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[A] Starbow - Page 437
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Xiphias
Norway2223 Posts
www.twitch.tv/SC2_Starbow | ||
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Kabel
Sweden1746 Posts
Dark swarm + Show Spoiler + I will take another look at it and see what can be done with the range and duration. It got smashed by the nerf hammer a few months ago for a couple of reasons. (Before we went more BW balance.) One part of the equation is the smart cast. In BW, spells were very strong, but required high APM. In Sbow it is easy to cast the spells and most of them are as strong as in BW. - If all spells are as strong as in BW, and all races have smart cast, then maybe it is balanced? - Remove smart cast and make spells even stronger? - Let smart cast remain in the game and nerf spells that benefit the most from them? (How can we determine that?) Reaper + Show Spoiler + It is a tricky unit. I do like the potential of 1-3 early Reapers picking off some workers and gain some scouting info. It adds potential for early action, which I at least think is fun. But I do not like that the Reaper actually has potential to end the game very early. (As Xiphias pointed out in the stream.) The problem seems to be that it is a snowball effect, especially vs Zerg. The first few Reapers forces a lot of Zerglings or a few Spine crawlers from Z. T keeps pumping Reapers. Z must commit even more to defence. T takes more bases and gets ahead. Z can not move out. It seems to be much harder for Z to deal with it, than it is for T to commit to it. Potential areas to modify: - Reaper dmg, - Reaper speed - Reaper life - Reaper must stand still to regenerate? (Can not move around and heal) Some way to make many Reapers not as efficient? Shorter attack range? (The ones behind can´t shoot) Other solutions might be to buff Zs way to dealing with them. Atm, heavy Reapers kinda forces Hydra play. And they are very vulnerable to Marines. If the Roach gets added to the game, it might be a unit that can help with this. (Since it will probably be quite opposite of Hydras: Tougher, better vs medium & light, worse vs armored). Thus getting Roaches can fend off Reapers and defend ok vs Marine pushes. If we find no good way of adjusting the Reaper, then maybe it must be scrapped for the greater good. But I would prefer to first look at areas to balance it. Ultralisk speed + Show Spoiler + Man, they are fast. O_o Irradiate vs Zerg + Show Spoiler + This was discussed a lot some months ago, but it came to my mind again. Should Zerg have a way to deal with mass Irradiate? Of course Zerg must make sure to keep the Vessel count low during the game. (Scourge them, plague them with Mutalisk attack, catch them.) But once T reaches a critical mass, he can kinda move around with one deathball of Vessels and dominate with Irradiate. IF Zerg should have a way to be "immune" to Irradiate, then maybe that feature can be added to the Devourer. (As Hider has discussed a bit in the past.) It destroys energy on every attack? It can "devour" buffs to remove them? It has spell immunity? The intention is to make room for some more late game diversity. T can not only mass Vessels vs exactly everything Zerg has. They might need to compensate by adding for example Vikings, Goliaths or something else, to deal with Devourers. Which makes more units useful, which in the longer run requires more micro, which requires more skill, which leads to more GG. Just a small parentheses. New stuff the races have + Show Spoiler + If we assume BW is the base game, I make an overview of everything new the races have in Sbow. (Stuff that is not in BW.) Terran Orbital with Calldown SCV and Supply drop Reactor & Tech lab PF Sensor Tower Reaper Marauder Matrix on Medic Viking Banshee Nerve Jammer BC with "better" Yamato and a strange teleport ability. (I will look more into this later.) Dropship with speed boost Protoss Chrono boost Rift Warp gate Stalker Sentinel Scout with Phase missile Corsair with graviton beam Fleet beacon upgrades Warp Prism Observer ability Zerg Queen with Inject, Nurturing swarm and Creep spread Zerg ground units can upgrade move while burrowed Baneling Scourge with splash Viper Overlord drop creep Spine & Spore crawlers can move Nydus worm works slightly different Devourer works diferently atm, compared to BW Then the races also have some modified balance compared to BW. (For example Dark Swarm and Stimpack are much weaker now.) In terms of quantity, Terran seems to have the most new stuff. But some of the stuff is more impactful than others. But I intend to make all races feel somewhat rewarded in this area. Not fun if one races feels new and exciting, and another race just feels like BW. Keep in mind that the Zerg likely will get the Roach. (I am playing around with some concepts and dynamics.) | ||
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decemberscalm
United States1353 Posts
