Note: This is not a beta key, it is simply access to Vs. AI and a Unit Tester. I have no idea how cool with this Blizzard is or is not, use at your own risk.
On March 20 2015 04:04 TheAnarchy wrote: Last time we saw ravarger it sucked. The attack was never on target. On other side cyclone was imba there was no zerg unit that could take down cyclones. I think the same will happen with the adept. Terran and protoss have to many harass units while zerg has none
The ravager is amazing, it doesn't do much worse in a regular fight than a roach (at least in the fan alpha) and its attack has a lot of utility: it hits air targets, it will influence where the opponent moves, it can kill static defense and break forcefields. Honestly, I think it's more likely that it's going to be completely overpowered against Protoss at first.
I have no idea what they are going to do with the Cyclone. I am putting it down here: they kill the Cyclone. Factory already has like 6 or 7 units. The Cyclone will either be mad over powered, or require such clicking as to preclude it being useful sub masters level. The nerfs they will have to apply to the unit will eventually break it to the point to the point of having no utility. How do you ever balance something that does such weird scaling damage? Did they not learn from the Void Ray?
As I wrote somewhere earlier, they should just turn it into the Nodmod from C&C, make it shoot the rockets by default, remove the lock on, and then maybe add something to make it different from the hellion.
On March 20 2015 04:04 TheAnarchy wrote: Last time we saw ravarger it sucked. The attack was never on target. On other side cyclone was imba there was no zerg unit that could take down cyclones. I think the same will happen with the adept. Terran and protoss have to many harass units while zerg has none
The ravager is amazing, it doesn't do much worse in a regular fight than a roach (at least in the fan alpha) and its attack has a lot of utility: it hits air targets, it will influence where the opponent moves, it can kill static defense and break forcefields. Honestly, I think it's more likely that it's going to be completely overpowered against Protoss at first.
It sucked against air units because it hits to slow. I think it will work against forcefields. But it is necesary a unit to deal with forcefields? I think zvp is already balanced. On the other hand protoss gets two more usefull units the adept and the disruptor. Also they get more harass with the warp prism and have stasis ward. I think the new meta in zerg will necessarily be air units
I think you underestimate this, the ravager is available even before lair tech, I think roach/ravager busts might become all the rage. Forcefields won't hold them back long enough, cannons just die to the mortar, voidrays are pretty slow so placing the ability well might actually damage them, or at least cause them to not shoot at your units because they have to move.
On March 20 2015 05:18 ejozl wrote: something that makes the spell a little less spammable would be good.
I dislike the whole unit. Morphing roaches into another unit is totally fine and i like it, but the ravager is a better roach (statswise) with a spell. That's it. Every other zerg unit you can morph evolves into something completely different, the ravager is just lazy design. I played some games in the fan mod and spamming the ravager spell 24/7 in ZvZ wasn't fun at all. Breaking forcefields is an interesting idea, but i don't think it doing dmg is a good idea. So yeah overall really disappointed with the ravager, hopefully it will change a lot in the beta
On March 20 2015 00:30 Cricketer12 wrote: [quote] the fact that you are willing to buff other units to prevent imbalance really adds legitimacy to this, thus I think this could work!
Might be preferable to not quote the entire post. Thanks for the feedback. I want to see a balanced game, not a TvT roflstomp fest. We've seen how an age of only mirrors play out for each of the three races (MVP TvT age, Patchzerg era, Power of Protoss), so balance is good!
I think that snipe costing 50 and being that strong might be imbalanced. Feedback only kills units when they have as much/more energy compared to their HP, that snipe always insta-kills an HT for the same energy cost. Additionally, I'd consider moving the "Lockdown" effect to EMP, because that's what an EMP does <.<
I also don't like the raven idea, 20 seconds of no abilities is broken and ungodly good imo.
The Raven was just an additional ramble on my part, I removed it.
As for the Snipe, why do you think it is imbalanced? For the same energy cost, Ghosts currently have a 1 range advantage over HT and instantly kill it. Notice, I proposed +1 range to Feedback, which gives Protoss a 100% winrate in Feedback vs Snipe. EMP would be way too powerful with a Lockdown effect as it is AOE. Having it on Snipe makes more sense design wise, though the names are somewhat confusing, probably.
Snipe doesn't insta-kill a HT right now, you need at least 2 queued Snipes, that's 100 energy to kill a HT. As for the Feedback vs Snipe thing, yes the range change is nice, but if your ghosts are below 100 energy Feedback can't kill them. Then they get healed up by medivacs and can at least still fight, compared to HTs without energy who can only help the Protoss anymore by becoming archons and buffering.
