The 8 Armor Ultralisk - Page 7
Forum Index > Legacy of the Void |
Loccstana
United States833 Posts
| ||
Big J
Austria16289 Posts
| ||
ejozl
Denmark3327 Posts
So I guess what I'm saying is, if Ultras are truly broken, wouldn't it be cool if you could Abduct/Neural/Fungal/Time Warp it instead? I actually don't know if Stasis works against Ultras. | ||
Big J
Austria16289 Posts
On May 06 2015 21:04 ejozl wrote: I like the clunkiness and how abusive you can be against the Ultralisk. So I much prefer what they've done with a stat buff, instead of the usual adding in of abilities such as Frenzy. It really creates a clear dynamic of: Zerg has the strongest freaking beast in the Ultralisk and you cannot contest Zerg on the ground unless you abuse the shit out of it. So I guess what I'm saying is, if Ultras are truly broken, wouldn't it be cool if you could Abduct/Neural/Fungal/Time Warp it instead? I actually don't know if Stasis works against Ultras. Having "no control as a counter" is frustrating. That's fungal/forcefield all over again, just on a smaller scale. Also they still aren't that good with 5base armor. They are just insane against certain units, mainly the ones that people tend to call "core". If you bring out Thor/Tank and Immortals and Lurkers, they are still far from uncontestable on the ground without abuse. Short of kiting play and air play. The unit as it is is just a big "fuck you" to certain playstyles while keeping all of the weaknesses that make it so extremely weak once an opponent is allowed to just build appropriate counters. I think swapping the ultralisk and the lurker in Tiers and tweaking them accordingly would be cool. Ultralisks never really felt like a T3 unit. It's always been a tempo-based unit you eventually had to transition out of because melee just doesn't make for a good unit in endgame considerations. Making it T2.5 would give it a bigger timeframe to do its magic. | ||
ejozl
Denmark3327 Posts
Having "no control as a counter" is frustrating. That's fungal/forcefield all over again, just on a smaller scale. Also they still aren't that good with 5base armor. They are just insane against certain units, mainly the ones that people tend to call "core". If you bring out Thor/Tank and Immortals and Lurkers, they are still far from uncontestable on the ground without abuse. Short of kiting play and air play. The unit as it is is just a big "fuck you" to certain playstyles while keeping all of the weaknesses that make it so extremely weak once an opponent is allowed to just build appropriate counters. Yes, but Zerg gets to feel powerful and beastly when the unit works and the other player gets to feel clever, or finesseful when he gets to counter the unit. I think as a whole they are introducing a lot more counters, ex. how Ultras really deals well with BIO, in hope of getting more unit variety and transitioning between unit compositions. If a unit is too much Core and there's no counter, you end up with Roach vs Roach. They can't be too extreme though or you end up with mech vs Protoss (Immortal,) which limits variety. So I agree with you in essence, but it's just hard to tell where the unit is as of now. | ||
Grumbels
Netherlands7028 Posts
On May 06 2015 23:09 Big J wrote: I think swapping the ultralisk and the lurker in Tiers and tweaking them accordingly would be cool. Ultralisks never really felt like a T3 unit. It's always been a tempo-based unit you eventually had to transition out of because melee just doesn't make for a good unit in endgame considerations. Making it T2.5 would give it a bigger timeframe to do its magic. Lurkers feel like a unit which should be used in T2, they add positional control at a point that players are taking more bases. Lurkers wouldn't contribute much in the late game as they are especially useful versus lower tier units, they might not be adequate space control later on. The ultralisk on the other hand serves as a zergling shield in the late-game when area of effect abilities are standard. Those aren't as prevalent in the mid-game outside of widow mines and the ultralisk is less necessary then. | ||
Big J
Austria16289 Posts
On May 07 2015 01:00 Grumbels wrote: Lurkers feel like a unit which should be used in T2, they add positional control at a point that players are taking more bases. Lurkers wouldn't contribute much in the late game as they are especially useful versus lower tier units, they might not be adequate space control later on. The ultralisk on the other hand serves as a zergling shield in the late-game when area of effect abilities are standard. Those aren't as prevalent in the mid-game outside of widow mines and the ultralisk is less necessary then. Lurkers with the amount of damage they do and the range they have feel too strong against ground right now. They are much stronger and trickier than siege tanks for direct combating. And they are a zerg unit, available in huge numbers pretty easily. The current implementation changes the pace of the game so much, once they are out that I think they were better fit deeper in the techtree. The role of the ultralisk in zergling-based play is exactly why I would like to have this unit a little lower in the techtree. The gap in tech between zerglings and ultralisks is so big that only when banelings are strong the playstyle is truely viable. In (WoL and HotS) ZvZ, ZvP and ZvMech zergs usually have to deviate from zergling based play because they cannot bridge the gap. | ||