Smart casting is less of an issue with dark swarm in BW. It is more of an issue with storm and storm alone. You can pre-battle irradiate, time isn't an issue. Dark Swarm has a huge window of effect, and you want to spread its use out anyways. Also there is the issue of unlimited selection (z) vs smart casting (p) inherent imbalance if smart casting is gone. Why it seems to weak is due to maps. Before we have SC2 style maps. Lots of chokes. Slightly slower units. Now with open terrain Terran can quite easily micro against dark swarm. @Reaper If lings cannot kill them efficiently with speed like in HOTS they are a big problem. T denying map control that early on is HUGE. As hider says and I agree, right now queens are good vs them but speedlings are not. In hots, queens are not amazing, but speedlings were good at catching and kill them. Purely due to creep speed bonus. @Ultra speed Isn't it fun? ^^ @Irradiate From what I saw today it was mostly an issue of Z already being so far behind it didn't matter, plus some really bad scouring/plague follow up. @New stuff 148x148 maps have BW rush distances. They will bring out imbalances due to things Starbow has added. Before Z had much more time to prepare for anything, but as a result the game flow was much less fun. People turtled and didn't want to send units crossmap. This current map size is much better, but we must be wary of balance concerns. As dirtybag says, even the fact you can get a tank a roughly 36 seconds faster matters via tech lab switch matters due to this. Even still, the balance is better than it has ever been for Starbow due to being based on the BW core. | ||
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Foxxan
Sweden3427 Posts
Dont forget, in sc2 zerg could make many more queens and they also had alot more larva. @Devourer Just to get this out there, the devourer loses against corsair pretty hard right now. So Corsair>zerg in air hard. Also he lose against carriers, he is supposed to beat both. So all in all, zerg is very weak against strong airplay right now. Combine this with storm. Chanceless? @Irradiate. One thing that works versus irradiate right now, is abduct. Its quite fun to use abduct as zerg when i have used it. This abduct right now, do not work against massive targets. One solution if you find this to much deathballish, is to have it be used against air only(even massive units). So i think this is "viable" with good zergs. Either masshydraplay or scourge play+abduct will work wonder. The scourges need good microplay though. I liked the idea of an "remove spell" ability for zerg @Protoss They are weak. I know things havent settled with macromechanics, and sentinel yet(this is huge ofcourse). But still, dragoons nerfed, arbiters nerfed while at the same time terran can get faster siegetanks, and zerg have early queens to take out probescout and save larva against zealot harass. So earlygame, two races buffed while the dragoons are nerfed. And lategame, the arbiter which is a must against terran is nerfed Zerg even have root sunken which will be used in future in atleast some promatches. (I like the root btw) @Movementspeed, and smallermaps(?) Just wanna point this out. I found these things very fun atm even tho i have played very little. It just feels better overall | ||
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Xiphias
Norway2223 Posts
We now have 100% BW storm on high templars but a very nerfed Dark Swarm which makes no sense since toss also has smart-cast and storm is probably the spell that benefit's the most from mart-casting. I suggest to bring back BW values an then balance it from there if needed. @ Irradiate. There is a counter to this, it's called plague + 1 mutalisk. Had Doom just made that one mutalisk.... @ Protoss. I do not feel they are weak atm, but I am mostly referring to PvZ. Maybe Dirtybag has played more PvT lately. Point is, if they are strong vs one race but weak vs another, then we must be careful to buff since it might upset balances. | ||
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Hider
Denmark9433 Posts
It is a tricky unit. I do like the potential of 1-3 early Reapers picking off some workers and gain some scouting info. It adds potential for early action, which I at least think is fun. But I do not like that the Reaper actually has potential to end the game very early. (As Xiphias pointed out in the stream.) The problem seems to be that it is a snowball effect, especially vs Zerg. The first few Reapers forces a lot of Zerglings or a few Spine crawlers from Z. T keeps pumping Reapers. Z must commit even more to defence. T takes more bases and gets ahead. Z can not move out. It seems to be much harder for Z to deal with it, than it is for T to commit to it. Potential areas to modify: - Reaper dmg, - Reaper speed - Reaper life - Reaper must stand still to regenerate? (Can not move around and heal) Some way to make many Reapers not as efficient? Shorter attack range? (The ones behind can´t shoot) Other solutions might be to buff Zs way to dealing with them. Atm, heavy Reapers kinda forces Hydra play. And they are very vulnerable to Marines. If the Roach gets added to the game, it might be a unit that can help with this. (Since it will probably be quite opposite of Hydras: Tougher, better vs medium & light, worse vs armored). Thus getting Roaches can fend off Reapers and defend ok vs Marine pushes. If we find no good way of adjusting the Reaper, then maybe it must be scrapped for the greater good. But I would prefer to first look at areas to balance it. Relative to HOTS I see these differences with the Reaper - Its awfull against a 1 gate fast expand protoss player. At least in HOTS you can have it in opponents base a couple of seconds before Stalker is out. Against protoss in Sbow. you shouldn't do any kind of damage unless nexus first. This makes it a coinflip unit. - Its much better vs lings and workers than in HOTS. In HOTS it deals 4 damage flat, and since zerg has more larva, he can afford to sucide more lings at the reaper. - Its much worse vs Queens than in HOTS. It deals only 2.5 damage to Queens and Queens regenerate better here on creep. This is especially problematic as double-queen is a mathematically superior opening anyway. My solution Remove Reaper for now and put it on test map. While it isn't OP if the zerg plays correctly, its just not very good for gameplay atm. In the test map I suggest we change