Imo, EMP needs a redesign. It makes no sense for it to drain HTs Psionic energies. Rather, it should weaken shields and disable mechanical units in the target area for a short period of time. Then you can use Snipe as a counter for all biological spellcasters and EMPs against sentries and ravens (and the like), while giving the EMP the added utility of breaking TvT tank lines and being useful against many other Protoss units. To balance that, you can decrease the radius of the EMP or make it so only one mechanical unit will be disabled per EMP used so that you can't lock down an entire army with 2 EMPs. Maybe, to balance it out a bit, make it so that units with the "Massive" tag don't get completely disabled but only incapable of moving (huge tech units like carriers would have backups in case of an EMP, it would make total sense). Would also encourage spreading and toning down deathball play.
OMG I mixed energy/damage up. 50 energy for 20 damage is even more pathetic. I think Snipe in imbalanced and the Ghost is poorly designed in it's current form because Snipe has EXACTLY ONE use in the entire game - To be used against a single HT when there's 2 or more Ghosts nearby. Nothing else. Ghost are non-existent in TvT and TvZ. I think that's stupid. Especially considering there's a severe lack of lategame transitions for Terran and P/Z are only getting stronger.
You don't get a 200m/100g/3 supply unit for it's DPS, Ghost attack is pretty fucking poor.
What you are proposing is changing Snipe into a more powerful version vs Psionic and changing EMP to lockdown radius. But that takes the use vs Protoss out pretty much.
Notice again, HT will ALWAYS win vs Ghost in this way. Maybe 50 energy is on the low hand and the new Snipe needs to be 75 energy. Maybe? Maybe not. Maybe experiment before shutting everything down because you are afraid of a single unit interaction becoming harder.
Not true, I'm saying EMP should keep its utility against all shielded units, remove energy against mechanical spellcasters (sentry, banshee, BC, raven) but not against HTs because that's what you get the 1-hit-kill snipe for, and disable a limited amount of mechanical units inside the radius. That makes it better across all matchups and keeps the utility against Protoss, without it becoming as devastating against anything as a storm is to bio units.
I'd say make Snipe cost 60 and do as much damage as you proposed, that would make sense (can never have energy for more than 3 Snipes on one ghost). I agree its current 25 + 25 vs Psionic is incredibly shitty; and ghosts definitely should be made viable across matchups, I love them and the only actual "transition" for a Terran in late game right now is the air transition, which is not exactly safe.
I like your idea. Even though it will make it harder for Terran. I would rather have a good game rather then an easy win. And in all honesty there needs to be a reason to use Snipe and currently their arent any.
hydras and templars should not die from 2 snipes once upgraded +1 carapace
Spell damage isn't affected by armour upgrades.
Well they can change it so it is affected. After all snipe is like a more powerful attack ( twice the damage of the normal attack of the ghost ). The carapace thing affecting snipe is good cuz it can create a time window in which attacks are more powerful, but not really necessary.
On March 20 2015 00:31 SC2Toastie wrote: [quote] Might be preferable to not quote the entire post. Thanks for the feedback. I want to see a balanced game, not a TvT roflstomp fest. We've seen how an age of only mirrors play out for each of the three races (MVP TvT age, Patchzerg era, Power of Protoss), so balance is good!
I think that snipe costing 50 and being that strong might be imbalanced. Feedback only kills units when they have as much/more energy compared to their HP, that snipe always insta-kills an HT for the same energy cost. Additionally, I'd consider moving the "Lockdown" effect to EMP, because that's what an EMP does <.<
I also don't like the raven idea, 20 seconds of no abilities is broken and ungodly good imo.
The Raven was just an additional ramble on my part, I removed it.
As for the Snipe, why do you think it is imbalanced? For the same energy cost, Ghosts currently have a 1 range advantage over HT and instantly kill it. Notice, I proposed +1 range to Feedback, which gives Protoss a 100% winrate in Feedback vs Snipe. EMP would be way too powerful with a Lockdown effect as it is AOE. Having it on Snipe makes more sense design wise, though the names are somewhat confusing, probably.
Snipe doesn't insta-kill a HT right now, you need at least 2 queued Snipes, that's 100 energy to kill a HT. As for the Feedback vs Snipe thing, yes the range change is nice, but if your ghosts are below 100 energy Feedback can't kill them. Then they get healed up by medivacs and can at least still fight, compared to HTs without energy who can only help the Protoss anymore by becoming archons and buffering.
