Flying Siege Tanks. Keep it in.
I have TOO MANY thoughts on this to put down on paper. This is going to be all over the place. Here we go with my feeble attempt:
ARGUMENT #1: MECH
I doubt anyone loves mech more than me. Pretty sure its an unhealthy obsession.
TvP and MechTerran vs Protoss mech in SC1 is one of my favorite things ever. Building up the Most Powerful Unit Composition In The Game ®, a composition where each individual unit is very weak, but as you defend well and work your way to higher supplies, you gain power. In the early game, you are normally on the defense. You must quickly rush up your tech tree and defend carefully, one misstep will spell disaster. Slowly but surely, you push the map. You constantly reposition your army in response to your opponent’s unit movements. You have actual fronts which you must reinforce like in a real war. Eventually when you smell weakness, you unsiege and make a big move, whether it’s a killing move or just gaining more ground. You protect your flanks. You push the map. You zone out areas with cost effecient setups that deter enemy movement in that area. During all this you are harassing, trying to hurt your opponent any way you can, all while not using too many of your units, which would make your main defensive army too weak. It is a defensive playstyle where you are weak early in the game, but become stronger and stronger, eventually wearing your opponent down.
SC2 Wings of Liberty and SC2 Heart of the Swarm Terran has more of a Starship Troopers (the book, not the movie) feel. You are super mobile, dropping all over the place, utilizing multitasking and tactics to find or force holes into your opponent’s play.
ANYWAYS, people are concerned, I guess, about the lack of mech strategies being used in Legacy of the Void right now. From Blizzard:
“Currently in the game, Terran bio-play can have the fire power of Siege Tanks without sacrificing mobility. This seems to be a main reason to play bio instead of mech. By removing this ability (picking up Siege Tanks in Siege Mode with a Medivac), and giving more strength to the Siege Tank, we wonder if we can have this clear distinction between the two playstyles appear once again.”
Mech doesn’t have to necessarily mean “an army composed of only mechanical units”. It just so happens that when the phrase was invented, the units being used were all mechanical. Mech is more of a playstyle than anything.
TY used mech to beat Patience in what the community agreed was one of the the best games of Legacy of the Void yet. Here’s the link: http://www.twitch.tv/gsl/v/36539719?t=03h26m44s
This game consisted of TY desperately trying to hold on vs an incredibly aggressive Protoss player. TY slowly but surely pushed out into the map, taking more bases. He defended his flanks. He moved his army in accordance with his enemy, defending where he pushed. He set up zones that would be very difficult to attack to deter Patience from attacking certain areas. Over time TY’s Liberator count grew and grew, and his entrenched positions become stronger and stronger. This game definitely felt to me more like mech than anything I’ve seen in a long time.
TvT and Mech
It’s hard to liken TvT in SC1 to SC2 in the same way I did above for TvP, and that’s because TvT was always mech vs mech, with the power of Siege Tanks reigning supreme. TvT was a positional game, taking a conceding certain areas around the map, setting up areas that would be impossible to attack. I don’t think that this is what Blizzard or the fans are looking for. Rather, I think that people are looking for the choice between bio and mech, and then, of course, the clash between the two, as we had in WoL and HotS. Well then, you are in luck!
Journey used mech in a close game vs Keen in a TvT: http://www.twitch.tv/gsl/v/36908466?t=02h23m19s
To date, this is the only professional Korean game where we’ve seen a full-on mech strategy in a TvT in LotV. Journey successfully went up to 4 bases, defending all aspects of Keen’s bio-centric play. He ended up losing when both were going more heavily into Sky Terran with a poor attack and over-committal. It wasn’t a perfect game or anything, but it was certainly the first step towards a more diverse set of armies being available for use in TvT. Don’t forget that developing less aggressive styles takes MUCH, MUCH longer than aggressive styles.
TvZ and Mech
This one is really complicated. Not going to bring up SC1 at all. Rather going to bring up HotS mech TvZ, because that has a lot to do with what’s going on here in LotV.
Mech was becoming a real problem towards the end of HotS for Zerg. Without the Swarm Host to constantly push back Terran in long games, turtle mech became super powered.
If you want a refresher on what this looked like, check out Flash vs Curious from GSL Season 3 2015: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fskDHXB3Gl4
Right at the end we had Byul vs INnoVation in the finals of the same Code S: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLtTnN3GOmk
Here’s a statement for you: If Parasitic Bomb existed in HotS, Byul would be a GSL champion. Not to mention that Point Defense Drone is vastly changed. And Nydus Worms open up no matter what. And I haven’t even gotten into the differences in the cores of HotS and LotV. Ok, maybe we should talk about that next.
