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Hi TL community !
This is my first post, so i hope you will show some mercy if I put some things wrong or if i don't respect any rule. If i fail some rules, it's not on purpose. I also apologize for any mistake in english, i'm french.
As the topic says, i have stated, and maybe you too, that there are certain spells as a zerg that you will never see any pro (i mean : at balance level, exactly) use in HoTS and that we have barely seen in WoL either way.
Why focus on those under-used spells, will you ask ?
Well, it's quite interesting to consider that Blizzard added units and is actually waiting for the metagame to stabilize (and the datas to grow) in order to determine what numbers are to be modified. Though there are some problems that were left untouched during the whole WoL (i'm proud of this one) era, and those are the spells listed above as zerg.
I'm fully aware that terran also have claims regarding ravens (auto-turrets), and protoss too. But well, SM and hallu mods can be regarded as partial/total proof of Blizzard interest to examine those. Some do think that those abilities are now fixed, some don't : it's not the point here.
But, since early patches, we've never seen any major change concerning contaminate (from overseer) or neural parasite (from infestor).
Why ?
I think there are few reasons, the main one being that those spells are not used at all, or barely. I will show proofs below.
This seems a paradox : why not modify spells that are not used ? Well, that's a tricky question. I would say that, in order of importance :
-because it would obviously demand other modifications to counter the over-balance effect.
-because they thought there were enough used spells in the game
-because it was used in some rare situations that alone made the spell useful.
-because of Obi Wan.
Well, no matter what, we don't see those spells used at all : let's examinate in which case they can be used or they are used by pros.
Contaminate
From all the game i've seen (and i've seen a damn lot), contaminate is quite never used at all. The few times i see it used is from TLO's stream, and often in ZVP (to delay the imortal push or any tech).
I think we will all agree on the fact that it's rarely seen, when overseer are though built in almost every game of every matchup now at some point.
Neural parasite
The neural parasite, still for pros, was used as far as i know only in ZvP MU in late game (to vortex the protoss army whith its' own MS). And i don't regard those rare games where pros have the guts to try it in late game ZvT (BCs) or when there is a possibility of EMPing a whole pack of ghosts.
So why is that we don't see it more often ? And what would it bring to the game ? Let's consider it in the same order.
Contaminate :
What could it do ?
In theory, you could be able to delay any major tech of any toss like 2/2 timings, extended TL, blink, etc with a "clever" contaminate. Which is more and more relevant as the game goes on and the upgrades/critical abilities pushes are important.
Why is it not used ?
You can imagine a few reasons. Since 1.4 patch, the cost increased from 75 to 125, which means with a regular lair that you can't really delay tech that fast (from 75 to 125, you lose in theory not 50 seconds, but around 90 !).
Then I never really understood why zerg did not morph something like 4 overseer (you won't die except in code S quarterfinals for morphing 4 ovies that would cost you 200 gaz, well, i hope so at least). And if you delay something like upgrades of an all in or a critical tech like storm for something like 3/4 times 30 secs, you simply gain 1 to 2 minutes on critical timings like those.
Well, clever dudes would answer me that it doesn't matter since enery will continue to build up in the HTs (in my example) and then it won't matter : but well, they will serve you well to delay any time of timing push !
So i don't really get why it's not used, especially after 13-14 minutes when zerg can afford some gaz spendings like those that could save him : delay some mech upgrades in ZvT, etc.
Well, you clearly are more accurate than me on those questions, so maybe i'm all wrong T_T.
Neural Parasite
What could it do ?
Well, we all know what a protoss looks like when he get vortexed by its' own Mothership muahahha. He cries. Neural parasite was deemed too powerfull when effectively cast upon casters like the MS.
But it was, as far as i know, the only and one competitive use of the spell.
IT and fungals were having all the glory.
If it was properly designed, it simply would be used ! So in some way it's too powerfull, in some other way, useless.
Why is it not used ?
Well it's quite simple :
-research time is too damn long (110 sec, so 30 more than fungal growth).
-range is too damn short (7)
-animation is too damn obvious and visible (compare to the one of the campaign !)
-not worth it since the infestor is either too exposed or too easily focused EXCEPT if the target is a key caster that will provide a game-breaking spell (vortex, EMP on all ghosts).
Well anyway, i let it open to your wise consideration and debate.
What would be the mods ? I don't know, i'm not better that sir Kim to mod the game. But i think some ideas could be interesting, as hints, or tools to experiment with.