Imo, EMP needs a redesign. It makes no sense for it to drain HTs Psionic energies. Rather, it should weaken shields and disable mechanical units in the target area for a short period of time. Then you can use Snipe as a counter for all biological spellcasters and EMPs against sentries and ravens (and the like), while giving the EMP the added utility of breaking TvT tank lines and being useful against many other Protoss units. To balance that, you can decrease the radius of the EMP or make it so only one mechanical unit will be disabled per EMP used so that you can't lock down an entire army with 2 EMPs. Maybe, to balance it out a bit, make it so that units with the "Massive" tag don't get completely disabled but only incapable of moving (huge tech units like carriers would have backups in case of an EMP, it would make total sense). Would also encourage spreading and toning down deathball play.
OMG I mixed energy/damage up. 50 energy for 20 damage is even more pathetic. I think Snipe in imbalanced and the Ghost is poorly designed in it's current form because Snipe has EXACTLY ONE use in the entire game - To be used against a single HT when there's 2 or more Ghosts nearby. Nothing else. Ghost are non-existent in TvT and TvZ. I think that's stupid. Especially considering there's a severe lack of lategame transitions for Terran and P/Z are only getting stronger.
You don't get a 200m/100g/3 supply unit for it's DPS, Ghost attack is pretty fucking poor.
What you are proposing is changing Snipe into a more powerful version vs Psionic and changing EMP to lockdown radius. But that takes the use vs Protoss out pretty much.
Notice again, HT will ALWAYS win vs Ghost in this way. Maybe 50 energy is on the low hand and the new Snipe needs to be 75 energy. Maybe? Maybe not. Maybe experiment before shutting everything down because you are afraid of a single unit interaction becoming harder.
Not true, I'm saying EMP should keep its utility against all shielded units, remove energy against mechanical spellcasters (sentry, banshee, BC, raven) but not against HTs because that's what you get the 1-hit-kill snipe for, and disable a limited amount of mechanical units inside the radius. That makes it better across all matchups and keeps the utility against Protoss, without it becoming as devastating against anything as a storm is to bio units.
I'd say make Snipe cost 60 and do as much damage as you proposed, that would make sense (can never have energy for more than 3 Snipes on one ghost). I agree its current 25 + 25 vs Psionic is incredibly shitty; and ghosts definitely should be made viable across matchups, I love them and the only actual "transition" for a Terran in late game right now is the air transition, which is not exactly safe.
I like your idea. Even though it will make it harder for Terran. I would rather have a good game rather then an easy win. And in all honesty there needs to be a reason to use Snipe and currently their arent any.
hydras and templars should not die from 2 snipes once upgraded +1 carapace
Spell damage isn't affected by armour upgrades.
Well they can change it so it is affected. After all snipe is like a more powerful attack ( twice the damage of the normal attack of the ghost ). The carapace thing affecting snipe is good cuz it can create a time window in which attacks are more powerful, but not really necessary.
Hydras aren't one-shot at 75 damage. If 75 is too much, reducing is a possibility.
On March 20 2015 04:04 TheAnarchy wrote: Last time we saw ravarger it sucked. The attack was never on target. On other side cyclone was imba there was no zerg unit that could take down cyclones. I think the same will happen with the adept. Terran and protoss have to many harass units while zerg has none
The ravager is amazing, it doesn't do much worse in a regular fight than a roach (at least in the fan alpha) and its attack has a lot of utility: it hits air targets, it will influence where the opponent moves, it can kill static defense and break forcefields. Honestly, I think it's more likely that it's going to be completely overpowered against Protoss at first.
I have no idea what they are going to do with the Cyclone. I am putting it down here: they kill the Cyclone. Factory already has like 6 or 7 units. The Cyclone will either be mad over powered, or require such clicking as to preclude it being useful sub masters level. The nerfs they will have to apply to the unit will eventually break it to the point to the point of having no utility. How do you ever balance something that does such weird scaling damage? Did they not learn from the Void Ray?
The Cyclone is gonna be either OP as fuck, Niche as fuck, or UP as fuck.
Buff Snipe, Reaper, Redesign Raven, Love Terran PLEASE T__T
On March 20 2015 05:18 ejozl wrote: something that makes the spell a little less spammable would be good.
I dislike the whole unit. Morphing roaches into another unit is totally fine and i like it, but the ravager is a better roach (statswise) with a spell. That's it. Every other zerg unit you can morph evolves into something completely different, the ravager is just lazy design. I played some games in the fan mod and spamming the ravager spell 24/7 in ZvZ wasn't fun at all. Breaking forcefields is an interesting idea, but i don't think it doing dmg is a good idea. So yeah overall really disappointed with the ravager, hopefully it will change a lot in the beta
You crazy I'll be sad if they change it from the way it is now. Unless they somehow made it cooler and an even faster way to break forcefield. It's going to open up some nice seiges and harassment.
