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Lets to honest to ourselves now, what does Swarm Host offer to SC2?
Well, it has 2 dimensions of positional play, where your average unit will have one, and the difference in area between a line and a plane is pretty huge. Swarm hosts get to be burrowed at a focal point of where you want to control, and then rallied to the area of that circle that you want to be strongest in. If you rally swarm hosts to a choke, nothing besides aoe will EVER take control of that area from you, and using some 5 swarm hosts you can secure a much larger area to expand in relatively safely.
a) It takes away micro from the game yet again. You plop them down, and watch.
b) Projectiles are so slow that they are basically useless by themselves.
c) It requires at least 4-5 swarm hosts to be effective, meaning 12-15 food gone into swarm hosts.
I disagree with all of that.
a) see above, you have a unit that can be positioned to control a wide area, then microed to control a specific part of that. You can launch locusts, unburrow, move forward under locust cover, and burrow again before the next wave to use a longer version of stutter step micro, except you don't lose any dps doing it. Stutter step is micro, sh's have that.
b) projectiles are faster than zealots and have health. They are great for warding off smaller groups of units, and slowing down larger groups at no actual cost. They also force movement for the opponent, if they stay where they are they will die.
c) I've never seen anyone strongly control a ramp with 1 tank, why should it be different for swarm hosts? Besides that, Zerg is the one race that can build their new chosen tech in mass as soon as it's available, so getting 5 swarm hosts is easy compared to amassing 4 tempests to snipe bls. Aforementioned tempests are 16 supply that's hardly doing any dps, and it isn't tanking for any of my units.
and finally,
None of this even feels any way natural. It feels haphazard and completely arbitrary. It's like the designers created a system, and had to mold the zerg race around it, rather than creating a zerg race first.
I never get this feeling to speak of. The flow in sc2 makes perfect sense if you think about the possible, and likely, game flow.
lings force zealots/walls force roaches/banelings force stalkers/sentries force infestors/hydras/burrow move forces robo forces muta/drops/spinewall + infestors etc. the arms race naturally progresses from step to step, with the possibility of deviation on almost every single step and the option of a movable tech advantage as wells as the micro potential of beating their counters with good unit control. Do roaches have an obvious purpose now? the point is to force protoss (or terran, or zerg) to find a better composition once they are out.
The design is better than you think, it just feels stale because everyone plays so similarly there's no clear need to deviate and stratigize except for pros.
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I don't understand what the swarm hosts does better than a lurker.
Can't drop them to harass, can't really rush them early game for cheese (or you can, but it's not that amazing.) Can't use them in a late game army since infestors and broodlords are still a billion times better per supply, can't use them midgame because the second toss gets 2 or 3 colossi they suck, and you aren't breaking a 3rd with them.
I don't get it. They don't seem to fit anywhere except zvt where they are annoying against tanks. Tanks are straight up better siege units too, since their damage is instant and doesn't rely on shitty spawned units to deal the damage.
To add on to this, people constantly are talking about "controlling space." What space are you trying to control in sc2? Bases are better defended with the gas and supplyless spines and spores.. Even places in the middle of the map are better held by just parking your damn infestor based army there.
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you need like more then 4-5 mutalisks to be effective.....talk about tech switching yo
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People really need to get off the bandwagon of "If it's not exactly BW, then it's worse." Broodwar is not only dead, it's also irrelevant.
Zergs have different challenges in WOL than they did in BW. The lurker does not fit. Zerg NEEDS a means to put pressure on an enemy that's playing defensively. A 6-range immobile, linear AoE unit is just terrible at sieging a SC2 base. Swarm Host is a perfect unit for what Blizzard set out to do. Additionally, there's no evidence that free units is inherently an issue, merely that the application can occasionally be an issue.
With that out of the way. My biggest worry is that SH isn't really all that effective of a unit against Terran in general. This match up seems to be getting a little constricted anyway, though it's probably too early to tell. I think some mechanical refinement could be introduced to make it a bit more threatening to Terran now, before balance becomes a big worry.
