Can we be honest about the swarm host? Everyone's applauding it that it "feel zergy" but is it really?
It's basically a stationary brood lord, and we all know how much fun brood lords are to watch.
Just as we all applauded how fun Brood Lords looked, they are not that fun at all. They lower micro because of path blocking and all you really need to do is move them around.
Lets to honest to ourselves now, what does Swarm Host offer to SC2?
Drop play - No. Lurkers have lots of AoE spike damage, which made drop play with them very fun. Swarm hosts on the other hand, you drop them, and they burrow. A good pro player would instantly withdraw all his forces and move the probes. That's it. You don't have any crazy ability to do anything since Swarm Hosts are designed to be a slow, constantly attacking unit rather than a sneaky AoE unit.
Map control - Not necessarily, at least by itself. A single Lurker could control a ramp, a few hold lurkers could decimate bio. What can the swarm host do? Again, they don't do AoE and if you tell them to hold, if a Terran ball comes, basically the swarm host will spawn 6-10 little swarmlings, and have at it.
Does it add to the army composition - Yes, that's about the only thing it does add, is to change the Zerg "death ball" around. Add a new unit to make things look a little differently. It allows Zerg to force the enemy into engaging when they are not ready.
So what does the swarm host really do?
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.
Going back to QXC's blog about unit design, the reason why the brood lord is not that fun is because it's greatest weakness is boring. It's just slow.
With the lurker, it did massive AOE line damage, it was the only unit that could attack while burrowed (which in essense is basically invisible, so dark templar level tech) but it had a HUGE weakness - it had to be immobile to attack and had no attack when moving.
Going to look at the swarm host - it's strengths aren't really that great. It's long range, blocks pathing, adds HP and DPS to your army. Major weaknesses are the same as lurker, and even more so that its projectiles themselves are targetable, meaning it potentially could be a completely useless unit by itself.
This kind of "somewhat useful in certain areas whilst useless it others" bothers me. As the lurker was never useless ever. It could always dish out damage. In fact, I've seen pro games where lurkers rush siege tank lines and still do well.
Furthermore, none of the Zerg line seems to make much sense or feel natural.
To go up the tech tree, you do this:
Zerglings -> Infestors -> Ultras and broods
Or if you look at it a different way
Zerglings -> Heavy armored roach (what is the purpose of this unit again?) or lightly armored hydra -> infestors and swarm hosts and corruptors / muta -> ultras and broods
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.
In the original BW, zerglings, melee ground units, naturally moves towards ranged all rounder hydras, which could be supplanted with mutas which naturally became either heavy anti-air or heavy anti-ground.
Furthermore, ultras felt like a natural progression of zerglings. This felt way more natural. Simplicity became complexity, weak became strong. The overall design philosophy felt right.
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.
I really don't understand what Blizzard's mentality is towards Zerg. The race itself just feels broken in a poorly designed way (not in a balance way). Sure people have gotten used to this poor design, but step back and look again, why things are there?
Blizzard seems to be very happy at where Zerg is headed, I tend to differ on that opinion.
The main reason is that, this kind of haphazard design only lasts until all options made up by designers are used up and gameplay stagnates. If the design isn't natural, it naturally will move towards a stale mechanism because the system itself was created to solve the few game design issues that the designers themselves made up.
I would laugh if they put lurkers back in this game. Do you know how bad they would be? The only reason lurkers were good is because of the horrid AI in sc1. In sc2 they would run all the marines right in the middle and annihilate your lurkers. Not to mention with medivacs being the heal instead of an on the ground heal you have much more drop play. Drops > lurkers. Healing from the air > lurkers. Sc2 AI > lurkers. Lurkers would be horrendous in this game. Get it out of your head that they're good.
I think you're overlooking some of the micro aspects. The Siege tank could probably be substituted in your complaint about how the unit micro works (move and siege, blocks paths). However, I'd argue that units that add decision making really help the game. Knowing when to burrow/unburrow and move (and where to) as well as how to position your army are all things good things.
However, the same could be accomplished with the Lurker.
I like the "burrowed siege unit" idea. I greatly dislike the "free zerg units" idea that already takes place with Infested Terrans and Broodlings. One of the big aspects of Zerg play is deciding when and how to spend larva. Being able to so greatly increase your army value with minimal larva takes away a lot of decision making. (I'm actually gonna think more about that and the current state of Zerg.)
The swarm host can be incredible based on usage. It has one thing the lurker never had: the ability to siege a position at a long range. My god is this invaluable. If you get even a small lead in the early game due to some micro or a build order advantage, doing a swarm host timing of 7-8 swarm hosts puts serious pressure on your opponent in the same way a tank push does. It gives Zerg a way to end games in the mid-game if the opponent is behind but being very defensive. Unfortunately, this seems to be the only really good thing about them. In terms of a weird siege tank, it's fantastic for offense and so far I've found fairly miserable for defense. They are also pretty damn poor in the late-game when lots of splash is in play, making them a liability and thus not a great idea for a longer game unless you plan to win with them. Because of this binary usage I find myself only ever making them in ZvT in the late midgame against mech, or against Protoss taking a fast third. The swarm host is also annoying in the sense that you have to build them like Mutalisk, 7-8 for a timing or you go all in and just go for mass swarm host for the kill.
Drop play - No. Lurkers have lots of AoE spike damage, which made drop play with them very fun. Swarm hosts on the other hand, you drop them, and they burrow. A good pro player would instantly withdraw all his forces and move the probes. That's it. You don't have any crazy ability to do anything since Swarm Hosts are designed to be a slow, constantly attacking unit rather than a sneaky AoE unit.
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. There is no "crazy ability" to do anything as well. One can even argue swarm host is better because you can control its "projectile" to attack further from where swarm host is.
but the part on zoning will be more applicable. As lurker projectile cannot be removed but can be avoided, lurker attack is always a danger whereas locusts can be focused down and the cd on the pop takes a while.
No mention of main dynamics of BW zerg i.e. defiler consume and dark swarm which is the reason why lurker's utility does not diminish even when faced with BW tanks.
Anyway, towards the end, seems like you are just rambling about zerg... maybe you should structure the title better? Your OP seems to be going in many different directions to really facilitate discussion cause I am confused on what you are actually thinking of discussing.....