ARGUMENT #2: Legacy of the Void is completely different from Heart of the Swarm. We’re playing StarCraft 3, folks.
In early January, I started writing a blog post about why Legacy of the Void is so good. It felt incomplete, and didn’t quite cover my feelings completely, as I’m still figuring it all out, so I never posted it. But here it is, as it is a good supplement to what I’m about to write:
“There’s always been an argument about StarCraft 1 and StarCraft 2. Which is better? Which is more fun? Which was better balanced? Which is a better eSport. I’ve written and said a lot in the past about these subjects, so I won’t go into much depth about them here. But I needed to bring this up to show why Legacy of the Void is so damn good.
StarCraft 1 is a game of mechanics. You fight against the game itself to make as many units as you possibly can, while microing as well as you can with very limiting control groups. The comeback mechanic is based in how hard it is to do everything that needs doing. If you get behind in a Terran vs Protoss, for instance, and the Protoss has 5 bases, while you are stuck on 3, you might decide that to come back you need a Dropship. Yes, Protoss has way more bases and is in a leading position, but that means that his economy is more spread out, and thus more susceptible to harassment. By sending out a Dropship in one direction, and Vultures in another, you can start to pick apart the leading player. Some nice laying of mines in front of a far - off base to slow down incoming defensive units will buy you some time to kill Probes. Meanwhile the Dropship will hit another area far away, splitting Protoss’s attention.
StarCraft 2: Wings of Liberty and Heart of the Swarm are games of strategy. NesTea was the first person I heard verbalize this. In essence, he said, that SC2 was about decision making. He was absolutely right. It’s very much about knowing your decision trees. The player who understands more should win based off of knowing what to do next. In WoL and HotS, the comeback mechanics were based off of understanding the next branch of what to do. Here’s an example:
You are Zerg. You got way ahead with the army-crushing unit composition of Infestor / Ling / Ultra.
If you choose to attack and kill your opponent, go to option A).
If you choose to sit back and wait for your opponent to leave, go to option B).
A) Your Ultras get their AI messed with due to smart building placements and deal no damage for their cost. Your lings shuffle in to attack almost single file. Your Infestors throw out useless Infested Terrans because they do not keep up with your army for an attack, and then die. Your opponent now can come back.
B) Your opponent continues to try to harass you around the map. You easily clean up each attack with Fungals, Lings, and a bit of static defense. Eventually your opponent leaves his safe area, and you get a decent engagement with your expensive Ling / Ultra / Infestor army. He shouldn’t have come onto your Creep. GG you win!
Yeah, its a bit over simplified, but there are thousands of examples just like these on how comebacks actually occur. (and yes there are exceptions to both games and all these situations.)
Now this, of course, doesn’t mean that SC1 is a better game than SC2 or anything like that. This is one small aspect of the game. According to this one aspect, SC1 was, in general terms, very taxing on your speed. This was partially due to the fact that you were very spread out, and thus your opponent had more places to attack. SC2 was more about making correct decisions with the correct units to lock your opponent out of any possibility of winning. I think that most of the arguments from people that SC1 was/is a better game than SC2 were based, in some way, over this difference in the two. As someone who personally has been there for the full life of both games, I can certainly say that I derived a lot of pleasure from that "overstretched” feeling while playing SC1.
Legacy of the Void gives me that feeling again. I feel like there’s too much to do. I feel like there are endless areas for improvement of play. I feel like perfect games are forever away. And it feels amazing.“
One of the hardest things to do as a commentator is to take what I think in my head and summarize it so it doesn’t become ridiculously long like this brain spill of a blog you are reading right here. Here’s a new attempt to try to summarize some of the key differences between Legacy of the Void and Heart of the Swarm:
Legacy of the Void has improved harassment AND improved defender’s advantage. 3 basing in LotV = 2 basing in HotS. This isn’t just because of having less economy per base. That does something else that I’ll talk about in a minute. Lots of units in LotV are amazing at defending but harder to attack with.
Adepts are fantastic at harassment. They also do quite well defending. Think about a Terran trying to drop a Protoss. If Adepts are there, you may as well not bother. Trying to finish off a Terran with an army heavily depending on Adepts in is very difficult. (yes I know that there are timing attacks specifically with adepts, that’s not what I’m talking about). For a big army using Adepts as the tanking units, their short range makes you walk into your opponent’s defensive position. Attacking into Planetaries, Liberators, Widow Mines, Marine/Maruader arcs, Lurkers, Roach/Hydra arcs are all cost inefficient with the Adept. It’s a better move to utilize them in another way.
