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Hello. Im Todie beta tester from Sweden and active theorycrafter on the matter of this game since '07 or something. i mostly post at SCLegacy, but i got to thinking of something i feel is really important right now, and wanted to spread the word further....
Lately voices have been raised about the direction of BNet 2.0 this was a good effort that may have had an impact we are yet to see materialize. but i think its clear we've gone as far as we can with that for the moment.
lets make one thing clear: outlining the general states of units in the game is a big part of the beta test; not talking about specific stats, but more in general terms, what they can do and what they cant do: long or short range, high or low tech requirement, splash or flat damage - and probably most importantly at this point - what abilities they posses and how those work! these are things that will be hard to change after release!
TLDR: lets make it a priority to discuss what would make infestors frenzy and corruptors corruption good abilities, or what kind of abilities could replace them. - I have two suggestions.
.. so its rather obvious that some unit abilities are in really rough shape compared to others. i think it should be a clear priority for the community to keep on brainstorming about how to best solve these issues: the developers are clearly not doing too well on this end by themselves, while still just as clearly being aware of the general problems - most notably with zerg needing some spicier gameplay.
they have poked around with The infestor and corruptor; Infested terran and Contaminate (previously known as corruption) - these were OK abilities but (arguably) not good enough fits on these units, they were moved to the overseer.. that was arguably a good move.
but what replaced them?
frenzy and a new corruption. both one target abilities with very flat impacts. they are barely used, and when they are, its not to great effect. and lets be clear: these abilities couldnt become more dynamic & feel more interesting to use by simply revamping their stats. its what the abilities do and / or how they are targeted that make them icky. you know im right.
on a lesser level of concern is Thors strike cannons; its not good for much otehr than picking off key buildings or rarely target utlras - even more rarely, target colossi. is this enough?? are there any good alternatives (something far fetched 'd be to replace stun with AoE slow. but that would mess with the marauder. maybe AoE slowed atk spd?)
So lets try to focus our nerdy energies on something that might actually matter: to have a nuanced discussion on alternatives to revamp or replace these abilities - and possibly others that are deemed unfit. (i cant think of much more past far-fetched funky mothershit suggestions, which feels so out of reach by now)
i made a BNet thread on this today, including my previous suggestion to revamp frenzy and a similarly branded suggestion to revamp Corruption - to make it spread as units were killed.
http://forums.battle.net/thread.html?topicId=25172124456&sid=5010
My Personal perceptions of these specific abilities, and suggestions on how to "fix" them:
Corruption. its a one-target ability that increases damage taken by 20% .. i would be a fool to call that useless. but lets look closer at what supposedly makes this ability interesting to use; when do you use it? to enable you to kill an important unit more quickly. why cast it on unit A over unit B ? Unit A has more Hit points. (arguably, massive units can be more favoured too due to corrupters dmg bonus, but massive have more HP anyway!) The only alternative use is to "spam it to spend energy" ; maybe on ground targets.. You could say that youll want to target the units that are most important to kill, first but the game is fast and corrupters slow: it rarely quite works like that; your targeting doesnt feel like a choice.
This ability costs not only energy but valuable time for the player and the unit to cast; if i bother to get into a position to cast some corruption on a pack of colossi before i attack them, i might slightly misjudge and end up having several corruptors taken down by stalkers before they can get off enough shots to make that casting count in terms of damage dealt, let alone in terms of attention spent on micromanagement! .. ofcourse you can fail getting a worthwhile EMP or PSI storm off too, but those can also pay off immensely if they are used just right. - not saying corruption should be able to have that great effect, but it clearly needs more potential impact value!
... that said, im not trying to conceal the fact that there surely are situations when this ability is straightforwardly useful, but lets get something clear: situational usefulness doesn't make Corruption a worthy interesting ability - its still a bland and flat ability; at best it makes one unit 20% easier to kill - the choice of unit is clearly a no-brainer and the energy cant be otherwise used so for the most part its only a matter of time-management for the player " is this action worth it?" .... sc2 is a really tight fast game. when you spend time on micromanagement, you want to know that it can pay off in a grand way. Use of this ability cant pay off in a grand way, at least not due to crisp execution. soy ourre probably better off spending that time and attention on more careful macro or general unit-positioning.
...In my opinion though, Corruption isnt conceptually useless. it just needs some spice. i havnt spent much time actually pondering this, but just as an example, what if the corruption effect could spread between enemy units as you killed them? this would empathize micromanagement around those units for both sides; if killed while under the effect, one or a few nearby units could become corrupted in turn. This would also make it viable to cast it on smaller units, even zerglings or marines, knowing that when killed, it would make other units more vulnerable!
Frenzy its the same basic deal here really. only its even more situationally useful; Infestor energy is actually valuable. this makes the ability not good for much else than casting on ultralisks, which obviously is very restricted; the zerg clearly needs more flexibility in the potential use of their core spell-caster.
and it might encourage some irrational unit movement; bunching up units in one ctrl group before battle just to enable casting frenzy on them all. (this reminds me of the hopelessness of using healing spray effectively in battle, in warcraft 3)
what has generally been spontaneously proposed is to just make Frenzy target as an area of effect spell. this would probably make it better and feel like a more rational use of time and infestor energy in general, but i think the spell would still feel quite bland.
also i think it would be near impossible to target it in rational ways on swarming melee units when battle and / or tactical movement had already started: we wouldnt want such an AoE buffing ability to promote generic clustering of allied units for the mere purpose of getting as many of them frenzied in one casting as possible! (think of the hoplesness of using healingspray in wc3; it brings this unwelcome gimmick "if i just cluster my units here i can use the ability 100% effectively" which has practically nothing to do with tactical spacing towards your opponent)
Like Corruption, Frenzy isnt bad as a general concept for an ability. I think we should all consider the idea behind it; though feeling like its plastered on to fix something, it does potentially fix something significant; NP & Thor canons are potentially quite nice abilities that has some sort of fit in the state of the game, but as it was, the very threat of them ever coming into play made ultralisks a very bold choice in these matchups.
... so how about we just change some of the abilities inner workings:
instead of making the ability standard friendly-buffing AoE, what if we made it spread when the frenzied unit ("the frenzee") participated in killing an enemy unit?
the effect shouldnt spread too aggressively, maybe not AoE but to at most2-3 nearby allied units per enemy killed?
what about AoE attacks that kill more than one unit in a hit? should this multiply the spread? maybe not. maybe there could be a cooldown of one second or something on the spread-effect. i dont know.
Finally, its debatable to what extent the timer of the spell should be able to get renewed by further unit-by unit spread; this would most likely require a significant cut of duration, which in turn would make frenzy necessary to cast "in battle"
... to paint a picture of one of many possible directions this suggestion can go:
When a unit is frenzied, it will spread the frenzy to 2 nearby units any time it participates in killing a unit (if attacked unit dies within 1 second?)
the spread frenzy inherits the remaining duration on the initial frenzee.
This rewards focus-fire micromanagement in that such attention maximizes the utility you can get out each frenzy cast. However, even without that attention the effect will still spread, especially if you compensate with more castings of frenzy.
with duration begin inherited, it still retains that predictable factor of when it wears off, for you and your enemy. this keeps things rational and can have tactical implications.
