On December 20 2012 03:57 Arakash wrote: dont forget that the Zerg player also has to aim and that starcraft 2 commands aren't as instant as in other games, so I think the pure mathematical approach with 0.5s traveling time is screwed, since there is also a standard 0.4s input delay from battle.net which makes hitting projectile fungal harder. ( )
Interesting, I always figured this was because the connection to blizzard servers was crappy from Australia.
Well, with a 0.4s delay, dodging is literally impossible. So, like I said, same situation as WoL, where you have to pre-split units. Except now if you've already ordered your units to split and get caught in that exact moment, your units have ~0.2 more seconds to follow the move command you already gave them.
For the zerg player... I think, after a while they'll get used to aiming slightly ahead of the moving units. As long as they aim slightly ahead, the other player can't react in time to dodge it, so it depends purely on if they can hit the right spot. Really, this is something that they shouldn't have trouble with after the first few weeks.
So if the Zerg aims ahead, what prevents you from changing your movement preemtively as well when you see an infestor so that the projectile will miss, if the Zerg really fires it that blindly?
at best this is just a random crapshoot rather than an actual test of skill against skill though. one player fires blindly, the other dodges blindly is not good game design.
Which is still way better than a onesided dodge, which only one player can influence.
I disagree. Making the projectile dodgable tests at least one player's skill. It turns Fungal from an ability which makes countermicro impossible into an ability which heavily incentivizes countermicro. Like Marines vs. Banelings, it brings in higher potential for "wow" moments--and just like with banelings, fungal being dodgable ensures you never want to be relying solely on fungal, but rather using it to support other compositions. Banelings are one-sided too--perfect marine micro is not something pure banelings can counter with any amount of good control. That doesn't mean we should alter the cool marine-baneling dynamic into one where random chance decides what happens.
Random crapshoot determining whether the opponent's army is rendered utterly incapable of micro is not a good thing.,
On December 20 2012 03:57 Arakash wrote: dont forget that the Zerg player also has to aim and that starcraft 2 commands aren't as instant as in other games, so I think the pure mathematical approach with 0.5s traveling time is screwed, since there is also a standard 0.4s input delay from battle.net which makes hitting projectile fungal harder. ( http://youtu.be/ByD29uiJYjc )
Interesting, I always figured this was because the connection to blizzard servers was crappy from Australia.
Well, with a 0.4s delay, dodging is literally impossible. So, like I said, same situation as WoL, where you have to pre-split units. Except now if you've already ordered your units to split and get caught in that exact moment, your units have ~0.2 more seconds to follow the move command you already gave them.
For the zerg player... I think, after a while they'll get used to aiming slightly ahead of the moving units. As long as they aim slightly ahead, the other player can't react in time to dodge it, so it depends purely on if they can hit the right spot. Really, this is something that they shouldn't have trouble with after the first few weeks.
So if the Zerg aims ahead, what prevents you from changing your movement preemtively as well when you see an infestor so that the projectile will miss, if the Zerg really fires it that blindly?
at best this is just a random crapshoot rather than an actual test of skill against skill though. one player fires blindly, the other dodges blindly is not good game design.
Which is still way better than a onesided dodge, which only one player can influence.
One person casts them, the other person dodges. What do you want, the ability to give move commands to the fungal projectile?
On December 20 2012 04:41 Decendos wrote: "OMG THEY BUFFED SPEED TO TEST WHICH SPEED IS BEST. STONE THEM TO DEATH WITHOUT EVEN TESTING IT!" (quoting a lot of people of this thread).
Trying to be funny while not actually being it is kinda bad when thats all you have to say. The deployment method ISNT THE PROBLEM OF THE SPELL. The EFFECT ITSELF is the problem, but buffing the range to 10 (instead of just raising it to 9 again) is kinda ridiculous and the actual speed of the missile doesnt really matter since you cant react quickly enough in the first place.
On December 20 2012 03:57 Arakash wrote: dont forget that the Zerg player also has to aim and that starcraft 2 commands aren't as instant as in other games, so I think the pure mathematical approach with 0.5s traveling time is screwed, since there is also a standard 0.4s input delay from battle.net which makes hitting projectile fungal harder. ( http://youtu.be/ByD29uiJYjc )
Interesting, I always figured this was because the connection to blizzard servers was crappy from Australia.
Well, with a 0.4s delay, dodging is literally impossible. So, like I said, same situation as WoL, where you have to pre-split units. Except now if you've already ordered your units to split and get caught in that exact moment, your units have ~0.2 more seconds to follow the move command you already gave them.
For the zerg player... I think, after a while they'll get used to aiming slightly ahead of the moving units. As long as they aim slightly ahead, the other player can't react in time to dodge it, so it depends purely on if they can hit the right spot. Really, this is something that they shouldn't have trouble with after the first few weeks.
So if the Zerg aims ahead, what prevents you from changing your movement preemtively as well when you see an infestor so that the projectile will miss, if the Zerg really fires it that blindly?
at best this is just a random crapshoot rather than an actual test of skill against skill though. one player fires blindly, the other dodges blindly is not good game design.
