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So day 1 of MLG Anaheim has come and gone,
I've played a total of 4 matches on the HOTS demo.
This blog is my INITIAL REACTION to the various changes that I saw during my time playing the HOTS demo at MLG. Bare in mind that I am a random player and I did get a chance to sample all 3 races.
1. Battle Hellions are amazing, potentially TOO amazing. The Battle Hellion is everything it was advertised to be and more. No research required, same tech as a normal hellion, and same mineral only cost.
The addition of +45 hit points and the cone flame thrower makes the Hellion absolutely devastating vs Zerglings, and the increased durability makes it a superb mech unit for absorbing damage for siege tanks.
It did appear to me like the base hellion speed was lowered a little bit while in vehicle form. I'll have to make a mental note to write down what the base hellion movement speed is tomorrow.
2. The warhound still seems a bit meh. Without its anti-air capability (which was given back to the Thor) it really reminds of just a bigger, more expensive marauder that only does real damage vs mechanical units.
Its rail gun does 25 damage a shot and shoots at a decent rate, and it comes equipped with secondary missles which only attack mechanical units. I can see this unit being devastating vs Stalkers specifically in the TvP match up and obviously their role as a tank line buster appears to be set in stone, but other than that I don't really see much use for them. With the battle hellion, siege tank and Thor, there really isn't much place for the warhound in a mech army in TvZ, especially since vikings are going to be almost mandatory vs Zerg now if you use mech thanks to the Viper.
3. The Viper is a weird unit. Its grab ability could be potentially game breaking in PvZ especially but its cloud is a lot less effective than it looked at Blizzcon. As opposed to working like Disruption web, instead it operates like Dark Swarm now in that it protects biological units underneath it from enemy fire.
4. The Swarm Host is just frustrating to use for me personally. I just cannot imagine using it without massing it. The locusts don't have much health at all, and don't do a lot of damage (although now they can attack air which is a nice plus) and the cooldown on the attack is rather long. The Swarm Host itself costs as much as an Infestor, which makes it a pretty heavy gas investment. When massed up to a number around 12 or so, the locusts come out in pretty large swarms and I guess can be used to harass expansions or to buffer for armies, but in small numbers the Swarm Hosts are almost not noticeable.
Did I mention they have very low hp? I was very surprised to learn how quickly they died by even battle hellions once I scanned them.
I would really love for some way to stockpile locusts in a swarm host to unleash them in larger bursts, but that's a personal opinion based off an initial impression. This is a unit I definitely need to play with more.
5. The Ultralisk Burrow Charge was one of those things that I shouted OP about when it was revealed back at Blizzcon. Turns out it has a 30 second cooldown and cannot be auto cast. This makes me feel a lot better about it.
6. The oracle is everything it was advertised to be and more. The addition of a cloaking field ability which mimics the one the mothership had only activated for a period of time as opposed to constant is a really nice addition to the unit. It still has no real combat role, but it's a great Protoss support unit.
The mineral block has a HUGE radius. The other ability (turret disruptor thing) is roughly identical to what it was at Blizzcon.
7. I don't like the Tempest. Period. I don't like what they've done with it. It's essentially a Guardian only bigger, more expensive, and with a LOT more range. It fires EXTREMELY slowly, and lacks any sort of splash damage that I could see.
I just don't see the usefulness of it . I'd rather keep the Carrier, and not just because I think the Carrier is a much cooler unit, but because I think the Carrier would mesh better with the Oracle than the Tempest will.
8. The new Mothership Core is going to be very difficult for new players to get the hang of, but it's really really useful.
Like the original Mothership, you can only have one out at a time but you can swap it to different Nexii for an energy cost I think.
The only ability I really experimented with was the Recall, which works brilliantly. The radius is pretty large and it's great for pulling your troops out of a bad fight.
I'll have to remember to test out the other abilities. The cannon ability that was displayed at Blizzcon has been changed so that it only works on the Mothership Core itself. You can't use it on any other structures.
Once again I have to remind anyone that reads this that this is all just INITIAL reactions. I'll put up another blog post tomorrow with some of my revised reactions as well as Sunday with my final conclusions from the weekend.
 
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Good stuff vindic. Hoping to drive down there tomorrow and test it myself ^^
edit:haha sounds good!
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Hysteria I'm going to be wearing a Lakers shirt tomorrow. If you see me you better challenge me to a game or i'll be very disappointed.
