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Russian Federation4295 Posts
Just the question, Terrans got more options to kill Swarm Hosts:
- Reapers as anti-light against locusts and quick infantry, can be healed
- Hellbats can be healed, anti-light too
- Siege Tanks already do that
- Raven can easily snipe Swarm Hosts
- widow mine drops to swarm host fields with 1 second burrow can kill all hosts in some second. Just drop widow mines, do their work and load back to medivac and quickly fly away!
- widow mine counters all or half locusts, because they can target temporary units
- banshees now are more effective against swarm hosts, because they will have some weapon upgrades from mech army
They should buff locust speed to 2.25 and/or buff their health, or make 3 locust spawning at time, because right now Swarm Hosts are useless.
Against Protoss zergs have problems too:
- timewarp slows locusts a lot, with time warp locusts move slow like Queens offcreep
- Oracles with anti-light lazer can kill many locusts just for energy cost
- M-Core provides long-range detector
- Void Rays can quickly kill all locusts and then more quickly with charged boost kill SHosts
- you can normally recall your forces if you're atacked by many locusts
- FF works well against locusts
- tempests can snipe swarm hosts, not that quickly, but it's works a bit
- swarm host player is very immobile against prizm drops and oracle harasses
Also recommend you to view good thread about Swarm Host design flaw
http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/7350535414?page=1
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to add to your list:
+ timewarp makes them as "fast" as a queen offcreep which makes the oracle (and every other unit) even better at killing locusts without taking damage
+ MMM can just a-move them
+ once AoE is out the huge investment is hardcountered
+ they take 3 supply and are gas and mineral heavy
basically most of zerg T2 is not viable right now imo. some comps are viable if you do a hive rush and add viper: roach hydra viper corruptor vs mech for example works.
really hope they give huge buffs to T2 zerg and move infestor to hive and if viper comps get too strong viper to hive + spire or even greater spire. would love to see zerg have an army that is only softcountered by the T and P army and infestor/viper are supporters that help those armies to get on equal footing again and then slowly adding/transitioning into T3 units.
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Do not look just into one direction. This game is not the Day9 funmap Monobattle. You do not have to build SH only.
1.banshees wont kill them faster, because SH got a HP buff.
2. Combine swarmhost with other units to defend them.
3. widowmine kills the first wave, but when the second one comes its still on cooldown (with the hydra speedupgrade on t2, mb there is a possible good combination of roach/hydra and later adding some SH).
4.reaper vs locusts, rly?
5.Hellbats range alone makes them suck vs locusts. if you focus u get a few hellbats for free, remember locusts doesnt cost anything. Nothing happens if you lose them.
Maybe i am wrong, 1 day after a patch with so many changes and new possible combinations its just too early to argue against them.
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Why don't you look at every option against swarmhosts and think about what doing that takes away from their options? Every thing you listed is either directly a cost or an opportunity cost (as in they can't build something else). You understand what I'm saying?
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United Arab Emirates439 Posts
On December 08 2012 05:01 Jerubaal wrote:
Why don't you look at every option against swarmhosts and think about what doing that takes away from their options? Every thing you listed is either directly a cost or an opportunity cost (as in they can't build something else). You understand what I'm saying?
This exactly. Looking at Swarm Hosts in a vacuum might make them seem weak, because they are such a specialized unit. They force opponents to have/make some tech, even just the threat of them. If you get caught with some armies and Zerg makes even 10 Swarm Hosts, it can be nearly impossible to come back from.
Not to mention they are a unit that isn't very simple to use, In my experience a lot of people just make them, plant them outside of their opponents base, rally the locusts in, and see how effective that is. If the opponent has the appropriate counters, they just conclude "this unit is bad". But there are so many more options for Swarm Hosts. Probably the most appealing in Swarm Host drops. As a Mech player, I've no idea how to deal with this cost effectively if the Zerg opened Mutas earlier on (meaning I can't use banshees to kill the Swarm Hosts. Just three packs of Swarm Hosts in Overlords moving back and forth between 3 bases for a Mech player can be a nightmare - especially if some of them get into a corner of your base where all the chokes make it impossible to even get to them. Not to mention it is basically a risk-free pressure. At worst your free Locusts do no damage, at best they start trading themselves with gas units.
If they buff Swarm Hosts at all ever, I would just like to see it in their move speed. But I really don't think they are a bad unit.
Not to mention I heard they dominate ZvZ meta-game right now.
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Swarm Host is an awful unit that'll be a pain to balance. Here's why:
They suck in small numbers. If you add just a few to your army, the effect is negligible. The opponent can kill the locusts, especially with some AoE, very very easily, so they don't put the kind of pressure they're supposedly designed to put. They end up making your entire army less mobile, for little to no benefit. You're better off making other units.
If you mass them, they become more effective and can put on pressure, but then they take up so much supply, that almost your entire army has to be Swarm Hosts. This leaves a lot of vulnerabilities naturally, immobility being one. Unlike Broodlords, they can be attacked by ground attacks and since they spawn units not continuously like Broodlords, but in waves, if the opponent has a way to kill the locusts quickly with AoE, which both Terran and Protoss do, in between the waves they're just sitting ducks waiting to be killed.
If they tweak the numbers so that they're actually good, because of the way they work, they will be massed, and you'll have people complaining "all Zerg ever does is mass 1 unit, IMBA IMBA".
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On December 08 2012 05:18 ZjiublingZ wrote:
Not to mention I heard they dominate ZvZ meta-game right now.
Really? I've been trying to use them in ZvZ and have found them to be quite hard to use, although they can be effectiev if you out-maneuver your opponent. Roach/hydra with the hydra upgrade is so fast now it's hard to get the swarm hosts into a position where you can force your opponent to actually fight the locusts. I'm trying muta --> swarm host so that I can get a contain up while my opponent is playing defensively, but I have not found them to be dominant. I went 1/2 last night, will try again soon.
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United Arab Emirates439 Posts
On December 08 2012 05:38 JDub wrote:Show nested quote +On December 08 2012 05:18 ZjiublingZ wrote:
Not to mention I heard they dominate ZvZ meta-game right now. Really? I've been trying to use them in ZvZ and have found them to be quite hard to use, although they can be effectiev if you out-maneuver your opponent. Roach/hydra with the hydra upgrade is so fast now it's hard to get the swarm hosts into a position where you can force your opponent to actually fight the locusts. I'm trying muta --> swarm host so that I can get a contain up while my opponent is playing defensively, but I have not found them to be dominant. I went 1/2 last night, will try again soon.
I don't play Zerg, but that's what Blade555555 said in a thread last week. And he's like GM/High Master Zerg player. Idra reached a similar conclusion in his short time on HotS.
Basically they both said, Muta > Swarm Host is the dominant strategy. I don't know if that will change with the faster, fast Hydras, but I doubt it. Perhaps there are some maps where Swarm Hosts can be too easily flanked, and I'm sure you can't go Muta > Swarm Host if you both go Muta, but yeah. They seem to think Muta>Swarm Host is the best.
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From what I saw, Idra just walk past the locusts and snip the SH with a few roaches. SH seems great if the enemy's willing to stay where they are and wait for you to pile on the damage, but I'm pretty sure all units are good if the enemy don't fight back.
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I haven't seen much kiting with them yet, which might be interesting. This gets into the drop play suggestion, but once the locusts have popped, you don't need to keep swarm hosts where they are. I was watching Idra's stream and the opposing players had to wait for the locusts to die to run forward, or somehow run around them. However, Idra didn't move the swarm hosts as soon as the wave popped, and probably could of kept them out of harm's way. Would at least be interesting to see. As for ZvZ though, I'm thinking Muta is going to become the dominant force now that fungal is harder to land and mutas are faster.
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That is the most ridiculous post I have ever read.
None of those things actually deal with locusts effectively aside from siege tanks.
Do you realize how many ravens you would have to build to take out a whole army of SH?
And oracles run out of energy fairly quickly with new pulsar beam, especially when trying to snipe 20-30 constantly respawning locusts.
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Russian Federation4295 Posts
None of those things actually deal with locusts effectively aside from siege tanks.
If you don't know about latest patch, so leave the thread. Medivacs now can heal both, reapers and hellbats, which are counters to locusts. With insane healing speed, locusts can deal ZERO damage to enemy.
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in ZvZ it is insanely effective to go roach bane and kill locusts with banes since they are light. so 2 base SH isnt viable in my opinion since you wont have any or much support if you go SHs on 2 base so the banes will connect pretty much every time.
3 base after ling muta or roach hydra opening it might be fine though.
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On December 08 2012 06:27 Existor wrote:Show nested quote +None of those things actually deal with locusts effectively aside from siege tanks.
If you don't know about latest patch, so leave the thread. Medivacs now can heal both, reapers and hellbats, which are counters to locusts. With insane healing speed, locusts can deal ZERO damage to enemy.
Well, don't fucking build swarm host against hellbat medivac then oO
Swarm host seems good in ZvZ and ZvP.
Perhaps they're lacking a bit in ZvT but it's not like they're bad at all. It's a good unit.
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On December 08 2012 05:18 ZjiublingZ wrote:Show nested quote +On December 08 2012 05:01 Jerubaal wrote:
Why don't you look at every option against swarmhosts and think about what doing that takes away from their options? Every thing you listed is either directly a cost or an opportunity cost (as in they can't build something else). You understand what I'm saying? This exactly. Looking at Swarm Hosts in a vacuum might make them seem weak, because they are such a specialized unit. They force opponents to have/make some tech, even just the threat of them. If you get caught with some armies and Zerg makes even 10 Swarm Hosts, it can be nearly impossible to come back from. Not to mention they are a unit that isn't very simple to use, In my experience a lot of people just make them, plant them outside of their opponents base, rally the locusts in, and see how effective that is. If the opponent has the appropriate counters, they just conclude "this unit is bad". But there are so many more options for Swarm Hosts. Probably the most appealing in Swarm Host drops. As a Mech player, I've no idea how to deal with this cost effectively if the Zerg opened Mutas earlier on (meaning I can't use banshees to kill the Swarm Hosts. Just three packs of Swarm Hosts in Overlords moving back and forth between 3 bases for a Mech player can be a nightmare - especially if some of them get into a corner of your base where all the chokes make it impossible to even get to them. Not to mention it is basically a risk-free pressure. At worst your free Locusts do no damage, at best they start trading themselves with gas units. If they buff Swarm Hosts at all ever, I would just like to see it in their move speed. But I really don't think they are a bad unit. Not to mention I heard they dominate ZvZ meta-game right now.
From who? I also heard that Dustin Browder is secretly working with Riot to make sure that they add rocks in the middle lane.
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United Arab Emirates439 Posts
On December 08 2012 06:45 phodacbiet wrote:Show nested quote +On December 08 2012 05:18 ZjiublingZ wrote:On December 08 2012 05:01 Jerubaal wrote:
Why don't you look at every option against swarmhosts and think about what doing that takes away from their options? Every thing you listed is either directly a cost or an opportunity cost (as in they can't build something else). You understand what I'm saying? This exactly. Looking at Swarm Hosts in a vacuum might make them seem weak, because they are such a specialized unit. They force opponents to have/make some tech, even just the threat of them. If you get caught with some armies and Zerg makes even 10 Swarm Hosts, it can be nearly impossible to come back from. Not to mention they are a unit that isn't very simple to use, In my experience a lot of people just make them, plant them outside of their opponents base, rally the locusts in, and see how effective that is. If the opponent has the appropriate counters, they just conclude "this unit is bad". But there are so many more options for Swarm Hosts. Probably the most appealing in Swarm Host drops. As a Mech player, I've no idea how to deal with this cost effectively if the Zerg opened Mutas earlier on (meaning I can't use banshees to kill the Swarm Hosts. Just three packs of Swarm Hosts in Overlords moving back and forth between 3 bases for a Mech player can be a nightmare - especially if some of them get into a corner of your base where all the chokes make it impossible to even get to them. Not to mention it is basically a risk-free pressure. At worst your free Locusts do no damage, at best they start trading themselves with gas units. If they buff Swarm Hosts at all ever, I would just like to see it in their move speed. But I really don't think they are a bad unit. Not to mention I heard they dominate ZvZ meta-game right now. From who? I also heard that Dustin Browder is secretly working with Riot to make sure that they add rocks in the middle lane.
See the post following in this thread. I heard that from Blade55555 a gm/high master Zerg who has been playing a lot of HotS. He says Muta>Swarm Host is the go-to strategy.
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United Kingdom12022 Posts
I just played a game as mech terran on Korhal City against MASS, MASS swarmhosts with a load of corrupter support and he always kept them just out of range of my tanks so I could basically never move out.
I wasn't really sure what to do as it flustered me, but the waves kept on coming and coming until I just died to not being able to mine/produce anymore. I was running past really quickly trying to take potshots and go kill bases with his hellions and he never really got mining on more than 4 bases (even with me), but eventually it wore me down.
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Of course if you cluster up your swarm hosts in a little ball and send the locusts in one big wave every 25 seconds you're going to find this unit underwhelming. Try using it in smaller numbers (contrary to popular belief it doesn't NEED to be massed) using 3 to attack 1 expansion while you attack others. Pressure a front while you harass with mutalisks. Drop in the base for some harass that they need detection to deal with, send half your locusts one way and half another way, stagger your spawns for a tighter cycle, or spawn and retreat. The swarm host doesn't need to remain burrowed while the locusts do their work. They rarely need to be near the battle at all! Be creative and for gods sake SUPPORT THEM! I could list 10 times more weaknesses for zerglings but fortunately you have more units to build.
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On December 08 2012 05:00 Decendos wrote:
basically most of zerg T2 is not viable right now imo.
how is zerg t2 not viable right now with the hydra and muta speed buff?
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On December 08 2012 05:51 ZjiublingZ wrote:Show nested quote +On December 08 2012 05:38 JDub wrote:On December 08 2012 05:18 ZjiublingZ wrote:
Not to mention I heard they dominate ZvZ meta-game right now. Really? I've been trying to use them in ZvZ and have found them to be quite hard to use, although they can be effectiev if you out-maneuver your opponent. Roach/hydra with the hydra upgrade is so fast now it's hard to get the swarm hosts into a position where you can force your opponent to actually fight the locusts. I'm trying muta --> swarm host so that I can get a contain up while my opponent is playing defensively, but I have not found them to be dominant. I went 1/2 last night, will try again soon. I don't play Zerg, but that's what Blade555555 said in a thread last week. And he's like GM/High Master Zerg player. Idra reached a similar conclusion in his short time on HotS. Basically they both said, Muta > Swarm Host is the dominant strategy. I don't know if that will change with the faster, fast Hydras, but I doubt it. Perhaps there are some maps where Swarm Hosts can be too easily flanked, and I'm sure you can't go Muta > Swarm Host if you both go Muta, but yeah. They seem to think Muta>Swarm Host is the best.
They used to, while muta are dominant in zvz now swarmhosts aren't as good I have found now. Since the patch I haven't been winning when going swarmhosts. Roach/hydra now that hydras are fast can avoid the locusts and yeah dunno I might have been using them wrong but I think swarmhosts aren't as good in zvz as they used to be or as dominant.
I am not seeing any zergs make them in zvz either when I play them or watching.
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On December 08 2012 07:30 Basileus wrote:Show nested quote +On December 08 2012 05:00 Decendos wrote:
basically most of zerg T2 is not viable right now imo. how is zerg t2 not viable right now with the hydra and muta speed buff?
Mutas are not viable because of Widow Mines, their speed is irrelevant when you risk losing all your Mutas any time you move around the map.
