The issue I take with terran balance

General Discussion
1

Sorry I just need to vent.

I get that terran is balanced… at the highest levels of play. but it is infuriating to play against at lower levels and I’m not talking bronze I mean literally anything under diamond.

supply depots, they can just wall, completely. how gross.

Scan, instant counter to any stealth unit, now i get it isn’t free you lose out on the faster 270 minerals from a mule, but it has stupid value. vs protoss you kill 2 dark templars and you’ve lost less resources, especially considering that can be an instant loss for the other two races, and have the luxury of NOT building or bringing detection. because you don’t need to. If you don’t have detection ready to go as protoss vs dt’s or banshees you die. NOPE NOT IF YOU’RE TERRAN.
you screw up and need supply, instant increase via orbital, which is also 100 less minerals you need to spend.

A single widow mine can kill a stupid number of mutas if they aren’t split, which at lower elos you just aren’t going to do effectively, paired with a few siege tanks they completely zone any ground army. if you’re being attacked at the front 2 widow mines can instantly wipe out an ENTIRE mineral line it would take what, 9 dark templar to do that?

Marines are the ONLY basic unit of the races that are viable as the core of a lategame army, and kill virtually anything not directly made to counter them in bulk.

Battlecruisers can just tp across the map. you can’t send your entire army to deal with half the BC’s or they’ll just hit a second point. but you can’t afford NOT to because they are so strong. i get the counter is to just kill them before they get to a critical number of BCs but oh man that’s right terran has the strongest zoning of any race.

which brings us to siege tanks. the best anti ground unit in the game bar none, available 3-4 minutes before zerg’s equivalent and faster than protoss’s too, with the best range of any unit bar the extremely late game tempest, or equal to the lurker after upgrading it which requires hive tech.

oh and THORS, as if terran didn’t have good enough anti air. liberators, vikings, bcs and lets not forget marines, they had to give thors their stupid anti air mode. oh and they have the best vision denial, best way to see what an enemy is up to for the others? observers and overseers, but oh man but theres a perimeter of like 7 turrets and you can’t get in to see anything while they can push one button and scout anywhere on the map.

Just. absolutely unfun to play against. stupidly hard to cheese, and stupidly hard to macro against at any low-mid elo. there are some stupidly hard comps to deal with in PVZ for both races, but nothing like terran. they get to play incredibly safe while crippling or killing you over any small mistake. I quit SC2 for months on end several times and every damn time it was due to frustration at dealing with this one specific race. every. damn. time.

2

I’m sorry but it is currently a fact that in the lower elo the terran is a worse performing race. Terran players produce more apm than protoss / zerg (net of the production mechanics discrepancy), compared to the gap you can see in masters between terrans and their protoss and zerg counterparts.

The apm you could tell me are not the only indicator of skill, but they are one of the indicators (a discriminant that we cannot ignore), and this acquires even greater value if we are talking about an entire population of players, it becomes a true discriminating constant.
What all this means: it means that terran with equal rudiments compared to a zerg or protoss player are a league behind their protoss and zerg counterparts.

  1. Terrans are more difficult to play, fragile units that once lost the advantage of the position become meat for slaughter (they require continuous and careful management).
  2. clumsy, slow and frustrating production (even here too much management is required for a low elo). 3) request for micro in combat, the a-move is something that terrans do not know in most cases.
6 Likes
3

I would actually argue its the opposite, protoss and zerg are the harder races to deal with at low ELO.

Terran does have some real hard to handle crap like BCs and widowmines, sure.

But always remember when a terran is microing hard, especially at lower levels, he is not macroing at all.

Just 4 gate as protoss in the early game, and terran will mostly die as it is super hard to deal with if you are not skilled.

as zerg just open 14 pool or pool 1st + 6 lings into macro and the terran will panic and competely lose their game ryhtm because they are used to being the aggressor.

I do agree somethings like BC cheese need to actually be removed from the game. I wonder which genius thought it would be a good idea to take the armory requirement from the fusion core away.

4

You literally have to have a minimum of 4 widow mines hit clumped mutas for this to be true. And mutas with detection will survive 4 mines as long as they’re in high enough numbers to kill at least 1 before it fires - their natural regeneration means they survive what should otherwise be a lethal blow.

Not exactly - outside of the aforementioned opportunity cost, it’s also energy dependent and often entirely dependent on what you scout - you drop your mules instead those scans are worthless because you can’t use them anymore. Also remember that scans are basically a Terran’s only option. Ravens are the only other form of detection that a Terran has that isn’t a turret, and they’re also THE most expensive detector in the game. If you exclude the Mothership, they’re also arguably tied for the most expensive caster in the game as well - and in most cases don’t provide to much utility. They provide a little to be sure, but not as much as say, an Oracle, which can provide near constant vision of an enemy’s army, and the ability to trap a portion of an army in place.

