The 8 Armor Ultralisk

On April 26 2015 05:53 Gretorp wrote:
I went 10 ultras against Stephano thinking I'd wreck him. He had lurkers and made me feel like a prison boy.

T and P have the harder times

On April 26 2015 05:47 richlol wrote:
Combined with the Marauder vs Armored nerf, it also completely hard counters Bio, which I thought Dkim wanted to move away from (hard counters).

Despite the bio comp being more entertaining than mech in the TvZ matchup, it seems like Dkim wants mech to be the only option T has vs Z, unless things are changed.

On April 26 2015 05:53 Gretorp wrote:
I went 10 ultras against Stephano thinking I'd wreck him. He had lurkers and made me feel like a prison boy.

T and P have the harder times

On April 26 2015 06:37 FrostedMiniWheats wrote:
Additionally, I always thought it would be cool if Frenzied boosted the Ultralisks attack and movement speed when near death. That way they actually have a means of retreating if an engagement goes bad instead of getting picked off by stim bio, banshees, or blink stalkers.

On April 26 2015 07:17 404AlphaSquad wrote:
Just reduce their ridiculous size already... These clunky big things by Activision Blizzard have only brought problems to this RTS.

On April 26 2015 06:46 Pontius Pirate wrote:

While I disagreed with your first point, as I mostly enjoy them being tweaked to increase their sense of towering titanic bulk and impervious carapace, that frenzy idea would be cool as hell, especially since that would effect BLs as well. In fact, I could imagine players weakening their BLs to the frenzy threshold to get them across the map faster.

On April 26 2015 10:13 Wildmoon wrote:
I wouldn't worry that much about it. Ultra will be nerfed in some ways or at the very least other races's options to deal with them will be buffed.

On April 26 2015 10:31 Big J wrote:


Yeah, and that's what I fear so much about LotV. They introduce hardcounters and then introduce their hardcounter-solutions as well. And what happens if you have hardcounter armies? It becomes a numbers game. Did I build enough cyclones? If yes, ultralisks are dead. If no, ultralisks run me over.
There's not much room for skill with units that just fuck up other units. Combats should be about dealing damage and receiving damage and trying to mini-maxing that through micro. But an 8armor ultralisk just doesn't receive damage from most of the units, and a longrange moving fortress neither.

On April 26 2015 14:07 NasusAndDraven wrote:
Ultralisk were unstoppable in WoL zvz exept by brood lords.
Ultralisk were unstoppable in HotS zvz exept by broods and swarm host.
Ultralisk are unstopable in lotv zvz exept by lurkers and broods to a smaller extent.

Its just that getting hive tech is really hard in the match up. But if you think that its news that ultras can plow through zerglings banelings queens roaches hydras and infestors then the only problem is that you do not know the matchup.

On April 26 2015 13:47 andrewlt wrote:
This change is just redundant with the marauder and immortal changes. What is Blizzard thinking with it?

On April 26 2015 19:54 Ramiz1989 wrote:

Immortals still wreck Ultralisks, that didn't change. Marauder change was overdone, not the Ultralisk one. If Marauders still had 1 shot I think that it would be ok, they would deal more damage and coupled with Mines/Tanks/Cyclones they could handle Ultralisks.

Perhaps lowering armor to 7 would work.

On April 26 2015 22:31 Big J wrote:


I'm actually of the reverse opinion. The marauder change was pretty good. For units that are:
armored with 0base armor, nothing changes
unarmored with 0base armor, the marauder is a tiny bit buffed
armored with 1base armor, the marauder is a tiny bit nerfed
unarmored with 1base armor, the marauder is a tiny bit worse when unupgraded and a tiny bit better when upgraded

On April 26 2015 22:47 DeadByDawn wrote:
Equip ghost with a tranquilizer dart - it works on Elephants. Then you tranquilize the Ultras, they block all the Z units and your siege tanks demolish everything whilst they are asleep. Could be a little OP though

On April 27 2015 07:47 Jarree wrote:
Bring back snipe that ignores armor. David do some.

On April 27 2015 07:47 Jarree wrote:
Bring back snipe that ignores armor. David do some.

On April 26 2015 05:21 blade55555 wrote:
I think zvz is the least of the concern. If it gets that far that's pretty crazy as roach/ravager is so strong.

On April 27 2015 22:41 hZCube wrote:
And then all units get rebalanced around minus armor from a ghost snipe, and any terran player playing without ghosts is just going to practically default lose to overbalanced units?

Unless, the minus armor only affects ultras - but that would be wierd and counterintuitive, and make the ghost a specific unit counter.

