They've made Widow mine drops too GOOD
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- Опубліковано 18 чер 2024
- The widow mine drop is hated by every single Protoss player and has been a focal point of discussion in the latest round of balance patches. But there is a good reason why the community is so vocal about it now, and that is because it has never been harder than right now to defend a widow mine drop.
This isn't about whether you agree with the balance or design of the unit. It's just pointing out that there is probably a good reason why it seems like the complaining has reached a new peak.
Let me know your thoughts in the comments down below.
0:00 Introduction
0:38 Heart of the Swarm
2:14 Early Legacy of the Void
3:45 Modern Legacy
6:47 The New Patch
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I really wish that more people would bring awareness to this issue. The fact is that the Widow Mine drop is a very low risk/high reward strat that can also be an opener because of how easy it is to get the necessary units out and is pathetically easy to execute compared to the necessary defense against it.
Stargate phoenix is hard counter. Scout is not that easy for P but race has hard-counter build against widow-mines.
@xxxyyy5080 yes BUT then you have teched into a difficult direction. the structures you build for a widow mine drop follow very cleanly into a marine tank medivac push a few minutes later. which is much harder to defend with phoenix and gateway units. compared to robotics and gateway units.
alternatively if you have gone stargate to build oracles, the widow mines and marines the terran has teched into make great and easily microed defensive units against oracles/phenoix, while oracles phoenix are very micro intense and difficult to be cost effective against widow mine marine
So the best counter to a low risk/high reward play, is a high risk play.
@@xxxyyy5080 Phoenix is only a hard counter of you have at least 2 by the time the mines get to you, which you would already need to be going for Phoenix to begin with. If you do a build that doesn't open with a Stargate, which happens a lot in PvT since SCV's don't get 2 shot by Oracles, then Phoenix are obviously not an option. This falls under the same category as cannons for a counter in that it only works if you are essentially blind countering the mine drop. Protoss just doesn't have time to scout and get a hard counter ready for a mine drop. By the time you scout the mine drop, your only real option is to just warp in Stalkers and pray that you have some detection on the way. If you don't have a Robo up yet, an Oracle, or a Forge already built, which again are all relatively common scenarios in PvT except for maybe the Robo, then you are just kind of screwed. In my opinion, that's just not healthy gameplay. You shouldn't be forced into doing only a select few builds just because your opponent *could* be going for something specific.
Stargate is not that bad against Terran. Phoenix not only protect against mine and any other drops but also is very good against Siege Tank (lift is amazing) and denies Reaper/Hellion scout. Micro intensive lol you literaly has to click both mine to burrow and phoenix to lift and phoenix lifts faster than mine burrows.
I wasn't the one that said micro intensive, but I believe he was talking about actually fighting with Pheonix. Just guessing though. Stargate units are not that great either. Pheonix can be good up to a certain point. Hard to lift tanks when there's a big ball right in front of them. Although, I do agree that they can definitely be useful. My point though wasn't to say that Stargate sucks versus Terran. I was just saying that we shouldn't be forced to build Pheonix as soon as possible just to counter something that *might* happen. It stifles creativity and makes for some very boring and predictable games that will usually result in a Terran win anyway.
I think we should buff widow mine instead, make them do 45 splash damage so the Terran players can enjoy them more
They need like +5 vs mechanical so they oneshot SCVs but aren't stronger vs Z
Let's just take a VERY SMALL STEP: 125(+40 splash) → 120(+45 splash)
this would make widowmine drop in TvT viable. And stimed marine could be one-shoted.
We can just take this very small change to make terran player enjoy widowmine drop more, then we discuss how to fix them.
The bonus damage vs shields is retarded. Ok, protoss units have more hitpoints, but that's because they are fewer and much more expensive. The other units don't need damage bonus vs shields to keep up, so why would widow mines would need it?
I'm confused on how this is supposed to be a good thing for PvT. Not trying to argue. Just confused and trying to understand. Not sure why Terrans don't enjoy Widow Mine drops when it's so easy to get game winning damage from them.
@@itranscendencei7964 It's probably a joke meant to make terrans feel how frustrating they are and see them finally changed.
@@itranscendencei7964 There already are many harassment mechanics that hit terran less than everyone else. Oracle needs 3 shots to kill SCV, 2 shots for drone and probe, hellion needs 6 against SCV, 5 against other, you need 4 adepts to kill drone/probe, 5 to kill SCV and many more examples. In fact most of worker harrass mechanics needs 1 more hit to kill SCV than to kill drone or probe, without going through all units i can think of only liberator and disruptor as example that needs same number of shots to kill probe as to kill SCV. True to this widow mine only kills 1 SCV and leaves other in splash range living with 5HP, making widow mine not as frustrating in TvT, so this change would be good in TvP just by giving TvT same frustration as Z or P have and better chance to fix it later...
And as it looks like, honestly since beginning of SC2, changes tends to favor terran more often than not, nerfs to terran tend to be minor in comparison to others and many of balance changes in past were communicated as 'damage have to be nerfed so it cannot 1-shot/2-shot unupgraded marine'
I see what you mean. Also it's 3 Adepts to one shot an SCV and 2 for Probes/Drones. I get your point though. If we want something to get nerfed on the Terran side, then we have to make them complain about it first. That whole "so it doesn't 1 shot a marine" statement from them is laughable. God forbid a unit that costs as much as a worker doesn't get easily killed by anything. It's not like Marines scale the best out of any unit because of the way their DPS works or anything (other than Carriers but this also proves my point further).