Contaminate :
Well, i quite don't know for this one. Maybe lower the energy to 100 from 125.
Or make the overseer tier one BUT having its detection granted by a 20 seconds 50/50 cost upgrade on the hatch.
It would not need any buff on the other side since regular marines or building placement could kill the overseer easily.
Neural Parasite
Well, you know how much Blizzard improved the micro-rewarding abilities : seeker missile's target becomes red, void ray now have a direct way for the opponent to be microed against, mines show from the ground before hiting their target.
Why not make it similar for NP ? Give it longer ranger range (9-10), a less visible animation and make it permanent ?
Why permanent ? Because if you consider the choices of a zerg, he either fungals (IT now are quite not as effective as they were) OR...fungals. Why doesn't it NP ? For the above mentioned reasons ! But then you will argue it's stupid since my changes are supposed to make it viable at the start !
Maybe. Let's say it's viable at 9/10 range, you have the red targeting that allows the foe to react properly to it (so does not prevent micro) so it's allready kind of (i insist KIND OF) balanced. But if you had the permanent effect (which is logical, it's a parasite after all), suppose you make the infestor die. Suppose the infestor fires (biologicaly) its head to the parasited unit. It makes the unit die, but gives it to you as a unit.
Will it broke the game at first ? Well, it could really do it really fast (save 2 parasited upgraded colossi and integrate it in your army and have some fun), but it would cost you one infestor, and the spell would be risky, and the valuable units of the foe would be very difficult to get to first.
Well, maybe i went crazy on this one, but i found this really fun.
Obviously it would produce some funny metagame, but you can change the numbers to make it quite critical (like costing 150 energy and the infestor for a X min stand).
This was quite long guys, and not well written, but here are the ideas. Back to you.
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The problem is that you invest 100 gas into lair and more gas into overseer to delay "timing pushes". As we all know, timing pushes come right around when lair is done so the investment won't pay for itself.
You want to delay lair to get more drones out and more bases. Investing into lair and overseers is dead investment for a long time. If you delay and get 70 drones around when lair is done, you can get tech and upgrades, making your investment more efficient.
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I believe Blizzard put a lot of effort into the overseer in WoL, but their biggest concern was that it doesn't take up supply, so you could technically have an unlimited number of them.
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They should either balance those spells or remove them. They are dead weight.
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That nested vs losira game on dual site was sooooooooo sick 
They could make contaminate cost less energy and just have it last a shorter time?
Np would be hard to get working into the game again I think it's just like spells from medic or dark archon in bw. It's strong but not easy to use and most importantly requires 150/150 which lots people aren't going to bother with if they don't expect to use it. That said in infestor days of pvz np was still used against immortals but the metagame has shifted as of now.
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There was a lot of neural parasite usage on units like colossi / immortals / archons and it has been proven multiple times that it can be very efficent. (The last great example was in a Stephano GSL match on Whrilwind I think (ZvP don't remember the zerg though)
For Terran it makes a lot less sense if they go bio obviously, because of the weak nature of bio units.
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On April 17 2013 07:32 FancyCaTSC2 wrote:
For Terran it makes a lot less sense if they go bio obviously, because of the weak nature of bio units.
How about if neural parasite was used on the medivacs? that would be pretty awsome, healing ultras and terran cant use them to escape ect.
Can it be used on widow mines? Can really see some awsome useage there!
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Contaminate should go back to 75 energy, but instead of stopping production and research for 30sec it should halve production and research for 60sec. The only reason contaminate was nerfed is because you could make a large # of overseers and chain-contaminate a building forever. Being at half-speed forever is way less terrible than being completely stopped.
NP was fine at 9-range until people started to NP motherships. I think they should revert NP to 9 range and make Psionic units immune. (this would also remove its ability to control Archons, which would be way too vulnerable to a 9-range NP)
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Contaminate buffs are super dangerous because overseers cost no supply, so late game could end up turning into T/P get one army and then they cannot produce for 10 minutes due to the overseers. However i agree that there should be no extremely underutilized spells
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Well infestors, even when casting NP, have high priority when getting A Moved. (Kinda how SCV repairing stuff we're not priority targets until they patched to make it easier to kill things being repaired)
Once the short range infestor casts NP it usually just gets auto-attacked because of AI priority
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@ Loft
Did not know about high priority infestors
@ CrazyPieGuy
Indeed the "no overseer limit" seems like a problem. BUT what if there was an overseer cap set in the game, like there is for the mothership ? I wouldn't be the most elegant way to balance it, but it would work. Zerg would also have to worry between full detection guaranteed (like 5 overseers in the army) AND harass ability. Because zerg is, with mecha terran, the only race that can really afford permanent detection with no chance whatsoever to end it (so except full raven) in late game (so not ultra late game with full air terran).
