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On February 26 2013 04:51 MrMatt wrote:Just put this up for the HOTS white-ra is everywhere contest and thought it might lighten the mood a bit here. + Show Spoiler +
That photoshop is absolutely epic. The only way it could be better is if the car's license plate said "Special Tactics."
Anyways, as for the topic at hand, I doubt Blizzard will make any sort of gameplay mechanic change at this point...because they've proven themselves to be incredibly hesitant to introduce any sort of new ideas, new mechanics or revamps of old units throughout the HotS beta. They're either going to do a supply nerf to the Tempest or something minor like a range buff for the Hydralisk, an hp buff for the Hydralisk, or some sort of damage increase for the corruptor.
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I would love to a decrease in the hydra model size, makes them better at fighting up choke points.
Then skytoss will be much harder to get.
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On February 26 2013 05:56 Cheerio wrote:Show nested quote +On February 26 2013 04:11 Grapefruit wrote:On February 26 2013 04:09 Henk wrote:
Perhaps having a hive upgrade for hydras that gives +3 range against air?
Something similar has been suggested here, but that was vs air and ground, which might be a bit too much.
Backing off after void rays popped their charge just isn't worth it, because tempests+voidrays will have gotten so many shots off, your army will be too weak to attack again before another the cooldown has been reset.
Maybe allowing blinding cloud to affect air units would help? I really would prefer 1 Supply Hydras with Dark Swarm. autocasted by hydras?
No, of course not.
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On February 26 2013 14:36 ETisME wrote:
I would love to a decrease in the hydra model size, makes them better at fighting up choke points.
Then skytoss will be much harder to get.
This would be a nerf to z, more damage from storms and colossus now.
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I think blizz should go new ways in creating units. For instance: Awesome unit.
I guess if a hydralisk could use a corrupter as a mount, many disadvantages of the hydra would vanish: 1. Its basically an air unit (colossi cannot harm it), 2. the corrupter tanks for the hydra. To balance this new unit, both hydra and corrupter should get damaged by psi storm.
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On February 25 2013 06:14 osiris17 wrote:Show nested quote +On February 25 2013 05:52 CoR wrote:finaly zerg need skill to win and instant every zerg cry about imbalance ... the end of the patchzergs  sound like part 3 of a movie i am mid master and i can tell you there ARE zergs who CRUSH! it, and others who not even try and flame nonstop ... i like that they removed from high ranks REALLY much because only smart guys have to be there Mid master is not a high rank... I'd like to know how turtling and massing up a deathball then A moving with an unbeatable army can be called skill. And when there is no unit composition to counter said army, that's not a skill issue either.... Maybe someone is bitter from losing ZvT alot? : D
May be surviving until that moment is a skill??
Like in ZvP in WOL holding off all those timings and scouting them right until you got BL?
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A 200/200 skytoss army is ALWAYS going to annihilate the Zerg army, no matter the composition. The only way to defeat skytoss is to out macro them by taking much more bases (5 to 3), and trade armies with them, because you would always have and econ advantage to keep re-maxing while skytoss takes quite a while to max out on. also pretty expensive. Your trades doesn't necessarily have to be cost- efficient as long as it is not totally one sided. If you do let them max out, the game is practically over.
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Just some observations;
Despite the amount of well constructed arguments that are being put forward in this thread, we are still yet to see a viable way to balance this. I will admit, despite how strong my composition and tactics can be against Skytoss, being forced to go one build, which can be very easily countered once it is well known, is simply ridiculous.
So to all you people who aren't contributing to an interesting debate, and have instead decided to moan about it being OP, suggest a way to fix it.
