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Single target spells are a very important part of any RTS and one of the center pillars of what we like to call "micro". The idea behind a single target spell is that using action time to depict a certain key unit inside your or your enemy's composition and affect it in a certain way, should bend the game into your favor.
This is mostly because most armies consist of a diversified unit composition which single our specific key units, that pretty much make or break the game. So protecting/buffing or debuffing important units in the enemy's armies is essential to the sucess of an attack/defense.
![[image loading]](http://img576.imageshack.us/img576/9833/collosushires.jpg)
hmmm... now who should I focus fire?
The first trade-off is the APM-cost. In order to cast a single target spell, with precision, one has to stop, specifically point at the target unit and cast the spell. This is getting harder when armies are big and its difficulty is also amplified if you want to cast the spell on multiple units. All translates into time lost which costs precious seconds you could have spend doing something else. Depending on the spell's effect you might be better off by going back to your base and macroing up, or giving other commands (such as mass spells).
"Using mindcontrol on a zergling anyone?"
The second trade-off is Energy cost. If a target has multiple spells, such as mass spells, or single target spells, the energy efficiency might decide which one you have to cast.The arsenal of spells in Starcraft 2 has a bunch of single target spells all of which were destined to this specific role. Let's list some of the most useful ones.
The third effect is their effect upon the game as a show. Pro players with huge APM will find the time to squeeze them in. However, will this change the game? Will their actions make the game nicer to watch? Of course the Korean announcer might eventually go: "Frenzuuuuuuuu" but will it have the same effect to the public? "Oh great now units to a little more dmg which I cant really notice anyway..."
Some single target spells in Starcraft II:
* Neural Parasite: Takes control of that key enemy unit such as a Thor or Collosus.
This is clearly the spell you want to be casting if the enemy's army is composed of a couple big units that deal the damage (such as Collosus, Immortal, Thor) and the rest are just meat units.
* Feedback: Again, focusing the enemy casters and dealing major damage to them while draining all their energy is clearly worth it if the enemy casters are potentially strong against your army composition.
The purpose of this thread is to discuss the underwhelming single target spells that have been introduced in the latest patches: Corruption and Frenzy
As opposed to the two spells presented above, which clearly have a major impact upon the battle, these last 2 spells, are just simple buffs/debuffs which give a static damage increase for or against a certain unit. We shall steer away from the situational Ultralisk + Frenzy versus Neural Parasite or 250MM Cannons for the time being because of the sheer situational aspect of that scenario. Here we have two spells, which you can choose to cast in the midst of the battle. The alternative, would be forgetting them and choosing to cast something else, or simply go back inside your base and macro some more.
"This is not Warcraft in space"
![[image loading]](http://lh5.ggpht.com/_TbUMVMMDLcQ/S_jvntwiWqI/AAAAAAAAATM/-aV8lBPDuZ0/s912/Bloodlust.jpg)
Remember Bloodlust? Now wasnt this sweet?
These two spells remind me more and more of another game in the Blizzard universe. Warcraft3 had a bunch of such spells, buffs and debuffs alike, all destined to empowering your army and weakening the enemy for you to gain the upper hand. But let's look at the picture above. You can count a handful of units from each side, and those of you who have played the game know that this is the composition of a mid/late game army. Only 12 units - super units of course - but the philosophy of that game, was completely different. In a game completely orientated on micro, where all units are exceptionally strong, it is always viable to buff or debuff them.
In Starcraft II units have very small health pools in respect to their health and in one blink of an eye multiple units can die. The fact that one unit can deal 25% more damage, for the exact 5 seconds of its expected lifetime, is something negligible.
Furthermore, in Warcraft III such spells, as bloodloust, the ones which you definitely wanted to have casted on all your army were autocasted spells, which means your micro was targeted elsewhere. Lets imagine for a second that this spell werent autocast: like Unholy Frenzy from the Undead Race. Would you spam it on all your units? Some will, some will only cast it on the most powerful units (heroes). But what if your army had 100 Ghouls and a few Necromancers would you bother clicking it 100 times?
Back to Starcraft II we have the newest incarnation of such a spell:
Frenzy
# Costs 25 energy.
# Targets a single biological unit which deals 25% more damage and is immune to snare, stuns, and mind control for 30 seconds.
On paper this looks decent. Click it a couple of times on some units they do more damage. But let's look at what it usually does. A typical scenario of Zerg armies is the Infestor-Hydra combo, especially against Terran Bio. A hydralisk does 12 damage per shot, which means that with Frenzy on it will do 3 Extra Damage.
