get supply depots? Also vultures would fix this problem =P

Well have you got any suggestions for what to change to make Terran not "absolute garbage"?

From the games I've played, Terran seems fine.

I have to admit that I feel the same way. From the games I've played, terran is annoying as hell lol.

Some changes I wouldn't be adverse to making:
+5 hp to marines to 50
+5 hp to marauders to 85
+5 hp to war pigs to 95

These would let each of the units take 1 more ling hit before being killed, so if TvZ is the main problem this would help. Marines and marauders would also survive 1 extra zealot hit.

Another possibility is to re-jig buildings significantly:
- Make engineering bay spawn 1 or 1.5 war pigs + 1 vulture (and remove max 1, make them regular buildings)
- Make supply depots spawn marauders only

- Remove lurkers from Lairs/Hives and replace with Queens. Put lurkers onto the queens nest. Re-jig costs and put a cap on lurkers so zerg can get max 6 of them.

Still not sure that vultures really have a place in the game but this would be a way to get them back in.

I agree about the terran and I'm ok with the their changes, but the lurkers and queen stuff, I don't know, I don't think that I like them. Maybe putting a cap on the lurkers is gonna be enough.

What's wrong with T, exactly?

What I don't understand is your mass amount of M&M. M&M gets steamrolled by Z. They always have. Clearly you need more science vessels, siege tanks, and firebats.

TvP has never particularly been about M&M. It's usually phased out in place of siege tanks and goliaths/vultures. I realize the Vultures can't actually micro effectively vs. Dragoons, which is a damn shame, because they really did a lot of killing. But you do have BCs. So long as you're unencumbered by a mass of devourers, BCs will tear up anything P throws at them.

Hey Lanthanide this is "THEH0RR0R)UmS(" from that game I had with you as zerg vs your protoss, you were tougher to win against than last time however sorry that day where i was insulting you over the terran nukes we can get past that were grown men shouldn't be hard. However I assume 2.48 will b out by this weekend? also I think zealots need some ups cause they die very fast in battle, however that 100/1st gas 200/2nd gas 300/3rd gas 400/4th gas 500/5th gas 600/6th gas thing u were talkin about when i was in that game with you 2 days ago seems like a good idea at the cost of $100 x the number of gas chambers the players make in game

I agree with putting Marines back to 50 hp, especially now that stim is more expensive.
Another suggestion would be supply depots: more war pigs and less mauraders. Maybe make them a tad more expensive if it would be too overpowering.
Another suggestion: increase science vessel armor. for costing 515 they die incredibly easy.

I also think incorporating vultures back into the game would be a great step for terran.
Kerrigans have to be the most worthless unit in the game. What if we just replaced them with vultures?

I would keep gas prices how they are. There are already enough gas hogs out there and I don't think lessening the price of the gas would help the cause.

Sacrieur: There is no way BC's can handle anything that Protoss throws at them. first off, mass corsairs chew them up and spit them out with ease. dark archons and archons/templars would even be able to handle BCs

Post has been edited 3 time(s), last time on Jan 4 2012, 8:06 pm by stimmed..

Funny that you say reapers are worthless, as I see them built in most games. Seems most other players don't agree on that point. I also wonder if that's why you have trouble playing as terran if you don't build them? Other common terran mistakes are not building ghosts for lockdown or medics for restoration. I simply have to balance the game as if players build all units, particularly the spellcasters, because if I balance it on the assumption that you don't build them, as soon as anyone did they'd have an unbalanced advantage. This in turn means that you're somewhat forced to build the spellcasters and if you don't you will fail. PvZ seems to rely on maelstrom quite heavily, in particular.

Also interestingly I did some tests of $6500 terran vs protoss immortals. Tests involved 8 barracks, 3 medics, 6 turrets and 1 engineering bay vs 26 forges. On current stats the terran wiped the floor. I tweaked it around to give immortals 3 shields + instant shielding and 2 armor - now it is much closer. In fact the units that win it for terran are reapers, due to their 100 hp and 14 damage while marines just die too quickly. Interestingly enough the stat changes to the immortals didn't make any appreciable difference to the PvZ matchup (8 roaches + 9 hydra dens), where the immortals would overwhelm the zerg. So the interesting thing to take from this is at that at the moment, immortals vs zerg are quite strong, because hydras do explosive damage and therefore 50% vs immortals. Against zerg, immortal HP is more important, while against terran it is the armor. Anyway I think these changes should make immortals a more realistic unit choice.