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On February 26 2013 23:58 rebOrn3 wrote:
A 200/200 skytoss army is ALWAYS going to annihilate the Zerg army, no matter the composition. The only way to defeat skytoss is to out macro them by taking much more bases (5 to 3), and trade armies with them, because you would always have and econ advantage to keep re-maxing while skytoss takes quite a while to max out on. also pretty expensive. Your trades doesn't necessarily have to be cost- efficient as long as it is not totally one sided. If you do let them max out, the game is practically over.
which is fine. but since P needs 4 base for the ultimate army its more like 6:4 bases and right now the zerg does not even closely trade in that ratio. thats the whole problem. nobody is asking that a 6 base zerg army needs to trade even with a 4 base toss army. but it needs to trade cost efficient enough which isnt the case AT ALL right now.
On February 27 2013 02:02 TheNewerBakery wrote:
Just some observations;
Despite the amount of well constructed arguments that are being put forward in this thread, we are still yet to see a viable way to balance this. I will admit, despite how strong my composition and tactics can be against Skytoss, being forced to go one build, which can be very easily countered once it is well known, is simply ridiculous.
So to all you people who aren't contributing to an interesting debate, and have instead decided to moan about it being OP, suggest a way to fix it.
already showed you several times that once he builds some immos/archons to protect his HT your army loses horribly, so no you composition isnt strong vs good players.
to fix this at first lower tempest damage vs massive so you can involve some BLs again and buff hydras. they are an insanely bad unit even in midgame get countered by blinkstalker. they need at least +20 hp, maybe even more and 6 base range (+hp as hive upgrade).
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the thing is mass void can probably be countered by mass muta, but once u have 3-4 arcons, mass muta + ultra will still lose. The thing is it is almost impossible to engage a skytoss army that has arcon support. Clearly you would need infestors. but even with them it isn't easy
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On February 27 2013 02:02 TheNewerBakery wrote:
Just some observations;
Despite the amount of well constructed arguments that are being put forward in this thread, we are still yet to see a viable way to balance this. I will admit, despite how strong my composition and tactics can be against Skytoss, being forced to go one build, which can be very easily countered once it is well known, is simply ridiculous.
So to all you people who aren't contributing to an interesting debate, and have instead decided to moan about it being OP, suggest a way to fix it.
Actually sums up my thoughts fairly well. My current thinking for potential Zerg AA buffs without going nuts would be:
- Hydralisk starts with +1 range (Happy to get into the details about WHY if needed. Mainly, helps mid-game vs. Terran compositions without having to nerf the early game advantage Reapers give into the ground. Also makes Hydras more viable as effective defensive units vs. early pushes. Leads into my next proposal on why it's relevant to Skytoss.)
- Grooved Spines moved to Hive tech and improved to give Hydras +2 Range (Hydras are now able to effectively add DPS to late-game Zerg compositions)
- Corruption changed to an ability similar to Spirit Link from WC3 which chains units together, sharing damage across them all (effectively gives Zerg an AOE way to deal with massed air without requiring complete re-designs of units)
With these changes you'd see improvements on the holes that the Infestor previously filled in WoL (which made it too strong) while not making any one strategy too powerful from the Zerg.
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On February 25 2013 22:16 looken wrote:Sleep vs First (GSTL)it's set 4, you have to manually change it (or i was just too stupid to post the correct link...-.-) this game doesnt show the actual skytoss deathball, but something quite close to it. watching this game i really dont understand how people keep arguing it's hard to get to skytoss "deathball". in this game sleeps 2nd and 3rd get delayed quite a bit, but then again, there's not much you can do about that. he takes a decent amount of damage from the phenixes but no direct eco dmg (he loses two queens right away and a 3rd one later, so you can argue he had less eco because he couldnt inject as much as he wanted, but thats about it). he delays toss 3rd, he is ahead in bases (he's on 4 bases all game long even when his initial 4th gets sniped he's got two other bases up already), he's ahead in upgrades, he prevents toss from taking a 4th (yeah it gets up, but no gas is mined there), and he trades quite well against the colosus before VR HT comes into play. but still toss get's out a couple of VR on his 3 bases with HT support. toss got no bank, but then again, once he engages with his army, he doesnt really need a bank. he just crushes through the zerg army. watch the engagement happen at around 24:12. yeah the locusts come in late but they would have been exactely where the stoms hit anyway. the corruptors melt within seconds against the VRs, so do the hydras against storm. yeah the storms are great, yeah sleep doesnt walk out of them, but then again, if he wants to do dmg to the toss army, he needs to go in and he will ultimately eat storms. now of course you can argue, his composition wasnt all that great with all those SH, but then again, they where the only thing that allowed him to put any kind of pressure on the toss. but once there are VR with some HT there's just no way he can trade his army costefficiently and transition out of it. now maybe i'm "analysing" this game completely wrong, so please enlighten me if i'm completely off point. but this just seems strange to me.