You can cast it on one or two units in a pack of mutas just as they fly in to harass a worker line. Depending on how many castings you use, and if you target fire initially, it will take more or less kills (=time) for the effect to spread to all of the mutalisks in the pack.
if you rank up enough kills fast enough, you will have the effect spread through the pack giving +25% damage which can be very deadly, and even make the enemy hesitate about engaging the pack before the effect wears off (the duration isnt affected, so he/she can estimate when it wears off by estimating when you cast it)
Maybe you can even extend the power of such aggression by recasting the frenzy with perfect timing; retaining a position when you use the last of the damage boost on the pack to rank up even more kills, - which sets up for spreading the recast frenzy more easily (maybe more recently cast frenzy can allow "rewrite"; spreading to already frenzied units to increase the remaining duration on them)
... remember, these suggestions aim to make the abilities interesting, not to make them "more effective" ; the sheer potnetial effectivness is tweaked by stats; maybe 25% damge boost is too high with such spread; mabe the durations are too high.. but thats easiyl adjustable. the core mechanics of the abilities are not easily adjustable after release
If there is interest and it would help in illustrating my suggestions, i think i'd be able to make a custom map featuring the changed abilities, that people could try using "test map" in their own editors.
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I think the idea of the frenzy spell is to make the ultra usefull. Right the idea of increased dmg of the ultra is pretty worthless, as dmg is not its problem. It needs to be able to tank, and if the spell increased life instead of dmg, frenzy would be usefull and the ultra would be balanced. Your idea seems interessting though, but it will be difficult to balance, and would not buff the ultra, as frenzy then would be mostly used on ranged units. Your change would then require an individual ultra buff + the frenzy change. And these changes requires even more balance work by blizzard.
However yes, this idea of frenzy definately seems interessting.
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A pretty obvious change in my opinion would be to change frenzy's 20% to attack speed instead of damage. I'm getting a little irked at how little armor factors into anything these days. At least is the 20% applied to attack speed, it would keep the same armor damage reduction ratio.
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I put a lot of thought into this as I was searching for an analog of dark swarm against tanks that was as different as possible.
![[image loading]](http://i202.photobucket.com/albums/aa168/guidedkamikaze/Shallowgrave.jpg)
Make frenzy into this. It could have a range 9 and the same 25 mana cost. It would really answer the tank line effectively as casting it on an ultra would make him one hell of a tank for 5 secs.It would guarantee that unit would do some damage if used at the right time.
Also, the skill cap with the ability would be very high as it would be most effectively used when the target was as close to death as possible. It could also be used to save clutch units like other infestors running away, queens, or anything that really needs to not die. It also has synergy with the queens heal as any unit can be saved after escaping. I myself would love to see heal used more often and more effectively.
Who honestly doesn't want to see a hero ultralisk, your last unit alive be able to take out those last 4 marauders saving your base and allowing him to become a mighty meta-morph... I know I do.
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Your vision of corruption spreading around upon unit death is actually a good one and i like it. Frenzy however is just rebundant and if they wanted zerg to live trough constant cannon shelling they should have given frenzy a different name and it should have either of these effects or all.
- puts target unit in a state of mindless rage where it has increased attackspeed, ignores crowd control and cant die for x amount of seconds, you can also target defensive structures. Now not only is it useful on ultralisk but its usefull across the board as a defensive spell to protect your.
1. queen and mindcontrolling infestors.
2, spore / spine crawler
3. lings, roaches, hydralisk etc.etc.etc.
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On June 09 2010 23:11 Makh wrote:
A pretty obvious change in my opinion would be to change frenzy's 20% to attack speed instead of damage. I'm getting a little irked at how little armor factors into anything these days. At least is the 20% applied to attack speed, it would keep the same armor damage reduction ratio.
this is reasonable. but doesnt adress the problem by itself, also a 20% damge boost acutaly decreases the effect of armor, which can make the decition of when & how to use frenzy more dynamic, so im not sure i agree.
about the ultralisk, after seeing d9d 131 with TLO vs Jinro, and the recent tank nerf, im not sure the ultralisk needs a nerf. but lets not dereail this.
Any otehr suggestions on how to acutaly fix frenzy & corruption? would you guys prefer straight up AoE targeting to the current system or to what i suggested?
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On June 09 2010 23:28 Todie wrote:Show nested quote +On June 09 2010 23:11 Makh wrote:
A pretty obvious change in my opinion would be to change frenzy's 20% to attack speed instead of damage. I'm getting a little irked at how little armor factors into anything these days. At least is the 20% applied to attack speed, it would keep the same armor damage reduction ratio. this is reasonable. but doesnt adress the problem by itself, also a 20% damge boost acutaly decreases the effect of armor, which can make the decition of when & how to use frenzy more dynamic, so im not sure i agree. about the ultralisk, after seeing d9d 131 with TLO vs Jinro, and the recent tank nerf, im not sure the ultralisk needs a nerf. but lets not dereail this. Any otehr suggestions on how to acutaly fix frenzy & corruption? would you guys prefer straight up AoE targeting to the current system or to what i suggested?
Just because one extremely good player did really well with ultras is not = balanced. ZvT is still just too difficult for most players.
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Would the frenzy on broodlords increase the broodling attacks aswell? or just the initial 10 or however much damage they do when they throw broodlings
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HowlingMirage:
Unfortunately no. . .
Frenzy has very poor synergy with Broodlords because the newly created Broodlings are unaffected
The skill might be viable if it transfered.
Say if you frenzied an Overlord full of units. . . those units inside would also be Frenzied.
The window would be small of course, but investors would be a must have unit if you were going to research Overlord Sacs
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On June 09 2010 23:26 Madkipz wrote:
Your vision of corruption spreading around upon unit death is actually a good one and i like it. Frenzy however is just rebundant and if they wanted zerg to live trough constant cannon shelling they should have given frenzy a different name and it should have either of these effects or all.
- puts target unit in a state of mindless rage where it has increased attackspeed, ignores crowd control and cant die for x amount of seconds, you can also target defensive structures. Now not only is it useful on ultralisk but its usefull across the board as a defensive spell to protect your.
1. queen and mindcontrolling infestors.
2, spore / spine crawler
3. lings, roaches, hydralisk etc.etc.etc.
i like that. especialy combined with transfusion.
define "crowd control" ?
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The thing about corruption is it just feels clunky to use. The corruptor seems to waste a lot of attack time casting it and it's not really a clear visual spell in a battle. I think corruption should take less cast time and the effect should be a little more pronounced.
As for changing the effect, maybe it could work as an AoE centered on the target unit. Target unit and all units around target take +20% damage (non-stacking). So when you cast corruption on a unit the player would be encouraged to separate the infected unit away from the pack. You'd probably have to reduce the % bonus as well to balance it out. As an AoE massive units (which corruptors already counter) would be less affected by the ability's AoE as the unit itself takes up most of the AoE's range.
Another possibility or combined possibility is that corruption affect could prevent things like healing, health regeneration, repairing, and shield recharge. So you might corrupt a colossi and harass it constantly since its shields won't recharge. This way you'll eventually be able to bring it down while minimizing your losses.
The double effect of this is now it's an odd strategic decision. Do you target the high priority targets with it? It will cause that unit to die faster, but then your corruption effect is over once they do. The other option is to cast it, then focus down other units under the effect of corruption.
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Todie:
CC would just be any Stun, Snare, Knockback, or Mind Control ability.
Abilities like the Pheonix's Grav beam, Fungal Growth, 250mm Cannon, Concussion Shell, Neural Parasite, etc.
