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With 1.3 about to go live in about 2 hours time on the NA server, I feel like a huge meta-game shift will happen in ZvP. If you haven't heard already, Infestors received a controversial buff; here are the exact details in the patch notes.
ZERG
Infestor
Fungal Growth
Stun duration decreased from 8 to 4 seconds.
Damage increased by +30% vs. armored units.
Now, you may ask? How is that a buff or how is that going to change ZvP?
First of all, I am a 3.1k Master Zerg. I am by no means a 'pro'. But I do believe that my understanding of the game is sufficient enough to make an argument and open this thread for discussion. I have watched all of MrBitter's videos (ackk, yes that's a lot of video watching -_-) and watch as much GSL/TSL/User Streams as much as possible.
Upon downloading the new patch 30 mins ago. I opened up an offline game and played against a Protoss AI. I got some infestors and just started nuking random protoss units. I nuked some probes and thought 'wow, sick, it deals damage pretty quickly'. Then I started nuking other units and found that Fungal is ridiculously powerful against armored units.
I started thinking 'how will this affect all of zerg's matchups?' And I remembered reading through something yesterday. It was apart of Idra's interview with MLG.
MLG: Patch 1.3 on the PTR currently has the Infestor's Fungal Growth changed; it now deals damage in four seconds rather than eight, and deals extra damage to armored units. How do you think this will change Infestor usage in Zerg matchups?
Idra: It's going to be a massive change for Zerg. I think Infestors are going to be overpowered against Protoss now, and it's going to completely change ZvZ as it'll nullify Roaches beyond timing attacks. ZvT might not change too much, simply because Mutas are so good and it might not be worth the gas to get Infestors before the lategame. But Fungal is going to be ridiculously good now.
I was skeptical about him calling Infestors 'overpowered'. But after having tested it moments ago, I do feel that this mentality is somewhat warranted. 3-5 Infestors engaging a slow moving typical Protoss deathball (3-4 colossus with stalkers/sentries, maybe 2-3 voids) is going to be nuked to low health in about 10 seconds. Every single unit in that deathball is armored (except sentries but they are not there for the DPS anyways). If you are lucky, the fungal will hit the toss' observer and then the infestors can burrow and get away unharmed. The zerg army can just come in almost 1/2 shot everything.
This discussion will be about what you guys think about this Infestor change and about developing a solid build for this style of play against the standard 3gate expand where toss expands after 6-8 sentries, gets 4-5 gates then adds robo and pushes around 2-3 colossus while getting 3rd up (incontrol style).
Right now, I have developed a pseudo build for this style. Zergling into Baneling into Infestor into Ultralisk. I feel like it'll be a strong and robust build against the aforementioned protoss style of play.
Typical Zerg opening (14gas/14pool 21 expand, 15gas/15pool, etc.)
Zergling speed
Evo Chamber
+1 melee
Baneling nest
3rd/Lair
Infestors
Constant melee/carapace upgrade
Spire for corruptors (if large number of void rays)
Hive
Ultras (or Broods?!?!)
Obviously the timings aren't worked out but the tech path is entirely different than how I ZvP am accustomed to playing (roach, hydra, corruptor, broodlord). If the toss decides to play 1 base, go DTs, 1 base phoenix, etc. (some gimmicky non-standard) then obviously this build doesn't work.
Zergling speed and +1 will deflect any early aggression. After that banelings will help against and mid-game timing before colossus (6-gate/5-gate pressure) - also, if the toss is turtling there is option of research overlord speed/drop. Then you can start carpet bombing mineral lines and clumped sentries.
Then you transition into Infestors. If toss decides to push or anything while you are waiting for Ultras then you can simple nuke everything - it stops their movement and does massive damage to armored units. Once ultras are out, forcefields become useless while ultras combined with fungal growth just obliterate any stalker/sentry/colossus centric army composition. Burrow may help too as you can burrow infestors and start harassing mineral lines (as the toss makes observers this cuts down on colossus numbers).
Again, this build is not set in stone nor is it fine tuned. I want to leave this to zerg players to try this tech path and see what they can come up with. What toss timing pushes does this style have problems with? Is the Infestor actually viable now with this buff? When is the best time to get a 3rd?
I'll be playing ladder and practice games against toss a lot. I'll be paying close attention to zerg streams and any updates. I'd like to hear your thoughts, discussion and builds in this thread. I want to hear about your experiences and I really hope this style will usher in a new era of ZvP where Zergs actually feel like the old ZvP of the BW days!
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Do you think this will have a similar effect to ghosts using EMP on the Toss deathball/ Psy-storm being used on hydra lines? It would be nice for Zerg to have an AOE that didn't require banelings.
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As a protoss player I can't say I like this change. However, I realize that Zerg has needed a buff to be able to kill the deathball for a while now. I feel like we might be seeing more 6 gate +1 timing attacks and less 13 minute colossus pushes. Seems like protoss late game isn't the best anymore in any matchup with more Terrans switching to Mech and the infestor being able to own deathballs. However, the HT may still get use as an anti infestor/ghost spellcaster. Guess we will just have to wait and see.
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Yea it will be interesting to see how zvz develops. Fungal is already really strong in that matchup, and with it now demolishing roaches there could be more emphasis on hydras/lings (which are also countered well by fungal.) Hard to say.
Against protoss its hard to say but I can see the blink stalker ball becoming less effective and yea, there will be more usage of infestors for sure. Gas will become even more critical for zergs in these matchups.
Against terran I feel like there won't be any change, infestors I feel are less effective because against a marine ball the fact that they are held for only 4 seconds is actually better, and there aren't really too many armoured units with low enough HP that a couple fungals will be game-changing.
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Ive been practicing a new build vs Toss pre patch in preparation for the infestor buff. Ironically it's been doing very well even without the buff, so I cant wait to get some games in post 1.3. Basically early double evo sling/bling into sling/sbling/corrupter (or muta) into sling/sbling/ultra with corrupter support. My fav thing about bypassing the roach/hydra route altogether is that you have sooo much more map control and the ability to tech switch easily, since one can often hold 5 bases to the protoss 2 or 3.
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I think it could lead to a waaaayyy more dynamic matchup. I doubt it will be OP (taking IdrA's words with a pinch of salt) but it will be way less just collossus stalker ball with the occasional tech to HT, I can't wait in all honesty to see what will happen ^^ Although I expect a lot of 2 base timing pushes to begin with for like the first two weeks.
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Zerg aoe is going to get a lot more scary post-patch, that's for certain. We'll definitely be seeing more infestors fielded in all matchups, and combined with either baneling drops or just speed banes.
Instead of builds to hit right before spire (5-6 gate), we're likely to see a slight shift so it hits a shred earlier, in time to shut down infestor play. Should be a very quirky little shift in the metagame.
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Hadn't even considered the implications of the change vs roaches. Very interesting!
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Sweden326 Posts
Basicly what the new infestor is gonna be able to do is.
1# Stop VR rushes
2# Stop Blink stalker rushes
3# Zergs are gonna be able to do Roach infestor rushes and just fungle the immortal
4# 4 Gate will be much weaker if you have infestors out.
So this was a genius move by Blizzard to fix ZvP
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Funnily enough, I'm super giddy about this change even though I only offrace zerg every now and then. It might bring some much needed dynamic to the ZvP match-up when zerg finally has a good way to punish the deathball.
Even if the counter becomes spreading out your army (as protoss), that means lings, roaches and banelings all become much more effective. Very interesting change, and hopefully it'll balance out the somewhat broken match-up.
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It's definitely a buff ZvP, and will help vs the deathball. But I think we will actually see less infestors ZvT, since the long stun vs marines was its main use in that matchup. Won't do much versus tanks/thors still.
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On March 23 2011 01:45 PeaNuT_T wrote:
Basicly what the new infestor is gonna be able to do is.
1# Stop VR rushes
2# Stop Blink stalker rushes
3# Zergs are gonna be able to do Roach infestor rushes and just fungle the immortal
4# 4 Gate will be much weaker if you have infestors out.
So this was a genius move by Blizzard to fix ZvP
you cant get infestors out in time for blink rushes, or 4gates.
Infestors are going to be pretty decent against robo play for sure.
But then again, mutas were already pretty decent against robo play, and we had to stop using them to not get crushed by 6gates.
Remember than all builds that were designed to abuse the timing before mutas get up, can do the same, but more easily against infestors.
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I didn't read about this change until earlier today. I'm not a particularly high level player (mid diamond but only like 50 games under my belt) and I'm mostly an observer. I feel like instead of watching these absurd ball-o-death-push games we might see a shift to Warp Prisms being used for more mobile, spread out attacks. Nothing is cooler than a warp prism drop into a base, then warping in a bunch more units. Thoughts?
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I think that toss will simply need to get hallucination more often and scout better, having X unit at the right time against strategy Y is already important in PvZ and will be even more so. For instance, infestor/ling builds will probably just die to being 5/6 gated in the same way that mutaling builds do and getting faster colossi would be better against builds that get roaches first. Sentries will definitely be vulnerable to fungals but replacing FF with HT storm/FB when you have 3-4 bases and are rolling in gas might not be too bad.
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Fawking Goomba, you will see infestors replace banes in the vs Terran match up, first of all its harder to avoid fungal than it is to avoid banes, 2 fungals will now kill marines in like 5 seconds instead of 10.
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Time for the Phoenix to shine?
Maybe Infestor-sniping phoenix timing pushes will come into fashion.
