Nerf the Scallywags!

[CombatEX]

(10-31-2012 01:09 PM)daHsu Wrote:  Good points... do you happen to be a scallywag fan?

You're right that we do need more data, although a look at the general voice and trends in ST replays shows that bombshells are quite powerful. The problem about BS's is that they are useful in early, mid, AND late game. I have seen turn 2 bombshells that end up becoming a huge threat. Mid game bombshells end up stalling the game and eating up the opponent, while late game is just insane (again, walking bombshells to the other side). The other two specials have a very small niche (i.e. mobis are only really great for rushing/throwing snipers and heavys around; not so sure about scramblers)
On small maps, one or two well placed bombshells will dominate. But actually, the big maps are just as good for bombshells, since the large distance means soldiers are subject to more bombshell fire.

And @Alvendor: i think i'll try that! although I might end up losing my soldiers+sniper? Which is equivalent to a special

Thanks for being open-minded about this. Before I begin, to address your concern about losing your soldiers and sniper, a few things. For one, it's going to be quite expensive for your opponent to cleanup your sniper, two soldiers and a runner. Another point is that when you kill the bombshell, even if your opponent decides to replace it, that's one turn wasted where s/he can't fire with it. As an Adorables player none of your units are restrained like that, but Scallywag players need to spend a whole turn getting into siege mode (maybe even two turns). Since you have mobi, during this time you'll have a window to teleport your units around and attack.

Now to address your comment. I do like the Scallywags, but my favorite team is actually the Feedback. Also, the fact that the two highest ranked players, p1noyboypj and Sir3 use Feedback, not Scallywags, shows that at the highest level Scallywags are not the obvious choice (they could still be the preferred choice, but it's not black-and-white). My intention is not to try to defend the bombshell because I don't want 'my team' to get nerfed, rather, coming from Starcraft 2 I often see players complaining about balance (almost exclusively about how the teams they don't play are OP) and more often than not these claims aren't worth acting on. This brings up another point which I didn't mention above. That is, adapting. Now, sometimes things really are just OP. If you look at Blizzard's patch notes for SC2, you'll see that they have made balance changes here and there over the past few years. However, there has been way more complaining than the changes that have been implemented, and this is because often times the complaints end up being unnecessary. For example, there was a time when Protoss players were extremely vocal about how hard it was to defend against mass mutalisks especially if the game dragged on long enough that the Protoss needed to try to secure a third base. This went on for a long time and in fact, the Protoss vs Zerg matchup statistics heavily favored Zerg for a few months. Eventually the matchup normalized at around 50-50 again. Why? Did Blizzard nerf the mutalisk? Buff the Protoss? Well, no*. Instead, Protoss players learned how to adapt and punish the mass mutalisk zergling playstyle. The point is that even if the Scallywags are favored (and again, we don't know this), it's possible that given time, people will come up with ways to punish Scallywag players who try to turtle through the mid game and spam out bombshells. I don't know if Alvendor's counter strategy is viable and will become mainstream, but you can see that counters like this will continue to be developed by high level players until a suitable one is found. If this does not happen after a long enough period, then something should be done.

*Blizzard actually did add an upgrade that Protoss players could research to deal with mutalisks, but it was too high up the tech tree to obtain reasonably so players never had much success trying to use it for this. In other words, essentially there was no balance change implemented and players had to figure out the counter on their own.


EDIT:

I missed this the first time, but you're sure you think big maps are just as good for bombshells? I find this highly questionable. Maybe on Foundry this is the case because it's relatively easy to lock down all attack paths by holding the middle, but what about Long Nine and Sweetie Plains?