Which is still way better than a onesided dodge, which only one player can influence.
I disagree. Making the projectile dodgable tests at least one player's skill. It turns Fungal from an ability which makes countermicro impossible into an ability which heavily incentivizes countermicro. Like Marines vs. Banelings, it brings in higher potential for "wow" moments--and just like with banelings, fungal being dodgable ensures you never want to be relying solely on fungal, but rather using it to support other compositions. Banelings are one-sided too--perfect marine micro is not something pure banelings can counter with any amount of good control. That doesn't mean we should alter the cool marine-baneling dynamic into one where random chance decides what happens.
Random crapshoot determining whether the opponent's army is rendered utterly incapable of micro is not a good thing.,
It just means that it is useless in highlevel play. I cannot see someone like MKP, Life or Parting ever getting hit by a projectile that is designed to be dodgeable. Hence, the ability won't get used for such purposes.
"Random crapshoot" at least means that it is going to be useful. It also means that you can just walk away from a unit with such a power upon seeing them, like you do with Tanklines. And I haven't heard that tanklines are badly designed.
On December 20 2012 04:41 Decendos wrote: "OMG THEY BUFFED SPEED TO TEST WHICH SPEED IS BEST. STONE THEM TO DEATH WITHOUT EVEN TESTING IT!" (quoting a lot of people of this thread).
it is entirely unecessary, and indeed fundamentally bad design. previous patches had succeeded in transforming Fungal from a spell which made any countermicro impossible, into a spell which heavily incentivized and rewarded countermicro. This was a good thing. it may be that this also had the side effect of making Zerg lategame too weak...but if thats true, the solution should not be "lets make countermicro less effective vs. FG", it is to buff other aspects of Zerg gameplay.
On December 20 2012 03:57 Arakash wrote: dont forget that the Zerg player also has to aim and that starcraft 2 commands aren't as instant as in other games, so I think the pure mathematical approach with 0.5s traveling time is screwed, since there is also a standard 0.4s input delay from battle.net which makes hitting projectile fungal harder. ( http://youtu.be/ByD29uiJYjc )
Interesting, I always figured this was because the connection to blizzard servers was crappy from Australia.
Well, with a 0.4s delay, dodging is literally impossible. So, like I said, same situation as WoL, where you have to pre-split units. Except now if you've already ordered your units to split and get caught in that exact moment, your units have ~0.2 more seconds to follow the move command you already gave them.
For the zerg player... I think, after a while they'll get used to aiming slightly ahead of the moving units. As long as they aim slightly ahead, the other player can't react in time to dodge it, so it depends purely on if they can hit the right spot. Really, this is something that they shouldn't have trouble with after the first few weeks.
So if the Zerg aims ahead, what prevents you from changing your movement preemtively as well when you see an infestor so that the projectile will miss, if the Zerg really fires it that blindly?
at best this is just a random crapshoot rather than an actual test of skill against skill though. one player fires blindly, the other dodges blindly is not good game design.
Which is still way better than a onesided dodge, which only one player can influence.
I disagree. Making the projectile dodgable tests at least one player's skill. It turns Fungal from an ability which makes countermicro impossible into an ability which heavily incentivizes countermicro. Like Marines vs. Banelings, it brings in higher potential for "wow" moments--and just like with banelings, fungal being dodgable ensures you never want to be relying solely on fungal, but rather using it to support other compositions. Banelings are one-sided too--perfect marine micro is not something pure banelings can counter with any amount of good control. That doesn't mean we should alter the cool marine-baneling dynamic into one where random chance decides what happens.
Random crapshoot determining whether the opponent's army is rendered utterly incapable of micro is not a good thing.,
It just means that it is useless in highlevel play. I cannot see someone like MKP, Life or Parting ever getting hit by a projectile that is designed to be dodgeable. Hence, the ability won't get used for such purposes.
"Random crapshoot" at least means that it is going to be useful. It also means that you can just walk away from a unit with such a power upon seeing them, like you do with Tanklines. And I haven't heard that tanklines are badly designed.
Banelings are dodgable. Storms are dodgable, if not in their entirety, than to an extent that vastly reduces their damage output. Both are still used consistently in even pro level matches. The reality is, positioning is important. An ability that is powerful if it hits, but dodgable, still has an important use in forcing your opponent out of position, and in punishing them if they insist on trying to hold their current one. It is also true that even for pros, once army sizes get large enough, simultaneously perfectly controlling every unit becomes impossible--more banelings land, and more storms hit, as players have more and more to control. The same would be true of Fungal, with the additional change that once one Fungal hits, they all hit, since you can chain fungal.
The idea that the previous iteration of Fungal would never be used in pro matches is absurd. What is true, is that it would not be the core backbone of the Zerg army upon which everything else relies--but that is imo very much a feature, not a bug.
disclaimer: A lot of this will probably be fairly obvious to some people..and I realize now that I could very well be wrong about some of this stuff, especially thinking about the Viper now after I've written this up.