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On March 23 2011 01:45 PeaNuT_T wrote:
Basicly what the new infestor is gonna be able to do is.
1# Stop VR rushes
2# Stop Blink stalker rushes
3# Zergs are gonna be able to do Roach infestor rushes and just fungle the immortal
4# 4 Gate will be much weaker if you have infestors out.
So this was a genius move by Blizzard to fix ZvP
Dont get you're thought proces there, you need atleast 2 saturated bases too even think about infestors imo.
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It might force protoss to split up the deathball, making the overall ball weaker and easier for zerg to take on. Which makes for a more interesting dynamic in the matchup I think, with the protoss trying to bait the fungals and not lose it all by having everything clumped up.
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On March 23 2011 01:53 Redunzl wrote:
Time for the Phoenix to shine.
Exactly. I think this is the real story in ZvP. It was hard enough to stop these buggers with the 8 second immobilization. Now the fungal does half that while dealing the same puny damage, albeit a bit faster.
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On March 23 2011 01:45 PeaNuT_T wrote:
Basicly what the new infestor is gonna be able to do is.
1# Stop VR rushes
2# Stop Blink stalker rushes
3# Zergs are gonna be able to do Roach infestor rushes and just fungle the immortal
4# 4 Gate will be much weaker if you have infestors out.
So this was a genius move by Blizzard to fix ZvP
4gate??
if you have infestors when you are attacked with a 4gate, i do believe the game is over even if you have built 10 infestors and all but one are sniped because you didnt watch.
I think infestors will be overpowered against protoss, as pretty much all units P want to make are armored and have to move in a single ball. Templar micro will be important, possible to overcome infestors with feedbacks or just plain storming... will see.
And i dont know how the timings would work out for templar vs infestor builds.
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On March 23 2011 01:47 FawkingGoomba wrote:
It's definitely a buff ZvP, and will help vs the deathball. But I think we will actually see less infestors ZvT, since the long stun vs marines was its main use in that matchup. Won't do much versus tanks/thors still.
Well the DPS of fungal is now quite good even if they got medivacs, the DPS of fungal is greater then the medivac healing. I agree that it isnt as good against tanks and thors, but that is why infester has nerual parasite. Also one thing I dont think people think about enough, is going to be starting with roaches (which stop blue flame hellions, and force marauders), then switch into infesters which kill marauders very badly now after the patch.
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On March 23 2011 02:02 obsid wrote:Show nested quote +On March 23 2011 01:47 FawkingGoomba wrote:
It's definitely a buff ZvP, and will help vs the deathball. But I think we will actually see less infestors ZvT, since the long stun vs marines was its main use in that matchup. Won't do much versus tanks/thors still. Well the DPS of fungal is now quite good even if they got medivacs, the DPS of fungal is greater then the medivac healing. I agree that it isnt as good against tanks and thors, but that is why infester has nerual parasite. Also one thing I dont think people think about enough, is going to be starting with roaches (which stop blue flame hellions, and force marauders), then switch into infesters which kill marauders very badly now after the patch.
ye you can probably actually kill marines with (multiple) fungal now, rather than just free up some medivac energy.
also, medivacs are armored.
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On March 23 2011 01:57 DTown wrote:Exactly. I think this is the real story in ZvP. It was hard enough to stop these buggers with the 8 second immobilization. Now the fungal does half that while dealing the same puny damage, albeit a bit faster.
Corrupters beat pnoenix play and you already need them to limit collosus numbers. Does the lift ability even work on a burrowed unit, even with detection?
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Hm, roach infestor could work quite well against Terran as long as you get neural in time for siege...
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The metagame is absolutely going to change to reflect how powerful fungal is now. Phoenix openings are going to be so much more powerful now as they force a lot more AA (and good as they are, it's damn hard to fungal air units that move SO FAST). As it was if the Toss was able to make the lategame with an even footing and decently large army they could just steamroll through zerg bases. It's going to be a lot tougher now.
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so we all agree, that it's a buff and makes the tvz matchup more interesting and less deathball focussed. i like.
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On March 23 2011 01:57 DTown wrote:Exactly. I think this is the real story in ZvP. It was hard enough to stop these buggers with the 8 second immobilization. Now the fungal does half that while dealing the same puny damage, albeit a bit faster.
Yep, more variety, more Templars and Phoenixes in ZvP, less Roaches in ZvZ. Good stuff.
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Personally I'm excited for the mid/late game harassment options the changes in the strength of infestor DPS opens up. This change is definitely going to increase the diversity of zerg playstyles.
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I think the best thing will be that it won't necessarily become #1 priority (make or break the whole match) to destroy a Protoss player's 3rd base. Although they will still be powerful on 3base, this buff will allow Zergs to combat the giant deathball that have caused so many problems for amateur/pro Zergs alike.
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Well, Zerg has desperately needed something that the other races actually fear for quite a while now, I hope this change has some effect.
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I feel like this is not the magic bullet Zerg players think it is, but I want to play with it some more before I say anything too specific on the topic -- as a Toss player, my time on the PTR just taught me to stack more phoenixes to graviton beam the infestors. Granted, this is not an ideal solution (and being reliant on one unit to counter one unit that counters almost everything in my arsenal with one spell when used correctly isnt my cup of tea) but I think most smart toss will change their game up to include a Stargate a little sooner -- for two reasons:
1. most zerg that I play start their offensive with Roaches, which Starport acts as a direct counter to
2. most zerg that I play only tech to Hydras if I give them a reason to in the form of taking air dominance (but in most games, Im heavy gateway stacked with colos backing them up with a few VRs and Phoenixes -- Phoenixes are usually relegated to Overlord detail, so this changes their role *slightly*)
I feel like judicious use of the Starport units is the key (as it always has been against Zerg) so Im not stressing as a strictly protoss player.
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On March 23 2011 02:04 snow2.0 wrote:
also, medivacs are armored.
Good point, I have been playing on the PTR for the last month and hadnt quite realized this. 3 FG to kill a medivac (now with the +30%), or only need 8 in game seconds (like 5 real seconds) to kill a big group of medivacs.
I think the infester change is going to KILL the MMM builds. And heavy thor means NP is going to be better vr terran.
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well Fungal is now officially better than Storm.
we have now a "Storm" with garanteed damage, better AoE Radius, immobilizing advantage infestor is faster has more health and can burrowmove and is cheaper and faster to get.
Way to Buff Zerg
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I just might have to copy the koreans and get at least one stargate when i expand, i actually think getting VR-phoenix-phoenix potentially denies a lot of things like roach busts and potentially forces hydras. Maybe we could go phoenix/colossus instead of VR/colossus and get just enough phoenixes to harass but not enough to the point where mass corrupter would roll it over? i do think that the infestor buff is a good thing and maybe P should just adapt because VR?colossus was kind of dumb and boring anyways.
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On March 23 2011 02:22 freetgy wrote:
well Fungal is now officially better than Storm.
Well thats not true. 36 damage is nothing compared to the 80 damage of storm (even if your good and get out of the storm quickly your going to take 36 damage easily). FG is now alot more similar to storm (in that its DPS is higher, but its snare is less), but it isnt "better" just diffrent.
Oh and if your going through all the advantages of an infester shouldnt you mention feedback for the HT which can insta kill an infester (and a lot of other units).
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I think in ZvP ling/bane/infestor -> ultra will become MUCH more viable than it is now (it's already fairly viable), it may even become standard.
in addition roach/infestor may be viable mid-game against robo tech.
Lastly, having 5-7 infestors late-game against a colo/void/stalker deathball could potentially deal huge amounts of damage, and actually allow a roach/hydra/corruptor army to engage a protoss maxed army.
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think about why no Protoss goes Storm in PvP, and why now every Zerg wants to go Fungal against Protoss.
it is funny that people think an average Storm does more than 40 damage...
Storm is now only better in the damage part if the opponent is stupid enough to stay in Storm.
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As a protoss player im a little disheartened by the change, but I'm looking forward to the ways that people come up to deal with it. I think that Feedback will see a little more action now, but i think most people will try to beat it with strong timing pushes. Someone mentioned the 6 gate +1 push which i find to be exceptionally strong vs Z. it seems like people are looking for a way to neutralize Infestors before they are able to get off the FG's, but I look forward to seeing how the Pro's adjust.
I'm not sure if this has been discussed, but doesnt halving the duration also double the energy expense of FG (I dont mean per spell obviously, i mean over the same period of time)? Maybe this will provide some respite.
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All i have to say is FEEDBACK in PvZ is now much more useful.
You always get your templars in pvt now you can get them in pvz as well.
I'm not here to argue, so think what you will and experiment in the main time.
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On March 23 2011 01:45 PeaNuT_T wrote:
Basicly what the new infestor is gonna be able to do is.
1# Stop VR rushes
2# Stop Blink stalker rushes
3# Zergs are gonna be able to do Roach infestor rushes and just fungle the immortal
4# 4 Gate will be much weaker if you have infestors out.
So this was a genius move by Blizzard to fix ZvP
Stop rushes? Takes forever to get infestors out and if you rush to infestors you won't have anything to counter gateway units with.
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On March 23 2011 01:53 BinxyBrown wrote:
Fawking Goomba, you will see infestors replace banes in the vs Terran match up, first of all its harder to avoid fungal than it is to avoid banes, 2 fungals will now kill marines in like 5 seconds instead of 10.
