LotV Beta Balance Update - June 17 - Page 3

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pure.Wasted

Canada4701 Posts

June 19 2015 05:05 GMT

#41

On June 19 2015 13:49 chipmonklord17 wrote:

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How does that logic make sense? Why would you pay for 8 medivacs? Are you expecting to lose every one?

You would pay for 8 Medivacs because without 8 Medivacs, your bio isn't worth the Barracks it came out of.

How many Overlords do you need to drop 4 Banelings in a mineral line every couple of minutes?

chipmonklord17

United States11944 Posts

June 19 2015 05:12 GMT

#42

On June 19 2015 14:05 pure.Wasted wrote:

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Assuming they're not stupid and have turrets beforehand or even after the 1st time, as many as overlords as times you want to drop? That's an even worse example of it. There isn't (shouldn't be) a way for an overlord who is by itself and dropping banelings to live. Between vikings/marines and turrets. Expect to pay for it every time you want in that situation.

Also here's a fun and unrelated idea. You can drop queens to spread creep in their base/expos if you rush lair. In a game where expansion is key with the new economy system it seems like Zerg are going to have a really good time blocking bases for the other races

brickrd

United States4894 Posts

June 19 2015 05:13 GMT

#43

On June 19 2015 14:05 pure.Wasted wrote:

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if baneling drops were that easy to pull off cost efficiently then they would already be meta in heart of the swarm dude... 100/100 to do baneling drops is really not that much more than 25/25 to do them, the problem is they are bad against anyone who isn't horrible enough to let you unload 4 banelings without pulling a single worker

edit: and watch for them after the first time like chipmonk said

pure.Wasted

Canada4701 Posts

June 19 2015 05:21 GMT

#44

If you guys are right and nothing short of a doomdrop will work, then... nothing's actually changed, and Blizzard's attempt is a complete failure - for ZvT, at least. I was assuming that Zerg players would be able to find new timings (pre-Muta) and openings (natural? third base? fourth base?) where Terrans might not want to prematurely invest in Turrets. Because let's face it, if the threat of Mutas isn't always enough to get a pro Terran to build Turrets in time, the question whether the threat of a couple of Banes here and there will be enough is an open one.

But like I said, if nothing short of doomdrops works, then ZvT is as ZvT was.

Lexender

Mexico2623 Posts

June 19 2015 05:25 GMT

#45

On June 19 2015 14:12 chipmonklord17 wrote:

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How many warp prisms a protoss players gets? Same logic, turrets don't make protoss players need to make more than 1 or at best 2 warp prisms.

Also this change was actually one given as feedback in thread, TLO said this was a good idea and Blizzard said they were testing this. And if someone knows about zerg drops is TLO.

chipmonklord17

United States11944 Posts

June 19 2015 05:25 GMT

#46

I feel like as a whole this overlord drop idea is one that seems to make sense in theory but is absolutely terrible in practice.

I get the idea Blizzard was trying to convey with it, for smaller, earlier drops use this overlord mechanic and for large more "doom drop" drops use a nydus. Make the transport transformation cheap enough such that it doesn't break the Zerg's bank to do but not free so its not 24/7 imba drop city. Fine that all makes sense, except actual practicality.

Zerg's aren't MEANT for small drops (aside from the previously mentioned baneling drops which honestly suck compared to their widow mine or general warpprism equivalents). The entire Zerg style and game play is based around masses and swarming. Small drops with Zerg are just not as good as the other races because of how the race's units are designed compared to Protoss and Terran. That's not a problem or imbalanced that's just how it is, Zerg is meant to swarm. Including an upgrade that promotes small dropping is counter-intuitive to the entirety of Zerg's game play. And if you're talking about doom dropping as Zerg then upgrading overlords individually becomes non cost efficient and defeats the entire purpose of the upgrade in the first place, as at that point you should use invincible nydus worms.

I truly don't understand why the upgrade is there

On June 19 2015 14:25 Lexender wrote:

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Warp prisms cannot have the same logic applied as the warp in mechanic allows 1 warp prism to "hold" as many units as you have warpgates off cool down

Pontius Pirate

United States1557 Posts

June 19 2015 05:26 GMT

#47

I just thought of a more interesting, more intuitive, and more useful version of the Ghost's drone. Instead of lowering armor by up to 3, it instead provides a flat damage buff on all attacks striking that target. This would give it a much greater use in the early and midgame, against units that might have less than 3 armor. The drone also desperately needs to have more health. Even if the cost was as low as 25 energy, Hydras chew through them so obscenely quickly that you could never reliably have as much coverage with the drones as you need. I'd say bump them up to 120 HP and the thematically appropriate 3 armor. That's as much HP as you can give them without making them no longer get 2-shot by corrosive bile.

pure.Wasted

Canada4701 Posts

June 19 2015 05:29 GMT

#48

On June 19 2015 14:25 chipmonklord17 wrote:Zerg's aren't MEANT for small drops (aside from the previously mentioned baneling drops which honestly suck compared to their widow mine or general warpprism equivalents). The entire Zerg style and game play is based around masses and swarming. Small drops with Zerg are just not as good as the other races because of how the race's units are designed compared to Protoss and Terran. That's not a problem or imbalanced that's just how it is, Zerg is meant to swarm. Including an upgrade that promotes small dropping is counter-intuitive to the entirety of Zerg's game play. And if you're talking about doom dropping as Zerg then upgrading overlords individually becomes non cost efficient and defeats the entire purpose of the upgrade in the first place, as at that point you should use invincible nydus worms.