This game is no skytoss. It's a regular pvz where the protoss started to add in more and more voidrays in the lategame. There are no carriers or tempests in there and it's far from what people write about just immediately making the skytoss army with just massing canons at their natural and third base. I'd be interested how you would hold swarm host pushes then.
I think you missed the important thing right at the start when the protoss delayed the expansions of the zerg. Whenever I did this in WOL, every zerg immediately allined me of one base. The zerg in this game had a terrible eco going into the midgame. First the huge delay, then making too many units early on vs phoenix and not being prepared for the phoenix. This didn't make up for the delay on the 3rd base of the protoss. The supplies were kinda even at this point where zerg should be ahead.
This game just shows how strong swarm host pushes are in the midgame and how strong void rays are in the lategame pvz. This is not really a ultimate skytoss deathball or anything. In both end engagements the zerg basically bathed in those storms, not moving anything out, in the last engagement even moving the broodlords in. The protoss only had those few storms and no aoe anymore afterwards.
So everyone seems to lose vs it and it seems to be so super easy to get but nobody has replays to post? Everyone knows that voidrays are really good now in pvz, but that's far from the unit composition described in this thread. And the moment you add in carriers etc the zerg has a long time to react and adjust his unit composition. It's not like carriers just suddenly hit the field. They take 120+32sec each. Mass corruptor will rape tempests and carriers but not voids, but that can be scouted.
Until I see it with my own eyes I believe in that the strongest way for protoss to play in HOTS pvz is to go for a ground based solid army (especially after phoenix opening due to mutas now being even stronger and stargate units more viable in general) and then slowly when the game allows adding more and more air into your composition.
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What if the corruptors increased damage ability stacked it would help against big health targets but with good micro you would be able to focus down multiple targets at once.
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On February 26 2013 04:43 The_Darkness wrote:Show nested quote +On February 25 2013 20:40 Fairwell wrote:
I find these threads so strange. I play hots at masters and also watch streams on a daily basis but yet when I see a pvz hardly anyone tries to go for this ultimate mass air composition. WhiteRa uses it a lot (he did also in WOL vs zerg) but I mostly just see him dying while trying to get there. I would love if people would actually stop theorycrafting and provide replays of where "it's unbeatable and nothing can be done".
I personally never use it and just play regular macro pvz games (added voids/phoenix from one stargate and double stargate vs mass muta) and the matchup is so much better now. Zerg midgame options are really strong now (2base hydra-ling speed hydras into mutas, swarm host pushes with spores etc) but so much more dynamic and fun to play. There is no timer until (13-15min mark make your 3 base allin push with 1-2 prism when he tries to get his broodlords out).
I just don't see how this composition with hts + mass air can be unbeatable because there are some distinct differences to broodlord-corruptor-infestor from WOL zerg. It takes way more time to transition into. Air upgrades needed while zerg went for 3/3 melee/carapace which also were useful for his ground units; broodlords with +3 melee do the main dps, even if there is +0 air attack still so transitioning back into ground or having speedlings as a bonus was natural. Also remaxing with broodlords didn't take so long because you either morph corruptors into broods (38sec) or corruptors first into broods (74sec). Tempests take 70sec (from each stargate), carriers 120sec(+32sec for interceptors) and voidrays 60sec. Unless you have like 20-30 stargates you need several cycles. Getting more bases for gas and making a good canon wall is more expensive and takes more time. A protoss has it harder (that is it takes longer) to get 8+ gases so early and canons can't be moved or healed (transfuse).
