Ghosts should be considered Light units

No, that’s exactly the problem. Zerg units are melee and to hit the ghost they have to go into range of liberators/tanks which guarantees they die anyway. This problem is compounded by cloak, which makes it so you can’t see them. That’s why banelings are used - banelings do splash on death even without having a target lock, giving the potential to splash cloaked ghosts. But, banelings are so expensive and in close proximity to ghosts are guaranteed to die to the tanks/liberators. As I said, the snipe interaction is “true or false, did you enter snipe range?” and “if true, your units die”.

No, both those players are extremely boring.

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Yet, in the above video, the two ghost I mentioned entered snipe range, and the targeted lurkers weren’t even damaged. Maybe place an overseer above your lurkers ? ¯\(ツ)

No wonder we don’t understand each other, I really like both of those players’ styles. But then again, I love to watch nearly every match-up (I was even entertained by several Serral vs Reynor ZvZ finals), so maybe I appreciate this game a bit too much. :angel:

I think lurker styles are preferable to mass baneling styles but I hate both with a passion either way. You don’t understand how either work. Lurker styles create “no man land” areas where neither player can secure an expansion. That’s because the combo of lurker/baneling can charge into a sieged position and displace a terran. The banelings displace the ghosts long enough for the lurkers to get into position and then they displace everything else. The moment the banelings are gone, the Terran can reliably displace the lurkers with ghosts. So you throw banelings at the terran, which is expensive, but it’s worthwhile if you can stampede over a base. But, the Terran is able to quickly displace those lurkers and resecure the base, and the cycle repeats. So Lurker styles create “no man lands” where neither terran or zerg can secure certain expansions. This leads to the same exact problem for Zerg as it becomes a game of efficiency and Zerg is completely and utterly disadvantaged in that regard (in many more ways than just the insane efficiency of snipe).

Lurkers are good at taking positions, but not good at holding them.

They epitomize everything that is wrong with the design of SC2. SC2 has turned into a split map endurance micro game. The strategy of tech paths, unit production waves, positioning, has all been superseded by maxed F2 armies posturing in the middle of the map for 40 minutes with one and only goal: maximize trading efficiency.

SC2 in its current form is NOT a strategy game, it’s an endurance/multitasking game aka “EAM” aka “Endurance and Multitasking”. These players are good ONLY because they can click fast and it’s exactly that playstyle that should be nerfed into oblivion.

If Blizzard were to reduce the mechanical difficulty of the game by 10%, you’d probably increase the number of SC2 players by 10 fold. SC2 is designed around a class of mechanically elite snobs and this extreme emphasis on mechanics destroys the strategical elements of the game and makes the game inaccessible to 99% of players.

It’s saddening to say it, but League and Dota are truer to the RTS genre than SC2 is at this point in time.

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According to what you wrote, banes counter ghosts and ghosts counter lurker. While lurkers counter the main ground armies. So each unit has its counter, depending on how it’s used. Doesn’t seems that badly designed put it that way, doesn’t it ? Hence why ghost’s role is important in this equilibrium : remove them and it removes a counter in this displacement cycle, making the lurker broken.

Interesting strategical insight about the displacement mechanic, that being said, thank you for that. :slight_smile:

You underestimate Serral’s strategical thinking. True his multitask is exceptional, but so is the one of the other pro players of his age. What makes Serral what he is also is his remarkable scouting, decision making and mastery of the different compositions. In other words his real time tactical thinking. Hence why he got an edge lately on Reynor, despite his opponent being younger and thus even faster than him.

Clem could get there someday, but his race/style stresses the multitasking mechanics even more, which lessens his tactical thinking at the moment. He isn’t as experienced as Maru and it shows. Hence why he can consistently beat Reynor (who is impressive, but has real nag style’s sometimes), but not Maru.

It’s true that the mechanics are the core of the game. They are what determine what league you get into. Which would be fine btw, as then each league would have its own according strategical metagame enjoyable enough regardless of the mechanics/level of play. Smurfs are part of what disrupts that.

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Lmao displacing a ghost from a position is not “countering ghosts”. I didn’t read the rest of your post.

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You don’t need to mention that, I know well enough how your argumentations work Batz. We won’t change you.

Still, thanks for the displacement paragraph. :slight_smile:

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Correct, I can tell when someone is trolling and I stop reading their posts. When I say banes can make ghosts have to move backwards, you take that inch and go a mile with it to say I am saying ghosts are countered by banelings. That’s not at all what I said. They go backwards into their supports units, which then slaughter the banelings and the Zerg loses the efficiency game - which is exactly what I said prior. Your trolling is futile: lying about what I’ve said only gets you blocked. This is your only warning.

