I actually think Starcraft has pretty close to the perfect number of spellcasters. Some of them suck and need to be re-done (cough sentry cough) but the actual number is fine. Though Tbf Starcraft is the only rts I've ever played, soooooo

With no spellcasters, starcraft would be macro centric A-moving compared to what it is like now. We should have more spellcasters, not less. They make the game more interesting, increase strategic depth, increase the skill ceiling. There are very few spellcasters in the game. You think if you remove them it will be about tactics/positioning. Spellcasters increase the need for tactics and positioning not the other way around. They also increase the need for micro. Imagine BW with no spells? Sentries are kinda an anomaly but everyone knows FF sucks.

I didn't play BW. And I'm not particularly talking about hypothetical SC2 where you just remove all the spellcasters and leave everything else, because obviously the game balance hinges on the existence of those spellcasters. But I think looking at TvT, a very interesting positional matchup (once it gets past the new banshee-vs-banshee opening stage, thanks Blizz) where you basically never see spellcasters except for medivacs and the occasional PDD if it goes into air-vs-air, can show the potential of a game that's designed around tactics and not unit micro.

Or at least making them support units (PDDs, unit healing, whatever that's cool) and not the main focus of an army - fungal freezing units in place is ****ing stupid, force fields redefining the map at will is ****ing stupid, psi storm doing Terrible Terrible Damage™ to armies is ****ing stupid. We deal with it because each race has things it can do about it so things are more or less balanced, but I think the game would be more fun if that **** wasn't there at all.

Those spells force you to be more positional, not less, and also to micro more not less. Without them the game wouldn't be as interesting. Macro and multitask would still be there but a lot of the depth would be lost. I am not arguing the point with regards to force fields and I think fungal as a projectile has fixed it to a large degree (you can micro away from it). If you could attack and kill forcefields I always thought that would be interesting. Wonder how much HP they would need to have to avoid breaking the game.

would be tough; early game theyd be unbreakable, or lategame theyd be useless.

i think goofys just saying terran should be the only race

They are already pretty useless lategame, massive units break them already. So how much HP to make them still give P a chance early game? I think probably so much it essentially doesn't matter. Really Protoss needs to be redesigned because designing them around one bad spell hasn't worked out.

I might be optimistic, but I really hope LotV is a truly worthy successor to BW and SC bounces back up there with the MOBA's.

well vT at least, they dont make massive units, so pretty useful always, unless you have 120 3/3 army supply shooting them, then i'd imagine theyd need to be pretty strong to have any purpose.

early game (as a T) even to spend 100 damage output to kill one would basically lose everything stuck behind it cause zealots too strong

Sorry to interrupt your spellcaster debate, but WCS 2014 details:

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/view...opic_id=436104

Looks pretty good on the whole. The new format looks much better, and I like that a majority of challenger qualifier spots are reserved for region residents. The only problem is that anyone who's currently already qualified won't have to forfeit their spot, so we have rely on random NA donks knocking out the Koreans before it's actually WCS America.

However, I don't really like that they're getting rid of global season finals. I'm sure we'll have plenty of international competition still, but I think they would have gone well with the new partial region lock.

didn't they already come out and say that there would be no new units, essentially just a campaign expansion

I like the GSL changes - they're going back to Code S/Code A and basically letting Gom do things the way they want.

Sounds like OGN just doesn't give a **** about SC2 anymore. If they wanted to keep doing OSL events, I'm sure Blizzard would have let them.

Holy ****, first prize for GSL is now up to ~$66k at current exchange rates - back where they belong. Used to be like $50k iirc, kind of a joke that they made it the same across every region last year.

Overall, seems like the changes are very positive. I guess it's a slight downside that we get fewer GSLs - this year we had 4 (one season of WoL, then the three WCS seasons), next year we only get 3. But, shouldn't be too bad. The fact that there's all this guaranteed money available means that SC2 will still be alive a year from now, as the money will draw the players and the players will draw the viewers.