Infestor infestor everywhere..that's all I see and read and hear these days..when I think the underlying issues here lie with other units such as the colossus/force field and the other non infestor zerg units. And there is no easy fix..you nerf/remove FF and protoss too weak..you buff earlygame gateway units and warpin too strong..protoss relies simlarly on the colossus. But that is the root of why you can't simply 'nerf the infestor and buff other units.' (i'll explain this more below). Also, they're actually more interesting than most of the other zerg units IMO: roaches/hydras/corruptors/swarm hosts/broods are all incredibly dull and make dull games. infestor/broodlord/spine turtling is the major issue here imo, and that may hopefully be dealt with by other solutions than simply nerfing infestor.
Then there's the problems involving anti-air..zerg often relies heavily on several infestors vs air. In WoL, if you were to remove the infestor right now, voidray/colossus/stalker would be too difficult. And in hots.. gives hydras all the speed you want, or buff them all you want, they're still going to melt vs 9 range colossi (however there is some potential for Viper's abduct to be the indirect answer to dealing with zerg's antiair issues by giving them a more reasonable answer to the colossus. I'm editing this part in btw, I dunno how I forgot this when I wrote all this up). Corruptors are not effective at dealing with voidray/colossus/stalker. Zerg's antiair is still weak in HotS and relies on the infestor, which may still be too weak with all of the new strong protoss air units (all new units are air, all existing air units have changed/improved. phoenix +1 range, void ray no longer charge, buff to carrier..). Mutas are great and fun vs protoss except when they go phoenix and then you're completely screwed which is kind of a silly dynamic imo, and zerg has no other units(disregarding queens/spores here) that can attack air besides those 3 crappy ones (mutas/hydras/corruptors). Corruptors are of course good at killing tempests/carriers at least, but not good enough of a solution because of void rays and stalkers, and just their inability to attack ground. So unless zerg's other antiair options get better, infestors have to retain their strength vs air.
And it's not like I'm a fan of the design of Infestor's spells. Fungal limits micro potential (only encourages players to split beforehand, tho with the new missile there is some potential for dodge or bait micro moves), infested terrans are just summons of boring units that cant be microed because they hardly move, neural is too hard to balance and once again opponents are unable to control their units from an infestor spell. It's hardly a support role and can often be the best damage dealers in the game so that encourages massing them which reduces their appeal.
But even so, because roaches/hydras/corruptors are so boring to watch or play with or even against as really all pros can do to 'micro' them is set up some concave pre-fight then a-move, infestors currently are more entertaining to watch from a spectator pov, and to use from a player perspective. There's more micro/skill..more finesse and requires care to keep them alive while using a lot of their spells, some interesting uses for burrow with them and harassing bases in small numbers, strength of infestor drops which are fun..a few niche uses of neural parasite like if you burrow 1-2 and sneak em behind their push to neural certain key units (usually spellcasters) to use their spells on themselves can sometimes work (like in zvz, sneak a couple behind where they always keep their infestor pack protected, neural a couple and fungal the pack 3 times which is easy when youre using their infestors to do it, or on a ghost to emp the other ghosts, or a templar to feedback other templar. risky/tough but rewarding and interesting). Do you really want all that (and more potential I didn't list) to be gone so that boring units like hydras/roaches that have almost no interesting micro mostly because of their lack of movement + their attack animation (can't stutter step like marines/stalkers) will be standard? like i said because of things like colossus/ff that won't even be possible without major changes to protoss, but even if it was..without any cool new micro added like marines/stalkers can do, as of right now they're really dull a-move-only type unitse. What else is there.. swarm hosts spawn slow unmicroable spawns that to me can often be more boring than even a-moving roach/hydra? if ling/baneling was more viable somehow that would be great cus they're fun, but because of FF it's really tough or sometimes impossible to make them work..
And it's not like Fungal is completely bad designed, there are a couple redeeming qualities..mostly I think with how if you combine it with other stuff it opens up nice possibilities such as Fungal + baneling drop or even ground banelings, Fungal + Blinding Cloud or Abduct, Fungal + Swarm Hosts, and maybe more.
I mean really the biggest problem I think people have with Infestors is the turtle type of games behind tons of spines and broods. that problem can be solved in other ways besides just nerfing the infestor, which Blizzard hopes the tempest will do.
anyways..TL;DR: IMO, Infestors are actually more fun to watch/use and versatile than some other zerg options like roach/hydra/corruptor/swarm host/broodlord + Show Spoiler [disagree? my thoughts] +
IMO, Infestors are actually more fun to watch/use and versatile than some other zerg options...
