Copy-paste from my post in the official beta forums. Interested in your thoughts, whether it is actually even overpowered, or other solutions if it is imbalanced.
I like zerg, but I do realize parasitic bomb is broken looking at recordings and from other players' experience, and the idea just came to me.
Why not change the way the spell is placed? Instead of targeting a unit and persisting after that unit is dead, have it just be painted on the targeted area like an AA-only psi storm? It would persist as long as it currently does, and deal as much damage as currently (unless those need tweaking after testing this), but it would be less game-breaking than it is now. I'd argue leaving the stackability would be less OP in this instance, as psi-storm functions the same and no one's calling out for it to be nerfed.
This would still promote micro on both sides' parts. The opponent would need to quickly divert his fleet to another location to conserve his units, and the zerg would need to be tactical in when and where the spell is used. By forcing the opponent to divert his air-force, this can buy a weaker zerg army valuable time to take out powerful ground units and even the odds -- divide and conquer in spell-form.
In addition, it feels more in the spirit of what the viper is supposed to be -- a terran control specialist. Abduct and blinding cloud both manipulate unit positioning. Parasitic bomb as it is now does this, but it is also a bit too strong. This version of the spell does it in different ways, and would be slightly fairer to deal with.
In addition, a skilled viper user could still use this version of Parasitic Bomb to decimate enemy area units, but it would require better thought than it currently does now -- in my opinion, a good thing.
On August 20 2015 14:22 Sheliek wrote: I'd argue leaving the stackability would be less OP in this instance, as psi-storm functions the same and no one's calling out for it to be nerfed.
Well, one negative aspect would be that vipers suddenly hard counter carriers again. I haven't personally seen the situation in a while, but I've been told that you can't throw parasitic bombs on interceptors and haven't been able to for a while. While this would be a slightly softer counter, it's probably a decent concern.
I mean, I think the ability is clearly overtuned at the moment, but I don't really know what Blizzard wants from it. I think it's more irradiate and less psi storm, but again, dunno. I think stopping it from stacking is a good first step.
It's a shame the map editor isn't in this beta (though I get why, people pretty much leaked everything in them in HotS and WoL's beta), we could easily jury-rig any of these changes and see how they pan out, especially with extension mods.
Psi-storm is effective because most of the units its good against has a significantly shorter attack than the cast range of the storm, thereby allowing the HT to cast the spell without dying trying to get into range. The Viking's range (the primary victim of parasitic bomb) would ensure that the Viper's attempt to cast PB would kill the Viper in the process. The Viper is balanced around its Consume and to make a suicide-bomber sort of ability would be uncharacteristic.
The way the Corrupter functions for Zerg also makes it kind of overlapping with an area-targeting PB. The Corrupter either zones units out (Phoenix), or forces them to kite, since the Corrupter cost effectively beats everything except Void Rays when a-moved at them. I feel like PB is designed to give Zerg some guaranteed damage in the air where you can't just kite them endlessly.
And thirdly, the Fungal/PB combo is going to be bad enough as it is, if PB is area based like Fungal, it's going to be even stronger because presumably the balanced spell is going to do more damage if its area targeting than unit targeting. I don't even like the idea of an AOE spell that disables movement on top of doing damage and disagree even more with allowing additional massive damage stacking on it. Reminds me of the Archon toilet.
None of these concerns are all that big, not to mention heavily theorycrafted, and of course not as big as the fact that PB needs a nerf in one way or another, but there are probably better ways of achieving it that doesn't run into these issues. PB not stacking, and having clear indication of which units are targeted are probably the places to start.
I think that the intend of making an "irradiate-like" spell, but that only target air units, is decent. Although since air units clump quite a bit in SC2 and have HP ranging from 120HP to 550HP making those kind of spell hard to balance.
To give it to the one race that can instantaneously nearly max out on the unit that cast it if enough resources, and get multiple spell in fast succession because of the consume, and is fast enough to flee most threat (and flying) that is just plains stupid though.
If we also consider the fact that it synergies so well with other units because broodlord has an anti-ground standoff ability in big numbers, a lucky fungal can negate any splitting, Zerg as a decent way to spam "static defence" (aka supply-free units) makes is a very strong combination if reached.
For the information, irradiate did 250damage over 37 (ingame, about 25-30 IRL) seconds with equal splash 2tiles around unit (about as big a a rax?), it did stack if casted on different units in close proximity. Compared to irradiate it stopped working after the unit affected was dead (allowing you to kill it instead of splitting) and quite frankly had a better visual indicator. It did affect air AND ground, but only biological unit and was casted by the Terran Science Vessel.