I feel like this OP is largely inspired by qxc's emotionally charged arguments. He's a good public speaker, but it's far too easy to say "Blizzard is doing a shitty job". You've got a lot of writing here, but it's an oversimplified and emotional argument. You've gotta be pretty egocentric to think the entire game is balanced around the race you play (i.e. roaches are highly armoured, therefore other races damage are buffed to deal with them).
A lot of people like to talk about bad game design. A very small portion of them actually know what they're talking about when they use the term.
OP, what exactly do you mean by "natural design". It's clear you feel passionate about this so maybe you could offer some specific suggestions for improvement.
On November 28 2012 18:59 wankey wrote: Can we be honest about the swarm host? Everyone's applauding it that it "feel zergy" but is it really? What are people's opinions on this matter?
I wouldn’t even agree that it feels zergy. Imho it looks like big fungus.
But I agree with the rest of your post. I don't like how SC2 is designed in general.
swarmhost and lurker have completely different roles. but a lurkerlike unit is needed for zerg to have a chance vs MMM (i dont say its imba but you need BLs to trade cost efficient enough once T hits 10+ medivacs that outheal fungal) play and have a sustainable AoE unit (banelings explode, fungal is energybased and outhealed).
adding the lurker would also make the SH a non-allin unit like it is now. you need at least 15 to do anything and by that time tanks/colossus/storm is out. adding lurker would mean you could build 3 lurker and 4 SHs and pressure the opponent (not kill) while not having to commit that hard.
Lets be honest about the swarm host... Its not a lurker,
but is still a really fun unit imo.
And to actually answer your point about a) You say it takes away micro-this argument is ridiculous. people can still try to flank etc. the low firing speed means that if you send you troops the wrong way you can die. The other day i was playing and a guy hallucinated an army to draw my locust out of position and then swept in from the side and killed all my swarm hosts. It just encourages creative thinking. b) You say either the projectiles are so slow they are basically useless-they are pretty useful.try burrowing a bunch of them outside a turtling terrans base and they will slowly but surely break down his defenses. you can also use them to stall pushes by burrowing-send out locusts-unburrow-retreat-repeat. Ive also had success with swarmhost hydra because the locusts work like an eternally respawning meatsheild. Once again it just require some creative thinking. c) Yes it requires a sacrifice to get useful number of them. If it didn't then there would be no point in not getting them lategame. Just makes it a decision not a no-brainer.
Your argument about how the zerg line doesn't feel natural, seems to me to basically be saying we should eliminate all variation and just make tier 2 a bigger version of tier one and tier three a bigger version of tier two.
You say that the strengths aren't that great-The units that you laud when talking about natural/boring design have a only a few of those strengths. Ultras just add HP and a little DPS and hydras add DPS and a little HP.
Also you complain that the projectile are targetable and therefore useless. However EVERY SINGLE UNIT IN THE ENTIRE GAME IS TARGETABLE. Even by getting shot the locusts serve the purpose of not letting other units get shot. also this is saying that one swarmhost vs an entire army, yeah its not gonna work very well because the locusts will get shot without doing any damage, same goes for every other unit in the game.
I don't really understand what your saying in the conclusion but other than that i think i covered everything
My biggest problem with the Swarm Host is that it is yet again a unit for Zerg which produces "free units". This is totally against the "Zerg have to constantly reproduce their units" racial specific, which is the justification for Inject Larva and the ability to stockpile them to large amounts. So it is a terrible concept which might even potentially be overpowered if too many Swarm Hosts are massed.
The long lifespan of the free units makes them really bad, because they can be used without risking the Swarm Host itself. Every unit should have to take risks while being used, but since it isnt the case for the Swarm Host it is a terribly overpowered concept.
At first I agreed it looked hella boring, then I realized seige tanks and collosus are boring too. If you look at it from the perspective that it is a seige unit (which it is), then you will understand. It is also more microable than seige tanks.
On November 28 2012 21:35 mango_destroyer wrote: At first I agreed it looked hella boring, then I realized seige tanks and collosus are boring too. If you look at it from the perspective that it is a seige unit (which it is), then you will understand. It is also more microable than seige tanks.
It is also basically invulnerable ... which is a terrible concept for any RTS, which is present for Broodlords (invulnerable due to the screen of Broodlings which prevent ground units from getting close enough to shoot), Tempests (22 Range ... seriously?), Forcefield (blocking a ramp in your opponents base is BAD), Fungal (well its not really making the Infestor invulnerable, but the range of 9 is longer than any infantry can shoot) and now the Swarm Host ...
Why "potential invulnerability" should be acceptable in SC2 is beyond me.
The Swarm Host is a bad unit in the sense that Zerg is aiming for Hive to be stable (at the very least) in the lategame. Why would someone make slow, cumbersome units that a. Cant deal with drop harrass (unlike lurkers) b. Cant contain in the broodwar sense (hi warpgate, medivacs etc) c. Considerably slows down hive tech.
What they should have done is give Zerg lurkers (with their splash damage) and make infestors only deal slow but in a larger radius and no damage. Zerg midgame at the moment is terribad which is countered by their absurd late game.
So in other words, give Zerg a strong mid game, complemented by extra support in the late game, rather than roflstomp infestor/broodlord combo.
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.
the more i play with the swarm host the less i like it. It's mostly just a dull siege unit that you sort of have to mass. Arguably there can be some cool things going on with trying to kill swarm hosts by blinking over the locusts, flanking them, attacking in between waves etc but overall it's still just dull.
Even more silly is that it actually doesn't help much for what it was designed for. It's good for pushing if you have an advantage, ie it allows zerg to end the game earlier without having to go to broodlords always.. However it actually doesn't work against terran where you need this because siege tanks stop the locusts way before they hit... In ZvZ you can already push without hosts and in PvZ you often can to and if you can't it's not likely that the hosts will help since colossi can counter them a bit too...
Zerg still has no map control unit nor does it have a fun splash unit except the baneling. I'm not saying the lurker is needed but it would fit so damn well in what zerg needs to round it off and give it more options.. Splash that's not fungal, map control and a way to push. Sure it wouldn't work against siege tanks but I don't think anything in the game should work to push against siege tanks except air.
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.
Evolution serves a purpose.
