So as many people in the past have wanted things to be posted early I am currently working on adjusting the interaction between air and vehicles/buildings to help make core air fit its intended role and make it feared when it shows up. With the most recent changes to anti-air vs. air people are having a lot of trouble dealing with vehicles and many feel that air is in a bad state. In good news, I agree for the most part and want to make air as feared as it was in HW1 if you were a vehicle army.
So here are some fun numbers of current in game modifiers for how much each units damage is granted a bonus to deal damage vs. vehicles. The value 1 represents a 1 to 1 ratio of damage a unit deals. If a modifier is 1.5, that unit deals 150% of the base damage vs. a unit. A .5 modifier means it deals 50% of its base DPS verse that unit.
Current In Game Modifiers for core air units (sentinels, banshees, hornets, phantoms, pelican gunship [leader power gunships], and frostraven)
MediumScout 1.45
Medium 1.55
MediumHero 1.45
MediumAA .9
Heavy 1.0
Building 0.8
Units with Medium Scout armor
Chopper - Ghost - Jackrabbit - SkittererUnits with Medium armor
Flame Warthog - Locust - Mantis - Marauder - Mastodon - Methane Wagon - WarthogUnits with Medium AA armor
Reaver - WolverineUnits with Medium Hero armor
Bison - Jerome’s Command Mantis - Forge’s Warthog
Units with Heavy vehicle armor
Colossus - Scorpion - Grizzly - Kodiak - Scarab - Wraith - Wraith Invader
Based on current in game damage of air vs. these vehicles I saw that air was not really scary at all vs. Heavy vehicles. This interaction has never really packed a punch it seems and the value I chose was based on not wanting to create another “300%” buff, but wanting to have a significant impact in game.
After some playtesting in various situations with many leaders and all of the air units the modifier I have gravitated to vs. heavy is buffing it from 1.0 up to 1.4. It is a large 40% increase in damage and so far it makes air pretty scary vs. tanks. But in the interest of wanting to get feedback early I wanted to bounce the numbers off the community as this change would be very significant in how core air vs. heavy tank units is. Below are the overall changes I have messed with and they feel solid based on feedback from the community at this time.
My proposed changes which so far feel good are as follows.
MediumScout 1.45 buff to 1.6
Medium 1.55 buff to 1.6
MediumHero 1.45 buff to 1.6
MediumAA .9 no change
Heavy 1.0 buff to 1.4
Building 0.8 decrease to .73.
Wolverine Speed adjustment to match hornets who are 18 (banshees are 20.5).
The changes are not massive, albeit the interaction with heavy units, but this will promote players who are heavy vehicle users to be forced to run AA in there armies or pay the consequences for not doing so. With a slight adjustment to the speed of wolverines, players who move in with hornets and see AA will still be punished - but now have a better opportunity to move away from wolverines specifically. Banshees with this change will be able to outrun them entirely. Overall, this change will help reward scouting and better micro to keep the units alive for those who want to use core air units.
Ok, for me this seems to be pretty good, just my only concern right now is that the 1.4 damage buff is only going to make the Scarab even more useless now, as it is going to be completely shredded by air. If the Scarab received a buff alongside these changes that nullified the 1.4 dmg vs H-vehicles back to 1.0, or even gave it more resistant to say 0.9~95, that would be good.
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> Ok, for me this seems to be pretty good, just my only concern right now is that the 1.4 damage buff is only going to make the Scarab even more useless now, as it is going to be completely shredded by air. If the Scarab received a buff alongside these changes that nullified the 1.4 dmg vs H-vehicles back to 1.0, or even gave it more resistant to say 0.9~95, that would be good.
I agree with this. I know in the grand scheme of things uber units are probably pretty low on the list of priorities but they are pretty bad, minus the Infused Scarab.
Doesn’t air already delete scouts? I guess its okay if it deletes it faster. These look like good changes, but the scarab concern is also something that might need to be looked at.
