Mutalisks

[Draemos]

They seem abit out of wack. They don't have a single weakness.

-super fast, ultimate harass unit
-cheap
-super versatile(air/ground)
-easy to mass produce
-become exponentially more deadly as they mass numbers

Because they cost so little in minerals the zerg player can also field a massive zergling army.



Now I realize nothing has really changed about mutas since SC1. But their counters in mid-game games are few and fleeting compared to SC1. I think something needs to change, either mutas need a weakness (ie no air to air), or one of the anti-air platforms for toss/terran need a bump to specifically counter mutas.

[Hob]

If you look at SC1, the best meta counter was the corsair or the valkyrie, and they just came in the expac. The best thing out of those was the wraith or the scout, with, in SC2, their equivalent seems a bit lacking in the anti-air departement. I'd buff phoenixes anti-air and it seems the vicking should be a bit better now.

[Kat]

I would have to agree that mutas are a little bit unbalanced right now.

They are quick.
They are strong.
Their attack hits multiple targets.
They have a decent amount of health.
And they can attack both ground and air.

So obviously, somethings about the muta are things that blizzard basically can't change without ruining what it means to be a mutalisk. (They can't really get rid of the speed, the multi-attack, the ability to attack air and ground... Any changes to these things would make completely change the concept of their design.)

However, as it stands now, they are VERY devastating, and in my opinion, a little bit too powerful for the cost.

So what it really comes down to is this. Blizzard has a few options (one of these alone should be enough):

- Give toss and terran better options for fighting mutas. (buffing units like stalkers, or giving them a different attacking method against air.)
- Slightly reduce the damage done by mutas. (not my favorite option. limits their ability to harass mineral lines.)
- Slightly reduce the health of mutas. (I think this is a fair option. Mutas are fast and easy to get away from danger quick. I personally think if you are letting your mutas get shot down by stalkers or marines you're not using them properly. Mutas should be a unit for harassing and hurting mineral lines, as well as punishing your opponent's lack of anti-air.)
- Increase the resource cost or build time of mutalisks.

I'm not trying to whine to much, i definitely don't think mutas are broken or cheesy. But right now, in my opinion, they are really too versatile. They can harass, they can fight extremely well against other units, they can do a lot of damage to a base. It's a little bit too much to have a unit that is strong, defensive, fast, versatile and relatively inexpensive.

[Szarka]

They are a serious problem for protoss right now. If he is able to keep you out of his base while he gets his mutas going you're basically done. There is no real counter to mass mutas besides HT storm. Even with storm its hard, storm doesn't do that much damage and mutas are quick enough to get out of it.

[Mut]

Terran needs no help vs mutas, marines with stim own them hard.

[Draemos]

Terran needs no help vs mutas, marines with stim own them hard.

In small groups yes. In large groups the mutas will destroy the marines who will be focusing on the wave of zerglings thats advancing on them because mutas are so light on minerals.

Early mutas aren't so bad for Terran. It's the mid-game harass where they bounce all over the place in mass quantities that is so damned hard to counter. Even if you do get your army of stimmed M&M in range of the mutas, the zerg player will just withdraw them and be beating on the other side of your base within 10 seconds while you slowly march your horde of marines to counter. The only real solution is to press the zerg base and make him fight defensively... but I don't think every game should boil down to that.

Eventually they just wear you down. Late game Terran have some decent counters, but getting to that point w/out being overwhelmed is a pretty tough prospect..

[Wingless]

Originally posted by Draemos.comerb

In small groups yes. In large groups the mutas will destroy the marines who will be focusing on the wave of zerglings thats advancing on them because mutas are so light on minerals.

Early mutas aren't so bad for Terran. It's the mid-game harass where they bounce all over the place in mass quantities that is so damned hard to counter. Even if you do get your army of stimmed M&M in range of the mutas, the zerg player will just withdraw them and be beating on the other side of your base within 10 seconds while you slowly march your horde of marines to counter. The only real solution is to press the zerg base and make him fight defensively... but I don't think every game should boil down to that.