Hahahahahahahahahaha! Fun to use but definately not fun to watch.SC2 Tournaments barely get 40K viewers these days.
putting aside infestor/broodlord.. is mass roach/hydra/corruptor a-move blobs more fun to watch than games involving infestors? if you think so, then you either forgot those days or weren't here I think. That's my point. it's more dull. many zvt games for example involving key infestor usage are very exciting and loved. it's not the infestor that's the problem, it's more the other issues I underlined in my post (ZvP mostly)
, and are too vital for zerg especially for anti-air to nerf to oblivion like some seem to want, and buffing other zerg units isn't some easy solution to fix that issue, because of things like the colossus, force field, etc. And actually a lot of the other zerg units like hydras that people keep asking to be buffed are I think going to make for very boring a move blob games due to their design.
On December 20 2012 03:57 Arakash wrote: dont forget that the Zerg player also has to aim and that starcraft 2 commands aren't as instant as in other games, so I think the pure mathematical approach with 0.5s traveling time is screwed, since there is also a standard 0.4s input delay from battle.net which makes hitting projectile fungal harder. ( http://youtu.be/ByD29uiJYjc )
Interesting, I always figured this was because the connection to blizzard servers was crappy from Australia.
Well, with a 0.4s delay, dodging is literally impossible. So, like I said, same situation as WoL, where you have to pre-split units. Except now if you've already ordered your units to split and get caught in that exact moment, your units have ~0.2 more seconds to follow the move command you already gave them.
For the zerg player... I think, after a while they'll get used to aiming slightly ahead of the moving units. As long as they aim slightly ahead, the other player can't react in time to dodge it, so it depends purely on if they can hit the right spot. Really, this is something that they shouldn't have trouble with after the first few weeks.
So if the Zerg aims ahead, what prevents you from changing your movement preemtively as well when you see an infestor so that the projectile will miss, if the Zerg really fires it that blindly?
at best this is just a random crapshoot rather than an actual test of skill against skill though. one player fires blindly, the other dodges blindly is not good game design.
Which is still way better than a onesided dodge, which only one player can influence.
I disagree. Making the projectile dodgable tests at least one player's skill. It turns Fungal from an ability which makes countermicro impossible into an ability which heavily incentivizes countermicro. Like Marines vs. Banelings, it brings in higher potential for "wow" moments--and just like with banelings, fungal being dodgable ensures you never want to be relying solely on fungal, but rather using it to support other compositions. Banelings are one-sided too--perfect marine micro is not something pure banelings can counter with any amount of good control. That doesn't mean we should alter the cool marine-baneling dynamic into one where random chance decides what happens.
Random crapshoot determining whether the opponent's army is rendered utterly incapable of micro is not a good thing.,
It just means that it is useless in highlevel play. I cannot see someone like MKP, Life or Parting ever getting hit by a projectile that is designed to be dodgeable. Hence, the ability won't get used for such purposes.
"Random crapshoot" at least means that it is going to be useful. It also means that you can just walk away from a unit with such a power upon seeing them, like you do with Tanklines. And I haven't heard that tanklines are badly designed.
One does not simply walk away from infestors.
If it's completely undodgeable, then there's no micro. There's just guessing.
On December 20 2012 03:57 Arakash wrote: dont forget that the Zerg player also has to aim and that starcraft 2 commands aren't as instant as in other games, so I think the pure mathematical approach with 0.5s traveling time is screwed, since there is also a standard 0.4s input delay from battle.net which makes hitting projectile fungal harder. ( http://youtu.be/ByD29uiJYjc )
Interesting, I always figured this was because the connection to blizzard servers was crappy from Australia.
Well, with a 0.4s delay, dodging is literally impossible. So, like I said, same situation as WoL, where you have to pre-split units. Except now if you've already ordered your units to split and get caught in that exact moment, your units have ~0.2 more seconds to follow the move command you already gave them.
For the zerg player... I think, after a while they'll get used to aiming slightly ahead of the moving units. As long as they aim slightly ahead, the other player can't react in time to dodge it, so it depends purely on if they can hit the right spot. Really, this is something that they shouldn't have trouble with after the first few weeks.
So if the Zerg aims ahead, what prevents you from changing your movement preemtively as well when you see an infestor so that the projectile will miss, if the Zerg really fires it that blindly?
at best this is just a random crapshoot rather than an actual test of skill against skill though. one player fires blindly, the other dodges blindly is not good game design.
Which is still way better than a onesided dodge, which only one player can influence.
I disagree. Making the projectile dodgable tests at least one player's skill. It turns Fungal from an ability which makes countermicro impossible into an ability which heavily incentivizes countermicro. Like Marines vs. Banelings, it brings in higher potential for "wow" moments--and just like with banelings, fungal being dodgable ensures you never want to be relying solely on fungal, but rather using it to support other compositions. Banelings are one-sided too--perfect marine micro is not something pure banelings can counter with any amount of good control. That doesn't mean we should alter the cool marine-baneling dynamic into one where random chance decides what happens.
Random crapshoot determining whether the opponent's army is rendered utterly incapable of micro is not a good thing.,
It just means that it is useless in highlevel play. I cannot see someone like MKP, Life or Parting ever getting hit by a projectile that is designed to be dodgeable. Hence, the ability won't get used for such purposes.