No. Infestors versus marines are used primarily for the immobilization, which allows for lings/banes to get to them without them stimming away. 2 Fungals always killed marines, and the dps increase versus medivacs is not a huge deal unless your opponent has more medivacs than he has marines. The reason this is a nerf versus marines is the same reason that it is a nerf versus phoenix.
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On March 23 2011 02:27 obsid wrote:Show nested quote +On March 23 2011 02:22 freetgy wrote:
well Fungal is now officially better than Storm.
Well thats not true. 36 damage is nothing compared to the 80 damage of storm (even if your good and get out of the storm quickly your going to take 36 damage easily). FG is now alot more similar to storm (in that its DPS is higher, but its snare is less), but it isnt "better" just diffrent. Oh and if your going through all the advantages of an infester shouldnt you mention feedback for the HT which can insta kill an infester (and a lot of other units).
Storm can be microed out of to minimize damage. Not only does Infestor have a larger radius of AOE but it locks units in place for 4 secs. I'm not saying it's better than storm but definitely can hold it's own against it now.
The thing with feedback and templars against zerg is that it's a HUGE investment in gas. Protoss already need to sink huge amounts of gas in sentries. Without sentries, protoss army is practically dead early-midgame.
Usually on 2 base (which is the infestor timing I am talking about) there is no way that a protoss is going to have 3-4 colossus AND templars with a high sentry count. If my infestors force protoss to tech the path of twilight council into storm, that is something most zergs is more comfortable than deal with colossus balls (pre-patch).
I would much rather have a battle between templar and infestor where micro matters. Hypothetically speaking, if I micro better than a toss (Fungals off before feedback) then I should have an advantage in the battle. However, if I get feed back before fungals then the toss should have advantage.
A lot of the frustration was that with ZvP was that colossus/sentry/stalkers balls were almost unmicroable on the zerg side. If the toss laid perfect forcefields, the zerg was doomed. There was no chance to micro. This, however, is another entirely different topic.
The thing is with this infestor buff is that if templars aren't mixed into toss armies then they will have to deal with fungal spam, which exactly is what this build, thread, topic is discussing.
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I can't say that I even like the design of fungal growth. I don't think a damage spell suits zerg.
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On March 23 2011 02:35 Dagobert wrote:Show nested quote +On March 23 2011 01:45 PeaNuT_T wrote:
Basicly what the new infestor is gonna be able to do is.
1# Stop VR rushes
2# Stop Blink stalker rushes
3# Zergs are gonna be able to do Roach infestor rushes and just fungle the immortal
4# 4 Gate will be much weaker if you have infestors out.
So this was a genius move by Blizzard to fix ZvP Stop rushes? Takes forever to get infestors out and if you rush to infestors you won't have anything to counter gateway units with.
I just like that its a game changing late game unit that doesnt require you to clear up your supply. *cough* ultras.
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All I'm gonna say is next time I see bio balls I'm just gonna LOL.
The entire spell is different now. Instead of an ensnare, its more of a plague right now. Its the GOD AOE spell, on some fronts even better than storm. So there's a lot that is going to change across the board.
I'm already using Infestors ZvT in most of my games thanks to Mrbitter. And they do fine there, being able to just blitz bio apart even quicker now will only help to my advantage.
In ZvZ I think its a welcome change. Although Infestor roach was really good, it wasn't as good as roach/hydra. I believe that we will see a lot more roach/infestor play. Which means Ultra's will come after that, and hydra's to counter the ultra's to make a full circle.
In ZvP its gonna change its role completely. From a more or less anti mass-phoenix spell, to an anti armoured ball spell. I'm not really a fan of infestors in ZvP anyway since HT's are so handy against them, and hts can't counter baneling drops as well as infestors. But I can see them becoming the norm against stargate play.
Overall, I think its different. Wether this change is good or bad we still have to see. Zerg was lacking a good ranged power AoE spell and it has gotten it now, but it has more or less given up its ability to delay pushes a lot. So I really don't know how this will pan out.
The only direct response I'm gonna do is incorporate infestors in my ZvZ the instant the patch goes online.
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I think this change is a well-needed buff against some of the compositions that Zerg is facing right now but I hardly think it's a game-changer. Gas for Zerg is already a precious commodity and spending the 100 gas on the Infestation Pit, energy upgrade, AND 150 gas for each Infestor is a serious investment into tech.
The early/mid game is unaffected, the late game may or may not shift drastically but will definitely help Zerg late game comps deal with some of the Protoss death balls.
Infestors are already a pretty integral part of ZvZ so I do think it will change that matchup the most.
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I am really curious about if the changes will affect voidray/colossus.
Voidray is NOT an armored unit so the bonus damage does not apply
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On March 23 2011 02:55 MapleLeafSirup wrote:
I am really curious about if the changes will affect voidray/colossus.
Voidray is NOT an armored unit so the bonus damage does not apply
Wrong, it is armored.
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Actually using infestors is still gonna be really hard with their low health but i think itll actually be worth it to get them now. can't wait :D. Zerg's ZvP units feel so horribly boring and 1 dimensional, the race definitely needed the infestor to become a viable unit.
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On March 23 2011 02:36 FawkingGoomba wrote:Show nested quote +On March 23 2011 01:53 BinxyBrown wrote:
Fawking Goomba, you will see infestors replace banes in the vs Terran match up, first of all its harder to avoid fungal than it is to avoid banes, 2 fungals will now kill marines in like 5 seconds instead of 10. No. Infestors versus marines are used primarily for the immobilization, which allows for lings/banes to get to them without them stimming away. 2 Fungals always killed marines, and the dps increase versus medivacs is not a huge deal unless your opponent has more medivacs than he has marines. The reason this is a nerf versus marines is the same reason that it is a nerf versus phoenix.
They can out DPS a medivac now though which will, if not outright kill the marines, severely reduce medivac energy. Seems like a good compromise to me,
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I think the change will be good for Zerg, and I hope it is. What it means is that I will be fielding templar more often to feedback and storm. So perhaps blizzard thought of that when they nerfed the HT :D
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On March 23 2011 02:30 PassiveAce wrote:
I'm not sure if this has been discussed, but doesnt halving the duration also double the energy expense of FG (I dont mean per spell obviously, i mean over the same period of time)? Maybe this will provide some respite.
Depends on what you mean...
The damage is the same (as in 36 damage over 4 seconds instead of 36 damage over 8 seconds). So energy/damage is the same.
Yes, for the duration, to hold something for 8 seconds, you need to do 2 fungals. This is definitely a downside... but whether or not the damage increase makes it better has yet to be seen. I still haven't really seen infestors used to super-great effect. Every time that people in the GSL get them they just seem to die.
I'd almost rather see Fungal have a corruption-like effect (in addition to the snare) where units affected take an extra 20% damage. Making the thing do storm-like DPS doesn't seem to be an answer... but maybe it'll be effective. We'll just have to see.
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On March 23 2011 02:55 MapleLeafSirup wrote:
I am really curious about if the changes will affect voidray/colossus.
Voidray is NOT an armored unit so the bonus damage does not apply
I'm fairly certain Voidrays are armored units, yes?
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On March 23 2011 03:01 SubtleArt wrote:Show nested quote +On March 23 2011 02:36 FawkingGoomba wrote:On March 23 2011 01:53 BinxyBrown wrote:
Fawking Goomba, you will see infestors replace banes in the vs Terran match up, first of all its harder to avoid fungal than it is to avoid banes, 2 fungals will now kill marines in like 5 seconds instead of 10. No. Infestors versus marines are used primarily for the immobilization, which allows for lings/banes to get to them without them stimming away. 2 Fungals always killed marines, and the dps increase versus medivacs is not a huge deal unless your opponent has more medivacs than he has marines. The reason this is a nerf versus marines is the same reason that it is a nerf versus phoenix. They can out DPS a medivac now though which will, if not outright kill the marines, severely reduce medivac energy. Seems like a good compromise to me,
They always did this. The damage to marines is unchanged.
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On March 23 2011 03:03 karak567 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 23 2011 02:55 MapleLeafSirup wrote:
I am really curious about if the changes will affect voidray/colossus.
Voidray is NOT an armored unit so the bonus damage does not apply I'm fairly certain Voidrays are armored units, yes?
Yea sorry, you are right
They are armored even though their armor value is 0
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i've been trying to use infestors vp recently, but i find it difficult to actually reach the deathball without dying. generally i can get off a single fungal and then it dies to 9 range colossus. is this the right way to use them? do you send them in a clump or one by one? do you send them before the army or with it?
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ZvZ feels soooooooo weird now... I just beat a +1 roach timing push with 3 infestors and a smattering of +1 lings. Fungals DESTROY roaches. I kind of want to try some type of hydra ling infestor play... hmmm
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how much damage does the +30percent deal? wouldent it really only be like 8 more damage?
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On March 23 2011 01:45 PeaNuT_T wrote:
Basicly what the new infestor is gonna be able to do is.
1# Stop VR rushes
2# Stop Blink stalker rushes
3# Zergs are gonna be able to do Roach infestor rushes and just fungle the immortal
4# 4 Gate will be much weaker if you have infestors out.
So this was a genius move by Blizzard to fix ZvP
Rofl, shut up, now. Clown.
By saying something like 4 Gate will be weaker because you will have infestors out just shows how little understanding you have of the match-up. Just jumping on the bandwagon & whining won't hide that you're still <Diamond.