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But who’s trolling here, BatZ ? Clem & Serral ? Maru ? I provide undeniable video examples of tournament games proving how biased your presentation of things can be.

— Steady targeting is a certain kill ? Nope :

— Lings banes can’t counter ghosts ? Nope :

Not to mention fungal, which unlike EMP is lethal :

The truth is that thanks to video evidence you’ve reached the point where you can’t argue much faster than usual. Videos which denies your claims, so if anyone is trolling here it seems to be you. You can block me/admit defeat anyway, your loss. :slight_smile:

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is a good point.
but you must admit Ghost/infestor/Ht are the most similar…

i don’t get it now, you are insulting me because of my bad english?..
and show two videos that do NOT prove your point?

that’s what you said to infestor… but
6 Ravager bils don’t come from infestor… also not from the one spore…

You might want to rethink your statements or better express what you mean.

perhaps my word “universal” was not described correctly and the context was not clear enough.

what i find at ghost to “universal” refers to TvZ.
“ohh no zerg has infestors (or/and viper) i need a handful of ghost (luckily i have a handful of ghost)”
role anti-caster is fine.

but it looks more like this (nice to see at HSC, no maru):
Zerg go mass ling/bane/ Mutas → 15+Ghost.
Zerg go Lurker->15+Ghost.
Zerg go Ultra->15+Ghost
Zerg go Bl->15+Ghost
Zerg go sh → 15+Ghost
what forgot for the if zerg go nevertheless on caster-> 8Ghost, just a joke, it is of course 15+Ghost.

what is this for a logic → consequently to “universal” in TvZ. it is apparently no waste to mass ghost in no point.
possibly not balance (?), but at least design of rts it does not correspond.

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Yea it’s like if I said ravens one-shot colossus by casting IM then killing them with stimmed bio or auto-turrets, like the 2 supply does not really one-shot the 6 supply one if you need an army to back it up, that’s the army doing the work with the caster providing utility

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Problem is Terran can make perfect position where there is nothing Zerg can brake.

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That’s a point of view. The infestor’s neural utility looks like a stronger version of the Raven’s interference matrix, while the HT’s storm is a hybrid between a caster and all purposes splash. Anyway, glad you see the above point.

I answered you on the same tone you used. The problem here being that if you use sarcasm, it is recommended not to make mistakes in the doing, otherwise your interlocutors can throw them back at you.

For example, I said you could make “battlecruisers” (plural) fire Yamato on themselves (implying there are at least two, which can target each other), then teleport them on “some spores” (plural again) to both prevent the escape and finish the job.

You seemed to have understood at first that I was suggesting that a single BC could fire at itself (to scuttle itself like some boat :laughing: ), then to get obliterated by a single spore. And you write that with spelling mistakes, missing subjects, lacking punctuation and so on.
Seriously if you fail at reading english ; then proceed at a grammar impaired sarcasm attempt on the base of that misunderstanding ; and then even state your interlocutors should watch for their expression skills, don’t be surprised it fires back at you. Don’t taunt in a language you’re not fluent with, dude. :roll_eyes:

You see a BC firing a Yamato on another on the first (which is what I was saying), and then teleporting on a spore on the second (which you said was impossible). The first proves my point, the second denies yours.

This is true. However, ghosts roles and importance do vary in the above example.

For example, against Lurker, ghosts are the key to free lurker entrenched positions. Whereas vs ling banes mutas, ghosts are going to perform poorly on their own against lings banes, so you’ll want an army which’ll be mainly MMM mines thors, with some ghosts to help chase the mutas and not get destabilized by an Ultralisk switch.

And then again, why is it that being useful in all circumstances should be bad ?
Look at the viper :
carrier voidray → Viper (abduct)
Mass voidray → viper (parasitic bomb)
Mass BC → Viper (abduct)
Lots of vikings → Parasitic bomb
Thors ? → abduct
Thor tanks hellbats ? → blinding cloud ± abducts
marine tank → blinding could ± abducts
roach hydra → blinding cloud
mutas lings banes → parasitic bomb
Other vipers → abduct
Other casters → abduct

The Viper is basically useful in every match-up, and cost efficient in every lategame. Is it a problem ? Well, for me not really, since it’s a costly micro-base unit, that requires resources to get, and micro/experience to use, and which could be countered by similar micro from the opponent, provided he has the units (tempests, HTs… and ghosts) (another example of why ghosts are needed).