One other thing I've noticed is that it can be very difficult for a protoss spawn to break through enemy units attacking their silo. Normally the way out seems to be archons + reavers, but they are very expensive and take a while to ramp up. Meanwhile the enemies can gas freely and usually end up winning the game from this. I've taken to simply booming enemies when they surround the silo to such an extent. I think the changes to immortals here will help with that.

As for vultures vs reapers, vultures would be weaker? Kerrigans can shoot air and I believe have a longer range than vultures. The only real difference here would be the speed.

As for 'gas prices', not entirely sure what's being talked about here. There is no plan to reduce the cost of a gas mine from the current $750. The idea is to reduce the cost of the insta-spawn powerup so that the price is based on the number of gas you have. This would help encourage players to use it earlier. More options = more strategy.

I've seen BC masses (eg 30+) against which Protoss' only real counter is mass carriers, simply because the BCs would chew through the protoss army so quickly they couldn't do damage. The only reason carriers worked is because the interceptors acted as decoys to draw the BC fire, allowing the other air units and archons to get in and damage them. Then as the BC's kill the enemy units, they stack up more and more and become an unstoppable force by any race. At that point the only way to stop it is to boom or special and prevent the buildup from happening again.

Having said that, I may do -$50 on BCs to $900 for 1.5. As I've said before, small price changes are really more psychological than anything, for example in this case you could build 19 science facilities instead of 18 for the same price, but this might make Terran feel a bit more 'fair'.


One semi-radical thing I've been thinking about is introducing Infested Kerrigan as a buildable unit for Zerg. Likely this would be in conjunction with Lurkers on the queens nest, like 1 lurker per nest, 0.66 kerrigans per nest, max 6 (so could get max of 4 kerrigans). They could have the 'fade' ability I toyed with giving to regular reaper kerrigan. Thematically this would fit nicely with the lurker, which is currently zerg's only cloaked unit. The kerrigans would do a moderate amount of damage, like 20-25, and have 150-180hp and 3-4 armor, because Zerg really don't have a lot of HP in their ground forces at the moment. May also do +5 hp on hydralisks, along these lines.

Probably I will do -1 armor on archons back to 18. Recently I've been seeing protoss favour archons quite strongly, which is a bit of a boring strategy. Clearly they are very effective and I don't believe -1 armor would ruin them, but would make them a bit more vulnerable to dragoons in particular (do 2 damage instead of 1). Also considering +1 damage to dragoons to 21 instead of 20.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jan 4 2012, 8:37 pm by Lanthanide.

I'm sorry I am mistaken, I thought I skimmed over someone talking about reducing gas prices.

I still don't understand all this talk about BCs. From my experience, if a Terran ever starts massing BCs, I can immediately begin massing Stargates and not have a single problem. Carriers are not even needed. If you get a huge chunk of corsairs, BCs do not have a chance. I am kind of shocked about this BC > Protoss thing going on here.

As for kerrigans and vultures, I just see it as a good non-bio substitute for battle. Then again, kerrigan range can be nice early in game.

I've always found Zerg Overlords more annoying to make. Queen's nest, then Hive, then the speed upgrade. Zerg should be able to get detectors the fastest!

As for the Tank vs Sieged Tank debate, I used to think Tanks without siege were more powerful. TvZ, if Zerg goes mainly melee with swarm, Tanks are useless without Siege. At least in Siege mode, they could do some damage for units under Swarm. I really don't see how Zerglings are able to hit those Sieged Tanks though as there's always a Goliath or two near them. For TvT, a bit obvious as Sieged tanks have more range/attack and do full damage against large units. For TvP, yeah DTs do get a bit of a bother sometimes, but you still need the Siege especially if P goes Reavers. That will make your Tanks easier to kill. But like you say Lanth, all debatable, just giving my opinion out here.

Hmm, just a suggestion, why not replace the Shuttle with the Hero Carrier instead? 0 Interceptors, of course, if that's possible.

But every Boom counts! And that would leave one less option.


Jeez, Terran has been improved early game, due to Firebats and such. I really don't see how you can just lose to just Zerglings. That's why there is Supply Depots, they're very useful now.

Yes, maybe Vultures will be helpful but don't remove the War Pig from the Supply Depot. Keep it that way, it's nice.

