EPTWe can be honest about Swarm Host? - Page 9
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Cyro
United Kingdom20322 Posts
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PineapplePizza
United States749 Posts
I really want to know who's using their anus to post. | ||
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a176
Canada6688 Posts
On December 01 2012 12:13 ledarsi wrote: 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. dark swarm was rarely used in a purely defensive manner as you describe. having defilers sit back at your expos with full energy waiting to cast dark swarm or plague on an army that may never come is a monumental waste. maybe if you were way behind in the game and are fighting for survival. anyways, not to mention when you engage the enemy you usually need to carpet swarm with a handful of defilers. in all technicality you cannot "deathball" under a dark swarm either because it does not stop splash damage or spells like storm. in effect blinding cloud is much superior to dark swarm because it can shut down both regular and splash damage completely. the trade off is its much smaller area of effect. | ||
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admi_n
28 Posts
Remember when blizz unveiled the SH? They showed it breaking down a turtled terran's wall. They made it overwhelmingly clear that it would be a long-distance siege unit, like the BL, only it would be useful without the infestor. They have succeeded in this goal very well. It serves good offensive and defensive roles. It can repel an army easily when combined with other ground forces, but it can also pressure an opponent or break a wall. It is NOT a lurker, so get that out of your heads. However, an issue with this is that it means that zerg's only AOEs are still fungal and baneling. I would really like to see blizz give us a nice defensive unit. Probably something fragile that does heavy damage in the AOE. I think it would be nice if the roach or the hydra could evolve into something that served this role. (From a lore standpoint, the roach would do quite well, because it spits acid anyway, so why not have it evolve to spit exploding acid while burrowed?) | ||
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Avicularia
540 Posts
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TheButtonmen
Canada1403 Posts
20 damage, 125 hp and 6 range + stim would just roll over lukers. | ||
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Cinquedea
Canada144 Posts
On November 28 2012 19:07 bobbeh wrote: Burrowed infestor spamming infested terran = better swarm host since they're both a lair tech, then basically yes! | ||
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Existor
Russian Federation4295 Posts
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VManOfMana
United States764 Posts
On November 28 2012 22:17 vidium wrote: It seems many people would like a SC Broodwar HD and not an evolution of the game which is SC2. Every game evolves and when new units come in the game everybody just cant accept them. SC2 is not an evolution of BW. And that is the problem. For SC2 to be an evolution, it would need to take BW as a foundation and build on it, making it better. However, Browder and his team either decided to ignore the previous 10+ years of knowledge in competitive Starcraft and/or are just unable to understand why BW is a good game. Worse, they worked to make sure SC2 is an anti-Brood War when it comes to positional play. The result is a game that scrapped the progress of the past 10+ years and results in a de-evolution of the franchise. | ||
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Zahir
United States947 Posts
On December 02 2012 04:41 VManOfMana wrote: SC2 is not an evolution of BW. And that is the problem. For SC2 to be an evolution, it would need to take BW as a foundation and build on it, making it better. However, Browder and his team either decided to ignore the previous 10+ years of knowledge in competitive Starcraft and/or are just unable to understand why BW is a good game. Worse, they worked to make sure SC2 is an anti-Brood War when it comes to positional play. The result is a game that scrapped the progress of the past 10+ years and results in a de-evolution of the franchise. That's probably going too far. The campaign was awesome. It's still probably 2nd or 3rd best multiplayer rts of all time. The ui is incredibly improved. then you have additions like blink, Phoenix lift, banshees, Viking air/ground mode, burrowed movement... Sc2 actually did build on brood war in several places. But you are right, many key aspects (like positional play, dodgeable aoe) were forgotten. Overall I wouldn't call sc2 a devolution. Parts of it devolved, others advanced... Blink is probably the best example I can think of. But I see your gist, the game could be so much better with just a few tweaks, the "sc2 is not sc1" argument is kind of missing the point, it's not about changing the whole game but only a few broken mechanics. | ||