Lets picture an Infestor with 75 Energy. The choice is: Cast a Fungal Growth or 3 Frenzy on the hydras. So that means the 3 hydras will do 3 more damage each with each attack.
* Fungal Growth: 36 damage over 8 seconds
* Hydralisk attack rate: 0.83
According to Liquipedia, a hydralisk will land 10 attacks in 8 seconds which means 30 extra damage done. 3 Hydralisks will sum up to 90 more damage. Now if your fungal growth can hit more than 3 units (which it usually does), the spell chosen to cast is a no brainer. Furthermore, with their low health, Hydralisks rarely last sufficiently long for this damage to build up.
![[image loading]](http://img576.imageshack.us/img576/4351/infestoredited.jpg)
tough choice huh?...
But what about mass Infestor, Frenzy-ing everyone??? Bloodlust worked pretty well in Warcraft 3? While this is true on paper, the APM cost of point clicking on every one of your hydras, not to mention the gas cost of your infestors make this really undesirable. You can gain more by a)making more hydras, b) spending the time macroing to c) make more hydras.
Corruption
Another underwhelming spell. Due to the fact that its the only spell for the Corruptor it simply means that it is always beneficial to cast it. I agree that in the case where the oponent is going mass Carriers, having corruptors demolishing them even faster than they normally do it is a beneficial bonus. In most cases however, Corruptors are only used when Collosi are out in the field. Killing the 2-3 Collosi a tad faster is good, but is it worth the APM cost?
The role of air superiority units has evolved in Starcraft 2. Due to their nature these units normally cannot attack buildings and the main ground army making them a really situational choice. Making too many Corruptors (to overkill those collosi) can prove risky if the enemy has enough army to overwhelm your ground forces, even whithout the aid of the collosus. The air superiority fighters of other races, both have an additional ability meant to support ground troops. The Pheonix, with its ability can lift units up, thus damaging and disabling them while the Viking can land and bolster the strength of the ground army.
The Corruptor weakens the enemy ground army instead. Let's look again at the effect of such a spell from the perspective of a hydralisk. 20% more damage from 1 hydralisk means an effective 2 extra damage. This is negated by 2 extra armor. Pretty much it is the counterpart of Guardian Shield. However Guardian shield is 1 button press, whereas this one must be single target cast.
Corruptors in action:
![[image loading]](http://img532.imageshack.us/img532/7405/corruptionk.jpg)
Now they take more damage: but who's gonna kill them???
Pheonixes!:
![[image loading]](http://lh3.ggpht.com/_TbUMVMMDLcQ/S_j-3Yj18uI/AAAAAAAAAT0/GK8xs-kcgf8/s1152/Fullscreen%20capture%205232010%20120909%20PM.jpg)
So is it worth it? I will let players decide. One thing is for sure, this ability is nothing as game changing as Graviton Beam or Viking Ground mode. Maybe its not meant to be.
So we had a look at two of the newest spells and tried to give a rough estimate about their strength and estimate whether they are useful or not. In a game such as Starcraft II where APM is consistently dedicated to macroing up and keeping ahead of the opponent, we can safely conclude that minor buff spells, even if nice to have, will not play a significant role. 1 less Inject Larva, or missing a couple of seconds in producing those reinforcements can prove disastrous in such a fast paced game. Energy is also a resource that needs to be managed carefully, and casting the spell with the greatest effect is surely a priority.
In conclusion, I hope to be proven wrong and that someone will end-up using these to a great extent, but as for now, the philosophy behind these spells seems pretty uncompatible with a game such as Starcraft II.
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Niiiice article.
I've been saying the exact same thing about corruption and now frenzy.
These minor buff/debuff spells just don't fit into the game where units are massed.On top of that they aren't interesting at all to watch.
I respect Blizzard for making such huge changes this late in the beta, but this just isn't it..
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I see nothing wrong with the spell. For god sakes it's one spell in a big game and serves a pretty specific purpose.
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One thing that's not mentioned is that frenzy does not require extra positioning required of extra units. While you might prefer the extra hydras:
1. They still need to be in range (assuming your frenzy boosts units that are in range), so frenzy can be situationally beneficial.
2. You buy the extra units once, frenzy can be used many times (though yes, extras last until they die)
3. The extra APM you use needs to (read; should) be countered to some extent by the other player who focus fires frenzied units.
That said, I've had no chance to play properly since patch 13, so these are just minor points.