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On November 29 2012 05:08 Virid wrote:
People really need to get off the bandwagon of "If it's not exactly BW, then it's worse." Broodwar is not only dead, it's also irrelevant.
Zergs have different challenges in WOL than they did in BW. The lurker does not fit. Zerg NEEDS a means to put pressure on an enemy that's playing defensively. A 6-range immobile, linear AoE unit is just terrible at sieging a SC2 base. Swarm Host is a perfect unit for what Blizzard set out to do. Additionally, there's no evidence that free units is inherently an issue, merely that the application can occasionally be an issue.
With that out of the way. My biggest worry is that SH isn't really all that effective of a unit against Terran in general. This match up seems to be getting a little constricted anyway, though it's probably too early to tell. I think some mechanical refinement could be introduced to make it a bit more threatening to Terran now, before balance becomes a big worry.
I agree with the "let's focus on THIS game, not BW"... However, why do Zerg need to pressure opponents? If their opponent stays in base all the Z does is spend minerals on expansions/drones and gas on tech until they can start sieging with BL/infestor. (Ok, if that changes then yes.)
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On November 28 2012 18:59 wankey wrote:
SC2 Zerg is like, here we have zerglings and hydras 'cause we had to copy them over from SC1. Now we add in roaches, is completely out of place, but we need them because they have a lot of HP and soak up damage. Now we just boost damage across the board on other races to counter these roaches. Mutas are in, because, again we needed to copy something from SC1, but mutas don't do anythign anymore, even though they "mutate" by their name. No, create an arbitrary unit called the corruptor to counter yet another system we put in, and then make them turn into broodlords, and abritrary unit that has really no role in the game until people figured out infestor broods.
best thing i have read, since long time, sadly it's true..
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I love it when I come into swarm hosts threads, and everyone is talking about the lurker.
It'll be a good day for starcraft when people realize heart of the swarm isn't brood war.
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614 Posts
Drop play with Swarm Hosts is actually pretty good.
The only thing I agree with is that the unit is boring.
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On November 29 2012 05:15 InfCereal wrote:
I love it when I come into swarm hosts threads, and everyone is talking about the lurker.
It'll be a good day for starcraft when people realize heart of the swarm isn't brood war.
Sequel to BW
mid game Zerg unit based around attacking while burrowed
Why SHOULDN'T we talk about the lurker?
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agree with op 100% swarmhost doesnt feel zergy just feels like lazy game design. its a boring unit to watch and its extremely gimmicky. most people seem to feel this way but actiblizz doesnt listen or doesnt care. would be nice if they would at least stop being so stubborn and bring back bw units if they dont have any better ideas than warhounds and swarm hosts and tempests.
dont know how they can decide to add more microless abilities and units or micro restricting units after the community was screaming for months at how it leads to boring games to play and watch and prevents players with better skill from winning.
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On November 29 2012 05:14 DusTerr wrote:Show nested quote +On November 29 2012 05:08 Virid wrote:
People really need to get off the bandwagon of "If it's not exactly BW, then it's worse." Broodwar is not only dead, it's also irrelevant.
Zergs have different challenges in WOL than they did in BW. The lurker does not fit. Zerg NEEDS a means to put pressure on an enemy that's playing defensively. A 6-range immobile, linear AoE unit is just terrible at sieging a SC2 base. Swarm Host is a perfect unit for what Blizzard set out to do. Additionally, there's no evidence that free units is inherently an issue, merely that the application can occasionally be an issue.
With that out of the way. My biggest worry is that SH isn't really all that effective of a unit against Terran in general. This match up seems to be getting a little constricted anyway, though it's probably too early to tell. I think some mechanical refinement could be introduced to make it a bit more threatening to Terran now, before balance becomes a big worry. I agree with the "let's focus on THIS game, not BW"... However, why do Zerg need to pressure opponents? If their opponent stays in base all the Z does is spend minerals on expansions/drones and gas on tech until they can start sieging with BL/infestor. (Ok, if that changes then yes.)