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sCCrooked
Korea (South)1306 Posts
On December 02 2012 06:32 Zahir wrote: That's probably going too far. The campaign was awesome. It's still probably 2nd or 3rd best multiplayer rts of all time. The ui is incredibly improved. then you have additions like blink, Phoenix lift, banshees, Viking air/ground mode, burrowed movement... Sc2 actually did build on brood war in several places. But you are right, many key aspects (like positional play, dodgeable aoe) were forgotten. Overall I wouldn't call sc2 a devolution. Parts of it devolved, others advanced... Blink is probably the best example I can think of. But I see your gist, the game could be so much better with just a few tweaks, the "sc2 is not sc1" argument is kind of missing the point, it's not about changing the whole game but only a few broken mechanics. That's just it though. Its not just a few broken things about this game. The economic system, tech tree progressions and abilities/spells are just badly designed. These are very big core issues. Essentially what they did was try to build a Sear's Tower when the foundation is crappy and fucked up. | ||
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NeWnAr
Singapore231 Posts
Look at the BW hydra. It could hit everything, air/ground, and was decently good against almost any enemy army compo. There didn't exist commonly used strats for the other races such that hydras are completely nullified. Combined with the old detector overlords, nothing could stop the powerful onslaught of standard, but methodical hydralisk. Strength in number was really their design concept because they weren't design to "counter" anything. They were designed to tear apart anything and everything which stood in the Zerg's way without prejudice or preference for enemy compo. Similarly, the lurker's concept, which is also its namesake, is simply the deceptivity of high order Zerg thought. Purity of essence, as the Zel Naga put it. It wasn't made to rape bio, it just happened to do so. If it was designed to rape bio, large banelings would probably be the result. The entire lurker idea is about striking unbeknownst, and striking hard. That's why it has enormous aoe damage ouput, and people misinterpret this as an aoe clearing unit. But when you really think about it, the spines are entirely dodgeable. What does this mean? This means that the lurker's real role is to battle the enemy's attention. It is hideously powerful when attacking from the shadows, like a DT, but once the enemy places some attention into the fight he can clear them out. The lurker is basically a micro-forcer. It forces micro versus other races. Which is inherently different from say, the siege tank, which is truly designed for zone play and heavy aoe output. The SC2 roach, on the other hand, is a "specialized" unit. It is so ineffective against immortals and/or marauders that there is absolutely no way in hell Roaches can beat them, even with extra population boost from sc2 inject larvar mechanic. No other Zerg unit has been countered so hard and bad before. Mutas used to fear goliaths, but their superior speed and the fact that they flew over terrain gave them a fighting chance large enough to still be viable. If we look at the sc2 hydra, it is simply so pathetic that I cannot remember how many times I have wept for its plight in SC2. Its reduced speed geatly hindered in their role of being the main meat army since they could get zoned out by everything except zealots and lings. The light modifier is a large "shoot-me" sign versus phoenix anf hellions. Not mentioning the fact that helliond also rape zerglings, zerg mid game ground only has 2 more choices, roaches and banes. And don't act like you didn't know phoenix were design as a restrictive air assault craft, similar to hots oracle. G-beam is like a reverse Pulsar Beam, vice versa. This is why although they only can hit air, it's simple logic to realise that albeit their fundamental unit design, they aren't weak against non-structure ground-to-air( but corrupters, a unit with similar original role for Zerg, are weak to). And a bonus against light makes hydras even less viable. And if you look at it in terms of unit versatality, it makes no sense. Tell me, which units are able to get hit by hydras but unable to return fire? Vikings? No, remember the transformer? Phoenix? We already covered that. Battlecru-no. Voidr-nah. Bans-nope. Oh yea, Raven! Sorry, turrets. In the end, you realise there are only warp prism, overlord, overseer, corrupter, medivac and observer. Out of these probably only the corrupter is a real fighting unit. And then you realize that it has 2 base armour and the simple fact that it's also a unit from the Zerg arsenal. Generally speaking, most of the new Zerg units in sc2 have lost alot of their design concept from bw, and with it their race mentality as well. Zerg now is no longer the swarm it used to be, but instead a reactive race that functions upon what other races do. | ||
