On November 29 2012 22:42 Tuczniak wrote: I like about vipers that you can make three of them and they are useful. With swarm hosts you need 15+ for them to do anything at all. That's just bad.
Your conclusion is not self-evident from your premise. Requiring a lot of a unit for them to be effective is nothing new, and even your claim that you need lots of them isn't really true. Locusts are incredibly strong, and a few left burrowed near a 3rd can do some pretty good harassment work. Having just 3 SHs burrowed and sent towards a protoss army without AOE still will typically net you a free Zealot or Stalker.
Siege tanks are pretty useless in small numbers too, but nobody complains about that fact either.
A Siege Tank does 50 damage with an AOE effect per shot, adding considerable firepower to any army. A single Swarm Host adds very little DPS to any given army. However, when you have a large amount of Swarm Hosts, you begin to overcome the firepower of the opposing force, and the Locusts begin doing damage instead of all dying before they do any damage. And thus you can drown an opponent in wave after wave of Locusts, as the situation snowballs.
What you are arguing is completely incorrect.
Siege Tanks don't have really high dps (at least per cost). Yeah, they do 35+15 damage and have (a small and strongly decreasing in damage) splash radius, but that's not really interesting about having 2-3 siege tanks. What is interesting is, that they have huge range. You deploy them, and suddenly the defender has to give up a lot of his defenders advantages (better positioning, static defenses, walls, the "I have a clock on you" etc.)
And that's actually the same effect that Swarmhosts will hopefully have at some point in a stable metagame. "Whoopsie, time to come out and play or I can kill something for free".
I would like to see seige tanks get an upgrade for faster deploy and pack-up. The weakness of that unit is that everything in the world is faster than them and they take a month to deploy. If they could pack up and get redeployed quickly, it would make the unit more useful.
Also, an upgrade for medivacs to pick up deployed tanks would be awesome. Just one at a time, but I would love to watch some pickup and drop micro with those.
Weaknesses make units interesting. Just because it has a weakness doesn't mean that weakness should be fixed. Of course you could be of the opinion that the amount of control it exerts in Siege Mode isn't enough to compensate for the lack of mobility, but that's a different discussion.
(And in that case I would argue make it stronger in Siege Mode because just making it more mobile just makes Tank play more bland).
I would rather a change that requires the player to make the unit better, rather than a damage/AOE increase. I don't think people would use this to "micro" tanks mid battle, but make them to they can fall back without losing every high gas unit they have. People who want "stronger” tanks that are less mobile make me suspicious.
Then make the unit take longer to siege but be stronger at controlling space when sieged. More mobile tanks is basically just making Mech easier, not better. It is just taking away from the attributes that make Mech, Mech. Positioning is a very, very difficult skill that people can appreciate, making Tanks faster just takes away from that difficulty and challenge of Mech.
On November 28 2012 19:38 lazyitachi wrote: LOL... logic fail. How would lurker be different from swarm host? "A good pro player would instantly withdraw all his forces and move the probes." This argument holds for lurkers. T
The swarm host attacked very slowly and the 'projectiles' could even be killed. The lurker attacks fast and deal splash and can't be avoided.
The swarm host was just a worse variant of the brood lord. The lurker has an unique role in it's game.
The swarm host was ugly as hell. The lurker is cool.
On November 29 2012 22:42 Tuczniak wrote: I like about vipers that you can make three of them and they are useful. With swarm hosts you need 15+ for them to do anything at all. That's just bad.
Your conclusion is not self-evident from your premise. Requiring a lot of a unit for them to be effective is nothing new, and even your claim that you need lots of them isn't really true. Locusts are incredibly strong, and a few left burrowed near a 3rd can do some pretty good harassment work. Having just 3 SHs burrowed and sent towards a protoss army without AOE still will typically net you a free Zealot or Stalker.
Siege tanks are pretty useless in small numbers too, but nobody complains about that fact either.
A Siege Tank does 50 damage with an AOE effect per shot, adding considerable firepower to any army. A single Swarm Host adds very little DPS to any given army. However, when you have a large amount of Swarm Hosts, you begin to overcome the firepower of the opposing force, and the Locusts begin doing damage instead of all dying before they do any damage. And thus you can drown an opponent in wave after wave of Locusts, as the situation snowballs.
What you are arguing is completely incorrect.