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On December 08 2012 07:30 Basileus wrote:Show nested quote +On December 08 2012 05:00 Decendos wrote:
basically most of zerg T2 is not viable right now imo. how is zerg t2 not viable right now with the hydra and muta speed buff?
oh you mean the 7% buff on mutas while medivac got a 66% speedbuff and is now faster for 8 seconds than mutas and even that is cooldown so not even energy burned? and the widow mine now burrows in 1 sec. and medivac is A LOT stronger now so tank + MMM got a lot stronger vs ling bling muta. at some time you will have to engage and not only mutas got worse due to faster medivac, also ling bling is weaker now because of medivacs new healing. and if you bait a stim with your mutas the medivac heals that hp must faster so every stim you force is now also weaker. so harrass with muta got weaker, fighting with ling bling muta got weaker and they cant even deny drops like prepatch. basically you wont build any mutas again right now in ZvT. ask blade or any other GM player.
phoenix +1 range in last patch (which is fine btw since mutas in ZvP are okay) but made mutas even weaker than prepatch in ZvP also.
so mutas got buffed in ZvZ vs infestor play and about as strong vs roach hydra.
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On December 08 2012 08:05 Decendos wrote:Show nested quote +On December 08 2012 07:30 Basileus wrote:On December 08 2012 05:00 Decendos wrote:
basically most of zerg T2 is not viable right now imo. how is zerg t2 not viable right now with the hydra and muta speed buff? oh you mean the 7% buff on mutas while medivac got a 66% speedbuff and is now faster for 8 seconds than mutas and even that is cooldown so not even energy burned? and the widow mine now burrows in 1 sec. and medivac is A LOT stronger now so tank + MMM got a lot stronger vs ling bling muta. at some time you will have to engage and not only mutas got worse due to faster medivac, also ling bling is weaker now because of medivacs new healing. and if you bait a stim with your mutas the medivac heals that hp must faster so every stim you force is now also weaker. so harrass with muta got weaker, fighting with ling bling muta got weaker and they cant even deny drops like prepatch. basically you wont build any mutas again right now in ZvT. ask blade or any other GM player. phoenix +1 range in last patch (which is fine btw since mutas in ZvP are okay) but made mutas even weaker than prepatch in ZvP also. so mutas got buffed in ZvZ vs infestor play and about as strong vs roach hydra.
This pretty much.
And Toss got a Phoenix buff just to counter the Muta buff, how is it a buff if you're buffing its direct counter in response?
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Russian Federation4295 Posts
And Toss got a Phoenix buff just to counter the Muta buff, how is it a buff if you're buffing its direct counter in response?
Phoenixes still can reach mutalisks and kill them, and then snipe overlords if massed. Also phoenixes forcing zerg to go hydralisks and/or make mass spores at every base
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Does anyone think it would interesting to have a mid/late game upgrade for the swarm host that allowed them to load and launch banelings in a dodgeable arc. It would have a moderate range and only be useable while unburrowed.
Not sure on numbers:
Damage/explosion radius - same as a baneling on foot
Range - 9?
Speed - about the same as the beta infestor projectile, but launched in an arc
Launch/load while unburrowed only
Maybe it could load 4 at once instantly and fire at a rate slightly slower than a siege tank, but each bane would have to be targetted/queued and fired manually.
I feel like it would add a second diverse function to the swarm host and add to zerg's options.
And it would be micro-intensive and interesting to watch, a player with lots of APM could spawn locusts, uproot and launch banes during an engagement.
I wanted to post this in the battle.net beta thread, but I am not actually in beta so I cannot... is there anyone who is/ who thinks its a worthwhile idea to suggest in the battle.net beta thread?
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You have to use roaches and hydras with swarm hosts... I'm not sure how bio even gets to your swarm hosts if you are covering them properly.... My god... Its just like a seige tank.. You can't just expect a couple by themselves to be super effective...
I've found swarm hosts to be a huge pain in the ass to play against BC it basically forces you to make tanks...
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The patch has been out for one day and already all of lair tech isn't viable.
I loled pretty hard at these threads
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United Arab Emirates439 Posts
On December 08 2012 07:33 blade55555 wrote:Show nested quote +On December 08 2012 05:51 ZjiublingZ wrote:On December 08 2012 05:38 JDub wrote:On December 08 2012 05:18 ZjiublingZ wrote:
Not to mention I heard they dominate ZvZ meta-game right now. Really? I've been trying to use them in ZvZ and have found them to be quite hard to use, although they can be effectiev if you out-maneuver your opponent. Roach/hydra with the hydra upgrade is so fast now it's hard to get the swarm hosts into a position where you can force your opponent to actually fight the locusts. I'm trying muta --> swarm host so that I can get a contain up while my opponent is playing defensively, but I have not found them to be dominant. I went 1/2 last night, will try again soon. I don't play Zerg, but that's what Blade555555 said in a thread last week. And he's like GM/High Master Zerg player. Idra reached a similar conclusion in his short time on HotS. Basically they both said, Muta > Swarm Host is the dominant strategy. I don't know if that will change with the faster, fast Hydras, but I doubt it. Perhaps there are some maps where Swarm Hosts can be too easily flanked, and I'm sure you can't go Muta > Swarm Host if you both go Muta, but yeah. They seem to think Muta>Swarm Host is the best. They used to, while muta are dominant in zvz now swarmhosts aren't as good I have found now. Since the patch I haven't been winning when going swarmhosts. Roach/hydra now that hydras are fast can avoid the locusts and yeah dunno I might have been using them wrong but I think swarmhosts aren't as good in zvz as they used to be or as dominant. I am not seeing any zergs make them in zvz either when I play them or watching.
haha damn things changing fast! makes sense though. A siege/positional unit like the Swarm Host seems better after you gain a significant advantage in positioning or army size.
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On December 08 2012 09:53 MateShade wrote:
The patch has been out for one day and already all of lair tech isn't viable.
I loled pretty hard at these threads
Don't forget Brood Lords. They're bad now.
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On December 08 2012 05:27 sitromit wrote:
Swarm Host is an awful unit that'll be a pain to balance. Here's why:
They suck in small numbers. If you add just a few to your army, the effect is negligible. The opponent can kill the locusts, especially with some AoE, very very easily, so they don't put the kind of pressure they're supposedly designed to put. They end up making your entire army less mobile, for little to no benefit. You're better off making other units.
If you mass them, they become more effective and can put on pressure, but then they take up so much supply, that almost your entire army has to be Swarm Hosts. This leaves a lot of vulnerabilities naturally, immobility being one. Unlike Broodlords, they can be attacked by ground attacks and since they spawn units not continuously like Broodlords, but in waves, if the opponent has a way to kill the locusts quickly with AoE, which both Terran and Protoss do, in between the waves they're just sitting ducks waiting to be killed.
If they tweak the numbers so that they're actually good, because of the way they work, they will be massed, and you'll have people complaining "all Zerg ever does is mass 1 unit, IMBA IMBA".
You're making an excellent point here. Kudos to you. The Swarm Host is very different from the Lurker in terms of an area control unit, because the Lurker had splash damage. It meant that although it was certainly stronger to have more lurkers up to a certain point, they started falling off after you got enough to kill an enemy unit in one or two shots (e.g. on Fighting Spirit you can hold the top of a ramp against MM with only three Lurkers, and any more are just a waste). With the Swarm Host, on the other hand, you're stuck in a constant arms race with your opponent. Even more unfortunately, they're stuck in an all-or-nothing position where they either obliterate the enemy army before taking any losses or else get completely wiped out themselves. It's just like the Broodlord and the Infestor, actually. It's an inherent problem of free units, and it's something Blizzard seriously needs to address if they want to make Zerg the swarm race. Perhaps the best move would be to make Broodlings and Locusts cost money. That way it becomes a legit siege.
Just a few considerations.
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On December 08 2012 09:53 MateShade wrote:
The patch has been out for one day and already all of lair tech isn't viable.
I loled pretty hard at these threads
yeah because lair tech units are just bad since the patch...not. in fact hydras got better but they are still on a very weak level especially without viper support. mutas got even worse, SHs didnt change at all (so stay bad), infestor got a lot worse. drop play, nydus play, burrowplay didnt change so also stays bad.
i dont see your problem. most lairtech units were bad prepatch and now either got worse or didnt change, except the hydra but the hydra comes from such a low level that its still a bad unit for 2 supply.
well we will see. at least blizzard stated they want zerg players to stay much longer on T2. so maybe the hard and needed buffs to lairtech units and mechanics like nydus/burrowmovement/dropplay will come in the next patch.
it would be awesome if zerg could actually fight with T2 for a much longer time instead of needing spellcaster (infestor and/or viper) support to stand a chance even in the midgame to early lategame. if T2 + spellcaster gets too strong after buffing T2 they can just move infestor and viper up to techtree. so maybe infestor hivetech and viper hive + spire or something like that.
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You still need DETECTION and PLAYER ATTENTION to kill the actual Swarm Host, so what is the point of the whine? The SH can be buried anywhere and the locusts can attack (=attract attention) FAR AWAY from the SH itself, so finding them is going to be hard. Just bury one of them anywhere in the open and have his locusts attack a Terran/Protoss wall somewhere ... If your opponent starts looking for them you can either attack somewhere else or ambush his forces trying to kill the SH ... a few Roaches buried next to the SH can easily defend them against most of the stuff listed as counters.
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On December 08 2012 04:45 Existor wrote:
- widow mine drops to swarm host fields with 1 second burrow can kill all hosts in some second. Just drop widow mines, do their work and load back to medivac and quickly fly away!
Widow mines don't target cloaked and burrowed units anymore.
Swarm Hosts are viable, but they do have plenty of counters.
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Russian Federation4295 Posts
Widow mines don't target cloaked and burrowed units anymore.
One scan and 3-4 or more snipes coming here
, so what is the point of the whine?
Any Zerg-question thread = whine? I've just asked you to suggest me reasons to build swarm hosts, in what situations they're good. Instead you're started scream that it's another whine thread
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On December 08 2012 19:15 Rabiator wrote:
You still need DETECTION and PLAYER ATTENTION to kill the actual Swarm Host, so what is the point of the whine? The SH can be buried anywhere and the locusts can attack (=attract attention) FAR AWAY from the SH itself, so finding them is going to be hard. Just bury one of them anywhere in the open and have his locusts attack a Terran/Protoss wall somewhere ... If your opponent starts looking for them you can either attack somewhere else or ambush his forces trying to kill the SH ... a few Roaches buried next to the SH can easily defend them against most of the stuff listed as counters.
yeah this is true. but the T player then can just go on and a-move your base.
SHs need to be able to be effective in armies or become way cheaper in cost and supply if you really want to make them just an "attract attention" unit. right now you have to use basically 100% of your income to build SHs so if the opponent just counter attacks you have a huge problem. so either buff locusts so they get better in fights or make them cheaper so you can only build 4-5 of them to "attract" attention and you still have min/gas to actually build units if the opponent decides to just attack you.
the SH right now isnt worth its cost and supply. you can fix this by either buffing the locusts (faster speed, more hp, higher range, faster spawning rate, higher damage (dont like the last two) etc.) or by making it cost only 2 supply and only something like 150/75.
same approach goes towards the hydra btw. either buff their damage, hp, range, upgrade scaling or make them 75/25 and 1 supply. same style of fixing a unit. either buff it or make it cheaper cost and supplywise.
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On December 08 2012 06:27 Existor wrote:Show nested quote +None of those things actually deal with locusts effectively aside from siege tanks.
If you don't know about latest patch, so leave the thread. Medivacs now can heal both, reapers and hellbats, which are counters to locusts. With insane healing speed, locusts can deal ZERO damage to enemy.
if its costing medivac energy and certain time from other units to kill the locusts wouldnt that still be a fair deal for a freespawning unit?
you are throwing out locusts, hes throwing out medivac energy and fire time on several units.
now couple that with a few extra units from zerg and theyll still be losing all that and have to make choices what to kill.
pretty fair deal imo
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On December 08 2012 08:37 Kreme wrote:
Does anyone think it would interesting to have a mid/late game upgrade for the swarm host that allowed them to load and launch banelings in a dodgeable arc. It would have a moderate range and only be useable while unburrowed.
Not sure on numbers:
Damage/explosion radius - same as a baneling on foot
Range - 9?
Speed - about the same as the beta infestor projectile, but launched in an arc
Launch/load while unburrowed only
Maybe it could load 4 at once instantly and fire at a rate slightly slower than a siege tank, but each bane would have to be targetted/queued and fired manually.
I feel like it would add a second diverse function to the swarm host and add to zerg's options.
And it would be micro-intensive and interesting to watch, a player with lots of APM could spawn locusts, uproot and launch banes during an engagement.
I wanted to post this in the battle.net beta thread, but I am not actually in beta so I cannot... is there anyone who is/ who thinks its a worthwhile idea to suggest in the battle.net beta thread?
Something like this is exactly what needs to happen to the swarm host. At the moment, it is a boring, non micro intensive, hard to balance unit that spawns masses of completely expendable, slow, also non micro intensive units. It needs to be aoe - Zerg need a more interesting, skill based aoe mechanic than banelings 1aing in (although fungal change helped this). Your change would be particularly good since it would make force field timings less dominant in pvz, although, it seems a bit... Overly complicated for a unit ability. i would more expect to see units throw other units in games like wc3 or dota, but still, great idea for a variety of reasons.
I just really think this unit needs to be more micro based and have the capacity to actually damage the enemy heavily rather than just chip away at them. Banelings are really the only Zerg unit that can do serious aoe damage in the early/midgame for Zerg (fungal is weaker than before, incapable of keeping up with medivacs for instance)... Compare with Terran having tons of splash on mech units, ravens, and toss with their storm, archon, collosi...
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On December 08 2012 19:41 Decendos wrote:Show nested quote +On December 08 2012 19:15 Rabiator wrote:
You still need DETECTION and PLAYER ATTENTION to kill the actual Swarm Host, so what is the point of the whine? The SH can be buried anywhere and the locusts can attack (=attract attention) FAR AWAY from the SH itself, so finding them is going to be hard. Just bury one of them anywhere in the open and have his locusts attack a Terran/Protoss wall somewhere ... If your opponent starts looking for them you can either attack somewhere else or ambush his forces trying to kill the SH ... a few Roaches buried next to the SH can easily defend them against most of the stuff listed as counters. yeah this is true. but the T player then can just go on and a-move your base.
Rofl ... but this is stupid, since Terrans have never been able to simply a-move into a base as much as Zerg does. Swarm Hosts are decoys and diversions - if used is small numbers - which require a disproportionate amount of player attention to deal with.
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+ Show Spoiler +
Just the question, Terrans got more options to kill Swarm Hosts:
- Reapers as anti-light against locusts and quick infantry, can be healed
- Hellbats can be healed, anti-light too
- Siege Tanks already do that
- Raven can easily snipe Swarm Hosts
- widow mine drops to swarm host fields with 1 second burrow can kill all hosts in some second. Just drop widow mines, do their work and load back to medivac and quickly fly away!
- widow mine counters all or half locusts, because they can target temporary units
- banshees now are more effective against swarm hosts, because they will have some weapon upgrades from mech army
They should buff locust speed to 2.25 and/or buff their health, or make 3 locust spawning at time, because right now Swarm Hosts are useless.
Against Protoss zergs have problems too:
- timewarp slows locusts a lot, with time warp locusts move slow like Queens offcreep
- Oracles with anti-light lazer can kill many locusts just for energy cost
- M-Core provides long-range detector
- Void Rays can quickly kill all locusts and then more quickly with charged boost kill SHosts
- you can normally recall your forces if you're atacked by many locusts
- FF works well against locusts
- tempests can snipe swarm hosts, not that quickly, but it's works a bit
- swarm host player is very immobile against prizm drops and oracle harasses
Locusts only cost time. Why do you think that it's a problem to trade Swarm Host time for Medivac/Raven/Oracle/M-Core/Sentry Energy?
I don't play HotS, so I feel like I shouldn't comment on gameplay to much but units which get healed by Medivacs aren't immortal. You could focus enemy units and slowly let the Swarm Host pay for themselves while you know where the enemy is and force him to defend/spread out/do something, I guess.