Making it immune to all of these would be imbalanced; as well as, the "cannot die for x seconds" since you could just keep recasting it on the same target to make it Immortal
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Keeping with the death theme of Corruption you have suggested I think I would prefer to see something along the lines of this:
When corruption effects a unit nothing happens, however if that unit dies while under the effects of corruption it will explode, causing a percentage of its maximum health in damage to surrounding units and spreading corruption to those units. Newly effected units are only effected for 10% of the time corruption normally lasts.
This rendition of the ability adds a new way for zerg to deal aoe damage, which is currently quite limited for them but it can be avoided by the opponent if they are quick enough to micro the effected unit out of the ball of units. To balance it it could also effect friendly units (so you could potentially kill your own units) but friendly units would not be able to be targeted by the spell nor gain the corruption debuff via transfer when a nearby unit dies.
As far as Frenzy goes, I would like to see it removed from the game as it just isn't starcrafty at all. It belongs in the Warcraft universe instead. However, if it must stay, then perhaps a channeled aura would be cool, it would drain energy like cloak does but effect friendly units (not teammates units) around the infestor.
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i think corruptors should be given a "true corruption" spell because they r called "corruptors" after all. it costs 200 mana and when its used u get a random one of the following abilities:
Bribery - u pay minerals and one of the opponents units (he's not sure which one) becomes ur unit to use.
Electoral fraud - other player, no matter how much he wants to build a unit or building, can only build the stuff u want him to build for 30 seconds
Cronyism - u favor the workers that mined the minerals that were used to build ur corrupter. the workers that mined the minerals that were used to build ur corrupter get the best jobs -- like mining from gold minerals, building the greater spire / fusion core, etc. they also don't have to scout or fight.
Embezzlement - u get 50% of what ur opponent mines for 30 seconds without him knowing
Kickbacks - ur opponent's buildings and units cost 50% more for 30 seconds
Illegal campaign contributions - for every 50 energy, one of ur opponents workers stops working. he doesn't know which and it doesn't show up on his idle workers bar. best used against terran bc it might be an scv building an important building
Match fixing - costs 10,000 minerals, if ur playing a korean he immediately loses the game
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ok hm the infestor lets seee. how about instead of frenzy it gets an ability called darkest swarm an ability thats EVEN STRONGER than dark swarm
like units under it take 0 damage at all and u literally CANNOT SEE whats under the swarm, so zerg could have like nothing under it or 50 ultralisks under it its so dark
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Corruption could be an interesting autocast. Not sure if that fixes it, but that would give it flexibility.
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I like the way you're thinking.
Frenzy could also work as a 'cloud' following the unit, much like an aura, which would make it viable on bunches of small units as well as on big, important, targets like the ultra. The cloud gets bigger/lasts longer when a unit it buffs kill a target.
Corruption could be permanent, or last something ridiculously long like 240 secs, and wouldn't be imbalanced. This would add some interesting dynamics to the game, with the corruptors trying to find important unguarded targets to corrupt them as a form of harassment.
While we're at it, they should bring back spawn broodlings for the Queen instead of transfusion. But instead of killing a target like in BW, she would simply spawn her eggs on the ground (creep?), and after a few seconds, a few broodlings would spawn. This could create some tension with spawn larva. This ability could also be required to be cast on a hatchery, to make it a form of harassment control, but since queens can barely move off creep anyway...
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I always thought frenzy would work better on the Overseer, Infested Terran should go back to the Infestor (it was a fun mechanic and sometimes useful to throw units up onto a cliff) (or remove it for something original)
I think the overseer should only get the indirect abilities like that, and it usually hovers over your army.
Give contaminate back to Corruptors and have all the unit buffs/debuffs on the overseer. Since (lorewise) it's more of a forward commander kind of unit. (of course spore cloud would be a better replacement but probably overpowered)
In a perfect world frenzy wouldn't exist in it's current form however...
Corruption spreading on death is a great idea
Frenzy having an area of effect that is a bit smaller than an ultralisk is also good.
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oh man, I love this idea, to have a corrupted unit spread corruption in a one area range when it dies. then you could cast it on big units OR small units and both are somewhat effective!
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Making Corruption last a very long time would definitely make the ability more interesting.
Frenzy... (First of all the name needs to be changed) ....its intended as an ultralisk ability... giving it an 'aura' like effect wouldn't change that much because you would still want to put it on a tough unit.
Perhaps if it also gave the unit +100 hp it would be worth casting on smaller units... (135 hp Zergling, 130 hp Baneling, 180 hp Hydralisk might be worth 25 energy)
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I believe the direction the balance team should take is to make the Overseer the SC1Queen of SC2.
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@krikktone, yeah right gl defending against 130hp pack of banelings
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I think once Terran players start remembering to get strike cannons on their thors (that they'll need to make vs muta) to lock down ultra's, Zerg will really start appreciating frenzy  .
Aka, I don't think the spell needs fixing, I think the game needs time to evolve towards it's usage. People figure out Ultra play vs mech -> Terran figures out getting cannons on thors to extend their usage -> Zerg needs frenzy to win.
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What about making Frenzy a AEO - that only affects unit while they are under it? IE: A dark swarm, but rather then decreasing hit percentage, it *buffs* the units beneath it. It'll need to cost a lot more energy, but then it will create a location-control spell.
Although, combined with a Fungal Growth or two, that could be really, really powerful.
As for corruption, dump the damn thing, and give us back the corrupted unit idea.
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On June 10 2010 02:43 Daedie wrote:I think once Terran players start remembering to get strike cannons on their thors (that they'll need to make vs muta) to lock down ultra's, Zerg will really start appreciating frenzy . Aka, I don't think the spell needs fixing, I think the game needs time to evolve towards it's usage. People figure out Ultra play vs mech -> Terran figures out getting cannons on thors to extend their usage -> Zerg needs frenzy to win.
no this is the wrong thought process.
Zerg uses Ultralisk -> terran gets lots of thor + 250 mm cannon. THor gets mindcontrolled - uses cannon on other thors, frenzy is still useless in comparison, but no really if terran scouts ultralisk den and gets stimmed marauder its gg ultralisk no contest, not even close.
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I'd rather corruptors didn't have a spell. I find it kind of boring that Blizzard made 1 ata unit for each race, each attacks 1 unit at a time and has an ability to affect the ground game in some way. I feel like this is driven by trying to justify the unit's name and price rather than fill a gameplay need. I say call it the octalisk or something like that, maybe drop the cost 25 gas.
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On June 10 2010 02:47 Madkipz wrote:Show nested quote +On June 10 2010 02:43 Daedie wrote:I think once Terran players start remembering to get strike cannons on their thors (that they'll need to make vs muta) to lock down ultra's, Zerg will really start appreciating frenzy . Aka, I don't think the spell needs fixing, I think the game needs time to evolve towards it's usage. People figure out Ultra play vs mech -> Terran figures out getting cannons on thors to extend their usage -> Zerg needs frenzy to win. no this is the wrong thought process. Zerg uses Ultralisk -> terran gets lots of thor + 250 mm cannon. THor gets mindcontrolled - uses cannon on other thors, frenzy is still useless in comparison, but no really if terran scouts ultralisk den and gets stimmed marauder its gg ultralisk no contest, not even close.
Ye, I'm sure the tanks will kindly let you get in range of the thors to MC them  . And then I haven't even started about the fact that with enough energy, you can simply do both spells.
And stimmed marauders for a meching Terran, really? I mean, you know that it takes a lot of time to establish the tech, he has no upgrades on his infantry and the zerg already has 3/3 lings and infestors up and running right?