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i think its 38.5/50 vs light /armored
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Some templars for infestor sniping (dont even need storm) and protoss ball is ok. Infestors will never be overpowered in zvp.
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Fungal does 36 damage vs light, and ~47 damage vs armored.
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This will pry open the matchup a little bit I feel, and help heal 1a deathball syndrome (of which I am still afflicted. Here's what this may force out of the protoss player:
1) greater unit splits when engaging a zerg and chillin' round the base
2) Colossus micro to nail infestors - Colossi with the range upgrade will outrange fungal, and so there would be a window where the infestor can die giving no damage
3) HT and feedback use- similar to the ghost/HT dance that can occur, there may be a similar result in PvZ from this change between infestor/HT
4) Better scouting for when the infestor tech is thrown up. Zerg players may want to take advantage of infestors in the midgame, but a Protoss player who is wary of this will be able to gauge what the zerg's gas income would be, making 3rd base denial a much more critical endeavor.
On the side, some of the comments in this thread are atrocious. Stopping the 4 gate? do people even know how tech works in this game?
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Wow if even IdrA thinks this "could" be overpowered, then the shit is probably real serious.
Anyways, to me it doesn't seem like protoss wouldn't be equipped to handling this. What it means (at least to me) is, that I
1.) have to scout more thoroughly for infestation pit. Which just means being "meticulous" as day9 would say with my hallucinated phoenixes.
2.) have to get an early TC to be able to get an early archives for some HTs with feedback.
3.) have more observers ahead of my army when moving around. Not that big of a change to my general playstyle either, since I'm used to this vs ghost-play. Getting hit by several clutch EMPs or several clutch fungals...doesn't seem to be much different.
Infestors are a huge investment, so I think I should be able to afford an earlier HT tech. Fungal and feedback have the exact same range, so if the fungal hits, so will the feedback.
Overall I think it will make the matchup more dynamic and - hopefully - there will be less QQ. I believe and hope that this change will give the zergs the much needed buff to deal with LOWSKILLED (!!) players who just a-move their deathball around.
What I really don't like is that infestors now seem to be good....ALWAYS, nearly similar to the colossus. They are godlike vs air harass, are good vs blink and are now even generally awsome aoe-damage-dealers. Not necessarily OP but definitely a too broad spectrum of usefulness. Right now I couldn't think of a situation where you "don't" want to have infestors.
Also infestors + broodlords will probably put me in a world of kaka.
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I have to say i <3 the fungal buff, but why did they have to reduce it's lasting effect? BOLLOCKS i say. Pure bollocks.
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On March 23 2011 03:41 sleepingdog wrote:
Wow if even IdrA thinks this "could" be overpowered, then the shit is probably real serious.
Anyways, to me it doesn't seem like protoss wouldn't be equipped to handling this. What it means (at least to me) is, that I
1.) have to scout more thoroughly for infestation pit. Which just means being "meticulous" as day9 would say with my hallucinated phoenixes.
2.) have to get an early TC for some HTs with feedback.
3.) have more observers ahead of my army when moving around. Not that big of a change to my general playstyle either, since I'm used to this vs ghost-play. Getting hit by several clutch EMPs or several clutch fungals...doesn't seem to be much different.
Infestors are a huge investment, so I think I should be able to afford an earlier HT tech. Fungal and feedback have the exact same range, so if the fungal hits, so will the feedback.
Overall I think it will make the matchup more dynamic and - hopefully - there will be less QQ. I believe and hope that this change will give the zergs the much needed buff to deal with LOWSKILLED (!!) players who just a-move their deathball around.
Very well said! Not complaining about a buff that goes against his own race, but coming up with simple ways to deal with it. This, combined with removal of KA, forces the HT to be used more in the anti-spellcaster role.
I, as a zerg, have not had issues with the deathball because I never go roach/hydra, but I definitely understand the frustrations players have against it as I used to play Protoss a lot.
This thread has been a really good discussion with minimal whining, I love it. The fact that almost all toss have been saying Zerg needs an answer for the deathball shows that some change was needed. This change actually seems a bit over the top because of the big increase vs. armored. Maybe if fungal was the proposed slow projectile from PTR it would be a bit more fair? It's too early to tell now.
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Sorry if I missed it, is FG still insta-cast or that projectile that blink stalkers can blink out of?
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First fungal on toss' units are dealing the vs. non-armored damage yes? I mean on the shields. And the first fungal isn't as deadly as the second one. Againts the colo or the immortal its only the 1/3 of their shield.
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On March 23 2011 03:49 Skroach wrote:
This change actually seems a bit over the top because of the big increase vs. armored. Maybe if fungal was the proposed slow projectile from PTR it would be a bit more fair? It's too early to tell now.
I've edited something in, but I wanna emphazise this again.
I don't necessarily think that such a "hard" counter is bad in itself. I mean, we protoss-players had our good share of hard-counters with the colossus vs hydras...they just melt away, they still do. So having an aoe-spell that is very effective vs pure armored units (read: stalkers) isn't necessarily imba in my eyes.
My problem though is, that getting infestors doesn't seem to be much of a "strategical" choice now because infestors are good to have at basicly every point in time. Good vs air, good vs blink, good as an aoe-spell overall. Oh yeah, a hard-counter vs CHARGE as well (even though nobody gets chargelots).
I think it will be very possible to counter infestor play with HTs, but still this isn't really a "hard" counter since getting HTs for feedback is really expensive in itself. I still need to get my stalkers/colossi to deal with roach/hydra. So - theory-craft-wise - I don't see a way how I could possibly punish infestor play. Again, not something imbalanced, but something that doesn't seem to be 100% right in a strategy game. A unit that you always wanna have....but I think I'll stop writing now, this is just too much theory-craft. Real games have to show how the stuff works out.
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protoss can't tech to HTs to counter Infestors at least not on 2 bases, while Zerg surely can afford getting infestors on 2 bases.
Infestor right now is a unit that is almost good against anything Protoss could throw at you.
Air Units -> Fungal
Charge/Blink -> fungal
deathball -> fungal
DTs -> fungal
what left that isn't effected much by fungal?
Protoss still needs AoE and getting HT won't help this cause 1 HT will always have to chose between feedback and storm (don't forget Feedback only has a range of 9 that the same as fungal, so most likely feedback can come to late.)
Gateway Armies still won't be able to compete with Midgame Roach/Hydra without Colossus
so colossus will always take priority.
and don't forget corruption (corrupter spell) also increases the damage for the target by additional +20%
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On March 23 2011 03:56 Breach_hu wrote:
First fungal on toss' units are dealing the vs. non-armored damage yes? I mean on the shields. And the first fungal isn't as deadly as the second one. Againts the colo or the immortal its only the 1/3 of their shield.
wat
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Well said sleepingdog. One of the things I'll be scared of now is how damn fast infestors can snipe a whole mineral line. It takes 8sec to kill workers using only fungal wroth. And what's even worse, you can't retreat your workers so once the first Fungal hits they're dead. Better keep a close eye on the minimap.
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On March 23 2011 04:04 ReNhoSoft wrote:
Well said sleepingdog. One of the things I'll be scared of now is how damn fast infestors can snipe a whole mineral line. It takes 8sec to kill workers using only fungal wroth. And what's even worse, you can't retreat your workers so once the first Fungal hits they're dead. Better keep a close eye on the minimap.
To be fair, I can remember back in beta when people would FREAK OUT of the mere thought of banelings raining down onto their mineral-lines wiping out everything.
And how many baneling bombs into mineral lines do we see in PvZ? Uhhm....yeah...I think you got my point 
It does seem good on paper, but one cannon near the wall will reveal burrowed infestors, and dropping infestors seems crazy considering how big of a loss this would be if I noticed it in time and sent my stalkers to the ledge.
Blue flame hellions are far cheaper, deal damage in an even more ridiculous fashion and normally don't "break" games either.
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IMO Infestors won’t be good against Phoenixes anymore. Lifting them will be the easy answer for people who like their Stargate-Robo play.
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On March 23 2011 03:26 ShamTao wrote:
This will pry open the matchup a little bit I feel, and help heal 1a deathball syndrome (of which I am still afflicted. Here's what this may force out of the protoss player:
1) greater unit splits when engaging a zerg and chillin' round the base
2) Colossus micro to nail infestors - Colossi with the range upgrade will outrange fungal, and so there would be a window where the infestor can die giving no damage
3) HT and feedback use- similar to the ghost/HT dance that can occur, there may be a similar result in PvZ from this change between infestor/HT
4) Better scouting for when the infestor tech is thrown up. Zerg players may want to take advantage of infestors in the midgame, but a Protoss player who is wary of this will be able to gauge what the zerg's gas income would be, making 3rd base denial a much more critical endeavor.
On the side, some of the comments in this thread are atrocious. Stopping the 4 gate? do people even know how tech works in this game?
Colossus have the same range as fungal growth. Unless the liquipedia is wrong of course.
