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Do the blizzard people nerf ultralisk on purpose or they just don't know what they are doing?
I am a 2100+ plat zerg before patch 13. Before patch 13 I used ultralisks a lot in ZvTs (nearly every game, many of my opponents are 2000+ terran) and I think they are pretty good. I think I know more about ultralisks in practice than anyone else in the US server.
Let me sum up everything happens on ultralisk in patch 13:
1) HP reduced by 25%.
2) DPS vs non-armored reduced by 40%.
3) DPS vs armored increased by 60%.
4) Slash damage reduced by 67%.
see below for details: they now does less slash damage to armored units than before
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=126619
5) Slash ratio increased a little bit.
6) Head-attack is no longer a benefit. Now it does less damage than a normal attack.
7) Ultralisks now walk through FF.
8) In most situations, the frenzy spell from infesters is not worth it. (if you dont agree, ignore this one)
Obviously now ultralisk does much less damage vs light units. Even marines could be a good counter to ultralisks. And many experiments has shown that also it does less damage vs armored units, due to the reduction of slash damage.
In patch 12, it is difficult for ultras to get close to any mech terran army. Since the HP is reduced by 25%, now it is impossible for ultralisks to get close, i.e. they will be much more useless, unless you are using one ultra to attack one enemy unit.
So I assume everyone agrees that ultralisk is nerfed, rather than buffed.
My question is, do the blizzard people nerf ultralisk on purpose? Or they just don't know what they are doing? Because in the patch 13 notes they said they buffed ultralisk. And before that, they claimed they wanted to buff it.
Personally I really hope it is the case that blizzard think ultralisk in patch 12 was too good and they nerf it on purpose. But I have to admit it is more likely the other way, they have no idea what they are doing. I just feel too sad.
Another similar story happened on corrupters several patches ago. They changed the damage from 12+10 massive to 14+6 massive and claimed its a buff. I am a zerg player. I know it is a nerf, because corrupters are mainly used against collossuses. This change actually reduced the usefulness of corrupters. (also, I think the previous ability is much better, I used it together with mutalisks to attack the cannons, pretty good)
What do you think?
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i think anyone who believes anybody is good in the beta or thinks they are good because of a rating dismisses anyhting they say. Go play dungeons and dragons
User was warned for this post
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I think they really are that bad at balancing the game.
Just reading the patch notes I knew immediately that it was a nerf and im not even a good zerg player or anything.
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So you managed to get into the late game since the patch? Lucky you =P
I would say we should try first and speak up next but I'd be encline to believe that ultras are still garbage. I wouldn't say it's a nerf - I'm sure it can be better in some circumstances and worse in others so it's at the very least an ambiguous change. Quite possibly a nerf (in general) if it makes any sense.
Also, marines won't be a "good counter" to ultras. Just wanted to get that on the table.
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They are just changing things around to see how they work. They don't know if it will be a nerf or a buff until we, the beta testers, test it.
Blizzard know's what they are doing. The fact that people seem to think they can balance the game better than a company who has made Starcraft, WC3, and WoW, baffles me.
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On May 23 2010 13:23 Backpack wrote:
The fact that people seem to think they can balance the game better than a company who has made Starcraft, WC3, and WoW, baffles me.
what makes u think many of us couldn't?
we could certainly beat them at their games so...
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On May 23 2010 13:21 peachsncream wrote:
i think anyone who believes anybody is good in the beta or thinks they are good because of a rating dismisses anyhting they say. Go play dungeons and dragons
Thats fucking stupid.
On topic:
I had originally thought that the changes to Ultras were a buff, but op makes a convincing argument. BLizzard did mention they had done in-house testing and found ultras to be good, but maybe their testers just suck.
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For corruptors, the 20 percent damage increase spell compensates for the attack decrease against colossus somewhat. Although the casting time does translate into a damage reduction. But it also contributes to damage received by ground units. So really, whether it's a nerf to damage against the colossus is debatable and really kind of sketchy. I think the old corruption was more useful, though. I am skeptical about these Ultra changes but I haven't had much experience with them.. Keep in mind, though, zerg already has two great ways of killing light - banelings & fungal growth. I am pretty much certain Ultras do more damage to armored now .. not less. Where did you get this statistic they do less? Did you make it up?
The Frenzy spell cost 25 energy. Let's pretend you have an infestor with 100 energy. It casts fungal growth. Now it has 25 energy left. What do you use it on? You use it on a frenzy.. There are situations where casting Frenzy is worth it. That is unavoidable.
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hmm i think they know what they're doing. i mean it is the balance team. perhaps they have a specific goal envisioned for the ultralisk to fit into. its no longer BW, units are being fit into different parts in a composition.
still i do agree it's some of what of a nerf, though more like a change in the unit balance. though, would you prefer more health and armor or a faster ultralisk?
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anyone who defends all the changes has no clue at sc, these single target buff/debuff spells have absolutely no place in SC style gameplay
it just doesn't matter enough to click one unit and tell it to cast a spell on another unit to make that other unit do 20% more damage or some shit. it just isn't important enough to bother. dunno why this isn't obvious.
maybe they could be made to fit into sc style play with auto cast or some shit
but the fact that it didn't have that right away means that the people doing the balancing are clueless about this
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Totally agree with most of the comments here. I just cancelled my SC2 preorder today and picked up Red Dead Redemption. Glad I did too, with the direction blizzard is taking the game with the past couple of patches, it can be said this game is going nowhere quick.
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The spells main purpose was to make the unit temporarily immune to 150mm cannons, fungal growth, & mind control...
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I agree with the OP, I just don't understand the changes and frenzy is not that good since ultras dies super fast.
I'm still using infestor for mind control and broodlords. broodlords can eat tanks on cliffs, while ultras are melted by those...
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On May 23 2010 13:27 travis wrote:
anyone who defends all the changes has no clue at sc, these single target buff/debuff spells have absolutely no place in SC style gameplay
it just doesn't matter enough to click one unit and tell it to cast a spell on another unit to make that other unit do 20% more damage or some shit. it just isn't important enough to bother. dunno why this isn't obvious.
well they make a lot of mistakes and dont fully understand what theyre doing but thats kind of ridiculous. making collosus, thors, capital ships take an extra 20% damage is well worth clicking on them and theres nothing inherently un-sc about it.
there were single target spells aimed at knocking out powerful units in sc1, but you cant have something like lockdown in sc2 because smartcast would make it overpowered. so things like corruption are the middle ground.
that being said frenzy is retarded and will never be used over fungal.
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and don't forget defense matrix
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if that was a reply to me you should not post
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reminds me of people saying getting a beard trim that shaves too much off the bottom is an improvement. but anyway, i think frenzy is good. but it sounds like ultralisk needs more.
i think it was a case of giving the ultralisk a nerf and a buff at the same time.
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On May 23 2010 13:29 cartoon]x wrote:
The spells main purpose was to make the unit temporarily immune to 150mm cannons, fungal growth, & mind control...
was this shit ever an issue? 2 of these 3 things are zvz. no one uses ultras in zvz why would they
not to mention u would still have to have enough infestors to do this to all ur ultras.
it just doesn't make sense
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Oh.. yes king Idra.
No one ever uses Ultras ZvZ - Why would they. Yes.. As the game is now, why would they? Why can't that be changed, though? If they were buffed right they could be a good transition in roach / hydra mirrors.
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EPT