DinoMight
United States3725 Posts
On May 07 2015 02:59 Big J wrote: Lurkers with the amount of damage they do and the range they have feel too strong against ground right now. They are much stronger and trickier than siege tanks for direct combating. And they are a zerg unit, available in huge numbers pretty easily. The current implementation changes the pace of the game so much, once they are out that I think they were better fit deeper in the techtree. The role of the ultralisk in zergling-based play is exactly why I would like to have this unit a little lower in the techtree. The gap in tech between zerglings and ultralisks is so big that only when banelings are strong the playstyle is truely viable. In (WoL and HotS) ZvZ, ZvP and ZvMech zergs usually have to deviate from zergling based play because they cannot bridge the gap. Yeah but do you want to see just Zerlings in every MU all the time? I like the diversity this forces. Lurker is a bit strong, admittedly. Lurker positions seem impoosible to break in ZvZ but it creates dynamic, positional play. Played some ZvZ yesterday and it was a lot of fun. | ||
Big J
Austria16289 Posts
On May 07 2015 03:10 DinoMight wrote: Yeah but do you want to see just Zerlings in every MU all the time? I like the diversity this forces. Lurker is a bit strong, admittedly. Lurker positions seem impoosible to break in ZvZ but it creates dynamic, positional play. Played some ZvZ yesterday and it was a lot of fun. Yes, I like to have the option to go for one playstyle or another. Having players that almost exclusively play and master certain playstyles is a lot of the charm of the competitive scene. You don't just watch sOs because he is a crisp player, but because he is unique in his play. I want to see Hyun roach busting and Life going muta/ling/bling and Goody build up his tankcount, but that is only possible if their playstyles are somewhat viable. Don't get me wrong, I love players that can play any style, that's strategical perfection. But it is easily reached for as long as there are only one and half styles you can do in any matchup. | ||
Hider
Denmark9341 Posts
I think swapping the ultralisk and the lurker in Tiers and tweaking them accordingly would be cool. Ultralisks never really felt like a T3 unit. It's always been a tempo-based unit you eventually had to transition out of because melee just doesn't make for a good unit in endgame considerations. Making it T2.5 would give it a bigger timeframe to do its magic. I think the issue is that a terran and protoss player simply doesn't have the proper tools to attack into a defensive Lurker player in the midgame. That was obviously differnet in BW due to the lower larva generation of Zerg. Im still curious though whether the Adept + buffed Immortal as a core unit could impact the game dynamic in PvZ, and whether a Siege Tank Buff (+ Raven redesign) could allow bio + tanks (+ ravens) to put pressure on a defensive Zerg Lurker player in the midgame. | ||
Beelzebub1
1004 Posts
On May 07 2015 02:59 Big J wrote: Lurkers with the amount of damage they do and the range they have feel too strong against ground right now. They are much stronger and trickier than siege tanks for direct combating. And they are a zerg unit, available in huge numbers pretty easily. The current implementation changes the pace of the game so much, once they are out that I think they were better fit deeper in the techtree. The role of the ultralisk in zergling-based play is exactly why I would like to have this unit a little lower in the techtree. The gap in tech between zerglings and ultralisks is so big that only when banelings are strong the playstyle is truely viable. In (WoL and HotS) ZvZ, ZvP and ZvMech zergs usually have to deviate from zergling based play because they cannot bridge the gap. While I wouldn't be too too opposed to perhaps increasing the gas cost or maybe the supply by 1, the Lurker doesn't need to be gimped from the get go just because it's strong vs. the units that it's meant to be strong against. It is a powerful positional tool to hold ground and allow Zerg to more safely transition to Hive which has always been a large issue. The Lurker takes great micro and control to work it and make it's strengths shine through, if we are going to talk about units that are too strong let's talk about the Cyclone xD To put it bluntly yet not "l2p", Terran and Protoss just aren't very used to dealing with a powerful space control unit from Zerg and that' ok. I mean for 6 months straight now the metagame in TvZ is literally for the Terran to shove units into the Zerg's face and down his throat until the Zerg either defends it with a good fight or is slowly choked to death by the cost efficient bio parage push, Lurkers completely flip flopping this on it's head is certainly going to cause some headaches Think even more recently, Terran not only is able to be super aggressive with multitudes of all ins and powerful macro bio play, Terran also more recently