What do you all Zerg players say? Do you feel Inject is worth doing?
ATM Inject larva feels only SLIGHTLY underpowered, like by just a hair. I posted this a few pages back and thought it might be worth mentioning again;
instead of spawning 2 larva after 40 seconds we make it a more periodic effect. You could either get 1 Larva every 20 seconds of inject (you inject > 20 seconds > larva > 20 seconds > larva >need to inject again) or, what I posted, is have Inject act like chrono boost on the hatchery, increasing larva production rate of the hatchery by 75% for 40 seconds (1 larva every 8.5714 seconds instead of 15 seconds).
The idea is to keep the same net larva gained from injecting but having the benefits start rolling in sooner rather than a sudden boost after 40 seconds, I think this is the little bump inject needs to be competitive.
I think it's more of a supply issue. To have enough queens to make inject worth it late game, you are using too much supply. I do like the rolling over idea, but it just sounds crappy to need 20 supply to inject on the 10 hatchies you have late game.
Maybe it's not that big of a deal because SCV call down will lose strength late game too, but if tosses ever get good enough, crono will always be useful, whereas spawn larva falls off late game hard imo
But don't forget that the queen has other spells, while inject will fall off later in the game her other spells become more relevant. When you get to the point where you have 10 hatcheries you should have more then enough larva to support unit production your queens can still contribute big time.
-a few queens + spine and a spore at a key expo can make it drop proof. -can still spread creep and support map awarness/control -can still transfuse
so while inject fades late game let's not jump the gun on making queens 0 supply or no mineral cost...yet. it could be interesting to see a unit's role change over the course of a game and allows the better players to understand when and how to make that transition from early game eco boost to late game map control/army support/drop defense.
Why doesn't this have a 1v1 obs map? It would be way better for popularity since you can cycle maps and people can watch to see different play styles and strategies.
On October 08 2012 05:19 purakushi wrote: I have been waiting for Stalkers to outrange bunkers. Great change!
The problem with this is that you need stim or conc shell marauders to deal with stalkers, they'll just pick off your bunker unless it's on the high ground, and stalkers will kite naked marines forever...
I dont think buff is necessary for larvae inject. Once we will get closer to balance and level of games will rise then best players will start looking at skills like inject to get edge over opponents. Right now there are more important things to learn.
On October 08 2012 05:19 purakushi wrote: I have been waiting for Stalkers to outrange bunkers. Great change!
The problem with this is that you need stim or conc shell marauders to deal with stalkers, they'll just pick off your bunker unless it's on the high ground, and stalkers will kite naked marines forever...
Terran has to tech anyway. In BW, Dragoons (with upgrade) outranged unupgraded marines in bunkers. The Terran just repairs until they can deal with it. Part of the (very good) game Also, stim research time has been reduced, and stalker range upgrade costs 200/200 -- not something you can get early game.
I will not change anything about Inject now. I will give players more time to experiment with it. (Although I like your idea Phoobe about make Inject spawn larvas over time instead of just a larva explosion)
Don't miss the latest cast!
Here are two good replays of high aggression games that I bump: (Played a few days ago)
I like the idea of inject increasing the spawn larvae rate, too. It scales perfectly from early, mid, to late game. Possibly rewarding or possibly penalizing, as it should be.
ZvZ is back to muta wars I feel. Anyone share this feeling?
This isn't from any adjustments in patches, I just think muta gives too sick map control for a ground Z to be competitive with an air Z. Same as broodwar. O/well it's only 1 matchup.
On October 09 2012 02:31 ArkussSC2 wrote: ZvZ is back to muta wars I feel. Anyone share this feeling?
This isn't from any adjustments in patches, I just think muta gives too sick map control for a ground Z to be competitive with an air Z. Same as broodwar. O/well it's only 1 matchup.
I noticed in that hydras currently do 6 +4 armored, not 8.
I played this match with arkuss, he had gone 2 base hydra and I went 2 base spire, after holding some ling bane aggression i transitioned to spire and the mutas locked the map, I denied the third and harassed the natural while taking 3 free expansions with a transition into hydra lurker which took out the third and seiged the natural forcing a GG.
the problem isin't so much the hydra damage it's how locked down the defending player is. with hydra queen spore you can prolly secure 2-3 bases and keep them safe, but the muta player can freely expand and tech into something that can break the defending player's defense.
this is from 1 game at platinum level of play so take it with a grain of salt. perhaps infester hydra is key to slow/kill mutas?
I was going to grab festors but fungal doesnt deal damage, only slows. With muta dominantion and the inability to expand I couldn't afford the transition so went for scourges and tried relying on their splash damage to help deal with muta's.
We both agree though it's not that Hydra's are bad it's just muta map control is pretty boss and it's hard to punish. Brood War ZvZ was speedling into muta so meh guess it's the same on Starbow.
I noticed in that hydras currently do 6 +4 armored, not 8.
Hydras deal 8 dmg vs non-armored air units, but it is not shown in the tooltip of the attack. Instead there is an icon with a passive ability called "Acidic spikes" (I have no imagination) in the Hydra toolbar that gives them extra damage vs non-armored air units.
went for scourges and tried relying on their splash damage to help deal with muta's.
Scourges do not deal splash damage. They are just like in BW. They deal high damage vs one target but can overkill, hence if not careful several can blow up the same air unit.
Brood War ZvZ was speedling into muta so meh guess it's the same on Starbow.
Starbow has the possibilty to be an improvement in areas BW lacked. ZvZ is such an area. It was extremely boring. I do not want to mimic the match-ups metagame. I would prefer to make Hydras a viable tech choice in ZvZ too. Zerglings, Banelings, Mutas, Scourges, Hydras, Lurkers and Infestors shall preferably be truly useful units, to give the matchup some dynamic. Mutas shall not be so dominant that every ZvZ always becomes an air festival. But I will give players more time to explore ZvZ before I change anything with the stats etc.