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On December 08 2012 07:33 blade55555 wrote:Show nested quote +On December 08 2012 05:51 ZjiublingZ wrote:On December 08 2012 05:38 JDub wrote:On December 08 2012 05:18 ZjiublingZ wrote:
Not to mention I heard they dominate ZvZ meta-game right now. Really? I've been trying to use them in ZvZ and have found them to be quite hard to use, although they can be effectiev if you out-maneuver your opponent. Roach/hydra with the hydra upgrade is so fast now it's hard to get the swarm hosts into a position where you can force your opponent to actually fight the locusts. I'm trying muta --> swarm host so that I can get a contain up while my opponent is playing defensively, but I have not found them to be dominant. I went 1/2 last night, will try again soon. I don't play Zerg, but that's what Blade555555 said in a thread last week. And he's like GM/High Master Zerg player. Idra reached a similar conclusion in his short time on HotS. Basically they both said, Muta > Swarm Host is the dominant strategy. I don't know if that will change with the faster, fast Hydras, but I doubt it. Perhaps there are some maps where Swarm Hosts can be too easily flanked, and I'm sure you can't go Muta > Swarm Host if you both go Muta, but yeah. They seem to think Muta>Swarm Host is the best. They used to, while muta are dominant in zvz now swarmhosts aren't as good I have found now. Since the patch I haven't been winning when going swarmhosts. Roach/hydra now that hydras are fast can avoid the locusts and yeah dunno I might have been using them wrong but I think swarmhosts aren't as good in zvz as they used to be or as dominant. I am not seeing any zergs make them in zvz either when I play them or watching.
it makes sense because it'd be more effective to mass more roach+hydra than your enemy could mass enough swarm hosts, esp if you are coming off a muta opening. but then i guess it depend on the map, running around creep to avoid locusts to hit their expos.
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the biggest problem I see in swarm host is how much baby sitting they need to work, making 'hit and run' strategy not really viable for this unit.
And it's a unit that you need to mass up in order for it to work. Otherwise some siege tanks and widow mines shut down the locust pressure quite easily.
It's also a lot more prone to drops than other style, especially early drops when you can't afford to put much statistic defense out.
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IMO its a very "all or nothing" unit. Whenever I've won with them, I've had to make a huge investment and mass up at least 15+ for them to be effective. Unlike siege tanks, you can't really mix in a handful of SH's into your army and have it be effective.
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As I was expecting the Swarm Host just does not fit in the game the way it is.
I've seen games where ZvT goes Hydra/Roach/Viper as their main army while keeping around 8 SH as a secondary army behind, while the first army tried to pull the T out of position the SH released their locus on weak defended positions. While this was viable in my eyes it should only work against Meching Terrans.
Toss will blink on them as soon as they know where they are and BioTerran will drop some marauders on top of them and focus them down... :-/
Im not quiet sure how they can work, because the mainproblem really is Low-Numbers = useless, high numbers = OP
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On December 08 2012 23:41 ch4ppi wrote:
As I was expecting the Swarm Host just does not fit in the game the way it is.
I've seen games where ZvT goes Hydra/Roach/Viper as their main army while keeping around 8 SH as a secondary army behind, while the first army tried to pull the T out of position the SH released their locus on weak defended positions. While this was viable in my eyes it should only work against Meching Terrans.
Toss will blink on them as soon as they know where they are and BioTerran will drop some marauders on top of them and focus them down... :-/
Im not quiet sure how they can work, because the mainproblem really is Low-Numbers = useless, high numbers = OP
they could pretty easily fix that and add the lurker. lurker + SH would be much more viable in smaller numbers since you cant just a-move it with bio or blink above it since if you do that the lurker destroy you. lurker would also fix the new MMM combined with supernerfed infestor and the inability to kill well microed MMM now.
i dont agree that they are OP in high numbers though. i have yet to see or play a game where mass SHs was good if the SH player hasnt gained a serious advantage earlier on. 20 SHs locusts get shut down by just 7 tanks or 4 colossus. 60 supply to 21/24 supply. thats horribly inefficient in high numbers and very far from OP. mass SH forces a reaction in AoE units but 7 tanks or 4 colossus are easily there once the Z hits 20 SHs.
mass SH are a very good option to kill your opponent if you are far ahead. at least at that they are good and it saves time since you dont have to wait for BLs if you are far ahead and just want to kill your opponent.
i would like to hear a blizzard statement on what they think the role of the SH should look like. hard siege unit with your army? harrass unit that fights alone? do they want them as support or as main army? in small or mass numbers? lurker in addition?
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people who say that there hasn't been any changes to SH, didn't they increase its health by 33% from 120 to 160?
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yes there has. but it changes nothing. SH are so slow that if they get caught off guard they die with 120 hp and they die with 160hp and they die with 200 hp. i would like it if they make them only 120hp again and make them more viable in other ways like buffing locust hp or making them cheaper on cost and supply.
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Yea... I cannot even believe people are complaining. I've been playing zerg since WoL beta and this new stuff is fucking amazing. Hydra Ling into Hydra Swarmhost is fucking sick, you literally cover every early pressure and then follow up with a lair tech army that can challenge just about any composition. I just crushed a mech'ing Terran with Hydra Swarmhost, which I thought was the one thing the composition probably couldn't handle well. For the first time ever I feel like I can apply a ton of pressure on my T or P opponent off lair tech, without just being incredibly cost inefficient. I'm pretty sure if I cannot break them I can just go Hive and add-in ultras to make like the best zerg army ever.
Pretty sure Hydra Ling > Hydra Swarmhost > Hydra Swarmhost Ultra ( while getting range atk ups) is going to be the new meat and potato zerg build very soon. It's incredibly safe early while not being overly weak vs any one tech path, very flexible and fun.
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So you basicly complain that you can't mass swarmhost and kill anything with it? Maybe you should think about, that the swarmhost was created to support your main army and not make the swarmhost to your mainarmy. For 8 months zerg was simply a broken race, now that blizzard is fixing it all, patchzergs are going to the leagues they belong to and of cause they whine about it.
User was warned for this post
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Instead of asking for another buff for SH i would rather suggest to reduce the cost or building time for nydus. Maybe fast and relatively cheap nydus could work well with few SH to appear/disappear quickly in several places? That would make a whole new space for using SH as aharrasing unit rather then just slow siege unit. Any thoughts?
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On December 09 2012 01:16 WeRRa wrote:
So you basicly complain that you can't mass swarmhost and kill anything with it? Maybe you should think about, that the swarmhost was created to support your main army and not make the swarmhost to your mainarmy. For 8 months zerg was simply a broken race, now that blizzard is fixing it all, patchzergs are going to the leagues they belong to and of cause they whine about it.
I think people like these should be warned at least, you don't even read why we are finding it not a good unit.
stupid comments like "patchzergs"; "broken race" etcetc can GTFO from this thread
We are complaining that if we were to use this unit effectively, we need to mass it, but even if we mass it, it doesn't mean it is effective.
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Germany25657 Posts
On December 09 2012 01:40 ETisME wrote:Show nested quote +On December 09 2012 01:16 WeRRa wrote:
So you basicly complain that you can't mass swarmhost and kill anything with it? Maybe you should think about, that the swarmhost was created to support your main army and not make the swarmhost to your mainarmy. For 8 months zerg was simply a broken race, now that blizzard is fixing it all, patchzergs are going to the leagues they belong to and of cause they whine about it. I think people like these should be warned at least, you don't even read why we are finding it not a good unit. stupid comments like "patchzergs"; "broken race" etcetc can GTFO from this thread We are complaining that if we were to use this unit effectively, we need to mass it, but even if we mass it, it doesn't mean it is effective.
Please do no post phrases such as "people like these should be warned/banned" etc. If you think their post should be looked at, just report them (which you did, well done  ). Comments like these usually incite a discussion about moderation, which we do not need outside of the Website Feedback Forum.
Now, back to topic please 
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if massing swarmhost is the only way to make the uit really viable it kinda goes against what blizzard wants completly. They wanted it to be a unit good at defending strategical spots with small numbers, aka lurker.
Consider giving swarmhost its ability altered by the number of adjacent swarmhosts. Like a lone swarmhost spawns x units more or has a lower CD or something. This is just from the top of my head, probably a terrible idea but you get my point. I really think its a unit that we dont want to see massed. Much like the infestor it makes for boring games. Somehow they need to make it the other way arouind atleast, have it stronger in smaller numbers
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Actually swarm hosts are more then fine.
Right now they are right where they should be: A support unit!
You should never think "mhm if i go for only swarmhosts, what can counter them?"
They are a addition to your Lings/Roaches/Hydras and serve the purpose of (imo):
1. Forcing engagements! (if i have swarm hosts you need to make a move sooner or later because i will do free damage if you dont)
2. Herrassing Outer bases in late game (Cannons etc are cool to have however dont do mutch if there is a endless swarm of free units coming your way so you have to deal with it somehow, and that involves detection)
3. Provide a buffer for your real army (Locusts have good dps and good health and thus provide a nice shield infront of your hydras and Roaches)
4. Defend your other bases (In the late game you can not only herrass enemy bases with swarm hosts but also shut down drops and Zealot warpins quite good. 2 Swarm hosts are a good way to defend against smaller attacks or to delay bigger ones untill your army arrives. they also force atention of your oponent to be on the attack)
5. (against protoss and to a lesser extend Zerg) you can contain your oponent really easily with Swarm hosts by sniping observers with corrupter/hydra overseer thus preventing your swarmhosts from ever dying or your oponent from moving out/taking bases etc
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On December 08 2012 19:41 Decendos wrote:
yeah this is true. but the T player then can just go on and a-move your base.
It must be hard to be effectively a-moved because of your tech choice, and to actually have to deal with the army of your enemy. I feel bad for all the zergs that can't win because blizzard added a unit that's bad agains certain other units. 
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I am a protoss player myself so I am not 100% positive on zerg dynamics, builds, etc etc. but here is how I see it. The SH is designed as a siege unit in the same way the tempest is. It's there to force engagements and to dictate positional play. For example, if you have 6 - 7 SH sitting not that far from a protoss third expo and you start sending locust towards that base the protoss has two options. 1. engage the locust in some way whether it be storms, AOE, zealots, stalkers, ffs, etc. or 2. ignore it. gCgCrypto ^^ said it in his first point. Either I, as a toss player, have to address it or take damage. It also forces me to reposition, to avoid an area possibly, and think more creatively on how to counter attack. The Tempest works the same way with its long range. Its designed to be a late game siege unit that forces zerg with brood lords to engage in some way or to ignore it and take damage.
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I love the swarmhost, they are amazing vs all races, I think they are a little more difficult to use vs terran but regardless, the Swarm Host is an AMAZING unit, if used properly. It is def. my new favorite unit and i'd rather have it than nothing at all, i'd rather have the lurker but the Swarm Host beats having nothing. Really good at stopping all ins, it is like the anti all in unit.
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On December 09 2012 03:32 GGzerG wrote:
I love the swarmhost, they are amazing vs all races, I think they are a little more difficult to use vs terran but regardless, the Swarm Host is an AMAZING unit, if used properly. It is def. my new favorite unit and i'd rather have it than nothing at all, i'd rather have the lurker but the Swarm Host beats having nothing. Really good at stopping all ins, it is like the anti all in unit.
Don't spines do that better except they cost 0 gas and 0 supply? Defensively I'd rather have spines and spores.
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On December 09 2012 03:32 GGzerG wrote:
Really good at stopping all ins, it is like the anti all in unit.
Yey! It's about time zerg got something that beats that early game pressure.
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On December 09 2012 03:34 neptunusfisk wrote:Show nested quote +On December 09 2012 03:32 GGzerG wrote:
Really good at stopping all ins, it is like the anti all in unit. Yey! It's about time zerg got something that beats that early game pressure.
Every ZvP is mass air, be it oracles killing every drone, or even just killing lair or void rays.
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Swarm host are good, but what would REALLY make them better is having burrow and unborrow re-set the spawn of the locust.
think about it.
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I've just had 60 supply of Mech completely shut down with 5 Swarm Hosts and a bit of minimal Roach/Hydra support. They're incredibly powerful if you don't deal with them properly. Yeah, I'd say there's a reason to make them.
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On December 09 2012 09:18 Zihua wrote:
I've just had 60 supply of Mech completely shut down with 5 Swarm Hosts and a bit of minimal Roach/Hydra support. They're incredibly powerful if you don't deal with them properly. Yeah, I'd say there's a reason to make them.
How exactly did that happen?
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I get the impression alot of people seem to think of scenarios with ONLY hosts...
That's never going to be the case..
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On December 08 2012 07:30 Basileus wrote:Show nested quote +On December 08 2012 05:00 Decendos wrote:
basically most of zerg T2 is not viable right now imo. how is zerg t2 not viable right now with the hydra and muta speed buff?
haha. you mean the 7% speedbuff while phoenix got buffed even more vs mutas with rangebuff and especially in ZvT you will not build a muta again until the next patch because widow mines shoot air, burrow now in 1 sec, MMM got stronger because of 66% more healing, you cant catch medivac because of speedboost and hellbats destroy ling bling support for mutas even more combined with stronger MMM and widow mines?
and hydras are a little faster now (still slower than oncreep) and otherwise is still the worst unit in the game except in ZvZ and with roach viper support vs mech.
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On December 09 2012 09:27 Decendos wrote:Show nested quote +On December 08 2012 07:30 Basileus wrote:On December 08 2012 05:00 Decendos wrote:
basically most of zerg T2 is not viable right now imo. how is zerg t2 not viable right now with the hydra and muta speed buff? haha. you mean the 7% speedbuff while phoenix got buffed even more vs mutas with rangebuff and especially in ZvT you will not build a muta again until the next patch because widow mines shoot air, burrow now in 1 sec, MMM got stronger because of 66% more healing, you cant catch medivac because of speedboost and hellbats destroy ling bling support for mutas even more combined with stronger MMM and widow mines? and hydras are a little faster now (still slower than oncreep) and otherwise is still the worst unit in the game except in ZvZ and with roach viper support vs mech.
boo hoo? I play both sides of this coin and its not as bad as you claim.
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On December 09 2012 09:49 FromShouri wrote:Show nested quote +On December 09 2012 09:27 Decendos wrote:On December 08 2012 07:30 Basileus wrote:On December 08 2012 05:00 Decendos wrote:
basically most of zerg T2 is not viable right now imo. how is zerg t2 not viable right now with the hydra and muta speed buff? haha. you mean the 7% speedbuff while phoenix got buffed even more vs mutas with rangebuff and especially in ZvT you will not build a muta again until the next patch because widow mines shoot air, burrow now in 1 sec, MMM got stronger because of 66% more healing, you cant catch medivac because of speedboost and hellbats destroy ling bling support for mutas even more combined with stronger MMM and widow mines? and hydras are a little faster now (still slower than oncreep) and otherwise is still the worst unit in the game except in ZvZ and with roach viper support vs mech. boo hoo? I play both sides of this coin and its not as bad as you claim.
so ask highlevel player like blade who stated numerous times muta is dead ZvT and hydras still suck without vipersupport and even then suck vs bio, HT and airplay.
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I've thought about it and you know what would be cool? ground to air DPS from Swarm hosts while unburrowed. Like the equivalent of a stimmed marine. Nothing much but it would make for a badass design : The unit spawns locusts while burrowed and can only attack air while unburrowed.
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I never liked the swarm host or "mushroom man" as catz calls it. It just does not feel right with me. But it is a new unit and I am willing to give it a try once HOTS comes out. Another thing, Idra seems to not use them as much as he used to when HOTS came out the first time. Now he has switch to muta, ling infestor ultra and viper.
Maybe the swarm host will have the same fate as the warhound? we'll see.
