“They nerfed banes because if 1 or 2 got in the mineral line, it’d wipe them out.”
Yeah, that was the point. Can’t believe pros can do cannon rushes, yet the primary function of the baneling gets nerfed. Crybabies.
There’s a difference between “explaining” something and “repeating it” lol. You didn’t explain it, you said it.
Only thing you’ve proven is that you’ll say anything, believe anything, no matter how incomprehensibly stupid it is, to justify that Protoss is just as difficult as Terran. I asked you to provide any metric and the BEST you could do, is to split them by MMR and say “look, hey, they have only slightly less MMR…” Like, of course they do, how could they not?
Hell, once we got in an argument about Terran having poor scouting and I compared it to the halu phoenix and you legit told me to “just be in position and shoot it down…” lol. What? Be in position for the thing I have no idea when or where it’s coming from? Maru couldn’t do that.
Nobody would MASS hundreds of a unit vs units that it isn’t specialized against if it wasn’t a reasonably viable strategy. Banelings are one of the best units in the game for pressing an advantage because of the threat they represent. They force your opponent to play around them. Banes have such poor cost efficiency in aggregate because they very rarely need to be cost efficient; they’re used for tempo, and they’re fantastic at generating it.
No, Zerg would very likely not make immortals if they had access to them outside of circumstances where the immortals would be particularly good, such as vs mass stalker - immortals lack the mobility to be used responsively or escape if a fight turns against them (which is why they’re usually juggled with a prism if they aren’t in critical mass), especially not instead of banelings, given that their roles are completely opposite to one another. At least pick a unit with a similar role, like Colossus or widow mines - the former having a glaring weakness to anti-air specialist units, and the latter being immobile during fights/unable to damage buildings or press the advantage as effectively as a large number of banes.
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The nerf that you guys brought up didn’t even have anything to do with that issue; that was the reason for an entirely separate nerf.
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That isn’t their primary function. Their primary function is anti-light splash to clear out units like marines/zerglings/zealots/adepts, which is something they do very well (provided they’re in sufficient numbers to actually connect).
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Wrong. David Kim has specifically said that the most interesting thing about the game is worker kills. Banelings being able to kill workers during his 7+ years at Blizz was no accident. What gives the balance council the right to change the game that drastically?
This guy is legitimately insane.
Let’s say all other zerg strategies have a 0% win-rate. Now lets say mass baneling has a 10% win-rate. Your conclusion: banelings are amazing because they are the only thing zerg uses!
It’s not rocket science. The only unit that has any utility in those scenarios is the baneling. All zerg units melt in those fights, but banelings deal collateral damage via splash when they die. So the zerg can sack 5000 gas in the hopes he might kill a couple buildings, maybe some workers. It’s a terrible trade, but it’s a better trade than other units would be able to achieve. And you are acting like that’s a good trade simply because it’s used frequently.
If the baneling is so amazing, why don’t we trade? You give us the immortal and we give you the baneling. You should be glad, you are getting the best unit in the game! Oh, you don’t want to trade? Huh. Funny how that works, isn’t it.
Yawn. Zergs use queens off creep. Get ready for the same pushes but with immortals instead.
The baneling is not a good unit, no matter how much you lie to yourself & everyone around you.
To be fair, Banelings went from a 10 health buff in LOTV back to their original health. That one really shouldn’t count.
The real “nerfs” were the reduced base damage and the reduced upgrade damage (so that Banelings never 1-shot full health probes and drones). In all cases, the Baneling nerfs benefited Protoss more than Terran, but I would not agree that any of them were unwarranted or unjustified.
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https://i.imgur.com/j7nH7Xb.jpeg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmYyPcEQKU4
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Except, and follow me on this - everything that protoss hates has also been nerfed as well. Lurkers, ghosts liberators, banlings, mines etc.
And was completely broken. Zealots as they are, are incredibly strong units currently. They were absurd when they had the 8 damage on impact, to a point where you didn’t need to build anything else - it’s a wonder that any Protoss did.
At the start of 2016, they were nerfed so that they can’t 2-shot marines and SCVs. I guess you’re referring to the 10 hp nerf that they got at the end of 2016?
