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Since this whole topic degenerated into the usual balance flamefest where every topic ends up if unmoderated it's time for it to clean up. Locking this down for a while. Any posts made after my post [page 233] not addressing the changes in this patch directly and containting flames or general balance whine will get banned for at least a week. ~Nyovne
There is way too much flaming in this thread right now. Calm down before you post! (Page 271) ~iamke55 |
On September 09 2011 23:56 Hadraziel wrote:
I expected to see a return of mutas ZvP after the removal of the instant storm warpin, maybe the zerg play style really is limited by the efficiency of the infestor.
The infestor needs a nerf, but zerg should be given units strong enough to deal with deathballs.
Hydras and Ultralisks are too weak to do so at the moment. Ultra aoe should be buffed back to its 1.1 range (without the PF exploit).
I have to agree with you, that zerg should have some kind of buff in return, because right now we can't death with a death ball. But, Mutas in ZvP are OK until HTs appears and ruin your day. I assure you it's tottaly horrible how 1 Ht can kill all you speed lings and mutas in 1 shot.
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Holy shit, if the NP change goes through this is huge for SC2. Little too surprised right now to know if I agree with this or not, but it sure is a big change
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On September 09 2011 23:58 Jakkerr wrote:Show nested quote +On September 09 2011 23:46 Demigod18x wrote:
Masters zerg here,
I believe this change won't go live, for several reasons.
1) Blizzard has already stated on several occasions that they are not in the habit of removing aspects from their gameplay. Rather they prefer to balance the other races to compensate for other race's abilities. After all, a game with less options is less fun...
2) If neural can't target massive, it is utterly useless. The only units that it would work on now are siege tanks, immortals, and air units besides battlecruisers and carriers/mothership. But mutalisks are better at dealing with siege tanks and hydras are better at dealing with immortals, both cheaper zerg units than the infestor. Of course it can work on ghosts and high templar but good luck getting that to work in a battle...
3) The infestor is tier 2 with neural being the second upgrade it can get... and this lets zerg contest with a tier 3 army composition. Given the fragility of the infestor and the cost... meaning you can only have lings or at best roaches (which delays your hive timing) in your army composition, I feel like this is extremely fair. The problem most people have is that they let a zerg with infestors sit on their energy for too long, then are surprised when they are facing broodlords and 10+ infestors with near maxed energy. But zerg never lets a high templar protoss sit for too long... nor a ghost heavy terran (IMMvp vs July). So I think the problem is protoss and terran's resistance to REACT to a zerg unit composition. After all, zerg is the reactionary race... why should they have to do anything more than build units and attack like always.
As a suitable balance change, I would increase the energy to 125 so you can't neural twice with one infestor and/or decrease the range to 7 so siege tanks/thors and colossi can still target them but normal units (marine/marauder and gateway) can't.
Fair? I believe this change will go live for several reasons: 1)Blizzard has 'removed' aspects of the game before, reaper nerf, High templar ugrade remove, Void ray upgrade remove. I agree it's not the most ideal way of fixing something, but maybe they don't see another way 2)Will it be useless? at this moment it's easily the best ability in the game, if ur protoss opponent has 6 Colossi it's so easy to counter them with a couple of upgraded infestors, especially in ZvP people just get demotivated to even make T3 units in the lategame. Because what's the point? With every Colossus you made you only make the Zerg army stronger. 3) The infestor allready has 2 very very strong abilities, Infested terrans and Fungal growth, The infestor became an 'I counter everything' unit the last few months which wasn't intended at all. Can you honestly tell me there is a situation in where you wouldn't make Infestors nowadays in all matchups? They should buff some other things for Zergs to make up for this change because I agree it's a big, but justified nerf. Masters Protoss btw
Agreed, NP renders too many protoss units completely useless.
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On September 09 2011 23:51 entrust wrote:
I'm not completely sure.
1st Amulet removed, then thors cannons made useless, now they trying to destroy insfestors.
It's what I call overnerf, nerf one race and buff slightly others and you can multiple it by 2.
They should give something in exchange, mana reduction, range increase. I don't know.
IMO:
Amulet nerf was required, but not removal.
Thor cannon nerf was required, but they overnerfed it.
Fungal nerf is required, but not neural.
and ghosts were buffed !
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If this goes live beating ghost mech is going to be impossible imo.
