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On December 10 2012 13:16 sagefreke wrote:
I just wish someone could post a reliable unit composition with Swarm Hosts in it.
The problem I've ran into with Swarm Hosts is that after they've spawned their locusts and the locusts are dead or about to die, they become useless supply and actually make your army weaker because they can't do anything for a certain period of time.
For a 200/100/3 supply unit they are very underwhelming, which is disappointing because I REALLY want to incorporate Swarm Hosts into my army. Another sad part about them is that they can't be left alone. I've tried numerous games to use 4-5 of them to pressure an enemy's 3rd while I pressure their natural only to have them get absolutely shredded between waves.
Personally I'd like Blizzard to increase their spawn rate at the expense of making locusts weaker hp or damage wise so that they're not just a more expensive Widow Mine and actually have some utility in a battle like Lurkers were in BW. As of right now they're just not worth building against T or P.
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locust duration upgrade. when old set dies, new set spawns around the same time. if your enemy has a composition which is eating through your locusts, say siege tank or mass colossus, you should be doing something else to deal with that, ie blinding cloud on tanks, abduct colossus, or just take out colo with corrupters.
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On December 10 2012 13:36 a176 wrote:Show nested quote +On December 10 2012 13:16 sagefreke wrote:
I just wish someone could post a reliable unit composition with Swarm Hosts in it.
The problem I've ran into with Swarm Hosts is that after they've spawned their locusts and the locusts are dead or about to die, they become useless supply and actually make your army weaker because they can't do anything for a certain period of time.
For a 200/100/3 supply unit they are very underwhelming, which is disappointing because I REALLY want to incorporate Swarm Hosts into my army. Another sad part about them is that they can't be left alone. I've tried numerous games to use 4-5 of them to pressure an enemy's 3rd while I pressure their natural only to have them get absolutely shredded between waves.
Personally I'd like Blizzard to increase their spawn rate at the expense of making locusts weaker hp or damage wise so that they're not just a more expensive Widow Mine and actually have some utility in a battle like Lurkers were in BW. As of right now they're just not worth building against T or P. ? locust duration upgrade. when old set dies, new set spawns around the same time. if your enemy has a composition which is eating through your locusts, say siege tank or mass colossus, you should be doing something else to deal with that, ie blinding cloud on tanks, abduct colossus, or just take out colo with corrupters.
Locust duration upgrade doesn't address the fact that it still takes the same amount of time to create another round of locust. If anything the duration upgrade just extends the range at which Swarm Hosts can sit and attack. Against Protoss there's no reason to build Swarm Hosts when Roach/Hydra/Viper is a superior composition supply and mobility wise(not to mention Protoss will have access to AoE by the time any reasonable Swarm Host number is obtained). Against Terran I don't see any reason whatsoever to build Swarm Hosts at all honestly. Roach/Hydra/Viper does great against mech and ling/bling/ultra/viper does great against bio. So where exactly would a Swarm Host fit when supply wise they're just not worth it?
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I'm a scrub, but I've found that Banelings offer a unique counter to Swarm Hosts if you're quick. There are a few tricks you can do with them. First, while you lose most of them, you can ram a Locust group with Banelings (not A move, just normal move) and the Locusts quickly kill themselves. This either opens up your army to get to the hosts quickly and/or allow your Banelings to aoe the hosts, assuming your opponent doesn't have them too spread out. I've also Baneling carpet bombed piles of hosts with pretty good success, since 2-4 hosts are taking damage from a single Baneling each drop. It's not cost effective, but you can eliminate them quickly to open up for a push or just give yourself some breathing room.
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On December 11 2012 09:55 Flopjack wrote:
I'm a scrub, but I've found that Banelings offer a unique counter to Swarm Hosts if you're quick. There are a few tricks you can do with them. First, while you lose most of them, you can ram a Locust group with Banelings (not A move, just normal move) and the Locusts quickly kill themselves. This either opens up your army to get to the hosts quickly and/or allow your Banelings to aoe the hosts, assuming your opponent doesn't have them too spread out. I've also Baneling carpet bombed piles of hosts with pretty good success, since 2-4 hosts are taking damage from a single Baneling each drop. It's not cost effective, but you can eliminate them quickly to open up for a push or just give yourself some breathing room.
I think this would be horrifically inefficient but it sounds hilarious. I think this is what you do when your opponent is 75 supply behind and is trying to survive on a few remaining swarm hosts
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^Ha ha, you're probably right.
I'd also like to add that from my experiences when using Swarm Hosts, a more advanced way of using them is to launch the goods then unburrow and move them. When you have a significant portion of the map covered in creep, this is nice when attacking multiple fronts because Hosts can run away fairly quick. Terran players will often throw down a scan where they think the hosts are based on the Locusts attack path, so baiting that is always nice, too. You deal a few points of damage, take out a unit or two and you re-position for your next Locust assault. So, you're issuing an attack move group that doesn't require your attention. You're just throwing a long range spell at them. Let them deal with it while you APM other stuff. Also may give you some scouting info.
It's almost as if Zerg needs to start microing their armies now or something. 
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what they should have is that unborrowing and then RE burrowing a swarm host re-sets the spawn timer of the locust.
think of the micro possibilities
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^That would ruin games from Bronze to Diamond!
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On December 11 2012 10:12 Flopjack wrote:
^That would ruin games from Bronze to Diamond!