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If you get a chance, can you find out if Energize (Mothership Core ability) has a range so that a unit has to be nearby to be refilled, or can it be used on a unit anywhere on the map? It looks like a very useful ability that potentially lets you Storm right after warp-in and mineral block forever with the Oracle (until anti-air towers are made, anyway).
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On June 09 2012 15:32 Lousy! wrote:
If you get a chance, can you find out if Energize (Mothership Core ability) has a range so that a unit has to be nearby to be refilled, or can it be used on a unit anywhere on the map? It looks like a very useful ability that potentially lets you Storm right after warp-in and mineral block forever with the Oracle (until anti-air towers are made, anyway).
Hi Lousy!
When I moused over the tooltip I seem to remember that the ability does in fact have a range but I will make sure to write down what the range is when I play again tomorrow.
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3. The Viper is a weird unit. Its grab ability could be potentially game breaking in PvZ especially but its cloud is a lot less effective than it looked at Blizzcon. As opposed to working like Disruption web, instead it operates like Dark Swarm now in that it protects biological units underneath it from enemy fire.
Could you elaborate on the Blinding Cloud ability? I thought it only reduced ranged biological units into melee range. I didn't hear anything about it protecting biological units underneath the cloud from enemy fire.
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Thanks for this, always nice to have some insight in to these things. I'm glad to hear about the limits of the Ultralisk charge, as I was a bit worried as well.
I've always considered the Viper's swarm to more so resemble the dark swarm from BW than the disruption web.
Did you have any experience the the Widow (Terran mine unit)?
Thanks
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On June 09 2012 15:40 eviltomahawk wrote:Show nested quote +3. The Viper is a weird unit. Its grab ability could be potentially game breaking in PvZ especially but its cloud is a lot less effective than it looked at Blizzcon. As opposed to working like Disruption web, instead it operates like Dark Swarm now in that it protects biological units underneath it from enemy fire. Could you elaborate on the Blinding Cloud ability? I thought it only reduced ranged biological units into melee range. I didn't hear anything about it protecting biological units underneath the cloud from enemy fire.
I'll tell you what.
I'll write down the exact tooltip tomorrow.
But what I remember from the ability is that it basically shields everything underneath it (biological units only) from ranged damage. If you played SC1 it basically works exactly like Dark Swarm, but it has a much smaller radius.
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What did you feel about the Widow unit? It seems to be that 10 seconds is a bit too long?
And did you try using the reaper at all?
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I was watching the HotS game on the stream, 0_0 i'm soooo happy *sniff* Hydra vs Mech *sob* (these are tears of happiness) I love watching Hydra/queen/muta vs mech in bw, and to see it here (yay hydras have speed upgrade  ) i'm was so damn pleased with it, and along with the viper! *orgasm* i thought it would be defiler style like ultra/ling/lurker/defiler but now i see it seems to fit long with hydras/viper instead of hydra/queen (bw)
I do have a couple of questions, which is the tank doesnt take damage from the pull yeah? it can be damage when its being pulled but not from the acutal pull, am i right?
Also what if i'm over crevasse can i pull the unit over it? what if the viper is IN the crevasse what happens to the pulled unit?
Also the spidermines (i know they're called something else) they need to be built? from the factory??? 0_o can u use reactors to double produce them? Also the reason spider mines was such a good way to control the map was cause u just researched it on the vulture (75minerals) and u got 3mines, but with new one wont it cut into production time? Like with the vulture u got a buffer for tanks as well as the mines, but with this when u build them u dont get other units also do they attack workers? like if a drone passes over it will it explode? i assume it would as they stated it hits air, so its different from the vulture mine where it didnt go off if a "hovering" unit passed over them (workers counted as hover as well as air, archons, vultures)
So do u think its gonna be too dangerous vs workers or in mineral lines? (can u drop them?)
I'm quite pleased with everythin so far except the warhound, i really really wanted it to be a somewhat mass-able anti-air mech unit, but oh well. How much do the hellions do in battle form but with out the blue flame? Do u feel the battle hellions arent as useful if they havnt go blue flame?