Zerg perform runbys all the time with a handful of Lings/Banes, and there's nothing "non-Zergy" about it despite the fact that it's not 200 supply worth of units. How is dropping one OL's worth of units any different from that?

On June 19 2015 14:26 Pontius Pirate wrote:
I just thought of a more interesting, more intuitive, and more useful version of the Ghost's drone. Instead of lowering armor by up to 3, it instead provides a flat damage buff on all attacks striking that target. This would give it a much greater use in the early and midgame, against units that might have less than 3 armor.

+3 damage instead of -3 armor? Interesting, and a big deal versus shields.

The drone also desperately needs to have more health. Even if the cost was as low as 25 energy, Hydras chew through them so obscenely quickly that you could never reliably have as much coverage with the drones as you need. I'd say bump them up to 120 HP and the thematically appropriate 3 armor. That's as much HP as you can give them without making them no longer get 2-shot by corrosive bile.

Are people going Ultra/Hydra? o.O

chipmonklord17

United States11944 Posts

June 19 2015 05:32 GMT

#49

On June 19 2015 14:29 pure.Wasted wrote:

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Because a zergling runby can have as many zerglings as you want but the single overlord has a limit in capacity? For reference imagine a roach runby that is 4 roaches (that IS how many fit in an overlord right? I forget if its 4 or 6 but honestly its virtually the same thing). That does next to nothing, just as a roach drop would do.

The point of a runby is to force the opponent to either turn around or commit to whatever attack they're planning on doing, if said counterattack can be countered with just rallying units + SCVs then its a shitty counterattack. That's basically what an individual drop is

y0su

Finland7871 Posts

June 19 2015 05:39 GMT

#50

Think about how many banes a single overlord can drop? You just bring them into the back of a player's main while there's a fight elsewhere and just move the banes into a mineral line... Can we at least see this in action (by tlo and snute) before it's written off as useless? (It's got to be more interesting than current overlord drops)

pure.Wasted

Canada4701 Posts

June 19 2015 05:41 GMT

#51

On June 19 2015 14:32 chipmonklord17 wrote:

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That's why I very cleverly focused on Lings and Banes in my post. Roaches don't runby, they free up supply in the general vicinity of enemy workers.

The point is runbys are not anti-Zerg, so dropping units for a runby isn't anti-Zerg, either, contrary to what you were trying to establish. The only question that matters is that of efficiency. How many Lings does Life use for a typical runby? If it's less than 50, then upgrading OLs individually will be significantly cheaper, faster, and more convenient than bogging down a Hatchery to research Ventral Sacs.

chipmonklord17

United States11944 Posts

June 19 2015 05:55 GMT

#52

On June 19 2015 14:41 pure.Wasted wrote:

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Ah yes the infamous 6 zergling run by. Run by's aren't anti zerg because they have more units than you can fit in a overlord. Although I've never counted I'd be inclined to say that Life uses more zerglings most run bys than you can fit in an overlord, and that he does more than 8 overlord's worth of lings in runbys.

Yes there are definitely going to be a few situations where this upgrade MIGHT be cheaper than the global upgrade but that sounds absurdly few and far between. Now if overlords had some "battle evolution" passive that after 8 overlords transforming then they all "evolve" into being able to drop that might make more sense. But as it stands it just seems like they've found a great theory that has no actual place in reality.

I actually took the time to look for a Life game to see if this was in fact the case.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/oSQoyfI-DfI

Life does 2 runbys in this game. One of 16 lings, that does virtually nothing. Kills a few marines and forces 4 -6 hellions to come home. And one with over 50 units of ling/bane. The second attack alone makes the overlord upgrade in this case not cost efficient completely ignoring the first counterattack, that even with 2 and change overlords worth of units does virtually nothing. Small drops just aren't Zerg. Not to mention that I can't personally think of a situation where you'd want to small drop instead of run by because of the difference in overlord drop time one at a time versus a group of lings just running to whatever location

Perhaps it becomes a way for zerg to get around forcefields in really niche situations but at that point you're just risking them targeting down the overlords and either supply blocking you or killing the units inside or both

ThunderBum

Australia192 Posts

June 19 2015 06:09 GMT

#53

The old overlord drop upgrade is a big cost up front when resources are much harder to come by. Individually upgraded ovies is a more economically efficient way of enabling drops earlier in the game. By late game if you're going for that big of a drop, just use a nydus?

albis

United States652 Posts

June 19 2015 06:11 GMT

#54

i think its great to have alot of minidrops optional. choke points just murder zerg. this gives a bit of diversity to delay an enemy