I mean detection has always been at stake in this game, but curiously no one ever put to question the fact that zerg had no possibility to get overrun by invisibility since the only thing it impairs to be produce is actual money.
Or, and that would be fun, they should make the overseer not provide any supply at all : meaning you have to morph ovies when you morph overseers not to be supply-blocked. But well, same problem as before for mass overseer.
@ Piousflea
If you impairs infestor to control psionic units, it will strongly lower the available targets. You could say it's fair : i would say you can make it more intense by having, like the raven, a "micro time" when you can actually dodge the NP. So the risk would be great (but you could still try to kill your own unit if you see it can't escape the NP), but the drawback for zerg would be critical if he does the wrong choice (since he loses the infestor as i see it) or simply get caught will building up the animation.
You could also consider adding for the player who loses the unit the vision of this unit as still having the location system of the other race (terran, toss, and maybe zerg), but by vision i mean only it's position on the map (like a red dot for the towers). So you would see when the foe tries something including the stolen unit. Could lead to mind games (moving a lone stolen colossus to make the other player think a whole army is moving along with it)
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On April 17 2013 08:36 ZebraT wrote:Show nested quote +On April 17 2013 07:32 FancyCaTSC2 wrote:
For Terran it makes a lot less sense if they go bio obviously, because of the weak nature of bio units. How about if neural parasite was used on the medivacs? that would be pretty awsome, healing ultras and terran cant use them to escape ect. Can it be used on widow mines? Can really see some awsome useage there!
For the 300 gas it cost to get both pathogens + neural upgrade and 150 on the infestor, id rather make 18 banelings instead and wipe out his whole army rather than stop him from healing with 1 medivac.
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I do agree these spells should be used more, but I see some simpler changes.
NP - Why not allow NP from burrow? It has a short time, short range, and now in HOTS detection is much more common anyways.
I'd love if it contaminate was just another form of creep tumor, except that you can place it on a place without creep, or you can place it on an existing enemy building and it spreads creep from there.
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Suppose the infestor fires (biologicaly) its head to the parasited unit. It makes the unit die, but gives it to you as a unit.
awesome. just imagine the animation!
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I think you need to do a little more research. NP was considered extremely overpowered at one point when it had 9 range not because of NP on mothership (which was hardly ever used back then), but because of NP usage on colossus. This allowed roach/hydra/infestor (or just roach/festor) to decimate toss armies with ease. This is why the range got nerfed.
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United Kingdom20322 Posts
Indeed one of the biggest uses of 9 range NP was against colossus. I think 8 range would be good with the current balance of the infestor and it probably should have been 8 originally (maybe with more fungal/it nerfs back in 2011..) instead of being nerfed from 9 to 8, that last 1 range allows you if you have more than a couple of colossi to deal with infestors a lot better, instead of infestor with equal range to the colossus firing NP before it takes damage
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i dont mind that contaminate is rarely used, the main reason is that it's not worth the apm, which means that it will see more use when players start to get even faster. There is no reason not to contaminate with your overseer once in a while. We already saw some games where contaminate was used with some success, the ability itself isnt bad, just to micro-intense. Lower cd and so on wont solve that.
i like that burrow np-idea. It will reinforce the raven's play in tvz army. I also think that they should try out removing the upgrade, like they did with siege tanks.
I would really like to hear a statement of blizz devs about the fact that feedback, np and snipe have less range than storm, fungal and emp. I really dont understand their reasoning for this.
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I think the 8 range, no research, burrowed, and permanent neural parasite ideas are great. I have no idea whether contaminate should be changed or not. I think neural is stronger in HotS because abduct + neural allows infestors to stay out of harm's way while channeling the spell, but it's still not the most used spell.
Burrowed neural could lead to some new strategies in zvp, such as sniping observers with overseers and hydras and neuraling colossi, but I don't think it would have as much of an effect in zvt and zvz due to scans, fungal and overseers.
The OP's is my favorite idea, because it would allow zergs to have unrestricted control of neuraled units, but my guess is that it would be very difficult to balance the casting time and range of the spell such that it would be viable in a variety of situations without being too strong in some. I'd love to see this tested, maybe it would work out.
