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Active: 12463 users

You can kill enemy units under swarm with... Mutas

Forum Index > BW General
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1 2 Next All
razorsuKe
Profile Blog Joined July 2008
Canada2000 Posts
Last Edited: 2016-04-06 19:38:36
April 06 2016 19:26 GMT
#1
Just when I thought I for sure could not learn anything new about BW, ZerO comes up with this little trick that shows bw's weird programming.

So ZerO was playing against a Terran and the T player gg's. Zero hits continue to play and casts swarm over some marine/medics.
He flies mutas over and to my surprise, the units end up dying O_O

WTF right?? In all these years playing bw, I've never seen mutas do damage under swarm.



So I went and tested it. It turns out mutas can actually splash units under swarm BUT only if you attack another air unit. In this case, he attacked his own mutas.

For some reason, splash still takes effect from a glauve wurm coming from an air-to-air attack but not an air-to-ground attack.
So if you attack a marine under swarm, the bouncing glauve wurms won't splash the other marines under the swarm.

Making this tidbit completely useless LOL.


[image loading]

[image loading]



Well except for zvz if the scenario plays out where you are having a muta on muta battle over lings with swarm.

I guess if you play a lot of late game zvz, you might have noticed this effect, but I've never noticed it or seen it posted online before.

Just thought I'd share ^^
EntusGalleries.com - CJ Uniform Sale
endy
Profile Blog Joined May 2009
Switzerland8970 Posts
April 06 2016 19:29 GMT
#2
I'm not sure it actually has any useful application in game, which is why we didn't know about it (ok maybe Bakuryu knew about it). Still very cool nonetheless, thanks for sharing.
ॐ
bioboyAT
Profile Joined July 2004
Austria1765 Posts
April 06 2016 19:35 GMT
#3
So much bw knowledge on this forum recently, feels good!
I gotta try this myself sometime.
Milchmann | DeadVessel: Milchmann pwns. I fail.
razorsuKe
Profile Blog Joined July 2008
Canada2000 Posts
April 06 2016 19:40 GMT
#4
On April 07 2016 04:35 bioboyAT wrote:
So much bw knowledge on this forum recently, feels good!
I gotta try this myself sometime.


I just updated with screenshots ^^

It's so weird, what makes an ATA glauve wurm different than an ATG one?
Why would it be programmed any different? I have no idea lol
EntusGalleries.com - CJ Uniform Sale
yB.TeH
Profile Blog Joined November 2008
Germany419 Posts
Last Edited: 2016-04-06 19:47:23
April 06 2016 19:46 GMT
#5
maybe bw only checks on the first attack if a unit is under swarm or not
if you want to test it, just attack a ground unit outside of swarm, the glaive worm should damage units under swarm then

or bw doesn't bother at all to check this if it's an air attack, since swarm only affects ground units
blabber
Profile Blog Joined June 2007
United States4448 Posts
April 06 2016 19:51 GMT
#6
make extra overlords to bring into battle with you new meta!
blabberrrrr
razorsuKe
Profile Blog Joined July 2008
Canada2000 Posts
Last Edited: 2016-04-06 19:54:16
April 06 2016 19:52 GMT
#7
On April 07 2016 04:46 Qeet wrote:
maybe bw only checks on the first attack if a unit is under swarm or not
if you want to test it, just attack a ground unit outside of swarm, the glaive worm should damage units under swarm then

or bw doesn't bother at all to check this if it's an air attack, since swarm only affects ground units


OMG that didn't even occur to me!

I just tested it and you are absolutely correct!

[image loading]

[image loading]
EntusGalleries.com - CJ Uniform Sale
Jealous
Profile Blog Joined December 2011
10310 Posts
April 06 2016 19:59 GMT
#8
That's crazy! Really cool tidbit ^^
"The right to vote is only the oar of the slaveship, I wanna be free." -- бум бум сучка!
Trozz
Profile Blog Joined November 2008
Canada3456 Posts
April 06 2016 22:31 GMT
#9
This is news to me :U
Although this might not come up,
it's handy to know.
A build is not a guess, an estimation or a hunch, a feeling, or a foolish intuition. A build is a dependable, unwavering, unarguably accurate, portrayer of your ambition.
StylishVODs
Profile Joined December 2005
Sweden5331 Posts
Last Edited: 2016-04-06 22:38:15
April 06 2016 22:35 GMT
#10
Maybe Swarm stops working if a player leaves the game