has the ability to turtle up and play an extremely defensive game with turtle mech. Which I'm sure nobody forgot totally forced Zerg to reevaluate our strategy from, "Defend the push and take a good fight, never leave creep" into "Well you have to play from a set of aggressive options because you cannot sit there and play defensive vs. turtle mech". It is literally the same principle. Terran and Protoss are simply going to have to fear (as they should) engaging into Lurker held positions, and are going to have to go Brood War status on them with good tank positioning, drops to spread Lurker defenses thin, so on and so forth. In spite of all of this defense, I do admit that beyond the Lurker Den upgrade they are extremely cheap and attainable once you have Hydralisks out. A small gas increase should prevent Lurkers being so casually built and deployed without gimping the ability to get them on the field in a timely enough manner to ward off frontal pushes and more safely tech up. Apologies if this comes off as passive aggressive towards anyone, I am just seeing lots of Lurker complaints (Not calling anyone out they are strong as hell vs. bio and lower tech units in general) now that Zerg is starting to utilize it more and I want this unit to be balanced and awesome as it was previously. | ||
TheDwf
France19747 Posts
On May 07 2015 04:02 Beelzebub1 wrote: + Show Spoiler + While I wouldn't be too too opposed to perhaps increasing the gas cost or maybe the supply by 1, the Lurker doesn't need to be gimped from the get go just because it's strong vs. the units that it's meant to be strong against. It is a powerful positional tool to hold ground and allow Zerg to more safely transition to Hive which has always been a large issue. The Lurker takes great micro and control to work it and make it's strengths shine through, if we are going to talk about units that are too strong let's talk about the Cyclone xD To put it bluntly yet not "l2p", Terran and Protoss just aren't very used to dealing with a powerful space control unit from Zerg and that' ok. I mean for 6 months straight now the metagame in TvZ is literally for the Terran to shove units into the Zerg's face and down his throat until the Zerg either defends it with a good fight or is slowly choked to death by the cost efficient bio parage push, Lurkers completely flip flopping this on it's head is certainly going to cause some headaches Think even more recently, Terran not only is able to be super aggressive with multitudes of all ins and powerful macro bio play, Terran also more recently has the ability to turtle up and play an extremely defensive game with turtle mech. Which I'm sure nobody forgot totally forced Zerg to reevaluate our strategy from, "Defend the push and take a good fight, never leave creep" into "Well you have to play from a set of aggressive options because you cannot sit there and play defensive vs. turtle mech". It is literally the same principle. Terran and Protoss are simply going to have to fear (as they should) engaging into Lurker held positions, and are going to have to go Brood War status on them with good tank positioning, drops to spread Lurker defenses thin, so on and so forth. In spite of all of this defense, I do admit that beyond the Lurker Den upgrade they are extremely cheap and attainable once you have Hydralisks out. A small gas increase should prevent Lurkers being so casually built and deployed without gimping the ability to get them on the field in a timely enough manner to ward off frontal pushes and more safely tech up. Apologies if this comes off as passive aggressive towards anyone, I am just seeing lots of Lurker complaints (Not calling anyone out they are strong as hell vs. bio and lower tech units in general) now that Zerg is starting to utilize it more and I want this unit to be balanced and awesome as it was previously. The Lurker is bound to suffer like the Tank in the SC2 environment. Hopefully it endures, but another formula that 30 damage 9 native range 3 supply has to be found. | ||
Maniak_
France305 Posts
On May 07 2015 03:45 Hider wrote: I think the issue is that a terran and protoss player simply doesn't have the proper tools to attack into a defensive Lurker player in the midgame. That was obviously differnet in BW due to the lower larva generation of Zerg. Im still curious though whether the Adept + buffed Immortal as a core unit could impact the game dynamic in PvZ, and whether a Siege Tank Buff (+ Raven redesign) could allow bio + tanks (+ ravens) to put pressure on a defensive Zerg Lurker player in the midgame. Are Banshee somehow impossible to use against lurkers? A cloakable air-to-ground unit that can become faster than mutalisks, that sounds like something that would be a bit more effective than running marines and marauders up ramps covered by lurkers. Not to mention the future air unit that may be usable as an aerial siege unit. | ||
JCoto
Spain574 Posts