Other than that, I do think Terran's Science Vessel kinda sucks, in surviving anyways. Against Zerg, a couple of Scourges will kill it. Against P, it's more unfair cause Dark Archons can Feedback/Mind Control them easily and make Terran powerless against Dark Templars. Make it two Science Vessels per Comcast, or better yet, make that second Vessel the Hero one so it can't be Mind Controlled. It won't be able to use spells but at least it can serve as a worthwhile detector. I don't think I'm missing anything else here.

As I said earlier, I's gonna be better if you add vultures to the supply depot with the marauders and war pigs. As for the zerg kerrigan, who needs good ground unit when you have the ultralisk?

I agree with the idea of vulture added on to the ebay. My only question is with what stats? Also, I would like a description of stats. What is the difference in stats between war pig, kerrigan, and ghost? Also, is ghost worth making vs Z or should you stick with kerri? And another reason that many believe (and I a bit too) that vulture>kerri is that kerri stops shooting under arbiter but vulture doesn't. Kerri/other ghosts not shooting makes u feel like "WORST UNIT EVA!!!!" >.>

Yes, sticking overlords on the hive was just a way to try and make them about the same annoyance as Protoss and Terran: Pylon/Gateway/Cybercore/Robotics, Barracks/Academy/Comsat, Spawning Pool/Lair/Queens Nest/Hive. I believe in DS Night Final the overlords were attached to the hatchery or something, which just didn't seem very fair.

If I de-couple the lurker from the lair/hive I can make those buildings cost less, although the queens nest is likely to be fairly expensive to get, depending on whether I add kerrigan or not (in the $300-400 range).

Yeah, doing the numbers just makes me think siege mode is a bit of a pig at the moment and people just get it automatically because they think it's 'best', not because it necessarily is best. The anecdote that STF Sleepy would recommend against it helps this. Sleepy is the best player I've seen and his opinion holds a lot of weight with me.

The main reason is visibility and readability of what's going on. I prefer to make the heroes different units to stand out from the others: shuttle, dropship and arbiter are all very clearly heroes (while Nydus Worm for Zerg is pretty identifiable due to the special effect and it being a protoss unit). Protoss 95% of the time get a carrier in order to get dweb, so having a carrier to act as warp prism creates more confusion on the battlefield. In terms of mechanics the shuttle moves very quickly and has a lower aggro to be targetted and flavour-wise lines up with the SC2 prism better.

I would have liked to have made the Void Ray use the hero arbiter as it's base as the slow firing rate would work better, but I think that would just ruin the mothership's readability too much, especially as the mothership is a very powerful hero.

The science vessal is really a pain. It has very high aggro compared to the other detectors but it also casts spells, including d-matrix a lot. So I have to make it expensive and fairly tough, but if I make it too tough then it really weakens the lurker and DTs too much. Unfortunately the hero science vessal doesn't cast spells otherwise I definitely would use this to help counter MC.

I guess one option to allow reduction on the price a little (like $100) would be to make the 1st science vessal a regular one and make additional ones after that heroes, or perhaps vice-versa so the first one can't cast d.matrix (probably -$150 price then). Then once you build a science facility (late game) replace the hero ones with regular ones to allow the spells to be cast.

No way I'm making the supply depot spawn 3 types of untis. No room on the string anyway.

Kerrigan would be mainly to provide zerg HP, because there's quite a bit gulf between hydralisks and the ultralisk, and lurkers don't really cut it since their AI sucks and they have very high aggro. Maybe zerg doesn't really need more HP though? Historically, particularly since 2.10 or so, most changes have been made to protoss and terran while zerg hasn't had many.

Not entirely sure. Was thinking probably something like 70-80 hp, 2-3 armor and 15-16 damage.

I'm at work at the moment so can't give you detailed/100% correct stats, but from meory:
War Pig 90 hp, 4 armor, 13 dmg (normal)
Reaper 100 hp, 1 armor, 14 damage (concussive)
Ghost 75 hp? 3 armor? 16 damage? (concussive)

Ghost is primarily for lockdown, but they do also cloak (which is dicey). I actually reduced ghost damage by 1 a few versions ago as too many people were building them instead of reapers. Against zerg you'd probably be better off building reapers.

Good point, I'd never actually considered that. Then again, a cloaked ghost will still retaliate when shot, and reapers aren't intended to be wonderful late game units. Vultures wouldn't be either, if they were added to the engineering bay.

