I saw a lot of discussions regarding Hellbat role in bio compositions and how it doesn’t fit or needs Armory and separate production and debates around should it have bio tag or removed , should it become armored or not … etc.
Why not just bring in Wing’s of Liberty Firebat and give him +2 Armor upgrade at tech lab and makes him benefit from Stim while removing that transformation stuff and keep the hellion as it is ?
That is a terrible suggestion.
The Hellbat isn’t for Bio, it exists to fill several gaps in mech. Bio has no need or use for Hellbats.
Mech needs Hellbats to deal with light units (which Thors, Tanks, and Cyclones are all inefficient against) and to serve as a meat-shield to protect Siege Tanks and Cyclones. Hellbats could not function in this capacity if they were an armored unit because Immortals would cut through them far too quickly and because they couldn’t survive friendly-fire from Siege Tanks.
Hellbats are a morph of the Hellion because they fix the flaws in the Hellion that prevented it from working as a combat unit. The Hellion’s line splash and mobility make it very effective against workers but relatively weak against combat units. As a direct result, Hellions cannot be balanced with the health to serve as a meat-shield or the anti-light DPS to function against units like Zealots without becoming overpowered at worker harassment.
The Hellbat morph fixes those problems by being much slower (so it can be balanced with more health and DPS) and by using a different AOE that is much more effective against melee units. By morphing between Hellion and Hellbat mode, the Hellion can fill its roles as a meat-shield unit and a worker harassment unit without becoming overpowered or problematic at either role.
Meanwhile as I stated earlier, Bio has no need or use for a Firebat like unit:
Marines have sufficient DPS to counter most light units. The few light units that are specialized enough to beat Marines in some cases already lose to Marauder, Tank, or Widow Mine support such that Bio does not need another unit to deal with them. Marines also beat most anti-light units in either small or large counts (depending on the unit in question).
Bio has enough mobility to kite and split to mitigate damage from the enemy, and it depends on this mobility to be effective in combat. A near-melee unit would be much less efficient in Bio compositions (having far fewer opportunities to attack) even if it was given enough mobility to keep up with Bio; and if it had the mobility to keep up with Bio then it could not be balanced with enough strength to work as a meat-shield unit for mech (which is the composition that actually needs it).
Bio doesn’t have the range to safely utilize a meat-shield unit. Both Siege Tanks and Cyclones have massive range to avoid retaliation from the opponent. This is why Hellbats work as a meat-shield for them. In contrast, Bio does not have enough range to attack anything beyond the Hellbats without coming into range of standard ranged units (Stalkers, Hydralisks, etc) and most of the splash damage units that counter Bio (HT, Disruptors, Colossus, Siege Tanks, Infestors, etc). This makes a meat-shield useless for Bio in most cases. Even in the Baneling case, the Bio player is better off using Widow Mines or Tanks and running over relying on a meat-shield unit that cannot avoid damage from the Banelings.
No one said Hellbats should become armored.
But removing the Bio-tag absolutely should happen since that would greatly buff TvP Mech viability without changing anything in TvT and TvZ Mech since Mech rarely builds medivacs at all and never has a need to build 1 per hellbat.