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On March 23 2011 03:56 sleepingdog wrote:Show nested quote +On March 23 2011 03:49 Skroach wrote:
This change actually seems a bit over the top because of the big increase vs. armored. Maybe if fungal was the proposed slow projectile from PTR it would be a bit more fair? It's too early to tell now. I've edited something in, but I wanna emphazise this again. I don't necessarily think that such a "hard" counter is bad in itself. I mean, we protoss-players had our good share of hard-counters with the colossus vs hydras...they just melt away, they still do. So having an aoe-spell that is very effective vs pure armored units (read: stalkers) isn't necessarily imba in my eyes. My problem though is, that getting infestors doesn't seem to be much of a "strategical" choice now because infestors are good to have at basicly every point in time. Good vs air, good vs blink, good as an aoe-spell overall. Oh yeah, a hard-counter vs CHARGE as well (even though nobody gets chargelots). I think it will be very possible to counter infestor play with HTs, but still this isn't really a "hard" counter since getting HTs for feedback is really expensive in itself. I still need to get my stalkers/colossi to deal with roach/hydra. So - theory-craft-wise - I don't see a way how I could possibly punish infestor play. Again, not something imbalanced, but something that doesn't seem to be 100% right in a strategy game. A unit that you always wanna have....but I think I'll stop writing now, this is just too much theory-craft. Real games have to show how the stuff works out.
As far as Infestors being so good now as to make them not an interesting strategic choice for zerg, lets take a look at the sentry...
Sentries are almost the same "automatic" decision, probably moreso, as there aren't a whole lot of situations where you don't want to have Sentries, if not for Force Field, at least for Hallucinate, and perhaps for Guardian Shield.
Some units you just get, however there is still strategic choice in how many you get, how soon you get them, and what upgrades you get for them.
If you want to talk strategic choice, how many 10+ minute games do Protoss play where they don't research Warp Gate? What about zergling speed? Just because certain units and upgrades are almost always acquired does not mean that the game is necessarily limiting strategic choice.
Let us not forget that Infestors are still a huge investment and the zerg can only tech to and produce them when they feel safe enough to do so, because getting them opens up a significant timing window where the zerg is very vulnerable. Similar to when a Protoss is getting Colossus except the zerg do not have force fields to aid in the defense while waiting on his infestors.
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On March 23 2011 03:56 sleepingdog wrote:Show nested quote +On March 23 2011 03:49 Skroach wrote:
This change actually seems a bit over the top because of the big increase vs. armored. Maybe if fungal was the proposed slow projectile from PTR it would be a bit more fair? It's too early to tell now. I've edited something in, but I wanna emphazise this again. I don't necessarily think that such a "hard" counter is bad in itself. I mean, we protoss-players had our good share of hard-counters with the colossus vs hydras...they just melt away, they still do. So having an aoe-spell that is very effective vs pure armored units (read: stalkers) isn't necessarily imba in my eyes. My problem though is, that getting infestors doesn't seem to be much of a "strategical" choice now because infestors are good to have at basicly every point in time. Good vs air, good vs blink, good as an aoe-spell overall. Oh yeah, a hard-counter vs CHARGE as well (even though nobody gets chargelots). I think it will be very possible to counter infestor play with HTs, but still this isn't really a "hard" counter since getting HTs for feedback is really expensive in itself. I still need to get my stalkers/colossi to deal with roach/hydra. So - theory-craft-wise - I don't see a way how I could possibly punish infestor play. Again, not something imbalanced, but something that doesn't seem to be 100% right in a strategy game. A unit that you always wanna have....but I think I'll stop writing now, this is just too much theory-craft. Real games have to show how the stuff works out.
I mostly agree, but I disagree on the part about them being good vs air.
FG was nerfed vs phoenix, as the reason to use FG against phoenix was to hold them in place long enough for queen/hydra to kill them. I'm not sure how useful infestors will be against phoenix, but they're definitely less useful than they were in 1.2
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On March 23 2011 04:17 Johnny_Vegas wrote:
As far as Infestors being so good now as to make them not an interesting strategic choice for zerg, lets take a look at the sentry...
I've waited for this and have the perfect answer: sentries suck vs mass-air
Nah, you are obviously right to some extent, some things you just "get" as part of a standard game where no cheese is involved. The problem with fungal now is, that imo it serves too many different purposes overall. The sentry serves the purpose of force-field and that's it. Guardian shield is a different story already.
But fungal does:
a) good damage
b) stop blink
c) prevent charge-lot-play
d) preven air-harass
e) reveal DTs (many people don't even know this)
Now when you think about it, this covers already about 70% of the different strategical choices protoss come up with. You are afraid of DTs mid-game? Having infestors is good. Afraid of blink? Having infestors is good. Afraid of phoenix-harass? Havin infestors is good.
While sentries might be a really strong unit, they serve a very specific purpose that is even tailored to a specific playstyle. Fungal now shuts down a rather broad variety of different strategies, which might criticly influence the meta-game and make the game more boring. Which is even more dangerous than imbalance.
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On March 23 2011 04:10 sleepingdog wrote:Show nested quote +On March 23 2011 04:04 ReNhoSoft wrote:
Well said sleepingdog. One of the things I'll be scared of now is how damn fast infestors can snipe a whole mineral line. It takes 8sec to kill workers using only fungal wroth. And what's even worse, you can't retreat your workers so once the first Fungal hits they're dead. Better keep a close eye on the minimap. To be fair, I can remember back in beta when people would FREAK OUT of the mere thought of banelings raining down onto their mineral-lines wiping out everything. And how many baneling bombs into mineral lines do we see in PvZ? Uhhm....yeah...I think you got my point It does seem good on paper, but one cannon near the wall will reveal burrowed infestors, and dropping infestors seems crazy considering how big of a loss this would be if I noticed it in time and sent my stalkers to the ledge. Blue flame hellions are far cheaper, deal damage in an even more ridiculous fashion and normally don't "break" games either.
Lol, I had forgotten about baneling bombs, I've never seen them used on ladder. I guess you're right, well have to see how the buff actually changes the matchup, because as much fun as theorycrafting can be, its just that, theorycrafting.
One of my frineds was obstinated in getting infestors every single zvp, and most of the time he lost because of it (sometimes he was able to win with just ling/infestor thanks to really superior macro). Maybe now he will be more succesfull with his build, who knows.
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On March 23 2011 04:04 ReNhoSoft wrote:
Well said sleepingdog. One of the things I'll be scared of now is how damn fast infestors can snipe a whole mineral line. It takes 8sec to kill workers using only fungal wroth. And what's even worse, you can't retreat your workers so once the first Fungal hits they're dead. Better keep a close eye on the minimap.
While a strong tactic, not as devastating as it sounds because of the natural spreading that occurs in a mineral line. For a 24 worker line, a fungal often only hits 5 - 7 workers, and you need 2 fungals to kill a worker. I think its more cost effective usually to just spawn infested terran the line unless for some reason the workers are extremely clumped.
In ZvZ I have done many such raids, and Infested Terran were usually the best bet, unless the line was heavily guarded.
That said, if you can catch probes being transferred, fungaling them as they clump up on the first patch is devastating.
Also consider that Infested Terran last for 30 seconds (if not killed), which can equate to a lot of lost mining time if they simply flee their workers. 9 times out of 10 when you spawn infested terran, you kill several workers, THEN they flee their workers, it all adds up to a pretty big economic loss.
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People are talking as if Fungal will auto-kill the Colossi as soon as an Infestor gets in range of it. No… It will just give about 3 seconds of stunning. They will still be able to kite roaches and hydras. Forcefields are still there… What’s the big deal? It seems only good vs the Void Ray-Colossi’s absurdly concentrated 140 supply DPS cluster.
I’m sure Roach-Hydra-Infestor will lose to Zealot-Sentry-Stalker-Colossus just like it always did. If not, then yeah it might be overpowered. It depends how good it is vs Stalkers.
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Fungal now deals 72 damage in 8 seconds, rather than 36 in 8 seconds. This is a massive buff against marines.
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I'm so excited to try out the new patch. It's downloading now!
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On March 23 2011 04:25 sleepingdog wrote:Show nested quote +On March 23 2011 04:17 Johnny_Vegas wrote:
As far as Infestors being so good now as to make them not an interesting strategic choice for zerg, lets take a look at the sentry... I've waited for this and have the perfect answer: sentries suck vs mass-air Nah, you are obviously right to some extent, some things you just "get" as part of a standard game where no cheese is involved. The problem with fungal now is, that imo it serves too many different purposes overall. The sentry serves the purpose of force-field and that's it. Guardian shield is a different story already. But fungal does: a) good damage b) stop blink c) prevent charge-lot-play d) preven air-harass e) reveal DTs (many people don't even know this) Now when you think about it, this covers already about 70% of the different strategical choices protoss come up with. You are afraid of DTs mid-game? Having infestors is good. Afraid of blink? Having infestors is good. Afraid of phoenix-harass? Havin infestors is good. While sentries might be a really strong unit, they serve a very specific purpose that is even tailored to a specific playstyle. Fungal now shuts down a rather broad variety of different strategies, which might criticly influence the meta-game and make the game more boring. Which is even more dangerous than imbalance.
I think it might be a slight overreaction as your list of what fungal does is very similar to fungal in 1.2 with a few differences.
But fungal does:
a) good damage
better than in 1.2
b) stop blink
worse than in 1.2 because of duration nerf
c) prevent charge-lot-play
questionable to waste energy on mineral units unless clumped perfectly, also worse than in 1.2
d) preven air-harass
worse than in 1.2 because of duration nerf, but stronger vs Voids because of damage buff I'd say
e) reveal DTs (many people don't even know this)
much worse than in 1.2 because of duration nerf
Furthermore I think you are downplaying how ubiquitous sentries are in ZvP. If I were to look at the last 20 ZvPs in the GSL would I see a sentry in every single game? Maybe not, but I think it is going to be at least 90%. Even with the infestor buff I don't think we'll see them in 50% of the ZvPs going forward.