Maybe I could add vultures to the 'tech to nuke'? That way they could be a late game unit with much beefier stats. Although being attached to the science facility might skew this too much as it is the most expensive regular building. Alternatively I could replace the thor with the vulture (would improve visibility/readability), but I think the thor works nicely the way it currently is and losing anti-air may not be worth it.





I'll just add it's really great to see this strong debate in this thread now. I think the fact that we have so many different viewpoints is a good indication that it is getting quite balanced and there aren't too (m)any glaring errors left.

Post has been edited 3 time(s), last time on Jan 4 2012, 10:31 pm by Lanthanide.

Yes, but haven't you noticed how Zerg and Terran have a "hidden" Hero to hide in the crowd? Zerg has it's Infestor (Overlord), and Terran has Thor (Goliath)! So Protoss should be the same, a hidden Hero and an obvious Hero! Kidding around.

High HP units like BCs really just tank storm, although I find hallucination to be a great tactic. DAs are rather finicky, and you can MC some (supposing you research MC, I prefer to leave it un-researched to have a larger edge against Z), but it's nothing really too powerful against a sufficient T army. Lots of BCs alone are a great force to be reckoned with, but are not altogether unbeatable. Backing a T ball of mech and infantry, it can really pack a huge punch.

BCs are slow with a very long range. This leaves them in the back of the army more often than not, so while your army is busy taking care of the faster and more direct units, they're being pummeled by the BC's powerful attack, all while they stay out of range from most spells.



I'm not sure where you're getting the impression that corsairs chew through BCs, their air attack is rather weak, albeit fast with splash. In any case, BCs soak up this damage pretty well with their high armor and HP. Since BCs are towards the back, and corsairs are very quick, you'll soon find out that they have to sail over a T army without much back-up just to reach BCs, not to mention any distractions (casting dweb) will put a huge dent in their numbers.

Scouts are a natural enemy of BCs. They're cheaper and have an extremely strong air-to-air attack, but more often than not, they get fired upon by a ground unit, to which they respond. The scout's pitiful ground attack just makes him a sitting duck to both air and ground targets, and BCs will chew through them while they're busy trying to take out marines.

Massing stargates PvT is not a wise strategy. Beyond being rather costly, it will throw your anti-ground balance off. Goliaths can make short work of anything in range.

Carriers with an ample dragoon/HT/DA/corsair complement is really what will save you. It takes a very diverse army to fend off the combination. Ranged units, like dragoons, provide an additional advantage, since BCs have to venture farther forward to kill them. This gives you precious time to sufficiently eradicate his army. But naturally, BCs are powerful, and if the T player has enough, they will simply obliterate anything and everything. Alone or with an army.

Although it annoyingly counts as two attacks and if therefore doubly penalised by armor. So their nominal 32 damage only ends up doing 22 to BCs due to them having 5 armor. So far for 2.48 I've reduced this to 30 dmg as a lot of people seem to think that protoss air is very strong (I don't entirely agree).

Otherwise I agree with all your points. The best protoss counter to BCs is DAs with MC (so you're screwed if you're also up against zerg and need maelstrom) and carriers to act as distraction.

That is true, I forgot about that. Looks like mass Stargates is an even worse idea.

Well, if you mass stargates, then there are going to be so much corsairs, that all of the map is going to be webbed, so goliaths and any ground unit can't do anything. So it's not such a bad idea. When I encounter lots of BCs and build mainly archons and stargates, and sometimes carriers.

I feel like you really need to play more team games of vs terran while using protoss. Trust me, in the newest version I find scouts and sairs to be unmassable to the point they can kill BCs easily. Plus, when the web dies down, you get scewed over.

I agree with Lanthanide, it is mostly balanced but protoss air could use scout to be bumped more powerful through - armor of BC and upping scout back to before(+1 now that it got -1). I remember the hero BC and BC power increase was suggested back in 2.08 or 2.18 (forget which) where stf-sleepy suggested that terran can't handle zerg air as they didn't have a way tocombat mutas effectively etc.

Question: Do BCs do more damage to devourers or mutas through attack type/armor etc.? Is there no difference? Question asked because if you balanced it so that guards and devs are used more than previously that could have a negative anti-air effect just because if I remember correctly I think BCs do more damage to devs.

Also, I think a good way to add back in the vulture is to take out the valkyrie(not even sure what scII unit it is suppose to represent) and putting in vulture for armory. Also, you could call vulture the hellion and to polish off the game I would change vessel name to Raven because that is the name in SCII. Also, add kerrigan when the new SCII expansion comes out. You know, to stick with the times .