Viewability is a pretty big part of it. Even if the zerg has handedly won some crucial early game or mid game engagements, it still needs to wait until the Terran or Protoss expends another army into the zerg's now very deep resource pool before the opponent necessarily needs to gg out. All the while, if the match is being casted, the casters have already called the game and shoot the shiz for 10 in-game minutes while the loser goes through its death throes.
Similarly, zerg passivity also leads to large time gaps of inactivity. If the three races were dancers, the zerg follows every time. If you happen to find a particularly defensive player (i.e. flash vs. Life on Cloud Kingdom, MLG dallas), then the viewability suffers.
The final conclusion is that zerg has an unintended gap in its design that needs to be rectified. And the Swarm Host is a geniusly well designed unit from this point of view. It provides a huge amount of tension, and places a lot of pressure on the opponent to react (which is traditionally the zerg's job). As long as it has solid (not marginalizing) counters, the game dynamic is quite improved by its existence. Unfortunately, it's about as foreign a unit to BW as can exist, and thus it will never be loved on this forum.
EDIT: It's interesting to see people calling this unit boring. Because it's not. It has a very high skill floor, however. They could potentially lower that to make it more interesting to be played with before the pro level. IdrA is already showing that the unit can be quite interesting. I'm more interested in critiquing than designing though, so I don't know how to change that.
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On November 29 2012 05:15 Garmer wrote:Show nested quote +On November 28 2012 18:59 wankey wrote:
SC2 Zerg is like, here we have zerglings and hydras 'cause we had to copy them over from SC1. Now we add in roaches, is completely out of place, but we need them because they have a lot of HP and soak up damage. Now we just boost damage across the board on other races to counter these roaches. Mutas are in, because, again we needed to copy something from SC1, but mutas don't do anythign anymore, even though they "mutate" by their name. No, create an arbitrary unit called the corruptor to counter yet another system we put in, and then make them turn into broodlords, and abritrary unit that has really no role in the game until people figured out infestor broods.
best thing i have read, since long time, sadly it's true..
You do realize that Mutas were called mutas before BW and before
Devourers and Guardians were added yes??
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United Arab Emirates439 Posts
I won't get into some of your "points" OP because you are just being a nostalgia-fag on some things. Like saying "Zerg's tech tree doesn't feel natural like it did in BW". Nobody can argue with that because that's just how you feel, but Zerg's SC2 tech tree seems very "natural" to me... But I will address the ones that are reasonable to address.
Drop Play: You can do drops/nydus with Swarm Hosts, and they can be effective. Especially against a Mech player, dropping with Swarm Hosts is an absolute nightmare to deal with unless you have air superiority (even then you can sometimes do Queen/SwarmHost to protect them). vs Protoss they can be a nightmare to deal with as well, but because the Protoss needs detection to deal with them. Flying a few Overlords around with a few Swarm Hosts and launching at one location, and then lifting and launching at another location that isn't close for ground units is a really cool tactic that can be very hard to deal with.
Map Control: It definitely gives the Zerg a way to assert control, especially when they have map control. I do not see a need to improve Zerg's ability to control defensive areas. Creep Spread, Fungals, mobile Static D, even Burrow Banelings, are more than enough. What the Swarm Host allows the Zerg to do is use their map control that they already achieve so easily with their very mobile units, and use it to put pressure on the opponent outside of just a huge committed attack, as they normally had to in WoL. Perhaps the coolest use is to constantly reposition your Swarm Hosts after each "volley" so that they force the opponent to be very mobile with their army and constantly reposition it. Not only does this allow you to punish them with the Locusts if they are out of position, but it opens up a lot of runby/harassment potential with other units. You siege up their third while attack with mutas in their main and running by with lings in their natural. Or you drop Swarm Hosts in their main and then attack their third base.