That said, you might be right, we might see infestor in every ZvP lasting longer than 10 minutes, but I wouldn't count on it. They come late enough and cost a lot of gas, and are extremely fragile, that I think many players will continue to leave them out.
I am reminded of a LeenockFou game in the GSL where he rushed to 3 infestors and was doing pretty decently, until he took his eyes off his infestors for a second and 6 stimmed marines stormed in and assassinated them all. Thats why its hard for me to see a future where Infestors reign supreme, they conflict with a lot of Zerg player's style.
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Okay, HT without Kaydarin are about as "useful" as Ultralisks and Battlecruisers were so far. I mean, seriously, the risk of losing those 150 gas before even storming (thus totally wasting it) is just so enormously increased now.
Seems it all makes sense now: By making infestors into a lethal threat, Protoss will want to build HTs again for feedback, and then potentially storming as this means that HTs will be present after all. That would turn HT into an important ZvP unit, given that Zergs actually do build more infestors now.
If Protoss reacts like that at all, or just goes for range 9 colossus sniping.
I don't like the effect on TvP though. I always found HT-play in farspread multitasking battles much more amazing than the always-the-same colossus vs viking hunts going on where it's much harder to spread far and make a huge macro game 
On March 23 2011 04:45 Johnny_Vegas wrote:
I am reminded of a LeenockFou game in the GSL where he rushed to 3 infestors and was doing pretty decently, until he took his eyes off his infestors for a second and 6 stimmed marines stormed in and assassinated them all. Thats why its hard for me to see a future where Infestors reign supreme, they conflict with a lot of Zerg player's style.
I think it will be possible for Zerg to combine that one day. you just cannot bind Infestors into your main army group as easily as you could do with T/P units.
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I've been having huge success vs high diamond/master level players pre1.3 patch with a ling baneling play => corrupters + baneling drops => ultralisk.
For my level of play I really feel like i've cracked players who go for the 'death ball'.
Being from the EU, I haven't experienced the infestor buff. However, considering my build leaves me with stockpiled gas, it's very likely i'm going to end up incorporating infestors into my mix. Judging from the general feedback about the infestor buff it seems i'm going to have very little to worry about in PvZ now :/
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Overall it loses it's utility for dts and air (especially since hydras are so slow, you don't have enough time to snipe the phoenix or vr)
I don't think it's overpowered, protoss will just have to change the way they play. You can't just mass the laser death ball and a move anymore, which is important. It's not like storm since it still takes 2.
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Who wants to place bets on if/when this will get nerfed?
I'll add: I hope it won't; but I'm not thrilled about the duration. I've played a few games now where that 4 seconds seemed to end almost instantly and it really makes a big difference when dealing with aerial units and harassment by fast moving ground units.
EDIT: Infestors also run out of energy really fast.
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I was so hoping that the patch comes after GoOdy vs NesTea
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I think this is a step in the right direction. Blizzard needs to make every single spellcaster as overpowered as they were in BW. If this buff is too much, then buff the templar/ghost/raven in return. Units that cast spells need to absolutely wreck a-moved units.
The game is far more interesting when people spread their units and try to hit and run instead of a-moving deathballs towards each other. The dynamic of opposing players trying to snipe and protect their casters needs to happen more.
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On March 23 2011 05:21 Leviance wrote:I was so hoping that the patch comes after GoOdy vs NesTea
tbh I bet they played pre patch already. I would be surprised if they haven't played yet
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Several things I noticed from playing a grand total of 2 ZvPs in this new patch!
First is there is a certain calm when protoss is gearing up for an attack and you have 4+ infestors. If you hit 6 stalkers with a single fungal that is an extra 276 damage in 4 game seconds! You just overall feel better about the midgame. Top that onto the fact that infestor + broodlord combos are awesome, and you have a pretty nice developing zvp army.
Second, you get to poke protoss more now if they aren't paying attention. Protoss always had the ability to poke zerg with colossus forcefield combinations. Now having a long range damage spell gives you a taste of that ability. I mean this was true pre-patch as well but the severely decreased fungal time allows for an extremely efficient chain damage.
Lastly, it is new. People love using new things so perhaps that is the reason why fungal makes me giddy.
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Might be a reason to drop a Templar Archives in PvZ now.
I recently started laddering again and have been trying to use a lot of Infestors. Fungal was an awesome spell before, and I think it'll be even better now, especially in ZvZ. ZvZ Roach Infestor was my go-to because of how well Infestors can deal with Roaches (And of course, zergling/baneling), 36 damage may not seem like a whole lot, but it adds up.
Looking forward to trying these changes out.
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How many fungals does it take to kill sentries? Can I spam 2 rounds of fungal on the ball, and then hit them with baneling + ling? Or does it take 4 fungals or something to kill sentries?
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On March 23 2011 05:43 Newguy wrote:
How many fungals does it take to kill sentries? Can I spam 2 rounds of fungal on the ball, and then hit them with baneling + ling? Or does it take 4 fungals or something to kill sentries?
Sentries have 80HP so 3 fungals I guess. That is a scary thought though.
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I agree with sleepingdog...
I cant see infestors becoming overpowered in ZvP, against a normal 3 gate expand with hallu scouting, a protoss should be able to scout the infestation pit, notice that zerg is saving gas and know whats coming. A templar opening instead of a colossus opening seems to make more sense, you dont have to research feedback and it has a pretty good cast range that can compete with fungal growth.
It takes 3 fungals to kill a sentry if you hit them all consecutively, protoss players will have to be more careful about moving out early....
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its probably the best change since beta:
1. infestor more viable
2. ht more viable to counter infestor
3. zerg no longer has a rediculously hard time versus deathball
4. zerg has a game changing spell like storm and emp.
protoss can counter this by spreading units and using feedback... same as ghost counter which has worked fine hence protoss not getting rolled in every pro PvT.
i'd go as far as saying that this change makes zerg feel 'right'. they just didn't feel right before... they didn't really have an easy reply to "big 200/200 a-move ball".
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On March 23 2011 04:00 freetgy wrote:
protoss can't tech to HTs to counter Infestors at least not on 2 bases, while Zerg surely can afford getting infestors on 2 bases.
Infestor right now is a unit that is almost good against anything Protoss could throw at you.
Air Units -> Fungal
Charge/Blink -> fungal
deathball -> fungal
DTs -> fungal
what left that isn't effected much by fungal?
Protoss still needs AoE and getting HT won't help this cause 1 HT will always have to chose between feedback and storm (don't forget Feedback only has a range of 9 that the same as fungal, so most likely feedback can come to late.)
Gateway Armies still won't be able to compete with Midgame Roach/Hydra without Colossus
so colossus will always take priority.
and don't forget corruption (corrupter spell) also increases the damage for the target by additional +20%
You most surely cannot afford infestors on 2base unless you forgo the spire. I think the infestor change is decent but is highly overexaggerated at this point. You use make infestors --> fungal --> useless infestor afterwards. If the Protoss army isn't somehow constantly fungaled, it won't have been effected considering the toss will just regen their shields.
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The infestor change will actually help quite a bit against 2 basing protosses. While zerg is taking the whole map and Protoss is making his death ball (wether it is Voidray/Colossus or Colossus/Stalker doesnt matter), you are now allowed to take additional gases on those extra bases (which before didnt make too much sense, because you were usually more mineral heavy on units) ignoring the minerals on those in the first place. Protoss has to get Hightemplars to deal with infestors but thats not really an option staying on two base while also trying to make a deathball.
Basically you have to try harder to get a macro game now as Protoss instead of hardcore 2 basing. I thought it was quite doable for Zerg before (via counterattacking only..) but since everyone was crying so hard for a change, here it is. Nothing that actually changed something in the matchup itself, just helping zergs out to make a "counter" more obvious or lets say easier.
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On March 23 2011 06:02 moonylo wrote:
The infestor change will actually help quite a bit against 2 basing protosses. While zerg is taking the whole map and Protoss is making his death ball (wether it is Voidray/Colossus or Colossus/Stalker doesnt matter), you are now allowed to take additional gases on those extra bases (which before didnt make too much sense, because you were usually more mineral heavy on units) ignoring the minerals on those in the first place. Protoss has to get Hightemplars to deal with infestors but thats not really an option staying on two base while also trying to make a deathball.
Basically you have to try harder to get a macro game now as Protoss instead of hardcore 2 basing. I thought it was quite doable for Zerg before (via counterattacking only..) but since everyone was crying so hard for a change, here it is. Nothing that actually changed something in the matchup itself, just helping zergs out to make a "counter" more obvious or lets say easier.
Nono, you're always limited by gas. There's no "you had enough gas." If you had more gas you'd just go heavier on the corrupter count and lower on the hydra.
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On March 23 2011 03:41 sleepingdog wrote:
What I really don't like is that infestors now seem to be good....ALWAYS, nearly similar to the colossus. They are godlike vs air harass, are good vs blink and are now even generally awsome aoe-damage-dealers. Not necessarily OP but definitely a too broad spectrum of usefulness. Right now I couldn't think of a situation where you "don't" want to have infestors.
Zerg right now has trouble with "guessing games", determining the right units to make to counter what the opponent is doing. Infestors being useful in all cases thus isn't too bad, as long as they're not optimal in all cases.