On August 20 2015 15:41 varsovie wrote: I think that the intend of making an "irradiate-like" spell, but that only target air units, is decent. Although since air units clump quite a bit in SC2 and have HP ranging from 120HP to 550HP making those kind of spell hard to balance.
To give it to the one race that can instantaneously nearly max out on the unit that cast it if enough resources, and get multiple spell in fast succession because of the consume, and is fast enough to flee most threat (and flying) that is just plains stupid though.
If we also consider the fact that it synergies so well with other units because broodlord has an anti-ground standoff ability in big numbers, a lucky fungal can negate any splitting, Zerg as a decent way to spam "static defence" (aka supply-free units) makes is a very strong combination if reached.
For the information, irradiate did 250damage over 37 (ingame, about 25-30 IRL) seconds with equal splash 2tiles around unit (about as big a a rax?), it did stack if casted on different units in close proximity. Compared to irradiate it stopped working after the unit affected was dead (allowing you to kill it instead of splitting) and quite frankly had a better visual indicator. It did affect air AND ground, but only biological unit and was casted by the Terran Science Vessel.
Irradiate doesn't stack in sense that casting it overlaps in damage. It just casts on different unit and damage timer is increased
Why not change the way the spell is placed? Instead of targeting a unit and persisting after that unit is dead, have it just be painted on the targeted area like an AA-only psi storm?
Generally I do also less "ground"-targetting abilities rather than target-unit abilities as I feel that micro becomes a two-way thing. E.g. the spellcaster needs to cast the ability in the correct location and the opponent needs to dodge it.
With unit-targetting it becomes more of something that the spellcaster spams and the opponent has to micro again which is less interesting imo.
That said, I think you need some unit-targetting abilities in order to make each ability feel unique. Ideally, however, i would prefer to make the damage not stack so there is a punishment for spamming units that are close to each other.
On August 20 2015 15:41 varsovie wrote: I think that the intend of making an "irradiate-like" spell, but that only target air units, is decent. Although since air units clump quite a bit in SC2 and have HP ranging from 120HP to 550HP making those kind of spell hard to balance.
To give it to the one race that can instantaneously nearly max out on the unit that cast it if enough resources, and get multiple spell in fast succession because of the consume, and is fast enough to flee most threat (and flying) that is just plains stupid though.
If we also consider the fact that it synergies so well with other units because broodlord has an anti-ground standoff ability in big numbers, a lucky fungal can negate any splitting, Zerg as a decent way to spam "static defence" (aka supply-free units) makes is a very strong combination if reached.
For the information, irradiate did 250damage over 37 (ingame, about 25-30 IRL) seconds with equal splash 2tiles around unit (about as big a a rax?), it did stack if casted on different units in close proximity. Compared to irradiate it stopped working after the unit affected was dead (allowing you to kill it instead of splitting) and quite frankly had a better visual indicator. It did affect air AND ground, but only biological unit and was casted by the Terran Science Vessel.
the dmg doesn't occur fast enough where you can't split off your units and generate a good arc so that you can pull back affected units.
the only time it's super OP is if you clump up everything into a giant ball and the zerg casts 4 or 5. if that happens, you can't be mad at anyone but yourself lol.
i recently crushed a corruptor, infestor, viper army with vikings and liberators if you guys would like to see a video of what proper splitting can do vs that composition?
My biggest beef with PB is that Zerg usually has the advantage of macro and numbers, and without overbalancing T and P units, T/P have to win with superior positioning and micro. PB completely nullifies positioning and turns it into a disadvantage from a perfectly safe range. You would have to make T and P armies so broken so they could eat PB and maintain their positioning (like the current Liberators), or completely remove the swarm capabilities of Zerg. There has been Zerg AoE in the past, but at least Defilers died all the time and were HT level vulnerable and had very unorthodox AoE rather than straight damage. And Fungal has always been a balancing mess.
Irradiate worked because it was highly specific, not a catch all undodgeable AoE. And it worked in TvZ because Zerg could afford to spread out the Muta ball given how fast they were and how valuable it was to just save them and continue the hit and run. Also the Irradiate radius was so tiny and the Zerg were already meant to be spread. The SC2 reversal now has a lot more impediments from the defending army, far more clumping and more forgiving spell dynamics. I think Big J had the right idea about if we must hold onto PB, it'd be on the Infestor, but then the Infestor would be too versatile, but that's an Infestor problem, not a PB problem.
