Widow Mines are so Broken

General Discussion
#1

It seems like widow mines are still broken and blizzard has done nothing to nerf them. Mass widow mines vs. Zerg is practically impossible. You need 400+ apm to even attempt to clear them, and by that time you are dead.

Even suiciding individual zerglins will take ages. They simply do too much damage vs. zerg units. A group of mutas or hydras can be taken out and there is practically no chance of dodging. Even vs. Ultras they do massive damage. I dont get it.

And please no one compare them to blings/banes. Blings do not travel to a target like widow mines do if they are within range. Also blings are insanely squishy compared to widow mines. Even with vision and killing the mines from a distance makes them still somehow target you and go off. Seriously there is no adequate counter to widow mines, they need to be nerfed, remove their travel ability or something. You can try to clear with infestors but then you are spending too much gas on a unit that’s going to be sniped by any competent player. And then you have no energy for a rush. Also trying to suicide swarm hosts is tedious and takes too long. By that point you are so far behind in eco its ridiculous.

I know there’s other counters, but they take way too much time. I’m not talking about dealing with 5 mines, I’m talking about somehow that has over 20+ mines laid out, both in their base and in the field. Game is pretty much over because then they will be so far ahead in eco with 1/2 as many expansions. Maybe in 1v1 it’s balanced, but in 2v2 mass widow mines will cripple both teams and then the eco advantage is too great.

6 Likes
#2

I guess best option is mass over lords or ravagers. Takes two shots to kill.

If they doing mass then they are clumped. But real question what else are you fighting. Battle cruisers.

Widow mines are least concern zerg vs battle cruisers or ghost.

My only real complaint zerg only has two aoe in air both suck.

Viper bomb cost 125 why doesn’t it cost so much. Yea it can consume but every other race has better aoe air to air.

Second one is fungle growth. Super weak 30 damage for 150 energy it does 90 damage.

Both spell casters which needs high apm.

But mass widow mine go heavy ravager you can also go lurker.

1 Like
#3

You had me until the last part. Widow mines are still broken in 2v2, but not nearly as much as 1v1. But you bring up many good points. Why are they so strong that they can fight toe to toe against massive units? Why are they so durable for their cost? Why can they do so much damage for what they are worth?

A single widow mine can:

  1. Take out an oracle (most small air units too)
  2. Nearly kill a void ray
  3. Destroy up to 30 banelings/lings
  4. Kill any single gateway unit
  5. Bruise roaches (not kill, but roaches do not outrange widow mines)

Three widow mines can:

  1. Take out an archon
  2. Do severe damage to fleet ships (BC/carrier), probably kill a tempest
  3. Bruise ultralisks
  4. Take out an entire flock of mutalisks
  5. Take out an entire ling bane muta army (this is why more pros opt for roach ravager)
  6. The list goes on

And some people may try to counter with “this is why you use a diverse army composition!” Well, the Terran uses one too. Now how do you beat MMM + widow mine? And what about detection? Especially for Protoss, where the only choice is between a firefly and a party balloon. Thanks for putting cloak behind armory Blizzard…

3 Likes
#4

Protoss may trigger mine on halluculation from sentry can seve as good reverse damage if send it to terran

1 Like
#5

now that’s bias, but…
what bothers me about mine is that they don’t need upgrades…
a handful of 0/0 ling + mine → dead
a handful of 3/3 ling + mine → dead

against baneling you can build armor and your ling can survive a baneling shot.

and the other is just the “typical Terran thing”: Wm attack both, air and ground.

1 Like
#6

the thing i hate most about widow mines, is the fact people dont know how to use them correctly when there on TEAMS. You jokers who use widows in team games need to stop placing them next to your allies troops, mineral lines, and well just about everything your team has. Seriously Ive ran into so many people on 3v3 and 2v2 that dont understand they do splash damage and will damage your allies. Cant tell you how many times ive had a team mate place a widow in my mineral line to kill a reaper, and i end up losing half my workers, to freindly fire for one measly reaper. Let alone when i play mass muta and go in for a fight to save my allie only for his widows to completely kill all my troops.

1 Like
#7

Widow Mines along with Disruptors imo are 2 of the units I wish Blizzard never, ever made. The sheer amount of damage compared to the skill needed to use them is dumb and it’s why I don’t have much faith in FG’s new RTS, because the people who thought those were good ideas are all part of that company.

Not sure they’re imba…they’re just poorly designed, low skill binary units.

7 Likes
#8

Exactly - the mainstream community tries to put these developers in a positive light. “Oh it’s not their fault the game is the way it is right now, it’s the larger company Activision.” I don’t think the devs were being oppressed even before or shortly after Activision took over. There are a handful of obvious issues that the devs could have easily fixed, but either chose not to or did not care enough to do anything about.

When all these broken things are put together, it makes things appear less imbalanced. When you look at more individual cases, the cracks become clear.

3 Likes
#9

Yeah I agree. Sc2 is basically the anthem for Blizzard hubris via the old devs who left. I mean it was bad enough that Liberators were complained about for like, a year before David Kim’s team decided to actually look into things only to discover Liberators were literally bugged.