I vote to have Probe on the Balance Council. Who's with me ??
Also, Widow Mines should one shot SCVs too so that Terrans can feel how OP it is.
He clearly seems to be the only pro who's capable of basic logic
How many pro games are ended by widow mine drops killing probes?
Not being sarcastic, I'd really like to know. Quick, someone start the analysis & send us the spreadsheet
Sounds like a project for me.
@@ProbeSC2probe, that would actually be a great bit of information for the community to have. It would add some raw data to the discussion, and make it a bit less emotional.
Just as a viewer, it *seems* like widow mines don’t end pro matches all that much- and this is likely because pros have the micro and reaction necessary to handle widow mine drops, even if the effort required to defend then is more than the effort required to execute.
I think it should also be noted that even if it is indeed a very small minority of matches that are decided solely on widow mine drops, I don’t think that should be used as a counter argument to adjusting widow mines. It’s clear that below the pro level, there’s a large imbalance in effort required to execute and effort required to defend, as well as a general dislike of playing against widow mines. We’ve changed previous popular strategies before because they were simply un fun or too frustrating (nydus swarmhost, proxy void rays, void ray meta in pvz, etc.) I don’t see why we can’t do that for widow mines as well.
One of the problems with widow mine defense is, imo, that even if Protoss see them coming and pull probes away, it is still good for Terran because of the lost mining time and because they get at least 1 Probe per Mine. It is basically always worth it for Terran and additionally has a high chance of winning the game straight up. That's not fair. A high reward strategy should come with high risk / high costs / high skill requirement nothing of which is true for Widow Mine drops.
I really wish there were more people that understood this. The almost guaranteed damage is probably why ByuN likes to open with it so much. Even gold level players can easily execute it though, and it takes such a small time/res investment. I really don't see how this has gone unchecked for so long. It's so egregious that it should be so obvious.
@@itranscendencei7964gold players CANNOT execute it. Even low diamond struggles with it sometimes(3.4k terran offrace me for example tskes 2 seconds to burrow rather than the 0 good terrans take) the biggest issue with mines though as you have said is how little risk it has for such high reward. The committment to mines is so small. I would say buff the mine to fix this. Make it cost 75/50 but make it do more.
@@snowdrop9810 I will have to firmly disagree with you there. Gold players might not be able to execute it with absolute perfection like others with high MMR, but saying that they can't execute it at all is just not true. I have literally watched it happen, and even remember having it happen to me back when I was going through gold last time. It's literally just shift clicking your Medivac over the mineral line and to the dead space, then all you do is press one button to burrow. Pathetically easy, especially when compared to what you have to do to defend as Protoss. Also, I'm not really sure how the Widow Mine doing more damage for 25 more gas is going to fix the issue.
@@snowdrop9810 Gold players have like 50-80 apm, if they aren't looking at their base the widow mines will pretty much instantly end the game by killing the entire worker line, problem is that neither of the other races have an equivilant to this because you can't drop storms collosus or disruptors (which wouldnt kill as much anyway, and costs about 4 times more)
Zerg has banelings but they still obviously aren't as good because they'd have to run by your army/defenses or invest heavily in dropping and dont have burrow for free so cant harass your entire mineral line for as long either. That aspect doesnt really matter as much in low elo though because stopping mining time isn't as big of an issue there, but murdering an entire worker line will end most games.
Protoss has only adepts and the entire race just works differently, but I've learnt lately that whining isn't ever gonna help game devs with balance decisions, because most people will just whine in bad faith and what dominates a game will usually keep dominating for years, if you can't beat them just join them. I love protoss and despite being easier I'd rather opt to play zerg or terran because their units and playstyles just feel that much stronger, if harder.
@@itranscendencei7964 the biggest issue with mines is that if you clean it up fully but the medivac lives because you have to shoot mines before the medivac, then terran basically loses fuck all. Making it cost 75/50 and have longer built time would mean losing the mines is a much bigger loss. And also a much bigger investment to the drop, while rewarding terrans who manage to save their mines rather then leave them to die because they're nearly free.
I'd like it if they just reduced the splash radius. It is a such a huge radius for a non-suicidal unit whose splash damage doesn't fall off from the center. The amount of Probes or Drones that can be killed in one shot, even when pulled ahead of time, is a bit asinine. Perhaps there can be a tech lab upgrade that increases the radius for those who use mines heavily.
The problem with mine drop is that the only way to def it is to ruin your eco eitherway.
1) Lose probes to the mine or 2) pull probes from mineral line meanwhile Terran drop mules in his
It was always absurd to have bonus damage against shields, I get that protoss have beefier units but it's not like banelings (which are being nerfed to be fair) needed bonus damage to shields just because protoss units are tanky, theyre still built in zvp but just not ideal vs the protoss army in general, and thats just okay just like how basically half the protoss roster has no place in protoss army after midgame (e.g adepts, sentries, immortals, in any matchups really)
Really I get the same feeling with ghosts and EMP, because the protoss ground army is so god awful lategame that it feels like terrans don't really need to have EMP shields to beat them handily anyway? I wish protoss wasn't so reliant on gimmicks like warp prisms or mass disruptors because their lategame is so terrible, but here we are. I get that terrans arent that overpowered in the matchup, but stuff like siege tanks, liberators, ghosts, widow mines and just stim bio in general just feels so absurdly strong into any protoss equivilant, and you only win via dominating the early and midgame and catching your opponent off guard because other races are just better when microd properly (even if it is harder for them).