"Random crapshoot" at least means that it is going to be useful. It also means that you can just walk away from a unit with such a power upon seeing them, like you do with Tanklines. And I haven't heard that tanklines are badly designed.
usesless...do you really believe that?....is a 6 range storm that can be moved out of useless? Its amazing to see people defend an ability that is sooo easy to use and brand it useless because its not instant chainable.
So a little bit off topic question. Does GM league works the same in HotS like it did in WoL ? Players will only get kicked out of it if they are inactive and while it's full, nobody can get a promotion ? If so, it fucking sucks. Especially when there are so many bad players there O_o (negative win ratio, zero point, yet GM lol...).
On December 20 2012 03:57 Arakash wrote: dont forget that the Zerg player also has to aim and that starcraft 2 commands aren't as instant as in other games, so I think the pure mathematical approach with 0.5s traveling time is screwed, since there is also a standard 0.4s input delay from battle.net which makes hitting projectile fungal harder. ( http://youtu.be/ByD29uiJYjc )
Interesting, I always figured this was because the connection to blizzard servers was crappy from Australia.
Well, with a 0.4s delay, dodging is literally impossible. So, like I said, same situation as WoL, where you have to pre-split units. Except now if you've already ordered your units to split and get caught in that exact moment, your units have ~0.2 more seconds to follow the move command you already gave them.
For the zerg player... I think, after a while they'll get used to aiming slightly ahead of the moving units. As long as they aim slightly ahead, the other player can't react in time to dodge it, so it depends purely on if they can hit the right spot. Really, this is something that they shouldn't have trouble with after the first few weeks.
So if the Zerg aims ahead, what prevents you from changing your movement preemtively as well when you see an infestor so that the projectile will miss, if the Zerg really fires it that blindly?
at best this is just a random crapshoot rather than an actual test of skill against skill though. one player fires blindly, the other dodges blindly is not good game design.
Which is still way better than a onesided dodge, which only one player can influence.
I disagree. Making the projectile dodgable tests at least one player's skill. It turns Fungal from an ability which makes countermicro impossible into an ability which heavily incentivizes countermicro. Like Marines vs. Banelings, it brings in higher potential for "wow" moments--and just like with banelings, fungal being dodgable ensures you never want to be relying solely on fungal, but rather using it to support other compositions. Banelings are one-sided too--perfect marine micro is not something pure banelings can counter with any amount of good control. That doesn't mean we should alter the cool marine-baneling dynamic into one where random chance decides what happens.
Random crapshoot determining whether the opponent's army is rendered utterly incapable of micro is not a good thing.,
It just means that it is useless in highlevel play. I cannot see someone like MKP, Life or Parting ever getting hit by a projectile that is designed to be dodgeable. Hence, the ability won't get used for such purposes.
"Random crapshoot" at least means that it is going to be useful. It also means that you can just walk away from a unit with such a power upon seeing them, like you do with Tanklines. And I haven't heard that tanklines are badly designed.
Banelings are dodgable. Storms are dodgable, if not in their entirety, than to an extent that vastly reduces their damage output. Both are still used consistently in even pro level matches. The reality is, positioning is important. An ability that is powerful if it hits, but dodgable, still has an important use in forcing your opponent out of position, and in punishing them if they insist on trying to hold their current one. It is also true that even for pros, once army sizes get large enough, simultaneously perfectly controlling every unit becomes impossible--more banelings land, and more storms hit, as players have more and more to control. The same would be true of Fungal, with the additional change that once one Fungal hits, they all hit, since you can chain fungal.
The idea that the previous iteration of Fungal would never be used in pro matches is absurd. What is true, is that it would not be the core backbone of the Zerg army upon which everything else relies--but that is imo very much a feature, not a bug.
No. Neither of them are completly dodgeable. You can mitigate their damage, hence let banelings explode on fewer units, storms go off on fewer units on less duration. But when they go off they will do damage to something.
I'm also not talking about whether this speed change is good or not. That's something only GSL/Proleague etc can show us. I'm against the notion that everything should be dodgeable. Out of all the ways to do damage in SC2, there are like 2 that are completly dodgeable (HSM, Yamato... and only very fast units can do that). All the other splash abilities (including any form of fungal) can be mitigated by preemtive spreading, and in the case of storm even reactionary. That's it. You can't spread after a tank or colossus hits you. You are prespread or not.
On December 20 2012 03:57 Arakash wrote: dont forget that the Zerg player also has to aim and that starcraft 2 commands aren't as instant as in other games, so I think the pure mathematical approach with 0.5s traveling time is screwed, since there is also a standard 0.4s input delay from battle.net which makes hitting projectile fungal harder. ( http://youtu.be/ByD29uiJYjc )
Interesting, I always figured this was because the connection to blizzard servers was crappy from Australia.
Well, with a 0.4s delay, dodging is literally impossible. So, like I said, same situation as WoL, where you have to pre-split units. Except now if you've already ordered your units to split and get caught in that exact moment, your units have ~0.2 more seconds to follow the move command you already gave them.
