Terran.... but mostly Siege tanks. wtf

General Discussion
1

I know it’s been said a billion times, AND I know how trash terran would be without them, and this is more about low-mid level play, proplay is, theoretically “balanced” but the range (13) of siege tanks is absolutely stupid and they 1-2 shot almost every ground unit in the game, with splash.

Zerg splash is either the cheap melee baneling that dies on impact, that can’t get in range without a speed upgrade and can be kited, or the late game lurker, and even AFTER the range upgrade has a range of 10. Yes it’s burrowed, but by the time lurkers come out scan is almost free. swarmhosts are trash in lotv and require too much investment. The collosus is better at shredding light units, but has a measly 7 range and 9 after the upgrade, and gets shot by anti air (stupid design). Siege tank has 13 range OUT THE GATE, sure protoss have the tempest (14), but it’s fire rate is abysmal and is a late late game unit, that needs vision and whoops terran scan observer gone. let’s not even get started on the fact that BOTH the collosus and tempest get shredded by vikings, leaving only high templar, with low stats and not great casting range (again requiring an upgrade) and disruptors, with a long cd and attacks that require micro, and are quite dodgeable to deal with the bio ball, while both get murdered by tanks.

And then units that “counter” siege tanks like immortals or air get shredded long before they can do anything. they just don’t have the range, in fact anything that tries to kill siege tanks get obliterated by the bio that often accompanies siege tanks without ever getting in range. their ONLY weakness when paired with marine marauder is sheer numbers, which widow mines, disgusting unit on it’s own oh you weren’t looking at your minimap for 2 seconds? there goes your whole mineral line, and bio can deal with fairly well, OR getting attacked while moving/repositioning, which only buys the attacker 3 seconds IF they know the terran is there. usually enough, but I digress.

Terran units just have a level of versatility that covers each other unit’s weaknesses so well and is just so much more well balanced than the other races, it PISSES ME OFF. The siege tank is like the poster child of that. It’s an OKAY unit on it’s own but pair it with bio and you immediately have an incredibly hard position to break, you have to attack during siege/unsiege and between ravens and scans you have no idea when that’s happening, you can’t go air as toss because marines shred it, and broodlords are SUPER lategame and all air gets annihilated by a few thors…

it basically boils down to, if 1-6 siege tanks are right outside your base with bio, you’re gonna die. and if you wanna try base trade then oops terran units can fly off the map. :wink:
seriously. screw terran. give siege tanks like 9-10 range then make them pay for an upgrade like EVERY OTHER midgame siege/aoe unit to get the range back.

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2

You’re never supposed to go head-to-head with a tank line - you have to flank it or pull back slightly. This is where map awareness comes into play… you have to spot when the army is on the move and engage before they reach your doorstep. For Terran, if you don’t catch them with a Widow Mine or a lucky scan, there’s the option of using Liberators or dropping your marines right on top of the tanks - even if they cover each other, the splash damage will cause the tanks to hurt each other.

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4

6 letters. Vipers. You need Vipers.

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5

Mad is bad.
Bad is mad.

6

think it’s a fair question.
why siege tank has default 13 range,
considering how some complain about 10range lurkers.

but you did get a few tips, from the people here.
zerg must always play active for def.
-catch the terran on the way.

or if possible viper and try not to die when you use blinding.

7

There are several reasons. The fact that the Siege Tank’s AOE does not increase with range like Lurkers do, and the fact that Tanks are much slower and take much longer to transform are both major factors.

Tanks shouldn’t be nerfed. Weaker Siege Tanks would be near useless against Protoss, and they wouldn’t be viable in LOTV without nerfing a ton of other units.

8

your facts say nothing, because you neglect design and concepts of the whole.

The only critical point is possibly early PvT.

9
  1. Siege tank sieges/unsieges 4 times slower than the Lurker
  2. Siege tank have blind zone
  3. Siege tank does friendly fire
  4. Siege tank have pathetically small AoE range and on top of that unlike other AoE sources like Lurker, Baneling, Disruptor, Storm, Parasitic, Fungal, etc. Siege tank has drop of of damage inside of that zone from center to the edge
  5. Siege tank movement speed is slow
  6. Siege tank doesn’t have permanent invisibility
  7. Siege tank doesn’t have “hold fire” button
  8. Terran race doesn’t have units like Viper, Inferstor, Ultralisk, Broodlord, Baneling, Zergling, Queen, etc.
  9. Terran race can not produce 100500 units in parallel at the same time.
2 Likes
10

same for you beautiful list, but:

only that some things are missing or not quite right.