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Some people must realize that some spells are there just to give a little extra to the unit, and not to necessarly to be relevant. For the Overseer, the point is to give detection to a overlord, and some better scout (more speed + changeling). Also is the only unit that detects and cost no suply. That is enough. Contaminate is a nice, but not that strong or relevant, boost.
Same goes with the neural, but this is even stronger. Infestor have 2 very strong spells already, fungal and inf. terran. Parasite is a little extra boost.
Notice that both spells are in units with already other relevant abilities.
That's it. Why every spell must be strong and relevant???
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There are a couple more reasons why both of these spells are in limbo:
- The infestor must be among the most tweaked units in the game in terms of how many adjustment it has gotten in order to try to balance it, so that is a deterrent for more change; and it was nearly the most powerful unit in the game.
- Overseer was slated for removal in HoTS if I remember correctly. The viper had some skill that let it grant detection, I think. Probably there was no reason at the time to consider adjusting skills that would disappear.
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this looks more like a balance suggestion to me, but oh well. Range 7 Neural is more then fine. Range 9 Neural was pretty overpowered as it removed half of the other races units from the game. There was no need to get Neural, because the opponent wouldn't dare building those units. Imo they changed it to quickly as a few Zergs just started dominating Protoss with this and it went past the majority of people, so they didn't really see a reason for this change.
Neural is still perfect to take over Archons and to some extent the units they denied before, but now the opponent is able to actually do something against the Neural.
Your suggestion aims at disabling this interaction, so the Neural becomes a save thing to use.
As for your microability examples, Voidray change made the unit horrendous easy to use as a tradeof the unit got extremely weak. Now the Voidray is just effective at protecting the Protoss army against armored units and lost all the micro to it, while the opponent can't react to it at all since the Voidray shoots while moving and has extended range. There is no escape from the beam, unless the Voidray player simply a-moves.
Another point on Neural though. With the Viper Abduct you can grab units and Neural them afterwards from a save distance. So you can easily grab a Colossus and take it over for free.
Contaminate is still the same as before, but you need to invest the same amount of resources as before into it. In other words 2 Overseers.
Why it is not used is rather simple, you often don't notice the effect yourself and the actions needed to pull this of is rather high. Also Overlords got faster, so no need to invest into Overseers as Overlords just do fine. Which brings up another reason, no Speed research needed, which makes Overseers easy to intercept.
Contaminate would never be used in any form, except if being game breaking and then they would have to make the other races stronger, which would force the use of this skill. Sure it would make the game harder, but it would also be boring to see every game.
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Neural is used a lot, when it gets to the air army stage in late game you have to use it. It's not a jack of all trades ability, but it doesn't need to be.
Contaminate isn't used much because people aren't fast enough to use it constantly or can't afford the gas in their build to have a flock of overseers shitting purple goo all over the place to shut something down for 15 secs or we it is. It's used in ZvZ a bit when it's roach vs roach, but since almost everyone goes muta now, you can't really fly overseers in his main.
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maybe a 8 range NP but a shorter time would be perfect.
permanent NP would be insanely OP. Imagine you just had an engagement and NP a few colossus and won, you now have built a stronger ball than before
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I dont believe they should allow permanent Neural Parasite. Zergs ability to be a 300/200 army with the Spine/Spore drone trick for more units and then NP a colossi would give them massive gains.
That said, it would be nice to see an Abduct from Viper into NP from Infestor, kind what alot of zergs do now with vipers abducting Colossi/VR/Tempest even. Stealing them that way would to some degree give them issues with skytoss based armies...
Obviously the micro for that is beyond a Plat/Diam player who plays Toss but on steams it would look sweet :D
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@ All
-Regarding the permanent NP ability.
You would lose the infestor, the animation time woud allow to micro back the targeted unit (which is simply impossible in the actual version).
And what if the infestor would die EVEN IF the spell was not successfull ? You can imagine it fires its head to the unit, but if it's microed correctly (so microed back from ranged infestor, whatever the range is), the head simply fires and get to the unit, but WHITOUT the neural control ability. The head of the infestor would simply provide an equivalent for BW "parasite" that granted vision and for example prevent the shield of a protoss unit to restore, a bio unit to be healed, a mech unit to be repaired and a zerg unit to regain health.
-Regarding the balance demanded by this balance request
It would not be huge precisely because the risks are extreme most of the time in the way the upgrade is designed. You could simply micro back if you are targeted, AND in any case you know the ennemy player loses a 150 energy infestor (!!!) that i will not have used against your army for any other purpose in order to even try the spell.