Siege Tanks don't have really high dps (at least per cost). Yeah, they do 35+15 damage and have (a small and strongly decreasing in damage) splash radius, but that's not really interesting about having 2-3 siege tanks. What is interesting is, that they have huge range. You deploy them, and suddenly the defender has to give up a lot of his defenders advantages (better positioning, static defenses, walls, the "I have a clock on you" etc.)
And that's actually the same effect that Swarmhosts will hopefully have at some point in a stable metagame. "Whoopsie, time to come out and play or I can kill something for free".
I would like to see seige tanks get an upgrade for faster deploy and pack-up. The weakness of that unit is that everything in the world is faster than them and they take a month to deploy. If they could pack up and get redeployed quickly, it would make the unit more useful.
Also, an upgrade for medivacs to pick up deployed tanks would be awesome. Just one at a time, but I would love to watch some pickup and drop micro with those.
Weaknesses make units interesting. Just because it has a weakness doesn't mean that weakness should be fixed. Of course you could be of the opinion that the amount of control it exerts in Siege Mode isn't enough to compensate for the lack of mobility, but that's a different discussion.
(And in that case I would argue make it stronger in Siege Mode because just making it more mobile just makes Tank play more bland).
I would rather a change that requires the player to make the unit better, rather than a damage/AOE increase. I don't think people would use this to "micro" tanks mid battle, but make them to they can fall back without losing every high gas unit they have. People who want "stronger” tanks that are less mobile make me suspicious.
Then make the unit take longer to siege but be stronger at controlling space when sieged. More mobile tanks is basically just making Mech easier, not better. It is just taking away from the attributes that make Mech, Mech. Positioning is a very, very difficult skill that people can appreciate, making Tanks faster just takes away from that difficulty and challenge of Mech.
Yeah, that sounds like a buff that would make it easier for players siege up their tanks, sit back and watch the units crash against their wall of DPS. The whole push for “strong” siege mode has always struck as such. Giving terrans the ability to save some or all of their siege tanks sounds way more interesting and exciting. It is watch makes the swarmhost awesome to watch when used by a skilled player.
On November 29 2012 22:42 Tuczniak wrote: I like about vipers that you can make three of them and they are useful. With swarm hosts you need 15+ for them to do anything at all. That's just bad.
Your conclusion is not self-evident from your premise. Requiring a lot of a unit for them to be effective is nothing new, and even your claim that you need lots of them isn't really true. Locusts are incredibly strong, and a few left burrowed near a 3rd can do some pretty good harassment work. Having just 3 SHs burrowed and sent towards a protoss army without AOE still will typically net you a free Zealot or Stalker.
Siege tanks are pretty useless in small numbers too, but nobody complains about that fact either.
A Siege Tank does 50 damage with an AOE effect per shot, adding considerable firepower to any army. A single Swarm Host adds very little DPS to any given army. However, when you have a large amount of Swarm Hosts, you begin to overcome the firepower of the opposing force, and the Locusts begin doing damage instead of all dying before they do any damage. And thus you can drown an opponent in wave after wave of Locusts, as the situation snowballs.
What you are arguing is completely incorrect.
Siege Tanks don't have really high dps (at least per cost). Yeah, they do 35+15 damage and have (a small and strongly decreasing in damage) splash radius, but that's not really interesting about having 2-3 siege tanks. What is interesting is, that they have huge range. You deploy them, and suddenly the defender has to give up a lot of his defenders advantages (better positioning, static defenses, walls, the "I have a clock on you" etc.)
And that's actually the same effect that Swarmhosts will hopefully have at some point in a stable metagame. "Whoopsie, time to come out and play or I can kill something for free".
I would like to see seige tanks get an upgrade for faster deploy and pack-up. The weakness of that unit is that everything in the world is faster than them and they take a month to deploy. If they could pack up and get redeployed quickly, it would make the unit more useful.
Also, an upgrade for medivacs to pick up deployed tanks would be awesome. Just one at a time, but I would love to watch some pickup and drop micro with those.
Weaknesses make units interesting. Just because it has a weakness doesn't mean that weakness should be fixed. Of course you could be of the opinion that the amount of control it exerts in Siege Mode isn't enough to compensate for the lack of mobility, but that's a different discussion.
(And in that case I would argue make it stronger in Siege Mode because just making it more mobile just makes Tank play more bland).
I would rather a change that requires the player to make the unit better, rather than a damage/AOE increase. I don't think people would use this to "micro" tanks mid battle, but make them to they can fall back without losing every high gas unit they have. People who want "stronger” tanks that are less mobile make me suspicious.