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On December 09 2012 09:58 Decendos wrote:Show nested quote +On December 09 2012 09:49 FromShouri wrote:On December 09 2012 09:27 Decendos wrote:On December 08 2012 07:30 Basileus wrote:On December 08 2012 05:00 Decendos wrote:
basically most of zerg T2 is not viable right now imo. how is zerg t2 not viable right now with the hydra and muta speed buff? haha. you mean the 7% speedbuff while phoenix got buffed even more vs mutas with rangebuff and especially in ZvT you will not build a muta again until the next patch because widow mines shoot air, burrow now in 1 sec, MMM got stronger because of 66% more healing, you cant catch medivac because of speedboost and hellbats destroy ling bling support for mutas even more combined with stronger MMM and widow mines? and hydras are a little faster now (still slower than oncreep) and otherwise is still the worst unit in the game except in ZvZ and with roach viper support vs mech. boo hoo? I play both sides of this coin and its not as bad as you claim. so ask highlevel player like blade who stated numerous times muta is dead ZvT and hydras still suck without vipersupport and even then suck vs bio, HT and airplay.
I was watching IdrA play muta ZvT earlier... it's still good. Just realize you are going to have to transition out of it at some point into Ultralisk
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The only Terran unit that actually deals well with Swarm Hosts is Siege Tanks. I can't speak for Protoss but as Terran Swarm Hosts are actually quite scary UNTIL you have large enough siege tank numbers and control them properly, which still requires a lot of babysitting.
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On December 09 2012 09:49 FromShouri wrote:Show nested quote +On December 09 2012 09:27 Decendos wrote:On December 08 2012 07:30 Basileus wrote:On December 08 2012 05:00 Decendos wrote:
basically most of zerg T2 is not viable right now imo. how is zerg t2 not viable right now with the hydra and muta speed buff? haha. you mean the 7% speedbuff while phoenix got buffed even more vs mutas with rangebuff and especially in ZvT you will not build a muta again until the next patch because widow mines shoot air, burrow now in 1 sec, MMM got stronger because of 66% more healing, you cant catch medivac because of speedboost and hellbats destroy ling bling support for mutas even more combined with stronger MMM and widow mines? and hydras are a little faster now (still slower than oncreep) and otherwise is still the worst unit in the game except in ZvZ and with roach viper support vs mech. boo hoo? I play both sides of this coin and its not as bad as you claim.
This guy is probably the most biased Zerg I've seen commenting around the forums I wouldn't take the bait
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On December 08 2012 05:51 ZjiublingZ wrote:Show nested quote +On December 08 2012 05:38 JDub wrote:On December 08 2012 05:18 ZjiublingZ wrote:
Not to mention I heard they dominate ZvZ meta-game right now. Really? I've been trying to use them in ZvZ and have found them to be quite hard to use, although they can be effectiev if you out-maneuver your opponent. Roach/hydra with the hydra upgrade is so fast now it's hard to get the swarm hosts into a position where you can force your opponent to actually fight the locusts. I'm trying muta --> swarm host so that I can get a contain up while my opponent is playing defensively, but I have not found them to be dominant. I went 1/2 last night, will try again soon. I don't play Zerg, but that's what Blade555555 said in a thread last week. And he's like GM/High Master Zerg player. Idra reached a similar conclusion in his short time on HotS. Basically they both said, Muta > Swarm Host is the dominant strategy. I don't know if that will change with the faster, fast Hydras, but I doubt it. Perhaps there are some maps where Swarm Hosts can be too easily flanked, and I'm sure you can't go Muta > Swarm Host if you both go Muta, but yeah. They seem to think Muta>Swarm Host is the best.
IdrA recanted on his statement following additional play with them. He ended up getting owned by roach/hydra infestor many games in a row going for that strategy. I've been trying to work them into my play but, especially vs terran, I don't see them being effective honestly. Hellbat/maurader pushes are so damn strong at the moment (with healing and damage buff) that you risk losing to pushes if you don't rush to muta's. I can't say swarm host will be useless, however I see them being no more than very situational at this point. Zerg took a hard hit last patch on their T2 tech (only to get Hydra speed and health buff to SH) and I'm still trying to find a way to account for this.
P.S. oh and infestors are super cute now. They can tickle the enemy to death lol.....that is if they can actually hit them.
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Swarm host and muta are bad against Terran (especially since the patch 8) I can understand...
But going as far to say these 2 units are bad against toss is simply absurd. SH has been good against toss since beta and mass muta just wreck toss since WOL. Now there are getting more buff on hp or speed, while phoenix just getting range upgrade is not going to make these units bad.
Phoenix is good against muta now, not going to deny that. But then what? how viable the phoenix are when go into mid game? Or even late game? we all know how good phoenix are in late game right? Especially if the zerg player transition to hydra and ultra, toss will get rolf stomp since phoenix hard countered by hydra, and totally useless against ultra. The only 2 units toss can rely to fight back is just immortal and colossus (thanks to the tempest nerf and the ultra buff which make zealot and archon next to useless), and these 2 units are robo units which do not share upgrades with any stargate units...
Maybe void rays can kill off the ultras, but they will die horribly against hydra... in fact hydra hard counter nearly all the protoss air arsenal, except the new oracle and tempest, but oracle are too fragile to fight hydra in a straight up battle, the attack range is too small not to mention it drain energy too much which means u cannot deal with mass hydra, and we all know how quick tempest kill hydra right?
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drA recanted on his statement following additional play with them. He ended up getting owned by roach/hydra infestor many games in a row going for that strategy. I've been trying to work them into my play but, especially vs terran, I don't see them being effective honestly. Hellbat/maurader pushes are so damn strong at the moment (with healing and damage buff) that you risk losing to pushes if you don't rush to muta's. I can't say swarm host will be useless, however I see them being no more than very situational at this point. Zerg took a hard hit last patch on their T2 tech (only to get Hydra speed and health buff to SH) and I'm still trying to find a way to account for this.
P.S. oh and infestors are super cute now. They can tickle the enemy to death lol.....that is if they can actually hit them.
Yes terrans are straight up OP now due to medivac and armory upgrades buff, but you seems to forget there are protoss...
hydra muta compositions are very strong against toss (add in ultra in late game), hydra protect muta from phoenix while muta protect hydra from zealot colossus.
And dont start saying SH are situational, there is simply no other units that are more situational than tempest and mothership thanks to the nerf. Now tempest just do well against 5.5 units, there are BC, BL, colossus, carrier, tempest (yeah it counter itself, basically the new tempest version of "who has the most colossus and whose muta get the first hit") and mothership (this is the 0.5 unit i mentioned, due to only able to build 1 per player, and also the patch 8 reduce it to a joke that maybe you will never see it again in any serious gameplay).
EDIT: P.S. Oh, just because medivac now out heal fungal does not mean toss can do so either, and i do not recall any toss able to heal themselves during a battle in 1v1). You can still able to chain fungal if you able to land the first hit.
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On December 08 2012 07:30 Basileus wrote:Show nested quote +On December 08 2012 05:00 Decendos wrote:
basically most of zerg T2 is not viable right now imo. how is zerg t2 not viable right now with the hydra and muta speed buff?
Hydras are a lot more viable in some situations but widow mines and phoenix rape mutas hard and infestors are a joke.
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Locusts probably need an off-creep speed buff to be decent against Terran. As it stands, they take far too many tank shots before getting in range to be useful against tanks.
It might be necessary to reduce the time they are alive as well, while still making it so the upgrade keeps them alive for as long as their spawn cooldown.
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On December 08 2012 04:45 Existor wrote:
Just the question, Terrans got more options to kill Swarm Hosts:
- Reapers as anti-light against locusts and quick infantry, can be healed
- Hellbats can be healed, anti-light too
- Siege Tanks already do that
- Raven can easily snipe Swarm Hosts
- widow mine drops to swarm host fields with 1 second burrow can kill all hosts in some second. Just drop widow mines, do their work and load back to medivac and quickly fly away!
- widow mine counters all or half locusts, because they can target temporary units
- banshees now are more effective against swarm hosts, because they will have some weapon upgrades from mech army
They should buff locust speed to 2.25 and/or buff their health, or make 3 locust spawning at time, because right now Swarm Hosts are useless.
Against Protoss zergs have problems too:
- timewarp slows locusts a lot, with time warp locusts move slow like Queens offcreep
- Oracles with anti-light lazer can kill many locusts just for energy cost
- M-Core provides long-range detector
- Void Rays can quickly kill all locusts and then more quickly with charged boost kill SHosts
- you can normally recall your forces if you're atacked by many locusts
- FF works well against locusts
- tempests can snipe swarm hosts, not that quickly, but it's works a bit
- swarm host player is very immobile against prizm drops and oracle harasses
Well, as a terran, I have been having trouble vs swarm hosts recently in masters/gm, so I decided to share my thoughts.
1. Reapers vs swarm hosts is suicide. Locusts destroy reapers, cause locusts have huuuge damage, and reapers have not much health.
2. If you siege 4 siege tanks, and have 4 swarm hosts burrowed, the siege tank's damage output is definately not enough to kill all the locusts before they come to them. Hence, siege tanks may kill locusts, but not fast enough.
3. Raven might be able to easily snipe the swarm host, but that impies you have no other stuff around. For example, corruptors or hydras.
4. The widow mine drop into the swarm host seems like a nice idea, again implies there is nothing around the swarm hosts, like hydras or roaches.
5. Again, banshees killing swarm hosts imply there is no other stuff around the swarm hosts.
The only viable strat i found to be ok vs swarm hosts is doom drops, drops in general, and a very high siege tank count. So, yeah, In my experience, swarm hosts are very very strong.
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bioball just kill swarm host so easily, they are just quite good to contain mech that's all...
actually bioball is strong vs all the ranged units of the zerg whatever they are roaches or hydras or swarm hosts, its just ridiculous how they are ineffective in my opinion.
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Another reason why SH is quite terribad at area-control: Locusts are restricted by terrain. Not to mention that they move very slowly and have model size/can be blocked by other units/buildings, this greatly impedes their ability to provide instant damage to an area supposedly "controlled" by them. This is why SHs are unable to defend your own bases unlike Siege Tanks. Also the locusts do not auto-home-in to any enemy units that are within range. Comparing it to the real area-controllers like Colossus or Siege Tank, this becomes fairly obvious to see.
Therefore the SH is in effect actually somewhat like a reactor add-on like thing for Zerg, instead of what Blizzard promoted as an area-control unit. Locusts are somewhat the bastard child between roaches and lings, and what the SH does basically is produce it. It does not use the locusts directly, and the locusts do not do any job without actually microing or at least rallying them. This is where locusts are different from BL broodlings. Broodlings do not need to be micro-ed at all most of the time and perform their job automatically. Locusts are spawned, moved, and made to attack or defend or whatnot. Noone does this with broodlords. Has anyone seen strategies using BLs to spawn broodlings from afar then send the broodlings in? I don't think so. I've hardly even seen anyone select broodlings. Although both utilize "free" units, they are essentially very different concepts.
Like what I said, SHs are actually Zerg reactors. They are buildings more than units. Production facilities similar to the Red Alert Yuri faction's clone factories, except that they can only produce one type of unit, but is mitigated by the fact that these units take up 0 supply. This explains why they are weak in small numbers, but very very intimidating in large numbers. It also explains who so many units counter the SH. Because it is a BUILDING. If you consider unburrow the ground version of the terran liftoff, there you have it. These things are production facilities so use them like production facilities. Their production cycle is similar to that of the warpgate, which is basically spawn first, cd later.
So all in all, the Swarm Host is actually a massable Zerg production building that produces a roach/ling hybrid that costs no supply but has timed life using Protoss warpgate mechanics and can be moved around the map like Terran barracks but doesn't ignore terrain. Use them as such.
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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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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.
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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
?
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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On December 11 2012 11:41 Zergrusher wrote:Show nested quote +On December 11 2012 11:38 Serpico wrote: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
supportive ranged dps/aa? So basically incredibly situational. Like it's always been in WoL. The roach is a boring unit that doesn't really do anything interesting. It would reduce the amount of bad units in the game and give a classic one a place.
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On December 11 2012 11:17 Zergrusher wrote: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. This is different.
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On December 11 2012 10:10 Zergrusher wrote:
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
I think this is a great idea, and would make swarm hosts more skill-based. To balance this, the unburrow and/or burrow speed could be increased a bit to make it still beneficial to re-burrow, but not 4-times faster like it would be now. Tweak those numbers and it could be what hosts need. Remember that hosts above ground are vulnerable... so it wouldn't be safe to do this with a fast army or air units/detection nearby.
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On December 11 2012 15:51 ElMeanYo wrote:Show nested quote +On December 11 2012 10:10 Zergrusher wrote:
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 I think this is a great idea, and would make swarm hosts more skill-based. To balance this, the unburrow and/or burrow speed could be increased a bit to make it still beneficial to re-burrow, but not 4-times faster like it would be now. Tweak those numbers and it could be what hosts need. Remember that hosts above ground are vulnerable... so it wouldn't be safe to do this with a fast army or air units/detection nearby.
Rofl ... just think about the abuse Zerg could have with this ... constantly burro/unburrow their SHs (doesnt matter how long it takes) and then have the free units simply swarm their opponent. At their super long life span thats easy to accomplish.
Terrible idea!
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They are alright, I just find it's not the kind of unit you can stay with for the entire game (Like the infestor).
Once a protoss hits critical mass Collossus, you are forced to use other options.
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I really dislike the swarm host.
It feels really un-zergy, especially compared to the Viper.
Right now it is more some sort of one trick pony.
The whole purpose of the swarm host is more or less an all-in, there is no transition etc. behind it.
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United Kingdom2950 Posts
Hi, I just lost a long game TvZ on Cloud Kingdom going mech vs Swarm Host/Hydra/Roach. He contained me effectively on 3 base while he took a 4th and presumably a 5th. I tried to harass by using hellions and transforming them into hellbats at the mineral line and I think I killed a good few drones, but I find it's so difficult to kill swarm hosts by themselves, let alone when they are protected by hydras. Should I just be massing banshee/raven and distract them with hellions and then going in to kill them when the hydras are out of position?
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On December 11 2012 17:03 Wunder wrote:
Hi, I just lost a long game TvZ on Cloud Kingdom going mech vs Swarm Host/Hydra/Roach. He contained me effectively on 3 base while he took a 4th and presumably a 5th. I tried to harass by using hellions and transforming them into hellbats at the mineral line and I think I killed a good few drones, but I find it's so difficult to kill swarm hosts by themselves, let alone when they are protected by hydras. Should I just be massing banshee/raven and distract them with hellions and then going in to kill them when the hydras are out of position?
Tanks. Lots of them.
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On December 10 2012 01:17 RandomMan wrote:Show nested quote +drA recanted on his statement following additional play with them. He ended up getting owned by roach/hydra infestor many games in a row going for that strategy. I've been trying to work them into my play but, especially vs terran, I don't see them being effective honestly. Hellbat/maurader pushes are so damn strong at the moment (with healing and damage buff) that you risk losing to pushes if you don't rush to muta's. I can't say swarm host will be useless, however I see them being no more than very situational at this point. Zerg took a hard hit last patch on their T2 tech (only to get Hydra speed and health buff to SH) and I'm still trying to find a way to account for this.
P.S. oh and infestors are super cute now. They can tickle the enemy to death lol.....that is if they can actually hit them. Yes terrans are straight up OP now due to medivac and armory upgrades buff, but you seems to forget there are protoss... hydra muta compositions are very strong against toss (add in ultra in late game), hydra protect muta from phoenix while muta protect hydra from zealot colossus. And dont start saying SH are situational, there is simply no other units that are more situational than tempest and mothership thanks to the nerf. Now tempest just do well against 5.5 units, there are BC, BL, colossus, carrier, tempest (yeah it counter itself, basically the new tempest version of "who has the most colossus and whose muta get the first hit") and mothership (this is the 0.5 unit i mentioned, due to only able to build 1 per player, and also the patch 8 reduce it to a joke that maybe you will never see it again in any serious gameplay). EDIT: P.S. Oh, just because medivac now out heal fungal does not mean toss can do so either, and i do not recall any toss able to heal themselves during a battle in 1v1). You can still able to chain fungal if you able to land the first hit.
This wasn't about toss at all but your feedback is valued.
