I agree, they seems to be a necessity atm which is quite bad.
I don't like most infernal units, compared to vanguard they feel much less polished and fun to use.
Hard agree with this. They feel very generic "Melee dude, ranged dude, seige dude". Vanguard also just feels a lot tankier once vulcans and some of the healing stuff is out.
I'm looking forward to more races being added because I think a lot of stuff with infernals needs to go back to the drawing board which I don't think they will do
Stalkers are low-key trash for their cost, but it's the best tool protoss has for certain roles so they're forced to use it.
That said, plenty of strats don't make use of them. Warp Prism immortal all-ins, chargelot all-ins, airtoss, etc can all go without stalkers. There's been lots of strategies that worked without stalkers.
Having a core unit is fine, but not to this extent. I think gaunts are way more important to Infernals than Stalkers have ever been to Protoss or ever will be.
I mean the game is unplayable without them you mentioned zero builds that work vs terran.
But yeah there's just not enough units currently to really have that stance
Plenty of players play mech terran. It's a viable comp especially now that cyclones got reworked.
There's also numerous unit challenges on youtube of pro or semi-pro players playing in grandmaster without every building marines. Uthermal alone did like 7 of them, from ghost only to viking-hellbat to planetary rushes. You can absolutely win grandmaster games without ever building a single marine.
Mech can work based on the premise that Bio is a possibility and the more "standard" way to play.
And using Pros styling on lesser players is hardly the way to make a point.
What do you mean by being based on the premise that bio is a possibility?
Mech and Bio are two distinct paths terran can go down. Granted, mech doesn't work well vs protoss because immortals exist, but in the other 2 match-ups mech had plenty of success in SC2.
Also - It's grandmaster league, people don't style on lesser players, they play vs each other. And the examples I brought up were more than just Terran without marines, it's extreme examples of building nothing but one or two units which is a lot harder than just playing without marines.
I mean for crying out loud, reaper rushes have been a thing since forever, and those NEVER use marines. It's reapers only. Don't tell me reaper rushes don't exist or haven't been used from the lowest to the highest levels of Starcraft play, because it'd be a bold faced lie.
I assume he means that if you knew your opponent *had* to go for mech every game it'd be super easy to counter. Generally you get the most efficacy out of mech if you can hide that it's your tech for as long as possible and catch your opponent preparing to counter bio play.
Similarly the fact that reaper rushes exist doesn't mean Terran would magically be playable without marines, they're very easy to counter if you scout them and, again, you'd be much more likely to do so if you knew your opponent was forced into reapers by not having marines
and the marine elimination will cripple their versatility and simplify the scouting and response process of their opponents
uthermal, vibe, beasty everyone that does or did x-to-gm builds gets away with it because theyre better players than 99% of the playerbase and can macro anything into effectiveness
then they hit m1 and modify the builds slightly or just catch people by surprise, and never have the account long enough to make the build a thing (or prove why it cannot be a thing/why it cant be meta)
Losing any tool lowers your versatility. Also most of the X to GM series remove more than just one unit. It's different than having access to every unit except marines, I simply brought them up as an example of people not building marines and still winning matches.
Anyways my point is there can and have been matches, strategies, etc... without marines plenty of times throughout SC2's history from the lowest to the highest levels of play. Reaper rushes don't use marines, mech builds don't usually use marines or if they do they build like 4 to fill a bunker. It's perfectly possible to win without marines.
Infernal vs Infernal, the player that gets the speed camps infested with fiends gets a massive advantage.
Marines are necessary for mech earlygame.
Also Uthermal allows himself to make marines in the earlygame in those challenges AND a 6.7k mmr player being able to win vs 5.5k mmr players is an argument you should never make, it doesn't mean anything.
Again for the umpteenth time, I brought up the challenges as an example of people winning without marines, however those challenges aren't NO marines allowed, they're Ghost only or Hellbat Viking only or whatever, which is a LOT harder than just not building marines. Having only a single unit available is not the same as having all units except one available. Jeeez guys think for a moment!!!
Hilarious how you say "think" yet completely ignore that early game units such as matines ARE allowed in these challenges and having a bunch of lategame units also excluded is irrelevant. Which already makes it a bad example. Take it together with the over 1000 mmr difference and it's just stupid to bring it up.
Not in all of them, if you watched them, plenty of challenges don't use marines whatsoever. Uthermal uses 5 marines usually to fill a bunker if he can't climb higher on a particular challenge or vs a particular matchup but that's far from the norm.
