if a newbie facing another newbie (both equal in mechanics) has a big advantage, this would be compounded into a BIGGER advantage when we're talking about two pros. DUCY?

This is not necessarily true. If you take a strat or build that requires way less micro than the counter, it would be much more successful at newbie levels than pro levels.

see= deathball colossus > all at those levels. (or hell, at ANY level :P)

I think this situation is really, really unlikely to happen, though. Assuming that the races are played at roughly an even distribution, for TvZ to be 75%, they'd have to be losing a lot to P or something. Which then means that P would probably be losing a lot to Z. If a gold T was 75% vs Z and 50% vs everything else, his MMR would climb and he'd no longer be gold at some point.

This is one issue (along with many others) with just using winrates as metrics. Like here's a silly example that illustrates my point. Say there are only 2 races in the game: P and P+. P+ is the same as P except some units are better. Maybe the Zealot does 9x2 instead of 8x2. Or the probes have 22 shields instead of 20. Doesn't really matter. The point is that P+ is better in every way compared to P in slight ways.

If the race distributions are 50/50 in say, gold league, would P+ be dominating Ps at that level? No, they wouldn't because the ranking system forces it to be that way. Instead, what we'd see is higher skilled Ps vs lower skilled P+s in gold. Masters would be saturated with P+ players, and bronze would have more Ps. The problem is, it's not easy for the game to measure skill or mechanics, etc. Your MMR is a measure of skill, but it factors in race too. Note, I'm not trying to imply that race distributions are a good measure either. That would come with its own slew of problems, of course.

Sorry for the random semi off topic post. But back to your original point. Yes, I think Blizzard would make changes if they thought something was broken at the bronze-gold level. They have already made balance changes that were based on low level and/or team play (one of the reaper and VR nerfs comes to mind), but they usually try to change stuff that wouldn't affect high level 1v1 play as much (and for good reason too). Whether or not they should balanced based off that... well, I'd prefer not to join the argument.

sure, but that's an exception

so these are all different transformations of the same unit correct?

why does T always get one up on the other races

ROFL it was a transformer hellion hahahaha

Thoughts:

-LOL FLYING DEFILER.

-What's gonna come out of that Spawn Host? ITs? If so, Infestor's probably gonna lose that spell.

-Seems like that Warhound does exactly what the Thor already does, with an emphasis on anti-mech instead of anti-light. I wonder if it will replace the Thor.

-Depending on how strong the new Hellion form is, I can see ppl running it into your base in Hellion mode and transforming in the corner to snipe a building or something. Also depends on Transform time.

-I think Toss is trading the Phoenix for that Oracle thing. Edit: I think when it says "reveals what structures are making", it means what they're producing.

-I wonder if they'll be trading the Carrier for the Tempest as well?

-Replicants better be damn expensive and high-tech. Can you say "Protoss Ghosts/Infestors"?

also lol @ 3 units for each race, 2 for zerg. isn't this the zerg expansion?

Looks like some cool units, can't wait to see how they get integrated (maybe filling roles of units that will be removed?).

One thing I'm not liking so much is so many units having AOE attacks. I can't quite put my finger on why, it just seems wrong...

edit: though yes, LOL FLYING DEFILERS etc.

lots of air units for toss huh

i'm guessing the oracle/replicant is probably robo tech

Terran's gonna need a melee unit if the Viper's Dark Swarm-esque spell works the same as in BW. It does only say "hinder ranged attacks", so IDK if it will be full immunity.

why are they giving toss another capital ship? already have mothership and carrier.

also, in before shredder drops in enemy mineral lines is nerfed.

I can think of so many potential problems with the Replicant right now. I'm very interested to hear more about it.

LOLOLOL tt1 qq

sigh people whining about terrans in every ****ing thread about anything starcraft related

most likely:

thors, overseers, motherships are gone

overseers gone? what are zergs gonna scout with, jetpack lings?

it said non massive, so i don't think its a big deal.
it does have exciting team game applications.

for instance, Toss & Terran Team
Terran bee lines ghosts, Toss bee lines replicants.
Toss copies Ghosts, as it says, abilities are auto activated. Toss ghosts have super fast cloak attack, same with banshees.
same with raven and seeker missle, super early seeker missle min line attack.
a lot depends on reqs for replicant.

trying to think what other abilities, if activated super early, would be OP.

you can get overlord speed 10 sec later than you can get an overseer...

would just be weird for zergs to have two detecting air units.

meh, maybe.

I'm surprised they havent found a way to remove corruptors too

dont they mean they get the abilities the unit has if the other races have them researched?

edit: looks like no, that will be very weird for a while lol.

The non-massive thing helps a lot, but spellcasters aren't massive. Ghosts and Infestors were more what I was thinking of. As to abilities, I'm thinking that it can't both be a permanent replication (that is, have no timer like NP for example) and auto-activate all abilities, even ones the opponent hasn't researched. It would be absurd for Toss to replicate ghosts w/ cloak when the opponent doesn't even have it if it was permanent. You'd basically be giving them a super expensive part of the opponent's tech tree (all told) for only the cost of the unit.

I was expecting a corruptor replacement too, but I guess not yet.

I thought for a second that maybe the Viper would replace it, but there's no way that Vipers are anything but T3 with that description.

pretty pumped, so hard to read the threads on tl they get trolled so ****ing hard. Plus way more bitchy people there imo