Just doesn't seem intuitive is all.

On April 27 2015 22:47 FrostedMiniWheats wrote:
eh, I hate the Ghost idea in terms of countering ultras. It's building on a boring idea with another boring idea.

Both units need some love but not in that way imo. Revert ultra armor to 6 and buff elsewhere.

On April 27 2015 20:31 Grumbels wrote:
Talking about 8 armor is somewhat confusing by the way. Why would you take attack and armor upgrades into account when discussing this kind of change, knowing that often they cancel each other out anyway? It's better to say that ultralisks now have 5 base armor as opposed to 3 base armor before, taking chitinous plating into account.

On April 26 2015 20:08 404AlphaSquad wrote:
They are determined to try everything, but making it smaller.

On April 28 2015 00:18 Grumbels wrote:

Bad things happen when you create units of excessive size. Units become too large and mess with the pathfinding, they start to overkill severely and will have unreliable unit interactions as a consequence, they will unload too quickly which messes up certain things like the nydus canal and dropships; they force abilities like abduct and neural to have high energy costs; they make larva a pointless late-game resource; they're too volatile for their cost and become hit-or-miss; they take too long to build when you're teching, they make certain area of effect attacks become unreliable.

Units which have become more expensive since BW:
brood lords > guardians,
thors > goliaths,
ultralisks,
colossi > reavers,
motherships > arbiters,
void rays & tempests > scouts,
lurkers,
hydralisks,
vipers, infestors > queens, defilers.

It's seemingly never the other way around, and it's not like it's just a global cost increase which is off-set by a mining increase. In most cases they cost more supply as well, and reference units like the workers and T1 units are unchanged. Yes, there is more diversity in unit costs, but I don't know if it works out.

On April 28 2015 02:04 Destructicon wrote:


Marines and Marauders should be able to counter Ultralisks, because terran can't tech switch from bio to mech or from mech to bio. Not only do they require two totally different upgrades but they also require different production facilities. I'm sick and tired of seeing this same ignorance being spewed on to the forums time and time again. I think the dynamic between bio and ultralisks in HotS was just about right, its already super hard to engage into an army like that as terran, more often then not you need to kite anyway or your army dies, and attacking on to creep against ultralisks or facing ultra infestor is a huge nightmare.

On April 28 2015 02:04 Destructicon wrote:


Marines and Marauders should be able to counter Ultralisks, because terran can't tech switch from bio to mech or from mech to bio.

On April 28 2015 02:04 Destructicon wrote:
Not only do they require two totally different upgrades but they also require different production facilities.

On April 28 2015 02:04 Destructicon wrote:
I think the dynamic between bio and ultralisks in HotS was just about right, its already super hard to engage into an army like that as terran, more often then not you need to kite anyway or your army dies, and attacking on to creep against ultralisks or facing ultra infestor is a huge nightmare.

On April 28 2015 04:17 DeadByDawn wrote:
Isn't the problem transitioning not that you don't have factories and starports but that you do not have enough of them? A zerg with a large bank and larva can insta switch composition. Maybe you lack upgrades but you are still in a better position than the Terran trying to spot this and then building 8 factories to counter in time.

Interesting to see that in the latest LotV patch notes they were talking about a building add on that allows the building to change type, from Rax to Factory for instance. Blizz knows that Terran cannot tech switch with a realistic chance of winning as they designed it this way - but now maybe they understand it was a dumb decision.

On April 28 2015 04:17 DeadByDawn wrote:
Isn't the problem transitioning not that you don't have factories and starports but that you do not have enough of them? A zerg with a large bank and larva can insta switch composition. Maybe you lack upgrades but you are still in a better position than the Terran trying to spot this and then building 8 factories to counter in time.

Interesting to see that in the latest LotV patch notes they were talking about a building add on that allows the building to change type, from Rax to Factory for instance. Blizz knows that Terran cannot tech switch with a realistic chance of winning as they designed it this way - but now maybe they understand it was a dumb decision.

On April 28 2015 04:59 TheDwf wrote:

Terran not being able to tech switch brutally is normal. The problem comes from SC2 allowing other races to dump excessive amount of resources in wild tech switches. Zerg is naturally prone to this due to the larva mechanic, but the scale should be reduced; Terran/Protoss should favor slower transitions. The fact that things like this or this are not only normal, but necessary desperately needs to disappear. As usual, the environment of hyper-development leads to volatility and bulldozes skill in favor of coinflips and guessing games where everyone loses in the end.