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On December 11 2012 16:31 Rabiator wrote:Show nested quote +On December 11 2012 15:51 ElMeanYo wrote:On December 11 2012 10:10 Zergrusher wrote:
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 I think this is a great idea, and would make swarm hosts more skill-based. To balance this, the unburrow and/or burrow speed could be increased a bit to make it still beneficial to re-burrow, but not 4-times faster like it would be now. Tweak those numbers and it could be what hosts need. Remember that hosts above ground are vulnerable... so it wouldn't be safe to do this with a fast army or air units/detection nearby. Rofl ... just think about the abuse Zerg could have with this ... constantly burro/unburrow their SHs (doesnt matter how long it takes) and then have the free units simply swarm their opponent. At their super long life span thats easy to accomplish. Terrible idea!
No, great idea. They already get free units from the SH. This would just make them get those units slightly faster with good micro.
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On December 12 2012 00:54 ElMeanYo wrote:Show nested quote +On December 11 2012 16:31 Rabiator wrote:On December 11 2012 15:51 ElMeanYo wrote:On December 11 2012 10:10 Zergrusher wrote:
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 I think this is a great idea, and would make swarm hosts more skill-based. To balance this, the unburrow and/or burrow speed could be increased a bit to make it still beneficial to re-burrow, but not 4-times faster like it would be now. Tweak those numbers and it could be what hosts need. Remember that hosts above ground are vulnerable... so it wouldn't be safe to do this with a fast army or air units/detection nearby. Rofl ... just think about the abuse Zerg could have with this ... constantly burro/unburrow their SHs (doesnt matter how long it takes) and then have the free units simply swarm their opponent. At their super long life span thats easy to accomplish. Terrible idea! No, great idea. They already get free units from the SH. This would just make them get those units slightly faster with good micro.
How is constant unburrow/burrow "good micro"? As it is now, you have time in between locust spawns to unburrow, move and burrow in another location, allowing for the SHs to be repositioned and allowing for interesting micro. Making optimal micro just burrow/unburrow in the same spot over and over again just seems really silly and stupid to me.
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On December 12 2012 01:04 JDub wrote:Show nested quote +On December 12 2012 00:54 ElMeanYo wrote:On December 11 2012 16:31 Rabiator wrote:On December 11 2012 15:51 ElMeanYo wrote:On December 11 2012 10:10 Zergrusher wrote:
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 I think this is a great idea, and would make swarm hosts more skill-based. To balance this, the unburrow and/or burrow speed could be increased a bit to make it still beneficial to re-burrow, but not 4-times faster like it would be now. Tweak those numbers and it could be what hosts need. Remember that hosts above ground are vulnerable... so it wouldn't be safe to do this with a fast army or air units/detection nearby. Rofl ... just think about the abuse Zerg could have with this ... constantly burro/unburrow their SHs (doesnt matter how long it takes) and then have the free units simply swarm their opponent. At their super long life span thats easy to accomplish. Terrible idea! No, great idea. They already get free units from the SH. This would just make them get those units slightly faster with good micro. How is constant unburrow/burrow "good micro"? As it is now, you have time in between locust spawns to unburrow, move and burrow in another location, allowing for the SHs to be repositioned and allowing for interesting micro. Making optimal micro just burrow/unburrow in the same spot over and over again just seems really silly and stupid to me.
Because there is a risk involved of exposing your swarm hosts. Also keep in mind that once you reburrow, you have to re-set the locust waypoints. Plus adding this on top of all the other things you have to do in this game.
If you really think this would be too easy, then make it so that you not only have to burrow/unborrow, you also have to move the host at least a bit to reset the timer.
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On December 12 2012 01:14 ElMeanYo wrote:Show nested quote +On December 12 2012 01:04 JDub wrote:On December 12 2012 00:54 ElMeanYo wrote:On December 11 2012 16:31 Rabiator wrote:On December 11 2012 15:51 ElMeanYo wrote:On December 11 2012 10:10 Zergrusher wrote:
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 I think this is a great idea, and would make swarm hosts more skill-based. To balance this, the unburrow and/or burrow speed could be increased a bit to make it still beneficial to re-burrow, but not 4-times faster like it would be now. Tweak those numbers and it could be what hosts need. Remember that hosts above ground are vulnerable... so it wouldn't be safe to do this with a fast army or air units/detection nearby. Rofl ... just think about the abuse Zerg could have with this ... constantly burro/unburrow their SHs (doesnt matter how long it takes) and then have the free units simply swarm their opponent. At their super long life span thats easy to accomplish. Terrible idea! No, great idea. They already get free units from the SH. This would just make them get those units slightly faster with good micro. How is constant unburrow/burrow "good micro"? As it is now, you have time in between locust spawns to unburrow, move and burrow in another location, allowing for the SHs to be repositioned and allowing for interesting micro. Making optimal micro just burrow/unburrow in the same spot over and over again just seems really silly and stupid to me. Because there is a risk involved of exposing your swarm hosts. Also keep in mind that once you reburrow, you have to re-set the locust waypoints. Plus adding this on top of all the other things you have to do in this game. If you really think this would be too easy, then make it so that you not only have to burrow/unborrow, you also have to move the host at least a bit to reset the timer.
This is just a stupid suggestion.
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On December 11 2012 16:55 Schroedinger wrote:
I really dislike the swarm host.
It feels really un-zergy, especially compared to the Viper.
Right now it is more some sort of one trick pony.
The whole purpose of the swarm host is more or less an all-in, there is no transition etc. behind it.
Sort of. They can be used really well to capitalize on an (economic) advantage in the mid game. Instead of running 20 roaches to the front door or busting down the wall with banelings, you can do "free" damage with SHs.
The problems people seem to have using them either stems from massing them in the face of a "perfect" counter, like banshees, or making 2-3 of them and expecting them to do serious damage.
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I propose a change to Swarm Hosts. Instead of spawning units they shoot a few of them into the air, they fall in a straight line from the Swarm Host up to half a screen away and each locust does damage in a small AoE (about 3 marines standing next to each other)... yes I want fucking Lurkers back and removal of this stupid new unit!!
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On December 12 2012 01:42 Markwerf wrote:Show nested quote +On December 12 2012 01:14 ElMeanYo wrote:On December 12 2012 01:04 JDub wrote:On December 12 2012 00:54 ElMeanYo wrote:On December 11 2012 16:31 Rabiator wrote:On December 11 2012 15:51 ElMeanYo wrote:On December 11 2012 10:10 Zergrusher wrote:
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 I think this is a great idea, and would make swarm hosts more skill-based. To balance this, the unburrow and/or burrow speed could be increased a bit to make it still beneficial to re-burrow, but not 4-times faster like it would be now. Tweak those numbers and it could be what hosts need. Remember that hosts above ground are vulnerable... so it wouldn't be safe to do this with a fast army or air units/detection nearby. Rofl ... just think about the abuse Zerg could have with this ... constantly burro/unburrow their SHs (doesnt matter how long it takes) and then have the free units simply swarm their opponent. At their super long life span thats easy to accomplish. Terrible idea! No, great idea. They already get free units from the SH. This would just make them get those units slightly faster with good micro. How is constant unburrow/burrow "good micro"? As it is now, you have time in between locust spawns to unburrow, move and burrow in another location, allowing for the SHs to be repositioned and allowing for interesting micro. Making optimal micro just burrow/unburrow in the same spot over and over again just seems really silly and stupid to me. Because there is a risk involved of exposing your swarm hosts. Also keep in mind that once you reburrow, you have to re-set the locust waypoints. Plus adding this on top of all the other things you have to do in this game. If you really think this would be too easy, then make it so that you not only have to burrow/unborrow, you also have to move the host at least a bit to reset the timer. This is just a stupid suggestion.
And this is just a stupid post.
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It's a bad suggestion. There's no "micro" involved in it, just mindless spamming.
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On December 11 2012 11:58 Serpico wrote:Show nested quote +On December 11 2012 11:41 Zergrusher wrote:On December 11 2012 11:38 Serpico wrote: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 supportive ranged dps/aa? So basically incredibly situational. Like it's always been in WoL. The roach is a boring unit that doesn't really do anything interesting. It would reduce the amount of bad units in the game and give a classic one a place.
Hydralisk won't be situational any more if Blizzard does what I've been suggesting for 2 years.
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On December 12 2012 01:14 ElMeanYo wrote:Show nested quote +On December 12 2012 01:04 JDub wrote:On December 12 2012 00:54 ElMeanYo wrote:On December 11 2012 16:31 Rabiator wrote:On December 11 2012 15:51 ElMeanYo wrote:On December 11 2012 10:10 Zergrusher wrote:
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 I think this is a great idea, and would make swarm hosts more skill-based. To balance this, the unburrow and/or burrow speed could be increased a bit to make it still beneficial to re-burrow, but not 4-times faster like it would be now. Tweak those numbers and it could be what hosts need. Remember that hosts above ground are vulnerable... so it wouldn't be safe to do this with a fast army or air units/detection nearby. Rofl ... just think about the abuse Zerg could have with this ... constantly burro/unburrow their SHs (doesnt matter how long it takes) and then have the free units simply swarm their opponent. At their super long life span thats easy to accomplish. Terrible idea! No, great idea. They already get free units from the SH. This would just make them get those units slightly faster with good micro. How is constant unburrow/burrow "good micro"? As it is now, you have time in between locust spawns to unburrow, move and burrow in another location, allowing for the SHs to be repositioned and allowing for interesting micro. Making optimal micro just burrow/unburrow in the same spot over and over again just seems really silly and stupid to me. Because there is a risk involved of exposing your swarm hosts. Also keep in mind that once you reburrow, you have to re-set the locust waypoints. Plus adding this on top of all the other things you have to do in this game. If you really think this would be too easy, then make it so that you not only have to burrow/unborrow, you also have to move the host at least a bit to reset the timer.
the simple act of moving your units is not micro
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Me opinion is, swarhost is in this time usable only in zvz , many poeple writing free unit ? WTF ? 2 locust for 150/100 is free ? MMM in teran jast kill all locust and next time swarmhost an zerg lost many money and is gg, invisible swarmhost ? what problem teran have many scaners protos have 2 type of detektor, no problem. In my opinion buff swarm host is not posible. Maby blizzard with hard Buff MMM prepar for switch swarmhost with lurker ) And i wonder what blizzard make with coruptor , coruptor is good unit for kiling colosus or antyair and but is a dedicated for one reason. And i dont understant why broodlord is MUTATED from coruptor and not from MUTALISK. Sc1 had beeter designers team or what ? in sc2 is many unlogical things ) Maby why not is posible with roach go under buildings ? (I nou this is OP but unlogikcal ) ) or haw is posible zergling veri thin unit is stiped with vall with facing big hole )) GL HF and Blizzard please change boring swarmhost with samthning better thx )
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swarmhosts are fine
infact: swarmhost +hydra+overseer is impossible to kill by protoss unless they catch you unburrowed
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Swarm hosts are positional units that FORCE opponents to draw units to that particular area. With that in mind, you can actually thin enemy forces out without LOSING RESOURCES. Not to mention, they are supposed to be unburrowed after they spawn a wave of locusts. I don't understand why there are complaints about losing swarm hosts to banshee counter, etc. They are support SIEGE breakers and to be optimally used with the main army with locusts as BUFFER units that draws DAMAGE AWAY from the main army. I don't get why people are using them as ultimate army killers.
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On December 14 2012 23:14 ohampatu wrote:
swarmhosts are fine
infact: swarmhost +hydra+overseer is impossible to kill by protoss unless they catch you unburrowed
colossus or blinkstalker into storm or just airplay deals with it very fine. in fact so fine that you should never go SH in the first place. sad but true, they are pretty much bad in all 3 MUs in their current state. they need to nerf their hp again and buff locust hp a lot so it actually can do what all people here suggest: draw fire for your acutal army. right now they draw 2 tankshots or 2 colossusshots or 1 storm and thats it.
so increase locust hp A LOT and if they become too strong nerf locust damage. as they were introduced by blizzard, blizzard stated: we want it to be a unit that sieges the opponent and slowly nibble at the opponents army/buildings and tank fire for the army.
and their solution was to do the exact opposite: making the locust a high DPS low hp thing instead of low DPS high hp which would do what they and we want.
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As a mid level player I find them tremendously useful. Burrow a handful of swarm hosts in a defensive position and you can often defend attacks you fail to even scout. It's like having free apm.
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@descendos
Not if they get the burrow/siege on you and contain you to 3 bases. If you dont move out before they siege you up, then you just can't break it. There is no way to see the swarmhosts with that specific comp. Half of the blizzard forums are protoss asking how to break it. Its possible, but only if your opponent mishandles his hydra and overseers. You can try to blind build order counter it but then lose to alot of other builds. Its not nearly as easy as your making it out to be.
In zvt and zvz i dont see it very often though
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On December 14 2012 23:35 Decendos wrote:Show nested quote +On December 14 2012 23:14 ohampatu wrote:
swarmhosts are fine
infact: swarmhost +hydra+overseer is impossible to kill by protoss unless they catch you unburrowed colossus or blinkstalker into storm or just airplay deals with it very fine. in fact so fine that you should never go SH in the first place. sad but true, they are pretty much bad in all 3 MUs in their current state. they need to nerf their hp again and buff locust hp a lot so it actually can do what all people here suggest: draw fire for your acutal army. right now they draw 2 tankshots or 2 colossusshots or 1 storm and thats it.
I don't understand why you're always arguing in a purely 1 unit type vs 1 unit type context. In any engagement, your SH should be supported by hydras/roaches. A typical protoss army at that point let's say would contain gateway heavy with robo support. If the blink occurs ontop of your swarm hosts, the enemy would be losing alot of support fire, since they would just melt under the hydra/roach fire. Unless of course, you're just massing SH and expect to beat a well balanced army, to which you should be refining your play instead of making baseless claims.
Also, @Decendos, do you actually own beta?
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On December 14 2012 23:38 ohampatu wrote:
@descendos
Not if they get the burrow/siege on you and contain you to 3 bases. If you dont move out before they siege you up, then you just can't break it. There is no way to see the swarmhosts with that specific comp. Half of the blizzard forums are protoss asking how to break it. Its possible, but only if your opponent mishandles his hydra and overseers. You can try to blind build order counter it but then lose to alot of other builds. Its not nearly as easy as your making it out to be.
In zvt and zvz i dont see it very often though
well i give you that they are good in midgame at a small timing window in which you just need to stay calm and defend. but things like 3 base colossus just can a-move that comp. same for mass blinkstalker + FFs + storm or just airplay on 3 base. i have yet to see a high level ZvP, ZvZ or ZvT where SHs did a really good job and not just the opponent reacting wrong or being way behind before SHs are even out.
@novacute: every roach and hydra you build is obv less SHs. and colossus counter SH, roaches and hydras, so do blinkstalker + FF + storm and so does 3 base airplay. i compared compositions with compositions and a SH compositions sucks at the moment in each MU.
and rofl yes i own it and i guess i play higher than you.
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Right and who in their right minds would continue building SHs if there were more than 1 collossus out in the field? In that case, you would stop building SHs and opt for more corruptors. Your arguements are largely biased and one dimensional, and it doesn't feel like you even understand the purpose of your units. I can see now why you 'supposedly play higher' than me.
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On December 14 2012 23:42 Decendos wrote:Show nested quote +On December 14 2012 23:38 ohampatu wrote:
@descendos
Not if they get the burrow/siege on you and contain you to 3 bases. If you dont move out before they siege you up, then you just can't break it. There is no way to see the swarmhosts with that specific comp. Half of the blizzard forums are protoss asking how to break it. Its possible, but only if your opponent mishandles his hydra and overseers. You can try to blind build order counter it but then lose to alot of other builds. Its not nearly as easy as your making it out to be.