For the zerg player... I think, after a while they'll get used to aiming slightly ahead of the moving units. As long as they aim slightly ahead, the other player can't react in time to dodge it, so it depends purely on if they can hit the right spot. Really, this is something that they shouldn't have trouble with after the first few weeks.
So if the Zerg aims ahead, what prevents you from changing your movement preemtively as well when you see an infestor so that the projectile will miss, if the Zerg really fires it that blindly?
at best this is just a random crapshoot rather than an actual test of skill against skill though. one player fires blindly, the other dodges blindly is not good game design.
Which is still way better than a onesided dodge, which only one player can influence.
I disagree. Making the projectile dodgable tests at least one player's skill. It turns Fungal from an ability which makes countermicro impossible into an ability which heavily incentivizes countermicro. Like Marines vs. Banelings, it brings in higher potential for "wow" moments--and just like with banelings, fungal being dodgable ensures you never want to be relying solely on fungal, but rather using it to support other compositions. Banelings are one-sided too--perfect marine micro is not something pure banelings can counter with any amount of good control. That doesn't mean we should alter the cool marine-baneling dynamic into one where random chance decides what happens.
Random crapshoot determining whether the opponent's army is rendered utterly incapable of micro is not a good thing.,
It just means that it is useless in highlevel play. I cannot see someone like MKP, Life or Parting ever getting hit by a projectile that is designed to be dodgeable. Hence, the ability won't get used for such purposes.
"Random crapshoot" at least means that it is going to be useful. It also means that you can just walk away from a unit with such a power upon seeing them, like you do with Tanklines. And I haven't heard that tanklines are badly designed.
usesless...do you really believe that?....is a 6 range storm that can be moved out of useless? Its amazing to see people defend an ability that is sooo easy to use and brand it useless because its not instant chainable.
Did I say one word about the ability right now or even actually being useless? I'm exclusively talking against the idea that any ability should be completly dodgeable with good reactions. Then it will become useless on highlevel play.
On December 20 2012 03:57 Arakash wrote: dont forget that the Zerg player also has to aim and that starcraft 2 commands aren't as instant as in other games, so I think the pure mathematical approach with 0.5s traveling time is screwed, since there is also a standard 0.4s input delay from battle.net which makes hitting projectile fungal harder. ( http://youtu.be/ByD29uiJYjc )
Interesting, I always figured this was because the connection to blizzard servers was crappy from Australia.
Well, with a 0.4s delay, dodging is literally impossible. So, like I said, same situation as WoL, where you have to pre-split units. Except now if you've already ordered your units to split and get caught in that exact moment, your units have ~0.2 more seconds to follow the move command you already gave them.
For the zerg player... I think, after a while they'll get used to aiming slightly ahead of the moving units. As long as they aim slightly ahead, the other player can't react in time to dodge it, so it depends purely on if they can hit the right spot. Really, this is something that they shouldn't have trouble with after the first few weeks.
So if the Zerg aims ahead, what prevents you from changing your movement preemtively as well when you see an infestor so that the projectile will miss, if the Zerg really fires it that blindly?
at best this is just a random crapshoot rather than an actual test of skill against skill though. one player fires blindly, the other dodges blindly is not good game design.
Which is still way better than a onesided dodge, which only one player can influence.
I disagree. Making the projectile dodgable tests at least one player's skill. It turns Fungal from an ability which makes countermicro impossible into an ability which heavily incentivizes countermicro. Like Marines vs. Banelings, it brings in higher potential for "wow" moments--and just like with banelings, fungal being dodgable ensures you never want to be relying solely on fungal, but rather using it to support other compositions. Banelings are one-sided too--perfect marine micro is not something pure banelings can counter with any amount of good control. That doesn't mean we should alter the cool marine-baneling dynamic into one where random chance decides what happens.
Random crapshoot determining whether the opponent's army is rendered utterly incapable of micro is not a good thing.,
It just means that it is useless in highlevel play. I cannot see someone like MKP, Life or Parting ever getting hit by a projectile that is designed to be dodgeable. Hence, the ability won't get used for such purposes.
"Random crapshoot" at least means that it is going to be useful. It also means that you can just walk away from a unit with such a power upon seeing them, like you do with Tanklines. And I haven't heard that tanklines are badly designed.
Banelings are dodgable. Storms are dodgable, if not in their entirety, than to an extent that vastly reduces their damage output. Both are still used consistently in even pro level matches. The reality is, positioning is important. An ability that is powerful if it hits, but dodgable, still has an important use in forcing your opponent out of position, and in punishing them if they insist on trying to hold their current one. It is also true that even for pros, once army sizes get large enough, simultaneously perfectly controlling every unit becomes impossible--more banelings land, and more storms hit, as players have more and more to control. The same would be true of Fungal, with the additional change that once one Fungal hits, they all hit, since you can chain fungal.