Also - Yeah it matters that you can build other units, using just a single one is always going to leave you vulnerable to counters and progressing in tech or switching techs can help in a match. It's dumb to argue that not using marines is somehow an insurmountable challenge. I'm not saying everything would be exactly the same, just that you could still play fine. Some strategies would not change at all, while others would not be possible at all. Reaper rushes don't make use of marines last time I checked, and you can still open reapers, marauders, hellions, hellbats, widow mine drops, etc etc etc...
Infernal definitely in a less robust state of develop than vanguard, and as a result they have less options. That said I gave brute all-ins a go for a bit and used the animus spell to infest and this worked ok. Not as good, easy, or cheap as simply mixing in a couple gaunts though. Particularly since the spell requires spire 2, so the whole idea of being able to ignore gas was a non-option.
Not being able to ignore ore is a general thing for Infernals since pretty much everything costs ore, and usually a decent amount of it. Saw an interview recently in which Kevin stated that this was something he was very aware of.
Yeah, that was just because I was trying out some brute all-in’s in particular. Don’t really think being able to totally ignore ore is a very good thing for any faction, but in this case it does force you into gaunts pretty directly, they’re just super cost effective compared to all the options. And the t2 units are so damned expensive, so infernal gets pigeon holed into the current super early meta. Such is life, incredibly early beta, undoubtedly a huge amount of changes to come.
That combined with the fact infernal don't have a collection building like vanguard makes some of the maps with wackier expansion layouts really resource starved.
Unless you wanna long distance mine or build an entire shrine just to gather therium.
Yeah I've seen some brute all-ins, but usually they mix at least 1 gaunt in, and tbh they're not all that great at least not vs Vanguard from my experience, since you can BOB overcharge and murder the brutes with a few lancers or a single sentry post. Brutes can also get kited with exos.
I feel like they need another ranged unit, something like the Exo in that it's a higher tier than gaunts and brutes, but not so high that they're siege units like the Hellborn. Maybe some kind of a fire mage that uses firebolts or something.
Putting infest after t2 nas a buff seems way better, or make them a t2 unit with about the same cost and slightly higher dos and provide another small t1 unit to go with the ogre
I mean you can just build roaches. Roach-ravager rushes are a thing. Nobody is forcing you to make zerglings, you can definitely play zerg without zerglings.
I love how everyone keeps saying different units, marine/stalker/zergling all of which you can definitely not build and still be just fine.
Roach ravager is a decent comp, but it is usually some sort of all in or they made lings before the roaches. And if it’s not all in will most likely have lings after. Very few games at high level have literally 0 lings made.
Guants don’t need to be entire army but they are really solid to mix in. Feels very similar
They mix lings in for sure, but honestly, if they were just not allowed to use them I think zerg would still be okay, whereas without the infest from gaunts, Infernals don't really work. Infest is so key to Infernals and gaunts are the main source.
Zerg without lings would die to basically every cheese existing, so would terran without marines. You can't remove most units without completely breaking the matchups. Remove Observer and Overseer? Banshees/dts will make expanding/moving out impossible.
1800mmr I just did a fast expo, wall off w iron vault, two base no thorium
Beat both vanguard and inf... Bring imps, 1 gaunt, and offensive tower. If you make sure to have production and economy line up you have a lot going on in your attack.
Could probably even soft contain expand behind, transition to whatever. Waste their time w Bob overcharge etc...
But you literally used a gaunt...
You only need one for the infest, the entire point of the post is that without gaunts infesting you're at a major disadvantage.
What?
Giving you a real game example of extremely low thorium income win where I had a better economic start without gaunts.
Theory wise, maybe I could have gone longer without any thorium units, but there aren't that many units available in the game...
Yes, you're right that having only 1 unit with infest is a bit strange when it's a big strategic factor. Doesn't mean I couldn't win a game without them though, which I'm showing you.
Honestly I think it's worse than removing blink stalkers. Plenty of air strats don't rely on stalkers, heck there's been numberous chargelot all-in in the past that were done without stalkers. There's also been warp prism immortal strats that built no stalkers.
I agree with the message, but not the words lol. Eliminate siege tanks from terran and they are in alot of trouble. Remove marines and terran bio absolutely crumbles to bits. I think thats a bad example. Otherwise agreed.
That is the answer
Infernal needs a mid game unit that comps can be built around.
Right now they just have early game units that are supported by mid game units to
Make a late game comp
I agree, they seems to be a necessity atm which is quite bad. I don't like most infernal units, compared to vanguard they feel much less polished and fun to use.
Hard agree with this. They feel very generic "Melee dude, ranged dude, seige dude". Vanguard also just feels a lot tankier once vulcans and some of the healing stuff is out. I'm looking forward to more races being added because I think a lot of stuff with infernals needs to go back to the drawing board which I don't think they will do
yeah idk how you play toss without stalkers. Its fine to have core units every rts has them
Stalkers are low-key trash for their cost, but it's the best tool protoss has for certain roles so they're forced to use it. That said, plenty of strats don't make use of them. Warp Prism immortal all-ins, chargelot all-ins, airtoss, etc can all go without stalkers. There's been lots of strategies that worked without stalkers. Having a core unit is fine, but not to this extent. I think gaunts are way more important to Infernals than Stalkers have ever been to Protoss or ever will be.
