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Penev
28524 Posts
Things should also make as much sense as possible in science fiction imho. Obviously unit-sizes aren't going to be realistic but, for instance, making a sniper riffle magically do more damage to units that can "read minds" is just silly (they should have just made snipe not usable against massive, you know, makes sense). Edit: To be fair; They did a good job with the baneling. Causes micro on both sides and it has an interesting weakness. The suicide thing is also very zergy. | ||
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PVJ
Hungary5221 Posts
On November 30 2012 21:00 Targe wrote: SH shouldn't be compared to BL or Lurkers in any way, the argument that Lurkers attack when burrows and SH attack when burrowed therefore they are the same unit is moronic. As a T I have found that Swarmhosts require a of micro to play against, however in between volleys the zerg had to be so careful as I would slowly advance my hellbats and tanks. I spoke to a Z after a game and he said he felt that he was pressurised to make it to viper before I reached critical mass of tanks because he believed i would stomp him once that happened, whereas I felt pressurised immensely on 3 bases as our siege lines moved back and forth while I attempted to deal with creep. I'd have to say that SH are very interesting units and blizz has in fact got this one right. You aren't even aware but you nailed the problem: "equire a of micro to play against" while it should be the attacker (the Z, the Swarm Host) which should be microed correctly to pressure. My problem with free units isn't really the lack of larva management it creates (not that it isn't a problem, but not my main one) but it makes all zergs lazy assed about strategic thinking, attacking. | ||
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Glurkenspurk
United States1915 Posts
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Plansix
United States60190 Posts
On December 01 2012 02:58 Glurkenspurk wrote: Has anyone seen any recent "high" level games in HOTS showcasing swarm hosts? Most people saying they are good are in low leagues. In my small amount of experience zvp with them they are garbage since toss will just turtle until they build their 3 base timing army anyway. Watch some recordings from Idra's stream to see him use them pretty well. He showcases how must more effective they can be if you use burrow/unburrow micro to move them between larva spawns. | ||
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Virid
United States130 Posts
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Antylamon
United States1981 Posts
On December 01 2012 03:33 Virid wrote: Far too many people in these later pages are not reading the entire thread and are just using it as a means to cry about BW. I don't feel like repeating myself over and over about why all of you SH haters are wrong. I'm out. I gave up a while ago. So many basic assumptions about SHs and even Lurkers on this thread. | ||
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Ramiz1989
12124 Posts
On December 01 2012 03:33 Virid wrote: Far too many people in these later pages are not reading the entire thread and are just using it as a means to cry about BW. I don't feel like repeating myself over and over about why all of you SH haters are wrong. I'm out. It is not problem that they don't read the thread, the problem is that they don't stop to think about what they will say for a second, and just assume that Swarm Host is a bad copy of a Lurker. | ||
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Xanbatou
United States805 Posts
in my games so far, this has worked wonderfully and creates an entirely different type of game by preventing such turtle play. | ||
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Hider
Denmark9433 Posts
On December 01 2012 07:31 Xanbatou wrote: the swarm host is meant to be a remedy for turtle fest games where protoss or terran turtle and macro up and the zerg player can't put pressure on them without losing if the opponent defends properly. in my games so far, this has worked wonderfully and creates an entirely different type of game by preventing such turtle play. Problem is that those games are boring (where the one player turtle and the other responds with lurker). Rather when one player turtle the other player should techniques to harass the shit out of the turtling player. Unit's that slowly kills a turtling player is just boring shit. I haven't played HOTS; only watched a couple of games with the SH, and those games are just terribly boring. | ||
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Xanbatou
United States805 Posts
On December 01 2012 07:46 Hider wrote: Problem is that those games are boring (where the one player turtle and the other responds with lurker). Rather when one player turtle the other player should techniques to harass the shit out of the turtling player. Unit's that slowly kills a turtling player is just boring shit. I haven't played HOTS; only watched a couple of games with the SH, and those games are just terribly boring. not as boring as trying to out macro each other, which is what happens in wol | ||
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shizaep
Canada2920 Posts
To think of it, you can even replace infestors with defilers, change the tech trees a little bit...maybe even re-work the pathing... We can keep going with this train of thought, but it won't take us places. It's different from a lurker, for sure. I'm not going to say which I think is better design. But it's still a pretty good unit, sure as fuck brings more to the game than the colossus. | ||
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Qikz
United Kingdom12027 Posts
On December 01 2012 10:10 shizaep wrote: Bring back them lurkers, replace colossi with reavers. Buff tank damage. Game suddenly becomes 2x better. To think of it, you can even replace infestors with defilers, change the tech trees a little bit...maybe even re-work the pathing... We can keep going with this train of thought, but it won't take us places. It's different from a lurker, for sure. I'm not going to say which I think is better design. But it's still a pretty good unit, sure as fuck brings more to the game than the colossus. You realise, although it's not a carbon copy, the viper is basically a flying defiler? ;p | ||