On April 28 2015 05:21 JCoto wrote:


Well, I'd say that is the trademark of the Zerg race. It could also happen in BW, but was quite uncommon to maxout there.

I think the problem is that when you pair Larva mechanic (being able to bank 19 larva per hatch LOL) with the economy in SC2, that extreme remax capability appears. I think that limiting the maximum amount of larva banked could help that a bit, or applying some penalty to banked larva.

On April 28 2015 04:17 DeadByDawn wrote:
Isn't the problem transitioning not that you don't have factories and starports but that you do not have enough of them? A zerg with a large bank and larva can insta switch composition. Maybe you lack upgrades but you are still in a better position than the Terran trying to spot this and then building 8 factories to counter in time.

Interesting to see that in the latest LotV patch notes they were talking about a building add on that allows the building to change type, from Rax to Factory for instance. Blizz knows that Terran cannot tech switch with a realistic chance of winning as they designed it this way - but now maybe they understand it was a dumb decision.

On May 02 2015 10:24 Destructicon wrote:


Even if it takes a considerable amount of time for Zerg to get to 3/3 Ultralisk its still a massive problem that once they are out they are practically invincible. That is not good design at all, the races should be balanced to both be able to hit timings pre best units/army become available and have the tools to still combat said units/army once they are fielded.

People ignorantly shouted at Terrans and Protoss that it was their job to kill Zergs before they got their Brood Lord/Infestor armies. Guess how that turned out?

On May 02 2015 10:24 Destructicon wrote:
Even if it takes a considerable amount of time for Zerg to get to 3/3 Ultralisk its still a massive problem that once they are out they are practically invincible.

On May 02 2015 10:24 Destructicon wrote:
People ignorantly shouted at Terrans and Protoss that it was their job to kill Zergs before they got their Brood Lord/Infestor armies. Guess how that turned out?

On May 02 2015 10:24 Destructicon wrote:


Even if it takes a considerable amount of time for Zerg to get to 3/3 Ultralisk its still a massive problem that once they are out they are practically invincible. That is not good design at all, the races should be balanced to both be able to hit timings pre best units/army become available and have the tools to still combat said units/army once they are fielded.

People ignorantly shouted at Terrans and Protoss that it was their job to kill Zergs before they got their Brood Lord/Infestor armies. Guess how that turned out?

On May 02 2015 18:01 Meff wrote:

Oh, I was just stating that 3/3 ultras are not a sudden tech switch and, therefore, if a decent antagonizing composition exists, then T and P should have plenty of time to tech toward it.

The question of whether such a composition exists is entirely different.

On May 02 2015 16:50 pure.Wasted wrote:


And every Terran in the world said "give us useful tier2/3 bio units to tech to."

And Blizzard looked down and whispered "no."

On April 28 2015 03:02 klup wrote:
I won't worry that much about ultras. It's the new design philosophy of blizzard since Hots. Overbuff some stuffs (like reaper) then find the right balance. The idea is to force the use of the unit to see a lot of play and therefore be able to proper balance it with the new elements introduced in the extension.

They did an okay job for reaper so i'm confident for ultra with the same process.

On May 05 2015 03:30 Tyrhanius wrote:
The thing is the 8 armor is really strong vs some high rate fire like Terran bio, but not that much vs some heavy dmg units like mech/protoss deathball/lurker.

Another good solution will be just to add some HP with the research of citinious instead of some armor (or back to the old value +2 + HP).

On May 05 2015 04:01 Dangermousecatdog wrote:
With all the lotv changes, it seems like Blizzard just wants to kill Bio dead.

On May 05 2015 03:51 Beelzebub1 wrote:


I like this, still adds to their tank potential in a more killable way haha

Maybe reduce the size of the Ultralisk so it won't derp behind a few units with the health buff? Kinda let's it close in to do more damage without breaking it?

On May 05 2015 04:56 Roadog wrote:

I think the Ultra should just not collide with small units (Zerglings, Broodlings, Marines, Zealots, workers, etc.), like what Colossi do (I think). Imagine the Ultralisk just stepping over small units and those small units finding a way under the Ultra. Then give it a passive trample attack that deals damage over time to small enemy units under it.

On April 27 2015 12:53 baabaa101 wrote:
and thank you for nerfing the one unit unit zerg needs to slow down terran mech and protoss air, that was so awesome a decision it ranks in the same class as inventing the cyclone, warhound and terran rax before supply depot.

On May 05 2015 08:49 vOdToasT wrote:


They "invented" that a Terran can build a barracks before a supply depot in 1998 with StarCraft 1, and it works fine in that game. So that in itself is not a problem.

