Starcraft 2 Armory

Will divide the OP in few sections that each has clear divided point IMO, here we go:

1 - Why did I put this poll ??

Basically it answers one very Key question: Is the WH imbalanced as a Unit by itself, OR - it's the TvP/TvT imbalances only - i.e. - the fact that it does extra damage vs Mech that makes it too strong.. ??

2 - Where did I get the idea/picture to create this poll ?? - Here's a semi/long story I think I noticed though:

Just a few hours ago I thought the same too - WH IMBA (I mean it is, lol), need be 3 supply, yada, yada..

BUT - watched a very good game of IdrA vs Demuslim on both the streams simultaneously (hopefully Husky gets it or someone else and will be able to present it to all of us soon.. ) (on one of the new smaller maps - well - the reverse Blistering Sands map basically that is)



And - basically what I noticed from that game is - if Warhounds were indeed 3 supply instead of 2 - Terran couldn't have held (both of the players had 170+-ish supply for most of the time while engagements repeated on and on) the Zerg who used only a relative-cheap later-mid-game army (Roach-Hydra that is) along with some good use of Vipers (IdrA's da man ) and never even needing to get Ultra or Lords..

3 - WH has some bad designs and is OP, but not as much OP as mostly of us tend to think though:

Here's a short list of few things that I see at WH as bad that affect things badly in the very core of things:


I know it's only one matchup that I tend to talk about, but - let's put Protoss aside for a second

as well as some speculations (though might be worth mentioning it)

and focus only on the Warhound only vs Zerg..

Is WH really IMBA in TvZ.. ?? Post what you think guys.. (looking forward to update this OP with a video of the game if it gets casted, so you get the picture of things I wanted to say though)

My general opinion about the WH currently is this. Its intended for a TvT match and I think it MIGHT be just fine (in a TvT that is). But is way OP in a PvT and a bit redundant in a TvZ.

IMHO the WH seems to overlap roles with the marauder a bit. Only difference is Marauder is Bio and WH is mech. Does WH needs a techlab?

About Supply;
I think it should really cost 3 supply and not 2. The marauder is an infantry unit, while WH is a mech assault walker, its a war machine so it should cost higher since its a bit higher in the tech tree.

About Attack Damage and Haywire ability;
IMHO its damage should be nerf and not attack speed. From 23(+6 max upgrades) to 18(+6 max). Just by looking at the current stats alone, it is clear that its designed to be an anti Protoss unit as most of Protoss units that are vital are mech. Haywire adds 30 damage so one WH can deliver more than 50 damage. A protoss ground army would melt quickly in a head on battle against Terran mech of WH and tanks.

Imagine a fully upgraded Terran army composed of Marines, Marauder and WH against the standard Protoss ground army of Gateway units with a couple of Robos.

I humbly suggest to increase the Haywire missile's range to 10 but increase its cooldown from 6 to 10 secs. And reduce damage to 25.

In a TvZ match
IMHO WH would not be OP in a TvZ match but in fact would be redundant (currently) since its Haywire ability is completely useless.

I believe Blizzard is still finding a way to make WH useful in TvZ as well.

I humbly propose this. Aside from Haywire why not give it another ability that can only be useful against Zerg only and not Protoss.

Sonic Grenades. It will work very much like Haywire, meaning its autocasted and it has the same cooldown and damage. The difference is it can only affect/damage BURROWED units. Of course detection should still be needed to be fair since Zerg rely on burrow to compensate for the lack of cloaking tech.

In this way the roles of the WH would be like these;
PvT: Useful for Haywire only
TvT: Anti tank lines and mech because of Haywire and Sonic grenades would be useful against Widow mines.
TvZ: Useful for Sonic Grenades only

It would be at its full potential in a TvT. Just what Blizzard intended to be originally.

I dont see why you would want to give it an ability against zerg as well. What you're proposing is making the warhound a unit that should simply always be built, no matter who your opponent is. You might as well make the hellion be good against armored units so that it's just as all-round. The warhound was designed to be an anti-tank unit, and the way they did that also made it very anti-protoss.

Increasing Haywire Missile range won't do anything because the ability is activated on attack, so if the ability range is higher than attack range it won't matter.

And yea, my main argument is this: Warhounds shouldn't be balanced around ZvT because it isn't a ZvT unit (currently its only used because stat wise its pretty much the best unit in the game). It should be balanced around TvT, and more importantly, TvP.