Or maybe not, premature posting
According to Reach, he is the fastest learner he has ever seen. He start bw only like 2/3 years ago. Infact, his bw history knowledge is so limited, he didn't even know what the map Guillotine was.
hellokitty[hk]
Profile Joined June 2009
United States1309 Posts
April 06 2016 23:22 GMT
#11
The bounce hits do damage if the original target is out of dark swarm, as posted above.
People are imbeciles, lucky thing god made cats.
Freakling
Profile Joined October 2012
Germany1533 Posts
April 06 2016 23:34 GMT
#12
The explanation for this is simple:
Cover effects (swarm/terrain) are only checked by the game engine on the initial attack. If it misses, no bounces will even occur, but if it hits, bounces are also guaranteed to hit.
Practical applications are of course rather limited, because bounces only deal 3/1 damage per hit, and that's not taking any armour into consideration. Hard to trade cost-efficient with that unless the enemy units are ground-only and cannot fight back.
hellokitty[hk]
Profile Joined June 2009
United States1309 Posts
April 07 2016 00:33 GMT
#13
No, actually even if the initial muta shot misses, the bounces will hit and do damage.
The easiest way to test this is to hit a worker that dodges into a gas extractor.
People are imbeciles, lucky thing god made cats.
reminisce12
Profile Joined March 2012
Australia318 Posts
April 07 2016 01:48 GMT
#14
On April 07 2016 09:33 hellokitty[hk] wrote:
No, actually even if the initial muta shot misses, the bounces will hit and do damage.
The easiest way to test this is to hit a worker that dodges into a gas extractor.


no, i just tested this, when muta attks a unit under dark swarm, it counts as a miss and there are no bounces.
CrownRoyal
Profile Blog Joined November 2005
Vatican City State1872 Posts
April 07 2016 01:49 GMT
#15
thought this was common knowledge

splash damage always did damage under swarm, u can try it with reavers too. I'm fairly sure the initial hit will miss but the aoe will hit.

-note i havent played broodwar in 6 years.
You're pretty when I'm drunk.
razorsuKe
Profile Blog Joined July 2008
Canada2000 Posts
April 07 2016 04:05 GMT
#16
On April 07 2016 10:49 CrownRoyal wrote:
thought this was common knowledge

splash damage always did damage under swarm, u can try it with reavers too. I'm fairly sure the initial hit will miss but the aoe will hit.

-note i havent played broodwar in 6 years.


No, you are misunderstanding the situation.

First off, mutas do NOT deal splash damage under swarm usually. ie: Late game zvz when one person chooses to use hydra/swarm vs muta/ling. If you have a bunch of mutas shooting hydras underswarm, none of them will get hit, splash or otherwise.
You can easily test this out by attacking units under swarm with mutas, nothing will get damaged even with the splash.

However, if the initial hit of the muta's attack is outside of swarm, the resulting bounce of the glaive wurm WILL deal damage to units under swarm.

Note: I initially thought this was only for muta's air-to-air bounce affecting units under swarm, but it turns out to be any hit outside of swarm will do damage.
EntusGalleries.com - CJ Uniform Sale
TelecoM
Profile Blog Joined January 2010
United States10700 Posts
April 07 2016 05:40 GMT
#17
Amazing, thanks for sharing
AKA: TelecoM[WHITE] Protoss fighting
bypLy
Profile Joined June 2013
757 Posts
April 07 2016 06:46 GMT
#18
game is broken, GG David Kim's predecessor
Piste
Profile Blog Joined July 2006
6183 Posts
April 07 2016 07:09 GMT
#19
wow never seen this before!
kogeT
Profile Joined September 2013
Poland2042 Posts
Last Edited: 2016-04-07 07:15:59
April 07 2016 07:10 GMT
#20
It's because muta attack is some kind of living being, and when you hit a ground unit it gets lost in the smoke, but attacking an air unit provides enough vision from the skies and makes muta attack see it's next target even when it's under swarm. End of story.

Btw. does that also work for double-covered units like borrowed lurker under swarm?

Btw2. you can kill units under swarm in many ways (excl melee attack), out of witch most known are:

- firebat, nuke, splash from tank (for example when attacking your own unit), mines, irradiate, broodling, lurker, storm, reaver scrab, mind control.. did I miss anything? (except muta splash)
https://www.twitch.tv/kogetbw
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