Again, how is this helpful? Are reapers and strike fighters not a thing? Would you want your widow mines to waste potential splash damage on structures?
Also sounds like you want to make widow mines into swarm hosts. Deep tunnel on widow mines would be hilarious and I’m all for that.
I dont care about if a unit overlaps another unit in some way, I just like to have different potential build options when playing a commander, and H&H definitely needs more variety and options than anyone else. I would rather have the choice of choosing mass Widowmines or Mass Reapers/helions than only being able to choose reapers/helions every single game.
One way to make this distinction is to increase specific damage type to HH’s units.
For example, Reapers with high Bio-Bio damage and Structure damage. Hellion having ++bonus versus Massive and Armored. Hellbat gaining even more tankiness. Widow Mine remain great against clumps. Meanwhile, dial down (yes nerf) general damage on these units, so a variety becomes the norm.
Currently, despite the bonus gained from on death by non-reaper units, most players remain on the mass reaper reaps all boat.
I would like to see that a lot, honestly. I REALLY want a reason to use a more varied army to play up their combined-arms boosts, but… Reapers are just like 20 times better than anything else on the ground, and upgrading all of them combined slows down your Horner fleet without much real payoff atm.
Yes, you’d still have games where you make MORE reapers than anything else (especially vs zerg and air) but at least vs terran mech you’d seriously consider Hellions and even vs Zerg there’d be more reason to throw in suicidal Hellbats - OR use Widow Mines to clear blobs of lings.
Chicken or egg… I wonder if we’d see more WM if their gas cost was removed, while Reapers were the ones that cost gas.
Otherwise, you can just swap their min costs, and lose gas either way (so WM cost 50, while Reapers @75).
So may be make them free already?!
How about increase attack range by 5? Mines actually have quite nice damage, though limited range.
That way they would better compensate the lack of static defenses for H&H too, which i think would be nice.
Just an idea…
Could somebody enlighten me what’s so bad about widow mines? I use them just fine, and why yes of course they can be used offensively just take a lesson from ladder a couple of seasons ago.
Removing their gas cost would just make them ridiculously OP even more so than Raynor’s mines used to be.
I don’t think they should be free. I agree with the general sentiment that gas does limit them, since Horner units are nice, and they’re all on the hefty side with gas.
If nothing else, I’d propose that Reapers cost 5 gas each to prevent them from being mineral dumps.
I use WM extensively since I’m a “mass tower type”, so it’s nice to hear others do actually use them.
In general, Reapers are so effective at wiping everything out (and cost no gas, and only 50 mins) that people just mass those (I counted for one of my HH allies… he had 98 of them rampaging the map), and likely don’t bother with anything else HH have to offer.
Goodness, come back and see this topic has ended up with way more replies than I would have thought for a unit that is basically fine barring one thing, haha.
Widow Mines don’t need more firepower, they don’t need their automatic smartcasting changed, they don’t need yet another range boost on top of Black Market Launchers, they don’t need to be able to target structures, and haha, they most definitely don’t need a global Deep Tunnel ability to burrow to anywhere on the map.
Widow Mines are fine as they as stat and ability wise; the only change I believe that they need is to become a mineral only sink like the rest of Han’s forces, removing the gas cost, and maybe increasing the mineral cost to 100 to compensate. They are expendable defensive units, for ambushing attack waves or luring enemies into traps, very similar to Spider Mines. The difference being that the cheaper Spider Mines do far, far more damage against ground than Widow Mines ever could in addition to being set and forget, while the latter can shoot at both ground and air, and require some micromanagement to move about.
You shouldn’t be punished so heavily for wanting to play with the mines by losing all your gas for Horner forces, because once again, mineplay is really, really fun to do, even if they are still horribly suboptimal and weaker than mass Reapers.
Nothing really, just a few players who are moaning about really minor things.
I think he was being sarcastic. 
That would make them a way OP siege unit, lol!
Lol, I initially read that as to 5 and not “by 5”. That would be crazy overpowered haha.
Yea… let’s not go TOO crazy with Widow Mines. Especially in a game like SC2, major buffs can SIGNIFICANT and unexpected effects.
I still think that removing the gas cost (and potentially adding some extra mineral cost for balance purposes - YMMV) would be the safest way to buff them without risking going too crazy on things. I agree with Kirena’s post, 100/0 would be a good start to see if they are balanced/overpowered at that cost. Some of Han’s other mineral dumps are 100 too so it seems like a good start.
Immobile Widdow-Mines with 10 range and 20s cooldown would be OP?
Then attack & move Wraithwalkers, with 11 range and 3s cooldown must be super mega OP then?
Not a fair comparison, try facing 10 wrathwalkers against 20 mutalisks, then try the same with 10 widow mines. Wrathwalkers are single-target siege units, widow mines are aoe traps
How is it a fair comparison, only considering a unit that widdow mines hard counter?
Why not take thors instead? Or static defenses, that mines cannot attack? Or BCs?
Let me extend an olive branch here: maybe 10 range would be too powerful for mines… it would often destroy enemy detection too early… especially protoss observers. And because mines are cheap and only 2 supply.
However i still think additional range to be a good change… just maybe 7-8 instead 10. That way detectors can still detect without getting into range and siege tanks, colossi, tempests, reavers, broodlords, etc. would outrange them easily.
And low range, high HP units like Ultras would shrug off multiple mine hits and even more of the AoE part.
7-8 range would make them a much better tool for base defense, and maybe also offensively… they would be pretty much mini burrowed low range siege tanks, that can attack air, but have much longer attack cooldown.
I shouldn’t have added that bit about the mutalisks. Focus on the roles of the two units, comparing the two if them is moot, they’re poles apart when it comes to their roles.
As for the range increase, Kirena has already pointed out why increasing their range will not make them any more appealing to use than they are now, nobody effectively uses mines for offense other than Nova’s Siege Tanks. If you want to snipe down high hp and priority targets, H&H has Strike Fighters that only require a one time investment, have no micro, and can fire deep into enemy territory.
Also, Cryswar is right, let’s not go too crazy and start changing unit roles. Mineplay is most fun to do when you’re spawncamping, turning a mine into a micromanaged siege unit sounds moot.
You tell me. I didn’t expect a personal nag of a complaint to grow into such a heated argument.