Then make the unit take longer to siege but be stronger at controlling space when sieged. More mobile tanks is basically just making Mech easier, not better. It is just taking away from the attributes that make Mech, Mech. Positioning is a very, very difficult skill that people can appreciate, making Tanks faster just takes away from that difficulty and challenge of Mech.
Yeah, that sounds like a buff that would make it easier for players siege up their tanks, sit back and watch the units crash against their wall of DPS. The whole push for “strong” siege mode has always struck as such. Giving terrans the ability to save some or all of their siege tanks sounds way more interesting and exciting. It is watch makes the swarmhost awesome to watch when used by a skilled player.
No, it very clearly makes it harder to siege up and have units run into them - because it makes it harder to be in position with them. It means if you get there too late your Tanks aren't going to be able to siege up in time, and you're going to get punished for being out of position.
YOUR change makes it easier to be in position. It makes runby's and counter-attacks straight up weaker, how is that exciting or interesting? It makes the Mech player being out of position not be as punished for this key mistake, how is that exciting or interesting? How is it exciting or interesting watching a Tank unsiege and retreat - only a bit faster than it does now?
What's exciting and interesting is watching a game of strategy, a game of positioning, where the Mech player tries to be in position with their slow and strong units, and the opponent tries to catch them out of position with faster, weaker units. And if one player get's the better of the other, they are rewarded for it!
Your change just makes this entire dynamic weaker. It just makes things easier for the Meching player. How is making things easier exciting and interesting? It isn't.
On November 29 2012 22:42 Tuczniak wrote: I like about vipers that you can make three of them and they are useful. With swarm hosts you need 15+ for them to do anything at all. That's just bad.
Your conclusion is not self-evident from your premise. Requiring a lot of a unit for them to be effective is nothing new, and even your claim that you need lots of them isn't really true. Locusts are incredibly strong, and a few left burrowed near a 3rd can do some pretty good harassment work. Having just 3 SHs burrowed and sent towards a protoss army without AOE still will typically net you a free Zealot or Stalker.
Siege tanks are pretty useless in small numbers too, but nobody complains about that fact either.
A Siege Tank does 50 damage with an AOE effect per shot, adding considerable firepower to any army. A single Swarm Host adds very little DPS to any given army. However, when you have a large amount of Swarm Hosts, you begin to overcome the firepower of the opposing force, and the Locusts begin doing damage instead of all dying before they do any damage. And thus you can drown an opponent in wave after wave of Locusts, as the situation snowballs.
What you are arguing is completely incorrect.
Siege Tanks don't have really high dps (at least per cost). Yeah, they do 35+15 damage and have (a small and strongly decreasing in damage) splash radius, but that's not really interesting about having 2-3 siege tanks. What is interesting is, that they have huge range. You deploy them, and suddenly the defender has to give up a lot of his defenders advantages (better positioning, static defenses, walls, the "I have a clock on you" etc.)
And that's actually the same effect that Swarmhosts will hopefully have at some point in a stable metagame. "Whoopsie, time to come out and play or I can kill something for free".
I would like to see seige tanks get an upgrade for faster deploy and pack-up. The weakness of that unit is that everything in the world is faster than them and they take a month to deploy. If they could pack up and get redeployed quickly, it would make the unit more useful.
Also, an upgrade for medivacs to pick up deployed tanks would be awesome. Just one at a time, but I would love to watch some pickup and drop micro with those.
Weaknesses make units interesting. Just because it has a weakness doesn't mean that weakness should be fixed. Of course you could be of the opinion that the amount of control it exerts in Siege Mode isn't enough to compensate for the lack of mobility, but that's a different discussion.
(And in that case I would argue make it stronger in Siege Mode because just making it more mobile just makes Tank play more bland).
I would rather a change that requires the player to make the unit better, rather than a damage/AOE increase. I don't think people would use this to "micro" tanks mid battle, but make them to they can fall back without losing every high gas unit they have. People who want "stronger” tanks that are less mobile make me suspicious.
If you're Terran going tank heavy and you have to fall back with the bulk of your tanks at any point, you are already dead. That's the tension of positional mech play. Positional play is more interesting to watch, because rather than death balls you have a player spreading out more to take more of the map, being able to "stretch" his defense, resulting in many small clashes over key positions on the map.
A way to make tanks better that "requires the player" - make tanks overkill like they did in sc1. That is, if a unit or a few units move into range, only the very front unit will be hit by the tanks. That means that to have good dps with tanks, you need to target fire or have a very good staggered formation (so not all the tanks can shoot at once). Then you could buff the tank dps slightly without making them op, since it requires micro to fully utilize.