On August 30 2015 04:05 Cloak wrote: My biggest beef with PB is that Zerg usually has the advantage of macro and numbers, and without overbalancing T and P units, T/P have to win with superior positioning and micro. PB completely nullifies positioning and turns it into a disadvantage from a perfectly safe range. You would have to make T and P armies so broken so they could eat PB and maintain their positioning (like the current Liberators), or completely remove the swarm capabilities of Zerg. There has been Zerg AoE in the past, but at least Defilers died all the time and were HT level vulnerable and had very unorthodox AoE rather than straight damage. And Fungal has always been a balancing mess.
Irradiate worked because it was highly specific, not a catch all undodgeable AoE. And it worked in TvZ because Zerg could afford to spread out the Muta ball given how fast they were and how valuable it was to just save them and continue the hit and run. Also the Irradiate radius was so tiny and the Zerg were already meant to be spread. The SC2 reversal now has a lot more impediments from the defending army, far more clumping and more forgiving spell dynamics. I think Big J had the right idea about if we must hold onto PB, it'd be on the Infestor, but then the Infestor would be too versatile, but that's an Infestor problem, not a PB problem.
vipers are just as vulnerable to being killed as a defiler if you scout the hive and prepare for the impending switch over, with all but blinding cloud being in feedback, EMP (which outranges abduct and PB), and viking attack range.
if you understand how the spell works, you can micro around it. pre-spread, don't a-move, manually micro, and take small groups of vikings to snipe away the vipers. if you know how to do it, you can easily take cost efficient engagements against a corruptor, viper, infestor army with vikings liberators and even a cloaked banshee or two.
again, if you want to see that composition look silly, i'll record from a replay what i did. maybe i'll just do it anyway so you can see it in action.
On August 30 2015 04:05 Cloak wrote: My biggest beef with PB is that Zerg usually has the advantage of macro and numbers, and without overbalancing T and P units, T/P have to win with superior positioning and micro. PB completely nullifies positioning and turns it into a disadvantage from a perfectly safe range. You would have to make T and P armies so broken so they could eat PB and maintain their positioning (like the current Liberators), or completely remove the swarm capabilities of Zerg. There has been Zerg AoE in the past, but at least Defilers died all the time and were HT level vulnerable and had very unorthodox AoE rather than straight damage. And Fungal has always been a balancing mess.
Irradiate worked because it was highly specific, not a catch all undodgeable AoE. And it worked in TvZ because Zerg could afford to spread out the Muta ball given how fast they were and how valuable it was to just save them and continue the hit and run. Also the Irradiate radius was so tiny and the Zerg were already meant to be spread. The SC2 reversal now has a lot more impediments from the defending army, far more clumping and more forgiving spell dynamics. I think Big J had the right idea about if we must hold onto PB, it'd be on the Infestor, but then the Infestor would be too versatile, but that's an Infestor problem, not a PB problem.
vipers are just as vulnerable to being killed as a defiler if you scout the hive and prepare for the impending switch over, with all but blinding cloud being in feedback, EMP (which outranges abduct and PB), and viking attack range.
if you understand how the spell works, you can micro around it. pre-spread, don't a-move, manually micro, and take small groups of vikings to snipe away the vipers. if you know how to do it, you can easily take cost efficient engagements against a corruptor, viper, infestor army with vikings liberators and even a cloaked banshee or two.
again, if you want to see that composition look silly, i'll record from a replay what i did. maybe i'll just do it anyway so you can see it in action.
I would appreciate it. However, Defilers could be nullified by practically anything, not just specific anti-caster spells and specific AtA responses. I get Zerg needs to step up its AtA game, but PB justifies Carriers and justifies Liberator where they are now. So hope you guys like those.
On August 30 2015 04:05 Cloak wrote: My biggest beef with PB is that Zerg usually has the advantage of macro and numbers, and without overbalancing T and P units, T/P have to win with superior positioning and micro. PB completely nullifies positioning and turns it into a disadvantage from a perfectly safe range. You would have to make T and P armies so broken so they could eat PB and maintain their positioning (like the current Liberators), or completely remove the swarm capabilities of Zerg. There has been Zerg AoE in the past, but at least Defilers died all the time and were HT level vulnerable and had very unorthodox AoE rather than straight damage. And Fungal has always been a balancing mess.