I still believe the aa buffs needs to be reverted. despite the increased damage modifiers air may get, they’re insignificant if they die before the job is done. naka shared on twitch that 5 wolfs with heavy medal 3 beat a full pop of banshee’s. sure the aa has more effective health than 5 wolfs, but the dps stayed the same, and the aa won, 20 pop vs 120.
Edit : And heavy vehicle players will naturally carry some aa with thier army most of the time. i wouldnt make air just to chance that my enemy dosent know what aa is, if air dies as fast as it does.
First of all, I’d like to thank you for including the community in the discussion for direct balance changes. I really appreciate it.
As for the changes, overall I agree with what you’re going for. Air should dominate vehicles in a fight and these are steps towards that. I have a few points on specific changes:
The change vs Medium armor (core vehicles) is only 1.55 -> 1.60. I think it should be increased a bit more, since currently air struggles against core vehicles with just a few AA. The health pool of the vehicles is so great that they have a hard time chopping them down. I think a change to 1.7 would be more appropriate.
Banshees specifically are great buildings killers, much better than hornets. I think their damage vs buildings should be dropped a bit further, to encourage unit diversity. Air should be used to counter the vehicles in an opponent’s army, rather than be base killers themselves.
I’m not sure about the wolverine speed reduction. The fact that they could kite hornets practically keep up with Banshees is part of what made them so effective. It could be fine, but I think it warrants further discussionGood stuff Postums. I really hope this thread works out and that it encourages more threads like this.
Edit: I just remembered a 4th point I’d like to add:
The recent AA buff was only half of what we previously suggested be done. As predicted, the AoE buff without a damage nerf proved to be overkill. AA is currently far too effective in its role. I propose a 12% damage nerf vs air, while keeping the improved AoE as is. Otherwise, just having 20 pop of AA in a vehicle army would render all these proposed changes obsolete.
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> I still believe the aa buffs needs to be reverted. despite the increased damage modifiers air may get, they’re insignificant if they die before the job is done. naka shared on twitch that 5 wolfs with heavy medal 3 beat a full pop of banshee’s. sure the aa has more effective health than 5 wolfs, but the dps stayed the same, and the aa won, 20 pop vs 120.
>
> Edit : And heavy vehicle players will naturally carry some aa with thier army most of the time. i wouldnt make air just to chance that my enemy dosent know what aa is, if air dies as fast as it does.
Postums actually posted a great reply to that video on Naka’s thread. I agree that the AA buffs should be reverted, but that video really shouldn’t be used as evidence of that.
Edit: Also, I don’t exactly think that it should be reverted. Or at least, I don’t think that’s the best course of action. The AA overkill problem is still there. They still fire more rounds at a single target than what it takes to kill it, and that can’t be fixed by them through code. The AoE buff compensates for that.
However, AA does so much damage per missile that just buffing AoE was too much. I propose a 12% damage nerf to make up for the now more effective missiles. If we just strip the AoE then we’ll be back at square 1, with those that can’t micro being utterly floored by air far more often than they should be.
This is going in a very good direction, huge thank you for making this style of post - as you may know, the SC2 community has been very appreciative of the same style of early change discussion that Blizzard lets them into. It’s nice to see that here, too.
I’d also advise to more heavily buff air vs Medium (1.70 should be more than reasonable), as air in early tier 2 fulfils no role currently. Your changes make late game core air better, but don’t help them a whole lot where they are weakest.
It will be nice to be able to use Hornets to actually shoot back against kiting Wolverines, great change on the speed.
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> > Ok, for me this seems to be pretty good, just my only concern right now is that the 1.4 damage buff is only going to make the Scarab even more useless now, as it is going to be completely shredded by air. If the Scarab received a buff alongside these changes that nullified the 1.4 dmg vs H-vehicles back to 1.0, or even gave it more resistant to say 0.9~95, that would be good.