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single target buff/debuff spells are pretty weak in a mass unit macro game like starcraft, where the focus is large army size/composition and good positioning. Bring back mass aoe spells..statis, maelstrom, plague. Fungal growth, psi storm are decent, but more game changing spells would be nice, so games can have more diversity: players opting for spellcasters instead of aoe damage units: tanks, collosus. Granted, the new smart cast system will make casting overly powerful aoe spells imbalanced, but im sure higher mana cost, longer research time for powerful spells will offer balance.
Aoe support spells will be a good replacement for frenzy (dark swarm, defensive matrix)
We have the new d-matrix, Point defense drone which is awesome, but some new aoe spells that i would like to see are:
mass slow: concusive missles already offer slow: but with mass slow (same aoe as psionic storm), and a relatively hefty mana cost (100), you can slow large amounts of retreating units, or slow an army pushing forward. a large amount of marauders offers the same effect, but this will be a spell
aoe frenzy: allows immunity for slow/stun/mind control etc; cast it on slowed units and save your army.
dispell: wc3 spell? is it overpowered? probably, but would be great on those forcefields: but won't see much use otherwise (maybe a single target spell)
just random thoughts
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corruption made me feel ehh.. when it was introduced, but frenzy made me MAD! Take that crap OUT 
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nothing wrong with corruption. it takes virtually less than a second to corrupt all of your opponents collossi. havent tried frenzy yet, might be useful on ultras.
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Nice Article, i completely agree with you when it comes to corruptions, but i think that using frenzy on ultralisks is definitely viable, as long as the problems with their aoe damage that are being discussed in another thread get fixed.
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SUGGESTION 1:
Instead of having a new ability (Frenzy) how about making it so that you can Neural Parasite your own units and this gives them similar effects? No stun, control, and a damage boost. Perhaps if it's used on a friendly unit there's no timer for how long it can be controlled/buffed, in order to make it more viable and encouraged people to snipe the Infestor.
SUGGESTION 2:
If you don't want to make the Neural Parasite have a double function, then Frenzy just needs a "twist", or another "layer". Buffing is fine, but it's way too straightforward to be tactically interesting. Perhaps it should increase their speed, but decrease their armor by 1? This would make it useful for making a unit run toward (or away from) a fight faster, but make them a little more vulnerable as well.
SUGGESTION 3:
For the Corrupter, its ability also just needs a "twist". I say give them the old Phoenix trade-off of making the unit inactive after being used, but boost the effect of the spell. Or what about making the ability somewhat of a "kamikaze" move that needs to be executed from a Range of 1? Perhaps the "corruption" could actually plant eggs on the unit which explode with AOE damage after a few seconds? Controlling your Corrupters would become a bigger focus and make it feel less like a "spell" that you "cast" on something.
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make frenzy auto cast. Problem solved
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Pushing a button and casting a spell should mean more to the game than "hey now these units do/take a little more damage"
Sure, this is nice to have, but for the game's sake as a whole, we need flashy abilities with game changing potential.
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i think the point of the frenzy spell is to use them on ultras and hopefully make them more viable for zerg now that roaches have ben nerfed into oblivion
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dissapointing patch...seems like they don´t really think about what they put in the patch-.-
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I think the issue is that Frenzy and the Corruption abilities are pretty dull in comparison with other stuff. Seriously can you think of more than one or 2 uses for each?
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Your argument is definitely compelling. Single target minor-buffs really have no place in SC. There is an obvious anti-autocast movement on this forum and in the absence of autocast, these spells reward players for phenomenonly fast APM.
I guess I just think there are better options out there. If they are that gung-ho about it, maybe just make it like Roar from W3. Buffs all units within range x... would reduce the APM burden and actually synergise with the swarm race...
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stop the panic!!!!
what the hell.... it's not like world of warcraft at all... i don't remember shaman's having fungal growth and neural parasite. frenzy will NEVER take the place of either of those gosu spells... it's merely something to 'use up' any left over energy.
frenzy is a minor spell, even using up your last 25 energy on it in the heat of battle will give you a tiny benefit and put the energy to better use than an infested terran.
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The instant I looked at Frenzy I was very upset. Not because of disappointment, but because Blizzard would even think a Zerg player would ever want to cast such a spell. I don't want to call Blizzard stupid, but they're really giving me no choice.
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The thing I liked so much about defilers in BW was the fact that they had to ability to gain back energy, but for a price: finding a unit to sacrifice in the heat of the moment. This gave the zerg race a unique and game breaking ability that the other races had nothing similar to. In sc2 there are no units with the ability to gain back energy. So I believe the tradition should be carried on from BW.