While there were definitely some mine nerfs that were deserved, the splash radius nerf was entirely unwarranted. The mine was hit simultaneously with 4 nerfs - Alert, targeting, radius, drilling claw requirement. 3 of those are fine; they make it much easier to play against. The splash radius shouldn’t have been nerfed, however. Frankly speaking with the other nerfs you shouldn’t ever be taking probe damage from mines given how drastically the alert change increases the amount of reaction time you have, and how obvious the targeted unit is.
The mine’s splash radius nerf also really screwed with a Terran’s ability to effectively counter Zealots too.
David Kim is the reason Protoss is in the gutter in the first place since he refused to actually fix any of the issues Protoss had in favour of keeping the mothership core around, which was genuinely one of the worst units ever to be put into games.
Genuinely, Protoss skill issue at this point.
My god, how many times does this need to be explained to you that these are two completely different things?
You misunderstanding, misconstruing, or blatantly ignoring the multitude of explanations that were given to you on just how they were different (And there were a LOT of attempts) doesn’t mean that it wasn’t done.
Genuinely, you’re missing out. His blink stalker control was phenomenal and he was genuinely one of the best Protoss players I’ve ever seen - I’d argue that in his prime, he was far and away better than both HerO and MaxPax are now. Some of his games against players like Maru were freaking incredible. He played a 30+ minute TvP a while back (just after he came back from military, but before he dedicated to Stormgate) where he actually thrashed Maru.
Ehh… Debatable, I think, because Macro play actually has to also include micro play in many, many cases. Part of the strength of 1 and 2 base all-ins is that you only have to rely on micro, because you never intend to transition out of it, so your macro goes out the window. With Macro play, you have to do both.
I’m sorry, I can’t agree here; having front-loaded production is far to beneficial. Easy bank spending, powerful reinforcements that can be warped in on location, dangerous units with DTs, Zealots and Templar, the former two being some of the best run-by units in the game, especially considering the DT’s ability to blink in and out of places.
Meanwhile you get chrono for your rear-loaded production to churn it out incredibly quickly.
True.
Stats, primarily. And kinda classic, though he’s definitely not as good as he used to be prior to service.
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- takes statement entirely out of context. Makes inane claim.
Now replace that 10% win rate with the 45-60% win rate it actually has in high level play, while other styles also have fairly good win rates…
Your “argument” here is absurd.
Except this is clearly not the case. Infestors, Lurkers, brood lords, corruptors, vipers, etc… all can deal reliable damage and trade efficiently when used well. They just aren’t as good at very quickly busting open a position.
The reason it’s often a good trade for Zerg even when it’s unfavorable in terms of a resource exchange is because Zerg is usually ahead in economy and can more quickly replace their army, and busting open a position to get rid of a base is often worth an unfavorable resource exchange.
Zealots are another unit that shows similarly terrible efficiency statistically, and yet people argue they’re fantastic for a similar reason - they’re good for maintaining map control when you can overwhelm the opponent with a stronger economy.
Queens cost less than half of what immortals do, aren’t armored, can hit air with 7 range (The main reason queen walks were ever a thing is just that Queens are the only hatch tech anti-air), and have transfuse, spread creep, and inject. They’re practically never used off creep anymore since transfuse was disabled off of it due to just how strong those queen walks were.
Actual pro players would disagree with you on that, so…
Eh, Protoss build times are also substantially longer on such units though. With constant Chronos, sure, Protoss can pump Robo/SG units marginally faster than Terran can their own, but it definitely doesn’t beat Larva.
Warp gate is definitely a big advantage in the late game once production is set up, though it’s compensated by gateway units generally being inefficient, especially at that stage of the game, as well as generally longer production cycles.
DTs and Zealots in particular are notably inefficient compared to their T/Z counterparts of lings/marines, and to some extent hellions/hellbats for the harass role. Lings can deal more damage than zealots more reliably with half the investment, and it’s a similar case with marines, but they can’t be warped in.
DTs are incredibly expensive for what they do, so need to deal a LOT of damage for them to pay off, and the opponent can’t be ready for them. Sure, they’re invisible run-by units, but every race can build static detection/defense and/or keep units in position to deal with them efficiently unless the Protoss is already in a very dominant position in the game or the opponent is caught completely off guard.