"Protoss just need to figure out the counter" is a bad argument - If the counter is not relatively obvious, the unit is probably OP, especially if it's an a-move unit and the counter is something really complex and micro heavy.

And they definitely need to be 3 supply. Just compare their stats to other 2 supply unit. If a terran maxed out on warhounds while any other player maxed out on any other 2 supply unit (Excluding air in this case, or allow warhounds to attack air for this example), the warhounds would win due to sheer stat advantage. Currently the Stalker is the highest cost and health 2 supply ground unit, costing 125/50, 160 health and 8.8 DPS plus a neat ability and good movement speed. Warhounds cost what, 150/75? (Cant remember the mineral cost, but they cost more than stalkers), has 220 health, decent movespeed, 13.5 DPS and an ability. One of those two units doesn't belong into the 2 supply tier.

We all know the Warhound is OP as #?*!$. They need more supply and resources and less damage and less range and less health.

Increase their resources (maybe 200/100) and/or decrease their move speed. If you're a Zerg and you see any Terran dumb enough to mass a lot of Warhounds /w mech in the late game then I can imagine all you need is to just whip out some broodlords, maybe ling/muta.

So far I think increasing the Warhounds supply cost and lowering its hp a bit would be best. Make the Warhound the mobile anti armor section of Mech. A non-massable unit that can deal with armored units harassing areas where the main Mech army isn't. Also make the Haywire missiles hit armored, instead of just mechanical units. This way the Haywire missiles aren't useless in TvZ and they'll stop targeting workers and the poor sentries.

Also reduce the Warhounds damage to 15 from 23, and reduce the cooldown on the Haywire missiles to 4, from 6. With this the Warhound has less firepower against anything not armored but gains a tad more damage against armored.

On a note, does anyone know what kind of damage the Warhounds Haywire missiles are considered as? The reason I'm asking mostly regards to how the Haywire missiles react to the Immortal's shields. Does the Immortal's shield activate or do the missiles go right through and deal their 30 damage?

Haywire missiles are ranged damage, but its 3 missiles with 10 damage each, so full damage to shields. On the other hand, Guardian Shield reduces it by 6 (2x3) and each point of armor by another 3. Also, I kinda like your idea for changing the warhound

Deciding to keep the Thor really seemed to have messed up this units. As it stands now it is the Mech Marauder. I think that a new role is needed.

I think the units HP is fine for now since it is meant to be a somewhat meaty unit. Maybe change it later if needed. The cost needs to go up, but only the supply and gas cost( 3 supply, and 100 gas I think would work).

As for the attack this is a tricky part. I am not sure about the attack range. If Blizzard wants to keep this as a units that moves in and snipes off units than the range and damage is fine. This would fit with its movement speed as well. Another way to balance the unit is to give the unit a faster attack at shorter range(over all DPS being about the same or a bit higher if needed). Personally I like the longer range attack, and to balance it would need to alter speed more than damage.

As for the units ability, I am not a fan of Haywire missile. Blizzard originally tried selling this ability as a means to help break up tanks lines, but I have not seen much of this(Nor do I want to, big fan of slow tank line pushes here ). Now I am not sure why this ability was thought up for that role, it is slow(meaning it would most likely be used on Hellions or other Warhounds and not on Tanks) long range, single target, does not provide AA, is not controlled by the player, and is only useful against mechanical units. What this comes out as in the end is that you get a small DPS boost when fighting mechanic units(30 damage every 6 seconds is not much, even if it can turn the tide), and mechs answer to Immortals(well, since the last answer of 250mm was made unattractive). Turning it into an anti-armor ability I see as pointless as well since you can just add that onto the damage as a bonus and remove the ability.

Now what can be done to the ability. First you can just remove it and replace it with a buff, or another ability. Not sure what I would replace it with just yet. Although think on the ability I am not so quick to go that route just yet. As i said earlier the Warhounds looks to be made a unit that can snipe off other units, why not go along with that. Haywire has a range of ten, but auto-attacks. If you make the ability castable(suggestion from a fellow armory member) you can use it to help pick off units like tanks, colossus, immortals. Fits with the role as a sniping unit. Although this comes with balance problems of its own, some being the same as the Thor's 250mm(the ability to pick off a group of immortals is powerful), which is worse when combined with a Tank line and battle Hellions. Actually, if Haywire was castable it, combine with Warhounds Damage output, and Battle Hellions, would deal with the three big threats to Terran Mech play in TvP:immortals, blink stalkers(you can still try to blink on tanks, but try to get out under that DPS), charge 'lots. This does still let a Terran player break up tank lines, but then mech might risk becoming a race to build the most Warhounds(or we see more bio).