PvZ isn't that much better, stalkers lose to roaches, lose to zerglings, lose to skyzerg or skyterran or more than 3 siege tanks or 7+ lurkers, zealouts are just terrible vs everything lategame and should probably have enough melee range to attack through each other after unlocking charge, or maybe their upgrade should be +2 dmg weapons so they will 2shot zerglings late because as it stands they have no plcae in the game except as meatshields for your equally terrible stalkers/roboport units. Collosus are weird because their attacks are so slow compared to lurkers or siege tank dps while having the weakness of being targeted by anti air units that only target air and will automatically focus the collosus. Zerglings lategame are cracked and protoss turtling is really bad because they have the worst ground dps defensive structure. If the protoss could just literally wall off with some kind of shield gate like terran gets supply depots I feel like the game would dramatically improve vs zerg without being overpowered
If all you said were true, how is it that protoss has a higher winrate vs terran in every league?
Nah protoss ain't that bad as you said, but protoss does need some help
Immortals and Sentries have no place after midgame? That is news to me! I agree with you overall though. The bonus vs shields is a bit silly.
The fact that there is almost no way to avoid taking damage earlier on even with preparation and attention is insane. Once they burrow you have no choice but to sacrifice units. A robo and observers while having enough stalkers to defend by minute 4 is insane.
This is a none argument on its own. forced unit trades aren't uncommon in starcraft, most of the time you can't completely defend something like an early banshee either, the question is whether he gets enough value for it.
@@ghosthunter0950 Not when you drop two very cheap units and you the opponent was prepared for it. That's like dropping 2 zealots when a bio ball is there to greet them and still expect some kind of "trade".
@@Leonhart_93 The problem is that both things happen at the same time.
Widow mines needed to do damage in HotS because Photon overcharge meant that Protoss effectively needed nothing to defend pressure. It was a 14 range cannon with 2000 hit points that lasted for a full 60 seconds. You could literally defend with just a cannon, or just an observer, and that alone was an issue. The entire "Having splash zones" for mines was arguably the worst period of balance ever; and that's not an exaggeration. We have never, ever seen a balance period before or since where an entire race was almost completely missing from the Ro32 of pretty much every premier tournament at that time. GSL during that particular period had 2-4 Terrans in each Ro32.
Introducing tiered splash damage specifically meant that there was nothing a Terran could do to keep or punish a Protoss during the first few minutes of the game, while Protoss in return could either tech up without spending money on units to defend, or simply kill you with a blink build that hit so early it was nigh undefendable. Zerg by contrast quite literally went to A-moving their way to victory against Terran since mine splash damage did nothing and they could simply overwhelm you with numbers alone. It didn't help that tanks were straight up worthless then too. You would literally do more damage to your own economy by pulling workers than by leaving them to take the mine damage.
The widow mine now DOES have its issues. But the illustrated examples in the first half of the video actually better illustrate why mines are a necessary evil IMO, because both examples had 0 units on the map aside from the MSC until units were warped in AFTER the attack hit, and frankly the units there were effectively unnecessary. Nowadays, you're required to have units to defend against mine drops - and other attacks - which you frankly didn't really have to do before. This means you can't tech quite as quickly without taking some sort of risk, and that means you have to slow down your build - sometimes by quite a bit - to have defense in place, which has its own knock on effect.
Honestly speaking the biggest issue I think the Mine has now is that it produces a fair amount faster than it did previously after it was given a compensatory buff for the removal of its cloak after firing (prior to the armoury being constructed). Having said that, two of the 3 opening tech paths that Protoss have also have readily available detection, but I don't think that really offsets the build time increase.
Personally, I'd like to see a reversion to widow mine's decreased build time, which at the very least should reduce the number of mines that you would need to deal with since it would increase production time by at least 25% per mine.
So happy there is a Protoss youtuber who talks calmly and logically about that stuff.
It is so tiresome to see Harstem hating on Protoss, not understanding lower league problems.
Thank you mate! Subscribed.
I love this channel. He’s telling us things as things really are. Harstem is so politically correct that he won’t admit Protoss is underperforming. His recent video said the cyclone change is bad for Terran, SMH.
Widow mine is a pretty big part of why I quit SC2. As a player around Gold level it felt much much harder to defend against than for Terran to pull off. Looks like the latest patch only balances it for high level players - scrubs who aren't as good as using the minimap or microing will still struggle.
Widow mines will never get nerfed. Terrans cry way harder than the other two races, and their tears make their way to the balance teams much more frequently.
With the amount of crying about widow mines I highly doubt that.
Great analysis! For me, I don’t mind the current widow mine. If I lost to it, I know where I should improve. What I worry the most is the potential of Protoss. I wish you could analyze about the pvz late game from the pro point of view. As a Starcraft diamond player and viewer, after seeing serral vs maxpax and serral vs classic, it seems to me that protoss does not have an army comp that can trade effectively against broodlord corruptor viper comp. Do you think if a a Protoss plays perfectly, he theoretically can beat serral’s army comp?