The swarmhost is a crappy copycat of one of the greatest RTS units of all time. Blizzard is trying SO hard to make it different because they just CAN'T bring in old units...Your logic is flawed man...everyone who spews that bullshit out just doesn't get it...
It's not about whether something is completely new or not. Everything has been done before in one form or another.
It's about implementing things with GOOD design. Removing redundancy. The swarmhost is just a T2 broodlord man. Look at all the dull units in this game. Why the fuck can't they just put in good units if they don't have the drive to be creative?
It's extremely difficult to use. As a random player who has never really quite use tanks except mech, I don't quite know how to do this type of slow pushes. But if you watched hots pro stream a while ago, it looks pretty interesting. Swarm host push style requires a different mind set than muta ling, infestor ling style. It's even more interesting to see how a player try to break the contain, similar to watch how a zerg try to mass up units for flanks etc to swarm in.
It doesn't have the same role as a lurker. So please stop comparing. Though I agree that it doesn't feel so zerggy but still, kinda awesome.
Everyone is just talking about lurkers now. I wish people would think of better ways than just say go lurker (which most people probably havent even played BW)
Why can't the swarm host instead of free units shoot a large ball that moves rather slowly forward and once it reaches its target it explodes. Free units have become synonymous with the zerg race which is questionable.
SH is really a shitty version of Lurker. It's ridiculous saying "play BW" when it's Bliz who has to remake the Lurker and turn it to shit so people won't complain about BW era
Lurker has everything SH has beside the range, which is previously supported by Defiler. SH is a lot more immobile, has no AoE, has terrible containment ability, terrible synergy with other units and far lower skill ceiling.
SH is the most boring 'new' unit in HotS and it's quite unnecessarily strong atm
Why do people see stuff that messes up your pathing as anti micro, while it is the other way round and actually force micro to work around this pathing block. And the Swarmhost is best if you reposition them after each shot, wouldn't call that microless unit. Especially since you can micro those units. Don't hate on a unit if the players are to lazy to utilize it. That being said if there is no need to use them to their full extend, then the counters are either to weak or the units stats are to strong and should be tweaked. A unit should work in a-move against a-move. But it should need micro if the opponent does too. And the Lurker basically was just burrow micro and the Lurker drop was just to block mining until detection is there to clean them. Sure the Swarmhost isn't as good at this drop or at slowing down pushes. But you can use it offensively. The Lurker was made, because Zergs had problems holding attacks midgame. The Swarmhost is made, because Zerg siege is rather weak midgame.
The Broodlord would also be less boring if you would have to create surface area by targetfireing stuff and if you would need to pre create Broodlings when the opponent decides to attack. Or if people would actually abuse the fact that even the overkill creates Broodlings, so that attacking one free unit of the Zerg would create 1 Broodling per Broodlord and because they life quiet some time, you could create more Broodlings and then just send this troop to attack and maybe snipe Ghosts or Hts that are put in the front to deal with Infestors. Just Imagine a typical stalemate on Daybreak and a Zerg would go on 250 supply and would sit in the middle and create Broodlings from there on each of the 3 lanes and try to deal damage that way. While it would look really unfair it would look pretty cool as well. Just like the evil Terran scanning behind the Zerg army, before he moves in to attack and dropping a mule there to trigger all the Broodlords wasting a wave of Broodlings behind their army, which might end up blocking the reatreating Zerg units on the ground.
I'd rather the Swarm Host fire like a giant goo-ball that explodes on location and spreads out doing AoE damage. Something along the lines of the Bio Rifle from Unreal Tournament games.
Currently the Swarm Host feels like a unit that would be amazing in a game like Brood War, where it isn't death-ball smashing against death-ball.
I've said this before, I think the units being added are too Brood War-esque in that they would fit and be appropriate for a game that plays like Brood War. But Starcraft 2 unfortunately does not, it is a one-punch-slug-fest after 10 minutes of charging your right hand. Same with the Viper.
These units would be great in a game where small skirmishes were plenty, and I don't think we'll ever really see them shine because of that problem. And these units don't do much to help the issue either.
Another reason I don't like the Swarm Host is that it's either a) a small annoyance when you only have one or two SH b) a complete OP when you have a lot c) completely useless when they can kill your projectiles before you hit them
My problem with the Swarm Host is that the doesn't unit functions well with other Zerg units (at least in PvZ) and doesn't offer anything different in PvZ really.
The Swarmhost lacks synergy with the fast moving Roach and Speedling, so it becomes a different form of play in the same way that Colossus play differs from Templar play in PvT. That is fine, but they cost a lot, you need a lot to make them work and the Swarmhost doesn't work that well with Ultralisk or Broodlords, limiting transitions. Compare this to the Infestor, which you can invest a lot into during the mid-game and use them defensively or offensively and then they synergize well with Broodlords or Ultralisks in the late game. Swarm Hosts do not synergize well with Ultralisks or Broodlords in the late game, so if you want to transition into the late game from the mid game, Infestors are still the best choice by far.
And when you are building large amounts of Swarmhosts, you have to end the game with that composition due to their cost and the fact they don't synergize with Broods or Ultralisks (you won't be able to protect your Broods like Infestors can, and Ultralisks will just get blocked by the Locusts and Fungal won't be there to hold units down for Ultralisks) so they will be best used for all-ins. Thus in many ways, they function like Hydras do in PvZ, good for some all-in timings, but not viable for late game play.
And so Zerg can build a bunch of them and hit a timing with Corrupters and Hydras or Infestors or whatever, but the Protoss player doesn't really need to do much different than standard play, teching up to Colossus and building a few for the lategame deathball (note that unlike the Swarm Host the Colossus works well in the mid-game and then transitions well as part of the late game deathball). It is these Colossus that allow you to defeat Swarm Hosts. So you simply need to scout your opponent, realize they are heading for Swarmhosts, and cut your tech and produce a lot of units. So you hold them the same way you'd hold any other all-in. The Swarmhost then just provides another all-in opportunity for Zerg in PvZ, rather than a new unique and interesting style of play.
I haven't had many issues with Swarmhosts as a Protoss player. I lose to them when I don't scout for them or prepare for them properly as I should.