On May 07 2015 04:33 Maniak_ wrote: Are Banshee somehow impossible to use against lurkers? A cloakable air-to-ground unit that can become faster than mutalisks, that sounds like something that would be a bit more effective than running marines and marauders up ramps covered by lurkers. Not to mention the future air unit that may be usable as an aerial siege unit. And flying siege tanks, mate, flying siege tanks. Not only to mention that Cyclones can go into Lurker range, acquire it, have a relatively easy time evading the ability, and kite it. You also can drop 2 unsieged tanks outside the lurker range, and order them to siege.... relatively easy time. Also I think that the Ultralisk discussion is too drastic. You can always reduce the bonus armor to balance it. One of the main complaints of Zergs was that Ultras were shit vs bio, making them unsuable lategame. Now that is the reverse situation, it's all terrans crying, even when they have a new unit which is strong against them and further redesign of Ghosts can easily happen. | ||
TheDwf
France19747 Posts
On May 07 2015 06:55 JCoto wrote: Also I think that the Ultralisk discussion is too drastic. You can always reduce the bonus armor to balance it. One of the main complaints of Zergs was that Ultras were shit vs bio, making them unsuable lategame. Yeah, but this complaint was completely wrong. The Ultralisk had problems, but “uselessness vs bio” was certainly not one of them. 6 armor was perfectly fine, changing other values such as the mineral/supply cost and the collision size (but certainly not to automate its positioning with 0 collision size as I read in this thread), etc., should be explored; not 8 armor so that it hardcounters every low damage, fast firing ground unit (i.e. most basic units) according to the idiotic “tier3 units should hardcounter tier1 units” principle promoted by hords of clueless players. | ||
Lexender
Mexico2623 Posts
On May 07 2015 03:45 Hider wrote: I think the issue is that a terran and protoss player simply doesn't have the proper tools to attack into a defensive Lurker player in the midgame. That was obviously differnet in BW due to the lower larva generation of Zerg. Im still curious though whether the Adept + buffed Immortal as a core unit could impact the game dynamic in PvZ, and whether a Siege Tank Buff (+ Raven redesign) could allow bio + tanks (+ ravens) to put pressure on a defensive Zerg Lurker player in the midgame. Its past the time for this, Ravens need a redesign so bad, tanks and ravens should work more like their BW counter parts, but the raven is pretty fucked, awfull in small numbers, slow. Raven should be faster and maybe also a bit more tanky, they should remove durable materials, and if PDD is still a problem change it for something else, there is a lot of room for this, it could also work as an buff to bio since raven its a spellcaster it doesn't needs mech upgrades, it would be a good gas sink and it could compliment it, we may see the return of SK terran (4MSK terran?). Maybe. | ||
rpgalon
Brazil1069 Posts
On May 07 2015 04:02 Beelzebub1 wrote: While I wouldn't be too too opposed to perhaps increasing the gas cost or maybe the supply by 1, the Lurker doesn't need to be gimped from the get go just because it's strong vs. the units that it's meant to be strong against. It is a powerful positional tool to hold ground and allow Zerg to more safely transition to Hive which has always been a large issue. The Lurker takes great micro and control to work it and make it's strengths shine through, if we are going to talk about units that are too strong let's talk about the Cyclone xD To put it bluntly yet not "l2p", Terran and Protoss just aren't very used to dealing with a powerful space control unit from Zerg and that' ok. I mean for 6 months straight now the metagame in TvZ is literally for the Terran to shove units into the Zerg's face and down his throat until the Zerg either defends it with a good fight or is slowly choked to death by the cost efficient bio parage push, Lurkers completely flip flopping this on it's head is certainly going to cause some headaches Think even more recently, Terran not only is able to be super aggressive with multitudes of all ins and powerful macro bio play, Terran also more recently has the ability to turtle up and play an extremely defensive game with turtle mech. Which I'm sure nobody forgot totally forced Zerg to reevaluate our strategy from, "Defend the push and take a good fight, never leave creep" into "Well you have to play from a set of aggressive options because you cannot sit there and play defensive vs. turtle mech". It is literally the same principle. Terran and Protoss are simply going to have to fear (as they should) engaging into Lurker held positions, and are going to have to go Brood War status on them with good tank positioning, drops to spread Lurker defenses thin, so on and so forth. In spite of all of this defense, I do admit that beyond the Lurker Den upgrade they are extremely cheap and attainable once you have Hydralisks out. A small gas increase should prevent Lurkers being so casually built and deployed without gimping the ability to get them on the field in a timely enough manner to ward off frontal pushes and more safely tech up. Apologies if this comes off as passive aggressive towards anyone, I am just seeing lots of Lurker complaints (Not calling anyone out they are strong as hell vs. bio and lower tech units in general) now that Zerg is starting to utilize it more and I want this unit to be balanced and awesome as it was previously. I think the lurker is currently being used more like a stronger and cheaper colossus with a small delay for the first attack than for holding positions. colossus comparison + cost 2/3 of the colossus supply, has better DPS, better Range, bigger splash, far better mov speed while moving arround the map, can't be hit by air attacks, has cloak while attacking. - has to stop to attack, small delay to get the first attack, can't walk over small cliffs I didn't watch pro BW games, but was the lurker being used to aggressively push as much as it is being used right now? | ||