Not complaining about Liberators, just pointing out that they wouldn’t even consider that something might be wrong. I just don’t understand it.

1 Like
#10

disruptor requires SO MUCH more micro compared to burrow/unburrow widow mine. Disruptor cost 6 more time gas than widow mine and doesnt target air

3 Likes
#11

Nonesense.
Zerg have plenty units that outrange WM and several other ways of countering them on top of that.

WM doesn’t work agains ling-bane-hydra nor it does against roach-ravager and theese are unit composition that 90% of people play.

All true.
However the problem is that Terran NEED Widow Mine to be able to do all of the above, because Terran have no viable alternative.

Right now, Widow Mine is an absolutely terrible crutch, but without it entire Terran race would become unviable. That’s the sad state of current balance…

#12

2 units outrange widow mines that zerg have access to. Broods and hydras.

You could technically argue ravagers, but their “range” isn’t good enough, only their special ability “bile” can out range widow mines.

HAHAHAHA, holy shizer. What a silly take. Are you trolling? 1 widow mine could kill 90% of a ling/bane/hydra army.

Except for 2010-2013, when terran dominated all the premiere tournaments, against all those things, with no widow mines.

If you have to use widow mines to win with the terran army, you are just bad. You already have the most mobility, the most dps, and the best positional units in the game. You don’t need the highest burst damage as well.

Might as well make all marines do 99999 damage per shot, that’s the only way you terrans crybabies would ever be happy.

2 Likes
#13

You could out tech a mass ling bane comp with ravens now top terrans are making a combination of tanks, widow mines and hellbats against pure ling bane, hydra 200/200 chucks.

1 Like
#14

no you’re just bad. Get good

#15

Notes:

  • Lurkers exist.
  • Ravagers and upgraded Hydralisks have the same attack range (6).

If the Zerg player has bad control.

Terran can also lose an entire Bio army to Banelings or Lurkers, if they have either have bad control or don’t have enough splash units to lower the Baneling count to something manageable.

Terran was initially over-tuned in WOL, and the small maps favored Terran harassment and all-ins that ended games early (longer games nearly always favored Protoss or Zerg).

Over time, maps were enlarged, overpowered Terran units were nerfed, and Zerg players started to learn how to use Creep and Infestors; such that WOL was Zerg-favored by the time HOTS came around in 2013.

Widow Mines or a similar splash unit are required for Bio to trade against Zergling/Baneling as the size of both armies increase. The splitting micro gets harder and harder until a point where humans can’t deal with Banelings through micro without first lowering the Baneling count with Widow Mines or Tanks.
Furthermore, Tanks+Bio is on a timer, because the composition is easy to counter with Vipers, and because the mix can become counterproductive when Brood Lords, Ultralisks, or other units that can force friendly-fire hit the field. Widow Mines remain a viable option longer than Tanks.

As for mobility, Zerg typically has the most mobility as long as they keep spreading creep, and they aren’t using Brood Lords.

#16

But a terran could never lose their whole army to 1 lurker or 1 baneling, right?

1 widow mine could kill dozens of banes/lings, destroying 50-90% of a ling/bane/hydra army. And this happens all the time as zerg constantly have to return their vision to base to inject. Terrans do not, they can focus on micro. Your comparison is wildly inaccurate and purposely obtuse.

Besides zerglings, every zerg unit is slower than a stimmed bio ball of MMM. You cannot beat a decent terran with just lings, unless you are leagues above him in MMR.

1 Like
#17

Lurkers don’t have the burst damage to one-shot either unit, so it is ridiculous to compare them that way. The Lurker’s strength comes from repeated bursts of line splash damage, which don’t do much damage per hit, but do deal full damage to all targets.

As for Marines in particular, individual Marines have a higher cost (resources&supply) and more health than individual Zerglings, so it is reasonable to expect them to take an extra hit. Both Widow Mines and Banelings require two shots to kill Marines, which makes their killing power against Marines roughly equivalent to their killing power against Zerglings.

You have a nifty little mechanic called creep that increases the speed of almost all Zerg ground units by 30%. Most Zerg units can outrun Bio on creep.
On top of that, a few Zerg ground units such as Ultralisks actually are faster than Bio off creep.

1 Like
#18

Right, I think the maximum damage of bane vs marine is 2 burrow bane with perfectly standing marines.
bane have no blink to jump in the middle of marine.
for lurker, multiple lurkers with “hold” command.

what is disturbing about Wm is the burrow and forget mechanics.
which is also so extremely efficient because range/ aoe/ burrow/ gta-gtg.

if we forget that ling are melee and marine have 5 range.

1 Like
#19

Yeah, well it’s killing power assuming they can hit. Widow Mines are more likely to hit, Banelings have more potential if we are restricted to ground units.

#20

No they cannot, only lings and fully upgraded banes. Nothing else is faster than MMM. Wrong again, bucko. Try playing more than one race.