Some misconception is going on here, swarm host was never introduce as an map-control unit as shredder/widow mine, they were suppose to be a siege unit, and at that it is much better than lurkers.Besides it has some use as a defensive unit if you couple it with spines, as board control it really suck compared to lurkers.
I view them like I do siege tanks. Should be used to help with map control. Problem is SC2 has never really been a map control type of game, which is unfortunate. I always enjoyed seeing the tank/turret lines inch across the screen in BW.
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.
Thats the main problem for most people including me. It feels more like a de-evolution.
As for the op his arguments feels more like a rant instead of good analysis. Sorry op!
The biggest issue imo is the fact that locusts impede unit movement. The only unit movement spell I have ever liked in any game was stasis trap from WC3. In fact I think this is where they should go with fungal. The infestor throws an 'egg'. It sits for 1 second and then explodes having the same effect it currently has.
On November 28 2012 23:45 FeyFey wrote: Why do people see stuff that messes up your pathing as anti micro, while it is the other way round and actually force micro to work around this pathing block. And the Swarmhost is best if you reposition them after each shot, wouldn't call that microless unit. Especially since you can micro those units. Don't hate on a unit if the players are to lazy to utilize it. That being said if there is no need to use them to their full extend, then the counters are either to weak or the units stats are to strong and should be tweaked. A unit should work in a-move against a-move. But it should need micro if the opponent does too. And the Lurker basically was just burrow micro and the Lurker drop was just to block mining until detection is there to clean them. Sure the Swarmhost isn't as good at this drop or at slowing down pushes. But you can use it offensively. The Lurker was made, because Zergs had problems holding attacks midgame. The Swarmhost is made, because Zerg siege is rather weak midgame.
The Broodlord would also be less boring if you would have to create surface area by targetfireing stuff and if you would need to pre create Broodlings when the opponent decides to attack. Or if people would actually abuse the fact that even the overkill creates Broodlings, so that attacking one free unit of the Zerg would create 1 Broodling per Broodlord and because they life quiet some time, you could create more Broodlings and then just send this troop to attack and maybe snipe Ghosts or Hts that are put in the front to deal with Infestors. Just Imagine a typical stalemate on Daybreak and a Zerg would go on 250 supply and would sit in the middle and create Broodlings from there on each of the 3 lanes and try to deal damage that way. While it would look really unfair it would look pretty cool as well. Just like the evil Terran scanning behind the Zerg army, before he moves in to attack and dropping a mule there to trigger all the Broodlords wasting a wave of Broodlings behind their army, which might end up blocking the reatreating Zerg units on the ground.
Both units create FREE UNITS and that is terrible, because they make the units partially invulnerable while dealing damage. The Swarm Host is invisible and out of range of regular sight most of the time and the Broodlord is a flyer. Why on earth should those concepts be good? It doesnt matter what you can do with those free units ... it matters what your opponent CANT do against them ... and please dont answer with "just micro more".
On November 29 2012 02:27 Tuczniak wrote: Swarm host doesn't look like a fun. I wish they would remake it. It will be hard to balance anyway.
I don't know about not fun to watch. I was watching Idra yesterday and he was pushing forward with them, unburrowing after each spawn of units. He was controlling the entire front with about 10 swarm hosts and it was pretty impressive to watch and would be even more dynamic with better players.
With a possible buff to the banshee and rework on the voiday, I think more powerful air units will really open up the game give people more options against units like the swarmhost.
Both units create FREE UNITS and that is terrible, because they make the units partially invulnerable while dealing damage. The Swarm Host is invisible and out of range of regular sight most of the time and the Broodlord is a flyer. Why on earth should those concepts be good? It doesnt matter what you can do with those free units ... it matters what your opponent CANT do against them ... and please dont answer with "just micro more".
i don't get what your arguing. your complaining that you are forced to micro around broodlings and locusts otherwise brood lords and swarm hosts are 'invulnerable', and yet you dont want the solution to involve micro?
Swarm host sucks and are gimmicky. The problem with them is that they are expensive and offers no comparable advantage vs the infestor (req same building). Infestor cost less, cheaper supply, does aoe damage, detect, anti air (something that zerg really lacks, and no you cant bring queens with you to your enemy base an spores cant be moved half way across the map). Swarm host should evolve from roach (with an upgrade research like hydras in bw) and have swarm hos cost 125/75/1 and instead of being the lurker retarded cousin, itll just be the lurker unwanted slightly disabled brother.
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.
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.
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.
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.)
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..
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.
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.
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??
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.
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.)
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.
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.
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.
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.
On November 28 2012 18:59 wankey wrote: So what does the swarm host really do?
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.
What it really does, if positioned well, is force your opponent to deal with them which in turn may force him out of position. Burrowed units that keeps spawning resonably strong units are not something your opponent want knocking on his door for an extended period of time.
First of all, free spawning units are bullcrap in an RTS, even with a timed life. I don't like how a major part of the zerg design philosophy among Brood Lords, Infestors, and now Swarm Hosts is that they spawn "free" units that benefit from upgrades while not costing any additional supply or resources. Sure these spawners take supply by themselves, but the fact that they can constantly bombard the enemy with attacking units that by themselves cost nothing, requiring the opponent to sacrifice either their own units, resources, buildings, or energy against an essentially non-exhaustable resource is not good.
Second of all, the swarm host is just a lair-tech broodlord, and broodlords are not an interesting unit. So far in hots, it seems like the most popular additions have been siege units (Swarm Host and Tempest). Why is everything turning into who has the better siege engine? Yeah TvT is fun, it's positional etc, but it's balanced because everyone has the same siege mechanics. Now we're trying to give every race it's own siege mechanics, and we're going to go into an escalating siege weapons arms race. Zerg bombards P with free units, P masses Templar/Colossi/Tempests and has a superior siege army. Sure it will force more positional play, but having more matchups become defined by the siege mechanics of each race doesn't sound very fun.
Swarm hosts are so awesome I'm surprised they going to be buffed. I just said that to counterbalance the whining in this thread :p
Whoever is saying there is no micro with swarmhosts, well sorry but you are wrong. Microed locusts do much better than un-microed ones. Burrow-spawn-unburrow is much more effective than when the swarm hosts just sit there. Timing your attacks to use locusts as meatshields requires micro. Not to mention the creep spread that has to be done for locusts to really become long-range.