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ledarsi
United States475 Posts
On December 01 2012 10:44 Qikz wrote: You realise, although it's not a carbon copy, the viper is basically a flying defiler? ;p False. Blinding Cloud is cast on enemy units to reduce their abilities, Dark Swarm is cast on your own units for a defensive advantage. This is HUGE. Why is this important? Because just a few units under 1 dark swarm gain a defensive advantage against any number of enemy units. One blinding cloud can only affect a limited area of enemy units, while preserving the total strength of any size army you want to use against it. Dark swarm acts against forming deathballs. Blinding cloud encourages it. | ||
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DeCoup
Australia1933 Posts
On December 01 2012 02:48 PVJ wrote: You aren't even aware but you nailed the problem: "equire a of micro to play against" while it should be the attacker (the Z, the Swarm Host) which should be microed correctly to pressure. My problem with free units isn't really the lack of larva management it creates (not that it isn't a problem, but not my main one) but it makes all zergs lazy assed about strategic thinking, attacking. I disagree. All unit, spells, etc should 1) Perform at a certain level when left untouched or a-moved. In this state 'standard' counters apply (Eg zealots beat maruaders). 2) Be more effective when time is dedicated to micro the unit, depending on the unit this could allow the counters to switch. (eg stalkers vs zealots) 3) An opponent to the unit/spell should be able to use counter micro to diminish the effectiveness of the unit/spell in question. (eg 1, marine splitting vs banelings does not swap the counters but lessens the effects of the splash)(eg kiting zealots with marines switches the counters). I could have used better examples, but I don't think its necessary. The point is micro and counter micro and both equally important for all units. Yes some units/abilities require more action on the opponents part than the attacks, but that is true of even the most basic of units. When marines a-move at a protoss base, the protoss needs to kite with his units or use force fields. Does that make marines a bad design? No. Counter micro is just as relevant as micro, and just because some units require more counter micro does not make them a bad design. | ||
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Xanbatou
United States805 Posts
On December 01 2012 10:54 ledarsi wrote: False. Blinding Cloud is cast on enemy units to reduce their abilities, Dark Swarm is cast on your own units for a defensive advantage. This is HUGE. Why is this important? Because just a few units under 1 dark swarm gain a defensive advantage against any number of enemy units. One blinding cloud can only affect a limited area of enemy units, while preserving the total strength of any size army you want to use against it. Dark swarm acts against forming deathballs. Blinding cloud encourages it. Not really sure how you got to that conclusion. Dark swarm protects units within its AOE which means you can protect more units if you put more of them within the AOE, which basically encourages deathballing. Blinding Cloud reduces the range of all units within its AOE to 1, which means you want as few units affected by it as possible. This you can do by not balling up your army so that 1 or 2 blinding clouds hit your entire army. This is encouraging opponents not to deathball. Additionally, zerg is the least guilty of deathballing. They are the race that needs the most to get flanks (because of forcefields in ZvP and tanks/preventing kiting in ZvT). They only deathball near the end with infestor/brood lord comps, which will be made less effective in HoTS anyway. This means that blinding cloud is probably better for reducing deathballs than dark swarm would be. | ||
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AssyrianKing
Australia2116 Posts
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ledarsi
United States475 Posts
On December 01 2012 11:25 Xanbatou wrote: Not really sure how you got to that conclusion. Dark swarm protects units within its AOE which means you can protect more units if you put more of them within the AOE, which basically encourages deathballing. Blinding Cloud reduces the range of all units within its AOE to 1, which means you want as few units affected by it as possible. This you can do by not balling up your army so that 1 or 2 blinding clouds hit your entire army. This is encouraging opponents not to deathball. Additionally, zerg is the least guilty of deathballing. They are the race that needs the most to get flanks (because of forcefields in ZvP and tanks/preventing kiting in ZvT). They only deathball near the end with infestor/brood lord comps, which will be made less effective in HoTS anyway. This means that blinding cloud is probably better for reducing deathballs than dark swarm would be. I am sorry, you simply have no idea what you are talking about. A deathball is not merely having units occupy space close to one another. A deathball is when you engage with your entire army in one locale- their actual proximity to one another is irrelevant. Having 1/3 of your army defending your natural, 1/3 of your army holding a key position out on the map, and 1/3 of your army attacking is a reasonable case of non-deathball play. Having a huge marine army engage all together, but with the player splitting their marines so they don't actually stand physically next to one another is still a deathball. Consequently, saying dark swarm encourages deathballs is to not see the forest for the trees. A single dark swarm allows a small number of units beneath the cloud to fight against a much larger enemy army, and WIN. And that dark swarm only requires a single defiler to cast. So you can hold a ramp against a huge enemy army with as little as 8 supply; 3 lurkers and a defiler, maybe a few extra lings to eat for energy. Meanwhile you might have an ultra+ling army fighting elsewhere. Blinding cloud is precisely the opposite- a Viper is a powerful support asset for a large army meant to fight against an enemy's large army. You would never leave a Blinding Cloud-equipped Defiler for a supply-minimal positional