Overall I think it's a very interesting unit design wise. I think it would be nice if they tweaked it so it wasn't so strong in large deathballs, at least vs Protoss. And I think you must really not understand the unit if you are comparing it at all to the Lurker.
User was warned for this post
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I have a few very important thoughts about swarm hosts:
1. I saw a game once where a player went swarm hosts and the other player couldn't deal with them; it's totally OP.
2. I saw a game once where a player went swarm hosts and couldn't break the other player with them and that player rolled over the player that went for swarm hosts; the swarm host is totally useless.
3. I saw a broodwar game and it had a different unit that had some of the same features as the swarm host; since it was a unit in BW and BW is the best possible game and everything it is as good as it possibly can be, they should just use that other unit in place of the swarm host because it's clearly better even if it comes from an entirely different game and would be pretty useless in SC2.
4. I have determined solely by looking at the statistics and what each zerg unit does that the swarm host serves no role at all and you would be foolish to build any because the infestor is better and thus the people that use the swarm host effectively are just fooling themselves.
5. By creating free units, the swarm host forces your opponent to micro more against free units. Despite the fact that the presence of the locusts will force other players to think strategically about engaging the swarm hosts and to micro more, the swarm host is really just an anti-micro unit because you cannot just walk up to them and shoot them.
6. In a game I played on ladder I created a bunch of swarm hosts and attacked my opponent; I didn't micro anything; I just massed swarm hosts. Therefore, swarm hosts do not require any micro and lower the skill cap. (BTW, I lost that game, which proves that swarm hosts are useless.)
I think that about covers it.
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Lots of good point from people here, though there are some that view things way too black and white...
My biggest wish though would be that the people arguing for changes should think of new ideas instead of ideas that already exists in another game.
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The swarm host is a good unit with an interesting design, multiple uses and interesting weaknesses. It introduces some of the same need for micro that siege tanks have, in that they are powerful when sieged and weak when unsieged. It certainly puts pressure on me when I'm turtling. You have to be out on the map to deal with them. If they are supported and burrow in range of your base, they are more than just a minor annoyance that can be dealt with by tanks or collossi. They punish people for sitting in their base until maxed, which is good. They also rely on good creep spread, which makes that skill based factor more important.
You can't A-move into swarm hosts and they can't a move into you--which is always good. Its like a better version of MMM vs. Zealot heavy collossus play. If both players just a-move in, the zealots keep the bio at lance length while the collossus fries them. SH is better, however, because the locusts get in the way of the rest of the zerg army, so they have to plan a good engagement--to get the best use, you can't run all your army in from the same angle.
SH can also be used in synergy with lings and roaches, just not in a death ball. The locusts force either an army movement or they require the opponent to kill the locusts. You can use this to get a free flank--if they are killing your locusts, they arent killing your army, and if the SHs can be positioned to force the opposing army out of a choke and into the open.
SH are very risky for weak players, but can also result in easy wins for those players. In skilled hands and with skilled opponents, they are a very interesting unit, with high micro potential.
Arguing that the SH is not as useful as the infestor, and therefore it is a bad unit is not helpful. First off, if every new unit has to be as good as the infestor is now, there will be no new units. Second, the infestor has been in the game (albeit previously in slightly nerfed forms) since the beginning, and it took almost two years for people to figure out how insanely good it is in mass. Another argument I keep seeing is that the SH is bad because investing in it slows you down from getting BL infestor. Again, hopefully BL Infestor will either be weakened by Blizzard (long) prior to release, or players will have figured out some way to deal with it (like they did with the "unbeatable" 1-1-1). We cannot put a prereq on Blizzard that all new units need to be better than and have more utility than infestor/brood.
The people that think they are boring/gimmicky are likely massing them and sending them across the map uncontested, burrowing them outside a base and winning, or are getting caught unburrowed and losing them all at once, or are sitting with their army in their base when locusts come out of nowhere and kill them. In skilled hands they are a unit that can be powerful outside of a deathball configuration, have interesting weaknesses (need protection against flying units/or need to be babysat to keep from being overrun). They punish lack of scouting and blind turtling from opponents, and lack of positioning strategy and micro from users. That is a cool unit.