So what if you get there? Ht's on the ground are not protected as infestors are with broodlords. Broodlords instantly (also automatically) made a huge broodling-wall so you can't just run chargelots to the infestors or feedback them (broodlords have higher range). Tempests have even higher range but they do really low dps and massively overkill. How will you stop a group of 50-60 speedlings or ultras running in to force storms/archon merges with the speed tehy have. Maybe have of the linsg will die beforehand. So he actually needs more ground support (archons/colossi etc). Tempests also do super low dps (9.09 vs non broodlords), that's less than a stalker. Add on top of that their massive overkill and it takes forever to actually kill mass ground. So if tempests are massed you just overrun him. If he has carriers use corruptors or fg (interceptors caught stop doing dps) or hydras (dimaga always used hydras with hold position to kill interceptors). I just don't see the amazing synergy. Tempests do super low dps (and nobody goes broods vs mass tempests) and overkill, hts can be sniped because they are not protected (like burrow moving and snaring infestors behind a wall of broodlings that tank and prevent any ground movement there).
Maybe I missed something important. But that's why I'd love to see some good replays (high level play). I'm sure one of you can help here out since you all see it used nearly every game to great success.
I'll personally stick with ground anyways because now that broods can be countered I think ht/immortal/blink etc with some slight air support is all I need and midgame fights are really fun and dynamic now (except for mass muta, there it's a stupid you either get raped or get enough phoenix out in time to rape him game). These are generally my thoughts as well. It seems like posters tend to base what compositions they view as unbeatable primarily on their own experiences. Unless you are a top, say, 100 player in the world, your experiences should be almost completely ignored for balance purposes. You do too many things wrong to have a right to have a say in a balance discussion. Your experiences can be relevant for determining whether the game is going in a bad direction or won't be fun for the non-top tier pros but that's about it. As to the specific topic of this forum, I've only seen a couple games where Protoss has tried to do this strategy in a high level (say Code A-ish level) game. I saw Violet crush Tear in the GSTL, I believe, with roach hydra viper at around the 12-15 minute mark, iirc, which is before he was able to fully achieve the "unbeatable" comp. I saw Stephano use ling and upgraded corrupters to take down this build at around the 15-20 minute mark on his stream, although the protoss didn't have HT out yet. I haven't seen any top tier zergs try to pit their ultimate late game army against this "ultimate" late game Protoss army yet, so perhaps there may be an issue there (and the issue for me would be that it's boring for one side to always win if it gets to a specific army comp) but it's too early to tell since the top tier zergs are only now just starting to play HoTS in earnest. As far as how the "unbeatable" Protoss air army fares against Terran's ultimate late game army. I have to give the edge to Terran from what I've seen. BC, viking, raven, ghost, tank seems generally to be the stronger composition and to generally beat this Protoss air comp.
This. Could anybody give me replay about skytoss. I just get it working in my head. During fight Tempests do absolutely no dmg at all. 6 tempest may be able to take down 1 corruptor. Split corruptors and storm means nothing... what's left? Void? Just wate until cooldown.
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On February 27 2013 04:08 TheBloodyDwarf wrote:
This. Could anybody give me replay about skytoss. I just get it working in my head. During fight Tempests do absolutely no dmg at all. 6 tempest may be able to take down 1 corruptor. Split corruptors and storm means nothing... what's left? Void? Just wate until cooldown.
I can't give you a replay but games like the one on this VOD http://de.twitch.tv/egstephano/b/369772964 starting around 2h 19min seem to suggest that it really is unreasonably hard to deal with Skytoss.