Oracles are a great harassment unit. We know that already. In LotV their ability to tag armies is being used more and more. This is often used in a defensive way: monitoring where the army is so that it cannot catch you off guard with an attack. Stasis Wards are also gaining increased usage, slowing down enemy attacks. The Oracle is a very good defensive unit.
Disrupters are good harassment units. It’s kind of like a Reaver Drop. Very expensive, but can gain huge rewards if done well. Moreso, Disrupters are strong defensive units. How many PvPs have you seen where one Protoss gets way ahead of his opponent and tries to end the game, only to be hugely punished by defensive Disurpters? Now conversely, how many times have you seen a Protoss trying to attack into a player of any race with Disrupters, and having that player dodge every shot? The player who is attacking is committing, thus making the defensive Disrupter extremely strong. The player who is defending is reacting. Being like water, as Bruce Lee would say. Wax on, wax off, as Mr. Miyagi would say. The Disrupter is not nearly as strong on the offense as the defense.
Lurkers are about as good defense as you can find. Breaking a strong Lurker Defense is literally not worth the time and energy. You may as well go around. It is a no-man’s land. Yet, if you try to attack with the Lurkers, it’s much like the Disrupters. Your opponent will continually kite and move out of the way of these Lurkers.
Liberators are in the exact same boat as the Lurkers in the defense / offense comparison. Of course, they are very good harassment tools as well.
Widow Mines are the same.
Cyclones are great defensive units. One of the strongest ways to keep a Warp Prism or Medivac or Banshee or Oracle out of your base.
Ghosts, High Templars, Infestors. All MUCH easier to use successfully defensively when your opponent is attacking you.
You are going to force your way through this choke? Yes, please walk through my Corrosive Biles.
Oh you’re dropping my main? It’s OK, I have a DT there. Have fun scanning every time you drop. Of course, DTs are amazing at harassment also. Ever try to attack directly into an army with DTs? Yeah. No.
The list goes on and on. There are so many harassment options. So many units function better defensively than offensively. (NOTE: I’m talking offensively for game winning moves which involve actual armies, not harassment. Also note: YES, you can attack with all of these units, and in fact, some of the most powerful attacks will involve them. It’s just not easy. They pay off quicker defensively.)
So yes, the defender’s advantage (in Army vs Army) is much larger in LotV than ever before. If you kill someone when you are on 3 bases, its because harassment went way too right, or you have a powerful timing attack that your opponent is not ready for. Thus, 3 basing LotV = 2 basing HotS.
OK, back to this: less economy per base.
So, we have improved harassment. We have improved defender’s advantage. But we also have less economy. We have to expand more. This is absolutely KEY to why LotV is so good. You are forced, more quickly than ever, to expand if you want to win. You can’t sit on 3 bases defending perfectly a'la Rain’s HotS Protoss. We already went over how killing on 3 bases is basically the same thing as 2 basing in HotS. So here we are, expanding more quickly to a 4th base. This spreads us out more. Sure, we have GREAT ways to defend vs a large army. We have Disrupters and Lurkers and Liberators which make death traps for anyone wanting to attack. These units are extremely weak vs harassment though. Have you ever tried to stop a Medivac Drop with a Disrupter or a Lurker or a Liberator? Laugh Out Loud.
So we can’t really just roll over each other, even if we have a bigger army. And we are forced to expand further and further out earlier and earlier. Which of course means, we have less and less to defend these areas with. Truthfully, we have better tools for harassing our opponents than for defending against their harassment.
OK, let’s put this all together. Legacy of the Void forces us to harass more. It forces us to have a more mobile army. LotV resists against full-on mech play. It resists against slow games. LotV pushes us towards more fights, more engagements, more damage on both sides. The days of perfect Rain games are gone. These are the scrappy days of LotV. Siegevacs add mobility to the most immobile unit in the game. Siegevacs also turn this unit into one which can harass. The unit now fits perfectly into Legacy of the Void. Let’s not turn it into another Void Ray.
"One of the hardest things to do as a commentator is to take what I think in my head and summarize it so it doesn’t become ridiculously long like this brain spill of a blog you are reading right here. Here’s a new attempt to try to summarize some of the key differences between Legacy of the Void and Heart of the Swarm” - The ‘tosis, 2016
GW 'tosis.