On November 30 2012 02:46 a176 wrote: I think some of you need some clarification about the lurker.
Whenever I hear 'area control' people always think of a purely defensive unit, and the lurker was anything but. The lurker is zerg's ground-aoe unit, as the siege tank and reaver were for their races. (This is probably why blizzard always gave us the speil about baneling-lurker overlap).
The difference between the lurker and the baneling though is that the lurker is effective against basically every ground unit in brood war. This is what I also suspect blizzard went through while designing the SH is to have a lurker-type unit that is effective against a much wider berth of enemies.
But the execution leaves a lot to be desired. The lurker was a run-and-gun unit. Send in some lings to draw fire, run in lurkers and burrow, and let them rip.
The swarm host is obviously not a run and gun unit and this is what the OP is probably talking about. It doesn't have an 'instant' attack. Its 'attack' is super long range. Its 'attack cooldown' is very long as well. So its a much slower style of unit, even with locust pushing. It lacks the 'thrill' of the lurker from both an attackers and defenders point of view. Or even its appeal in and of itself.
And regarding the unit itself, its dishonest if a zerg tells you the SH is anything but a stop-gap brood lord.
10 SH's can field 20 Locusts and reposition during the 25-second cooldown. That's more hit and run than Lurkers could ever be. At least for Protoss and Zerg, you can't exactly ignore or shrug off 20 locusts.
The only reason you think the SH is slower is because you didn't spend more than 5 seconds to stop and consider how the unit could be used, or even read the rest of the posts in this thread that have several discussions on this very tactic.
Not to mention, brood lords aren't even the most obvious T3 complement to SH's either. That's the Viper.
You should really put more effort into your posts before you start fielding even more ignorant opinions.
On November 28 2012 19:38 lazyitachi wrote: LOL... logic fail. How would lurker be different from swarm host? "A good pro player would instantly withdraw all his forces and move the probes." This argument holds for lurkers. T
The swarm host attacked very slowly and the 'projectiles' could even be killed. The lurker attacks fast and deal splash and can't be avoided.
I see you want another Colossus.
And "can't be avoided?" Give me a break.
The swarm host was just a worse variant of the brood lord. The lurker has an unique role in it's game.
SHs can pull off hit-and-run tactics with ease due to their ridiculously long cooldown, while BLs are simply too slow.
Also, Tanks, Reavers, and to some extent Goons (early game PvP and PvT) filled the same role as Lurkers, which was to kill almost anything on the ground.
The swarm host was ugly as hell. The lurker is cool.
Now you're just insulting the SH in every way you can. The concept art looks really good, even if the in-game models could be better.
If you draw the common comparison between the appearance of Swarm Hosts and Parasect, I'll respond with the fact that Lurkers look like Spinarak.
On November 28 2012 19:38 lazyitachi wrote: LOL... logic fail. How would lurker be different from swarm host? "A good pro player would instantly withdraw all his forces and move the probes." This argument holds for lurkers. T
The swarm host attacked very slowly and the 'projectiles' could even be killed. The lurker attacks fast and deal splash and can't be avoided.
The swarm host was just a worse variant of the brood lord. The lurker has an unique role in it's game.
SHs can pull off hit-and-run tactics with ease due to their ridiculously long cooldown, while BLs are simply too slow.
Also, Tanks, Reavers, and to some extent Goons (early game PvP and PvT) filled the same role as Lurkers, which was to kill almost anything on the ground.
On November 30 2012 05:35 Antylamon wrote: And "can't be avoided?" Give me a break.
The swarm host was ugly as hell. The lurker is cool.
Now you're just insulting the SH in every way you can. The concept art looks really good, even if the in-game models could be better.
Once the lurker attacks, it deals it's damage in a straight line. Broodlings can be kited, killed and microed.
And yes, the swarm host is both boring at every philosophical level and ugly. I am insulting it because I don't like it.
While Protoss fanboys cries "PvZ can't get worse than BL/infestor!!", Blizzard's answer is "well yes it can, let us present the swarm host!"
Which actually results in more action than just burrowing unit and let it attack in a straight line. If you think that Swarm Host is a ground Brood Lord, I can do that as well, because Lurker is actually Burrowed Hellion! Wow, how creative!
You don't like it, that is your opinion, and that is fine, but saying that Swarm Host is a ground Brood Lord is bullcrap. Banshee is flying Marauder, and Dark Templar is cloaked Zealot... everything sounds stupid when you simplify things like that.