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dragonsuper
Liechtenstein222 Posts
Viewership will continue to decline, same with the basic interest in the game. When everyone will understand that blizzard has failed so hard, Kespa will finally launch a tournament based on SC2BW with clumping modifications, and we will be happy. User was warned for this post User was temp banned for this post. | ||
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DoubleReed
United States4130 Posts
On December 02 2012 07:00 sCCrooked wrote: That's just it though. Its not just a few broken things about this game. The economic system, tech tree progressions and abilities/spells are just badly designed. These are very big core issues. Essentially what they did was try to build a Sear's Tower when the foundation is crappy and fucked up. ...the tech tree progressions??? They're largely unchanged from BW... unless you thought the science facility was just incredibly important. | ||
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Rabiator
Germany3948 Posts
On December 01 2012 15:01 a176 wrote: in all technicality you cannot "deathball" under a dark swarm either because it does not stop splash damage or spells like storm. in effect blinding cloud is much superior to dark swarm because it can shut down both regular and splash damage completely. the trade off is its much smaller area of effect. That is NOT an acceptable tradeoff, because the Zerg still directs the spell and can focus the attention on "the right spot". Since Zerg are the most mobile army on the battlefield that is not good and its the next case of a "100% spell" which is rather terrible after the 100% lockdown of Fungal and Forcefield. I dont see any Terran spell or ability which makes people go "well you should have spread out your units beforehand" or "shape the battlefield". Thus this race is severely disadvantaged and the asymmetry of the three races has gone too far. Free unit spawners pretty much make their own "invulnerability shield" through spawning a screen of units which deal damage AND block any ground units from getting into range in the first place. Swarm Hosts are burrowed on top of that, but they are just as terrible as the 22 range flying Tempest. Again more of the "100% stuff" (although these arent really at 100% and more like 90%). On December 02 2012 10:23 dragonsuper wrote: sc2 was a devolution comparing to bw , hots won't change that. Viewership will continue to decline, same with the basic interest in the game. When everyone will understand that blizzard has failed so hard, Kespa will finally launch a tournament based on SC2BW with clumping modifications, and we will be happy. ... only if we are still watching by then. You forgot to mention that we will hopefully get presented with "Browders job on a silver platter" ... that is what I would like to see and the more they screw up the more I want it to fall into someone elses hands. The guy and his decisions are intolerable. | ||
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a176
Canada6688 Posts
On December 02 2012 15:26 Rabiator wrote: That is NOT an acceptable tradeoff, because the Zerg still directs the spell and can focus the attention on "the right spot". Since Zerg are the most mobile army on the battlefield that is not good and its the next case of a "100% spell" which is rather terrible after the 100% lockdown of Fungal and Forcefield. I dont see any Terran spell or ability which makes people go "well you should have spread out your units beforehand" or "shape the battlefield". Thus this race is severely disadvantaged and the asymmetry of the three races has gone too far. Free unit spawners pretty much make their own "invulnerability shield" through spawning a screen of units which deal damage AND block any ground units from getting into range in the first place. Swarm Hosts are burrowed on top of that, but they are just as terrible as the 22 range flying Tempest. Again more of the "100% stuff" (although these arent really at 100% and more like 90%). ... only if we are still watching by then. You forgot to mention that we will hopefully get presented with "Browders job on a silver platter" ... that is what I would like to see and the more they screw up the more I want it to fall into someone elses hands. The guy and his decisions are intolerable. oh yea, can you imagine? no more dodging banelings! | ||
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Rabiator
Germany3948 Posts
On December 02 2012 16:19 a176 wrote: oh yea, can you imagine? no more dodging banelings! Only if you are a Zerg yourself OR if your Zerg opponent is stupid enough to use Banelings AND cast "Dark Swarm 2.0" on your units. For ZvZ the units are much too fast to stick to fighting in such a small area and Banelings are early game units anyways ... where it seems unlikely that you will have a Viper available, but maybe people will rush that out. | ||
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