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Here is a rather action-packed PvZ played just a couple of minutes ago: http://drop.sc/262630
I'm loving Starbow. I have basically only been playing Starbow when I am on SC2 ><. As Starbow is a cross between BW and SC2 plus some extra goodies, I had a bit of nostalgia and adapted the BW map Fighting Spirit to Starbow.
Fighting Spirit is known to be the most balanced (statistically) map in BW. Across the board, winrates are very close to 50%. I thought it could be a good map to test on, even if SC2 and BW are completely different games. I changed a fair amount of details to the map, but it is still largely Fighting Spirit. I imagine it will still need some tweaking, because so much is different between BW, SC2, and Starbow. Modwise and mapwise, balance is going to be difficult, but I am willing to work with everyone for this map. Right now, it has forced cross positions and no Xel`Naga towers. I wanted to leave it at 4 spawns, but it may be easier to figure things out with only 2.
I can update the map as feedback comes in, but, for the most part, I think I have it stable/playable. I definitely left you credits in several places, as it is well deserved . I do not have an EU account (thinking of getting one), but I believe you have connections to transfer maps/mods between servers.
carriers are very very buggy, sometimes the attack themselves sometimes they wont move and shoot sometimes the interceptors come back and sometimes they don't. It's a little bit frustrating.
I think this map has been suggested yesterday during one of the games: (2) Astro Haze, it looks and feels really good.
Also, as a [D/Q] part of the thread, I need ideas on how to make bio or bio/tank work against pure mech in TvT; so far I thought of presiege aggression and some neat usage of dropships/nerve jammers (so good!). Have you got any other ideas, drop them at me.
On October 09 2012 07:18 Kabel wrote: Here is a rather action-packed PvZ played just a couple of minutes ago: http://drop.sc/262630
After this game on Match Point, I started talking with you about the design of the map and how some ramp are, in my opinion too small. Since it was late, I wasn’t able to explain my point as well as I could have so, I would like to give you a more detailed analysis of how the map shall work.
Concerning this map, I will talk about 2 keys area: The first one (1) is the small ramp next to the natural. The second one (2) is the high ground between the 3rd expansion and the 4th.
First, take a look at the area (1). This ramp is very important because it is the shortest path between the naturals of both players. It means that as long as the aggressive player can use this ramp, he is able to quickly attack/reinforce to try to break down the natural. This ramp is very easy to protect (since it’s so small), allowing a defensive player to quickly secure this area. As soon as he controls this ramp, the offensive player can’t use the shortest attack path anymore but can still attack using another path (it takes longer but it isn’t harder to attack).
Now take a look at the area (2). Controlling this area is harder than controlling the small ramp at the natural because the ramps are bigger and because an offensive player can attack from multiple angles. However, defending this area give you higher reward since it allow you to defend your third base and to secure the path to your 4th.
Conclusion: The area (1) is easy to secure (small ramp) but only give a small advantage to the defensive players since it only make the attack path longer for his opponent. The area (2) is harder to secure (big ramp and multiple attack paths) but give you higher reward (protecting 2 bases). From this point, I draw a simple conclusion: The bigger the reward of controlling an area is, the harder it is to defend this area. In my opinion, it makes a lot of sense.
Now take a look to the same areas in the Starbow’s version. The first ramp is like in the BW’s version and work in the same way. However, the high ground next to the 3rd is way easier to defend because the ramps are way smaller. In top of that, this area gives an additional advantage to the players that control it: the watchtower. In my opinion, this is bad map design because it mean that if one of the player can take the control of this area, he can easily defend it without a lot of commitment (a few lurker/tank/Templars will do the trick) and still have an huge reward for doing so.
The same can be said about the center. Controlling it give you high reward because it allow you to secure the low ground expansion, to shut down your opponent low ground expansion and to control the main between the 2 sides of the map. As it is, this area is way too hard to attack (there are only small ramps leading to this high ground)… For example, I played a TvT on this map yesterday and as soon as I took control over the center with Tanks/Turrets/Goliath, the game heavily switched in my favor because despite a supply lead, my opponent was never able to take back the control over this area.
Conclusion: Make the ramp leading at the high ground with the watchtower and the ramps leading to the center larger (as they were in the original version of the map: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=367954) but keep the ramp next to the natural and the ramp between the 4th base and the low ground as they are.
On October 09 2012 17:49 JohnMadden wrote: I think this map has been suggested yesterday during one of the games: (2) Astro Haze, it looks and feels really good.
Also, as a [D/Q] part of the thread, I need ideas on how to make bio or bio/tank work against pure mech in TvT; so far I thought of presiege aggression and some neat usage of dropships/nerve jammers (so good!). Have you got any other ideas, drop them at me.
There's a couple ways you can go about crushing mech terran with bio but its very difficult without the marauder. First off you're going to have to abuse mech mobility. Mech armies are very immobile and rely on the siege line with vulture aggression . You're going to have to keep up the aggression on drop plays to force the mech army to love around the map to respond to your drops. Dual prong attacks would be ideal killing key tech (tech labs, armory) and economy. Secondly you will need some sort of mech of your own. Science vessels nerve jammed is a must to not get shredded by tank lines. Your own tanks will be of great use as well. Third, ghost has lockdown, use it pre engagement. Vs a mech terran your army is going to be a lot cheaper than your opponent so abuse that. Lockdown his tanks and combination or lockdown some and nerve some then stim in for the kill. Regardless what you decide to do you must exploit the mech immobility. Good luck
EPT
Also, stim research time has been reduced, and stalker range upgrade costs 200/200 -- not something you can get early game.