Same applies for the ghost. Yes it’s useful against nearly whole Z lategame (banes & cracklings excepted, you don’t want to get circled by those), just like the Viper. And just like the Viper, that’s where it’s meant to be. :slight_smile:

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wow someone wants to be smart here…
sry that there are other languages in the world and people have grown up with this.

but no matter how you argue with grammar subtleties like plural. you can’t talk your way out of it:

Your statement infestor can bc’s one shot is not true.
spore != infestor, other units != infestor
infestor force BC into a fight with neural → tp. but they one shot them not, not even with neural → yamatoo each other.

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Dude, you had literally understood that one battlecruiser would shoot himself down, and then proceeded to babble on expression lacks, all that with a broken and barely understandable grammar. You had it coming.

Note that I could keep abusing that on and on since it weakens all of your posts. However this is not a vs Batz debate, so I believe we can reach a conclusion without throwing every pointless weakness back at each other. You tell me.

Alright.

  • Infestors alone, by the neural → Yamato + attack command mechanic will only ensure the death of one third of the BCs, provided there is one infestor per BC. You will note infestors are only one third of the BCs supplies however.
  • The same ratio of Infestors with a supporting anti-air (whether it’s your army or a mini spore forest) will ensure that all the BCs affected with neural will die. In that case, the moment the neural connects, any unsupported BC is lost for the terran. Neural → dead. If you’ve got only BCs, once the neural connects, nothing you can do but watch them die.

Another example below.

So from there,
— This is pushy/deliberately provoking :

— This is true :

Back on the matter at hand :

  • considering the power of neural and abduct, the snipe doesn’t seem OP, assuming both ghosts and infestors/vipers have a supporting army (to prevent them being jumped upon or deal the damage to the spell targeted units).
  • considering the durability of the 175HP 1 armor point 150M 0G tier1 queen, who also hasn’t got an armored-light tag, it doesn’t imbalanced for the 150M 125G 100 HP 0 armor lategame ghost to share the same untagged status.

So in other words, both queens and ghost have been without light tag since about 12 years. That’s part of the game balance, whining about it is pointless. Non zerg races can have units without armor tags, get over it. :slightly_smiling_face:

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step further, you now explain it in more detail. That infestors with neural, force Bc into a situation in which they trade badly.
Infestor one shot not BC by itself.

critical statement:

and more specifically that (not related to the point with ghost armor tag):

just because what was before doesn’t mean it’s still good.
How did you say? the whole view.

just because something was good in the past doesn’t mean it’s still good.
How did you say? the whole view.
we had things in WoL and Hots, otherwise said that were also in the game for a long time, which were then changed.
Example: Root fungal, Raven Seeker Missile, HT - stack of storm.
Sh (hots)

Correct. Unassisted infestors will only one shot one third of the BCs by themselves (2x Yamato then ATA targetting on the same BC by the two others).

I believe I clarified that quite honestly in my previous post. :angel:

I agree. The longevity of an element in itself doesn’t mean it’s necessarily balanced.

However :

  • Each time I tried to bring the whole picture, I’ve been ignored.
  • The older something is, the more likely it is to have been addressed if it’s an issue. So while it’s not a warrantee, it’s still more unlikely for 12 years old established parameters (let’s say the marine) to be as greatly imbalanced than more recent ones (the lurker, disruptor, ravager, adept, cyclone and liberator). Just because less time was available to assess if they were problematic or not.

And honestly, it’s just tiresome to see some players cry continuously about things that were there since Wol (the Mule, the carrier, the canon rush, the queen, the spores not requiring a special building, the banelings, etc. etc.). Hence the mention that the ghost not being light is a 12 years old parameter.

Now, if I’m allowed to talk about the whole picture :

  • TvZ was 49% in March (2022), 51% in April, 50% in May, 51% in June. That not that far away from 50%. Compare that to PvZ (57%, 55, 54 & 56% over the same period) and it could seem strange to point the ghost as a problem when the MU is the most balanced currently available.
  • The queen, the baneling and the ravager also don’t have a tag. 3 units without tag, which affects grealy their interactions… and so it may seem strange for the race that has the most tagless units to cry about the others, since the others races have only one.
  • The queen cost the same mineral than a ghost, but no gaz vs 125, is available from tier 1, has one armor point and nearly 2x more HP. Some have tried giving it the tag, it gets slaughtered. Same would happen to the ghost, while it requires a lot more tech, and costs way more.
  • A stalker has +60% HP than a ghost, same for the oracle. A marauder has more HP than a ghost, and more armor. Coming from there, sure the ghost has less HP than an infestor, but it’s on the average mean of casters (HT, sentry and infestor have less ; Viper, Oracle and Raven have more), and on the fragile side for all units.