Well this is obviously very biased, but I don't think so (especially vs Serral because he is goated).
But I still think it definitely involves carriers a lot more than tempest, so not a fan of how maxpax approached it.
The other thing that I think Protoss has to do is build a mothership and use recall tactics, either into the main or complete other side of the map.
I dont know man, seem like terran mech army is also broken to me, they can just mass thor tank or bc and im fcked
On top of those, Medivac Ignite Afterburner used to be slower? So you had more time to move probes away
Heart of the Swarm:
movement speed and acceleration to 4.25 for 8 seconds. Cooldown 20s.
Legacy of the Void:
movement speed to 5.95 and acceleration to 1400 for 4.3 seconds. Cooldown 12s.
I'm trying to find patch notes that go over any medivac changes, and I'm not finding any real relevant ones. One thing I'm always careful of is converting between legacy and hots/wol, just because of the timing change. So I'm not going to definitely agree with you (but it certainly seems possible).
What about this... WM now has an auto-attack while unborrowed. (could be 1dmg). That way, when you get drop you get the alert sound. It would not change other game interactions. Thoughts?
move command instead of a-move? i do that all the time when im being sneaky
The armory was the last straw. Is just so easy ro permanently hide widow mines is unreal
Tbf. You should have an oracle or robo by this time. I agree that WM drops may be imba but the detection thing isn't really an issue at higher levels.
@@Jake-mp7exthe thing is that like, in my games for example, i really like to open with twilight to have an early game agression with blink, and ofc it does not give detection, so i would have to get a robo aswell, which really isn't ideal
@@Jake-mp7exits still expensive to need an observer sitting in your main at 4 minutes, as well as the stalkers, doesn't give much potential for variation in builds if you're forced to get detection and units in position every single game to blind counter an op harass
@@Jake-mp7exand than its a mmm all in and neither the oracle or observer will help.
Reavers were too random and frustrating... So they gave them cloak and handed them over to terran.
A possible solution i came to this is to make widow mines 1 shot only, as you said , they have become stronger and stronger and harder to counter since first coming out, and it's come to a stage where it can shutdown a mineral line for a extended period of time. Making widow mines 1 shot only until u get an upgrade would do a lot to resolve the issue.
I vote the opposite: widow mines can shoot multiple times once they get their first shot off, except they can never get their first shot off.
Some of my own thoughts regarding the Widow Mine and comparing it to it's spiritual predecessor the Spider Mine.
Both are really powerful when you as a Protoss player make a mistake. Which is fine that's just how StarCraft is. But a few key things separate the SM from the WM.
1. SMs can't target workers unless it targets a non hovering unit 1st and you have it near a probe line (which to be fair is your mistake).
2. The Dropship in SC1/BW has a longer tech path compared to the Medivac. Depot > Rax > Factory > Starport > Control Tower. Which isn't even adding the fact you need a Machine shop on a factory and to research the spider mine ability from the Vulture. For SC2 it's just Depot > Rax > Factory > Starport (can also build widow mines as the Starport builds).
3. The worst offender of all (imo) WMs can't be defused once burrowed without detection. They're literally a probe tax unless you have Blink, a Warp Prism or you can time your Adept shade correctly. Yea sure in a real game you generally will have an observer with Dragoons to defuse the fields of mines that have been planted, but that's cause you have to go do a bunch of other actions and can't always babysit the Dragoons. WMs on the other hand have a chance to kill your detection.
I guess what I'm trying to say that Widow Mines should have better forms of defusing that can reward the player. Not just (oh you need X unit or ability to do that). in exchange for how much more versatile they are compared to the Spider Mine.
The very least that could be done is to make the targeting much more apparent. The same way how seeker/anti armor missile works. A unit is marked and you have a short while to move it away/ use it to bait the shot.
The best change that could be done without severely nerfing the unit to complete uselessness or removal (which I do not condone). Is to allow the WM to be attackable during the short animation where it reveals to the player where it is but is not revealed to the player's units. Then gate that mechanic to drilling claws, armory gives the mine the permacloak, Drilling Claws gives the WM untargetability on the firing animation. This time if WMs burrow behind a mineral line you don't just lose a probe to defuse it you can now kill it without having to sacrifice a unit. An interaction which only ever happens with the Widow Mine.
Also, pathfinding was a lot more spastic in BW, so things were rarely as clumped up. Not that that matters as much for mineral lines, but at least it was more interesting to watch the mines scuttle around.
I like that suggestion; where you can attack the mine before it fires while it is targeting something. It seems to cover the missing dps the protoss has and retargetting for a better shot is not a good option while units are trying to already kill it.
That said, I have no clue how feasible this suggestion is.
@0NBalfa0 If you're asking from a technical side. It's very much possible, modders have become so talented that almost anything can be changed. While it wouldn't really affect interactions much in army to army terms as an armory could be made. It does make defending the WM drop healthier by removing the "tax" portion of the drop. Bringing it in line with other economic harass options. A unit that has the ability to evaporate a whole mineral line in a second should not be able to do it for such a cheap investment. If it can be done cheaply, the response should also be the same.
@@zeoncrystal Yeah I am asking from a technical side since, for instance, you cannot really change the width of the widow mine lazer pointer via the value on the sc2 editor.