It can and is an instant loss for a Terran in much the same way that it is for Zerg and Protoss.

No, it’s because the Raven is insanely expensive for a detector, takes you directly out of your tech-tree that you want to be in in most cases and is also the only mobile detection a Terran has - hence scan’s existence being required.

And again, less one scan/mule - as well as making that depot a bigger target.

Zerglings are used in pretty much every matchup late-game and have a hive-tech upgrade to allow them to remain core units. Banes are just as good too.

Having said that, Marines being a core unit are a direct result of the way Terran production and upgrades work, as well as Terran’s general compositions. I won’t go into detail on that.

Warp-in, Recall, Nydus worm… Map folding techniques in general are problematic, not just the BC. In fact I’d argue that the BC is probably the least problematic one of those map-folding techniques.

No. Not even close. The Lurker is a cloaked unit, has the fastest fire rate of any siege unit, has more HP than a siege tank, and is quite literally as fast as a helion (on creep, upgraded - only marginally slower off creep), literally take only a second to siege and can be produced en-mass, and do not do any friendly fire (not that they need to). And they only cost 25 more gas than a tank in total and do not require a spotter to make full use of their firing range.

Tanks are produced slowly and require expensive production. They are slow, immobile units that require you to be completely stationary to use their siege mode which takes about 3 seconds to get into siege mode, and a fraction less than that to unsiege. They have a minimum firing range and do friendly fire and require spotter units to make full use of their firing range.

Tempests are probably the closest thing that Protoss has to a siege unit, along with maybe the disruptor. Neither are great siege units though - fun fact though, disruptors actually technically outrange tanks as they have a 13 range firing radius to the center of the disruptor Nova, and a 13.5 firing radius to the outside of the firing nova. Still, that’s pretty hard to use and requires a number of them to “shell” a position.

Liberators are quite literally one of the worst anti-air units in the game. Vikings are fragile units and are the slowest non-massive attacking air unit in the game. BCs have rubbish Anti-air and no range, but have Yamato, while also being more expensive than a carrier + 4 interceptors. They would be expensive paper weights without both Yamato and Tac-Jump, outside of niche timings, and en-mass fights. And thors require HIP to even be somewhat useful outside of against mutas specifically. But they’re expensive, immobile and are designed specifically to counter massive-air units.

Oracles, observers and overseers are all incredible. Are you really complaining about turrets of all things? Immobile turrets that don’t move and take bonus damage from tempests which outrange them? I could understand spores because they’re non-static defensive structures, but turrets? Really? Turrets, which require an upgrade to get to their maximum firing range?

Sorry? Maybe if your only cheese is a 12 pool and nothing else.

Protoss specifically has a myriad of cheeses that are both safe openers and incredibly dangerous to the Terran - each of which requires a very, very specific - and unique - way to hold from the Terran that if you change it even slightly, you’re basically done.

Zerg’s early ravager cheeses are incredibly dangerous and can transition into macro as well. They do have quite a few less cheeses than both Terran and Toss though, but that’s not to say they don’t and can’t cheese Terrans.

That’s not how that works for Terran at any point in time - you are so far wrong it’s actually hilarious. I’m sorry you feel that way, but just because you feel that the race is broken and impossible to beat, doesn’t mean that the race is broken.

While interesting, APM means nothing.

5

Get AoE more often and you’ll win.

6

The evidence that the terran is at a disadvantage in the elo lower can be found on the Sc2 stats website.

If we see how the playhers are distributed in the various elos we see a tendency of the terran to stagnate in the lower elos (and not only bronze, but also silver, gold and platinum, where the most basic rudiments are now well-established). This does not happen in the zerg and protoss, who see the opposite.
The data are taken as a relative percentage within the same race, not in terms of absolute numbers, so it is not possible to misunderstand them in any way.

If the Terrans had an advantage in the lower elos they would have spread out like the zerg and protoss, which is not the case.

7

if the reference sample is the entire population, the apm are no longer to be considered a coincidence but a constant. It is an indicator (not the only), as I have specified. If on average the GMs make more APM than an average bronze player, it is an indicator. The apm does not count for anything if you take 1 player in a replay, if you detect a constant within a population it is an indicator.

I had specified what I said in the text that you have carefully chosen not to report in the quotation, arbitrarily cutting and deviating the meaning of the context.