11

A lot of ppl here are saying vipers, but that’s a hive unit, super late game. Siege tanks are a problem early-midgame, I don’t think they need a damage nerf because they NEED to hit hard, but the range is a bit much second highest range unit in the game out of a factory with techlab, which you can build off the barracks, you can get one out at what? 3-4 minutes? also it bugs me that protoss don’t have an equivalent to widowmine/baneling. You can at least burrow a whole bunch of banes off creep and catch a bio player out with it if you can predict their pathing, but they’re still inferior at hitting mineral lines because medivac drops are op in lower elo, the best toss have are what? Dark templar? they’re slow as hell, expensive as hell, and die the second a scan comes up. for mineral harrass there’s the oracle, but as soon as it kills 1-2 workers the player gets the prompt YOUR UNITS ARE UNDER ATTACK. a widow mine drop does all it’s damage out the gate and as soon as you get the prompt all you can see are 8-16 dead probes. widow mines deal damage way too fast to react to at lower levels of play. They zone for days, and deal stupid damage to clumped up units, for bane burrow to be as effective you have to manually detonate. and because of afterburners medivacs can slip in faster than any oracle. against other races if your mineral line gets torched you only have 2 options, go for an all in, or try to macro your way out of it. but into terran all inning a heavily fortified position ISN’T GOING TO WORK, because, again, siege tanks. and out macro the terran? who has MULES? yeah sure.

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12

bruh, balance issues are never a problem in mirror matches. not talking about TvT here AT ALL. I get you have to flank or engage while they’re on the move, which is why I brought THAT UP. but fog of war is a pain in the butt isn’t it. They can always slow push or do a drop when they move out to divert your attention. Also you can’t drop units on siege tanks accompanied by any decent number of marines, ESPECIALLY as other races, who don’t have the convenience of high speed medivac drops, their drop units are far too slow. and it’s funny you bring up liberators because they are great counters to tanks, that only TERRANS get. Terran units balance out their strengths and weaknesses well and counter their units well. TVT is probably the most interesting mirror match for that very reason. But the fact is there are 2 other races that don’t get that level of TLC. and while the other race’s units tend to specialize in countering 1-3 units in any matchup, terran untis have very broad countering strategy.
counter heavy ground? siege tank, marine. liberator. marauder.
need to counter ground swarming units? marine,siege tank, widow mine, hellion/hellbat.
need long range siege? siege tank combo with viking and marines to defend.
air swarming units? (mostly mutas) liberator, thor, MARINE.
heavy air units? viking, thor, MARINE AGAIN.
counter protoss? ghost emp. oh look at that a unit that counters an ENTIRE RACE, and spellcasters. :expressionless:
terran philosphy is basically if the other races can do it, so can they, but better, or cheaper, or both.

I’m not saying terran is broken, but it is simultaneously better, and for that very reason, worse, design.

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13

Siege Tanks may be strong, but they are manageable in the early-mid game (flanks, split your units, etc). It isn’t until the late-game that Tanks can have the numbers to consistently destroy ground armies, and by then you should have access to your Vipers or Brood Lords.

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14

No, that sounds like projection, as it is a fairly accurate description of what you are doing. You picked out one trait you don’t like in a vacuum and ignored all of the differences between the two units you compared that justify the differences.

You did the same when Skipper responded to you with a more complete list.

Traits like a unit’s ranged are balanced based on the advantages and disadvantages of other traits that the unit has; which you would rather hand-waive away than actually address.

15

No, he only wrote a list, how he sees it.
just like, therefore a very interesting definition of “accurate”…

is another point, I’m just saying that the question is valid.

16

For early-game ZvT if you’re facing fast tanks, then honestly simple ling/bling should work, but you must also push your creep forward a bit so it’s not right in your base. Zerglings catching tanks unsieged (or in the process of sieging) absolutely wreck them, while Banelings, especially with speed, will force the marines to back up. Another early game option is the Ravager - it is not armoured so it usually takes at least 3 shots to kill and three well-aimed bile shots will destroy a sieged tank since it can’t withdraw in time.