So why would it be effective then ? Because zerg could chose between fungal and neural in a battle. The upgraded range would force the protoss to micro and the zerg to take risks with its infestor (since the spell can really fail).
-Regarding the fact that infestor already has enough spells and is hard to balance
Well this speel would not require any nerf because micro would be the nerf. Is that not what every toss/terran player was beging for since fungal ? And then if it works, you still give a free infestor, AND it would be extremely easy to make impossible to cast it once the zerg army reaches 200 supply, or force you to donate supplies.
I've never such a logic as "this unit has enough spells so don't balance the other ones". Poor ghost would be sad.
-Regarding heavy synergy snowball
Fungal + neural would be OP since you could simply fungal the units to mindcontrol them afterwards. Well yes and no, colossus would still have insane range,
You could also add some condition like "this unit must be free of any spell influence to be mindcontroled" that would be nice.
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Once when I was watching Spanishiwa stream, he basically won a ZvZ because he kept contaminating his opponent's hatches. His opponent couldn't spend his money. There didn't really seem to be a good way to deny it, so it looks like contaminate could actually be game changing in ZvZ? I know that you need all the gas possible for mutas, but at least in games where it somehow isn't muta wars like the game I described it could be great.
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These spells are actually fine I think and they see some niche use.
Contaminate got kind of pushed away when they made the overseer cheaper but contaminate more expensive to not imbalance contaminate builds. As a result pooping changelings is just a far more popular use of overseer energy then contaminate. Problem of course is that massing overseers is technically really easy lategame as they are 0 pop so the spells can't have any real combat use making them a bit dull. Maybe give contaminate a 25 energy decrease or 10 sec duration increase but it's sort of ok now.
Neural parasite is fine too I think, players are still testing the viper/infestor interactions more but it takes some time getting used to. Vipers and infestors are actually a really good pair and should be used in conjunction much more but aren't yet because it isn't realy easy.
Fungal and blinding cloud are a great combo yet rarely used. Keeping units in place while reducing their range to 1, it's really quite good against stalkers yet not used.
In the same way abduct and neural are a great pair. Keep your infestors lagging behind your army a bit, abduct a colossi/voidray and then just neural it. Infestor is completely safe.
Sure maybe it can have it's cost a little reduced or research time a bit shortened but I feel it's fine. Neural is a dangerous spell that can easily border between overpowered and useless with just a small range difference.
The infestor is just facing the wrath of being a boring overpowered unit for so long, it could seriously use a rebuff again, for example give it a small bonus agianst armored again.
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I can remember the first interviews to HotS
"Overseer and Corruptor are boring units, we will change or remove them"
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Free supply units (aka overseer) absolutely don't need powerhouse abilities. Contaminate is seen pretty much 100% of the games I see a pro actually need to get an overseer in an enemy base for whatever reason if it has enough energy. It's not an ability that needs fixing.
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On April 17 2013 07:13 CrazyPieGuy wrote:
I believe Blizzard put a lot of effort into the overseer in WoL, but their biggest concern was that it doesn't take up supply, so you could technically have an unlimited number of them.
there is a solution for that, though it would be slightly confusing.
make overseer cost supply, lets say 2 supply... while also giving supply. (or just make them cost supply but no longer give supply)
the result would be: overseers provide 8 supply and cost 2 supply, so effectively they provide 6 supply, unless you have reached max supply limit, in which case it just costs 2 supply and doesn't provide any supply.
the issue: no other unit or building in the game behaves like that. so it would be confusing.
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also, making contaminate too accessible makes ZvZ impossible, as it stops new larvae from popping out
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@ Tisalgado
Have you ever seen a contaminate in pro zvz ?
Me neither (one zvz in a hundred maybe).
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United Kingdom14103 Posts
On April 17 2013 13:08 orBitual wrote:
There are a couple more reasons why both of these spells are in limbo:
- The infestor must be among the most tweaked units in the game in terms of how many adjustment it has gotten in order to try to balance it, so that is a deterrent for more change; and it was nearly the most powerful unit in the game.
- Overseer was slated for removal in HoTS if I remember correctly. The viper had some skill that let it grant detection, I think. Probably there was no reason at the time to consider adjusting skills that would disappear.
It definitely was the strongest unit in the game at the time.
I'd say the spells mentioned aren't used due to their high investment cost.
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EPT