Irradiate worked because it was highly specific, not a catch all undodgeable AoE. And it worked in TvZ because Zerg could afford to spread out the Muta ball given how fast they were and how valuable it was to just save them and continue the hit and run. Also the Irradiate radius was so tiny and the Zerg were already meant to be spread. The SC2 reversal now has a lot more impediments from the defending army, far more clumping and more forgiving spell dynamics. I think Big J had the right idea about if we must hold onto PB, it'd be on the Infestor, but then the Infestor would be too versatile, but that's an Infestor problem, not a PB problem.
vipers are just as vulnerable to being killed as a defiler if you scout the hive and prepare for the impending switch over, with all but blinding cloud being in feedback, EMP (which outranges abduct and PB), and viking attack range.
if you understand how the spell works, you can micro around it. pre-spread, don't a-move, manually micro, and take small groups of vikings to snipe away the vipers. if you know how to do it, you can easily take cost efficient engagements against a corruptor, viper, infestor army with vikings liberators and even a cloaked banshee or two.
again, if you want to see that composition look silly, i'll record from a replay what i did. maybe i'll just do it anyway so you can see it in action.
This +10
At a high diamond/low masters level the best counter is splitting and not a moving vs Vipers, a 200 gas vulnerable Hive unit that specializes in killing clumped up units.
i was just going to record the replay but i figured i would provide some commentary as i was microing my army. this was from a GM archon mode game, i am the one microing, here and terran is my offrace . but this is how i deal with the "ideal" anti air composition as cost efficiently as i can.
the zerg in the video doesnt use a single hydra. You need to control an army with about 200 Apm to not die to 2 parasitic bombs.
Another thing is , that youre playing with 50 supply of units, vs about an even amount. These low numbers are manageable, but the higher it goes, the worse it becomes with APm required.
Youre also assuming that the zerg engaged this well. Zergs on ladder are really used to just rolling any terran air, and have no need to practice micro vs it, but i can guarantee you that theres a HUGE potential on the zergs side too.
also note that the zerg has 6000 minerals and 2000 gas.
Fact is, parasitic bomb is a joke spell that shouldnt be in the game in its current form. Vipers counter range units with blinding , ANY massive units except ultralisk with abduct have the most reliable energy gain with consume.
and now theyre supposed to counter small flyers too?
i guess ill add to this since i have some free time to talk about the video.
infestor corruptor viper is a ton of gas, affording hydralisks with upgrades is even more gas intensive. you really don't have that kind of money if you're constantly defending harassment and the terran is denying your bases all of the way on the edge. in addition, there's not really anything on the ground to defend the hydras from blue flame hellions when you play with infestors as well. you don't want to spend fungals on hellions.
we are not on equal supply of units. the overlay says we're both around 91 supply, except i have 2 thors, a medivac, a tank, and a raven at home. he only has a misc group of zerglings not being available for use in this battle, so he's at more supply than i am in units that could mess up our air.
im sure there could be a huge potential on their side too, but this is how you handle the micro on your end, i didn't make a video about the zerg's side of the engagement. you'll notice i specifically did things to ensure to make the engagement as difficult as possible for him by making him use fungals on small groups of units..less than ideal.
he was floating a ton because he was constantly making zerglings to deal with harassment and losing queens. zergs don't really have the larva to support a play like that. at this particular juncture in the game, everything else that he was floating was being held for brood lords and ultras and lings for the fight following this engagement. i agree that 7k is a lot of minerals to be floating, regardless. but that's what happens when you're forced to spend larva on small shit like that.
dunno what to tell you. if you don't think this was helpful, i apologize. however, this is how you should be taking engagements vs this composition.
To which composition are you referring? The composition at 2:15, something of a "make a few of everything" composition? Dude had 6 corruptors and swarmhosts, which could've achieved the same usefulness through dancing in an air-to-air engagement..
I think a useful discussion can be had, but I can't agree that video adds anything to it.
On August 30 2015 23:11 always_winter wrote: To which composition are you referring? The composition at 2:15, something of a "make a few of everything" composition? Dude had 6 corruptors and swarmhosts, which could've achieved the same usefulness through dancing in an air-to-air engagement..
I think a useful discussion can be had, but I can't agree that video adds anything to it.
im not sure what this comment means. infestor, viper, corruptor was a composition that has been complained about not only in this thread about PB, but in other threads too.
and a couple swarm hosts is pretty standard when playing against terran mech.
EPT
. but this is how i deal with the "ideal" anti air composition as cost efficiently as i can.