I'm still confused about the partial region lock:



Does the 16 "qualifier slots" in this instance mean "the 16 players that will move on to challenger league" ? So they're gonna have 5 qualifying tournaments for NA for each of those categories where the top 8 in the NA/SA qualifier make it, top 2 in the China qualifier make it, top 2 in the SEA qualifier make it, top 2 in the Taiwan qualifier make it, top 2 in ladder wildcard make it? So a maximum of 2 Koreans can go into NA challenger each season, and only if they get 200+ ladder wins on NA and then place top 2 in that qualifier? Seems really harsh.

back to the spellcaster debate, on one hand i do think it adds a dimension obviously and there are micro consequences to positioning your spellcasters and landing the spell, but on the other hand with a ton of premium being placed on casting spells that takes away from the micro control of the rest of your army while sort of placing a high value on landing that money fungal and less value on each of your other individual units. So having no spellcasters might make micro an even more important skill than having spellcasters for instance. But what do I know I'm just a bronze n00b

Actually, while the first prize in GSL is $41k bigger than other regions, the prizes for 32nd through 2nd are actually $22k smaller than other regions. Initially I was thinking the increased $$ might draw a lot of the Korean talent to stay home to try to win it, but with the ability to win a GSL limited to such a small group of players, seems like it's still smarter for Koreans to try to get dat easy foreigner ca$h abroad.

Also, seems like a pretty huge gift to China/Taiwan/SEA to give them 2 automatic bids each into challenger - I guess Moonglade, Sen, Jim, and MacSed never have to worry about dropping out of CL. Would be more interesting if they just said "8 slots for NA/SA players, 2 for ladder, and 6 for SEA/Taiwan/China) and made them fight it out. Even 6 seems a bit high though.

Kind of agree on the NA spot distribution. I think it would be better if you first consolidated the SEA and Taiwan "regions" into one big group, then gave that whole group 2 spots and China 4 spots (maybe 3 and 3, but I think China deserves more)

i think its fairly true, also that amount of spellcasting is inversely proportional to army control, in that protoss casts the most spells and can A move the most, zerg much less these days, but their army micro is different than terrans, and terran doesn't cast much, but benefits the most from highest army micro.

but terran also takes the most damage from aoe spells, zerg 2nd, and protoss not much anymore (with lack of infestor usage).

but to take them out would have a profound effect on the game obviously, not one that i think would be great. altho i would obv love to see storm just vanquished to the depths of hell

what should i do in tvt

im wanting to start doing more reaper opening in tvp and tvz but i think that kinda sucks tvt, not sure

at your level reaper openings are really good as safe openings because they are free scouts for a long time and you can definitely kill at least one SCV

if you want to be aggro then just open cloaked banshees

Plus, with the way Terran works, you can go, like, 2 rax reaper randomly when you feel like being cheesy and prob kill a Zerg a lot of the time and when you don't they have to make so many lings that you're prob even and then you just go home and build a 3rd CC and prob a 4th too and be totally safe cause lol lings vs supply depot walls.

3 GSLs per year instead of 5 is kind of ****ing lame

1-1-1 tank/marine/1 medivac push is like a free win

not that its exactly the same, but in wol in silver/gold, i got baneling busted sooo much more often than plat, and its pretty strong vs the triple cc/reapers

i used to die to this a lot when i opened cloak (pre buff) but havent seen it much is hots.

think reaper expand is prob best opener; you can get decently fast cloak behind if you wanna go that way, but it makes them overly defensive and you can macro hard behind it. if you're looking for strong midgame, a 2 base tank push with a 3rd behind it is good to jam them up some. out macroing is really key tho, and if you are floating a bunch of gas, getting a 2nd factory earlier is prob more beneficial assuming your marine production isnt **** (dont forget upgrades and ample medivacs tho!)

and drops are good if they dont turret up. if they do, you know they dumped a lot of money that isnt in army value

Anyone else getting an xbox tomorrow? Getting DR3 with it if anyone wants to coop.

my internet decided to go out for no reason after 1 game tonight

anyway i suck now at basic mechanics and ****, haven't played much the last couple months due to health problems, just don't have the mental energy. will try to practice over the weekend

how long have you been playing for?

would play some 1v1s if you ever want, i basically never play at all, but could try to be constructive

Ok, here's a ZvZ replay. This time I hold a 10 pool w/ hatch first but he keeps coming with lings, eventually breaks me while I'm sitting there thinking "ok just gotta get up to roaches".

http://drop.sc/365654

I really just need to practice for a little bit before embarrassing myself (hopefully get this health **** figured out soon. More than likely gonna need to get my gallbladder removed i think) Like the one game I got in last night I forgot to get stim. Had all sorts of hotkeying issues. ****ed up my build order at like 15 supply. Stuff like that.