In zvt and zvz i dont see it very often though well i give you that they are good in midgame at a small timing window in which you just need to stay calm and defend. but things like 3 base colossus just can a-move that comp. same for mass blinkstalker + FFs + storm or just airplay on 3 base. i have yet to see a high level ZvP, ZvZ or ZvT where SHs did a really good job and not just the opponent reacting wrong or being way behind before SHs are even out. @novacute: every roach and hydra you build is obv less SHs. and colossus counter SH, roaches and hydras, so do blinkstalker + FF + storm and so does 3 base airplay. i compared compositions with compositions and a SH compositions sucks at the moment in each MU. and rofl yes i own it and i guess i play higher than you.
corrupter?
infestor?
or do you seriously just max out 200 food on sh and come here to complain?
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On December 14 2012 23:51 a176 wrote:Show nested quote +On December 14 2012 23:42 Decendos wrote:On December 14 2012 23:38 ohampatu wrote:
@descendos
Not if they get the burrow/siege on you and contain you to 3 bases. If you dont move out before they siege you up, then you just can't break it. There is no way to see the swarmhosts with that specific comp. Half of the blizzard forums are protoss asking how to break it. Its possible, but only if your opponent mishandles his hydra and overseers. You can try to blind build order counter it but then lose to alot of other builds. Its not nearly as easy as your making it out to be.
In zvt and zvz i dont see it very often though well i give you that they are good in midgame at a small timing window in which you just need to stay calm and defend. but things like 3 base colossus just can a-move that comp. same for mass blinkstalker + FFs + storm or just airplay on 3 base. i have yet to see a high level ZvP, ZvZ or ZvT where SHs did a really good job and not just the opponent reacting wrong or being way behind before SHs are even out. @novacute: every roach and hydra you build is obv less SHs. and colossus counter SH, roaches and hydras, so do blinkstalker + FF + storm and so does 3 base airplay. i compared compositions with compositions and a SH compositions sucks at the moment in each MU. and rofl yes i own it and i guess i play higher than you. corrupter? infestor? or do you seriously just max out 200 food on sh and come here to complain?
I believe some people think massing a specific type of unit would just utterly crush everything there is out there. I guess they never received the note on the newly changed infestor.
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you wouldnt continue building SH. but why should you go SH if they start sucking hardcore once 2 colossus are out anyway? you just invested 300/300 in IP + locustupgrade and another say 2000/1000 in 10 SHs only to have that countered by 3 colossus? very bad deal. the problem with the SHs is that it is good at a small timing window but starts to get bad very fast so you dont want to build any in the first place. i hope that clears come stuff up.
oh and btw if you have any high level VODs or replays in which SHs got used well i would love to see them and i have no problem to say i was wrong if SH is actually useful.
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On December 14 2012 23:53 Decendos wrote:
you wouldnt continue building SH. but why should you go SH if they start sucking hardcore once 2 colossus are out anyway? you just invested 300/300 in IP + locustupgrade and another say 2000/1000 in 10 SHs only to have that countered by 3 colossus? very bad deal. the problem with the SHs is that it is good at a small timing window but starts to get bad very fast so you dont want to build any in the first place. i hope that clears come stuff up.
oh and btw if you have any high level VODs or replays in which SHs got used well i would love to see them and i have no problem to say i was wrong if SH is actually useful.
Isn't 'countering a certain composition the bread and butter of most RTSs? With more collossus, u stop SH and build corruptors. Once collossus is out of the play, you continue building swarm hosts? The point is, this is a rock,papper scissors game. You build counters, they build counter and it goes around. Oh yeah, i forgot to mention, locusts are INVALUABLE in soaking storm damage. I suggest always keeping a few to mitigate the stoms that would otherwise affect your main army which is why i still say that swarm hosts are still quite useful and not only used for timing attacks. And nah i'm not really interested in watching replays, i'd rather try it out myself in wood league eh. As for my own vod, i don't really use SH as much, i usually open ling heavy with transition into a couple of shs, infestors and aim for an ultra end game. Ultras are great.
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okay. srsly. its about countering but you know if one thing counters another thing way too good like colossus or blink + FF + storm or airplay does with SH + roach hydra you dont want to get that composition in the first place. lets say it this way:
SH force a reaction but for their supply and mineral + gas cost they are countered too easily and therefore not even closely cost efficient so you dont want to get them in the first place.
a drastic example: imagine a marine would cost 1000 minerals. if you get 50 marines then toss will have to make colossus. now you can add vikings to counter that colossus but since your investment in 50 marines was way too high in the first place you wont go marines in the first place. its the same thing with SHs right now (obv. not as drastic).
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Swarm Hosts are pretty horrible immobile and still weak.
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On December 14 2012 23:36 gruff wrote:As a mid level player I find them tremendously useful. Burrow a handful of swarm hosts in a defensive position and you can often defend attacks you fail to even scout. It's like having free apm.
Swarm Hosts are a bit too expensive for that. What saddens me is that swarm hosts are very weak fora siege unit they are a joke compared to a colossus or siege tank and cost alot. And another problem is that locusts are blocked by your own army so you can never use a army to protect your swarm hosts.
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Well, i agree but they way they made it now, the SH has very limited roles and is supposed to be a siege breaker. I think the main problem lies in the whole unit design. So tweaking stats may not necessarily help. Just a food for thought.
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What's the issue with forcing the oracle to stay at home and defend withthe energy he could be melting your drones with? To me free locust vs oracle seems effective. Your thread will be closed because it provokes no interesting discussion and there clearly wasn't much thought or effort put into it. All you are doing is listing a few viable counters to a unit and complaining that swarm host doesn't kill everything with 0 effort. Just support your swarmhost with other T2 zerg and you can win games.
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There really is no viable composition for Swarm Hosts. I'd actually argue that Swarm Hosts are almost as bad as Roaches are late game due to their high supply cost for what they do. Even if I have 8 Swarm Hosts late game that's 24 supply that I can't put towards 4 Ultras, 12 Hydras, or even Infestors or Vipers.
Swarm Hosts have such a niche use in ZvP it's almost as bad as WoL Hydras. You can't use them if P goes air. You can't use them if P goes HT. you can't use them if P goes Robo. So I guess that just leaves gateway timings?
And I don't know if its because I'm at diamond level (haven't really played enough to get to masters) but I have yet to see a Zerg player use them effectively against me in ZvZ either.
The funniest part was that Swarm Hosts were hyped up by Blizzard to be this siege breaking unit (see the blizzcon video where a few Swarm Hosts breaks a poorly defended Terran wall that's defended by a bunker and a couple siege tanks) and yet Terran has the easiest time defending against Swarm Hosts I feel with siege tanks(lol), medivacs, hellbats, and simple kiting.
There are simply better Zerg compositions out there right now that DON'T use Swarm Hosts and that's the problem I feel with Swarm Hosts. What incentive is there for Zerg to use Swarm Host when roach/hydra/viper rules ZvP and ZvT(mech), and ling/bling, ultra/Viper works in ZvT(bio)?
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When I started playing the Beta I used a lot of Swarm Hosts but now I scarcly use them at all. Yes, they are a nice unit with uniqe strenghts and weaknesses but they do cost way too much and are not as useful as Tanks or Colossus. I feel that they need a redesign before HotS starts.
Now they are like, most already said, just a niche unit which can be replaced by way better options.
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I hope they will be replaced with something more fun to watch and more useful. I fear that in the end, they will be used just in few allins and becoming as good unit as hydras or reapers are in WoL. Which are basically design fail, because of their so limited use.
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Thank you sagefreke.
Vipers are a huge addition for your army ,even if they are T3 units they are totally worth their price and their tech.
There is no real reason to build swarm hosts ,because they will only delay your tech without adding anything to your composition.
There might be some time windows that you can abuse with the swarm host, especially in ZvP but yeah thats it.
The only solution for the swarm host is to remove it from the game.
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Hi TL posters,
I started a thread highlighting some of the design flaws of the Swarm Host over at Battle.net, and I think some people here may find it relevant to this discussion. The OP is still a major work in progress and there is a lot I will be adding to it in the coming days, but I feel it's the most comprehensive post on the topic right now. I'm not sure if its worthy of a new thread here, as I know TL moderation is pretty strict, so I'll just post the link:
http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/7350535414?page=1
If this is thread-worthy, someone please let me know and I'll start a new thread on it here.
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The only real use I have found for swarm hosts in their current state is using them for 2 base nydus worm all ins vs protoss on and zerg.
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I agree 100% that Locusts are too all-or-nothing. It seems like they either totally own or do no damage whatsoever.
The problem is that they are a slow moving, low HP unit. Blizzard doesn't want to give them too much HP because then you get into the BL problem: once they reach critical mass, the spawned units are just too numerous to deal with. However, the low HP and slow movement means that Colossi or Tanks can kill entire waves of Locusts without taking a single hit. In order to compensate for this vulnerability Blizzard has given Locusts an extremely high damage attack, with enough range that they can rapidly focus-fire down melee units like Zealots. That is a mistake IMO.
I think Locusts would be much more interesting if they were a melee unit with two different stances:
Defensive Crouch: Decreases all damage taken by 60%. Automatically active any time the Locust is not Frenzied.
Melee Attack: 10 (+1) damage, CD 0.86, 11.6 DPS (compare this to 8.5 DPS for an Adrenaling). The Locust becomes Frenzied for 3 seconds after each melee attack.
Frenzy: Grants +50% movement speed and immunity to snare, stun and mind control effects.
The combination of these two abilities would make it much harder to kill Locusts before they reach their target, but would also greatly decrease their damage output (because they are melee) and allow melee units to stand a chance against them.
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On December 15 2012 10:22 ScoobySnacks wrote:Hi TL posters, I started a thread highlighting some of the design flaws of the Swarm Host over at Battle.net, and I think some people here may find it relevant to this discussion. The OP is still a major work in progress and there is a lot I will be adding to it in the coming days, but I feel it's the most comprehensive post on the topic right now. I'm not sure if its worthy of a new thread here, as I know TL moderation is pretty strict, so I'll just post the link: http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/7350535414?page=1If this is thread-worthy, someone please let me know and I'll start a new thread on it here.
This is actually a fantastic thread, thank you.
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I think one of the problems is that you have to bring in anti-air to make them work. That delays any SH attack by a lot, you either need hydras, or a Nydus worm, but in any case you need at least an additional 300 gas.
The timing window when you can use them is pretty small, in fact unless you rush to them I'm not sure there is a timing at all. If pure roach/SH worked I think the unit could work and be fun, adding a solid, non-cheesy aggression for people with good multitasking. But you do that... a single banshee or mothership core will ruin your day.
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On December 15 2012 16:59 Virid wrote:Show nested quote +On December 15 2012 10:22 ScoobySnacks wrote:Hi TL posters, I started a thread highlighting some of the design flaws of the Swarm Host over at Battle.net, and I think some people here may find it relevant to this discussion. The OP is still a major work in progress and there is a lot I will be adding to it in the coming days, but I feel it's the most comprehensive post on the topic right now. I'm not sure if its worthy of a new thread here, as I know TL moderation is pretty strict, so I'll just post the link: http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/7350535414?page=1If this is thread-worthy, someone please let me know and I'll start a new thread on it here. This is actually a fantastic thread, thank you.
wow. OP please link to this thread. most detailed and unbiased thread i ever saw on bnet
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On December 15 2012 10:22 ScoobySnacks wrote:Hi TL posters, I started a thread highlighting some of the design flaws of the Swarm Host over at Battle.net, and I think some people here may find it relevant to this discussion. The OP is still a major work in progress and there is a lot I will be adding to it in the coming days, but I feel it's the most comprehensive post on the topic right now. I'm not sure if its worthy of a new thread here, as I know TL moderation is pretty strict, so I'll just post the link: http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/7350535414?page=1If this is thread-worthy, someone please let me know and I'll start a new thread on it here.
Very very nice post. I agree with everything, even though I love Swarm Hosts.
I was thinking about two solutions, and of course, I don't know will they work.
First would be to increase the size of the Swarm Hosts, like to the size of the current Thor or something like that, make them massive, increase the cost to or 300/200/4(or even 6 supply), and make them spawn 4 Locusts at once, and have an upgrade that will allow them to spawn 2 more Locusts. Remove the current enduring Locusts upgrade, and let them last 20 seconds with 25 seconds spawn cooldown. Of course, increase the Health of the Swarm Hosts to the 200 for example and you can maybe even nerf the Locusts.
That way, we will avoid critical mass of the Swarm Hosts, where players only mass them, and we can see like 3-4 Swarm Hosts being viable in many army compositions. And you won't see masses of them, since you will invest A LOT into them, and when enemy has good AoE units like 3+ Colossi or 6+ Siege Tanks, no matter how many Locusts you got, they will become useless.
And second solution would be something that I was thinking for few months already, and that you have suggested in your battle.net thread, and that is Locusts being able to move underground and popping up when they reach the enemy. Of course, you will have to change the mechanic a little bit, making Locusts more tanky and maybe even making them melee units, but don't know will that work in the regard for stopping massing Swarm Hosts and them being viable in small numbers.
I would really like something like my first solution, them being moving hatcheries. Well, kind of. :D
EDIT: And you can definitely open this thread here, it will get huge support. I just hope that it won't transform into "give me back Lurker!" thread...
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I believe that Swarmhosts need the following changes to be a unit good in small numbers but bad in big numbers.
Swarmhost
- Revert the Swarmhost HP buff
- +Speed
Locust
- Expires in 20 sec, but moves quicker and also respawns in 20 sec
- Has a larger hitbox than a normal Locust
- Has a HP increase from 75(?) to 90
The Swarmhost should be given additional speed to encourage reposition micro. Most of the changes are on the Locust.
Basically, this new Locust is a bigger, fatter version of the other one. This is to solve what I call the Zergling syndrome. For example, a Zergling loses to a Marine, but 2 Zerglings beat a Marine. The point here is that Zerglings are effective only in huge numbers (in a major battle), and that is the same problem with the current Locust. However, with the proposed Locust change, Locust grow less effective as the numbers grow bigger. This is because the Locust now has a larger hitbox, meaning less Locusts will be attacking the opponent's units at a time (especially in chokes) and decreasing the total damage output of mass Locust. The Locusts' extremely limited time also means that most of the Locusts would time out before they even get a shot into the enemy. Now mass Swarmhosts will not be immediately game ending. But there's more.
Now that the Swarmhost is not as good in the army, let's cover it's harrassment/contain aspect. The faster-spawning Locusts will put additional pressure on the opponent, and makes sure the opponent goes out to deal with it, lest take uneccesary damage and losses from the Locusts (which is what the Swarmhost is meant to do). "But less time for the Locust means less distance covered! That would be totally unsafe for the Swarmhost as it has to go dangerously close to the opponent's base." This problem is solved with the increased speed of the Locust. More micro and decision-making has to be made when using these short-lived Locusts, and Locust stutter-step will come into play. Increased Locust health will ensure that they survive long enough to deal enough damage or kill a unit before they time out.
These changes sould correct the Swarmhost in a nice way and make it into a harrassment/containment unit it was meant to be. If you have anything to add about these ideas, I would like you to kindly lay them out on the table.
P.S I have written this passage out from my phone, so I may have skipped some explanation. Please bear with me.
Also, many of the counters stated in the OP aren't actually counters (Reapers, wtf?). The counters section should factor in the other units that would be used with the Swarmhost instead of the Swarmhost by itself.
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I don't particularly think swarm hosts are very good but this thread is fucking awful and you should feel awful. The game isn't even out now and the playerbase is still quite small. Just because you don't know how and when to utilize swarm hosts, it doesn't mean they should be buffed.
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Sounds like my Battle.net link may be thread-worthy, I'll go ahead and open a new thread on it. Thanks guys
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Russian Federation4295 Posts
Also, many of the counters stated in the OP aren't actually counters (Reapers, wtf?). The counters section should factor in the other units that would be used with the Swarmhost instead of the Swarmhost by itself.
Why you can't go to the unit tester and see, that reapers are actually working against mass waves of locusts. They heal themselfs, they are fast (can quickly reach swarm host fields and kill them), they can kite locusts, and zerg mostly not builds roaches with swarm hosts.