8

APM is actions per minute, which counts and includes spam actions. EPM is EFFECTIVE actions Per Minute, hence my saying that APM as a metric is irrelevant. Were you to consistently measure EPM over APM - and you’d have to go into a number of replays to do that since the client only displays EPM within the replay and not in the end score-screen - then you may have a metric that could be feasibly used. As it currently is, my statement still stands - APM is NOT relevant and means nothing. EPM is the relevant metric as it does away with the superfluous actions - though you would still have to less the production mechanic difference.

Speaking of which, how exactly did you come up with those numbers, and where can we see them? Where is your proof? Can you link the relevant metrics?

9

I repeat you that metric is irrilevant when you don’t have a huge sample.

I don’t have now, I saw that years ago in an article, but honestly I did not save the link.

10

Sample size doesn’t matter when the metric includes erroneous data anyway. Hence the differentiation between EPM and APM.

Understandable - but in the future, if you’re going to make a claim like that, then you need to have the evidence to back it up. Burden of Proof and all that. It would have been good to see the data, and to be able to see and understand how they accounted for the erroneous spam as well as the different production mechanics. Without both of those then it becomes hard to take the statement at face value.

11

epm and apm are directly proportional if the population is taken as a reference. There was a time when they replaced apm with epm in play and the result was that simply (on average) the number was significantly lower, that’s all.

If you increase your epm you can’t not increase the apm, if you increase the apm by playing starcraft instead of going afk (and most of the matches played take place in this way), with very high probability the epm increase.

12

Increasing EPM is directly proportional to an increase in APM, this is true. However, an increase in APM is not necessarily directly proportional to an increase in EPM, hence - again - the differentiation between the two.

Again, where are you getting your information? Where have they stated this at any point in time?

13

Okay, you can’t get that data directly, but you can go to sc2 stats and see how the terrans are distributed in the various elos, stagnating (relative to the race alone) more in the lower elos.

  1. Since the other two races do not have the same distribution in the elo (indeed, contrary)
  2. Since the other two races are played by players belonging to the same population by race, ethnicity, cultural level, social,
  3. Since we are talking about large numbers, referring precisely to the population
  4. Since the epm are directly proportional (on average) to the rank elo

You can safely conclude that on average lower elo terrans produce more epm than protoss and zerg.

14

Ok, but 8/10 times happens, can you agree with that?

15

Purely off the basis that we have no real data on hand to actually make a comparison, I can agree that an increase in APM is sometimes directly proportional to an increase in EPM, but not all the time. I’m not going to give a number when we don’t actually have a number.

This can be for various other reasons, not just APM/EPM. Time put into play, more total population on the server, Terran being the “starter” race due to the similarity between its production mechanics and those of other RTS games, the fantasy of “Humans vs Aliens” and a host of other reasons.

Sure - I won’t deny this as I’ve seen the stats myself though this is often server dependent as you get to higher leagues.

While true, this doesn’t necessarily conclude that lower MMR Terrans produce more EPM than Zerg or Protoss, though again you have to account for both production and spam. It IS a possible conclusion, though that’s about as far as I’d go.

16

Lurker has 3 less range and requires 2 hive tech upgrades to be effective while 1-2 tanks right off the bat are the basis for many early pushes. How often you see lurker play before hive? Then remove zvz from the equation because only zerg lacks a ground answer to lurker, oh aside from more lurker LOL.

Til liberators aren’t siege units.

Tanks get boosted in medivacs, which are faster than every unit zerg has and which terran already builds in 90% of games.

Quit complaining about lurker when you have tank.

Yea you might have to throw down 2 extra factories, but that is much more flexible than having to wait for hive + 2 upgrades yet costs about the same.

17

meh this once again shows why Terrans feel entitled if you wanna call it so, why we consider the hardest race etc.

Because of all these spoiled players who cant cheese every game anymore, so terran is their problem…

18

The “problem”(it is not a problem just design) at those levels with T is not bio,it is siege+sensor tower+PF with neosteel and turret upgrades…so turtle terran,the ones who rarely attack because they lack skill with bio and drops and just play extremely safe on 40 minute games.

19

Literally every single post like this:

Claim: Terran is the easiest race!

Source: Trust me, bro!

3 Likes
20

i can understand op’s frustration.

But in most cases, that’s the perception when you just have problems in the match up.
Happens to me again and again, what I can recommend just look at an opening guid / mid -late game plans.
then you are safe again for a few weeks :grinning:.

also the argument is an important point:

just for casual, i include myself, missing the feeling how good/bad is my position. different green: scouting, game understanding etc…

for zerg especially if you lose your army 3-4 times because you attack the terra base. Then you think I lose, complete view terra sup:120/200 bank:200/400; zerg sup:110/200 bank: 3500/6000.
maybe you break the terra with the next attack.