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On June 10 2010 02:42 prosky wrote:
@krikktone, yeah right gl defending against 130hp pack of banelings
Well maybe 50 hp, or increase the cost of the ability
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On June 10 2010 02:59 Daedie wrote:Show nested quote +On June 10 2010 02:47 Madkipz wrote:On June 10 2010 02:43 Daedie wrote:I think once Terran players start remembering to get strike cannons on their thors (that they'll need to make vs muta) to lock down ultra's, Zerg will really start appreciating frenzy . Aka, I don't think the spell needs fixing, I think the game needs time to evolve towards it's usage. People figure out Ultra play vs mech -> Terran figures out getting cannons on thors to extend their usage -> Zerg needs frenzy to win. no this is the wrong thought process. Zerg uses Ultralisk -> terran gets lots of thor + 250 mm cannon. THor gets mindcontrolled - uses cannon on other thors, frenzy is still useless in comparison, but no really if terran scouts ultralisk den and gets stimmed marauder its gg ultralisk no contest, not even close. Ye, I'm sure the tanks will kindly let you get in range of the thors to MC them . And then I haven't even started about the fact that with enough energy, you can simply do both spells. And stimmed marauders for a meching Terran, really? I mean, you know that it takes a lot of time to establish the tech, he has no upgrades on his infantry and the zerg already has 3/3 lings and infestors up and running right?
yes, tanks will waste shots on lings and ultralisk, dosnt take long to get in range, mindcontrol thors and do their cannon thing. TLO proved it in the day9 daily show that thors are not the answer to lings and ultralisk. To beat Ling Ultra you must either get air, or stimmed maraudes with hellion support.
You just gotta set yourself up for additional transitions, you cant PURELY rely on factory units on heavy macro based maps like metalopolis against this Ling, infestor ultralisk composition.
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I really like the idea of frenzy being some kind of dps buff that spreads through an army as they kill.
But if the issue with the ultralisk is its inability to properly tank, what do you guys think about making a spell that grants absurd health regen? Health regen is already an established Zerg mechanic. It wouldn't be such a stretch to have a Zerg spell that just exaggerates one of their natural abilities, right?
I don't think an ultralisk with massive regen would be OP. Not only could it still be focused down, it would necessitate focusing--effectively filling the role of tank.
Idk if this would be better for the infester or the overseer, and I suppose it could be an instant healing spell that would overlap with Transfusion. : ( Idk, I'm trying to help.
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Corruption - targeted unit (or possible AOE if nerfed somewhat) has all passive and active abilities removed. Ie. Mauraders no more concussive shells OR stim, Zealots no charge, Stalkers no blink, etc.
Be cool to use it on a few stalkers and when the stalkers are retreating, they all blink except 5 that are left behind and quickly surrounded. Last like 20 seconds? Could be used to try to put on HT before they feedback the corrupter so they can't do anything, including morphing to archons.
Units would lose cloak and if used on say a DT, it would be unclocked even when out of range of the observer...
If AOE I feel it would have to be a very small AOE and a projectile so it would miss lots of moving units and maybe only 10 seconds.
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I like the way everyone in this thread is thinking in general.
Some good thoughts summed up;
On June 10 2010 00:52 Pwere wrote:
Frenzy could also work as a 'cloud' following the unit, much like an aura, which would make it viable on bunches of small units as well as on big, important, targets like the ultra. The cloud gets bigger/lasts longer when a unit it buffs kill a target.
On June 09 2010 22:36 Todie wrote:
...In my opinion though, Corruption isnt conceptually useless. it just needs some spice. i havnt spent much time actually pondering this, but just as an example, what if the corruption effect could spread between enemy units as you killed them? this would empathize micromanagement around those units for both sides; if killed while under the effect, one or a few nearby units could become corrupted in turn. This would also make it viable to cast it on smaller units, even zerglings or marines, knowing that when killed, it would make other units more vulnerable!
HowlingMirage:
Unfortunately no. . .
Frenzy has very poor synergy with Broodlords because the newly created Broodlings are unaffected
The skill might be viable if it transfered.
Say if you frenzied an Overlord full of units. . . those units inside would also be Frenzied.
My thoughts on Frenzy from the posts in this thread;
Frenzy: should be cast on a single unit, or a spot on the ground, and cost 75 Energy, and be active for 60 seconds, creating a cloud.
The cloud that it creates will follow a unit (Allowing it to be cast on an overseer or such, or on a zergling in the middle of the crowd) or stay in a spot.
The unit that it targets would recieve an additional 50 maximum hp to allow it to be effective (85 health zergling would still be easily dealt with.) but no increase in health when cast on the ground, or in units around it.
This would allow it to be like a dark swarm but for damage, and make it vital for the terran to snipe out the unit that has it cast on it, as it greatly increases damage for the units surrounding it.
Corruption: The corruption ability would be increased to 100 energy, and be cast with a radius of .75 The units that are killed in the area of the corruption spell;
1) Spread the corruption ability to units that are almost immediately touching it.
2) Spawn 1 broodlings for every supply. (Marine 1, marauder 2, tank 3.)
I think this combination of ideas would make Frenzy viable to be cast on smaller units, and powerful enough to warrant an increase in energy cost.
Corruption would be instrumental in dealing with ground units, as they can only attack air, making your ground army more cost effective while the corrupters take out the air.
If anyone has any suggestions, please reply, and point out if things aren't as effective/too powerful.
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I think corrupters are ok. They are very similar to devourers (anti-air role) and corruption is very similar to devourer's acid spores (albeit significantly weaker). Their advantage over devourers is that they can be morphed to broodlords if the game switches to a ground battle. Their disadvantage over devourers is having to manually cast corruption rather than getting "auto cast" acid spores, but I think that's fine as it requires more apm out of the user.
Frenzy on the infestor is bland but okay I guess. Getting such a huge bonus for having to keep infestors around with ultras makes for more micro. I would probably be more in favor of giving frenzy to the ultralisk (as an upgrade, only able to cast on itself) to make it similar to stim.
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Frenzy:
10 second duration, +10% damage
duration resets and damage is increased by 5% for every unit that the frenzied unit killed
Frenzy:
30 second duration, +25% damage, deals X(3-5?) damage a second to the unit
every time the frenzied unit kills an enemy unit it heals for 50 HP
Frenzy
30 second duration, +20% damage
every time the frenzied unit kills an enemy unit it gains 5% move and attack speed, capping at 50%
Frenzy:
30 second duration, +20% damage
all units within 1 radius range of the frenzied target also get the bonus damage
Frenzy:
10-20 second duration, +10-20% damage 50 energy cost
when the frenzied unit dies it causes all friendly units within 2 radius range of where it died to also gain frenzy
(this would lead to some interesting uses, where you use it on a ling before a fight, surround the ling and then kill it, then charge in)
The main purpose of a number of the above uses is to create a similar mechanic of darkswarm, where the zerg has a spell they can cast that gives them a rediculous advantage if the enemy decides to fight a pitched battle in that spot, but is quickly negated by the enemy backing off for a short time, or similar.
Corruption:
30 second duration
Every time the affected unit attacks it takes 10 damage
Corruption:
30 second duration
Every time the affected unit attacks it also hits itself for half it's own damage
Corruption:
5-10 second duration +20% damage taken
when an affected unit dies, all units within 1 range are also affected with corruption
Corruption:
30 second duration +0-20% damage taken
When an effected unit dies, all enemies(of the caster not the affected unit) within 1 radius range take 10-30 damage
Just a few ideas for how they can be reworked. These will need to then be balanced, I'm just throwing concepts.
