So, I have two minor problems with balance that I think can be worked out together. I'm told mends have decent value at the highest levels of play. In my experience, however, it is very hard to justify building them outside of unit cannon drops. This is because they are essentially twice as good as stitches for twice the cost plus the added cost of taking precious production time on a t2 bot factory. Added micro potential does not justify the added cost and this is reflected in how often we see them used, even by ubers. Minefields affect the game once, if at all. You build a dastardly trap and there's a 50% chance your opponent has skitters already anyways, because skitters are just good in combat situations, and a pretty good chance they wont lose that many units before noticing. After you spend a decent amount of metal and micro setting up a minefield your opponent loses like 30 seconds producing some cheep speedsters to counter. You could spend increased micro to make a less expensive minefield that will still produce the same negligible effects. Very few players have the spare apm to use setting up defences that will hold the enemy at bay for anywhere between 0 and 30 seconds. Static defences are supposed to be more efficient than mobile units, right? Yes, I know about strip mining. I'm thinking: - remove the skitter's ability to see mines and add some other combat benefit (radar maybe) to compete with firefly. - very slightly (if at all) reduce the stitch's mine vision range - increase the mend's mine vision range - increase the mend's fabbing range by 50%, this alone would be enough for me to start using them et voila, mines are scary and mends become better than stitches in two critical ways. Maybe the changes to skitter would be too radical for some people, but I find it beneficial to start a discussion in the extreme and get more nuanced afterwards.
I like the idea of increasing the mend's build range, and buffing the mend in general. in reality its a phenomenal unit, the two main problems are that its squishy for its price and has to be too close to danger to do its job. Its stupid to nerf the skitter, especially in terms of mines. just because golds and plats use them in the most uncreative way possible doesn't mean they are a bad investment. mines excel at killing the right units at the right time (dox raiding parties, locusts, blind armies) and are a good way to punish people and delay pushes. most players dont add scouts until pretty late. also you want to have a nimble scout mine detector so it can avoid bomb runs