Similarly, I am not certain if there is a direct value that we could alter to make the widow mine uncloaked and target-able while it is targeting something.
I am not doubting the argument in favour such a suggestion, just the implementation given the available personnel (and patching this outside of the available values does always run the risk of introducing bugs into the game (which take a long time to fix)).
honestly, why not remove the widow mine?
it's not a particularly loved unit by terran players and literally everyone else thinks it's the most cancerous thing in the game.
whatever you replace it with will almost certainly be less annoying.
I can see why protoss players are frustrated by widow mine drops and see them as OP. But as a terran player & also someone that's watched a lot of pro play, you have to also consider the drawbacks/risks/costs of them, and overall they are not imba IMO.
For a terran to go widow mine drop, either they have to go for a double gas opener late expand, to get a faster factory, or they have to significantly delay tank and raven production. With the former, you need to kill 5-8 probes merely to equalize the economic disadvantage. With the latter, even if you get big hits and kill 10-15 probes, you will most often still die to 4 gate blink because the widow mine production critically delays your tank production, and you only have 1 tank out, maybe 2, at the time the blink attack hits, and realistically you need 3 to defend. You see this often at the pro level also - the best terrans in the world often get wrecked by 4 gate blink if they go widow mine drop, even if it hits. It also delays raven production so you will die to DTs.
The other thing is that widow mine drops are not good against startgate phoenix. It's easy to scout widow mine, and to catch the drop coming. If the drop doesn't get damage, terran goes into the midgame with a massive disadvantage and will usually lose.
Lastly, Terran have no other harassment opportunities in the early game, because early game terran bio units are terrible until you get stim, CS and medivacs. Terran has to have at least one option for punishing a lack of scouting, lack of attention, or excessively greedy play. It's the only option Terran realistically has. Without any threats, toss can play greedy while also pressuring with all their units, which are extremely strong in the early game. Widow mines are an essential balancing unit in TvP and without them the match-up would be unplayable for terran.
Well, does mine usually regenerate after its used? Regenerating mine it self its already OP
Terran here. Honestly, the drilling claws giving perma cloak felt fair to me. It made widow mines powerful but requiring an investment beyond just spamming them out.
Speaking of, I could see a ghost nerf where ghosts still have their splash radius but shield upgrades provide protection % based against the emp. Like instead of full drain every time, the shields are hit, sure, but emp power is reduced by protoss investing in the 'useless' shield upgrades.
Like 0-0-1 gets you a 5%/10% protection against emp and so on building up to a max of 30%
Edit: this also could shield energy too
I can understand why this is a problem on higher level, cause of it's game ending damage. For me on low diamond it's not that much of a problem. There aren't many mine drops and if there are, terran is doing nothing else but microing the drop for half a minute. That's why i don't care for balance that much in general. There's almost always a way back into the game on my level.
I’d argue that widow mines shouldn’t be able to fire immediately after burrowing. Instead they have to be reloading/preparing the first shot as soon as they burrow.
Pretty easy to counter argue this: WMs are important for zvz to deal with ling bane muta. You can't patch them this way.
Both the burrow takes time and they also have a delay before shooting. what exactly are you suggesting?
unless you mean they should get their cooldown... if you wanna nerf them completely out of the game just say so.
I've heard from multiple people that the change to make the targeting line more visible was not possible to implement without more in-depth changes, so it was not in the current update. I'm not sure if that is true, but that is at least one explanation.
Correct, it wasn't just as simple as changing a value. It seems harder than they thought to make it bigger.
It's not just protoss players, widow mines kill drones just as fast and easily. It's a stupidly cheap unit and urgently needs a nerf. Either an increase in gas cost, or reducing it's ability to kill large numbers of workers.
Fix: Widow Mines must be manually targeted _and_ manually fired, and these are separate commands.
So stupid it would made mines useless against anything (example ling bane, look at how hard is to connect bane mines and 2 clicks to target and fire CRAZY) exept droping them in mineral lines. For widow mine not to shoot when it is in mineral line is good becouse you stay cloked and P cant spot you now. You are stupid. That would make mine bad againsy Z and amazing against P but only to drop early/mid game.
Even better: make their attack weaker (35 splash, for instance), but give them an ability like a small rocket that deals 10 damage in an area, so you can still kill workers (including SCVs), but mines used around the map retain their use even when you're not actively micro-ing them.
Terran has enough micro to perform as it is. Mines would be 100% useless vs Ling / Bane / Muta. Do you want to balance this by making Banelings require manual detonation each time too?
@@ZC.Andrew Banes aren't ranged, Zagara
@sonoffenix3399 LOL that was funny. OK, but so what?? You'd still be talking about a huge imbalance between the amount of micro and work needed between the two races. It would make Mines suck so bad in PvZ. I am guessing you don't play Terran!
I'm going to be honest here: I'm really, really frustrated playing against T, both as P and Z. I'm at the point where Playing vs. T is not fun… I do not enjoy the games; regardless of the result, they are simply not fin.
And this worries me
Considering just how much burst damage widow mines do, it kinda makes sense that they would be more powerful post mothership core. With the mothership core you could drive them away because they would be easier to kill. The shield battery doesn't do damage and one shots a lot of things anyway so they don't really do anything to help and prevent the mines from being able to do their damage. Because of that, the defensive mechanic of toss can't really do anything to support defending mine drops.