When it turned out to be bad for StarCraft 2, they changed it.

On April 28 2015 02:04 Destructicon wrote:


Marines and Marauders should be able to counter Ultralisks, because terran can't tech switch from bio to mech or from mech to bio. Not only do they require two totally different upgrades but they also require different production facilities. I'm sick and tired of seeing this same ignorance being spewed on to the forums time and time again. I think the dynamic between bio and ultralisks in HotS was just about right, its already super hard to engage into an army like that as terran, more often then not you need to kite anyway or your army dies, and attacking on to creep against ultralisks or facing ultra infestor is a huge nightmare.

On May 05 2015 03:17 Destructicon wrote:


I'm guessing the Marauder nerf was so it won't wreck protoss as much (since most of their units are armored), given that they are switching the focus of toss more towards basic gateway units. But yeah, if they nerfed the marauder they really didn't need to also buff the ultra.

On May 05 2015 13:19 pure.Wasted wrote:


Bio is the most skill intensive composition in the game. If 80% of Protoss and Zerg was also bio, SC2 would be a much better competitive sport.

It would have no depth, though, because Blizzard refuses to make Reapers and Ghosts relevant, or add new units.

On May 05 2015 13:19 pure.Wasted wrote:


Bio is the most skill intensive composition in the game. If 80% of Protoss and Zerg was also bio, SC2 would be a much better competitive sport.

It would have no depth, though, because Blizzard refuses to make Reapers and Ghosts relevant, or add new units.

On May 05 2015 14:04 pure.Wasted wrote:


I didn't say "more popular." I said better.

On May 05 2015 14:14 pure.Wasted wrote:


If you think that LoL is a better competitive event than StarCraft, then we have irreconcilably different opinions on what makes a competitive event good and worthwhile. There's no point arguing.

On May 05 2015 13:05 LSN wrote:


This is one of the reasons SC2 isn't yet as good of a game as it could: Bio best choice against everything in every matchup. It bores players to death.

You are majorly wrong if you think that metagames of terran matchups that allow to never switch away from bio as 80% component of the army can make starcraft a better and more deep game.

The main thing of RTS games is the rock scissor paper thing. That means when bio allows terran to be more mobile than basically everything aside of muta/ling/bane (btw. the main reason for zerg being narrowed to this composition, which again creates boredom and for nexus cannon gotten implemented) in the game then they cannot be the strongest against everything at the same time. It is time for a major change here.

If this ultralisk change does the job well or not we will have to see. In any way, the right way to go cannot be to go back to WOL/HOTS 80% bio styles (what you demand) but to proceed and see how the terran race can be allowed to transition easier. This can be achieved in several ways: building size, building costs, production times etc.

In fact this is something that I demanded already one to two years ago in the balance discussions of hots.




Seriously when I read stuff like this, then I see that you neither wanna see basic changes that could make the game more appealing to alot of "lost" players again and nor you overview the whole thing.

Why would you think that blizzard wanted to change marauder only for PvT and accidently missed the fact that it changes other matchups too? Why would you believe that marauders even matter or should matter when dealing with ultralisks?

The answer is easy to me: You wanna keep your 10 rax spamming pure bio all game long in every matchup metagame at all costs. You don't see that this creates severe disadvantages for both TvP and TvZ metagames and at best was appealing in TvT as mech is an equal alternative there (hence TvT was rightfully considered best matchup in SC2 yet (lol)).

Funny enough that you have the writers symbol next to your name when one must have already acknowledged in the past that major parts of the tl stuff and ppl close to them are quite favouring the terran race and very narrow minded about that. And at the same time for the sake of it you guys lose sight with the big goal of sc2 to become a better and more appealing game to everyone.

Not appealing: Pure mechanics spam from 10 rax with close to zero strategy involved in all matchups (see SC2's decline, see glorious SCV pull gameplay (you seriously wonder why SC2 has lost viewers and players?), see every game being bio vs muta/bling).

Appealing: Possible switches and transitions (instead of scv pull), favouring strategy a bit more than pure mechanics spam (See e.g. current successful games that allow more strategy than SC2, see Broodwar which didn't allow terran to do everything with bio in every matchup and which was quite a well designed and balanced game).

On April 26 2015 05:47 richlol wrote:
Combined with the Marauder vs Armored nerf, it also completely hard counters Bio, which I thought Dkim wanted to move away from (hard counters).

Despite the bio comp being more entertaining than mech in the TvZ matchup, it seems like Dkim wants mech to be the only option T has vs Z, unless things are changed.