The idea that the previous iteration of Fungal would never be used in pro matches is absurd. What is true, is that it would not be the core backbone of the Zerg army upon which everything else relies--but that is imo very much a feature, not a bug.
No. Neither of them are completly dodgeable. You can mitigate their damage, hence let banelings explode on fewer units, storms go off on fewer units on less duration. But when they go off they will do damage to something.
I'm also not talking about whether this speed change is good or not. That's something only GSL/Proleague etc can show us. I'm against the notion that everything should be dodgeable. Out of all the ways to do damage in SC2, there are like 2 that are completly dodgeable (HSM, Yamato... and only very fast units can do that). All the other splash abilities (including any form of fungal) can be mitigated by preemtive spreading, and in the case of storm even reactionary. That's it. You can't spread after a tank or colossus hits you. You are prespread or not.
*completely* is the key word. In it's current state, it is *completely* undodgeable. Scaling it back wouldn't instantly make it *completely* dodgeable.
IMO, Infestors are actually more fun to watch/use and versatile than some other zerg options...
Hahahahahahahahahaha! Fun to use but definately not fun to watch.SC2 Tournaments barely get 40K viewers these days.
putting aside infestor/broodlord.. is mass roach/hydra/corruptor a-move blobs more fun to watch than games involving infestors? if you think so, then you either forgot those days or weren't here I think. That's my point. it's more dull. many zvt games for example involving key infestor usage are very exciting and loved. it's not the infestor that's the problem, it's more the other issues I underlined in my post (ZvP mostly)
I'm against the notion that everything should be dodgeable
Who said everything should be dodgable? Fungal should be dodgable. I am not proposing that other abilities which are not currently dodgable be made dodgable. I am proposing that Fungal remain as dodgable as it was prior to this patch.
You can't spread after a tank or colossus hits you. You are prespread or not.
But--and this is the critical difference between fungal and tank fire--you can still do something about the next tank shot. You can retreat, you can do some spreading, you can close the distance and try to pick off tanks.
None of these are an option with Fungal. Once one Fungal hits, the only thing limiting further Fungals is how much energy Zerg has. A storm may be very likely to damage "something", but it also doesn't inhibit further dodging, whereas a single fungal hit becomes chain fungalling incredibly easily, especially now that Infestor range has been extended to 10.
As such, making sure that dodging Fungals is a feasible tactic for many compositions with good micro is IMO very much a good thing. If you screw up, you can still get chain fungalled (although range 7 would at least allow for some counterfire), but at least the possibility exists to avoid this with good micro.
On December 20 2012 04:52 Zelniq wrote: disclaimer: A lot of this will probably be fairly obvious to some people..and I realize now that I could very well be wrong about some of this stuff, especially thinking about the Viper now after I've written this up.
Infestor infestor everywhere..that's all I see and read and hear these days..when I think the underlying issues here lie with other units such as the colossus/force field and the other non infestor zerg units. And there is no easy fix..you nerf/remove FF and protoss too weak..you buff earlygame gateway units and warpin too strong..protoss relies simlarly on the colossus. But that is the root of why you can't simply 'nerf the infestor and buff other units.' (i'll explain this more below). Also, they're actually more interesting than most of the other zerg units IMO: roaches/hydras/corruptors/swarm hosts/broods are all incredibly dull and make dull games. infestor/broodlord/spine turtling is the major issue here imo, and that may hopefully be dealt with by other solutions than simply nerfing infestor.
Then there's the problems involving anti-air..zerg often relies heavily on several infestors vs air. In WoL, if you were to remove the infestor right now, voidray/colossus/stalker would be too difficult. And in hots.. gives hydras all the speed you want, or buff them all you want, they're still going to melt vs 9 range colossi (however there is some potential for Viper's abduct to be the indirect answer to dealing with zerg's antiair issues by giving them a more reasonable answer to the colossus. I'm editing this part in btw, I dunno how I forgot this when I wrote all this up). Corruptors are not effective at dealing with voidray/colossus/stalker. Zerg's antiair is still weak in HotS and relies on the infestor, which may still be too weak with all of the new strong protoss air units (all new units are air, all existing air units have changed/improved. phoenix +1 range, void ray no longer charge, buff to carrier..). Mutas are great and fun vs protoss except when they go phoenix and then you're completely screwed which is kind of a silly dynamic imo, and zerg has no other units(disregarding queens/spores here) that can attack air besides those 3 crappy ones (mutas/hydras/corruptors). Corruptors are of course good at killing tempests/carriers at least, but not good enough of a solution because of void rays and stalkers, and just their inability to attack ground. So unless zerg's other antiair options get better, infestors have to retain their strength vs air.
And it's not like I'm a fan of the design of Infestor's spells. Fungal limits micro potential (only encourages players to split beforehand, tho with the new missile there is some potential for dodge or bait micro moves), infested terrans are just summons of boring units that cant be microed because they hardly move, neural is too hard to balance and once again opponents are unable to control their units from an infestor spell. It's hardly a support role and can often be the best damage dealers in the game so that encourages massing them which reduces their appeal.