Ask the toss in this mf, terrans OP
Personally I hate it not because of balance , but because the design is shit . First it aint a mine , second it is out of place in the game . Bring back vultures! Let us compete for places over the map
Very interesting analysis
Protoss:
1. Detections are in three different trees and they work very different.
- Cannon needs Forge, and can't move, which will cost a lot minerals in early game.
- Observer may got widow-mined by chance, which is sad.
- Oracle was a good idea but man they have marines.
2. Stalker doesn't have enough firepower to clean a widow mine in time. you see a lot of time a widow mine walks away easily. Also you don't have enough stalkers while Zerg has a lot queens / Terran has a lot marines, if they play right.
My idea:
- Widow mine can be seen in a period of time before it go shooting / after it shot.
- Give Stalker a free&long-cooldown-time blink ability, and the cool down time can be reduced when in-pylon-range/upgrade.
I think the biggest problem with widowmine is then attention and APm required from the user and defender are extremely disproportioned. Terran has to do very minimal to set it up while it take a lot for the defender to fend it off. If they could make it so both sides invest about same amount of attention to use and defend it, then it will be fine.
"I think the biggest problem with widowmine is then attention and APm required from the user and defender are extremely disproportioned"
this goes for pretty much any aggression vs defense. defense is almost always harder than aggression.
and the APM you need to defend a widow mine isn't that high, it's absolutely not the issue. the issue for lower level players is reacting to it fast enough.
call me radical but IMHO the widow mine should be removed and replaced with something else.
that unit doesn't belong in multiplayer. it generates massive amounts of frustration for everyone even when it's balanced.
if you took it out the game would be better for 99% of the playerbase and the high 1% would be indifferent.
While increasing the widowmine damage, let's also increase the friendly fire exclusive splash radius by 50%
-Sincerely,
The Zerg Cabal
I'll see if I can think of something more constructive to write.
Sure, then we can rule that banelings should work the same way and damage friendly units too.
@@octav3k I guess it is only fair that we add a similar rule to the banes. In fact, I will go as high as to say that we should quadruple their friendly fire exclusive radius!
I am sure the Terran citizens will appreciate the change.
Protoss players gotta git gud AND widow mines are awful. These stupid things were added to stop sudden influx of mutas. MAYBE phoenixes. They never were supposed to be a harass tools. What lunatic would ever use something called "mine" for agressive purposes?
The review on the history of window mines was really interesting so props for that. I do agree that mines are an issue, but I have some criticism:
Firstly, the fact that in the past there was an easy defense doesn't say anything about the state of things today. It's really a none argument. the only argument with merit is talking about how defending against widow mines works today which you said nothing about. all you're talking about is why they weren't an issue before. It's an important distinction to make.
Secondly, you talked about the mine build time being reduced as a buff but didn't describe whatsoever why and how this change affects drops. without the latter part it's a complete none argument as well.
Well maybe I failed in the message behind the video, but the main goal was just to point out why we've possibly seen a huge uptick in discussion around the widow mine, especially around the latest patch. I'm sure you've seen the daily threads on reddit about it lol.
Obviously how it interacts with what tools Protoss has is going to determine the strength of the drop. So if there was easy defence like you said in the past, and that doesn't exist any longer, by definition the widow mine drop is stronger today.
In terms of build time, I think you can get another mine out (3 vs 2) in the time it takes to build the starport and medivac.
One thing not mentioned is that early in LOTV you had a lot of disruptor drops. I'm not saying they were fun but they were somewhat similar to WM drops.
Get gud plant boys!
The problem with trying to remove explosive damage like this one you'ld have to remove things like storms and disruptors that just delete the terran army
Yeah there are a lot of problems with making any change. And this video doesn't really present a solution.
Hopefully it gets people thinking about why so many protoss players complain about it.
Once in a blue moon it will delete a mineral line, which is an incongruous way to win a 'strategy' game. Maybe this is karma for Reaver drops?
Hard to measure the opportunity cost of going WM drop (fewer tanks? slower push?)
Cure seems to think it's always worth a punt. Tbh it feels balanced to me (with apologies to my protoss brethren and sistren)
I would like to see Terrans being a little sneakier with WMs, though. Drop them off out of vision, in multiple locations, shift click burrow into mineral lines before initiating fight with Main Army etc
Anyway, Terrans need widow mines to deal with all the disgusting insects. Make em stronger, I say. Kill more insects.
I see it deal near game-ending (and sometimes actual game ending) damage against the likes of herO, Creator, and Classic all the time. Like, more often than not in a high-level PvT series, at least one game in the Bo3 or Bo5 has a devastating Widow Mine drop.
Protoss players are not dumb, they are just mechanically weaker on average.
1. Does the initial widow mine drop require more effort to counter than to execute? Yes. And so do disruptors and banelings. Every race has unfair units and mechanics, where the solution is unfortunately to just get good (which I do not approve of btw).
2. Is cloak a problem? I don't think so, since almost all protoss builds involve either a robo or an oracle. Later on just adding a cannon in each mineral line is a no brainer.