control, even if you still had lurkers to defend with. Blinding Cloud works best when a big enemy army is about to get attacked by your large army, because its effect literally applies to enemy units. Dark Swarm applies to your own units, and confers a large defensive positional advantage you want to leverage. Blinding Cloud applies to enemy units, and confers a significant (but smaller) area of effect disadvantage they want to avoid or escape as quickly as possible. The difference is tremendous. It doesn't encourage the opponent not to deathball- it encourages them to deal with the Viper first and then clash deathballs. Dark Swarm encourages the other player not to deathball, because if they do, they could LOSE in a battle to a much smaller enemy army. Another way to put this- the difference between the two is similar to the difference between Lurkers and Banelings. Lurkers hold a position, which the enemy is punished for attacking into. Banelings are best used to bum-rush the enemy position in numbers, knowing lots of them are going to die while closing range, but having enough to not care. Dark Swarm holds a position, Blinding Cloud is good for bum-rushing. Furthermore, your assertion that zerg is not guilty of the deathball is preposterous. Broodlord+Infestor, your argument is invalid. However even other non-canonical deathballs are still deathballs in practice. Virtually every unit in the game, including zerg units like roaches, are more efficient when used all together, without limit, and without powerful localized advantages (such as dark swarm) that encourage having smaller forces supported by those abilities or other effects. If you split your army into multiple smaller pieces, you are asking to get defeated in detail when an enemy deathball crushes each piece with minimal casualties. You would never, ever, want half your zerg army to fight, and then once that battle is over, commit the other half. At the moment there are lots of powerful ways to do direct damage to the enemy. Combat units, direct damage spells like psi storm, seeker missile, etc. These are somewhat boring. There are also lots of ways to limit the enemy's options and abilities, which are less boring, but ultimately lead to limited positional play and lack of micro, such as forcefield, fungal, concussive shells, etc. There are few spells that give local advantages, and those that do are very weak. Guardian shield, point defense drone... that's about it. Dark Swarm is vastly stronger than either of those spells, and should be the template for positional force multiplier abilities to be designed. | ||
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Big G
Italy835 Posts
On December 01 2012 07:46 Hider wrote: Problem is that those games are boring (where the one player turtle and the other responds with lurker). Rather when one player turtle the other player should techniques to harass the shit out of the turtling player. Unit's that slowly kills a turtling player is just boring shit. I haven't played HOTS; only watched a couple of games with the SH, and those games are just terribly boring. The swarm host seems to be designed as positional play... against an immobile (aka turtling) opponent. Which is arguably boring to watch. BUT at the same time if it becomes particularly effective at that, it will probably encourage a more dynamic play by the turtle, which seems good to me. I don't think Zergs need additional harassing tools, so I'm fine with something that could promote a different style, especially in some maps where muta harass is harder. | ||
Zelniq
United States7166 Posts
lurkers are exciting and intense to micro for both the player fighting them (with the well-designed line attack, it really rewards good splitting micro, good movement/positioning, and even some units to draw attacks away from the main army, and the from lurker's player perspective it's a lot of micro to move them into attacking position and burrow them quickly and effectively, and often unburrowing--repeating for more aggression. these are only a couple reasons why it was so successful..probably the best designed unit imo ever made between sc2 and bw but the swarm host, moves slowly above ground (whereas the lurker was a good quick speed for moving them across the map and into battles quickly), which to me makes no sense for a unit that already can't move while in 'attacking' mode, and just really limits what you can do with them. Then when you burrow them and they still cant actually defend themselves, they just spawn free mini roaches that move slowly and have a boring simple attack and have no interesting micro nor encourage hardly any micro/positioning from the opponent. They're not even effective for battles, you just want to keep em far away from any fights and use the spawns to push enemies back or harass them/wear them down. It's not fun for players, not fun for spectators, and really just makes for annoying types of games. But hey at least they made the viper quite interesting so far, I think it's the most exciting unit in sc2 yet. | ||
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Zelniq
United States7166 Posts
On December 01 2012 12:56 Big G wrote: The swarm host seems to be designed as positional play... against an immobile (aka turtling) opponent. Which is arguably boring to watch. BUT at the same time if it becomes particularly effective at that, it will probably encourage a more dynamic play by the turtle, which seems good to me. I don't think Zergs need additional harassing tools, so I'm fine with something that could promote a different style, especially in some maps where muta harass is harder. zerg is lacking the cool /challenging unit micro that terran/protoss have. their armies work at nearly full efficiency when you just a-move them really, and swarm host isn't really helping the lack of micro-able units. maybe if they redesigned the hydralisk to have a better attack animation so you can do some stalker-like, or marine-like micro with them..then maybe..but right now their attack animation wind-up is too long..even if they had a movement speed upgrade this issue needs to be resolved. tho then again, because of the colossus and just terrans' units in general, it may be tough to use them as a staple unit in a lot of games anyway. | ||
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