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Can we use this as a bartering tool to get hydras/roaches swapped back to their rightful tiers? and make roaches a little more costly but a little more powerful so that we have options mid/late game? and return the hydra to the 1 food 75/25 T1 unit it already is atm stat wise? (with a slight dps nerf ofcourse)
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Blizzard failed at designing a good spell caster for the zerg race . At this point i won't be surprised by any changes they do to the infestor .
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On September 09 2011 23:56 Sun7 wrote:
Protoss could always target fire the infestor which is good for the game because it requires some micro. If the range is the problem they could make NP's range a little shorter. Now it seems that we go back to the failed roach hydra corruptor composition.
range is absolutely an issue. have you tried focusing a collosus in battle? there is a problem there right? Infestor neural is 9 range which is same as collosus so its very hard/annoying/sometimes impossible to snipe.
The worst part of the infestor is it isnt exciting. Fungal is just a dominant good spell that roots you in place. Neural essential steals all of the collosus (good units) and infested terran are a hit or miss spell when using to harass (your opponent sees it coming or doesnt). None of this is fun to watch as it limits micro with every single ability.
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SoCal8907 Posts
On September 09 2011 23:58 Cyrak wrote:Show nested quote +On September 09 2011 23:55 immortlone wrote:On September 09 2011 23:51 Cyrak wrote:On September 09 2011 23:40 zalgolisk wrote:
My personal suspicion is that the NP nerf is being placed in PTR primarily to force Zerg players there to actually /test/ the changes. As it is, too many people may be using Infestors "too much" for a proper test of the balance changes.
Now the counter to mothership is to scout and start Hydras if it's backed by air, or ignore it and overrun with Roaches if it's backed by ground, in the same way that Roaches can end up countering void ray builds. This tests the cost buff for Overseers indirectly.
The counter to ground massive units is, of course, Ultras. People may simply not be building them enough for a test, since we're used to them taking 70 (70!) seconds to see a possible return on investment. (Though Zealot/Archon may still be challenging to fight.)
The NP nerf is likely too severe to be left in the game proper -- its only reasonable targets are casters now. Once they gauge the strength of the Overseer/Ultralisk buffs, we will probably see a gentler nerf of NP at worst. We may even see an energy cost buff -- if its only reasonable targets are casters, then it needs to be brought in line with Feedback and EMP (especially since you actually have to research it).
Purely speculation, of course; I have no affiliation with Blizzard's testers. You actually think that Blizzard's master plan is to get Zergs to test the PTR changes by not building the unit that they would be building anyway were this change not to be implemented? That is pretty far out there. "Guys, we're not going to be going to a parallel bizzaro universe, but we're going to have you test some stuff to see what would happen if we did even though it we aren't and after you're done testing it you can go back to doing the stuff you always did." Sounds productive. edit: I'd bet money that almost no-one here even plays the PTR at all. I tried to do a bunch of testing but I went undefeated and eventually hit 8+ minute queue times because there was literally no one queuing at the PTR diamond level. no.. it would be to get zergs to test different unit compositions VS the changes they made. Okay, now, again, please explain how there is any utility in that whatsoever when that's not how Zergs play on live. I've been through enough games with enough balance patches to tell you definitively that players do not adjust their play until they are forced to. Occam's razor says that this change is a direct response to the <30% GSL win rates in PvZ rather than some temporary social experiment on a PTR that noone actually plays on.
there are a lot more things related to the 30% increase in z wins for pvz. i've watched every single GSL match (not an exaggeration) and koreans do not use neural parasite (EDIT: or infestors) nearly as much as someone like destiny.
but you nailed it when you said "I've been through enough games with enough balance patches to tell you definitively that players do not adjust their play until they are forced to." - thats why they're FORCING players to use other units on the PTR to make sure that these balance changes work.
for instance, on the mothership. great, neural still can grab one..that doesn't test whether it can escape from hydras or coruptors attacking it. is it easier/safer to neural a mothership than
attack into it? yes. but does that test the acceleration change? absolutely not.