So whole picture :
— TvZ does not seem currently that imbalanced (or it is imbalanced, but about as imbalanced from both sides I’d say ^^)
— The steady targeting is certainly powerful, but neural & abduct can be even more (see what’s the value the BCs were traded with vs Dark on the 2nd example).
— The ghost’s light tag doesn’t seem abusive considering his HP are on the low side for a lategame unit, and considering zerg have 3x more units without tags. Not to mention that what may seem easy for Clem of Maru watched on a stream really isn’t when you have to implement it yourself in your own multitask. Good micro deserves to be rewarded, this is true for Dark’s infestors-ravagers, I don’t see why it wouldn’t for Maru’s ghosts.

For example, look at what happens when you don’t babysit them enough :

2 lurkers dead for 4 ghosts. Action required from the zerg player ? None aside than leaving the lurkers sieged with an overseer. So don’t whine if a good player manages to kill overseer assisted lurkers without losing a ghost, it’s that he did setup and execute the micro move quite skillfully.

TL;DR : current whining seems not to take into account the whole balance/picture. :slight_smile:

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I feel like you people have a really poor understanding of what “one shot” means.

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That’s because you’ve never experienced the pleasure of having your BCs fleet cross the path of the infestors of a skillful zerg. If your Bcs are unsupported, the moment the neural connects, there is nothing you can do but watch them die.

Let’s take a practical example :

— How many BCs are there ?
— How many neurals per BC are casted ?
— How many of the neuraled BCs do survive by the end of the spell ?
— What does Dream could’ve done to save the affected BCs once the neural had connected ?
— What would’ve been the outcome if there was no infestors in that fight, but only the ravagers and the SH ?

Bonus question :
— What’s the amount of ressources lost for the terran and the zerg in this fight ?

It may not be instant, but by the moment the neural wears off the result is as certain as if your BC had crossed the path of 10 tempests. You get in range, you lose your BCs, it’s as simple as that. However, it’d still take 10 tempest 23s secs to kill 10 BCs, which could retaliate by TP + Yamato to at least trade with them.
Whereas if your BCs are in neural range, you get neuraled in 1s, 11s later you have no Bcs and there is no trade. It’s even more powerful than the classic one shot notion in fact.

I don’t know if you like to watch TvZ streams, but some years ago, BCs openers and even mass BCs were part of the meta. Watching TY (or was it Maru ? ) pre-scanning cautiously while having his BCs carefully going to leave the aerial void is something a terran who knows what neurals do to isolated BCs could fully relate to. :blush:

In my opinion, what I criticize about Ghost is not balance but at least the design.

Ghost is classified as “anti-caster”, but this is not true. snipe for zerg/ emp for toss shield removal.
So the Ghost falls into the class of a “caster”, but even here he has compared to all other “caster” the ghost is a soilden combat unit. And option for harass and zone.

especially for TvZ:

  • Ghost is ok against weaker Zerg units + with support like medi/tank/mine.
  • stronger Zerg units are countered by Ghost through snipe.
  • if zerg wants to boost his army with caster/supporter, they will be countered by Ghost.
  • Ghost brings options with nuke for zone/harass.

As you say TvZ, is a close balanced. (PvZ is currently also becoming more popular with gate style). but at least design of Ghost can be questioned when a niche unit aka “anti-cast”, suddenly becomes “universal” in a match up.

maybe it’s the same dilemma as with queen. from balance bad, ok, necessary, good or whatever you want to call it. but from design questionable in a RTS.

quite honestly.
I think everyone understands what you mean about the infestor-neural/Bc interaction.
But you should also admit now that it is not a classic one shot, in the definition of one shot.
one shot is something like:

  • Purification Nova → it hits the target, the target is dead.
  • Bane/ ling interaction (bane+2attack vs probe)
  • Yamato …
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This.

Yes, its very sudden. But so would unburrowing a dozen zerglings in the middle of 100 supply of marines. Its not “getting one shot” its “getting killed fast.”

Getting one shot means there is actually one shot involved. If you have to involve another unit, its not getting one shot.

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