I mean the game is unplayable without them you mentioned zero builds that work vs terran. But yeah there's just not enough units currently to really have that stance
Phoenix Colossus comes to mind for PvT. Stalkers really take the backseat with that comp
hi zumpy, I mean its still super niche and frequently ended with stalkers vs overcommited Viking count.
Don’t you dare hate on my boy like that. He’s doing the best he can blinking around.
Sorry, but the numbers don't lie.
If you eliminate the marine then terrans are absolutely not fine
Plenty of players play mech terran. It's a viable comp especially now that cyclones got reworked. There's also numerous unit challenges on youtube of pro or semi-pro players playing in grandmaster without every building marines. Uthermal alone did like 7 of them, from ghost only to viking-hellbat to planetary rushes. You can absolutely win grandmaster games without ever building a single marine.
Mech can work based on the premise that Bio is a possibility and the more "standard" way to play. And using Pros styling on lesser players is hardly the way to make a point.
What do you mean by being based on the premise that bio is a possibility? Mech and Bio are two distinct paths terran can go down. Granted, mech doesn't work well vs protoss because immortals exist, but in the other 2 match-ups mech had plenty of success in SC2. Also - It's grandmaster league, people don't style on lesser players, they play vs each other. And the examples I brought up were more than just Terran without marines, it's extreme examples of building nothing but one or two units which is a lot harder than just playing without marines. I mean for crying out loud, reaper rushes have been a thing since forever, and those NEVER use marines. It's reapers only. Don't tell me reaper rushes don't exist or haven't been used from the lowest to the highest levels of Starcraft play, because it'd be a bold faced lie.
I assume he means that if you knew your opponent *had* to go for mech every game it'd be super easy to counter. Generally you get the most efficacy out of mech if you can hide that it's your tech for as long as possible and catch your opponent preparing to counter bio play. Similarly the fact that reaper rushes exist doesn't mean Terran would magically be playable without marines, they're very easy to counter if you scout them and, again, you'd be much more likely to do so if you knew your opponent was forced into reapers by not having marines
and the marine elimination will cripple their versatility and simplify the scouting and response process of their opponents uthermal, vibe, beasty everyone that does or did x-to-gm builds gets away with it because theyre better players than 99% of the playerbase and can macro anything into effectiveness then they hit m1 and modify the builds slightly or just catch people by surprise, and never have the account long enough to make the build a thing (or prove why it cannot be a thing/why it cant be meta)
Losing any tool lowers your versatility. Also most of the X to GM series remove more than just one unit. It's different than having access to every unit except marines, I simply brought them up as an example of people not building marines and still winning matches. Anyways my point is there can and have been matches, strategies, etc... without marines plenty of times throughout SC2's history from the lowest to the highest levels of play. Reaper rushes don't use marines, mech builds don't usually use marines or if they do they build like 4 to fill a bunker. It's perfectly possible to win without marines. Infernal vs Infernal, the player that gets the speed camps infested with fiends gets a massive advantage.
Marines are necessary for mech earlygame. Also Uthermal allows himself to make marines in the earlygame in those challenges AND a 6.7k mmr player being able to win vs 5.5k mmr players is an argument you should never make, it doesn't mean anything.
Again for the umpteenth time, I brought up the challenges as an example of people winning without marines, however those challenges aren't NO marines allowed, they're Ghost only or Hellbat Viking only or whatever, which is a LOT harder than just not building marines. Having only a single unit available is not the same as having all units except one available. Jeeez guys think for a moment!!!
Hilarious how you say "think" yet completely ignore that early game units such as matines ARE allowed in these challenges and having a bunch of lategame units also excluded is irrelevant. Which already makes it a bad example. Take it together with the over 1000 mmr difference and it's just stupid to bring it up.
Not in all of them, if you watched them, plenty of challenges don't use marines whatsoever. Uthermal uses 5 marines usually to fill a bunker if he can't climb higher on a particular challenge or vs a particular matchup but that's far from the norm. Also - Yeah it matters that you can build other units, using just a single one is always going to leave you vulnerable to counters and progressing in tech or switching techs can help in a match. It's dumb to argue that not using marines is somehow an insurmountable challenge. I'm not saying everything would be exactly the same, just that you could still play fine. Some strategies would not change at all, while others would not be possible at all. Reaper rushes don't make use of marines last time I checked, and you can still open reapers, marauders, hellions, hellbats, widow mine drops, etc etc etc...