I would say that hosts require just as much micro as siege tanks and even more than collosi, if you want to compare the races T2 siege units.
Of all the things to be bitching about in HOTS, swarm hosts are the very least of them. Blizz got this one right.
On November 29 2012 06:31 ElMeanYo wrote: Swarm hosts are so awesome I'm surprised they going to be buffed. I just said that to counterbalance the whining in this thread :p
Whoever is saying there is no micro with swarmhosts, well sorry but you are wrong. Microed locusts do much better than un-microed ones. Burrow-spawn-unburrow is much more effective than when the swarm hosts just sit there. Timing your attacks to use locusts as meatshields requires micro. Not to mention the creep spread that has to be done for locusts to really become long-range.
I would say that hosts require just as much micro as siege tanks and even more than collosi, if you want to compare the races T2 siege units.
Of all the things to be bitching about in HOTS, swarm hosts are the very least of them. Blizz got this one right.
People bitch just for the sake of bitching, they don't like the design and that is it. It is still beta, I am pretty sure that we will see a lot of great games with Swarm Hosts and Vipers when the HOTS comes out, I am 100% positive. Swarm Hosts have a lot higher micro potential than any other Siege unit, just because you can constantly move them around, burrow & unburrow, and pro players will even micro the Locusts and spread them so they take less damage from splash(Stephano already did this at the start of the Beta when he was streaming HOTS).
On November 29 2012 06:26 Vod.kaholic wrote: First of all, free spawning units are bullcrap in an RTS, even with a timed life. I don't like how a major part of the zerg design philosophy among Brood Lords, Infestors, and now Swarm Hosts is that they spawn "free" units that benefit from upgrades while not costing any additional supply or resources. Sure these spawners take supply by themselves, but the fact that they can constantly bombard the enemy with attacking units that by themselves cost nothing, requiring the opponent to sacrifice either their own units, resources, buildings, or energy against an essentially non-exhaustable resource is not good.
Second of all, the swarm host is just a lair-tech broodlord, and broodlords are not an interesting unit. So far in hots, it seems like the most popular additions have been siege units (Swarm Host and Tempest). Why is everything turning into who has the better siege engine? Yeah TvT is fun, it's positional etc, but it's balanced because everyone has the same siege mechanics. Now we're trying to give every race it's own siege mechanics, and we're going to go into an escalating siege weapons arms race. Zerg bombards P with free units, P masses Templar/Colossi/Tempests and has a superior siege army. Sure it will force more positional play, but having more matchups become defined by the siege mechanics of each race doesn't sound very fun.
So because spawned units have certain strengths, they are imbalanced? Both the brood lord and swarm host are balanced (or should be balanced) around the concept that these free units are important, and the loss of the unit generators is a powerful blow. This is actually the case. Swarm Hosts are expensive, and having them die is no better than losing a siege tank, or a colossi, or a thor, or a HT, or a Carrier, or a Battlecruiser. You've drawn these lines in the sand, saying that this particular method of doing damage is worse for the game than these other traditional forms of damage, but these lines are simply imaginary. They are counterable, they are expensive, and beating them puts you at the advantage. The only difference between a pair of locusts and a round from a siege tank is that instead of responding with X you do Y, but both still lead to Z.
Brood Lords are a more poorly designed unit, and infestors are overpowered. There's nothing about them spawning free units that makes them inherently imbalanced, merely their application and combination that did so. You think you can boil down the imbalance of an entire race to one singular concept, but it is not nearly that simple.
I personally as a Terran player actually love Swarmhosts. They force me to actually keep some units back to make sure I don't lose a position on the map and it allows the zerg player some map control which against mech isn't exactly easy once the mech player leaves his base.
Depending on how many makes me want to bolster my defenses, but it forces me to move and go deal with it.
I wouldn't like to even compare the swarm host to the broodlord, because unlike the broodlord the swarmhosts locusts don't do instant damage and they don't get in the way of running away. They just have a chance of doing damage if the person isn't prepared and due to them being strong, it makes them decent.
On November 29 2012 06:41 Qikz wrote: I personally as a Terran player actually love Swarmhosts. They force me to actually keep some units back to make sure I don't lose a position on the map and it allows the zerg player some map control which against mech isn't exactly easy once the mech player leaves his base.
Depending on how many makes me want to bolster my defenses, but it forces me to move and go deal with it.
I wouldn't like to even compare the swarm host to the broodlord, because unlike the broodlord the swarmhosts locusts don't do instant damage and they don't get in the way of running away. They just have a chance of doing damage if the person isn't prepared and due to them being strong, it makes them decent.
I've had some great battles with Terran players so far in HOTS with swarmhosts vs Mech. I really like hosts because they give a zerg another option against Mech that can work.
They have some pretty big weaknesses so you have to protect them well but I have found them to be good for putting pressure on the Terran and for defending a big mech push. I think hosts fill this role nicely.
Eh, the swarm host makes a swarm, and Zerg is all about swarming your opponents with units. Otherwise, it's pretty lame. Basically just a ground brood lord.
I disagree with the flow of logic that "BLs are boring to watch, they spawn units, SHs will be boring to watch because they also spawn units". The biggest reason why BLs are boring to watch have less to do with "free units" and more to do with the fact that they're a slow moving, slow acceleration, sieging air to ground unit. Swarm Hosts move faster and allow for much more micro than the BL. The Guardian was rarely used in BW at the highest levels and IMO it's also pretty boring to watch, and as much as players love when the under used BC and Carrier are used, they would be equally as boring to watch if they became the standard late-game for their respective races unless things like BW Carrier micro are added.
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.
I agree. I saw the GOM HotS show match games (the one with Leenock, he knew how to use them) and was really impressed with swarm hosts.
Saying they don't require micro or whatever is silly. I think it's a good design, numbers can be tweaked a bit (for example, what if locusts last longer but swarm host spawns them slower, so you had to micro them more, etc).
And I'm a Reaver fan (Reaver > Colossus). IMO, Swarm Host has more potential than Lurker (in SC2). Plus, people have been complaining about how Zerg and Protoss have not that many microable units (compared to Terran for example). Outside of stop lurker (which they can do with weapons free and hold fire, the ghost abilities in SC2 that stop auto attacking) and some positioning (which the swarm host has too and more), the lurker probably won't add much micro or fun stuff to the zerg side.