The game isn't even out now and the playerbase is still quite small. Just because you don't know how and when to utilize swarm hosts, it doesn't mean they should be buffed.
If they're really not that good, whats wrong with posting questions and discussing it?
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United Kingdom12022 Posts
On December 15 2012 19:31 MilesTeg wrote:
I think one of the problems is that you have to bring in anti-air to make them work. That delays any SH attack by a lot, you either need hydras, or a Nydus worm, but in any case you need at least an additional 300 gas.
The timing window when you can use them is pretty small, in fact unless you rush to them I'm not sure there is a timing at all. If pure roach/SH worked I think the unit could work and be fun, adding a solid, non-cheesy aggression for people with good multitasking. But you do that... a single banshee or mothership core will ruin your day.
Could this problem be allivieated if they put the swarmhosts in the hydralisk den rather than the Infestor pit?
I actually think it's quite silly how getting SH lets you get up to hive straight away as all it seems to be doing is adding another delaying tactic to get to hive rather than anything agressive.
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On December 16 2012 00:19 Existor wrote:Show nested quote +Also, many of the counters stated in the OP aren't actually counters (Reapers, wtf?). The counters section should factor in the other units that would be used with the Swarmhost instead of the Swarmhost by itself. Why you can't go to the unit tester and see, that reapers are actually working against mass waves of locusts. They heal themselfs, they are fast (can quickly reach swarm host fields and kill them), they can kite locusts, and zerg mostly not builds roaches with swarm hosts.
Your are right, mass Reaper does counter mass Swarmhost, cause Reapers can simply kite their way to victory. However, I believe that Swarmhost are meant to be "Support siege units" (according to Blizzard), and should at least be accompanied by some Zerglings (or Roaches).
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I tried swarm host zvt but after losing fight 200 supply vs 130 supply vs bio I decided to move on... :D
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Russian Federation4295 Posts
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I haven't played hots at all, but Terran seems to have a lot of answer to the SH.
Vs Protoss, I feel like most of their answer is via air, so maybe putting down creep with overlords with spores would be a great idea for hard contains, but it seems kind of costly to hold a position, you have to really commit. :/
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What about giving locust innate burrow move setting up as a counter to forcefield. For ZvT, it won't help much in direct engagements but it sets up the possibility of sniping key tanks/structures and delaying pushes.
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On December 15 2012 22:52 porygon361 wrote:
I believe that Swarmhosts need the following changes to be a unit good in small numbers but bad in big numbers.
Swarmhost
- Revert the Swarmhost HP buff
- +Speed
Locust
- Expires in 20 sec, but moves quicker and also respawns in 20 sec
- Has a larger hitbox than a normal Locust
- Has a HP increase from 75(?) to 90
The Swarmhost should be given additional speed to encourage reposition micro. Most of the changes are on the Locust.
Basically, this new Locust is a bigger, fatter version of the other one. This is to solve what I call the Zergling syndrome. For example, a Zergling loses to a Marine, but 2 Zerglings beat a Marine. The point here is that Zerglings are effective only in huge numbers (in a major battle), and that is the same problem with the current Locust. However, with the proposed Locust change, Locust grow less effective as the numbers grow bigger. This is because the Locust now has a larger hitbox, meaning less Locusts will be attacking the opponent's units at a time (especially in chokes) and decreasing the total damage output of mass Locust. The Locusts' extremely limited time also means that most of the Locusts would time out before they even get a shot into the enemy. Now mass Swarmhosts will not be immediately game ending. But there's more.
Now that the Swarmhost is not as good in the army, let's cover it's harrassment/contain aspect. The faster-spawning Locusts will put additional pressure on the opponent, and makes sure the opponent goes out to deal with it, lest take uneccesary damage and losses from the Locusts (which is what the Swarmhost is meant to do). "But less time for the Locust means less distance covered! That would be totally unsafe for the Swarmhost as it has to go dangerously close to the opponent's base." This problem is solved with the increased speed of the Locust. More micro and decision-making has to be made when using these short-lived Locusts, and Locust stutter-step will come into play. Increased Locust health will ensure that they survive long enough to deal enough damage or kill a unit before they time out.
These changes sould correct the Swarmhost in a nice way and make it into a harrassment/containment unit it was meant to be. If you have anything to add about these ideas, I would like you to kindly lay them out on the table.
P.S I have written this passage out from my phone, so I may have skipped some explanation. Please bear with me.
Also, many of the counters stated in the OP aren't actually counters (Reapers, wtf?). The counters section should factor in the other units that would be used with the Swarmhost instead of the Swarmhost by itself.
Swarm hosts should be cheaper then, because I'd much rather put my money into vipers than some harassment that doesnt sound like it will do much.
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I just thought of the perfect way to fix swarmhosts
give swarmhosts a hive upgrade, 100/100 that makes locusts fly and move a bit faster. now many of the weaknesses of locusts are removed, but they can still be countered very well (make them light armor so thors can aoe them, and archons/storm can still splash them)
also locusts should attack ground and air obviously
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Russian Federation4295 Posts
them light armor so thors can aoe them
They are already light
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You are wasting your time to try to counter such imbalanced unit, guys. I see good counters here, but none of them includes dealing with the damn huge mass of simultaneous spawn form a huge distance. How the hell are we supposed to reach the imbacusts?
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Russian Federation4295 Posts
On January 13 2013 03:42 BaDMannerS wrote:
You are wasting your time to try to counter such imbalanced unit, guys. I see good counters here, but none of them includes dealing with the damn huge mass of simultaneous spawn form a huge distance. How the hell are we supposed to reach the imbacusts?
Outdrop him? 2 widows can clear half of the locusts. Sieges can do that too
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Actually, taking a fast expo, 18 gas, then ling speed, then lair soon as you have 100 gas again into swarm host with ling support into 3rd works well in ZvP now. I know that was a cluster__ of a sentence, but it's true if toss doesn't go straight air since MSC no longer has detect.
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On January 13 2013 03:46 Existor wrote:Show nested quote +On January 13 2013 03:42 BaDMannerS wrote:
You are wasting your time to try to counter such imbalanced unit, guys. I see good counters here, but none of them includes dealing with the damn huge mass of simultaneous spawn form a huge distance. How the hell are we supposed to reach the imbacusts? Outdrop him? 2 widows can clear half of the locusts. Sieges can do that too
Well, I haven't played 1v1 with T, but with P it is nearly impossible if the zerg manages to mass them. Switch to airtoss is hard to be done in small time window. If the zerg reacts with hydras the counter is lost cause.
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I think people are overlooking the SH's plausible efficiency by having so many free units. I think OP's logic is a little zerg sided. Swarmhosts syngergized with other units as other people have recommended have proven to be quite difficult to deal with at times. They do a great job of seiging.
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On January 13 2013 03:46 Existor wrote:Show nested quote +On January 13 2013 03:42 BaDMannerS wrote:
You are wasting your time to try to counter such imbalanced unit, guys. I see good counters here, but none of them includes dealing with the damn huge mass of simultaneous spawn form a huge distance. How the hell are we supposed to reach the imbacusts? Outdrop him? 2 widows can clear half of the locusts. Sieges can do that too
Questions like this clearly demonstrates that (given your game understanding) the swarm hosts is if properly used - imbalanced. You simply aren't going to outdrop a zerg or get off great widow mine explosions if the zerg knows what he is doing (which would imply having a couple of hydras along with the swarm hosts).
There are no viable (please reflect a bit upon what viable means before you respond) counter to mass swarm hosts/hydra, its a terribly designed unit, and this whole pressure thing should be removed. Why the hell should an opponent be punished for being a bit behind? And the thing is; he is not going die instantly --> he is goanna feel the spoon death which is upper upper boring and pointless.
Instead a player being behind should lose the game due to not having enogh units to deal with the multitasking of the zerg. But if he has great mechanics and outplays the zerg he can get back into the game.
The correct solution is to make the swarm hosts a purely defensive oriented unit (simila to the role of the siege tanks). "pressure-units" will never work, and the fact that Blizzard (apparently) hasn't realized this yet makes me very sad.
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Blizzards response:
When it comes to Swarm Host, we feel that this is a unit is still relatively new and has yet to be stretched strategically in the ways we would expect. Any time such is the case, we don't like to consider strong changes as it only makes it harder for players to pin down the intention of the unit and unique strategies accessible from its design. As a small example, it seems that a lot of players will place their Swarm Host at the front line of an engagement and simply leave it there while it slowly volleys waves of locusts at the opponent. We have yet to see solid strategies around making more mobile use of the unit, unburrowing and changing locations between volleys. There is a significant cool-down on the locust volley, so maybe there's something there for consideration.
Translation: Due to our terrible design of the swarm hosts, people are using the unit in a very boring way. As they aren't using it the way we intended we won't make any attempt to fix the design flaws.
Some great logic from the guys behind the warhound, entomb, collosus, the roach, vortex, fungal growth, the useless scout reaper, the 5 rax reaper, the useless WOL reaper, the OP tvt reaper, turtleoriented play and the deathball.
EDIT: I forgot the cloud against mech viper, Void rays, mules, mech TvP and the abudct abililty which can't be remicro'ed against it.
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United States7166 Posts
On January 13 2013 21:29 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +On January 13 2013 03:46 Existor wrote:On January 13 2013 03:42 BaDMannerS wrote:
You are wasting your time to try to counter such imbalanced unit, guys. I see good counters here, but none of them includes dealing with the damn huge mass of simultaneous spawn form a huge distance. How the hell are we supposed to reach the imbacusts? Outdrop him? 2 widows can clear half of the locusts. Sieges can do that too Questions like this clearly demonstrates that (given your game understanding) the swarm hosts is if properly used - imbalanced. You simply aren't going to outdrop a zerg or get off great widow mine explosions if the zerg knows what he is doing (which would imply having a couple of hydras along with the swarm hosts). .
And tanks + mines? How exactly do a couple hydras do then with your plan to have a couple hydras take out every mine without getting hit?
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On January 13 2013 03:46 Existor wrote:Show nested quote +On January 13 2013 03:42 BaDMannerS wrote:
You are wasting your time to try to counter such imbalanced unit, guys. I see good counters here, but none of them includes dealing with the damn huge mass of simultaneous spawn form a huge distance. How the hell are we supposed to reach the imbacusts? Outdrop him? 2 widows can clear half of the locusts. Sieges can do that too
Please drop those ridicolous sentences like "2 widows can clear the half of the locusts" , they are flat out lies.
If the Z uses SH's good, they you cant touch the Zerg with mech. I had a game where 10 SH tanked around 20tanks for like 2-3 minutes on a ramp.
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On January 14 2013 00:21 Zelniq wrote:Show nested quote +On January 13 2013 21:29 Hider wrote:On January 13 2013 03:46 Existor wrote:On January 13 2013 03:42 BaDMannerS wrote:
You are wasting your time to try to counter such imbalanced unit, guys. I see good counters here, but none of them includes dealing with the damn huge mass of simultaneous spawn form a huge distance. How the hell are we supposed to reach the imbacusts? Outdrop him? 2 widows can clear half of the locusts. Sieges can do that too Questions like this clearly demonstrates that (given your game understanding) the swarm hosts is if properly used - imbalanced. You simply aren't going to outdrop a zerg or get off great widow mine explosions if the zerg knows what he is doing (which would imply having a couple of hydras along with the swarm hosts). . And tanks + mines? How exactly do a couple hydras do then with your plan to have a couple hydras take out every mine without getting hit?
How do you attack into a mass swarm hosts/hydra composition (which is turtling right outside your base) with mines and tanks? The only scenarios where mines can work is when the zerg hasn't got a critical mass of swarm hosts yet and when he has left them unprotected. Mines can never directly engage into an army of 10+ SH's.
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On December 08 2012 04:45 Existor wrote:Just the question, Terrans got more options to kill Swarm Hosts: - Reapers as anti-light against locusts and quick infantry, can be healed - Hellbats can be healed, anti-light too - Siege Tanks already do that - Raven can easily snipe Swarm Hosts - widow mine drops to swarm host fields with 1 second burrow can kill all hosts in some second. Just drop widow mines, do their work and load back to medivac and quickly fly away! - widow mine counters all or half locusts, because they can target temporary units - banshees now are more effective against swarm hosts, because they will have some weapon upgrades from mech army They should buff locust speed to 2.25 and/or buff their health, or make 3 locust spawning at time, because right now Swarm Hosts are useless. Against Protoss zergs have problems too: - timewarp slows locusts a lot, with time warp locusts move slow like Queens offcreep - Oracles with anti-light lazer can kill many locusts just for energy cost - M-Core provides long-range detector - Void Rays can quickly kill all locusts and then more quickly with charged boost kill SHosts - you can normally recall your forces if you're atacked by many locusts - FF works well against locusts - tempests can snipe swarm hosts, not that quickly, but it's works a bit - swarm host player is very immobile against prizm drops and oracle harasses Also recommend you to view good thread about Swarm Host design flaw http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/7350535414?page=1
if your trading locusts for energy then your winning the fight
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Hi, I am only play 2v2 on HotS at Master lvl.
Almost all game I go for roach/hydra mix into Viper. I never loose vs a zerg who go Swarm Host (or muta of course).
I think the unit is not well design because you cant use it unless you all in with it.
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On January 14 2013 01:38 Orzabal wrote:
Hi, I am only play 2v2 on HotS at Master lvl.
Almost all game I go for roach/hydra mix into Viper. I never loose vs a zerg who go Swarm Host (or muta of course).
I think the unit is not well design because you cant use it unless you all in with it.
swarm hosts need tog et figured out still right now noone knows how to really use them effectively and unit stats havent settles at all
plus your playing 2v2
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On January 14 2013 01:39 Forikorder wrote:Show nested quote +On January 14 2013 01:38 Orzabal wrote:
Hi, I am only play 2v2 on HotS at Master lvl.
Almost all game I go for roach/hydra mix into Viper. I never loose vs a zerg who go Swarm Host (or muta of course).
I think the unit is not well design because you cant use it unless you all in with it.
swarm hosts need tog et figured out still right now noone knows how to really use them effectively and unit stats havent settles at all plus your playing 2v2
What do you mean by Tog ?
1v1 GM zerg dont use Swarm host. They keep with Hydra/roach/Viper. Sometime Muta vs terran
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On January 14 2013 01:45 Orzabal wrote:Show nested quote +On January 14 2013 01:39 Forikorder wrote:On January 14 2013 01:38 Orzabal wrote:
Hi, I am only play 2v2 on HotS at Master lvl.
Almost all game I go for roach/hydra mix into Viper. I never loose vs a zerg who go Swarm Host (or muta of course).
I think the unit is not well design because you cant use it unless you all in with it.
swarm hosts need tog et figured out still right now noone knows how to really use them effectively and unit stats havent settles at all plus your playing 2v2 What do you mean by Tog ? 1v1 GM zerg dont use Swarm host. They keep with Hydra/roach/Viper. Sometime Muta vs terran
because those styles are simple and easy to understand
noone has (mainly because theres not been enough time) figured out how to use swarm hosts, once HoTS goes live and the Korean think tank looks at swarm hosts expect to see them used more
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On January 14 2013 01:48 Forikorder wrote:Show nested quote +On January 14 2013 01:45 Orzabal wrote:On January 14 2013 01:39 Forikorder wrote:On January 14 2013 01:38 Orzabal wrote:
Hi, I am only play 2v2 on HotS at Master lvl.
Almost all game I go for roach/hydra mix into Viper. I never loose vs a zerg who go Swarm Host (or muta of course).
I think the unit is not well design because you cant use it unless you all in with it.
swarm hosts need tog et figured out still right now noone knows how to really use them effectively and unit stats havent settles at all plus your playing 2v2 What do you mean by Tog ? 1v1 GM zerg dont use Swarm host. They keep with Hydra/roach/Viper. Sometime Muta vs terran because those styles are simple and easy to understand noone has (mainly because theres not been enough time) figured out how to use swarm hosts, once HoTS goes live and the Korean think tank looks at swarm hosts expect to see them used more
Why do you assume swarm host is a good unit and nobody figured out how to use them ?