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On February 26 2013 05:14 Decendos wrote:
so you never played against skytoss as zerg yourself. maybe do that before posting stuff like this.
infestors get killed by range 12 carriers or range 15 tempests or in a real game scenario also from feedbacks/storms which basically have about the same range. oh and yeah fungal does about 0 damage now to superhigh hp units like voids and especially carrier + tempests and archons.
just stop talking about random stuff and tell us a composition how to beat 2 immortal 3 archon 4 HT 15 VR 8 carrier army.
if there is no way to kill lets say 80% of that army you will lose the game as Z. simple as that.
How about you don't be a pompous ass and assume I don't know what I'm talking about? Awfully convenient that you exaggerate like crazy isn't it?
Carriers don't start shooting interceptors at you at 12 range, they have 12 leash range, which means I have to run in first then fly back to use 12 range.
Tempests, as someone else had said, have terrible DPS and cost 6 supply. They are incredibly supply inefficient, and they don't protect templars the way broods protect infestors at all. For starters, infestors are faster and can burrow, so they have much higher survivability than templar. Add that to the broodling wall created by the BLs and sniping infestors with ground units are very, very hard when broods are there.
Compare that to tempests, they do less DPS than a stalker, they massively overkill, in short, just because protoss has tempests does not mean that his templar are not vulnerable.
On February 26 2013 05:19 ShamW0W wrote:
You forgot about the relatively small addition of the 15 range Tempest. I know it's REALLY minor but...
Yes, tempests are SO overpowered at 6 supply and less DPS than a stalker. Nerf PLEASE. ;-;
The only thing they're good at is forcing engagements, and even in that they're not that great vs. zerg, it's more against like a siege line of tanks or something that tempests actually shine.
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On February 27 2013 04:29 eoLiD wrote:Show nested quote +On February 27 2013 04:08 TheBloodyDwarf wrote:
This. Could anybody give me replay about skytoss. I just get it working in my head. During fight Tempests do absolutely no dmg at all. 6 tempest may be able to take down 1 corruptor. Split corruptors and storm means nothing... what's left? Void? Just wate until cooldown. I can't give you a replay but games like the one on this VOD http://de.twitch.tv/egstephano/b/369772964 starting around 2h 19min seem to suggest that it really is unreasonably hard to deal with Skytoss.
Lol that's just ridiculous.. Stephano didn't play perfect, but this shows attacking into something like this is just impossible. Corruptors melt to void rays, and hydras are worthless against storms.. Even when split.
Also attacking/retreating to wait until his charge is on cooldown is not viable. He'll pop the charge when you have committed, and if you then pull back, you end up with an army with half of their HP. Sure, you can then attack into void rays on cooldown, but with low hp you might as well move-command into him.
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Here is my answer to skytoss.
Key units : Swarm hosts, Vipers, Hydras, Spores.
Check out the units lost tab
http://drop.sc/307297
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Skytoss is exactly the same thing as BL/Infestor in WoL. Yes, it is possible to defeat 200/200 skytoss if the Toss player royally fucks up. However, if the protoss plays equally well to the zerg, 200/200 skytoss will destroy any possible army composition.
Skytoss is not as easy-to-get than BL/festor in WoL, because toss don't have anything close to Spines + Lings + Fungal in power. However, I still think it's lame to have a single endgame unit combo that steamrolls all else.
IMO, hydras simply need a buff to antiair range and/or damage. They are not viable against endgame air units of any kind. Heck, hydras don't even counter Mutas all that well in HotS.
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I still think the answer lies in redesigning the corruptor ability. I think Blizzard actually said they wanted to make the corruptor (and the overseer) more interesting early on in the beta. What happened, did they run out of time? Corruption is a weak and uninspired ability that nobody would miss if it was taken out.
Since lategame air armies are what zerg struggles the most with, you could make the ability an upgrade in the greater spire. Give the corruptor attack a small AOE for example, or give them acid spores from the devourer. Doesn't really even matter what the ability does, as long as it makes corruptors a decent counter against the units it is supposed to counter.
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EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/HUHKs9b.jpg)