Well that is a mess, but gets a few of my thoughts out there. I would like to hear what people think of another ability for the Warhound, and how it could help define or balance its role.

Sep 9th 2012, 02:24:56 Quote by The Doctor

I dont see why you would want to give it an ability against zerg as well. What you're proposing is making the warhound a unit that should simply always be built, no matter who your opponent is. You might as well make the hellion be good against armored units so that it's just as all-round. The warhound was designed to be an anti-tank unit, and the way they did that also made it very anti-protoss.

And yea, my main argument is this: Warhounds shouldn't be balanced around ZvT because it isn't a ZvT unit (currently its only used because stat wise its pretty much the best unit in the game). It should be balanced around TvT, and more importantly, TvP.

So you want the WH to be a "race specific" unit so that it would be rarely seen in a TvZ match? So in the future, if we see a Terran player makes WH in a TvZ we can only guess that he has something brilliant and revolutionary in mind or he is just making a big time idiotic blunder.

I m not proposing that it would be an "always be built" unit. Just attempting to make the WH and Mech play a viable option in TvZ. The new ability I m suggesting has limitations than Haywire. It needs detection to be used and it can only affect BURROWED units, if lets say the Zerg player unburrows his Roaches or SH then the ability would be useless.

Plus Protoss has no units that can burrow so Haywire is the only way to go if you build WH in TvP. But in TvT WH can be very useful against Widow mines.

In WoL there is one unit that (IMHO) is really a "race specific" unit and that's the Voidray. You rarely see it in TvP because marines can tear it apart easily. And right now I m predicting that Tempests would make Vrays redundant(not just in TvP but all matches). Both can hit G and A units but the Tempest can out class the Vray because of its range. Of course I know that the Vray is available much early but the tempest can be just one step away. Why spend resources on Vray when you can have something much better.

But this is just based from my Personal observations.

Sep 9th 2012, 02:24:56 Quote by The Doctor

Increasing Haywire Missile range won't do anything because the ability is activated on attack, so if the ability range is higher than attack range it won't matter.

Well we are already in the process of suggesting changes to it. What I intend was to divide the fire power of the WH a little. Where the Haywire would act as an preemptive attack before the main engagement. Meaning it will already activate when a unit comes in range and the player can decided if he will move forward to do more damage using its regular attack or withdraw.

It would be more mobile than seige tanks but not very mobile to exceed the standard mobility of mech play. No more no less no mess. LOL

Its a small scale version of the BC yamato cannon mechanic. Where its regular attack in short range but it has a much powerful attack that can hit at long range.

Just like in Roman tactics where its Legions would throw Javelins/pillums to soften their enemies before engaging in close combat.

Or we could just ... you know ... get Haywires to hit only armored units ... just putting that out there.

Realistically putting in a entirely new ability seems so redundent. Especially when its so situational, seriously how often do you see burrow used let alone even get researched in games. Also by making the Haywire more powerful than its normal attack you risk making the Warhound into a hit-n-run unit. If the Warhound becomes a hit-n-run unit then his hp would be far too high for such a unit, let alone his how early and cheap you can get him.

Sep 9th 2012, 11:43:04 Quote by Killswitch

Or we could just ... you know ... get Haywires to hit only armored units ... just putting that out there.

This. There would have to be some tweaking to the damage of the ability as well as the base damage of the Warhound. In any case, it would just overlap the marauder.

It's in my personal belief that the former Warhounds are in their proper place. The scrap station.

@killer: No, you just suggested that the Warhounds become much more useful against zerg. Haywire missiles would make Roaches even bigger jokes along with warhounds now a very cost effective counter to ultras.

Face it the Warhound was badly designed. Making a unit that can walk through siege tank fire then snipe said siege tanks was a stupid premise for the unit.

Remember the old Immortal?

Sep 14th 2012, 05:04:28 Quote by Destroyer

It's in my personal belief that the former Warhounds are in their proper place. The scrap station.

@killer: No, you just suggested that the Warhounds become much more useful against zerg. Haywire missiles would make Roaches even bigger jokes along with warhounds now a very cost effective counter to ultras.

Face it the Warhound was badly designed. Making a unit that can walk through siege tank fire then snipe said siege tanks was a stupid premise for the unit.

Remember the old Immortal?

Mind you tell me more about the old immortal?
I only know immortal was a GW unit back then, but I don't know its stats