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On September 09 2011 23:49 lurked wrote:Show nested quote +On August 25 2011 10:14 awu25 wrote:
Mod edit: Infestors' neural parasite ability no longer works on massive units. Finally... I can't even count anymore how many times a 200 vs 200food army turned into a 230 vs 170 food army for the zerg within seconds, only because of this... Like someone else said, zergs will actually have to make a choice now, and not automatically go for 15 infestors every single game/matchup... Anyway, I can't wait to see how it'll evolve from there, and ofc if the change is gonna hit the live version...
it's funny you say this because most terran goes marine+tank against zerg and I don't recall anyone saying terran should not auto-make marine and tanks.
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On September 09 2011 23:58 Jakkerr wrote:Show nested quote +On September 09 2011 23:46 Demigod18x wrote:
Masters zerg here,
I believe this change won't go live, for several reasons.
1) Blizzard has already stated on several occasions that they are not in the habit of removing aspects from their gameplay. Rather they prefer to balance the other races to compensate for other race's abilities. After all, a game with less options is less fun...
2) If neural can't target massive, it is utterly useless. The only units that it would work on now are siege tanks, immortals, and air units besides battlecruisers and carriers/mothership. But mutalisks are better at dealing with siege tanks and hydras are better at dealing with immortals, both cheaper zerg units than the infestor. Of course it can work on ghosts and high templar but good luck getting that to work in a battle...
3) The infestor is tier 2 with neural being the second upgrade it can get... and this lets zerg contest with a tier 3 army composition. Given the fragility of the infestor and the cost... meaning you can only have lings or at best roaches (which delays your hive timing) in your army composition, I feel like this is extremely fair. The problem most people have is that they let a zerg with infestors sit on their energy for too long, then are surprised when they are facing broodlords and 10+ infestors with near maxed energy. But zerg never lets a high templar protoss sit for too long... nor a ghost heavy terran (IMMvp vs July). So I think the problem is protoss and terran's resistance to REACT to a zerg unit composition. After all, zerg is the reactionary race... why should they have to do anything more than build units and attack like always.
As a suitable balance change, I would increase the energy to 125 so you can't neural twice with one infestor and/or decrease the range to 7 so siege tanks/thors and colossi can still target them but normal units (marine/marauder and gateway) can't.
Fair? I believe this change will go live for several reasons: 1)Blizzard has 'removed' aspects of the game before, reaper nerf, High templar ugrade remove, Void ray upgrade remove. I agree it's not the most ideal way of fixing something, but maybe they don't see another way 2)Will it be useless? at this moment it's easily the best ability in the game, if ur protoss opponent has 6 Colossi it's so easy to counter them with a couple of upgraded infestors, especially in ZvP people just get demotivated to even make T3 units in the lategame. Because what's the point? With every Colossus you made you only make the Zerg army stronger. 3) The infestor allready has 2 very very strong abilities, Infested terrans and Fungal growth, The infestor became an 'I counter everything' unit the last few months which wasn't intended at all. Can you honestly tell me there is a situation in where you wouldn't make Infestors nowadays in all matchups? They should buff some other things for Zergs to make up for this change because I agree it's a big, but justified nerf. Masters Protoss btw
Your first point is perhaps the reason why protoss are doing so poorly nowadays (not counting the reaper nerf). They remove aspects of the game = less options = more predictable = less fun.
Your second point makes no attempt to explain how it will not be useless. Rather you go on about how overpowered it is. And if you've made 6 colossi without any high templar support against infestors you deserve to have them all neuraled for your poor army composition. This game isn't who can make the most badass army. It's who can make the strongest army composition and control it the best. You have no answer to neural with 6 colossi but to hope your stalkers snipe the infestors. Why should you win the fight when you've made poor decisions?
To your third point, I use infestors in zvz and zvp, but I have no problem in zvz because the matchup is very volatile, meaning there are constant engagements that drain the infestor's energy and make it less useful. Unfortunately, protoss hardly every harass a zerg apart from the obvious DT tech or phoenix. I mean, you can warp in anywhere... what's to stop you from warping in 5 zealots to a new base, or using the warp prism (which I expect to be used more after the buff). Infestors counter everything when they have 200/200 energy. When they have 50-100, they might counter everything... once. Then they are USELESS. But if they have maxed energy, feedback will kill them... so what's the problem? I can click your colossi, but you can't click my infestors?
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Man, so much negative energy in this thread. Keep calm and build workers guys!
It's unlikely this will ever make it into the game, as has been the case with most of the past experimentation with the Infestor; having fungal as a projectile instead of instant and not having it hit air. Still, they could have first tried to tweak Neural's range or energy cost instead.
