Yeah, lemme just walk this slow-moving widow mine into melee range of a building, burrow it, and wait 1 second for it to shoot a missile that does pathetic damage vs single target, wasting potential splash damage on a structure.
Of course reapers with 26 damage bombs and 4.45 move speed and strike fighter platforms with infinite range aren’t enough to deal with structures. What we really need is WIDOW MINES to attack them, yeah, perfect 5/7 solution.
3 Likes
Honestly I think dropping the gas cost would be fine to make Widow Mines good - they’re not bad units by any means, just cripplingly weak to detection and AOE (which… most map waves have PLENTY of, and green hybrid delete entire fields of widow mines in seconds) but can be good for spawn camping and defending individual areas from overseers etc.
4 Likes
H&H Widow mines just need to remove their gas cost and we have another good mineral dump unit between Reaper and Hellion (increase cost to 75) 
3 Likes
Thats honesty a real issue there
it should be a mineral only unit and a cheap one at that.
3 Likes
Widow mines are awesome and I use them at every chance I get. When you play enough have have the enemy spawn points memorized they get even more fun.
2 Likes
I remember that other thread where we were discussing the usefulness of Double Salvage Chance and Stronger Death Chance, I think the Widow Mine can open up these masteries.
Increase their movement speed and allow them to move while burrowed. Turn them into a suicide bomber that can hit air, this way you can use them offensively to soften up enemy bases, and even if you lose them, they’ll go out in a blaze of glory and even give you a small refund.
1 Like
Main issues about mines is that they cost gas. This means - making mines you restrict your own air production. And refusing Horners’ air is making your play not effective.
The 2nd issue - mines become visible after shooting. Technically this means they are visible 99% time an enemy is near.
This is solvable when you:
- playing with Swann, you can waste resources for junk like mines.
- playing with Vorazun and place mines near dark pylon so they stay invisible anyway.
The 3rd issue - you have space mines which do nearly the same, only better and for free.
So this all means mines are trash when playing with most allies, it’s a waste of precious gas for junk unit which simply doesn’t live when you already have a replacement.
Pretty obvious how this could be fixed: mines cost non or less gas and they always stay invisible. Then they could become replacement of static defense which Horners don’t have.
However I think of a better solution (which Bliz will not do of course). Simply replace mines with tanks or goliaths and give the base ability to transform to a PF.
Since when? Amon uses the same mines but they stay cloaked after they fire.
It would be interesting if widow mines dropped 50% or 100% of their resources when salvage procs instead of 10%. Makes them much less of an investment
3 Likes
After playing and seeing how the Widow mines operate, i have no idea what i should use it for. It is good for cheese game in ladder but hardly any use in coop except dealing with some early wave.
1 Like
Remove the gas cost and we may use them.
At the moment they feel too expensive and clunky to use.
3 Likes
I still use them for fun. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with them the way they are.
Even by removing gas cost, make them permanently cloaked, or even faster missiles, none of these would make them competitive enough. Surely all improvement ideas but doesn’t bring anything more to the table they don’t already have.
2 Likes
I believe the main problem is the automatically target system. The mines do not target the same enemy unit by themselves unless you manually click it.
For example, if you lay 10 widow mines in a spawn point, and 1 ultralisk and 9 zerglings spawn, only 1 mine will target the ultralisk, and the 9 other mines will target each zerglings by themselves. The ultralisk would receive 125+40*9 damage, with 16 HP left. If the enemy has hybrids, who has more HP and also is a detector, they would survive the first wave of mines shots, and clear them before the mines can shot another time.
2 Likes
Really? I believe this is one of the perks of the mines. I would much rather have the Mines choose their targets smartly and spread out the damage across multiple units, destroying attacks waves easily.
Having all of them automatically just blow their load on the first high health target would like not be enough to kill the multi-thousand health Big Hybrid regardless, and then the rest of the attack wave would just be almost entirely intact while all the mines are on cooldown.
Mines are for clearing waves and bunches of enemy units. Galleons and Horner units can mop up the hybrid and other targets that survive the wave-clearing mines.
6 Likes
The mines are missing an upgrade that would remove their gas cost.
All other units made from the galleons only cost minerals, the mines could too.
7 Likes
As much as it would be fun to have a mass of Widow Mines, I am pretty sure it’ll be game breaking.
125 (2 radius full damage) + 40 (splash damage) and + bonus damage to shields +35 full/+40 splash.
Think about how many Reapers can be made, then think about that same number, instead of dealing 4 x 2 (or 20 vs. structure) per attack… they deal 125+. Even with the cooldown of 20s that is pretty insane damage.
Fun but seems a bit broken.
2 Likes
That is already viable. Go stronger death effect and double salvage mastery and it works. I’ve seen people doing it. Its hilarious and surprisingly effective.
They ain’t nearly as powerful as a bunch of Reapers, too clunky to use, lower dps, cost two supply instead of one, and die more often, but can do some work. Since they still cost 3 times more minerals than gas you can mass them and accumulate gas anyway.
Honestly, one of my thoughts could be if they had to start with a gas cost, then the Black Market Launchers could bake in the gas cost removal, alongside the range boost and burrow speed.
I dunno, compared to the many other game breaking things in this case, this seems rather tame and requires at least a little bit of micro instead of just a-moving Reapers and vaporizing bases and most units with the insane structure bombs and the hitscan pistols that don’t overkill.
5 Likes
Fair point. Widow Mines will remain a fun niche lol, which is fine for me.
Allow them to attack structures and maybe give them a global teleporting kind of ability like Brutalisk OR give them an auto burrow or allow them to attack while unburrowed OR lastly make them cost 1 supply.