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Frenzy should be a 1-time use block-shot. For 25 energy, the unit can absorb the first attack from an enemy unit. This means any attack from your opponent. Best case scenario: you block a single tank shot. Worse case scenario is obviously being attacked by a marine or that first arm shot of a thor.
The lore(/name) can be something like: Craggy carapace...(blah blah blah). The skill will also have a timer, so you couldn't block up all your units way in advance.
I think this is a reasonable temp-substitute for dark swarm, and a nice little Zerg-type PDD. It's at least worth experimenting with.
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On June 10 2010 03:39 TLOBrian wrote:
Corruption: The corruption ability would be increased to 100 energy, and be cast with a radius of .75 The units that are killed in the area of the corruption spell;
1) Spread the corruption ability to units that are almost immediately touching it.
2) Spawn 1 broodlings for every supply. (Marine 1, marauder 2, tank 3.)
...
Corruption would be instrumental in dealing with ground units, as they can only attack air, making your ground army more cost effective while the corrupters take out the air.
If anyone has any suggestions, please reply, and point out if things aren't as effective/too powerful.
I really like that.
When you're attacking with corruptors and transitioning them to BL's, I could see this version of corruption allowing the remaining corruptors to help with all the broodling confusion.
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On June 10 2010 00:11 baller wrote:
i think corruptors should be given a "true corruption" spell because they r called "corruptors" after all. it costs 200 mana and when its used u get a random one of the following abilities:
Bribery - u pay minerals and one of the opponents units (he's not sure which one) becomes ur unit to use.
Electoral fraud - other player, no matter how much he wants to build a unit or building, can only build the stuff u want him to build for 30 seconds
Cronyism - u favor the workers that mined the minerals that were used to build ur corrupter. the workers that mined the minerals that were used to build ur corrupter get the best jobs -- like mining from gold minerals, building the greater spire / fusion core, etc. they also don't have to scout or fight.
Embezzlement - u get 50% of what ur opponent mines for 30 seconds without him knowing
Kickbacks - ur opponent's buildings and units cost 50% more for 30 seconds
Illegal campaign contributions - for every 50 energy, one of ur opponents workers stops working. he doesn't know which and it doesn't show up on his idle workers bar. best used against terran bc it might be an scv building an important building
Match fixing - costs 10,000 minerals, if ur playing a korean he immediately loses the game
Er. Not sure if I should laugh or cry. Too soon, buddy. :s
Although I did laugh at "Match fixing"
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On June 10 2010 03:47 AcrossFiveJulys wrote:
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I would probably be more in favor of giving frenzy to the ultralisk (as an upgrade, only able to cast on itself) to make it similar to stim.
I like that too.
What do you think about using my massive regen idea for your ultralisk stim ability? It would help fix my concern about my spell overlapping with transfusion.
Though, "Frenzy" wouldn't sound right for this spell. It should probably be called "Berserk" or something like that.
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On June 10 2010 03:53 Paper117 wrote:Show nested quote +On June 10 2010 03:39 TLOBrian wrote:
Corruption: The corruption ability would be increased to 100 energy, and be cast with a radius of .75 The units that are killed in the area of the corruption spell;
1) Spread the corruption ability to units that are almost immediately touching it.
2) Spawn 1 broodlings for every supply. (Marine 1, marauder 2, tank 3.)
...
Corruption would be instrumental in dealing with ground units, as they can only attack air, making your ground army more cost effective while the corrupters take out the air.
If anyone has any suggestions, please reply, and point out if things aren't as effective/too powerful. I really like that. When you're attacking with corruptors and transitioning them to BL's, I could see this version of corruption allowing the remaining corruptors to help with all the broodling confusion.
Exactly! Not to mention the broodlings that spawn out of the units will be doing extra damage to the units around it, since they will be effected by corruption : D
Corrupter/Broodlord/Infestor would be a DEVESTATING late game composition, with fungal growth going down on a large part of the army, corruption being cast, and then frenzy being cast on a broodling near the front lines; TERRIBLE TERRIBLE DAMAGE would ensue!
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as it is now, frenzy is kind of a dumb spell, but who cares - we have fungal and mind control.
Corruptors spell is pretty good, I use it all the time. Especially on collosus (the most common time for me to have corruptors is zvp) And when they collossi are dead, I still have a use for my AA shit. I throw it all over their ground army (immortals, stalkers, high temps, archons).
In zvt, the most common time for me to have them is late game when I'm going for broodlords, so the corruptors who aren't that good vs vikings are now a bit better. It helps tremendously if you add mutas in there.
I didn't read the wall of text in the op or any replies, but I skimmed it and it seems you want more wc3-esque abilities. These sound ok on paper, but in practice its cluttery, confusing, and just unnecessary imho.
Huge reason why wc3 failed as a spectator sport
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I'd like to see more with larva creation. For example, the ability to drop larva from an overseer would be pretty interesting. Maybe allow overseer to drop a larva for ~100 energy, move Infested terrans back to Infestors, then create corruption to be something like:
Upon being destroyed, a unit will cause a 10% decrease in attack speed over n seconds to x AoE.
The synergy would be that the zerg player could have increased mobility in spawning single units as harassment or establishing/denying island bases with overlord/overseer. Also, the corruption could be used in conjunction with a burrowed roach to set up ambushes on terran mech. (Burrowed roach hit by corruption burrow moving on an enemy position then unburrowing causing speed decrease to tanks/other defensive units.)
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I've always felt that from a flavor standpoint the strike cannons should function like AA flak guns and have synergy with the sensor tower. Thors should be able to use the strike cannon ability to siege up and hammer air, very similar to siege tanks on the ground. Attacking a spot with the strike cannon should launch large AOE air-only splash attacks into areas without vision, possibly when aided by detection from the sensor tower. This gives the thor a role in static air defense without stepping on the the of the radar tower as a detector, increases the usefulness of sensor towers for scouting and brings the thor closer to being the heavy mech/AA goliath replacement they're intending it to be.
For Zerg I'd like to see unit HP reduced, build times decreased and dps increased. Zerg doesn't feel swarm-y enough to me. An upgrade that lets Zerg break the food limit might accomplish this. Zerg casters need a lot of help, but a good start would be the removal of infested terrans.
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On June 10 2010 04:26 CharlieMurphy wrote:
I didn't read the wall of text in the op or any replies, but I skimmed it and it seems you want more wc3-esque abilities. These sound ok on paper, but in practice its cluttery, confusing, and just unnecessary imho.
I really don't value your honest opinion if you haven't even read the posts. Sure, you 'skimmed' them, but you're missing the majority of what people have said in their respective posts. Just don't post if you don't know what you're talking about, please.
And these changes ARE necessary. The abilities are practically useless, corruption and frenzy are rarely ever used from what I've seen as a random player, and someone who watches a ton of games. Make Frenzy worth casting, and make corruption good enough to where it is actually used, and give zerg a way to combat late game terran a little bit easier.
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What if the corruptor cast corruption by landing and effectively burrowing. Its tentacles then corrupting all enemy units within a certain radius. The corruptor could be effectively cloaked and immobile, not attacking. The effect could be timed, or until the corruptor was killed. I think such a unit design could make the corruption skill more useful and also provide sufficient incentive to focus on the positioning of relatively slow corruptors for casting corruption which, as stated before, can be very vulnerable when a moved into a battle. Also, since muta still seem preferable to corruptors for air control, especially vs. vikings, I think that such a change could spice of the corruptor by giving it some influence over ground engagments.
