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Neural parasite is highly underestimated. First people are like "12 seconds = it sucks" and in this thread people are like "infestor dies!!!"# Very hard to kill an infestor at range 9 because the only thing that can hit them is tanks and the ones close enough usually die.
Use this a lot vs colossus too, and micro the colossus to my army so if infestor gets sniped the colossus gets instagibbed.
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I edited my original post to correct the duration of Neural Parasite, which is 15 seconds, not 12. It has been mis-cited as 12 seconds (perhaps to make it sound weaker?) but in TheoryCraft we measure everything in game seconds. 12 seconds is its duration in real time on the faster speed setting.
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NPing 2-3-4 Medivacs with the infestors being in safer position could also be really strong cause instead of their troops being healed it's yours and allllll of your units can be heal by them.
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On August 18 2010 22:48 KingAnusIII wrote: NPing 2-3-4 Medivacs with the infestors being in safer position could also be really strong cause instead of their troops being healed it's yours and allllll of your units can be heal by them.
This definitely seemed viable back when NP was permanent, but it sounds like a tougher call now, as you'll only get 15 secs worth of healing (or less if Medivac is out of range of your units).
Nevertheless NPing a medivac is actually better than it sounds when you look at the numbers.
A medivac can heal 15 health per second, for a potential total heal of 225 hps over 15 seconds. There might be a tiny bit of time devoted to acquiring targets to heal however I have not tested.
Anyway, and this is the primary reason NP is misunderstood in general, you aren't just receiving a benefit, you are taking away benefit... So you aren't just getting 225 hps of healing, you are denying 225 hp of healing from the terran.
Other possible benefits:
- The terran loses the vision that the Medivac provided. If you NP their only air unit(s), your high ground units cannot be hit. This usually will not be a factor, situational.
- Reposition the Medivac to a location where it will be easy to snipe once NP wears off. Since they can heal while moving, might also get some healing out of this maneuver.
But of course the best time to Neural Parasite a Medivac is when you are intercepting a drop and are able to snipe it down with some queens/hydra. Pure theorycraft, forgive me as I've never pulled this off, but obviously a devastating move. Range 9 of NP is significant as its the longest range ground to air weapon a Zerg has at his disposal, exceeding that of upgraded hydra (6) or Queen (7) or Spore Crawler (7).
Medivacs sound like they'd be tough to NP in a traditional battle with MMM, unless you use the burrowed-casting trick. I don't like to recommend that trick as its probably just a bug that Blizzard will eventually fix.
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great job, a little more math than I like XD
I always use NP in ZVP/ZVT and if I get a good amount of infestors (2-4) and NP, I can usually dominate an opposing mid/late game army with extremely minimal losses. IMO, it works especially well with high dmg output armys like ling/hydra, since your doods stay not dead for more than 4 seconds
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On August 19 2010 01:14 uberdeluxe wrote:great job, a little more math than I like XD I always use NP in ZVP/ZVT and if I get a good amount of infestors (2-4) and NP, I can usually dominate an opposing mid/late game army with extremely minimal losses. IMO, it works especially well with high dmg output armys like ling/hydra, since your doods stay not dead for more than 4 seconds 
Hrm makes sense regarding the high DPS army, hadn't thought about that. In my original analysis this would lead to a larger chunk of damage from the zerg units that would otherwise be dead from Thor fire, had NP not been cast. Especially makes sense in the Thor vs Hydra scenario because Thor kill Hydra pretty quickly and Hydra have such high DPS, not having the Thor wail on the hydra for 15 secs would be that much more beneficial.
Perhaps the only downside to Hydra instead of Roach here is that the roach will do a better job of creating that wall to protect your infestor.
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NP seems to be worth it if you can get them off on expensive units as people have suggested. Since you steal his units for 12 seconds, not insane but still advantageous for your units, you somewhat downplay the role of "expensive" units. It seems efficient to effectively 'counter' pricey thors with the relatively cheap infestors.
I haven't done the math or testing of it in game, so just my personal theories on it. Let me know if that's somewhat logical.
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I just wanted to ask you, if you can make a graph describing number of seconds in neural parasite as a function of its effectiveness (number of HP you actually gain), also set it to 4 different situations where the number of roaches, lings, siege tanks and thors vary.
I realize its not such an easy job to do, but it could be way much more useful for people to understand how the efficiency changes. Maybe even proving that the infester is very efficient (or possibly not efficient).
Thanks in advance. (:
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Assuming they researched it, would it be possible to NP a thor and then instantly 250mm cannon another one of their thors/tanks/etc? Will the cannon stop if they kill the Infestor mid cast?
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When you NP a Medivac that has units loaded will that function like in the original broodwar that you get the medivac and the units in it, too? If so, will they be permanently yours to command like if you NP a probe and build a nexus?
