Mett Gaming Date: January 10, 2021, 4:09 pm
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And regarding the firebat idea: That would indeed be the one way
to force zerg to leave the terrans alone for the first 16-18
mins of the game. Needless to say I don't consider it a great
one without sufficient tools to then deal with the marines
pushes at 12-14 mins :)
#Post#: 1610--------------------------------------------------
Re: Perhaps Tanklings Are Overtuned
By: deorai037 Date: January 10, 2021, 4:24 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
The issue we're all identifying is time-to-kill is way too low
for buildings as result of this massive damage increase. It's
absolutely absurd.
Even decent players are considering early turtling when they see
early tanklings now; at a certain level of pressure, it ceases
to be economically worthwhile to hold more than 1 gas. If the
response to tanklings requires an extra 10 reapers to defend 4
gases (only one of which is upgraded, and two of which have been
sniped/delayed multiple times by tankling pressure), that's
barely worth the eco; you might as well have just spent those
same minerals upgrading your two safe gases earlier and then on
fast cow farms for quicker ions instead.
At any rate, "wall-buster" units should primarily rely on
expression of micro skill, not "how hard can I spam this."
Otherwise they end up being useless against high-level players,
painful for mid-level players, and downright oppressive among
lower-level players, which is honestly the opposite of fun.
#Post#: 1611--------------------------------------------------
Re: Perhaps Tanklings Are Overtuned
By: Hecari Date: January 10, 2021, 5:06 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
There are two ways to defend as Terran: have enough repair power
to simply stop walls from dying, or have enough firepower to
kill the Zerg before they get to you. The issue is that
Tanklings are currently too good at both. It's plainly obvious
why Tanklings are very strong against the repairing strategy, so
I will expand on why they are currently also strong against the
firepower one.
When compared to simply massing Slowlings, Tanklings have
essentially the same HP/sec. However, Tanklings do experience
slightly more idle time due to having a cap of two, so the real
number is perhaps 10 or 20% less than Slowlings. However, they
have a couple of very distinct advantages:
[list]
[li]They are not as susceptible to Shock Trooper blasts[/li]
[li]Grouping up Tanklings allows for big wave pushes of much
more combined HP than slowlings[/li]
[li]Correctly split-microing Tanklings in wave pushes makes them
incredibly difficult to deal with, due to the above[/li]
[li]Terran has very little time to respond to Tanklings before
every expensive low ground building is destroyed[/li]
[li]With Armor 1, Tanklings become on par or better than
Slowlings with respect to effective HP/sec[/li]
[/list]
In general, they are too strong of an all-rounder unit, so
naturally they are used to kill dangerous expanding Terrans
rather than no-push-potential bunkering ones. In this way,
Tanklings encourage Terrans to bunker by allowing Zerg to
full-focus aggressive Terran much more effectively, while still
being ineffective versus Construction Yard-buffed walls. Why
would I play aggressive and expand when all that would do is
cause Zerg to build a bunch of unkillable Tanklings and destroy
all my low ground?
The overall problem seems to be that while, yes, Tanklings are
now more effective against turtling Terrans and their walls,
they have become even more effective against aggressive
expanding Terrans. Tanklings can kill an expanding Terran's
temporary walls, but not a turtle Terran's Construction Yard
walls.
Potential solutions I can initially think of include:
[list]
[li]Tanklings deal %HP damage to walls instead of massive early
game flat damage[/li]
[li]Tanklings ignore Construction Yard damage reduction
aura[/li]
[li]Tanklings have ramping damage like Creepers[/li]
[/list]
All of these ideas would cause Tanklings to be specifically more
effective against a Terran relying on powerful walls while
having little Army to kill things, which is more in line with
their intended use.
One final point I would like to make is that currently there is
still no reason for Zerg to go after bunkering Terrans. Without
the accompanying Mega Tank buff, low-gas turtling Terrans are
still entirely harmless.
#Post#: 1614--------------------------------------------------
Re: Perhaps Tanklings Are Overtuned
By: Speed Date: January 10, 2021, 5:33 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
[quote author=Hecari link=topic=160.msg1611#msg1611
date=1610319999]
One final point I would like to make is that currently there is
still no reason for Zerg to go after bunkering Terrans. Without
the accompanying Mega Tank buff, low-gas turtling Terrans are
still entirely harmless.
[/quote]
Maybe not entirely harmless, but the counter is definetely to
make eco and try to wipe them later with ravs / bruts / infused
/ torra / bane (some of these work better than others
obviously).
#Post#: 1615--------------------------------------------------
Re: Perhaps Tanklings Are Overtuned
By: Oayoo Date: January 10, 2021, 11:39 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
Giving power to early units to Zergs will always encourage
bunker because Terrans will not be able to expand
Early game units for Zergs should be Defensive/economic/micro
units
This is why, as always, i will repeat myself and say that if you
want the game to work, you need to:
-make Terran early game strong.
-make Zerg mid/late game strong.
#Post#: 1616--------------------------------------------------
Re: Perhaps Tanklings Are Overtuned
By: WMaster Date: January 11, 2021, 9:45 am
---------------------------------------------------------
[quote author=Hecari link=topic=160.msg1611#msg1611
date=1610319999]When compared to simply massing Slowlings,
Tanklings have essentially the same HP/sec. However, Tanklings
do experience slightly more idle time due to having a cap of
two, so the real number is perhaps 10 or 20% less than
Slowlings.[/quote]
Did you mean this the other way around? As I see it, Tanklings
can produce for 2x7 sec before becoming idle and Slowlings for
2x4 sec.
[quote author=Hecari link=topic=160.msg1611#msg1611
date=1610319999]
Potential solutions I can initially think of include:
[list]
[li]Tanklings deal %HP damage to walls instead of massive early
game flat damage[/li]
[li]Tanklings ignore Construction Yard damage reduction
aura[/li]
[li]Tanklings have ramping damage like Creepers[/li]
[/list]
All of these ideas would cause Tanklings to be specifically more
effective against a Terran relying on powerful walls while
having little Army to kill things, which is more in line with
their intended use.
[/quote]
Thanks for the suggestions. I'll go with a similar idea, to let
them ignore any armor. This results in a 2/175 = 1.1% of HP as
bonus damage to walls at the start, while converging slowly to
1/(0.3*175) = 1.9% of HP with fortification upgrades. Unless you
meant from 'current HP', in which case it's different.
Making them ignore the Construction Yard damage reduction also
seems quite suiting to give Tanklings a clear advantage over
other Zerg units when facing walls with the aura. It allows for
them to have significantly less damage while still be viable as
long as they have more than 60% damage compared to another unit.
Putting these together, it simply becomes that Tanklings ignore
any damage reduction, also known as 'true damage'. I think I'll
patch today with also a significant reduction in damage. They'll
still have, to my knowledge, a lesser idle time compared to
Slowlings. And with them ignoring armor they should still deal
good damage to walls compared to other units.
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