Swarm Host has the potential to be more fun IMO.
Now if we're talking about adding old units, how about the reaver.... The reaver is really unique (nothing has really replaced it in SC2). You had target micro (target the units that the scarabs are most likely to hit), shuttle micro with the reaver, etc. The opponent "also" had to micro against the reaver (so it's not like the opponent can't do anything to them). The reaver added micro potential to both players and it was fun to watch. Scarabs are really unique too.
On November 28 2012 19:26 y0su wrote: I like the "burrowed siege unit" idea. I greatly dislike the "free zerg units" idea that already takes place with Infested Terrans and Broodlings. One of the big aspects of Zerg play is deciding when and how to spend larva. Being able to so greatly increase your army value with minimal larva takes away a lot of decision making. (I'm actually gonna think more about that and the current state of Zerg.)
You need to indirectly spend larvae because the host needs support.
The only reason people compare swarm host to lurker is because they both burrow to attack, even though they aren't the same kind of unit. Everyone overlooks that the swarm host adds something that zerg is really lacking in the midgame; swarm host is an instigator(not board control like lurker, even if it has barely slightly more utility than just units for that). The swarm hosts allow zerg to force an engagement in the midgame, instead of having to wait for hive to get broodlords or ultras before they can reliably engage well.
On November 29 2012 06:31 ElMeanYo wrote: Swarm hosts are so awesome I'm surprised they going to be buffed. I just said that to counterbalance the whining in this thread :p
Whoever is saying there is no micro with swarmhosts, well sorry but you are wrong. Microed locusts do much better than un-microed ones. Burrow-spawn-unburrow is much more effective than when the swarm hosts just sit there. Timing your attacks to use locusts as meatshields requires micro. Not to mention the creep spread that has to be done for locusts to really become long-range.
I would say that hosts require just as much micro as siege tanks and even more than collosi, if you want to compare the races T2 siege units.
Of all the things to be bitching about in HOTS, swarm hosts are the very least of them. Blizz got this one right.
People bitch just for the sake of bitching, they don't like the design and that is it. It is still beta, I am pretty sure that we will see a lot of great games with Swarm Hosts and Vipers when the HOTS comes out, I am 100% positive. Swarm Hosts have a lot higher micro potential than any other Siege unit, just because you can constantly move them around, burrow & unburrow, and pro players will even micro the Locusts and spread them so they take less damage from splash(Stephano already did this at the start of the Beta when he was streaming HOTS).
Dude, that's exactly what you do with tanks. Except with sieging instead of burrowing. Even focus firing the tank shots takes about as much micro as moving around the locusts.
Said it before, I'll say it again, I hate this unit.
On November 14 2012 14:55 sick_transit wrote: I play zerg. The major spectator complaint about WOL at the moment seems to be the dominance of a boring static defense/slow-moving siege-style composition in zerg lategame (spine/BL/infestor). So it kind of amazes me that Blizzard and a lot of players/spectators think adding another slow siege-style unit to zerg is going to improve the game.
I was about to start complaining about the fact that zvp and zvt are currently balanced around two terrible units (sentry/infestor) but I don't want to derail the thread.
On November 28 2012 21:35 mango_destroyer wrote: At first I agreed it looked hella boring, then I realized seige tanks and collosus are boring too. If you look at it from the perspective that it is a seige unit (which it is), then you will understand. It is also more microable than seige tanks.
Why is the siege tank boring? its the only ground control unit in the game, and its a great apm sink. And how is the SH more microable than the Siegetanks?
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.
Sadly, people realized this and decided that this game sucked so the majority of the casuals went to LoL. Look at gom studio for GSL, 10-11 people at most -.- and majority of it are the crew (you can tell because they are standing and have cameras).
I think people are reading way too deep into it and making assumptions way too early into the beta. I mean, c'mon guys... It's the beta!
I personally love the SH, he gives me the ability to force an engagement against the Terran mech army (which is what I use it against, with roach/hydra/infestor) in the mid-game, when usually I would be condemned to take a million bases and fight with Broodlord/Infestor. I don't use him myself in zvp, as I like the Roach/Hydra/Viper in that MU. I am low mastes, just for reference.
Oh, and one more thing... I see a lot of people have said something like "It's BS that there are free units in an RTS game, like the infested terrans, broodlings and locusts" - Well this is Starcraft, it's not just any other old RTS, it is the best RTS (in my humble opinion) and I think its perfect for zerg, it gives the feel of never ending waves and swarms. How is that not zergy? Go play Red Alerts or Age of Empires if you want a safe and boring RTS, I would hate to think that Starcraft design would ever be limited by "rules of the genre". Frankly, Starcraft: Brood War and Starcraft 2 are the genre. Blizzard makes the rules, and they are damn good at it.
On November 29 2012 06:31 ElMeanYo wrote: Swarm hosts are so awesome I'm surprised they going to be buffed. I just said that to counterbalance the whining in this thread :p
Whoever is saying there is no micro with swarmhosts, well sorry but you are wrong. Microed locusts do much better than un-microed ones. Burrow-spawn-unburrow is much more effective than when the swarm hosts just sit there. Timing your attacks to use locusts as meatshields requires micro. Not to mention the creep spread that has to be done for locusts to really become long-range.
I would say that hosts require just as much micro as siege tanks and even more than collosi, if you want to compare the races T2 siege units.
Of all the things to be bitching about in HOTS, swarm hosts are the very least of them. Blizz got this one right.
People bitch just for the sake of bitching, they don't like the design and that is it. It is still beta, I am pretty sure that we will see a lot of great games with Swarm Hosts and Vipers when the HOTS comes out, I am 100% positive. Swarm Hosts have a lot higher micro potential than any other Siege unit, just because you can constantly move them around, burrow & unburrow, and pro players will even micro the Locusts and spread them so they take less damage from splash(Stephano already did this at the start of the Beta when he was streaming HOTS).
Dude, that's exactly what you do with tanks. Except with sieging instead of burrowing. Even focus firing the tank shots takes about as much micro as moving around the locusts.