Zerg infestors should receive increased energy regeneration while burrowed at the cost of taking on a slight damage increase while underground. The only thing that should be required is researching burrow. Consume wasn't very "exciting" in broodwar, but it literally swung the game in favor of zergs in the TvZ matchup in an instance. Once defilers had consume, all hell would break lose on the battlefield. This would be an updated version of that spell. The way that this ability would change the pace of gameplay would be exciting in itself.
It would be more balanced than consume because the energy increase wouldn't be instantaneous, it would be much more gradual and over time. The extra damage intake (~10%) would force you to babysit your infestors while recharging to make sure they don''t get picked off because let's face it; there needs to be some sort of sacrifice for gaining back energy.
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Frenzy Synapses
All biological units within range (9) of the Infestor deal 25% more damage and are immune to snare, stuns, and mind control.
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it'd be cool to get consume or dark swarm back but it doesn't hurt to have these extra spells. i do mass cast corruption occasionally. mostly i'm just disappointed they couldn't come up with anything more creative for zerg. for example instead of scrapping the old corrupter mechanic they should've worked on tweaking it.
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@kidcrash:
The sacrifice is that your Infestors are stuck in the ground and can't be out NP/FGing the opponent. That's sacrifice enough.
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On May 23 2010 22:06 Fiel wrote:
@kidcrash:
The sacrifice is that your Infestors are stuck in the ground and can't be out NP/FGing the opponent. That's sacrifice enough.
Fair enough, if you really think that's enough. In all honesty, you'd have to look at the regeneration rate before you can determine whats balanced and what is sufficient sacrifice. I guess that would be reasonable, I'm just debating how scary fungal growth spam would be.
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Belgium9945 Posts
I think the use of Frenzy will be mostly limited to 2v2s. With the ultralisk being useless, there's no valid target, like you mentioned. However, Thors/Colossi seem perfect targets.
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Summary: support caster cast support spells.
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Frenzy looks exactly like a Spell from Warcraft III, BUT there it would be autocast. Since Blizzard decided there would not be autocast in Starcraft 2 (which I heartily agree with) with the exception of autorepair ... AND that icon-casting on the unit icons got removed it is not exactly easy to use ... en masse. So changing the spell seems in order and here is my suggestion:
- change the energy cost to 150
- single target unit gets an aura which will affect all of the friendly units in a X radius
- targeted unit increases in size by 25% to make it "microable" and "focusable"
Leaving the spell as it is - dirt cheap AND 30 seconds - is a bit powerful early on, because it allows the already "good against everything units" of Zerg to become noticeably better still.
Another thing I dont really like is the lack of creativity if you look at the spell of the corruptors ... almost exactly the same of Frenzy, except for the target.
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On May 23 2010 22:13 RaGe wrote:
I think the use of Frenzy will be mostly limited to 2v2s. With the ultralisk being useless, there's no valid target, like you mentioned. However, Thors/Colossi seem perfect targets.
Except that they're not biological, so it doesn't work.
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They could have made the Ultralisk just immune to magic in general. They are still awful against Thors and Marauders (with the reduced HP).
I'm not fond of both of the new zerg spells since they fall under "generic army micro", such as focus firing, and for a game such as SCII with a lot of nits fighting against eachother there should just be spells that are really noticeable when used. Using a spell for a minor damage boost might be effective, but I think it's a bit dull.
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How many fungal growths do you think a player will need? What will you use the rest of the energy on in a key battle?
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I would love to see Frenzy have a splash range about the size of EMPs. and maybe let Frenzy, Contaminate and Corruption be dispelled by EMP while on the subject lmao.
corruption and frenzy essentially do the same thing, however, neither does anything on it's own. They also require a lot more babysitting and Frenzy is hardly worth the APM it would take to use.
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On May 23 2010 22:22 Mr.E wrote:
How many fungal growths do you think a player will need? What will you use the rest of the energy on in a key battle?
I think you'd have to start getting a bit creative with neural parasite if you had that much extra energy. That being said, if you have more energy than you have targets to fungal growth, the battle is yours either way.
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Make Corrupt permanent or at least several minutes long and a lot more visible. (And maybe even contagious for the first minute of it's duration.) That way it becomes in a way like plague used to be against protoss in BW: a permanent weakener.
Not even a quad damage increase corrupt would justify the APM cost of it in a battle.
Frenzy could be worth it if it also boosts speed and health.