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might actually get to see the Zerg deathball (Infestors + Broodlords) in a ZvP pro match now
it was also very very good pre-patch 1.3, but I don't think there was ever a pro match that showcased it since the Zerg player needed to completely outclass his opponent to be able to get out a sufficient number of high energy infestors & broodlords to show its strength
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I think we'll see a lot more colossus and HT in PvZ now (not that there wasn't a fairly high amount already). Colossus somewhat, and especially high templar just dominate infestors. The thing with colossus and infestors is you just need 3 colos (assuming at least 1 attack upgrade) to 1 shot numerous infestors.
Also when zerg has infestors in their army, they aree using so much gas it will be harder for them to get any corruptors.
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On March 23 2011 07:52 Ribbon wrote:Show nested quote +On March 23 2011 03:41 sleepingdog wrote:
What I really don't like is that infestors now seem to be good....ALWAYS, nearly similar to the colossus. They are godlike vs air harass, are good vs blink and are now even generally awsome aoe-damage-dealers. Not necessarily OP but definitely a too broad spectrum of usefulness. Right now I couldn't think of a situation where you "don't" want to have infestors. Zerg right now has trouble with "guessing games", determining the right units to make to counter what the opponent is doing. Infestors being useful in all cases thus isn't too bad, as long as they're not optimal in all cases.
true I agree with this. They are still great vs light and now are good vs armor. But like Idra said, it is not a gamebreaking unit. The damage is there but it is nothing compared to what the Toss Death Ball is.
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I like this because it forces toss to get templars and arcons. Rather than just "a" clicking a deathball, they have to use a lil more micro...as zerg armys are already base on flanking etc. I don't think the infestor is OP. Its fair against toss. Nothing says they can't make arcons and templars them selves. Bc we all know storm and arcons rape zerg units. Mixing in a few tempars with an army will be more important.
I think infestors really hurt in zvz, when you are facing mutas. Fungal was a very good cast with the ability to hold mutas for either infested terran or hydras to get there in time for support. My first game with this patch was a zvz. I'm 3.1k diamond and I went muta and he went infestor like 8-10 infestors. Because of the fungal only lasting 4 seconds I was more than able to fly away and continue harassing between his expo and main. His hydras could not get over in time. In addition with a 8second fungal he would have easily ripped my mutas with the infested terran he was throwing down. But I was more than able to run away with not getting hit. So for zerg I think they will have such a hard time winning a muta race where once mutas get in really large numbers it may be too hard to stop.
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i dont think it will make so much differance.a death ball is a death ball.and collos in high numbers still will own all zerg ground army.and zerg will switch to corropters then toss will switch more stalker heavy army.story cont..
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here in EU i tryed the infestor play against a Toss friend and id raped him with speed roaches. Fungel an Collossus and he is down, or neural parasite on collossus. and its fine, fungal versus his everything and roach lings kill.
i think the patch bring alot of dynamic into the game, infestor will be seen very often 
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On March 23 2011 08:38 Tumor wrote:here in EU i tryed the infestor play against a Toss friend and id raped him with speed roaches. Fungel an Collossus and he is down, or neural parasite on collossus. and its fine, fungal versus his everything and roach lings kill. i think the patch bring alot of dynamic into the game, infestor will be seen very often
sweet. Looking forward to a new meta game. tired of making corruptors to kill collossus only to be later rolled by stalkers.
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On March 23 2011 08:38 Tumor wrote:here in EU i tryed the infestor play against a Toss friend and id raped him with speed roaches. Fungel an Collossus and he is down, or neural parasite on collossus. and its fine, fungal versus his everything and roach lings kill. i think the patch bring alot of dynamic into the game, infestor will be seen very often
if your opponent is letting colos getting Neural Parasited I think that is your problem. Roaches are only 4 range, stalkers are 6 range and can have blink and deal bonus damage vs armored, which makes them very good for killing infestors
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On March 23 2011 08:29 RimJaynor wrote:
I like this because it forces toss to get templars and arcons. Rather than just "a" clicking a deathball, they have to use a lil more micro...as zerg armys are already base on flanking etc. I don't think the infestor is OP. Its fair against toss. Nothing says they can't make arcons and templars them selves. Bc we all know storm and arcons rape zerg units. Mixing in a few tempars with an army will be more important.
I think infestors really hurt in zvz, when you are facing mutas. Fungal was a very good cast with the ability to hold mutas for either infested terran or hydras to get there in time for support. My first game with this patch was a zvz. I'm 3.1k diamond and I went muta and he went infestor like 8-10 infestors. Because of the fungal only lasting 4 seconds I was more than able to fly away and continue harassing between his expo and main. His hydras could not get over in time. In addition with a 8second fungal he would have easily ripped my mutas with the infested terran he was throwing down. But I was more than able to run away with not getting hit. So for zerg I think they will have such a hard time winning a muta race where once mutas get in really large numbers it may be too hard to stop.
If he has 8 infestors he should have easily gotten a second fungal off?
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if your opponent is letting colos getting Neural Parasited I think that is your problem. Roaches are only 4 range, stalkers are 6 range and can have blink and deal bonus damage vs armored, which makes them very good for killing infestors
I think the question is, against the colsi/stalker ball with roach/infester. Are you going to lead with your stalkers and have your colsi in the back, in which case you will get fungaled over and over again. Or are you going to bring up your colsi and keep those infesters from fungaling, but open yourself up to some NP play?
Remember FG has a range of 9, which is equal to a colsi with the range upgrade, so if your colsi arnt in the front of your army, he can fungal you without getting in range.
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Does the damage for fungal stack or is it like storm in that respect?
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@Karn3
Its like storm (doesnt stack), but like storm, you can just wait for it to finish and start it again.
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Personally, I am a bit discouraged! Yeah you heard me! As a protoss player I already felt that the PvZ matchup was already zerg favored since zergs found out how to deal with the death ball. They also started to use banelings/lings based strategies that were quite good vs toss. I fear that these nerf to protoss and the buffs to infestors might make the PvZ zerg imba by far. Anyhow, let's see how the game develops!
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On March 23 2011 08:45 obsid wrote:Show nested quote +if your opponent is letting colos getting Neural Parasited I think that is your problem. Roaches are only 4 range, stalkers are 6 range and can have blink and deal bonus damage vs armored, which makes them very good for killing infestors I think the question is, against the colsi/stalker ball with roach/infester. Are you going to lead with your stalkers and have your colsi in the back, in which case you will get fungaled over and over again. Or are you going to bring up your colsi and keep those infesters from fungaling, but open yourself up to some NP play? Remember FG has a range of 9, which is equal to a colsi with the range upgrade, so if your colsi arnt in the front of your army, he can fungal you without getting in range.
This isn't viable whatsoever, the stalkers just simply shoot the infestors in this case, or the other colossus 3shot the existing infestor that's using NP. It simply won't happen.
On March 23 2011 08:57 Pureprotoss wrote:
Personally, I am a bit discouraged! Yeah you heard me! As a protoss player I already felt that the PvZ matchup was already zerg favored since zergs found out how to deal with the death ball. They also started to use banelings/lings based strategies that were quite good vs toss. I fear that these nerf to protoss and the buffs to infestors might make the PvZ zerg imba by far. Anyhow, let's see how the game develops!
I assure you that most of the community disagrees with you on this matter of it being Z favored prior 1.03.
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I assure you that most of the community disagrees with you on this matter of it being Z favored prior 1.03.
Well I am a 3100 master toss and it seems like zerg always gets the best on me. If I can't pylon their expo in time I feel I should just leave since they will be so far ahead and will roflstomp me 2mins later with mass roaches. The mass sentries expand does not seem strong enough to hold since they will just go for mass hydra or mutas after the early mass roach aggression.
I mean...maybe I just don't understand the basic of this matchup but I fear the new infestor change. It is going to be so hard for toss now. The worst will definatly be the mass mutas that will be near unstoppable without KA...
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Well, I was a Zerg until yesterday after noon, now I'm Protoss, and I'm truly not very afraid of this infestor buff...
If a Zerg is getting infestors, he's making a pretty damn big gas investment on units that aren't hydras. And what with the stun only lasting 4 seconds, why the hell wouldn't I just do stargate play? You can't support a spire AND an infestation pit without minimum 6 geisers...
I don't know why other Zergs think we're going to blindly make Colossus against Infestors... If you don't have the gas for hydras, our Colossus aren't really that cost effective. I can easily make a robo, use my observer to see what you're doing, and start pumping out Immortals. Immortals both counter roaches which is what your ground army will primarily consist of AND aren't too succeptible even to the new Fungal Growth.
I think it was a good buff, but it definitely doesn't put Zerg over the top and scared in my boots. Or for that matter: have me running back to Zerg.
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maybe protoss's will start having to use their brain to think of how to beat zerg now...
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On March 23 2011 09:05 Pureprotoss wrote:Show nested quote +I assure you that most of the community disagrees with you on this matter of it being Z favored prior 1.03. Well I am a 3100 master toss and it seems like zerg always gets the best on me. If I can't pylon their expo in time I feel I should just leave since they will be so far ahead and will roflstomp me 2mins later with mass roaches. The mass sentries expand does not seem strong enough to hold since they will just go for mass hydra or mutas after the early mass roach aggression. I mean...maybe I just don't understand the basic of this matchup but I fear the new infestor change. It is going to be so hard for toss now. The worst will definatly be the mass mutas that will be near unstoppable without KA...