Not really. Tanks can be sieged at one place, and will constantly attack, while with Swarm Hosts, you are encouraged to burrow, spawn wave of Locusts, unburrow and reposition, since they can't do anything until they get spawn Locusts off cooldown again, and you are doing that while microing with Locusts, spreading them, and focus fire the important units such as Sentries. Don't know, it doesn't look the same as Siege Tank micro to me. I am not saying it is some ultra hard micro, but it is good that we got unit that have micro potential, and that Blizzard is forcing more micro and positional play.
On November 29 2012 18:26 Big J wrote: Can we be honest about the OP? He has no clue about the game. Comparing SH to Lurker or BL is just bullshit, end of story.
This is true, sadly, majority of players look at Swarm Hosts the same way he is looking...
At first I wasn't sure what to think about the Swarm Host. After about 100 games this season I can say that I've grown accustomed to it. I've had the most success with it in ZvP winning most of my games when I'm able to amass 20+ SH's. Anything much less than that and they aren't very effective IMO. I have yet to win with it yet though against Terran. Still trying to figure that one out. I have yet to use it in any ZvZ.
On November 29 2012 18:26 Big J wrote: Can we be honest about the OP? He has no clue about the game. Comparing SH to Lurker or BL is just bullshit, end of story.
This, why are you bringing Lurkers into this? You said that Swarm Hosts are stationary brood lords, are brood lords now somehow similar to Lurkers? Obviously not. People need to stop relating the two simply because of appearance, the only similarity between the Swarm Host and the Lurker is that they burrow before they attack. You can't siege an enemy with lurkers, they are defensive DPS dealers. If anything apart from the Brood Lord, the Swarm Host is more similar to the Tempest in the way it slowly pushes against the opponent than the Lurker. You need to think from the actual unit's functionality perspective rather than just what you see which visually makes it look kind of sort of like a lurker. Imagine the Swarm Host was a Terran Mini-factory that buried itself into the ground then sent out little robots to do its bidding, then ask yourself, how is this similar to the Lurker in any way? The reason I find this frustrating is because it lowers the level of discourse and people continue discussing what is essentially a moot point. Judge the SH on its own merit and how it relates to the current WoL units as are in HOTS, it has nothing to do with the lurker.
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.
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.
Why is it bad?
How do you get to the "15+" number in the first place?
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.
The op is right though, swarm hosts do not fill any kind of niche that the brood lord did not already fill. They can chip away from further back and are less mobile/powerful, that's about it. Maybe if the locusts themselves did aoe, this unit could be relevant in terms of positional play. Not sure how that could be balanced out though.
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.
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.
Yes, they work like siege tanks in a very different way. That doesn't change the fact that small numbers of siege tanks are weak (as are unprotected tanks).
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".
On November 30 2012 02:12 Zahir wrote: The op is right though, swarm hosts do not fill any kind of niche that the brood lord did not already fill. They can chip away from further back and are less mobile/powerful, that's about it. Maybe if the locusts themselves did aoe, this unit could be relevant in terms of positional play. Not sure how that could be balanced out though.
Brood Lords are an inferior and less dynamic unit. They have too few weaknesses, and broodlings have too many advantages. I'd rather the Swarm Host stay the same/get buffs than see it get changed for the sake of an awful unit like the Brood Lord.
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.
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.
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).
When you add in a qualification like that, sure. But you could also say that Siege Tanks have really high dps (at least in terms of food cost). Siege Tanks have quite high DPS for their food cost.
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).
When you add in a qualification like that, sure. But you could also say that Siege Tanks have really high dps (at least in terms of food cost). Siege Tanks have quite high DPS for their food cost.
Yeah, but the amounts we are talking means that dps/food is nearly a nonfactor. Dps/production time is maybe something I could sgree with for siege tanks, still imo its the range and burst that makes them useful in tjose situations.
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).
On November 28 2012 19:16 Infernal_dream wrote: The only reason lurkers were good is because of the horrid AI in sc1. In sc2 they would run all the marines right in the middle and annihilate your lurkers.
Lurkers would be ineffective if simply thrown into sc2 as it currently is. This, however, is not the reason why. Run all the marines right in the middle? wtf?
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.
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.
On November 30 2012 12:42 a176 wrote: 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.
Yeah... This is kind of how I see it too. The hots games I've watched, swarm hosts are uninteresting. There is no nail biting, gripping drama as swarm hosts spawn units from a distance, only to repeatedly unburrow and spawn units from a safe distance again. What I have seen is hosts being massed, getting into range, and then pooping out volleys of unmicroed (and largely unmicroable) slow moving locusts that do chip damage until the enemy does something to make the Zerg retreat en masse. Death ball mechanic: preserved.
Here's what lurkers had that swarm host doesn't: insane aoe damage. The kind that discourages armies from directly engaging, and encourages the "push" mechanism, offering an alternative method of combat to one shot death ball vs death ball battles which decide everything. Attacking into lurkers with lesser ranged units was usually suicidal, and so players would attack lurkers with siege units, spells or dragoons (sc1's immortal). However, the immobility of lurkers and mid level range of their attacks meant that they couldn't simply dominate like collossus, but had to "leapfrog" forward giving the enemy an opportunity to pick off unburrowed lurkers, then retreat before the burrowing animation could finish.
This isn't going to happen in sc2 with the swarm host the way it is. Blizzard has given the massive aoe role to a fast moving, very mobile melee unit (baneling), and the immobility to a ranged, non aoe chip damage unit. The shift in aoe to a mobile unit has resulted in less micro intensive, high stakes "pushes", less skirmishes, more attempts to simply obliterate the enemy army with a huge engagement. Meanwhile the swarm host has the mechanic the lurker once had to limit its offensive potential... But its offensive potential is shitty to begin with. It works well as an annoying siege unit - tbh, blizzard has done at least an ok job on this unit - but swarm hosts do not have the level of threat or dps necessary to push, bully and aggressively take position the way lurkers could. They have the lurkers burrow mechanic... but what for? If your siege unit is spawning attackers from outside tempest range what does it even matter if its burrowed or not? SHs create more pressure to have a death ball engagement, they do nothing to create the kind of lightning, micro intensive skirmishes lurkers created.
I disagree. Micro-intensive is something Zerg lags behind in atm. They could also use a dose of exciting to watch, a situation not helped by the action happening a screen away with expendable, low micro units.