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On May 23 2010 22:22 Mr.E wrote:
How many fungal growths do you think a player will need? What will you use the rest of the energy on in a key battle?
In a game where units are removed because they are redundant (Lurkers), are we really gonna tolerate redundant spells just because they might be useful sometime?
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It should definetly be like guardian shield, like okrane and opinion said. You guys are so spot on. Corrupt same thing, if it was an "activatable aura" it would actually work. Some might say it's too wc3-like but I feel that it's neither wc3 or bw-ish but more sc2-ish, guardian shield type spells. Yeah.
Feedback, neural parasite & hsm can actually be as it is because they are such dangerous spells, I think it's ok if it's hard to target it since they are game changing. But to give zerg more and more single cast spells, the swarm should not be like that in my opinion..
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So what if frenzy instead was:
- Some kind of spray animation(reminiscent of what the queen has) that would actually shot
out in a..say 90 degree arc in front of the infestor
- Give it a range/radius of 1 or 1.5(larger and it might get overpowered, lings are tiny) and any
units standing inside that area gets frenzied
- Cost 100 energy since it would practically mean you could cast it on two ultras and it isnt any
more the apm sink it is now, 75 energy perhaps if it is an upgrade but the infestor already
has enough of those.
- Only lasts for 15 seconds
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Oh, maybe they could steal faerie fire (WCIII ability) and give that mechanic to corruption. For those not familiar, faerie fire gives you vision of the unit you cast it on for as long as it's alive, and then there could be fun decisions to make where the enemy either has to show where his army is, or leave the corrupted unit exposed.
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On May 23 2010 22:05 Doc Daneeka wrote:
it'd be cool to get consume or dark swarm back but it doesn't hurt to have these extra spells. i do mass cast corruption occasionally. mostly i'm just disappointed they couldn't come up with anything more creative for zerg. for example instead of scrapping the old corrupter mechanic they should've worked on tweaking it.
I like dark swarm in starcraft 1 but i think it would be broken in starcraft 2. What terran can do with it ? only hellion would be able to do dommage under it
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On May 23 2010 23:56 StoLiVe wrote:Show nested quote +On May 23 2010 22:05 Doc Daneeka wrote:
it'd be cool to get consume or dark swarm back but it doesn't hurt to have these extra spells. i do mass cast corruption occasionally. mostly i'm just disappointed they couldn't come up with anything more creative for zerg. for example instead of scrapping the old corrupter mechanic they should've worked on tweaking it. I like dark swarm in starcraft 1 but i think it would be broken in starcraft 2. What terran can do with it ? only hellion would be able to do dommage under it
Its clear that Blizzard doesnt want a major spell as the first spell of the Infestor. Infested Terran, Frenzy, both pretty cheap and non game-changing abilities
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The most frightening thing to me is how incredibly unimaginative blizzard is being with these spells. There is so much inspiration to pull from Dota, LoL, HoN all function with buffs very similar to starcraft (obviously as they all spawned from wc3). Even more frightening is that these changes are there to make zerg more interesting... I don't see what is interesting about buffing a unit to do more damage but I'm not a game designer and blizzard obviously is and MUST be on the right track(lol?).
If I were to change frenzy I would just make it so that the target effected cannot be cc'd in anyway and cannot be reduced below 1 health for 10 seconds. That would allow them to actually get up to the front lines and do damage and would be skill dependent because it would always be more beneficial to use it on a unit that is JUST about to die.
I mean shit dota has about 100 characters with 4 skills each that alone is enough inspiration to add something interesting.
You might want to argue with "They don't want to add anything too complex this close to launch as it could cause serious imbalances and bugs" and I would simply answer to that is if they don't make serious changes this game is going to blow, they have had enough time to add this shit and I find it very alarming that it took till the beta for them to realize zerg was a complete mess and so boring.
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Really nice article and i have to agree with you, those buff/debuff spells had a place in Warcraft 3 because every single unit was worth so much and made such a huge difference (and took a long time to kill) as well as Warcraft beeing more of a micro game in general.
I actually feel that the replacements are a lot less usefull than the spells they replaced. Corruption could really be abused to disable all those warpgates after all the colossi were dead, and although beeing as i admit extremely situational in those situations it could still be a winning move.
