EPTOn December 20 2012 11:53 vthree wrote:
Not sure why everyone is saying this. It is not as simple as many people seem to think. A lot of things in game is about the 'threat/possibility' and not just the actually units/spells used.
Not sure why everyone is saying this. It is not as simple as many people seem to think. A lot of things in game is about the 'threat/possibility' and not just the actually units/spells used.
I can't speak for everyone else, but this is why i perceived the game to look remarkably balanced:
1. There were the usual number of infestors, but they weren't all stacked with energy and this drastically reduced the amount of fungal/IT potential, which made the fights more even. Obviously, this was relevant because parting didn't just turtle and let violet get infestors; he went out on the map and was active--so a lot of the infestors weren't that stocked by the time the battle started. And the margin of 25 energy is huge when you think about ~10 infestors put together.
2. When the zerg remade infestors, they didn't come out fully-functional; they came out to the battle and were ~10-15 energy shy of casting Fungal, so violet couldn't just hatch infestors at his 4th and use them to trap the army in front of it. This happens all the time in ZvX games, and it should be both a benefit and downside to zerg having production at the hatchery with the option to build something in the battle to reinforce. When a pathogen gland infestor is hatched from an egg at the 4th, it's exactly like warping in a fungal--except it's actually safer, since the zerg knows what's in the egg and the protoss doesn't. And eggs are more protected than warping-in HTs, so even if the opponent has a chance to go around and get position sniping the hatching/warping-in unit, the egg is very tough and unkown and the HT is just a squishy HT that can't do anything for 5 seconds while it warps in.
3. When violet remaxed, his infestors didn't come out and chain fungal the remnants of an army. That meant there was a timing window for Parting to move in and do some damage while energy wasn't up to chain-combo status, and the infestors themselves were actually in danger because they couldn't just run away freely from blink stalkers after setting up the fungals. Even if it's 5-10 seconds, that's a massivedifference for the game at that point. In that amount of time, a base can be sniped or a bunch of broodlords can be taken down. It's like how 3 fungals can kill a cluster of sentries and end a forcefield-based timing attack--the same seems to be the case if there's just that extra window of time for a warp-in of 12-16 stalkers to go in and blink under 8 broods and kill most or all of them. And that makes the difference, because that's a much more efficient trade than trading 30-40 stalkers for 8 brood lords and infestor energy in the same situation with pathogen glands.
Do we know for sure that this is the right fix for the game? No. But it seems like a good way to change the dynamic of how the caster is used, without actually nerfing its spells--which are something that zergs rely on--and rightfully so. And, by not changing the spells themselves, it doesn't alter one match-up's aoe/ensnare/antiair without messing up another...it just changes the timings. So the big question is how it will change ZvT, and whether or not it's right that infestors start at 75 energy in that match-up. We know that warping in psi storms was specifically nerfed because of its prominence in PvT, but fungal is a different spell and marines act differently in TvZ than they do in TvP. Maybe zerg should be able to bring fungals out of eggs against drops or clusters of marines--I don't know.
And then, the other thing we have to think about is that 50 energy infestors do not detect banshees or DTs for a few seconds, so that changes the power level of those two units. But infestor tech is tier 2 and overseers are cheap and fast to make, so I think that it's more about those units running away from the zerg and escaping, rather than being sacrificed/traded away for damage+75 festor energy.
It's a complicated change, but it seems to be logical. And the beauty of it was this: the game that came out of violet's mistake was a beautiful game with all kinds of back-and-forth action, and it seemed like it was fair from both sides. It's not like it was just one vortex that ended it--there were multiple mothership rebuilds and the fighting turned really scrappy. Scrappy is good. Scrappy doesn't mean one 200 food army rolling over another and then continuing to roll through; it gives hope to the guy who loses one engagement because he can come back and win other ones.
So that's why I like the potential change. Others probably have their own ideas.
EDIT: Sorry, I just realized there might be some spoilers. I've been awake for over 24 hours, so if a mod could fix that with some spoiler tags...that would be awesome. My better judgment went into typing my thoughts about 50 energy infestors, and suddenly my brain is shutting down.