Eventually they just wear you down. Late game Terran have some decent counters, but getting to that point w/out being overwhelmed is a pretty tough prospect..

Mutas arent cheap they are 100 100. I only have extra minerals because you let me keep up 4 bases. I will agree that they get better in bigger numbers and that protoss need to stop a zerg player from massing them if he wants to win. Also the phoenix needs something. just make it a corsair with that lift ability and maybe thatll be good. Finally terran needs no help the mutas get owned by the tight packed groups of marines they are so small you can mass them as much as I mass my mutas. I have to go baneling + zergling + mutas to get passed them and to be honest the reason it works so well is that most of my mutas come home to join the next wave if I micro them right.

Edit: And pressing the enemy base to make him play defensively is the counter I have to use in half my games. Against all kinds of strategies.

[Draemos]

Mutas arent cheap they are 100 100. I only have extra minerals because you let me keep up 4 bases. I will agree that they get better in bigger numbers and that protoss need to stop a zerg player from massing them if he wants to win. Also the phoenix needs something. just make it a corsair with that lift ability and maybe thatll be good. Finally terran needs no help the mutas get owned by the tight packed groups of marines they are so small you can mass them as much as I mass my mutas. I have to go baneling + zergling + mutas to get passed them and to be honest the reason it works so well is that most of my mutas come home to join the next wave if I micro them right.

Edit: And pressing the enemy base to make him play defensively is the counter I have to use in half my games. Against all kinds of strategies.

100 minerals is cheap for an air unit. You'll always be limited in muta production by gas, which is why you'll have an overflow of minerals to spend on zerglings or mass expansion.

Being forced into pushing offensively early game shouldn't be the only way to beat a early/mid game air unit thats being mass produced.

[Mindless]

Make them take up 3 population then problem solved Its that simple.

[Worax]

Make them take up 3 population then problem solved Its that simple.

lolwut?

[Wizbeski]

I would prefer an approach where other units from other races are given more functionality.

Specifically for the case of terrans, I feel they lack ground to air options that are mobile, making attacking very hard.

Correct me if I'm wrong ,but there is Marines, Ghosts and Thors only that can attack from ground to air and be mobile?

I would support adding a ground to air machine guns or rockets for say...Hellions.
Massing marines or Thors or Ghosts for ground-to-air approach is fine, but a different style or option would never be bad. And it might make Hellions more popular.

As for Protoss, I can't comment since I haven't played much with them. Can't Immortals attack air units?

[paradox]

one key thing to do is scout so you know they are going muta. then just come up with a way to get into their base and destroy their spire. it takes a while to build. also they will be saving up for muta meaning they wont have much ground deffense. the thing to do is NOT go through the choke. dropship. proxy, get over the cliffs (walk over with colossi) you take out that building they are done. the spire is also one of the weaker zerg building so

[Draemos]

one key thing to do is scout so you know they are going muta. then just come up with a way to get into their base and destroy their spire. it takes a while to build. also they will be saving up for muta meaning they wont have much ground deffense. the thing to do is NOT go through the choke. dropship. proxy, get over the cliffs (walk over with colossi) you take out that building they are done. the spire is also one of the weaker zerg building so

Reapers are a good solution for terran, they'll drop a spire fairly fast.

[Kranden]

A group of mutas can swoops down and blow up a base in seconds before your enemy has time to reposition his troops. Unless he has a massive air force of his own you win. Even if he bunkers down into his base and towers like its freaking tower defense you can just take every xpo on the map and lol macro to victory.

[Tiamazzo]

Mute do 9 damage. While I'll agree that they're very good at getting in back doors, they don't really kill anything in "seconds". Cept an SCV.

[whiplash]

In PvZ mutalisks are countered by sentries, you only need about a 3/4 ratio to mutas to take them out. Make sure you have the shield up at all times as well.