3. Is widow mine drop necessary to have in the game? That's up for debate, but terran doesn't have other realistic form of low-commital harassment. Protoss can utilise blink stalkers or phoenix, but terran can't just move out on the map with their units pre-upgrade. Not to mention that phoenix are a hard counter to wm drops.
4. Yes, the fact you can burrow those guys all over the map and they will do the shooting is unfair, so I see why zergs complain. In PvT however, I don't see how that unit is more unfair than a disruptor.
Blink stalkers aren't really low commital with needing vision + teching it before terran has significant tank availability since they counter stalkers really hard, phoenix are absolutely not low committal but maybe you can make the argument for maybe oracles since they're sort of just speedy harass ravens which will keep offering utility and threat throughout the early mid game...?
I mean marine drops are as low commital as protoss warp prism stalker play, you are putting a not insignificant army in action and if they are caught you lose a lot. Warp ins change the equation but zealouts are just bad units and you dont warp in to harass with stalkers and then blink out, you either commit blink stalkers or warp in DTs/zealouts which are melee units.
I think disruptors are still that band aid fix for how terrible ground toss really is, but you can counter it the same way every other race has to counter random mines, just always have 1 marine ahead of the army to give you enough time to react. But I agree, they are problematic and a testament to how poor gateway units and even mass collosus is because the units attack too slow compared to mass lurkers/tanks compared to their great weakness in targeted by anti air for "free" no micro required. Or just microd vipers/ravens, EMPs and the like. You constantly see high level protoss opt into mass disruptors lategame because protoss just has no good splash option that is as unmicrod as tanks/mines/lurkers, archons are shit, templars are just riskier and more effort to manage than disruptors.
@@WTF2BlueTiger sorry for the confusion, I should clarify that when I listed stalkers and phoenix, I meant that they are "safe" harassment. Protoss can be out on the map with them because bio pre upgrade cannot do anything. For terran almost everything they send over to the protoss side is a one way trip.
My main issue with the ruptor is the lack of any unit counter, the only "real" counter is micro. Sure, you can zone with libs, but when the protoss doesn't let you siege their base, they can run circles around your slower army.
1) disruptor have just double the HP of widow mine, isnt cloaked, is lategame tech, cant move while shooting, takes way longer between targeting and detonation and when not shooting is one of slowest units out there and is really expensive. Its easier to deal with disruptor than with liberator. And liberator, albeit really annoying to deal with, is easier to deal with than widow mines. Banelings are being fixed so they wont 1shot workers. Also to have speed drop overlord is expensive and takes ages and even then it wont be as fast as boosting medivac. Running on ground with them to the mineral line is slow and on par with just walking marines into mineral line - if you let that happen, your problem. At that point hellions can do simmilar job.
2) yes, yes it is when its basically free. Also if you dont happen to have lategame tech as well like disruptor or extended lance collossus or blink stalker to bait shot, you will loose a unit per widow mine. Even if otherwise you made good job defending.
3) stim marrne drops, hellions, reapers, liberators... Terran actually have more highly efficient, low investment and low commital harrasment options than anyone else. Maybe as much as toss and zerg combined.
@@anupew3276 1) I was talking about banes in general, how they get value the majority of the time unless the opponent REALLY outmicros the zerg player (at least in ZvT). Widow mines aren't nearly as effective against terran armies as disruptor is to terran's
2. Two probes for two mines and a medivac (or even without it) is not that bad. Or open phoenix and hard counter it.
3. Refer to my previous response
We can argue here all day long, but at the end of the day I guess grass is always greener on the other side
@@_Libo_ banes and diruptors just got nerfed, disruptors just got nerfed twice actually and disruptors are way more expensive and slower to fire and not cloaked and don't get at least 1 kill, also its 2 proves and a lot of lost mining time for maybe 2 mines if you defend perfectly, and if you mess up you just die
just play terran lmao
So toss has a million ways of ending a game vs Terran before the 6 minute mark but bitches about the one thing that allows T to pressure, oooookay... not like it's hard to defend either... it's an rts game, having units in position should be a staple of defense playstyle
a million ways? tell me more... what are those?
@@Gardstyle35 oh don't be like that, if you are a halfway decent toss player you know the wheel of cheese is massive and powerful
im random and have to deal with mine drops aswell but if you dont have the map awareness to simply pull the drones you probably are bad in others ways of the game too and have a 1k bank by minute 5 so why even care about 15 lost probes. also just get a blind cannon in every mineral line no matter what.
Not looking at the minimap for 2 seconds doesnt make you shit at the game, also 1 cannon in every mineral line is way too expensive at a high level
The Disruptor is 20 times as worse than the widowmine
how? its big, whyle its using its orb u can kill it and so stop it from going off, its not invisible, its later in the game, it costs more... toss gate units without splash assistence cant beat the other races basic units cost efficient. thats how it is thus protoss needs sth to be able to fight.
u cant say that about terra beeing the case against protoss, MMM can defend a zealot stalker immortal army quite efficiently
Widow mine used to be invisible without any requirements and P pro players belived it was not op. Now low level P are crying again.
Could the mothership core factor into that at all?