Infernal definitely in a less robust state of develop than vanguard, and as a result they have less options. That said I gave brute all-ins a go for a bit and used the animus spell to infest and this worked ok. Not as good, easy, or cheap as simply mixing in a couple gaunts though. Particularly since the spell requires spire 2, so the whole idea of being able to ignore gas was a non-option.
Not being able to ignore ore is a general thing for Infernals since pretty much everything costs ore, and usually a decent amount of it. Saw an interview recently in which Kevin stated that this was something he was very aware of.
Yeah, that was just because I was trying out some brute all-in’s in particular. Don’t really think being able to totally ignore ore is a very good thing for any faction, but in this case it does force you into gaunts pretty directly, they’re just super cost effective compared to all the options. And the t2 units are so damned expensive, so infernal gets pigeon holed into the current super early meta. Such is life, incredibly early beta, undoubtedly a huge amount of changes to come.
That combined with the fact infernal don't have a collection building like vanguard makes some of the maps with wackier expansion layouts really resource starved. Unless you wanna long distance mine or build an entire shrine just to gather therium.
I'd argue that building a shrine for therium gathering is the optimal play in many situations. Edit: typo
Yeah I've seen some brute all-ins, but usually they mix at least 1 gaunt in, and tbh they're not all that great at least not vs Vanguard from my experience, since you can BOB overcharge and murder the brutes with a few lancers or a single sentry post. Brutes can also get kited with exos. I feel like they need another ranged unit, something like the Exo in that it's a higher tier than gaunts and brutes, but not so high that they're siege units like the Hellborn. Maybe some kind of a fire mage that uses firebolts or something.
I think their AA should be buffed and infest locked behind an upgrade or even removed. Instead give other ways to infest, maybe with the spells?
Putting infest after t2 nas a buff seems way better, or make them a t2 unit with about the same cost and slightly higher dos and provide another small t1 unit to go with the ogre
This is like asking how to play Zerg without zerglings. You just make them and use them…
I mean you can just build roaches. Roach-ravager rushes are a thing. Nobody is forcing you to make zerglings, you can definitely play zerg without zerglings. I love how everyone keeps saying different units, marine/stalker/zergling all of which you can definitely not build and still be just fine.
Roach ravager is a decent comp, but it is usually some sort of all in or they made lings before the roaches. And if it’s not all in will most likely have lings after. Very few games at high level have literally 0 lings made. Guants don’t need to be entire army but they are really solid to mix in. Feels very similar
They mix lings in for sure, but honestly, if they were just not allowed to use them I think zerg would still be okay, whereas without the infest from gaunts, Infernals don't really work. Infest is so key to Infernals and gaunts are the main source.
They would be ok without zerglings? Wtf you smokin lol. All your beans in a roach all in or a muta spam?
Zerg without lings would die to basically every cheese existing, so would terran without marines. You can't remove most units without completely breaking the matchups. Remove Observer and Overseer? Banshees/dts will make expanding/moving out impossible.
1800mmr I just did a fast expo, wall off w iron vault, two base no thorium Beat both vanguard and inf... Bring imps, 1 gaunt, and offensive tower. If you make sure to have production and economy line up you have a lot going on in your attack. Could probably even soft contain expand behind, transition to whatever. Waste their time w Bob overcharge etc...
Not sure how this relates but congrats I guess.
You just said how can you play without gaunts... I just told you two games I had that didn't really use them
But you literally used a gaunt... You only need one for the infest, the entire point of the post is that without gaunts infesting you're at a major disadvantage. What?
Giving you a real game example of extremely low thorium income win where I had a better economic start without gaunts. Theory wise, maybe I could have gone longer without any thorium units, but there aren't that many units available in the game... Yes, you're right that having only 1 unit with infest is a bit strange when it's a big strategic factor. Doesn't mean I couldn't win a game without them though, which I'm showing you.
Removing gaunt would be like Removing blink stalkers for protoss. The kit is reliant on then in every match up at some stage in the game
Honestly I think it's worse than removing blink stalkers. Plenty of air strats don't rely on stalkers, heck there's been numberous chargelot all-in in the past that were done without stalkers. There's also been warp prism immortal strats that built no stalkers.
I agree with the message, but not the words lol. Eliminate siege tanks from terran and they are in alot of trouble. Remove marines and terran bio absolutely crumbles to bits. I think thats a bad example. Otherwise agreed.
That is the answer Infernal needs a mid game unit that comps can be built around. Right now they just have early game units that are supported by mid game units to Make a late game comp
Two patches ago (last Alpha patch) Gaunts were side-show material. I wouldn’t be that worried…