I was also thinking, (btw this might be completely imbalanced, lol) but what if the hellion didnt get the blue flame upgrade, but instead had the battle hellion as the upgrade, and when in battle form u got the blue flame. So the hellions would be fast still does extra to light, but they cant kill workers as fast anymore (they can still chase them), and the battle hellion would be too slow to hit workers if they notice them (dropped) so its like kinda moving hellions away from "worker killers" and more into a unit that fights, it shouldnt change the battle outcomes with the battle hellion, but more or less move hellions from raping workers.
Thx for this blog, i hope u come back with another blog for tmr! =) goodluck man and have fun!! <3
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Thanks for giving us the perspective from someone whose actually played it legitimately. I agree with you on the Swarm Host- one of the things which made the Lurker so effective at controlling space was how powerful even one of them was and the Swarm Host doesn't look like it has that now. They've stated "board control" is the role the Swarm Host is supposed to play so I'd expect it to get some buffs or even an outright change in its mechanic.
Is Blinding Cloud really like Dark Swarm now? I dunno if thats weaker, because that spell is pretty damn ridiculous.
Glad to see Burrow Charge will reward micro instead of being autocast.
Do you like the new Queen model as much as I do?
I was worried Battle Hellions would completely nullify Lings TvZ :/
Looking forward to the next blog!
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On June 09 2012 15:40 Grobyc wrote:
Thanks for this, always nice to have some insight in to these things. I'm glad to hear about the limits of the Ultralisk charge, as I was a bit worried as well.
I've always considered the Viper's swarm to more so resemble the dark swarm from BW than the disruption web.
Did you have any experience the the Widow (Terran mine unit)?
Thanks
The Widow Mine is basically a manually controlled spider mine.
It must be burrowed in order to deploy, and when you deploy it, it latches itself onto a unit and then detonates after 10 seconds. (will double check the duration)
10 second is more than enough time for units to be microed away from the unit being mined, but the damage is pretty considerable, has splash and can be used on both ground and air units.
Coming from Brood War where Spider Mines come standard on every vulture, I'm not really thrilled that you actually need to build the things out of a factory but obviously the unit can be very useful.
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On June 09 2012 15:47 Shock710 wrote:I was watching the HotS game on the stream, 0_0 i'm soooo happy *sniff* Hydra vs Mech *sob* (these are tears of happiness) I love watching Hydra/queen/muta vs mech in bw, and to see it here (yay hydras have speed upgrade ) i'm was so damn pleased with it, and along with the viper! *orgasm* i thought it would be defiler style like ultra/ling/lurker/defiler but now i see it seems to fit long with hydras/viper instead of hydra/queen (bw) I do have a couple of questions, which is the tank doesnt take damage from the pull yeah? it can be damage when its being pulled but not from the acutal pull, am i right? Also what if i'm over crevasse can i pull the unit over it? what if the viper is IN the crevasse what happens to the pulled unit?
I did not try using the ability to pull anything off the map, but I'm fairly sure it can't be used that way. If it can, I'm sure someone else will point it out.
Also the spidermines (i know they're called something else) they need to be built? from the factory??? 0_o can u use reactors to double produce them? Also the reason spider mines was such a good way to control the map was cause u just researched it on the vulture (75minerals) and u got 3mines, but with new one wont it cut into production time? Like with the vulture u got a buffer for tanks as well as the mines, but with this when u build them u dont get other units also do they attack workers? like if a drone passes over it will it explode? i assume it would as they stated it hits air, so its different from the vulture mine where it didnt go off if a "hovering" unit passed over them (workers counted as hover as well as air, archons, vultures)
So do u think its gonna be too dangerous vs workers or in mineral lines? (can u drop them?)
I'm quite pleased with everythin so far except the warhound, i really really wanted it to be a somewhat mass-able anti-air mech unit, but oh well. How much do the hellions do in battle form but with out the blue flame? Do u feel the battle hellions arent as useful if they havnt go blue flame?
Totally agreed with your point about production time. They can be made out of a reactored factory but they do indeed cut into production time. The mines are manually controlled, you can use them to attack whatever you want. According to Khaldor's twitter you can even load them into medivacs (4 at a time).
I was also thinking, (btw this might be completely imbalanced, lol) but what if the hellion didnt get the blue flame upgrade, but instead had the battle hellion as the upgrade, and when in battle form u got the blue flame. So the hellions would be fast still does extra to light, but they cant kill workers as fast anymore (they can still chase them), and the battle hellion would be too slow to hit workers if they notice them (dropped) so its like kinda moving hellions away from "worker killers" and more into a unit that fights, it shouldnt change the battle outcomes with the battle hellion, but more or less move hellions from raping workers.