its damage values to this; 3.5 damage vs light and 4 damage vs everything else. This will make it easier for a lower group of lings to chase the reaper away, and just a couple of speedlings can now kill 1-2 reapers. This it makes zerg more larvaefficient. Then I also suggest we take a closer look at the Queen which unlike the two other macromechanics adds no decision-making or build order variety to zerg. I suggest we add an energybased activation mode for it be able to attack. This way a dual-queen opening would be quite good if opponent didn't make any type of super early pressure play (like sending 2 zealots or 1-2 reapers) as you would be able to use all your energy on injecting. But if opponent goes for very early harass play by sending 1-2 reapers, the zerg who opened dual-queen will need to spend his energy for the attack mode which means he has less energy on injecting. So against 1-2 reaper opening or early zealot pressure you may be better of adding a 3rd hatchery and getting out "real" units before building Queens. Thus, this change adds a whole new level to the game as it gives dual-queen a clear weakness. At the same time this will also encourge more "balanced" action in the early game. Right now it semes that Queen is so strong that we need to have "overpowered" stuff like Recall at 50 energy and strong Reapers in the game. With a weaker queen we can change both of these things. I imagine stuff like terran opening 1 rax expand --> scouting zerg going dual-queen --> then just sending like a 2 marine + 1 firebat to pressure the zerg player early game. This will likely force both activation and some lings out, and then the terran can retreat. Right now, that type of pressure is absolutely terrible as zerg easily can shut it down at no real cost. | ||
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Grumbels
Netherlands7031 Posts
Maybe an idea is to have the various consume abilities for the defiler and viper restore health as well? | ||
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Hider
Denmark9433 Posts
I will take another look at it and see what can be done with the range and duration. It got smashed by the nerf hammer a few months ago for a couple of reasons. (Before we went more BW balance.) One part of the equation is the smart cast. In BW, spells were very strong, but required high APM. In Sbow it is easy to cast the spells and most of them are as strong as in BW. - If all spells are as strong as in BW, and all races have smart cast, then maybe it is balanced? - Remove smart cast and make spells even stronger? - Let smart cast remain in the game and nerf spells that benefit the most from them? (How can we determine that?) After having watched several BW, it is my opinion that zerg games are interesting untill Defiler gets out. Then it just slows down the intensity of the game so much. Besides leading to less action, it also doesn't add any real micro or multtaskelement to the game. Its function is to buff zerg in the late game (as they otherwise would be UP). I am pretty sure we can obtain balance in a much better way than making Dark Swarm OP. Doing that is especially problematic as it leaves no late-game decision to the zerg. If DS is OP --> Then you have to get it every single game. If instead, it is balanced and we buff the other weak parts of the game --> Late game variety. Looking at Fantasy's vs Doominators game, the Defiler still seemed very usefull, and I persoanlly also enjoyed that you didn't always land a "money-DS". Guardians is one very obvious example of that, as I think the Guardian/Devourer synergy-thing (with "spell-block") that I suggested some time ago, would be a more fun solution to zerg late game problems. | ||
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Azelja
Japan762 Posts
Edit: On October 06 2013 18:29 Hider wrote: Looking at Fantasy's vs Doominators game, the Defiler still seemed very usefull, and I persoanlly also enjoyed that you didn't always land a "money-DS". Whatever you do, do not look at that 50-ish minute game as any form of serious stuff, I had been up since 5 am and almost fell asleep in front of my pc ^^ | ||
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Kabel
Sweden1746 Posts
This is especially problematic as double-queen is a mathematically superior opening anyway. How is it mathematical superior? arbiters nerfed Stasis + Recall are worse? Arbiters 50 more gas? Irradiate can also be countered by queens maybe? True, Queens can heal the units to make them survive the Irradiate. After having watched several BW, it is my opinion that zerg games are interesting untill Defiler gets out. Then it just slows down the intensity of the game so much. Besides leading to less action, it also doesn't add any real micro or multtaskelement to the game. But it fuels the Zerg aggression a lot? Once they get it, they start to be more aggressive? And the Defiler is a quite micro intensive unit? (In BW) | ||
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Izerman
Sweden99 Posts
After having watched several BW, it is my opinion that zerg games are interesting untill Defiler gets out. Then it just slows down the intensity of the game so much. Besides leading to less action, it also doesn't add any real micro or multtaskelement to the game. uh say whut? Its when the dark swarm stuff start to happen. thats when terran has to be even more micro intensive and watch his positioning. edit : spelling | ||
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Hider
Denmark9433 Posts