Eh, Clem is on record saying that the mine nerfs didn’t make a difference at all for him. They obviously do help Protoss, but there was some testing that showed the real impact of the splash radius nerf in particular was almost completely inconsequential.
The mine nerfs mattered, but you’re overstating things a bit here. The biggest change, at least as far as the top level play is concerned, was probably the drilling claws nerf pushing back the timing when mines stay cloaked, combined with the change that made it so they don’t 1-shot observers with their splash. Protoss don’t get bled by widow mines catching their detection in the edge of the radius and staying cloaked anymore.
Of course, the attack warning and making the target much easier to identify also help players respond.
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Then post an assumption and an accompanying metric to back it up. This isn’t rocket science.
Yes, there are many explanations that are possible with literally zero evidence to accompany them.
“Statistics contain clusters” isn’t a metric.
Deluded. Mass bane play had a 45% win-rate at its highest. People remember the 1 time rogue or dark made it work but don’t bother going back and counting all the times it didn’t. That’s one of the big issues with how the general sc2 population perceives game balance. They watch the finals and that’s it. Imagine driving on a 10 hour roadtrip but looking at only 1 road sign. You’d end up in the middle of nowhere. That’s exactly what’s happening here. Banes op? Lol, no. Protoss whiners on the balance counsel are too lazy to manage their probes during an attack & exploited the finals of tournaments as justification to make their own lives easier.
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I think the best thing to do is to leave every balance change after David Kim left as a mod. The actual blizzard dev team had 10 years to work on the game, and no bias.
What’s tiresome is the absence of any relevant evidence. Everyone thinks they are right but never check the data to see if they are. It’s a god complex – “my mind defines reality”. The first question should always be how was this data collected. Then, what does this data say. To avoid biases, the data is blinded & the analysis automated with a computer script. There’s tens of thousands of games played per day. How cna you possibly understand sc2 as a whole? It’s literally impossible. The system is a black box. You can look at the statistics and infer probabilities that X or Y is true. It’s a rough process fraught with bias. Even a PhD team of statisticians would spend several years on the study before publishing the results. But no, trust us, the baneling is op because dark beat maru once upon a time.
They nerfed the bane because it was convenient. Any other explanation boils down to assumptions and generalizations. Strip awat thr superficial layers to their argumentation and it’s little different from how religious people convince themselves jeebus died for their sins. It’s all derived from wanton, carnal desire to believe you’re someone important. And your brain builds a belief system around that assumption. I didn’t lose, I am too good for that, it was the banelings fault!
Being objective is difficult because you must fundamentally reject your own importance, allowing you to see the raw truth even if it means something terrible for you. In the case of religion it’s the realization that we are sacks of meat on a giant rock hurtling through a universe that hates our existence; death is cold, dark, eternal oblivion.
So you can see, quite naturally, why people refuse to be objective. 
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Nah, most people recognize that it’s complicated and that their suggestions very well may not pan out as they intend, or that some of the things they say could be wrong. This is precisely why people often don’t propose specific numbers when making suggestions.
Most people recognize that they make assumptions, usually with a clear basis/reasoning, if not always.
The problem comes with interpretation of data. Biases will always be in play to some extent once a human tries to interpret it. Why the data shows what it does very often matters for any conclusions drawn from it.
Drawing a conclusion without properly contextualizing/processing data is usually no better than drawing a conclusion with no data at all. In some cases it’s worse, because now you have something to point to and say “See, this data supports my claim”, when it’s very probable that it doesn’t (or not to the degree claimed) making it more difficult to accept the possibility of a different conclusion being correct.
They nerfed banelings because the people making the decision felt it would benefit very high level play. There was some consensus on the balance council that banelings needed the nerfs they received, and banelings are fairly often referred to as the best - or among the best - units in the game by some prominent figures in the community - Artosis and Tasteless, for example, have pretty much always been of that opinion, and still seem to hold it despite the nerfs, though the former mostly focuses on BW now.
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When ahead, banelings in mass can press that advantage quickly, which is very powerful, regardless of whether or not it’s efficient.