On May 05 2015 21:52 DinoMight wrote:
Played as Terran vs Ultras yesterday.

Honestly, mass Cyclone just rapes them haha. My friend and I played some Archon mode and we made Hellbats/Cyclone/Raven.. killed basically anything zerg made.

On May 05 2015 22:36 Ramiz1989 wrote:

Yes, but some people are quite delusional.

Never forget that Bio is supposed to be more than MMM. Terrans are short-minded on that.

You cannot possibly say that it hard counters something, when the units barely meet early - mid and even some of the late game.. That's just my opinion

On May 05 2015 23:01 Hider wrote:

On top of that, what is even the point of mixing in Cyclones? It doens't change any dynamics at all. Terran bio is still mobile and still kite bite-based. All you forced terran to do was mix in one unit that is produced from the factory instead of the barrack and is terribly binary in how you play it and leaves no counterplay for the opponent.

The proper way to reward diversity here is to nerf terran kiting efficiency vs Ultras and instead reward the terran player for mixing in units that changes the dynamic of the game. That's what BW did in TvZ as you would slowly transition into mech in the late game after opening bio. That meant that you transitioned from playing aggressively into defensively which had an interesting dynamic. Mixing in Cyclones on the other hand is anything but interessting.

Hardcounters have nothing to do with tiers, and you seem to confuse "one unit being a bit better vs certain units" with "one unit completely dominating other units". The former is fine and the latter is a hardcounter which isn't fun.

On April 28 2015 04:49 Grumbels wrote:

Clearly terran should get the human macro mechanic from wc3 where you could speed build buildings by adding more workers to the construction.

Cyclones completely change the dynamic of the game since it forces the Zerg to move out of their Anti-Bio compo with Ultras.

Marauders, Ghost EMP, Hellbats, Mines and Ravens are in the game.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

On May 07 2015 09:04 JCoto wrote:


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).

On May 18 2015 09:38 bo1b wrote:
Why would they buff ultras like this... urgh

Unrelated to the topic, but definitely related to the thread, every time someone has a sentence with something bolded as if the reader actually can't read, or starts off with a phrase such as "as a zerg player" as if that qualifies them to say anything on balance or design I pretty much immediately stop reading. Nine times out of ten people who express things in that manner don't have a lot to say beyond the obvious, or the blatantly wrong.

On the subject of bio, 4m vs lmb is still imo the highest level of skill displayed in sc2, at least on the mechinal side of things, to be frank, I don't want to see a transition to mech in the same way I hate seeing transitions to swarmhosts. They're boring as fuck to watch.

I do like the idea of wicked strong zoning units though.

On May 18 2015 09:38 bo1b wrote:Unrelated to the topic, but definitely related to the thread, every time someone has a sentence with something bolded as if the reader actually can't read, or starts off with a phrase such as "as a zerg player" as if that qualifies them to say anything on balance or design I pretty much immediately stop reading. Nine times out of ten people who express things in that manner don't have a lot to say beyond the obvious, or the blatantly wrong.

On April 26 2015 05:53 Gretorp wrote:
I went 10 ultras against Stephano thinking I'd wreck him. He had lurkers and made me feel like a prison boy.

T and P have the harder times

On May 18 2015 11:39 BronzeKnee wrote:


When are rape jokes going to die?

On May 18 2015 10:07 brickrd wrote:

79% of statistics are made up on the spot :p most times i see "as a [race] player" it's just a way of qualifying the post to account for what could be perceived bias or add some general context to how you're approaching design. it can mean "i'm not a protoss whining about zerg, this is my opinion about my own race" or "i'm not GM with all races or anything, my perspective is only as a terran ladder player". it can also be filler, sure, but what can't?

On May 18 2015 09:38 bo1b wrote:
Why would they buff ultras like this... urgh

On the subject of bio, 4m vs lmb is still imo the highest level of skill displayed in sc2, at least on the mechinal side of things, to be frank, I don't want to see a transition to mech in the same way I hate seeing transitions to swarmhosts. They're boring as fuck to watch.

I do like the idea of wicked strong zoning units though.

On May 19 2015 08:14 Lexender wrote:

Unexistant, as they took that ability away many patches ago.

On May 19 2015 08:00 Archer13 wrote:
I think they should up the ultra supply count to the B_W 8 once more to balance they're obvious OPness at this point.

On May 19 2015 08:48 TheDwf wrote:

BW ultras cost 4 supply.

On May 20 2015 00:04 Barrin wrote:
Apparently the minimum damage is 0.5, not 1.0

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