thats when terran has to be even more micro intensive and watch his positioning. I disagree. When zerg is like lurker-ling heavy without DS, micro and postiioning matters a lot. When DS comes into the mix, the only way you can micro is to retreat with your faces or a-move with firebats into the swarm. Thats not really micro, thats just delaying an interesting micro battle that we would otherwise have seen. | ||
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Izerman
Sweden99 Posts
On October 06 2013 22:57 Hider wrote: I disagree. When zerg is like lurker-ling heavy without DS, micro and postiioning matters a lot. When DS comes into the mix, the only way you can micro is to retreat with your faces or a-move with firebats into the swarm. Thats not really micro, thats just delaying an interesting micro battle that we would otherwise have seen. A-moving into swarm is a sure way to die.. when darkswarm enters the field you have to be active and disable the defilers or drop new expansions and force the zerg to play defensive while you tech out of bio. but thats in bw, maybe its a little easier in sc2/starbow the thing to change would be what the swarm actually does.. maybe make it not making splash but just hurt the primary target so you cant win against a superior force but come out some cost efficient? i mean so tanks still do dmg and marines maybe cut dmg in half?? | ||
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Foxxan
Sweden3427 Posts
Its when the dark swarm stuff start to happen. And why is that, do you think? Ofcourse the stuff starts to happen because the whole zerg strategy/meta is all about the defiler. Before the meta was before the defiler, the zerg started with his macro way earlier than he do now. Plenty of lings/lurkers, multitask and tactical engagements on 2base He started to build masszerglings and lurkers very early, with plenty of hatcheries. Look at the meta now: As few lurkers as possible and no lings at all->instead he go puredrones->3base->earlyhive. I enjoyed watching zvt in bw alot more when the meta was not about defiler at all, and i mean it was rarelly to see it in play, instead on hive he went ultras Stasis + Recall are worse? Arbiters 50 more gas? Yes, they are both worse. Statis should freeze in a 3x3 area. Recall should recall in a 5x5 area. HE can recall 25zealots in bw. And like 18+dragoons Statis cost 125mana, should be 100 recall cost 125 mana, should be 150. arbiter should be 50 minerals less | ||
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SolidSMD
Belgium408 Posts
I'm of the opinion that defilers make the game more awesome, because it allows tactical play and comeback's . Imba casters make you able to fight vs bigger forces on better terms, tuned down casters need to be massed to be effective (like defiler's with range 3 need to cast much more dark swarms for them to be able to cast the dark swarms they wanted in the first place, meaning the whole screen just gets swarmed, making the spell more lame in use, both to play against and to observe. 1 good swarm is more awesome than a whole screen covered by dark swarm.) So good usage of casters makes games more back and forth, but on the other hand we can't have them too easy to cast en masse (because then attacking with imba casters will not help the defender at all). So as Lalush has suggested (i think?), i think it would be a good move to turn off smart casting and let spells be OP. This directly nerfs the massing of casters (like vessels, atm they become much much better when the number gets bigger, they don't get harder to control en masse so you actually reward players for keeping them in a ball, opposed to bw where it was equally hard to control them en masse than spread out over the map). | ||
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decemberscalm
United States1353 Posts
I'm being more and more convinced this is the way to go. Have spells be powerful. Smart casting off. @Queen Hider only briefly mentioned this in the forum so far, but it is related to the reaper. Right now there is no choice but to get the queen. If people DON'T get the queen, they are playing incorrectly. What a queen does: creep spread, tech faster, larva faster, even transfuse, plus very nice defense early on. Two ideas for this. One is to simply make an extra hatchery better for larva than two queens. You might see players only get one queen so they can tech faster and for defense and all of its utility. A greedier Z will skimp the queen. Second idea: different queen morphs. We have two queen models at the moment. We could have one queen that is more for nurturing, so injecting. Other is more for defensive purposes with an attack. | ||
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Hider
Denmark9433 Posts
How is it mathematical superior? Relative to an early 3rd inbase-hatch, it has the following advantages; 1) Lower BT. 2) Give more larva per investment if you have good injects 3) Can also spread creep 4) Can fend off attacks by it self. | ||
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Deleted User 97295
1137 Posts
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Izerman
Sweden99 Posts
On October 07 2013 03:12 Laertes wrote: www.twitch.tv/guavaguy30 you stopped streaming dude? | ||
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Foxxan
Sweden3427 Posts
One suggestion i have is the autoattack requires an upgrade: 50/25 75BT on evolution chamber(all queens get it). Why? 1) Right now, queens fend off scouts very easily, and also saves larva->more drones instead of attackunits, if zealotharass or someother stuff 2) Its not a decision to get queens because you get - Bigger eco - Early defence via autoattack(saves larva) - Heal or creep Compare to protoss eco booster: - More eco or more macrounits or The rift(recall harass ability) | ||
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