On November 30 2012 07:26 Ramiz1989 wrote: [..] saying that Swarm Host is a ground Brood Lord is bullcrap.
No, it's very relevant. The swarm host is everything that's wrong with BL applied to another kind of unit.
One of the main problems with BLs is how, yet again, low speed is used as a balancing factor. Swarm Hosts aren't slow. Locusts don't hinder movement nearly as much either, considering that they're ranged.
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.
Haha... The best part. Exact thoughts of Blizzard design team.
I don't see the similarities between the Swarm Host and Brood Lord being anywhere near what is described in the OP.
Micro: Broodlings block movement and micro because (a) They are essentially created directly next to the target unit, and (b) They are melee units. Lings 'block pathing and prevent micro' more than locusts because they are faster and melee range. There is always wiggle room vs locusts.
Fun to use/watch: Swarm hosts are much more fun to both use and watch than Brood Lords. The positioning, re positioning, siege pressure and forcing nature of the units gives them a lot of similarities to tanks in that way, but Swarm Hosts dont have as many of the spectator downfalls which blizzard have feared over the years. Swarm hosts force action because when in siege position they are attacking, unlike siege tanks which are quite often creating a contain and zoning, but do not require immediate reaction from the opponent. So we get all the benefits of positional siege play but with more going on, and no 45min time stamp.
The play styles that can be used with them are very cool too, with regards to releasing a swarm, then moving the SH to another location and releasing another swarm. Altho they can maintain their positions for a siege, they have the flexibility to be mobile between waves and a lot of mobility. None of these elements relate to brood lords which for the most part are totally immobile and a-moved. Kiting backwards a little is about as much micro as you get from brood lords.
It is also good to note that brood lords evolve from an air to air unit, meaning that between the two of them they can counter many units which are attempting to dissect the force. Swarm host does not have this luxury as without completely separate tech they are very vunerable to many units. This forces more compositional play, instead of 2-3 unit BS that units like the BL create.
Thanks for your post. It's a convincing argument you make. Blizzard's direction with Starcraft 2 is appropriate for its goals for a balanced, e-sport friendly game. Though it would be foolish to accuse them of completely forgetting about the people who enjoy Starcraft as a universe / world rather than just as a game, it does appear that the "idea" of the Zerg race has been overlooked to some extent.
I tend to agree with zerg having questionable design but its nothing like as bad as what they did to protoss - designing a race entirely around deathballs is a travesty to SC imo.
The swarm host does seem like a really bad unit in every way, I can't see it being fun to watch, or use for that matter.
Why is everyone talking about this repositioning of SHs? What is so special about the respositioning of SHs? You set a target for the locusts, not the SH. It doesn't matter if you plant the SH here, then there, if the locusts are all going to the same target anyways.
Unless some of you are talking about the excitement of retreating your SHs when your enemy figures out how get by the wall of locusts.
Swarm hosts have some interesting micro thats been pretty overlooked. You can burrow, pump out locusts then move for the other 90% of the locust duration. This makes them more like seige tanks than anything.
You can't really have a small group of swarm hosts harass places but maybe it would be worth it as a 'set it and forget it' kind of harassment unit. Like grab 3 swarm hosts burrow near opponent's 3 bases and rally to attack. Itll be a little frustrating for your opponent to deal with with minimal effort from you.
To add high skillcap to swarm host use you can add in roach or hydra drops which use range upgrades that swarm hosts use. You can also use the infestor or viper or a combination of both. This could be a deathball composition which forces your opponent to use hit and run tactics similar to playing vs infestor broodlord. But this deathball has more skillcap for in battle micro using all the different spells on 2 dif spell casters.
You ofcourse still have the option to play muta-ling playstyle as its not terrible vs any race ATM. It may not be the best but as it falls out of favor your opponent will be less used to playing vs it making it a decent choice.
Basically Blizzard has been so incompetent that even a marginal step in the right direction such as incorporating any zerg positional unit is applauded.
The fact that it is a huge unit that spawns endless numbers of other units broodlord-style is sort of a secondary concern, at least in my opinion. Plus there is the weirdness that it sort of isn't actually a positional unit, because it can unburrow and wait out its cooldown on the move, and burrow again. Which destroys almost all the positional nature of the unit, unlike the lurker which must remain burrowed to continue attacking.
EPT![[image loading]](http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20071101072521/starcraft/images/0/07/SC1_Lurker.gif)
![[image loading]](http://serebii.net/art/th/167.png)