[Zasz]

Honestly I don't think the problem is with Mutalisks. It's with how easy it is for Zerg to expand and hold it. Like an above poster said, Mutalisks are by no means cheap, 100 gas is a lot for an air unit that isn't really that strong until you have 12+ of them.

Zerg players should have to fight for their expansions if they want to mass Mutalisks, and you should deserve to lose if you let them do it. Right now that's not really the case.

P.S. I like the suggestion to have Reapers go in and destroy the Spire, had never occurred to me.

EDIT: I don't really buy into Sentries being a counter. It may work, but I hardly think its intended for a support unit like the Sentry to counter mass Mutalisks. They just need to buff Stalkers' all-around damage or make Phoenix even a little viable (WRU Overcharge?)

[Nick]

Well i agree wit the mutas being OP a little

I had a whole army of Marines/Vikings with 1 medic and yeah i had ground troops of hellions coupled with banshees and i just see my marines get bounced in the face by the mutas attacking my vikings and POOF there goes my army...thinking if i just mass Vikings instead after the fact .....I Still lose to that. wtf

[Bosko]

I think the vikings were actually made weaker vs muta in that first patch. I think it worked out to +4 dmg per shot, but their attack speed is so slow it doesn't seem like it makes that big a difference. At the same time they lost a point of armor, that's like 2 or 3 more points do dmg per muta attack (with bounce) and muta attack much faster.

On top of that, the 0 armor makes the ground assault mode even more useless.

[Kootness]

Mutas arent cheap they are 100 100.

That is cheaper than any Terran air unit, and vikings aren't even that good vs. mutas, since they are much slower and will probably be outnumbered anyway

[Chung]

I won 10 games in a row and then lost 4 games in a row and got put the ##*@ in my place all because of well microed mutalisks. Mutalisks are absolutely awful if you just fight things face to face but they are so good if you actually take advantage of their mobility. And their mobility is nuts.

[Betamax]

Don't let them get there. Rush in the base right off the bat.

[Ojetor]

I agree that Mutalisks seem very strong right now, but I think a lot of this is that they pretty much have no decent counter. What's worse is that all a Zerg player needs is a Spire. They can be pumping Roaches all early-game and suddenly make the switch and hit you with 8-10 Mutas and harass you to death.

Stimpack Marines do beat them, but only a bad Zerg player would actually go toe-to-toe with a bunch of marines. Instead they'll run away, and come back on the other side of your base in a few seconds. Ground-based AA is pretty useless against Mutalisks, because of their extreme maneuverability and speed. They can fly in circles around any ground-based army all day, and they pretty much threaten everywhere in the map since they're never more than 15 seconds away from anywhere.

I think the problem isn't so much that Mutas themselves are any more powerful than in SC. The problem is that compared to BW, we no longer have the Corsair or the Valkyrie, both of which were pretty much custom made to beat Mutalisks via powerful AoE attacks.

[Istari]

I've seen some really good sentry micro to protect base/workers long enough for toss players to counter. The mutas are always on the outside looking in trying to get some cheap shots (like sc1).

[Supersoldier]

The only reason Mutas are seen as slightly overpowered is because the Viking and Phoenix are both really bad. I mean you take out the Wraith/Goliath/Valkyrie and Scout/Corsair and leave Mutas the same. Then you introduce considerably weaker units as "counters" and expect it to work out balanced... lol?

The problem is that Terran and Protoss need valid AIR to AIR counters. Mutas are much too quick and easy to mass for anyone halfway decent at microing to allow themselves to lose a lot of Mutas in an air to ground battle when they can easily reposition their Mutas or run away.

Buff the Viking(air) and Phoenix and this wouldnt even be an issue.

FYI - Saying things like "Dont let him mass Mutas" or "if he gets mass Mutas you deserve to lose," while true to an extent, doesn't address the fundamental problem of there not being effective Protoss and Terran counters against them in the current form of Beta.