On a personal note, I have to agree with some of the concerns voiced by a number of previous posters about Fungal. The damage decrease helps, but what makes that spell so good is that it keeps units in place indefinitely. Another way of addressing these perceived balance problems could be by looking at the Infestor energy upgrade.
Egad! The infestor is the new bunker.
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On September 09 2011 23:59 ThirdDegree wrote:
As a toss myself, I agree that massive being immune to NP is pretty lame, but when you have enough infestors to just take over all collossi, it gets frustrating. What about having NP be a channeling spell? That way it could be cast, but the HT/Ghosts could get off their spells to cancel it out. That, or you could have the cost of the spell directly related to the unit they are trying to control (light, armored, massive etc)
My bigger problem is the FG snare. Slow would be better, or at least have massive immune to the snare rather than NP.
Neural parasite is a channeling spell...
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On September 09 2011 23:58 Cyrak wrote:
Occam's razor says that this change is a direct response to the <30% GSL win rates in PvZ rather than some temporary social experiment on a PTR that noone actually plays on.
I would keep this razor for equal hypotheses in the physics domain. Not for hypotheses about the behaviour of a group of people (a group of 2 people if I'm correct about blizzard's balance team)
There is no way to say that NP is linked to the gsl PvZ winrates as NP is not used that often.
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Really, some guys need to calm down. PTR changes aren't final changes.
And I still have hope in Blizzard to nerf ghosts at least a little.
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NP nerf seems a little excessive. I would rather have seen either or both of:
NP costs 1 energy per second to maintain, and ends if the infestor has no energy.
NP cannot target air units (infestors already have good AA in fungal + ITs)
Those changes would make stargate and templar tech a little more appealing/viable against zerg. If these ptr changes go through, colossus are are going to see eve heavier use against zerg than they do already.
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On September 10 2011 00:06 ETisME wrote:Show nested quote +On September 09 2011 23:49 lurked wrote:On August 25 2011 10:14 awu25 wrote:
Mod edit: Infestors' neural parasite ability no longer works on massive units. Finally... I can't even count anymore how many times a 200 vs 200food army turned into a 230 vs 170 food army for the zerg within seconds, only because of this... Like someone else said, zergs will actually have to make a choice now, and not automatically go for 15 infestors every single game/matchup... Anyway, I can't wait to see how it'll evolve from there, and ofc if the change is gonna hit the live version... it's funny you say this because most terran goes marine+tank against zerg and I don't recall anyone saying terran should not auto-make marine and tanks.
That's because terrans have really good core units that can be used in a variety of different ways.
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Carriers vs infestors will be viable...! :D
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On September 10 2011 00:08 GuardianEU wrote:Show nested quote +On September 09 2011 23:59 ThirdDegree wrote:
As a toss myself, I agree that massive being immune to NP is pretty lame, but when you have enough infestors to just take over all collossi, it gets frustrating. What about having NP be a channeling spell? That way it could be cast, but the HT/Ghosts could get off their spells to cancel it out. That, or you could have the cost of the spell directly related to the unit they are trying to control (light, armored, massive etc)
My bigger problem is the FG snare. Slow would be better, or at least have massive immune to the snare rather than NP. Neural parasite is a channeling spell...
EMP:ing an infestor using NP doesn't do jack shit though. I mean, it removes whatever little energy is left but it doesn't break the NP.
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I have been informed that NP is already a channeling spell. Point taken and I withdraw that statement. 
I stand by slow over snare though.
On September 10 2011 00:12 Maxie wrote:Show nested quote +On September 10 2011 00:08 GuardianEU wrote:On September 09 2011 23:59 ThirdDegree wrote:
As a toss myself, I agree that massive being immune to NP is pretty lame, but when you have enough infestors to just take over all collossi, it gets frustrating. What about having NP be a channeling spell? That way it could be cast, but the HT/Ghosts could get off their spells to cancel it out. That, or you could have the cost of the spell directly related to the unit they are trying to control (light, armored, massive etc)
My bigger problem is the FG snare. Slow would be better, or at least have massive immune to the snare rather than NP. Neural parasite is a channeling spell... EMP:ing an infestor using NP doesn't do jack shit though. I mean, it removes whatever little energy is left but it doesn't break the NP.
EMP/FB should definitely cancel the NP though.
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