Same for infested terrans, yes they werent used often, but if you were playing a infestor ling build (and therefore had hardly any anti air) you could use them to snipe dropping medvacs (after immobilizing them with fungal growth) to great effect. Whereas i cant find any use for frenzy whatsoever ... besides using it on ultras yes, but i have yet to come to a situation were teching to ultras is really worth it especially since i pretty much have to research an additional two technologies to make them useable (which not only costs another good bunch of reasources but also more importantly a decent amount of time). Its not even worth it on Broodlords since those deal about half of their damage through the broodlings, therefore frenzy would only increase their damage by about 1/8.
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On May 24 2010 00:34 Icemind wrote:
Really nice article and i have to agree with you, those buff/debuff spells had a place in Warcraft 3 because every single unit was worth so much and made such a huge difference (and took a long time to kill) as well as Warcraft beeing more of a micro game in general.
You are forgetting defensive matrix in bw. Lots of people still use it in high level games. I don't see anything wrong with adding another micro dimension to the game especially when unit counts are low on both sides after a big battle.
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On May 24 2010 00:42 Glacierz wrote:Show nested quote +On May 24 2010 00:34 Icemind wrote:
Really nice article and i have to agree with you, those buff/debuff spells had a place in Warcraft 3 because every single unit was worth so much and made such a huge difference (and took a long time to kill) as well as Warcraft beeing more of a micro game in general. You are forgetting defensive matrix in bw. Lots of people still use it in high level games. I don't see anything wrong with adding another micro dimension to the game especially when unit counts are low on both sides after a big battle.
You are definately missing the difference between useful single target spells, and minor buffs.
Defensive Matrix has a lot of possible uses, while these 2 little spells have just one bland simple straighforward non-gamebreaking use
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On May 24 2010 00:42 Glacierz wrote:Show nested quote +On May 24 2010 00:34 Icemind wrote:
Really nice article and i have to agree with you, those buff/debuff spells had a place in Warcraft 3 because every single unit was worth so much and made such a huge difference (and took a long time to kill) as well as Warcraft beeing more of a micro game in general. You are forgetting defensive matrix in bw. Lots of people still use it in high level games. I don't see anything wrong with adding another micro dimension to the game especially when unit counts are low on both sides after a big battle.
I dont 
Defense matrix was a single target spell yes, but one with a huge effect, just like feedback and neural parasite (which is a debuff too but with the difference that this one really makes a huge difference), or sticking with bw just like mind control. Matrix also had a decent cost of 75 energy on the terran main caster unit but that was ok since it was in accordance to the effect.
In contrast frenzy has low cost yes but also only a neglible effect. The problem with this is that you really can only scale down cost and effect up to a certain point where the invested micro starts beeing a huge cost as well. In my opinion frenzy is significantly past that point.
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I am fine with single target spells. Corruption and frenzy just happen to be terrible and poorly thought out.
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Make frenzy AOE! I don't really like the frenzy spell altogether but a AOE frenzy would be way better than a single target frenzy. It also adds to positioning of units a lot.
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On May 23 2010 22:04 Opinion wrote:
Frenzy Synapses
All biological units within range (9) of the Infestor deal 25% more damage and are immune to snare, stuns, and mind control.
Lol range 9 you're kidding me. that's your entire army you're essentially canceling out concussive shells and fungal growth in zvz etc etc. that's absolutely ridiculous
On May 24 2010 01:04 Icemind wrote:Show nested quote +On May 24 2010 00:42 Glacierz wrote:On May 24 2010 00:34 Icemind wrote:
Really nice article and i have to agree with you, those buff/debuff spells had a place in Warcraft 3 because every single unit was worth so much and made such a huge difference (and took a long time to kill) as well as Warcraft beeing more of a micro game in general. You are forgetting defensive matrix in bw. Lots of people still use it in high level games. I don't see anything wrong with adding another micro dimension to the game especially when unit counts are low on both sides after a big battle. I dont Defense matrix was a single target spell yes, but one with a huge effect, just like feedback and neural parasite (which is a debuff too but with the difference that this one really makes a huge difference), or sticking with bw just like mind control. Matrix also had a decent cost of 75 energy on the terran main caster unit but that was ok since it was in accordance to the effect. In contrast frenzy has low cost yes but also only a neglible effect. The problem with this is that you really can only scale down cost and effect up to a certain point where the invested micro starts beeing a huge cost as well. In my opinion frenzy is significantly past that point.