Or you could make your multi purpose, defend and detect, zero supply, zero gas, one size fits all, anti air, anti ground photon cannon. The only building that regularly kills GMs. You don't even have to rush it, as the only requirement is a pylon and a forge, which you will need anyway. While a cloaked widow mine drop needs supply, rax, factory, armory, starport and gas. It's a big commitment for the terran - it needs to have a worthwile reward
A cannon doesnt defend a minedrop. You will lose a mineral line to 2 mines BEFORE a single mine dies. The answer to not dying to minedrops is just... git gud. You have to be in position and react in less than a second. If you DO react in time its fine(much, MUCH easier said than done, the medivacs fly so fast giving you so little time.).
Also mines have nearly fuck all committment. 75 minerals 25 gas for essentially guaranteed minimum 1 probe. The only real commitment is factory time. A earlygame minedrop delays your tanks a small amount making 4 gate slightly harder to defend but only slightly as mines produce fast as fuck.(If you get hits it makes it easier because now you can lose 20 scvs and be fine as you killed 12 probes)
And even when defended the medivac goes to the corner deadspace and forces 3-4 stalkers to stay home yo defend. All round its really strong. But at the pro level, I do NOT think its over or underpowered. At lower levels, like most powerfuk harassment tools, its 100% OP. Just like bane runbys and ling runbys and zealot runbys. Each race has their op tools at lower skill. The difference with minedrops is it hits early and thus can straight up kill protoss, so it ends more games than those.
This is has to be the absolute dumbest take I think I have ever seen for this game. XD
If you know how to defend a cannon rush, then it's easy to do. That's why NOBODY tries it against pros except for people like Florencio from PiG's channel that are just memeing every game. You also try to say that you can counter Widow Mines with cannons. This especially shows just how little you understand about the Protoss race, even though you try to act otherwise. So you think that Protoss can get an Observer/Oracle/Pheonix across the map (you need air units since Terran gets a door), scout your Widow Mine drop, make a Forge, and then a cannon all before you get across the map and drop into the Protoss mineral line? You're a moron if so. All of those units require a significant gas and time investment for that early in the game, and all of this takes far too long to accomplish before you fly in. If Protoss wants to counter a Widow Mine drop with cannons, then they have to do it blindly. Obviously, no one is going to blindly spend that amount of res that early in the game. Maybe try doing a little bit of research before you make such idiotic claims that even low level players can see through your bs. You talk about how big of a commitment is is and how there needs to be a worthwhile reward. My guy, ByuN uses this to open with in tournaments regularly because it is essentially guaranteed damage. You get at least a probe or 2, and lots of lost mining time. Lastly, you might want to practice against cannon rushes more since you clearly seem to be mad about them existing, even though they are easy to defend unless you're going against printf. Good luck.
Your point is invalid since Terran also need those structures anyway since you need armory to get 2 2, factory to build tanks, starport for medivac/vikings, its not really big investment
Building photon cannon in the early game means crippling your economy as a protoss since you only have static defense which you couldn't even secure another base with it
Photon cannons are like blink stalkers that can't move. They can shoot everything yet excel at killing nothing. They lose to any equal amount of ling/marines that are at 1-1 with low level tech. The fact that protoss even requires recall is a testament to how much protoss struggle to defend their bases compared to the mobile zerg + queens, or turtling terran with incredibly dps intense defensive structures and units (and zerg and protoss are just worse at dropping or committing to air harassment builds in general anyway)
The problem with having a cover all anti air and ground unit is the fact that with starcraft meta it doesn't really matter that they counter everything because tech switches are not common, stalkers or photon cannons countering both mutalisks and zergling run bys (barely, not really) isn't a helpful fact because it is better to have dedicated anti air structures because there aren't going to be zergligns in your main anyway, and in your natural your stalker army will be ready so you don't really need anti air there either. Missile turrets costing more and being vastly higher dps + isnt a problem because wherever they are built will only really encounter air units anyway. Same for zerg which are somewhere in the middle but also able to reposition. A zerg base only needs mass spine crawler defense lategame because protoss aren't running around with 3 oracles lategame or harass phoenix.
StarCraft is a hard game. Why should everything be easier? Each race has some tech/strategies that are harder to defend than they are to pull off.
The whole connotation of this video was easier = good.
No other unit in the game compares to the widow mine in terms of quick lethality and low investment of harass, only maybe the bane was close and that just got nerfed
@@ataleofvalor there's always going to be something that's the best at something. Lings on creep are the fastest unit in the game and come out earlier than just about anything, with minimal investment. Do we need to nerf that too? I don't think so.
Sure, let's nerf the widow mine to make your life easier. While we are at it, lets: 1) Make the DT visible for 3 seconds after every kill. 2) Make disruptor shots freeze in place and have a delay before exploding as long as the widow mine delay 3) Give Storm the same delay 4) Reveal observers until you build a robo bay. I could go on for Zerg. The game is supposed to be hard. If you see the Medivac fly in, you will only lose 1 probe per mine.
If you don't see a two WM drop, it will devastate your probe line in about 30 seconds. If you don't see two DTs, your SCVs are destroyed in much less time. The same for four Banelings.
Do you really want the game to be easy?
Widow mines are 75/25 and are an early game unit, which are easily dropped in a base. HT storm and disruptors are mid game units that take way more investment to come online. And DTs do not instantly kill a mineral line unlike widow mines. Banelings are harder to drop into a mineral line and they were nerfed since 1 baneling killing a mineral line was ridiculous.
yea make disruptor shot like widow mine shot... just hitting it directly, and make the disruptor invisible