JCoto
Spain574 Posts
On May 07 2015 08:07 rpgalon wrote: I think the lurker is currently being used more like a stronger and cheaper colossus with a small delay for the first attack than for holding positions. colossus comparison + cost 2/3 of the colossus supply, has better DPS, better Range, bigger splash, far better mov speed while moving arround the map, can't be hit by air attacks, has cloak while attacking. - has to stop to attack, small delay to get the first attack, can't walk over small cliffs I didn't watch pro BW games, but was the lurker being used to aggressively push as much as it is being used right now? Yes, the lurker was aggressively used, specially with the combo of the Defiler cloud (Immunity to ranged attacks). In a near future, we might see an HP nerf of it possibly. | ||
Big J
Austria16289 Posts
The same reasons why the lurker was thrown out in the WoL beta still apply in LotV: The unit is hard to make work in an enviroment with the marauder, the roach or the immortal (and others) while the newly introduced baneling was much easier to tweak against marines, hydras and zealots as it didn't have a history of combating armored units like dragoons. That doesn't mean I'm against the lurker being in the game, but I hope they put more effort in it. Currently it is just a bruteforce buff with more damage, more health and more range. | ||
JCoto
Spain574 Posts
On May 07 2015 08:45 Big J wrote: What they did with the lurker was that they looked at the concept of the unit in broodwar and then tried to translate that to SC2. But SC2 doesn't follow the same rules that are in Broodwar. If you make a unit that should hold ground against low-mid tier compositions, it means it destroys marauders and roaches and hellbats and adepts and ravagers and stalkers in SC2. All of those units have traits like health or speed or damage or gimmicks that marine, zealot, zergling, T1 hydralisk, firebat, vulture and dragoon, goliath don't and didn't have. The result is that the SC2 lurker is just much stronger than it used to be against everything. The power it had in broodwar against marine-like compositions, it has now against marauder-like compositions. Obviously, that makes the lurker even better against the marine-like compositions and much more useful against your higher tier units like ultralisks or thors or colossi. The same reasons why the lurker was thrown out in the WoL beta still apply in LotV: The unit is hard to make work in an enviroment with the marauder, the roach or the immortal (and others) while the newly introduced baneling was much easier to tweak against marines, hydras and zealots as it didn't have a history of combating armored units like dragoons. That doesn't mean I'm against the lurker being in the game, but I hope they put more effort in it. Currently it is just a bruteforce buff with more damage, more health and more range. Range is the same, and I think that fairly similar interactions apply to bio as it did in BW. Except that bio is stronger against it with the Marauder in. And bio has combined the Dropship with medics. Stalkers have blink and Adepts have the shade, + Immortals deal with lurkers better than dragoons. Hellbats are like pre-stim Firebats, and Roaches as as mobile as BW Hydras (with a 10% margin I'd say). Terrans also have banshees now and their Siege tanks can "fly". I think that the biggest problem is the amount of damage it deals. Back in WoL alpha it had 15+15vs light, but that was ported to the baneling. The old BW damage was 20 if i'm not wrong, but the lurker was more fragile and cheaper, specially on gas. It was thrown after all the Roach/Hydra debate, since Roaches made finally as the T1 unit and Hydras were moved to T2... and they tried to push the Lurker as a Hive unit. And obviously, it wasn't needed at Hive and even less with the need of the range upgrade. I think that in the end, it's all about getting it figured how to play against it and tweaking the animation attack speed and attack cd itself, some adjustements to damage and HP, and that's it. I think that from the 5 units we have in the Beta, the Lurker is possibly in the best position of balance right now. Cyclones are still a thing worth complaining, Adepts are obviously overbuffed, Disruptor drops are insane, and Ravager is now a shitty Roach strain that could be fairly more with a few tweaks to both Roach and Ravagers. The Lurker IMAO is quite balanced for the difficulty of getting good value of it considering how they can be countered, but in some cases I think that is still quite hard (specially PvZ). | ||
| ||