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17

The siege tank’s attack is similar to a baneling’s, but it happens at 13 range and isn’t one time use. Every time a siege tank fires, which is once every 2 seconds, it’s like a baneling attacked something. That’s the kind of value he’s getting every time a tank fires. Set aside all the other issues with the siege tank, such as how it artificially prolongs games that the terran is guaranteed to lose, and focus purely on the insane efficiency of the tank’s attack: you can see plainly why ling bane armies trade at dumpster-tier efficiency while all of Terran’s units trade at high efficiency. Most of the kills that marines get are due to the siege tank softening the target first.

The siege tank is by far the biggest design issue in all of SC2. It has been for a very long time. Not even mentioning balance, it just makes it suicide to ever attack a terran, and that makes games really long. That kind of efficiency at 13 range is simply overpowered in a defensive posture. Zerg is guaranteed to win as long as he never attacks, and that’s really bad game design.

You might be able to catch tanks out of position, but the sensor towers make that an impossibility. People cry about creep spread, but at least the terran can deny creep spread. What’s a zerg supposed to do about a sensor tower? You’d have to lose a full maxed army just to kill that one sensor tower. It’s not going to happen. Terran has perfect vision of his side of the map, and a unit that guarantees high efficiency as long as he’s in position. Of course games are going to go long with that combination.

Blizzard needs to rework the siege tank and/or the sensor tower. Scans are a bit problematic too, but at least the terran has to ration those. A sensor tower is on all the time. Make microbial shroud 10x larger, and make it block the sensor tower vision. Boom, problem solved. Mic drop. You can thank me later. God forbid zerg actually have tools to combat terran’s nonsense. As is you are basically praying the terran makes a colossal misplay despite having perfect knowledge of the game state. What are we supposed to do, pray the terran has narcolepsy? What a joke.

3 Likes
18

This is what Terran is about, the siege tank is one of the best designs for a unit, it encourages Terran to make a combined arms force and fortify positions, like they are suppose to.

The main weakness of the Siege tank, which you don’t mention, is that the unit does friendly fire. using Chargelots or Zerglings, you can close the gap between your army and the bio force defending the tanks and watch as the Terrans own tanks wipe out their army. Marines cost more per hitpoint than any other starting unit and the bonus Siege Tanks get against Armoured units cleans up Marauders.

1 Like
19

They are not. Learn to play.

So what?

Well, you already know the problem - you need to get good.

Or at least learn to a) scout and b) position either Stalkers or Phoenixes in Medivac path.

And widow mine range is less than that of almost any unit that can shoot.
So to deal with widow mine you need to:

  1. Select ranged unit;
  2. Press A-Click
    Sounds like high level micro, doesn’t is? :slight_smile:

This is the most funny balance whine I read in a long, long time :slight_smile:

2 Likes
20

The siege tank makes terran’s defense impenetrable, even with a very low supply army. This allows terran to do attacks with no risk. Because his defense is so good, he needs minimal supply to defend and that makes his attacks more powerful. This is why games vs terran take forever to resolve. The game is rigged so that anyone who attacks a terran simply wastes resources and then dies to their counter attack. Terran gets to be the aggressor at all times in ZvT. The zerg’s win condition is to wait for the terran to make a big misplay, at which point in time you have some breathing room and you can start thinking about counter attacking yourself. But, attacking is suicide so really you only get map control and the ability to expand. There is no way to take a lead, as a zerg, and convert it into a win, with the exception of playing “base denial” for 40 minutes and waiting for the terran to run out of dough. This is very poor design, and the siege tank is to blame.

If they removed or nerfed sensor towers, then there would be ways to resolve the game. The terran would need to invest actual units to have map vision, which allows the zerg to chip away at a turtling terran. Furthermore, there would be a chance that you could catch him out of position and kill a base. As is, the combination of sensor tower + tanks, and medivac counter attacks, makes it suicide to attack a terran, and that makes ZvT games long and boring.

21

There is always the option of… switching to terran??? Then surely you will destroy everyone.

1 Like