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It doesn't make sense to me that people complain about the nerf, and then are like, "the hard part is keeping them alive for 12 seconds".
Look, Infestors are really powerful. Spam Infested Terran and Fungal growth and you don't even have a need for NE. Infestors + Hydra + Ultra = beats any composition terran can throw at you.
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On August 19 2010 22:30 Semoirethe wrote: Assuming they researched it, would it be possible to NP a thor and then instantly 250mm cannon another one of their thors/tanks/etc? Will the cannon stop if they kill the Infestor mid cast?
Yes, I have done this, it is awesome.
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On August 18 2010 21:24 Slayer91 wrote: Neural parasite is highly underestimated. First people are like "12 seconds = it sucks" and in this thread people are like "infestor dies!!!"# Very hard to kill an infestor at range 9 because the only thing that can hit them is tanks and the ones close enough usually die.
Use this a lot vs colossus too, and micro the colossus to my army so if infestor gets sniped the colossus gets instagibbed.
Have you tried using neural parasite? I don't know about other zerg players here. It is pretty difficult to get, let's say 4 infestors with both upgrades BEFORE the inevitable push, ie 800 minerals and 1000 gas. Not to mention you have to wait for 25 more energy on each infestor, just to pull off a NP. The question comes down to, do you want to contain the Terran with 10 mutas and expand more, or invest in a few infestors that may or may not win you the battle.
Sure I've won some games where the infestor is on high ground (Lost temple) and NP'ed thors below, but also lost some games in the same situation when the Terran just used a scan on the high ground after the thor got NP'ed and 1 shot killed the infestors. I've also lost many games due to the push coming before enough energy on the infestors, as well as many games due to no map control = terran on same bases as me and turtle till death ball.
Having infestors is just too damn risky, 1 micro mistake = gg, and also you have to depend on micro mistakes of the Terran player to not scan and focus fire the infestors with tanks. So you tell me, if you had a skill that says "50% chance to kill target enemy unit" and takes a long time research and be ready, would you invest in it?
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On August 19 2010 23:19 Ainsworth wrote: It doesn't make sense to me that people complain about the nerf, and then are like, "the hard part is keeping them alive for 12 seconds".
Look, Infestors are really powerful. Spam Infested Terran and Fungal growth and you don't even have a need for NE. Infestors + Hydra + Ultra = beats any composition terran can throw at you.
Infestors: 2 upgrades cost 300/300, 100/150 for each infestor Hydras: 1 upgrade cost 150/150, 100/50 for each hydra Ultra: 1 upgrade cost 150/150, 300/200 for each ultra
So basically you are suggesting melee, ranged AND armor upgrades AND infestors. I don't think you've ever played this matchup before? most zergs die before ultras come, yet you are suggesting to get EVERY gas intensive unit zerg has? Common man we are playing 1v1 ladder here, not 30 minutes no rush.
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If you are gonna NP Thors, you might as well focus fire some of your forces on the thors so that when it wears off, it is either dead or just about dead and can't cause damage against you.
NPing a thor and making sure not to weaken it is just asking for trouble.
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i think the problem is not the 12 seconds at all, it's the fact that you need to research it.
NP is situational at best, so why the hell would you bother researching in the unlikely event that you'll benefit from it?
it's the same as hunter seeker.
remove the ruddy research, they're super situational and inferior to other spells in 99% of situations. not worth a research.
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i saw a sick game between ogsthewind vs ogstop where thewind goes infestors + roaches, does a couple of good drops with them, NPs thors, wipes out top's main base scvs and is ahead like 2 bases... then top cleans it up, Ds up, then wins the whole game 2-basing with marines and tanks. woot?
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On August 18 2010 00:45 hadoken5 wrote: Interesting post, I will consider using Infestors more now. But how does NP fare against toss? and Infestors are easily sniped as well, wouldn't 12 infested Terrans prove to be more useful? Especially against sieged tanks that can just snipe infestors?
Honestly with the new changes you might see less tanks. But lets say there are tanks, it will take 2 tanks shots to kill an infestor, add that damage along with the reaction time that it takes to attack the infestors and the damage the thors already get off in that time along with the splash damage from the tanks that was wasted on single targets.
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NP just needs one "small" buff. if a infestor gets killed while NP'ing the remaining mindcontrol time is halfed instead of it just stopping instantly.
so if a infestor gets killed instantly you still have 6 seconds left. if a infestor gets killed after 4 seconds you still have 4 seconds ( (12-4)/2) left.
and suddenly its a great spell that can be used in many situatiuons.
t/p can still counter it with feedback/emp but random collosus/tanks making the whole spell useless will be a smaller problem.
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