Edit: This is in agreement with the post above (lol). Defense matrix is exactly what it states itself to be: its a defensive ability. its purpose is to extend the life of a specific unit. what makes it powerful is the different things other units can do while its alive for that much longer. keeping one tank alive so it can splatter hydras. matrixing 1 marine so it can be targeted by sunkens while other marines deal damage. dmatrixing 1 sci vess and then irradiating it to eraser drones. there's so many different ways that spell can be used that even though its on a single unit the effect is multidimensional.
frenzy just increases damage and eliminate snare. on one unit. that's basically giving a damage boost for a temporary amount of time, so unless this unit is a suicide bomber (a la infested terran of sc1) or setting a trap (frenzying 4 lurkers with lurker hold on and then release [which isn't applicable since no lurkers QQ] ) then there is no real application to that ability. at most all this will lead to is everything target firing ultralisks first and taking fire from other units, essentially making ultras an intimidation meat shield whose only damage comes indirectly from enemy units not responding to your units initial attack. you would never frenzy a zergling. why would you? there's no point. just because it deals more damage it dies equally fast. it's a 1 dimensional spell. spell = more dmg.
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Hmmm didnt you just say what i did? That matrix is a spell with huge effect and versatility while frenzy is not?
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I think as a general rule, any spell that costs only 25 energy which is available on a large number of units is likely to be suspect in a mass-unit game.
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Frenzy is an attempt from blizzard to buff the ultralisk (anti-snare, anti-stun etc) and is not meant to be used on zerglings. And corruption is like a bonus for those who have sufficent APM to use it. And making those spell autocasted or AOE isnt the starcraft way.
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On May 24 2010 01:30 Icemind wrote:Hmmm didnt you just say what i did? That matrix is a spell with huge effect and versatility while frenzy is not?
Oh I guess I did.
:o
<3
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Frenzy and corruption are boring, abstract abilities compared to even the useless abilities in SC1. I oppose their very concept regardless of whether or not they find use in the pro scene.
To illustrate a visceral, awesome ability: 300m strike cannon. *klikliklikli-KERCHUNK* Boom bada boom!
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The spell does work well on Ultralisks from what I've found but the gas cost is so high it will never make Ultras a viable option in any skilled one on one play. I've used Infester/Ultra in 2v2 and it works quite well in the six games I've done it in. Unfortunately this is really the worst way to 'buff' the Ultra, the Ultra needed an HP buff and an armor-type change, what was done was not necessary (in fact it was a nerf). Infester in and of itself needed a new spell, they should never be designed to have ' a support spell for one unit you get one in 25 games '.
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i forgot how saturated and different sc2 used to look. I wish there was an option to make it look like that if you wanted to.....
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On May 24 2010 06:10 pzea469 wrote:i forgot how saturated and different sc2 used to look. I wish there was an option to make it look like that if you wanted to.....
Didnt everyone use to complain about how saturated it looked? lol
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after 3 pages of this forum ive heard nothing but anti-SC comments.
seems like people want "easier-than-autocast" aura's similar to wc3
i hope blizzard devs aint reading this post, coz we'll most likely end up
with some shit in SC that has no place in the game what so ever
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frenzy and corruption are pretty awful spells :\
like they took 2 decent at best concepts for spells and made them the worst possible implementation of them
I'd rather have corruption just be "acid spore cloud" and be exactly like acid spores (-armor) and have it be AoE (or if you're going to keep it single-unit then ffs make it cheaper energy 100 is so fucking stupid when you compare it to something like graviton-beam for only 50)
I hate frenzy so much. I'd almost rather have infested terrans back. They should just give infestors "basically" defensive matrix and make it zergy (like the infestor sneezes a bunch of goo on the unit and then it has way more armor or something).
Frenzy is just so stupid. It's so clearly made with the sole purpose of making players build infestors to cast it on ultralisks. unbelievably 1-dimensional :\ honestly if they are going to go with a 3rd spell for infestor that is supposed to make them sync well with ultra's, I'd rather have something that at least might be useful for casting with things outside of ultras T_T. How about a spell where the infestor throws up a big ball of goo on the enemy (AoE) that semi-blinds them so their sight and range is decreased by half, giving all melee units a lot more free room to run towards enemy before they get killed. Frenzy seems like such a fucking makeshift spell where they didnt want to really do a lot of coding and just get it out in a hurry, so they just did a super easy "make some stupid graphic that's barely noticeable and then just boost the damage for a bit" that even I could of coded lol. Damnit we're not going to see any new cool stuff made in beta at all T_T. I mean we had this situation where something new and cool was so clearly and desperately needed and instead they just move some dead spells over to new units and create the most un-interesting and half-assed spells in the game (moving 2 shitty spells to overseer (although honestly I really love contaminate being moved to overseer, infested terran on it is such a lame half-ass move) and then making another lame-ass ezpz spell in frenzy like they did with corruption).