But even so, because roaches/hydras/corruptors are so boring to watch or play with or even against as really all pros can do to 'micro' them is set up some concave pre-fight then a-move, infestors currently are more entertaining to watch from a spectator pov, and to use from a player perspective. There's more micro/skill..more finesse and requires care to keep them alive while using a lot of their spells, some interesting uses for burrow with them and harassing bases in small numbers, strength of infestor drops which are fun..a few niche uses of neural parasite like if you burrow 1-2 and sneak em behind their push to neural certain key units (usually spellcasters) to use their spells on themselves can sometimes work (like in zvz, sneak a couple behind where they always keep their infestor pack protected, neural a couple and fungal the pack 3 times which is easy when youre using their infestors to do it, or on a ghost to emp the other ghosts, or a templar to feedback other templar. risky/tough but rewarding and interesting). Do you really want all that (and more potential I didn't list) to be gone so that boring units like hydras/roaches that have almost no interesting micro mostly because of their lack of movement + their attack animation (can't stutter step like marines/stalkers) will be standard? like i said because of things like colossus/ff that won't even be possible without major changes to protoss, but even if it was..without any cool new micro added like marines/stalkers can do, as of right now they're really dull a-move-only type unitse. What else is there.. swarm hosts spawn slow unmicroable spawns that to me can often be more boring than even a-moving roach/hydra? if ling/baneling was more viable somehow that would be great cus they're fun, but because of FF it's really tough or sometimes impossible to make them work..
And it's not like Fungal is completely bad designed, there are a couple redeeming qualities..mostly I think with how if you combine it with other stuff it opens up nice possibilities such as Fungal + baneling drop or even ground banelings, Fungal + Blinding Cloud or Abduct, Fungal + Swarm Hosts, and maybe more.
I mean really the biggest problem I think people have with Infestors is the turtle type of games behind tons of spines and broods. that problem can be solved in other ways besides just nerfing the infestor, which Blizzard hopes the tempest will do.
anyways..TL;DR: IMO, Infestors are actually more fun to watch/use and versatile than some other zerg options like roach/hydra/corruptor/swarm host/broodlord, and are too vital for zerg especially for anti-air to nerf to oblivion like some seem to want, and buffing other zerg units isn't some easy solution to fix that issue, because of things like the colossus, force field, etc. And actually a lot of the other zerg units like hydras that people keep asking to be buffed are I think going to make for very boring a move blob games due to their design.
Zelniq bringing sanity back to this thread, I love it! I agree.
On December 20 2012 04:41 Decendos wrote: "OMG THEY BUFFED SPEED TO TEST WHICH SPEED IS BEST. STONE THEM TO DEATH WITHOUT EVEN TESTING IT!" (quoting a lot of people of this thread).
Trying to be funny while not actually being it is kinda bad when thats all you have to say. The deployment method ISNT THE PROBLEM OF THE SPELL. The EFFECT ITSELF is the problem, but buffing the range to 10 (instead of just raising it to 9 again) is kinda ridiculous and the actual speed of the missile doesnt really matter since you cant react quickly enough in the first place.
if you read the last pages or some of my posts in the past you would know that i am all for changing fungal into an instant spell again that only slows instead of roots while compensation buffing other zerg units.
i just wrote the above because i hate then people say "omg infestor buff...so bad blizzard" then those people had no idea how fucking bad and completely unusable the infestor was after patch 8. it was like removing stim, CS and 10 hp from the marine and now readding stim again. the infestor is still A LOT worse than it was the last 1 year. thats i wanted to clearify. people shouldnt whine about a rebuff to the infestor that still makes it a lot worse than prepatch.
you cant go mass infestor anymore. even with a 10 fungal + instant cast you couldnt. the simple reason is that IT do up to 0 DPS in lategame once opponent has +3 armor. a simple example: IT does 8 damage. thats 6 damage with guardian shield, 3 damage with +3 armor and 2 damage because the base armor 1 every P unit has. so every IT in the lategame does 2,4 DPS. that combined with the 2 nerfs to IT eggs: 10 armor --> now 2 armor, 100hp --> now 70 hp, makes it so that you cant go mass infestor like in WoL. so blizzard fixed that and now rebuffs the SUPPORT spell fungal to help the infestor be better at its support role while being bad on its own.
On December 20 2012 03:42 DemigodcelpH wrote: I'm laughing at the feeble kind of logic Zerg players tend to come up with to justify terrible changes to the game.
"You can dodge it" (hint: 15 speed is undodgable) "Longer range gives it more chances to be dodged, so the buff is okay" (LOL)
What's sad is that this was DK's actual thought process.
The logic in that is 100% sound. Are you saying longer traveling distance with constant speed does not yield more time to react? If anything, the assessment that 15 speed is dodgeable is mistaken. If have no idea if it is. It needs to be tested. If it isn't it would be logical to expect them to slow it down again since they apparently want it to be dodgeable.
EPT