Whether its balanced is another question and can be sorted out by tweaking the numbers.
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On November 29 2012 05:42 The_Darkness wrote:
I have a few very important thoughts about swarm hosts:
1. I saw a game once where a player went swarm hosts and the other player couldn't deal with them; it's totally OP.
2. I saw a game once where a player went swarm hosts and couldn't break the other player with them and that player rolled over the player that went for swarm hosts; the swarm host is totally useless.
3. I saw a broodwar game and it had a different unit that had some of the same features as the swarm host; since it was a unit in BW and BW is the best possible game and everything it is as good as it possibly can be, they should just use that other unit in place of the swarm host because it's clearly better even if it comes from an entirely different game and would be pretty useless in SC2.
4. I have determined solely by looking at the statistics and what each zerg unit does that the swarm host serves no role at all and you would be foolish to build any because the infestor is better and thus the people that use the swarm host effectively are just fooling themselves.
5. By creating free units, the swarm host forces your opponent to micro more against free units. Despite the fact that the presence of the locusts will force other players to think strategically about engaging the swarm hosts and to micro more, the swarm host is really just an anti-micro unit because you cannot just walk up to them and shoot them.
6. In a game I played on ladder I created a bunch of swarm hosts and attacked my opponent; I didn't micro anything; I just massed swarm hosts. Therefore, swarm hosts do not require any micro and lower the skill cap. (BTW, I lost that game, which proves that swarm hosts are useless.)
I think that about covers it.
And this guy makes my point, in a much more succinct, clever way.
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it's a fucking broodlord on the ground. bad unit. nuff said.
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THEY ARE NOT LURKERS.
if you want lurkers play mod with them in or play bw, this is getting soo silly. swarmhosts are what blizzard wanted the unit to function as, postional space controlling unit, capable of sigeing a location, they have there weaknesses and have there strength's, they are neither too hard to combat vs with the righ tools and can be devastating vs an opponent who doesn't have the right tools.
you get punished for overmaking them and you get punnished for overmaking defenses vs them, same as other units in hots and wol.
we already know fungle growth, broodlords are getting looking at once earlier stages of the game have been looked into.
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On November 29 2012 05:42 The_Darkness wrote:
I have a few very important thoughts about swarm hosts:
1. I saw a game once where a player went swarm hosts and the other player couldn't deal with them; it's totally OP.
2. I saw a game once where a player went swarm hosts and couldn't break the other player with them and that player rolled over the player that went for swarm hosts; the swarm host is totally useless.
3. I saw a broodwar game and it had a different unit that had some of the same features as the swarm host; since it was a unit in BW and BW is the best possible game and everything it is as good as it possibly can be, they should just use that other unit in place of the swarm host because it's clearly better even if it comes from an entirely different game and would be pretty useless in SC2.
4. I have determined solely by looking at the statistics and what each zerg unit does that the swarm host serves no role at all and you would be foolish to build any because the infestor is better and thus the people that use the swarm host effectively are just fooling themselves.
5. By creating free units, the swarm host forces your opponent to micro more against free units. Despite the fact that the presence of the locusts will force other players to think strategically about engaging the swarm hosts and to micro more, the swarm host is really just an anti-micro unit because you cannot just walk up to them and shoot them.
6. In a game I played on ladder I created a bunch of swarm hosts and attacked my opponent; I didn't micro anything; I just massed swarm hosts. Therefore, swarm hosts do not require any micro and lower the skill cap. (BTW, I lost that game, which proves that swarm hosts are useless.)
I think that about covers it.
You forgot:
I have not seen the Swarmhost used by GSL code S level players in a competitive best of three or five. Therefore, the Swarmhost value and OPness is unknown. But it looks bad ass when really mechanical players like Idra use it.
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EPT