On March 20 2015 05:18 ejozl wrote: something that makes the spell a little less spammable would be good.
I dislike the whole unit. Morphing roaches into another unit is totally fine and i like it, but the ravager is a better roach (statswise) with a spell. That's it. Every other zerg unit you can morph evolves into something completely different, the ravager is just lazy design. I played some games in the fan mod and spamming the ravager spell 24/7 in ZvZ wasn't fun at all. Breaking forcefields is an interesting idea, but i don't think it doing dmg is a good idea. So yeah overall really disappointed with the ravager, hopefully it will change a lot in the beta
I don't think it's Blizzard's intent to make a "better roach" (I hope not..). The core concept of the unit is awesome and the micro it encourages with corrosive bile is very appealing to watch. Zerg has always needed a low-tech counter to forcefield.
With its current stats though, I'd say you're completely right. I see little advantage the roach provides aside from burrow harassment and slightly more speed which is pretty negligible in comparison to the benefits of morphing it into a ravager. iirc, ravagers actually have more hp and dps than roaches which is absurd on top of corrosive bile.
I'd like to see Ravagers balanced out with a little energy pool (100 max energy, 25 spell) with an energy regeneration upgrade when burrowed (just like organic caparace, but with energy). This way, Ghosts could become a thing again in TvZ, while allows Protoss to counter the mechanic somewhat better, as Ravagers are going to hardcounter armies with a strong dependency on FF (Immortal Sentry, Stalker Colossus Sentry). Force fields are conceptually needed to defend early pressure and heavy ling pressure since we don't know if the Adept is going to be targeted as an anti-light infantry.
The Ravager is far from being a better roach, it's a very specific unit, with good DPS values and a great ability, and also with good range.
BTW I have to say that I would like to see the hydralisk moved to T1(obviously nerfed), basically swapping places with the roach, and a better Roach at 100/50, with a bit more of mobility or even damage, burrow move by default (only needing burrow) and higher HP regen but still at T1, making Zerg early more dynamic. Basically, some the alpha OP roach. You would want Lair for capital upgrades anyways. Then at Lair tech we could place the OP ravager being a main DPS and tanky for the zerg army, while early and cheaper Hydras could mutate into Lurkers, giving it a more natural progression.
While I really love Hydras, most of the time they suck in terms of control, mobility and efficiency, and the range upgrade feels completely like a leftover from the early alpha.
Warp prism pickup range is completely ridiculously stupid. I feel bad for Zergs (as this is who this will primarily effect). I dont understand why, Protoss which already can warp in an infinite number of units with their "drop ship" they would also be given an ability that would make it easer to pickup units.. Easy and... Easier!
Also, nydus that cannot be killed and disruptor that cannot be killed... Is units and structures having temporary invincibility Blizzards new gimmick? You could argue the Adept is invincible too in a way. Stupid.
On March 20 2015 08:11 NKexquisite wrote: Also, nydus that cannot be killed and disruptor that cannot be killed... Is units and structures having temporary invincibility Blizzards new gimmick? You could argue the Adept is invincible too in a way. Stupid.
Did it make sense the way it was before then? Right now in hots you can see where a nydus is going to emerge, and attack this weird pile of dirt to stop him. Does that really make more sense?
On March 20 2015 08:11 NKexquisite wrote: Also, nydus that cannot be killed and disruptor that cannot be killed... Is units and structures having temporary invincibility Blizzards new gimmick? You could argue the Adept is invincible too in a way. Stupid.
Did it make sense the way it was before then? Right now in hots you can see where a nydus is going to emerge, and attack this weird pile of dirt to stop him. Does that really make more sense?
It's not about making sense in that way, it's about yet another binary mechanic. Invincibility = off/on, there's nothing inbetween.
Can we stop complaining about the invincible nydus worm already? When reacted to appropriately, it's not going to do more than it does currently and it's still going to die a horrible death.
But it's not binary. See nydus coming = get units in position so you can snipe it as soon as it pops. Then various factors apply such as how many units can you have in position fast enough, etc. How is that binary?
Have they talked about whether the battlecruiser ability would require you to cast it for each individual bc or if you could control + click a group and select a point to warp them all to? If its individual (meaning you need to click a new location for each bc) I can't help but feel like the ability will be near useless. Though if you can warp all at once I think it would be awesome to use with ravens. Spend a few PDDs to keep them safe during the teleport and then warp them all to one location
EDIT: I suppose from that showmatch it looks like you can tele multiple at once
EPT