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Corruption: The spread upon death idea is great. Even then, the range on it is terrible, I rarely use corruptors because, honestly, why would I want an anti air unit with one very niche ability when I could just as easily go mass mutalisk and be just as effective?
If corruption was a 10% damage taken increase(instead of 20%) and spread to 2 more targets every time one target died, it could be allot more useful. Now corruptors are slow anti-air units, AND have the ability to give support against mass ground(similar to how phoenix are great against siege and immortals).
Frenzy: It's definitely unique, not many other units can buff. Unfortunately it's like Todie said; it's only really useful for ultralisks. I think we can fix this a couple different ways. Again, this is brainstorming so if it's a stupid idea, say it's a stupid idea.
1. make frenzy AoE, and instead of a damage increase, it gives you a movement increase, also have it cost significantly more. This way if you have nothing to mind control you can give your army that offensive push that zerg players love so much. I read this and think of it like the opposite of a forcefield. It's something used to push hard and fast, and can punish terrans who turtle with siege tanks.
OR
2. make frenzy an auto cast aura with a sister ability. like:
Frenzy - provides units within x yards of the infestor a *% attack speed increase
Bulwark - provides units within x yards of the infestor a +* armor increase
Infestors are already pretty damn squishy, and an aura buff would give players a serious incentive to try and micro them down first.
*something small like 5 to 10% increase, and 1 to 2 armor increase
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I really like OP's idea of how to make corruption cooler. Right now corruption and frenzy are EASILY the 2 lamest spells in the game.
They really should just get rid of frenzy. it's way too warcraftey, extremely similar to corruption, extremely 1-dimensional, and completely uninteresting to play with, against, or even watch. They really should just replace it with a new spell that helps support melee units against ranged armies. My original idea for this was just an AoE "blind" type spell that reduces sight and range of all units affected. Another Idea I just thought of would be called dark swarm but just completely cuts visibility of the affected area, basically making a bunch of LoS blockers. You could cast it in front of the opponent's army and then they cant see what's inside the cloud until they put something in it (or something like that).
I mean frenzy is just so unbelievably place-holder and 1-dimensional it makes me sick. I used to complain that infested terrans were uninspired and horribly boring, but frenzy makes me almost miss them on the infestor.
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I wasn't sure they needed fixing, but there are some interesting ideas here I suppose.
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On June 10 2010 04:57 Salty wrote:
Corruption: The spread upon death idea is great. Even then, the range on it is terrible, I rarely use corruptors because, honestly, why would I want an anti air unit with one very niche ability when I could just as easily go mass mutalisk and be just as effective?
If corruption was a 10% damage taken increase(instead of 20%) and spread to 2 more targets every time one target died, it could be allot more useful. Now corruptors are slow anti-air units, AND have the ability to give support against mass ground(similar to how phoenix are great against siege and immortals).
Frenzy: It's definitely unique, not many other units can buff. Unfortunately it's like Todie said; it's only really useful for ultralisks. I think we can fix this a couple different ways. Again, this is brainstorming so if it's a stupid idea, say it's a stupid idea.
1. make frenzy AoE, and instead of a damage increase, it gives you a movement increase, also have it cost significantly more. This way if you have nothing to mind control you can give your army that offensive push that zerg players love so much. I read this and think of it like the opposite of a forcefield. It's something used to push hard and fast, and can punish terrans who turtle with siege tanks.
OR
2. make frenzy an auto cast aura with a sister ability. like:
Frenzy - provides units within x yards of the infestor a *% attack speed increase
Bulwark - provides units within x yards of the infestor a +* armor increase
Infestors are already pretty damn squishy, and an aura buff would give players a serious incentive to try and micro them down first.
*something small like 5 to 10% increase, and 1 to 2 armor increase
I think you're going about this in a totally drastic way. We're trying to tweak the ability to make it viable, not totally change it completely.
Also, increasing the speed of units would be beneficial, but it would just be the same units, but faster. Frenzy gives them more DPS, allowing units to get more use.
Also, infestors are insanely high on the unit priority, so microing them down really isn't as much as an issue, and aura abilities would be a good idea, except that the infestor would die too fast to be of any use with the aura ability. Abilities that aren't specifically linked to the infestor are a must, because it has as much HP as a sentry, and is an armored unit.
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Looking back, auras are pretty iffy, and a cheap auto cast frenzy might feel too much like shamans in WC3. I sadly cannot think of any useful way to use {the current} frenzy aside from ultralisks.
If damage bonus was changed to attack speed you could at least frenzy things like brood lords for faster broodling spawns.
Edit: if you make it castable on non-bio units it could be really interesting. buffing teammates' thors or colossi would definitely make it more viable in any team game, without breaking its mechanic.
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On June 10 2010 05:23 Ideas wrote:
I really like OP's idea of how to make corruption cooler. Right now corruption and frenzy are EASILY the 2 lamest spells in the game.
They really should just get rid of frenzy. it's way too warcraftey, extremely similar to corruption, extremely 1-dimensional, and completely uninteresting to play with, against, or even watch. They really should just replace it with a new spell that helps support melee units against ranged armies. My original idea for this was just an AoE "blind" type spell that reduces sight and range of all units affected. Another Idea I just thought of would be called dark swarm but just completely cuts visibility of the affected area, basically making a bunch of LoS blockers. You could cast it in front of the opponent's army and then they cant see what's inside the cloud until they put something in it (or something like that).
I mean frenzy is just so unbelievably place-holder and 1-dimensional it makes me sick. I used to complain that infested terrans were uninspired and horribly boring, but frenzy makes me almost miss them on the infestor.
I agree that damage % increases are awfully akin to WC and smell like MMO gameplay dynamics to me. I don't think that fits to well with SC2. I really like the blind debuff idea. An infestor could burrow walk close enough to the ranged army to get a cast off. And then lings could actually be worth their hive tech upgrade. I think its a clever way to make zerg melee more effective verses range and siege without relapsing to defilers and dark swarm.
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I personally like my 1-shot block idea.
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Suggestion for either of those abilities after watching the Jerry Springer Show. Cast on 2 non-massive enemy units of the same type. They randomly arent controllable and will attack eachother until the units are at 50% health.
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The current state of these two spells simply don't fit in SCII. They are usefull? Arguably yes, they can change the battlefield, they can be mastered they can affect the gameplay. But they do it in a adequate fashion, and by adequate I mean in a way that add depth to the game, that add options, coolness, feeling, and that unique SC way to be where armys and not heroes fight upon supremacy, are these spells adequate, do they fit in this game? In my humble opinion: no.
Why not. Zerg is the race with the fewer different units. The chance you have to add depth, to add choices and create new situations and possibilities in the game is to make these units usefull, to give them diversity to make them unique. Spells like the current frenzy and corrupt are simply too bland to add anything at all to Zerg gameplay, it's just dull. Right now the zergs need a spell that add things to the game, not a mechanic, dull, simple spell. Examples: in BW we have restoration from the medic. Usefull? Yes, in certain cases, but almost imperceptible, not a must have, not something to really worry about. And we have dark swarm from the defiler. Usefull? Maybe too much, it change entirely how the game flows in TvZ for example - note that I'm not saying that Dark Swarm should be brought back.