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The whole “2 banelings detonate in a mineral line and kill 15 probes/drones” situation made a lot of games hinge too much on a single interaction that required very little investment or micro from the Zerg player (though this only relates to the damage nerf), which is a type of interaction that’s just generally despised by the community at all levels. - this is also part of the reason why widow mines were nerfed, and why disruptors are generally despised even by Protoss players.
(It’s honestly kind of crazy how long it’s taken to make any significant changes to any of those 3 units, given how much they’re disliked). -
The problem regarding banelings and cost efficiency is that they’re a suicide unit with little HP, a 0.5 supply cost, and a very large splash area with 100% damage across the entirety of that area. 2 banelings can kill some 20 marines or can kill 0. They’re extremely swingy/volatile. Average efficiency is very likely to be quite low in high level play, even though they have the potential for extremely high efficiency. When they get those high efficiency trades, it can, and often does, very quickly snowball a game.
While this does lead to some balance complaints. It’s more common for someone to claim this is what the other person is doing in attempt to discredit them than for it to actually be the case. The majority of balance discussion from people of almost all levels of play on SC2 forums usually focuses around what is seen in pro play from a spectator point of view, particularly in premiere tournaments, rather from personal experience in game.
Heck, this thread is about premier tournaments, not the ladder. The focus of discussion should be around the very highest level of play, not low GM/masters or any other part of the ladder.
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Biggest problem is that, while I respect both Artosis and Tasteless, they don’t actually play the game like we do. Sure, banelings are good if you have 400 apm. They nerf them because top tier pros can mass 100. The pro deserves to win if they are that good. Then it ruins ladder for the rest of us.
“Trust us, we’re aware of our biases”
**protoss dominate literally every statistic except premier tournament finals **
“The baneling nerf was justified!”
As far as larvae goes, no, it doesn’t beat larvae, but that’s purely off the basis that all Zerg production is done en-mass, meaning that you can’t effectively queue your production the same way you can with robo/stargate.
Carriers and Battle Cruisers actually have the same production time prior to chronoboost (64 seconds). With 2 chronoboosts, that’s down to roughly 44 seconds.(chronoboost lasts 20 seconds, does 1.5x the work during those 20 seconds, making it roughly equal to 30 seconds of production time, hence chrono for 20 seconds twice should put the carrier at around 60/64 seconds, leaving 4 seconds left over)
That’s a very significant production time difference.
A zealot does have a longer production cycle compared to a marine and cost twice what a marine does, I’ll give you that, but they also have 3x the HP if a marine (if you take into account base armour) and while marines can kite and have big DPS due to their range, the actual potential damage output of a zealot is still pretty substantial for a unit that’s generally considered a damage sponge - their potential DPS is, on paper, actually higher than a stimmed marine’s is (though not by much) - in practice this isn’t quite true, but it’s enough to be extremely dangerous to any bio-ball, and really, anything a Zealot gets on top of.
That really depends on the stage of the game; in an early game stage, sure, that might be the case. Late-game, DTs are expensive, sure. But even if the opponent is ready for them, the sheer damage output they have is mind-bogglingly strong. It’s not an exaggeration when I say they can 2-shot a planetary fortress. They’re very squishy (40/80), and their primary expense comes from the gas cost which you’re fighting for with other units, but they are by no means ineffective even when prepared for in a late-game stage.
His series vs HerO in DH definitely showed otherwise IMO, but to be fair, Clem is also one of the fastest and best players on the planet, so while it might not have made a difference for him specifically, it’s definitely made a difference to everyone else from what I can tell.
True; all very true.
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You still dont understand it 
hilarious
I dont think we ever Had this Exchange. Stop lying man. I Know that we had Something about reaper and hallu but i never Said Just shoot it down. Lol
You don’t have a metric. Just admit it. It’s not a difficult thing to comprehend, it’s just stupid and wrong lol.
So then do you at least admit Terran has by far the worst scouting?
https://i.imgur.com/jxCoIPu.png
Hey abs. How high does your mmr have to be in order to give +111 points to a 4700 protoss? Yep, not playing against protoss until the balance patch. Cheaters can play other cheaters in PvP. I am not wasting my time on them.
It’s just cheating at this point, like hacking. They pretend they can’t understand how GM representation is significant. They know. Nobody is that dumb.
Ah, such a beautiful quote from abs.
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