Then just cannon rush them? That's what 80% of the toss do. I'm not sure if you're trying to display your credentials either, but I'm a 3900 Zerg, so if anything that backfires on you^. Not sure how in the world massing roaches right after you expand isn't an all-in you should just hold off and counter, anyways. When you're expanding I'm droning up as hard as possible with speedlings, then just focusing afterwards on holding off any potential 6gates (or the more now common 5gate) pushes that occur afterwards.
And the infestor change won't affect mutas very much, which are already incredibly gas intensive. Not like muta tech isn't getting countered by 6gate or phoenix tech at the moment anyways.
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On March 23 2011 09:00 FabledIntegral wrote:
This isn't viable whatsoever, the stalkers just simply shoot the infestors in this case, or the other colossus 3shot the existing infestor that's using NP. It simply won't happen.
Well the infesters have a range of 6, while infesters FG has a range of 9 (and a 2 radus). So that makes it hard to kill well microed infesters without blinking at them before they get FG off against the ball (although they may not be able to get a max fungal at range 7 against a very tight stalker ball that doesnt matter as much). And if they do blink forward, you got a bunch of roaches there, just FG as many as you can burrow and run away, and let your roaches chew them up (and maybe drop some IT as they are fungaled and cant blink away for a while).
If the colsi are out in front, you just dont NP 1 of the colsi, you NP all of the colsi in front at the same time. Then there are no colsi left to 3 shot your infesters. (All good toss will blink forward with thier stalkers at this point, so be ready for that and try to land at least 1-2 FG after you NP, so they cant blink forward together making your roaches more powerful).
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Then just cannon rush them? That's what 80% of the toss do. I'm not sure if you're trying to display your credentials either, but I'm a 3900 Zerg, so if anything that backfires on you^. Not sure how in the world massing roaches right after you expand isn't an all-in you should just hold off and counter, anyways. When you're expanding I'm droning up as hard as possible with speedlings, then just focusing afterwards on holding off any potential 6gates (or the more now common 5gate) pushes that occur afterwards.
I agree with you that I could canon rush his expo if hes going hatch first...however, any competent zerg player will have a OV over his natural to prevent it and then he will just pull drones...Thats if he doesnt already have an OV over your base to see what is going on!
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I don't know about this. I always felt that deathball is the way Protoss is supposed to play to make up for their obvious weaknesses in the match up. The lack of mobility and cost ineffectiveness of T1 units makes it so hard to match Z expanding in the midgame if he is aggressive with his speedlings/banelings or roaches.
I thought Z had found a fairly reliable strategy in what Ret did to win Assembly. Denying Protoss their third base with multipronged attacks while expanding aggressively and pressuring until there's no more sentry energy. Having 5 bases to 2 in the end and flattening the Toss when the roaches and lings break through.
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ZERG OP ZERG OP ! I feel a lot better now
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On March 23 2011 09:30 FabledIntegral wrote:Show nested quote +On March 23 2011 09:05 Pureprotoss wrote:I assure you that most of the community disagrees with you on this matter of it being Z favored prior 1.03. Well I am a 3100 master toss and it seems like zerg always gets the best on me. If I can't pylon their expo in time I feel I should just leave since they will be so far ahead and will roflstomp me 2mins later with mass roaches. The mass sentries expand does not seem strong enough to hold since they will just go for mass hydra or mutas after the early mass roach aggression. I mean...maybe I just don't understand the basic of this matchup but I fear the new infestor change. It is going to be so hard for toss now. The worst will definatly be the mass mutas that will be near unstoppable without KA... Then just cannon rush them?
You're assuming they went Forge first, which is completely map dependent.
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My last 10 protoss games have all had me have no need whatsoever to make anything but roaches and queens until tier 3. Hopefully now you'll be able to fix it up, considering hydralisks simply fail at being viable by lategame.
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good. zerg needs something to stop that damn deathball.now protoss has to stop us from getting certain tech too.
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Viability of HTs now?
Maybe using phoenix with voids or alone to snipe?
DT's to snipe?
I dunno, as a toss I'm worried. Hopefully someone will have an answer. I guess toss air may be the way to go for now.
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High templars will be very useful in this situation.
I think high templars will be very useful in PvZ, than in PvT.
It seems that high templars are useless, except for feed-backing infestors. Well, that's the point. You feed-back. You can still warp-in feed-back!. The next major thing you want to do it morph archons.
Archons serve at least 4 different major purposes:
a) They destroy light units. Your zerglings are incredibly useless when archons get the +3 weapons because they get a lot of extra damage instead of +1/+2.
b) They can easily tank all ground units, and it takes a lot of fungals to kill an archon due to the archon's psionic nature.
c) They're hard-hitting tanks. They can tank baneling fire, pop up filled-overlords due to clumped up splash damage, and destroy/tank broodlings easily.
d) They're also great against ultralisks.
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This change may seem OP at first, but I think it will actually help PvZ evolve a ton. Before, essentially all PvZ games were Colossi/Stalker balls against Roach, Hydra, Corrupter. Now, with Infestors being a strong counter to that, there will be a reason for more stargate and templar play, something that PvZ needed desperately. And the stun duration being reduced to 4 seconds also helps encourage more templar and stargate since DTs will be revealed for a shorter period of time and air will be held in place for nowhere near long enough fro ITs to clean them up (unless you use multiple fungals of course). On paper, this should actually make PvZ an extremely balanced and versatile match up. It will just be interesting to see how this is balanced in ZvZ and ZvT, since it seems like it will make Infestors extremely strong in ZvZ and much less useful in ZvT.
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Infestor > HT.
Many reasons for this.
Larger AoE on Fungal.
Infestors are faster and have a mobile stealth ability.
Fungal does not harm friendly units while Storm does. One of the reasons Storm sucks in PvP is that it hurts your own units like Zealots. Among other things like you will die if you try to tech to storm.
It is much harder to Storm an army back to back than it is to Fungal back to back. Once you trap an army with Fungal you can Fungal them to death and they can do nothing about it. With Storm you can always retreat from the slow Templar and maneuver around them.
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On March 23 2011 09:53 Barca wrote:Show nested quote +On March 23 2011 09:30 FabledIntegral wrote:On March 23 2011 09:05 Pureprotoss wrote:I assure you that most of the community disagrees with you on this matter of it being Z favored prior 1.03. Well I am a 3100 master toss and it seems like zerg always gets the best on me. If I can't pylon their expo in time I feel I should just leave since they will be so far ahead and will roflstomp me 2mins later with mass roaches. The mass sentries expand does not seem strong enough to hold since they will just go for mass hydra or mutas after the early mass roach aggression. I mean...maybe I just don't understand the basic of this matchup but I fear the new infestor change. It is going to be so hard for toss now. The worst will definatly be the mass mutas that will be near unstoppable without KA... Then just cannon rush them? You're assuming they went Forge first, which is completely map dependent.
No, I'm not. I don't know what level you're playing at, but most Protosses I play will go gateway --> forge, chrono the first zealot out, which reaches your base right BEFORE your Zerglings pop unless cross positions. The forge is building while the pylon you're cannon rushing is making simultaneously. Yeah, shit finishes later, but that's why you have the zealot incoming. It is not dependent whatsoever on forge first.
On March 23 2011 09:36 Pureprotoss wrote:Show nested quote +Then just cannon rush them? That's what 80% of the toss do. I'm not sure if you're trying to display your credentials either, but I'm a 3900 Zerg, so if anything that backfires on you^. Not sure how in the world massing roaches right after you expand isn't an all-in you should just hold off and counter, anyways. When you're expanding I'm droning up as hard as possible with speedlings, then just focusing afterwards on holding off any potential 6gates (or the more now common 5gate) pushes that occur afterwards. I agree with you that I could canon rush his expo if hes going hatch first...however, any competent zerg player will have a OV over his natural to prevent it and then he will just pull drones...Thats if he doesnt already have an OV over your base to see what is going on!
How is this relevant? The cannon rushing still typically wins even when the zerg knows the cannon rushing is going on the moment the pylon is placed before the Zerg even sees the cannons. Please... comment if you know how the cannon rushes actually happen.
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On March 23 2011 18:02 FabledIntegral wrote:Show nested quote +On March 23 2011 09:53 Barca wrote:On March 23 2011 09:30 FabledIntegral wrote:On March 23 2011 09:05 Pureprotoss wrote:I assure you that most of the community disagrees with you on this matter of it being Z favored prior 1.03. Well I am a 3100 master toss and it seems like zerg always gets the best on me. If I can't pylon their expo in time I feel I should just leave since they will be so far ahead and will roflstomp me 2mins later with mass roaches. The mass sentries expand does not seem strong enough to hold since they will just go for mass hydra or mutas after the early mass roach aggression. I mean...maybe I just don't understand the basic of this matchup but I fear the new infestor change. It is going to be so hard for toss now. The worst will definatly be the mass mutas that will be near unstoppable without KA... Then just cannon rush them? You're assuming they went Forge first, which is completely map dependent. No, I'm not. I don't know what level you're playing at, but most Protosses I play will go gateway --> forge, chrono the first zealot out, which reaches your base right BEFORE your Zerglings pop unless cross positions. The forge is building while the pylon you're cannon rushing is making simultaneously. Yeah, shit finishes later, but that's why you have the zealot incoming. It is not dependent whatsoever on forge first.
3600 Masters, you're probably playing at a higher level. I'm definitely going to start cannon blocking a hatch first, since it's damn near impossible to play PvZ when they get away with such a fast expo.
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EPT