Maybe just messing around with these two spells isn't enoght. Maybe blizz will use this time with beta down to come up with a few ideas or new concepts to try out in the final stage of beta, because it'll be hard to try this new stuff after the release as the OP stated. And maybe, just maybe, they lurk around this f**** awesome site TL is to get some new ideas and find a thread named "Brainstorm around how to fix Frenzy & corruption" and think "woa, thats exacly what I needed, why don't give these guys a shot?". So, I think that anything goes. Let's post anything that may be usefull or may not, let's just bring some ideas to the table. That's what brainstorming is about, right? With this in mind I'd like to suggest a new version to corrupt:
Spawn Corruption - Costs xx energy or have a set number of uses, like vulture mines, or cost resources, or a combination of these.
Upon each use the corruptor spawns a flying, static, corruption mine that charges foward to any flying nearby enemies and - causes damage, slows down (cool to catch phoenixes), slows speed down, increase damage input, WE.
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Corruption is amazing. pheonixes have graviton beam, which while more power, is made up for by the fact that pheonixes are easily killed and have to stay still to use it. corruption allows corruptors to help your army even when all the air units are dead. ALSO corruption allows a corruptor to 1v1 a viking and win, which is very good.
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I like your take on corruption. That would indeed make it more interesting.
However, 20% extra damage is still a bland damage modifier. Change it to something more interesting, like some type of damage mechanic, and you got my vote. Heck, the corruptor's original ability to create corrupted masses sounds a 1000 times more entertaining than this. Same thing happened to the roach actually, it went from an interesting naturally regenerating unit to a big fat thing with ridiculous supply cost, damage, armor, HP and a burrowing regeneration mechanic that nobody used. I understand they were removed because they were difficult to balance. I don't understand that logic. You don't replace cool ideas with boring stuff just because its easier to balance, you balance, dammit!
In my opinion frenzy should be gone altogether. Even with your nice mechanic helping it spread, the ability is still a tacked on +2 upgrade. We got actual upgrades for that kind of stuff. Even if it was AoE, its still flat damage increase that would become mandatory in zerg play. About as fun as watching a candle melt.
There are simply so many cooler things that the zerg could do than friggin bloodlust. Blizzard's lack of creativity surprises me.
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Corruption is fine. In fact for ZvZ I think it needs to be revised because it stops larvae from spawning and it prevents injected larvae from dropping to the ground while active. That's too powerful in ZvZ and it will break one base plays.
Aside from lings a lot of zerg units are really slow on the ground. I'm actually in favor of Frenzy just giving each unit a massive movement increase for 45 seconds at the cost of 25 mana.
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On June 10 2010 04:26 CharlieMurphy wrote:
I didn't read the wall of text in the op or any replies, but I skimmed it and it seems you want more wc3-esque abilities. These sound ok on paper, but in practice its cluttery, confusing, and just unnecessary imho.
Huge reason why wc3 failed as a spectator sport
This. Lets please move away from abilities that are overly cluttering and just are not very obvious to the watcher.
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maybe if they made frenzy an aeo buff with the same effects and increase cost to something like 100 energy or 150 it would definitely see more use.
Of course make the radius the same as that of storm to even it out
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I think corruption would be useful if the unit released a patch of creep when it died. This way, after killing one, you could send in a bunch of zerglings with better results. This mixed with the spreading by death idea could be pretty useful.
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Frenzy: A bonus to the unit's regeneration. This would easily fit with Zerg's lore, a temporary overdrive of the zergs metabolism or some such. Making it still mostly for larger units ie. the Ultras enabling them to be the tanks they ought to be.
Corruption: A static AoE cloud under which all units received a % extra damage. I think this would help zerg bust turtled players holding a static choke. Does not affect buildings.
Imagine a terran entrenched at a choke... you Frenzy ultras to run up and not be vaporized instantly, then throw down some Corruption clouds where the terran is holding his units. Now he is forced to either move or defend from what has now become a less favorable position.
I think this would reward more dynamic play.
I also like the idea of a spell where a unit gets infected with a larva, "hatching" when that unit dies... maybe to replace the almost universally recognized uselessness of infested terran.
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Corruption: Passive ability. Each attack from a corruptor adds one level of corruption, up to a maximum of five levels. A unit under corruption would move 10% slower, and loose -1 damage per attack. A unit looses one level of corruption every ten seconds it goes without being attacked by a corrupter. Compensates the fact that corrupter are among the slowest air t air fighters, and lack the insane range of vikings. Would synergize well with hydras, making enemy units more difficult to run away.
Frenzy: Cost, 50 energy. Makes a unit immune to stuns, snares, slows, etc. Unit gains a 25% speed increase. All attacks dealing more than five damage to the unit are lowered to five. Units under frenzy also gain attack priority for the enemy army. Lasts 20 seconds. Basically a revamped defense matrix, but actually somewhat useful in main combat.
Strike Cannons: Flack cannons, as someone else said. Channeled for, say, ten seconds. Any air units who are caught in the AoE are stunned there, unable to move, taking 25 damage a second. Killing the Thor obviously ends the spell. It would cost 125 energy. Not a great spell, but I think it would add more than the current useless spell the Thor has. Would also make it impossible for enemy raiders to flee, if they get caught. Further backs up its role as a hero class Goliath.
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Corruptors should get a "channeled" spell that damages buildings over time. That would reduce the micro managment part during battle and the corruptors wont be useless if you kill all your opponents air units. I imagine blizz could make a really cool animation also, with the tentacles reaching down into the building or something...
Dunno about frenzy, i dislike the spell... Maybe replace it with a single target dark swarm like ability? That would the ultra extremely hard to kill for a short period of time, making it possible to break siege contains and the like, but not making your entire army almost immune to ranged attacks like in BW.
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If up against the Collossi/Sentry/Stalker 1affff-ball and have Corruptors ready to try to take out the Collossi, have anyone tried/calculated/created a map to test if it's actually effective to even use corruption?
I mean, you lose attacking time, and you have to get up closer to the Collossi, and then you are under fire from stalkers, and you will lose even more attacking time to move away from the ball again, so you have to stay close and keep firing, and then the corruptor will die. Perhaps the spell is even doing more bad than good?
And anyway, if the there is a slight advantage, you probably should spend those APM for more important things, since only the the koreans and top foreigners have enough APM to actually be able to do it cost-effective, since not being oblivirated instantly without killing anything from that Collossi/sentry/stalker 1a2a-ball is a feast I have not even seen the top foreigners do. Just look at Idra vs Whitera, or Machine vs Whitera. On lower levels I guess it is even worse, since the Protoss easily can press 1affff with 20-30 APM with that ball, while the zerg will be wiped out before he knew what hit him.
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I like the idea of corruption spreading on target death, it really incentivises focus fire instead of just encouraging you to puke off energy when you can. Maybe limit it to one or two jumps as even a single corrupter being added to something that excels at picking off single targets like mass hydras could easily spread it faster then units could be microd apart.
Frenzy is a much more flawed spell. ultralisks are zerg's massive unit, it should be vulnerable to neural parasite or shock cannons the same way thors and colloxen are. You don't even research neural parasite in zvz unless you see your opponent getting ultras and infestors can be picked off while channeling by hydras and burrow roaches as well as other races can, so why don't they have a caster ability slot taken up by a counter spell counter spell? Because it's just not good design to have a weird chain of one uping spells that only come into play with one type of build. The 25% damage being worthless to anything other then ultras has been discussed, the immunity function is the only part that makes the spell vaguely acceptable and it's not a real plus.