You could say that if you were playing at very high lvl and be very successfull with them.
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I am only playing at a low masters level atm but I must say I have never lost a game that I made swarm host in, that being said they are a very niche unit.
Swarm host cost a lot are not that great in low numbers and are niche but when you can get the mass you need its very very strong. I get swarm host when ever I am facing
- Thor based mech army's
- Protoss is doing a roboless all-in
- I need to break a contain on myself/ contain others (works best on terran)
- Close a game that is passive
- Protoss has reached their mass air storm comp. (swarm host bait storms so mass corrupter can clean up air)
- Spawned close by ground against protoss on specific maps
Best of luck Zerg OP ^^
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I think Swarm hosts are a solid (albeit annoying to deal with) mid-game siege unit. With good hydra ling support, they can be extremely effective at maintaining a contain.
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On January 14 2013 01:11 Breach_hu wrote:Show nested quote +On January 13 2013 03:46 Existor wrote:On January 13 2013 03:42 BaDMannerS wrote:
You are wasting your time to try to counter such imbalanced unit, guys. I see good counters here, but none of them includes dealing with the damn huge mass of simultaneous spawn form a huge distance. How the hell are we supposed to reach the imbacusts? Outdrop him? 2 widows can clear half of the locusts. Sieges can do that too Please drop those ridicolous sentences like "2 widows can clear the half of the locusts" , they are flat out lies. If the Z uses SH's good, they you cant touch the Zerg with mech. I had a game where 10 SH tanked around 20tanks for like 2-3 minutes on a ramp.
I think you got your numbers mixed, 10 Tanks managed to stop 20 Swarm Hosts, not the other way around, it is just not possible, since it was a ramp.
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Russian Federation4295 Posts
If the Z uses SH's good, they you cant touch the Zerg with mech. I had a game where 10 SH tanked around 20tanks for like 2-3 minutes on a ramp.
Can you show that game? Every zerg player will be glad to see that
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On January 14 2013 07:27 Ramiz1989 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 14 2013 01:11 Breach_hu wrote:On January 13 2013 03:46 Existor wrote:On January 13 2013 03:42 BaDMannerS wrote:
You are wasting your time to try to counter such imbalanced unit, guys. I see good counters here, but none of them includes dealing with the damn huge mass of simultaneous spawn form a huge distance. How the hell are we supposed to reach the imbacusts? Outdrop him? 2 widows can clear half of the locusts. Sieges can do that too Please drop those ridicolous sentences like "2 widows can clear the half of the locusts" , they are flat out lies. If the Z uses SH's good, they you cant touch the Zerg with mech. I had a game where 10 SH tanked around 20tanks for like 2-3 minutes on a ramp. I think you got your numbers mixed, 10 Tanks managed to stop 20 Swarm Hosts, not the other way around, it is just not possible, since it was a ramp.
I can agree that its possible to hold off a tank contain at your ramp for a good amount of time with swarm host done it many times.
Why do people think swarm host are bad the unit is just fine.
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On January 14 2013 05:56 Orzabal wrote:Show nested quote +On January 14 2013 01:48 Forikorder wrote:On January 14 2013 01:45 Orzabal wrote:On January 14 2013 01:39 Forikorder wrote:On January 14 2013 01:38 Orzabal wrote:
Hi, I am only play 2v2 on HotS at Master lvl.
Almost all game I go for roach/hydra mix into Viper. I never loose vs a zerg who go Swarm Host (or muta of course).
I think the unit is not well design because you cant use it unless you all in with it.
swarm hosts need tog et figured out still right now noone knows how to really use them effectively and unit stats havent settles at all plus your playing 2v2 What do you mean by Tog ? 1v1 GM zerg dont use Swarm host. They keep with Hydra/roach/Viper. Sometime Muta vs terran because those styles are simple and easy to understand noone has (mainly because theres not been enough time) figured out how to use swarm hosts, once HoTS goes live and the Korean think tank looks at swarm hosts expect to see them used more Why do you assume swarm host is a good unit and nobody figured out how to use them ? You could say that if you were playing at very high lvl and be very successfull with them.
http://evilgeniuses.net/idra-and-demuslim-talk-hots/
relevant part
IdrA: I haven’t used it too much, I feel it was too weak, but with the HP buff it probably has a place. However, it’s the kind of unit that requires more experience to use effectively. It’s very easy to go Roach/Hydra and then mix in Vipers, or to use the new Ultra. Those are very simple things to do. So, Swarm Hosts may be okay as they are; it will just take more time for people to learn their role in the game. I do like the concept of a Zerg siege unit. It’s something we were definitely missing.
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I just posted this in the bnet forums, but seems relevant here as well:
So, the general consensus seems to be that swarm hosts are garbage and totally useless in zvt. However, I just played an EPIC hour long ZvT with swarm hosts, and I think maybe I figured out a good way to use them in the match-up.
The basic strategy:
-sit on 2 base and get a quick lair.
-Mass swarm hosts until you have 8-10/you feel you can comfortably defend your third. Should also be upgrading hosts.
-continue massing swarm hosts and start massing static defense around the hosts.
-slow push with swarm hosts, spines, spores, queens, and creep, while teching to hive (i went for ultra, but brood would work too.)
-win (an hour later.)
Obviously, my opponent and I were both plat, so we are pretty bad. But it seemed to work pretty well. It is strong because the static defense/queens protect the swarm hosts during their cool down, and locusts dominate pretty much anything on the ground. This style is, however, REALLY weak to drops. The game I played had a lot of base trading...
Oh, and here is a replay:
http://drop.sc/294734
Discuss?
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Sorry but if you wait to take your third until after you have 8-10 swarm hosts but then use them defensively, you are going to fall behind in economy you shouldn't have any chance of winning any game at a higher level
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On January 14 2013 16:02 EvanC wrote:
Sorry but if you wait to take your third until after you have 8-10 swarm hosts but then use them defensively, you are going to fall behind in economy you shouldn't have any chance of winning any game at a higher level
players at a higher level wont have to wait for 8-10 swarm hosts to take there third though...
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On January 14 2013 16:02 EvanC wrote:
Sorry but if you wait to take your third until after you have 8-10 swarm hosts but then use them defensively, you are going to fall behind in economy you shouldn't have any chance of winning any game at a higher level
Well, sure. I am bad, like I said in my post. My opponent was bad. What I thought was interesting was the slow push with swarm hosts, queens, and static defense. I could be wrong, and it could be totally uninteresting. I included a replay.
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Lol. Just don't cry that Swarm Hosts are bad, just don't.
They absolutely shut down mech play (as much as Vipers). Even good zergs admit that.
Even players like Bomber got beaten by swarm hosts when he went mech, so no, they are not bad. Just know when to make them.
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On January 14 2013 08:44 Parodoxx wrote:Show nested quote +On January 14 2013 07:27 Ramiz1989 wrote:On January 14 2013 01:11 Breach_hu wrote:On January 13 2013 03:46 Existor wrote:On January 13 2013 03:42 BaDMannerS wrote:
You are wasting your time to try to counter such imbalanced unit, guys. I see good counters here, but none of them includes dealing with the damn huge mass of simultaneous spawn form a huge distance. How the hell are we supposed to reach the imbacusts? Outdrop him? 2 widows can clear half of the locusts. Sieges can do that too Please drop those ridicolous sentences like "2 widows can clear the half of the locusts" , they are flat out lies. If the Z uses SH's good, they you cant touch the Zerg with mech. I had a game where 10 SH tanked around 20tanks for like 2-3 minutes on a ramp. I think you got your numbers mixed, 10 Tanks managed to stop 20 Swarm Hosts, not the other way around, it is just not possible, since it was a ramp. I can agree that its possible to hold off a tank contain at your ramp for a good amount of time with swarm host done it many times. Why do people think swarm host are bad the unit is just fine.
I don't think that they are bad, but what he said is exaggeration. I've seen 15+ Swarm Hosts getting shutdown by 7-10 Siege Tanks, and by shutdown I mean that Locusts don't even come close to your army. I can't imagine that 10 Swarm Hosts stop 20 Siege Tanks, and even worse thing is that he said on a ramp where Locusts are always clumped up and like 4-5 Tanks would kill all of the Locusts.
About the unit, I don't think that it is bad unit at all, just a bit different and difficult to use since you have to commit to it way too much if you want to do damage. But we still didn't see anything about this unit, Pro players rarely use them, so we can't really judge yet.
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Some units just take longer for people to learn how to use them correctly, SH is one of them.
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lurker was better because they prevented this "a move over them" because you would lose everything, swarm hosts not seems working right yet
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On January 14 2013 21:31 CoR wrote:
lurker was better because they prevented this "a move over them" because you would lose everything, swarm hosts not seems working right yet
Not really, Lurkers and Swarm Hosts are different kind of units. They shouldn't be used the same way. And Lurkers wouldn't work at all btw with units like Marauders/Immortals/Roaches/Colossi, Lurkers wouldn't stop anything from a-clicking them.
The same way Dragoons and non-sieged Tanks were really good vs. Lurkers in Brood War.
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United Kingdom2950 Posts
Anyone watching Zenio using Swarm Hosts ZvP right now? So sick! Repositioning after every two spawns or so and going to force a cancel or harass on another expo. Awesome!
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Ok so I have a changed mind about the swarmhost.
I played Thorzain today and I used swarmhosts vs bio and I have to say I am very impressed. I am not a fan of them vs mech, but vs bio they have a place. They did a great job at defending + being aggressive and had him contained to 2 bases (unfortunately I did not see his army move around my 4'th and then he took out my third + 4'th which then I ended up losing as he killed my swarmhosts when I sent my whole army back to defend xD).
But that game showed me just how viable they are. I only had between 10-15 and I definitely wasn't all in (I was getting double upgrades but melee/carapace not ranged). i then switched into ultras and like I said I should have won but made 2 big blunders that ended up being enough for him to take the win.
Either way I think they are viable zvt at least vs bio, I know they are vs mech but I prefer fast hive into vipers as that is stronger imo.
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Russian Federation4295 Posts
Sounds nice. Can you provide vods or replays? Will be interesting to see
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On January 15 2013 14:24 Existor wrote:Sounds nice. Can you provide vods or replays? Will be interesting to see
http://www.mediafire.com/?7ri4drndclb6p96
Can watch mine or thorzains vod for first person view.
I think going muta - swarmhost will be better though due to how strong drops are with light speed medivacs :D
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Russian Federation4295 Posts
Thank you! Only one replay? What about more? Just interesting to see more usage of swarm hosts
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On January 15 2013 14:35 Existor wrote:
Thank you! Only one replay? What about more? Just interesting to see more usage of swarm hosts
So far it's been hard to test this against more bio players cause all the bio players I am playing are to be blunt playing really retarded lol. Like they are just doing stupid stuff so I kill them either before I get the chance due to their push being pre swarmhost or they make 10 tanks with marines blindly so I don't go swarmhost and just crush them with fast ultra.
xD
Trying to test more but yeah hopefully more soon. I am only doing hte zvt ones cause zvp one isn't one worth looking at either due to how the game went ^^.
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On January 15 2013 14:26 blade55555 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 15 2013 14:24 Existor wrote:Sounds nice. Can you provide vods or replays? Will be interesting to see http://www.mediafire.com/?7ri4drndclb6p96Can watch mine or thorzains vod for first person view. I think going muta - swarmhost will be better though due to how strong drops are with light speed medivacs :D
Very nice, will watch the replay later. Btw, I was always thinking about that, and saw Mutas -> Swarm Hosts switch by Dimaga in the early stages of the Beta, he destroyed BRAT_OK with it. BRAT_OK went for few Thors to counter early Mutas, and then he didn't have answers for Swarm Hosts, but back then Swarm Hosts were OP as hell. xD
But to be honest, 10-15 Swarm Hosts is pretty large investment.
On January 15 2013 02:16 Wunder wrote:
Anyone watching Zenio using Swarm Hosts ZvP right now? So sick! Repositioning after every two spawns or so and going to force a cancel or harass on another expo. Awesome!
Do you maybe have a VOD? It would be great if you do.
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On January 15 2013 14:14 blade55555 wrote:
Ok so I have a changed mind about the swarmhost.
I played Thorzain today and I used swarmhosts vs bio and I have to say I am very impressed. I am not a fan of them vs mech,
Of course alot worse player than you, but from one very painful experience I think they really work well with vipers. We were having a nice stalemate of his swarmhosts vs my siege tanks. My siege tanks not too much spread out, since you want to have them all shooting at the spawns and not trade your siege tanks for free units. Then suddenly when a wave came he brought a few vipers, casted blinding cloud, and game over.
Now I freely admit I wasnt in the best position that game, I lost one mech army already and then you generally are fairly screwed. Still I think against mech swarmhost can work nicely with vipers.
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On January 15 2013 18:06 Sissors wrote:Show nested quote +On January 15 2013 14:14 blade55555 wrote:
Ok so I have a changed mind about the swarmhost.
I played Thorzain today and I used swarmhosts vs bio and I have to say I am very impressed. I am not a fan of them vs mech, Of course alot worse player than you, but from one very painful experience I think they really work well with vipers. We were having a nice stalemate of his swarmhosts vs my siege tanks. My siege tanks not too much spread out, since you want to have them all shooting at the spawns and not trade your siege tanks for free units. Then suddenly when a wave came he brought a few vipers, casted blinding cloud, and game over. Now I freely admit I wasnt in the best position that game, I lost one mech army already and then you generally are fairly screwed. Still I think against mech swarmhost can work nicely with vipers.
Meh it's not that swarmhosts aren't useful vs mech. It's the fact that just rushing hive (so far I have not found a timing that can kill me tvz pre-viper) and just get roach/hydra/viper into ultra/ling/viper and I rarely, rarely lose when doing this vs mech. Only times i lose are when i am to passive and let the terran take more bases then I should let him and then let him get bc/raven/viking (I have let 1-2 terrans do this to me like an idiot lol).
Otherwise I feel swarmhosts will just make the game longer then it should be since you still need vipers to kill the mech army.
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On January 14 2013 15:56 azorahai wrote:I just posted this in the bnet forums, but seems relevant here as well: So, the general consensus seems to be that swarm hosts are garbage and totally useless in zvt. However, I just played an EPIC hour long ZvT with swarm hosts, and I think maybe I figured out a good way to use them in the match-up. The basic strategy: -sit on 2 base and get a quick lair. -Mass swarm hosts until you have 8-10/you feel you can comfortably defend your third. Should also be upgrading hosts. -continue massing swarm hosts and start massing static defense around the hosts. -slow push with swarm hosts, spines, spores, queens, and creep, while teching to hive (i went for ultra, but brood would work too.) -win (an hour later.) Obviously, my opponent and I were both plat, so we are pretty bad. But it seemed to work pretty well. It is strong because the static defense/queens protect the swarm hosts during their cool down, and locusts dominate pretty much anything on the ground. This style is, however, REALLY weak to drops. The game I played had a lot of base trading... Oh, and here is a replay: http://drop.sc/294734Discuss?
Sorry, but there is nothing to discuss.
~10 SHs is a ridiculously high investment just to take your third and doesn't even keep your safe from drops or air harass.
Also the Terran can just take his half of the map, and build an unkillable mech army if you play like that.
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I really can't justify SH's, I mean, I tried using them defensively, I tried drops, I tried spreading them out against toss, I tried putting them around the map, they just die. Protoss with collosi will eat through them, protoss with air will eat through them, protoss with storms/ blink stalkers eat through them with a momma core up above. They are TOTALLY useless vP imo.
vT they are ok, however tanks eat through them, and with the locust spawn tanks hit the locusts and hit the SH, like really, stupid idea. v bio you just get dropped.
vZ they're ok, but with Muta's dominating at the moment, there is no need to drop the infestation pit until you're ready for hive. I want to like them so much, I want to have them comparable to lurkers, but they are just paper bags spawning little paper bags.
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EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/edKbf.png)