Because it would require people to micro, and put the hosts in danger?
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On December 11 2012 10:01 clever_us wrote:Show nested quote +On December 11 2012 09:55 Flopjack wrote:
I'm a scrub, but I've found that Banelings offer a unique counter to Swarm Hosts if you're quick. There are a few tricks you can do with them. First, while you lose most of them, you can ram a Locust group with Banelings (not A move, just normal move) and the Locusts quickly kill themselves. This either opens up your army to get to the hosts quickly and/or allow your Banelings to aoe the hosts, assuming your opponent doesn't have them too spread out. I've also Baneling carpet bombed piles of hosts with pretty good success, since 2-4 hosts are taking damage from a single Baneling each drop. It's not cost effective, but you can eliminate them quickly to open up for a push or just give yourself some breathing room. I think this would be horrifically inefficient but it sounds hilarious. I think this is what you do when your opponent is 75 supply behind and is trying to survive on a few remaining swarm hosts
It's not really inefficient since people tend to clump up hosts, and since they're burrowed, banelings get maximum splash damage. And cost efficiency aside, hosts take a long time to make, so if you break their host line, then you can frequently overrun them immediately since new hosts need a bit of time to get into position.
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On December 11 2012 10:19 Zergrusher wrote:Show nested quote +On December 11 2012 10:12 Flopjack wrote:
^That would ruin games from Bronze to Diamond! Because it would require people to micro, and put the hosts in danger? No, because if it reset when you re-burrowed, you could make 6-7 times more locusts. As soon as the eggs falls out, you press R twice and you have more. That's only like 3 or 4 (game) seconds!
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On December 11 2012 10:27 Flopjack wrote:Show nested quote +On December 11 2012 10:19 Zergrusher wrote:On December 11 2012 10:12 Flopjack wrote:
^That would ruin games from Bronze to Diamond! Because it would require people to micro, and put the hosts in danger? No, because if it reset when you re-burrowed, you could make 6-7 times more locusts. As soon as the eggs falls out, you press R twice and you have more. That's only like 3 or 4 (game) seconds!
the only thing this might do is create slighty faster waves
but in higher up player it can be great for postioning and assaults.
and one of the major downsides to this is exposing where your swarm hosts are on the map and when hosts unborrow they cannot attack, leaving them vunurable to be sniped.
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It wouldn't create slightly faster waves, it would create significantly faster waves. Reload time is 25 seconds. The amount of times you can burrow and unburrow to reset it like you suggested would allow you to make something like 10x the amount of locusts. This would utterly eviscerate low level of play.
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On December 11 2012 10:34 Flopjack wrote:
It wouldn't create slightly faster waves, it would create significantly faster waves. Reload time is 25 seconds. The amount of times you can burrow and unburrow to reset it like you suggested would allow you to make something like 10x the amount of locusts. This would utterly eviscerate low level of play.
but would low level players have the marco/micro to repeated do the swarmhosts, while spreading creep,while injecting,while spreading overlords, while building units, while building drones, while building overlords, while expanding,while teching up
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Also how many low level players will use swarm host properly? for flanks,ambushes, assaults, defenses etc etc?
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No they don't, but if they can get ~15 Swarm Hosts, rally into an enemy base and keep hitting R, you can guarantee the official forums would be flooded with complaints. Even in a pro level, to generate that many free units by just hitting R repeatedly seems like overkill.
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Or we can just put the lurker back in and tweak its attack to to not hurt the precious death balls too much.
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On December 11 2012 10:44 Flopjack wrote:
No they don't, but if they can get ~15 Swarm Hosts, rally into an enemy base and keep hitting R, you can guarantee the official forums would be flooded with complaints. Even in a pro level, to generate that many free units by just hitting R repeatedly seems like overkill.
the forums complain about anything, and hey look the broodlord and infestor, they both spawn free units at a faster rate then the swarm host ever can.
But unlike using siege mode, the Swarm host would be able to leap frog up.
its a siege unit that spawns free units, what do siege units do?
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On December 11 2012 11:11 Serpico wrote:
Or we can just put the lurker back in and tweak its attack to to not hurt the precious death balls too much.
But didn't dustin say the lurker overlapse with the roach and baneling? and now it will overlap with the swarm host?
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On December 11 2012 11:19 Zergrusher wrote:Show nested quote +On December 11 2012 11:11 Serpico wrote:
Or we can just put the lurker back in and tweak its attack to to not hurt the precious death balls too much. But didn't dustin say the lurker overlapse with the roach and baneling? and now it will overlap with the swarm host?
It's supposed to take out the roach and the swarm host. Have the hydra replace the roach since the hydra has no role.
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On December 11 2012 11:38 Serpico wrote:Show nested quote +On December 11 2012 11:19 Zergrusher wrote:On December 11 2012 11:11 Serpico wrote:
Or we can just put the lurker back in and tweak its attack to to not hurt the precious death balls too much. But didn't dustin say the lurker overlapse with the roach and baneling? and now it will overlap with the swarm host? It's supposed to take out the roach and the swarm host. Have the hydra replace the roach since the hydra has no role.
Hydralisk have a role, supportive, ranged DPS/ AA
All they have to do for the hydralisks is 2 things
1) Ud-do the 2 nerfs the hydralisk got in WOL's beta( the nerfs are the biggest problem)
2) Removed grooved spines and increase range to 6
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EPT