Thx for this blog, i hope u come back with another blog for tmr! =) goodluck man and have fun!! <3
The only thing that I think that might be too powerful about the battle hellion is that battle mode is available as soon as the unit is produced with no research required. This makes Hellion openings even better vs Zerg than they were in WoL. As far as later game goes, the BH is totally fine.
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On June 09 2012 15:49 Vindicare605 wrote:Show nested quote +On June 09 2012 15:40 Grobyc wrote:
Thanks for this, always nice to have some insight in to these things. I'm glad to hear about the limits of the Ultralisk charge, as I was a bit worried as well.
I've always considered the Viper's swarm to more so resemble the dark swarm from BW than the disruption web.
Did you have any experience the the Widow (Terran mine unit)?
Thanks Coming from Brood War where Spider Mines come standard on every vulture, I'm not really thrilled that you actually need to build the things out of a factory but obviously the unit can be very useful.
Yeah me too 
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On June 09 2012 15:46 Chaggi wrote:
What did you feel about the Widow unit? It seems to be that 10 seconds is a bit too long?
And did you try using the reaper at all?
No I didn't, but I didn't really feel the need to.
The changes to the unit are rather straightforward, no more nitro boosts, and no more D8 charges. So it's slower than before but it's a much better scout and harassment unit than it was before because of those combat drugs.
On June 09 2012 15:48 zawk9 wrote:
Thanks for giving us the perspective from someone whose actually played it legitimately. I agree with you on the Swarm Host- one of the things which made the Lurker so effective at controlling space was how powerful even one of them was and the Swarm Host doesn't look like it has that now. They've stated "board control" is the role the Swarm Host is supposed to play so I'd expect it to get some buffs or even an outright change in its mechanic.
Like I said, my largest concern is how weak they are in small numbers. Between the long cooldown and relatively low combat effectiveness of locusts, they just really aren't noticeable in low numbers as far as I could tell. I do think they could potentially make for a good harassment unit (burrow hide them somewhere and then just pester an expansion as an example)
but as far as map control goes, I don't really feel that they fit that role. My suggestion was to allow the autocast to be taken off and to allow the swarm host to stock up locusts up to 5 charges and then unleash them all at once. That would make them a combination of a Meatwagon and Militia from WC3 if you've ever played that game. That might be an interesting way to use the unit, but as is I don't really like it, but I'm sure there's a Zerg out there that has greater vision for the unit than I do.
Is Blinding Cloud really like Dark Swarm now? I dunno if thats weaker, because that spell is pretty damn ridiculous.
The radius is MUCH smaller than Dark Swarm was, but yea it appears to function as a shield as opposed to a disruption web.
Glad to see Burrow Charge will reward micro instead of being autocast.
Do you like the new Queen model as much as I do?
I was worried Battle Hellions would completely nullify Lings TvZ :/
Looking forward to the next blog!
Agreed on all other counts.
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On June 09 2012 15:16 Vindicare605 wrote:
7. I don't like the Tempest. Period. I don't like what they've done with it. It's essentially a Guardian only bigger, more expensive, and with a LOT more range. It fires EXTREMELY slowly, and lacks any sort of splash damage that I could see.
I just don't see the usefulness of it . I'd rather keep the Carrier, and not just because I think the Carrier is a much cooler unit, but because I think the Carrier would mesh better with the Oracle than the Tempest will.
I don't agree, from what I've seen, you can use those things to snipe infestors in a infestor broodlord composition from a far range. This makes infestors lategame very weak and zerg will now need to snipe observers and burrow infestors just to keep them alive against a tempest play.
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Mothership core is a bit similar to orbital command except it's unique? It feels to me like one of those things which make expansion builds very easy to do. It doesn't take population so you can build it while you're capped and it's available straight after assimilator? Feels like it will just make builds where you expo while getting the core at home then swapping it straight to the expo nexus are something what they aim for.
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How much supply is a Widow?
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Interesting, thanks for sharing. Curiousity though - even with 200 stations, is there any kind of wait to get into a HotS game? And is it currently using the same WoL battle.net interface?
Did you have to log in, or is it just step up and start playing?
(Doesn't impact me at all, I'm 1400 miles away, but I'm wondering how it's being received.) Also, have you seen any pros floating over there to get on the game?
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EPT