I just posted the difference but I guess I'll restate it. Siege tanks do massive aoe damage with decent dps. They can be used to push slowly but powerfully forward or prevent an enemy from 1aing into your army. Swarm hosts do neither. They can chip away at an enemy army/defense or force him to come to you and... That's about it. They don't have the damage output to do anything else. If you're ok with swarm hosts doing only those things I just mentioned, that's fine, but this thread is about being honest about swarm hosts so i feel obligated to point out their inability to create truly exciting play.
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.
The swarm host, like all the HoTS units, is dull, and uninteresting. People that cry about BW HD, we can't help but compare the first game to the sequel okay? You got brain washed into thinking that it is uncool to want things from the first game. Wake up. This game will never be as good as BW if it continues to make decisions like this. Swarm host over lurker? Really? This unit is a piece of shit. Whatever. Played hots beta for 2 weeks before I got completely bored. Yaaaaaaawn.
On November 28 2012 18:59 wankey wrote: 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.
a) and c) also apply on broodlords, kinda biased arguments here
They are a nice addition to the swarm, we will see many great games with them. (zerg can be everywhere !!)
I agree with a lot of what's been said here. I'm still hoping that by LotV Blizzard get it all right design wise and slowly but surely balance the game out with patches too. Worst comes to worst, I'm sure some genius will make a BW mod with SC2 level graphics and macro built into it. Win, win.
It's to late in the game for them to change anything Blizzard even said at BWC that they are happy where the HOTS units are, So get used to it and hope that someone who is far better at the game finds a cool use for them other then just Burrowed Broodlords. I agree and feel the same way about Protoss, I am sure Terran players feel the same way about their race. We all want our races to change and work better.
Ya they are ok units. IF you use em like siege tanks it can be effective but I wouldn't use them once a Toss has some AoE out or Terran tanks can hit your stuff.
I think a lot of people will find Swarm host usefull. It's very nice positional unit. Dont see any issues about it. It matches any army composition well
On November 28 2012 19:06 musai wrote: I like your view on the Muta too, where's the mutating !?
OMG, is that really why it was called the mutalisk? (Insert Suddenly Clarity Clarence meme)
In BW the Muta's mutated into Guardians so maybe that's where the name came from? Possible.
But they didn't mutate into anything in the original SC though right? So I don't think so
Yes they did, Guardians were in Vanilla SC, from the mutalisk. The new zerg BW units were the Devourer (another option for the muta to change into!) and the Lurker.
On November 28 2012 19:06 musai wrote: I like your view on the Muta too, where's the mutating !?
OMG, is that really why it was called the mutalisk? (Insert Suddenly Clarity Clarence meme)
In BW the Muta's mutated into Guardians so maybe that's where the name came from? Possible.
But they didn't mutate into anything in the original SC though right? So I don't think so
Yes they did, Guardians were in Vanilla SC, from the mutalisk. The new zerg BW units were the Devourer (another option for the muta to change into!) and the Lurker.
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.
Interesting post, I'd love to be proven wrong on swarmhosts. Siege lines moving back and forward sounds exactly like what I'm hoping hots will become. Could you provide a replay?
On November 28 2012 18:59 wankey wrote: 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.
a) and c) also apply on broodlords, kinda biased arguments here
They are a nice addition to the swarm, we will see many great games with them. (zerg can be everywhere !!)
So if a) and c) also apply to the Broodlord then maybe that unit is a terrible concept as well? I would certainly say so because of the stupid "free unit bullshit". Why didnt they keep the Guardian instead like they kept the BC and Carrier?
I wonder who is biased here ...
Oh and please explain to me why a unit which spawns "free units" which cost no resources (not even food) and which screen the unit spawning them from enemy fire by blocking their path is a good idea. Think hard and think how "fair and balanced" this is since it is only one race which has these free unit spawners ...
I think the problems with SH in their current shape is that there is no positional advantage to be gained. It doesn't matter if the swarm hosts are spread out, or if they are more/less forward. The thing you do is take all your swarm hosts, put them in a random spot close to your opponents base and rally in the locust.
Because of this there is no positioning, leapfrogging or anything, which takes away all the strategy a unit like the lurker, or siege tank do have. Swarmhost just become a new amove deathball unit like this.
About the SC2 game design in general I am sad to say I agree. While I still enjoy (watching) the game I feel that Blizzard doesn't understand it's own franchise(s) like so many other game (and also movie) makers. If you start one you should stay faithful to it, at least as much as possible. This does not mean that you should make the same game with better graphics but you should, for instance, let the different races feel like they should (did). So do not give the Terran a unit that looks and acts like a Zerg unit (Widow mine). 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
not as boring as trying to out macro each other, which is what happens in wol
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
it's fairly simple to me: 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.
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.
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.
Marine fires instantly with smart fire, stalker has a third-of-a-second delay when firing where it cant move or do anything that makes micro awkward, and no smart fire which firstly wastes a massive amount of damage in any kind of large fight, but in smaller ones promotes micro to avoid wasted shots, they are very different, smart fire units in general are extremely powerful
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.
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.
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.
First of all, I don't think that the SH is a boring unit by any means. From all of the HotS that I've watched, they're pretty badass to watch. It seems to me that 8 to 12 hosts can be an extremely potent force, meaning they take up 24 to 36 supply. Beyond that, they are easily countered, at least by tempests in PvZ, so they become wasted supply. Terrans have a bit more trouble dealing with them, but once they have a ball, they can utterly shred through locusts and usually get to the hosts. This means that they are not easily massable, unlike broodlords, or infestors.
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?)
I agree that Swarm host is not fun to use at all. The thing that I hate about HoTs is that it doesn't add new core army units. Zerg already had only a few of them, that can use early/mid game. Lings, Roaches and sometimes hydras and blings. Other than that we just need to choose one T3 unit and go. HoTs adds nothing new here.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I greatly agree with the point that Zerg's design concept has become completely unzerg-like compared to BW. Zerg isn't supposed to be reactive, Zerg always strikes first and strikes fast & hard.
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.
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.
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.
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.
...the tech tree progressions??? They're largely unchanged from BW... unless you thought the science facility was just incredibly important.
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.
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.
oh yea, can you imagine? no more dodging banelings!
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.
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.
EPT
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