>
> I agree with this. I know in the grand scheme of things uber units are probably pretty low on the list of priorities but they are pretty bad, minus the Infused Scarab.
ye, I know their priority is pretty low, I’ve just watched them quickly fall from a pretty intimidating unit at launch to wet paper now and just want to see them actually usable again (considering I could manage a 2v3 for an hour with just it, also managing to get it 3-star). The infused Scarab is only good cause of infusion, but that’s not worth the extra minute in build time compared to the regular Scarab.
While we are on the subject of air, can we do something to give Blisterbacks some love? They are absurdly expensive and are way too situational to be considered competitive. Vultures outclass them in every regard. Vultures are considered the best base cracking units in the game and Blisterbacks are… well, ghetto versions of Kodiaks.
I get that they are supposed to be faster and easier to deploy than Kodiaks but can anyone honestly say they are better than Anders or Serina Kodiaks? Not unless they are lying to themselves. Not to mention Forge has vehicle drop which negates Kodiak’s being slow since he can insta-deploy 2 veteran ones anywhere he wants.
tl;dr
Buff Blisterbacks. They’re a cool unit and need some help. Certainly in regards to cost and perhaps even damage. Their damage isn’t bad but, again, we’re talking about a T3 Banished version of the Kodiak… they should be more lethal.
I like the buff vs scout I felt that they didn’t clean them up fast enough for me. - Medium buff should probably be at least 1.7 as there is such a large health pool, we will continue to test this further. - I will test to see how I feel about the heavy buff, but it seems like a good starting point. - I would not touch the building damage. We are putting together a chart if building damage for units. Unupgraded hornets are actually terrible at killing buildings. - I would not nerf wolve speed, I would rather buff hornet speed as this would better enable them to keep up with medium vehicles. If you nerf wolve speed, they may have a harder time vs banshees when it comes to defending hit and run. This would also encourage a slight nerf to redline 2 so that kinsano hornets don’t become abusive. - I would like to see a slight reduction is AA AoE radius, as well as a small damage nerf vs core air. It’s important that the interaction vs heavy air remain unchanged as it feels like it’s in an ok place. I will continue to test this interaction. - It may also be necessary to reduce the price of some air units… (In reference to Miz’s post)
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> While we are on the subject of air, can we do something to give Blisterbacks some love? They are absurdly expensive and are way too situational to be considered competitive. Vultures outclass them in every regard. Vultures are considered the best base cracking units in the game and Blisterbacks are… well, ghetto versions of Kodiaks.
Woah, easy there milk man. The word ghetto may be offensive to those that actually live in the ghetto. You wouldn’t want to “redacted” them.
A 40% damage increase to tanks seems superfluous. It’s my understanding that with the way air is, people will not mix banshees or hornets into their army. Players know that a small banshee pack dies quickly and spamming those units is much more effective (from a 3v3 perspective). Naturally, Forty banshees reigning death upon tanks tingles my heart, yet I’m nervous about over performance. 1.3 personally feels more safe. At the same time, I don’t believe a 0.1 buff against medium is harsh enough. Considering the countless times I’ve witnessed players spam warthogs without hesitation or scouting, to their success, reckless play should be punished slightly more.
I’d prefer if T2 air did more to T2 core, and T3 air did more to tanks. There’s not much sense in machine guns and plasma repeaters tearing apart tanks, while gunships can only use their special abilities to any real effect. Vultures are good at base-killing, but have to stay away from almost anything else, since they’re so easy to hit with leader powers and infantry will tear them apart if they already used their Phoenix Missile.
I think kodiaks should be included in with medium and not heavy. If kodiaks stay as they currently are damage wise then Air needs to melt them. Also kodiaks are T2 Vehicles.
i think with the current anti air buff from AOE air damage to buildings should stay the same because if they get caught by anti air they will get melted.
So you want to be able to quickly strike with air.
if the anti air catches air then the air gets destroyed.
If you revert air building damage then the Anti Air AOE buff should be reverted and then air should still melt tanks.