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On May 24 2010 06:13 Woyn wrote:Show nested quote +On May 24 2010 06:10 pzea469 wrote:i forgot how saturated and different sc2 used to look. I wish there was an option to make it look like that if you wanted to..... Didnt everyone use to complain about how saturated it looked? lol
lol yeah, i was one of them. But i kinda want the option to have it like that. I guess i could just turn up my saturation really high.
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They could try doing it where units within a certain range of a frenzied unit also go into a frenzy (all balanced of course so it isn't OPed)
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I think frenzy would be cool if they took away the movement crap and made it a small aoe type spell. Sort of like stim. A second spell worth casting to compete with fungal would be cool. Neural is good but situational.
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Starcraft 2 is all about large armies with a small number of critical units, so I agree that single-target spells are out of place in Starcraft 2. I think blizzard is too concerned with small and individual unit control when the focus should be on diversifying and deepening LARGE ARMY control.
This entails making units less robust, introducing more high-risk high-damage types of units that depend on micro that are used IN COMBINATION with a larger army, and more diversity in how units move and attack. Also, the game is in dire need of improving the significance of positioning.
READ IT BLIZZARD PLEASE: MICRO IN STARCRAFT 2 SHOULD REVOLVE AROUND LARGE ARMY CONTROL AND POSITIONING.
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I agree with the frenzy AOE thing. So make it cost 150 energy instead of 75. And make the target size about 3-4 hydralisks. So if you had 5 infestors with a lot of energy, you could frenzy your entire front line in about 5 clicks, as opposed to.... doing it 15 times...
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Good writeup. Shame that the simple concept you covered is completely lost on the bliz balance team-another sign that they have no idea what they are doing.
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Adding abilities that have such a simple function is the problem -- whether they target one unit, an area, or whatever, the key is whether or not it makes the game interesting. These abilities are useful but they don't make it interesting
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I don't really understand, people are complaining that it's too much of an APM hit to multicast single target spells, and yet theres another incredibly long post about how theres not enough tricks in sc2 to differentiate between pro's and your average diamond player.
Surely abilities like frenzy and corruption are perfect for this, there not game breaking enough so your going to automatically lose because you don't have the spare APM for them, but it's also something which could give a better player an edge.
If you have a big army fight and you manage to corrupt all their large units at the same time as getting a fungal growth down and focus firing you could win a fight you would have otherwise lost, isn't that exactly what everyone wants? To be able to see people win otherwise uneven battles through pure skill. Yes it's difficult, and for average diamond'ers you'd probably be better off macro'ing back at your base, but we need things to differentiate between the average players and the ones who have the APM to spare.
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Frenzy should not be a minor, single-target buff. Frenzy should not be a minor, multi-target buff. Starcraft is not a game of minor buffs.
A Frenzy ability should do something like: these units over here do DOUBLE DAMAGE or are REALLY HARD TO KILL and possibly MOVE FUCKING FAST + CANNOT BE SLOWED DOWN but also DIE IN TEN SECONDS. Now you have a terrifying spell that won't be used lightly but can compete for energy with plaguesnare (and synergizes with it, since the enemy units can't run away anymore). For a better targeting mechanism, have the infestor instead lay down a temporary cloud of crazy-gas such that any Zerg units who enter the cloud go into a frenzy. Done.
As for corrupt... throw that shit away. If you want to use corrupters against ground, morph them into guardians. If it's necessary for Feedback to work against corrupters (to keep them from murdering Colossus, since Protoss vs. air units kill corrupters pretty slowly) then just make Feedback stun biological units.
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Is it really all that hard to have a group of corruptors hotkeyed and Shift-Cast Corruption at the group of Battlecruisers that just attacked your expansion in a 2-2? Combined with Mutas, it seemed to me that BCs fell incredibly fast when corrupted compared to not.
It's no different than shift-casting Yamato or shift casting force field or shift casting storm.
You're already attack moving the corruptors at the enemy units they can hit... why not queue up mass corruption and benefit from all that extra damage for that whole fight?
Even if the spell is more applicable to 2v2 on Twighlight Fortress or FFAs or whatnot, it seemed to me that the spell was useful and effective.
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It's just Blizzard trying to get ultras to be better. I think a significant difference is the auto-cast in WC3. I haven't used the frenzy spell since I find fungal to be much better, but yeah... unless its autocast I don't think it'll be that great.
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EPT