Best alteration right now I can think of would be to make frenzy the equal and opposite of guardian shield. Same range, cloud of frenzying pharamones centered on the infestor gives +2 damage upgrades to melee units (only melee units, same as guardian shield only applies to ranged damage. And not broodlings since they cant get attack upgrades). It's useful as soon as you get infestors with zerglings/banelings, and poping off one or 2 frenzies throughout a fight wouldn't completely waste an infestor's energy like trying to cast frenzy 6 or 7 times on all your late game ultralisks does. Would also make the crackling upgrade stronger by association. Also something you still might choose not to use if you have few melee units or you want to save energy for more FGs and NPs.
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On June 10 2010 00:23 maragin wrote:
Corruption could be an interesting autocast. Not sure if that fixes it, but that would give it flexibility.
I don't think so. The zerg race already is heavily into macro - they need some more to micro to be fun and interesting to play. Corruption on autocast would not help in that regard.
That said, I like the corruption idea of the OP - after all corruption should *spread* somehow.
With Frenzy well...tough nut to crack. As a single target spell its application is limited to Ultras; as an AOE it would feel too much like Bloodlust from WC3. After all we want a new game and not copy another one (so dark swarm is out as well  )
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The only way frenzy would be effective is if it became a defensive spell. That's the thing that needs help, not attack.
Corruption on the other hand was fine the way it originally was, I used that ability just as much as FG to be honest.
I'm pleasantly surprised that this was well written.
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corruption:
i thought of what were corruptors able to do before the public beta: to transform dead flying units into organic air-air turrets. Why not merge this with the current corruption spell? A corrupted unit takes 20% much damage and when it dies it becomes for few seconds a corrupted immobile thing able to cast corruption one more time and able to attacks (low damage) nearby enemy units.
Also the idea of corruption being spread like a disease when the unit dies, is good as well.
frenzy:
i really dont like this spell on the infestator. Since its main use is to be cast on ultralisks, why couldn't it be an ultralisk ability (self-buff)? It would make it easier to use with a large group of ultralisks and it would free a slot for a new (more offensive?) spell for the infestator.
infested terran:
i really don't like this ability as well. If Blizzard really want to keep infested terran in the game, then imo it would be better to merge this spell with contaminate: if you contaminate a terran production building (rax/factory/port), then few infested terrans are produced. Ok it would make contaminate more effective in one matchup, but infested terrans were already mathcup-specific in SC1, and maybe Zerg currently need a little help versus Terran.
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On June 10 2010 07:06 PrinceXizor wrote:
Corruption is amazing. pheonixes have graviton beam, which while more power, is made up for by the fact that pheonixes are easily killed and have to stay still to use it. corruption allows corruptors to help your army even when all the air units are dead. ALSO corruption allows a corruptor to 1v1 a viking and win, which is very good. you seem convinced, and may very well be right about corruption being effective in certain situations. that doesnt make it a good ability with dynamic aspects to its use however. we're in broad agreement about that.
And now to keep it positive; some great suggestions and addons upon previous suggestions in here, lets quote our favourites and keep building on them!
On June 10 2010 03:21 FabledIntegral wrote:
Corruption - targeted unit (or possible AOE if nerfed somewhat) has all passive and active abilities removed. Ie. Mauraders no more concussive shells OR stim, Zealots no charge, Stalkers no blink, etc.
Be cool to use it on a few stalkers and when the stalkers are retreating, they all blink except 5 that are left behind and quickly surrounded. Last like 20 seconds? Could be used to try to put on HT before they feedback the corrupter so they can't do anything, including morphing to archons.
Units would lose cloak and if used on say a DT, it would be unclocked even when out of range of the observer...
If AOE I feel it would have to be a very small AOE and a projectile so it would miss lots of moving units and maybe only 10 seconds.
This is a cool idea overall. not sure how good a fit it is though, or if it would work better retaining a %damage-taken debuff along with it.
On June 10 2010 00:52 Pwere wrote:
[...]My thoughts on Frenzy from the posts in this thread;
Frenzy: should be cast on a single unit, or a spot on the ground, and cost 75 Energy, and be active for 60 seconds, creating a cloud.
The cloud that it creates will follow a unit (Allowing it to be cast on an overseer or such, or on a zergling in the middle of the crowd) or stay in a spot.
The unit that it targets would receive an additional 50 maximum hp to allow it to be effective (85 health zergling would still be easily dealt with.) but no increase in health when cast on the ground, or in units around it.
This would allow it to be like a dark swarm but for damage, and make it vital for the terran to snipe out the unit that has it cast on it, as it greatly increases damage for the units surrounding it.
Corruption: The corruption ability would be increased to 100 energy, and be cast with a radius of .75 The units that are killed in the area of the corruption spell;
1) Spread the corruption ability to units that are almost immediately touching it.
2) Spawn 1 broodlings for every supply. (Marine 1, marauder 2, tank 3.)
I think this combination of ideas would make Frenzy viable to be cast on smaller units, and powerful enough to warrant an increase in energy cost.
Corruption would be instrumental in dealing with ground units, as they can only attack air, making your ground army more cost effective while the corrupters take out the air.
If anyone has any suggestions, please reply, and point out if things aren't as effective/too powerful.
I really like the basic idea of turning frenzy into a terrain control thing; get cast on the ground.. to cast it on units to give them an aura... that gets a bit too flimsy IMO. i'd rather try to keep things a bit more crisp.
same goes for releasing a broodling upon death. its cool and all, but im not sure its practical enough for the clutter it produces.
On June 10 2010 03:49 Shiladie wrote:
Frenzy:
30 second duration, +20% damage
all units within 1 radius range of the frenzied target also get the bonus damage
[...]
Corruption:
30 second duration
Every time the affected unit attacks it takes 10 damage
Corruption:
5-10 second duration +20% damage taken
when an affected unit dies, all units within 1 range are also affected with corruption
Corruption:
30 second duration +0-20% damage taken
When an effected unit dies, all enemies(of the caster not the affected unit) within 1 radius range take 10-30 damage
Just a few ideas for how they can be reworked. These will need to then be balanced, I'm just throwing concepts.
these are some crisp straightforward suggestions. i plain like them.
On June 10 2010 06:36 Evilruler wrote:
Spawn Corruption - Costs xx energy or have a set number of uses, like vulture mines, or cost resources, or a combination of these.
Upon each use the corruptor spawns a flying, static, corruption mine that charges forward to any flying nearby enemies and - causes damage, slows down (cool to catch phoenixes), slows speed down, increase damage input, WE.
this is kind of big and new, but its still just a simple ability concept; it'd work like a floating spidermine with a slowing effect if i understand it correctly? - i like that!
On June 10 2010 14:11 quaren wrote:
Corruption: A static AoE cloud under which all units received a % extra damage. I think this would help zerg bust turtled players holding a static choke. Does not affect buildings.
Imagine a terran entrenched at a choke... you Frenzy ultras to run up and not be vaporized instantly, then throw down some Corruption clouds where the terran is holding his units. Now he is forced to either move or defend from what has now become a less favourable position.
I think this would reward more dynamic play.
as mentioned above, i dig the basic idea of a static cloud ability a'la dark swarm: its a proven concept, and this is a fresh take on it! %extra damage taken inside the cloud also seems significantly more intuitive than damage dished out from within the cloud. - at least as long as you can get close enough to cast it. i totally love this idea!
possible alterations of this idea:
make it only affect melee attacks - this would benefit the zerg in most cases, and make for dynamic play overall; "its ok to move into the cloud as long as my oponent doesnt flank it with melee" ... on the other hand, that does bias zerg play towards melee units, and terrans not having melee becomes a problem.
second: make the damage increase damage-over-time - still based on a proportion the attack damage received. maybe as high as 50% as its not instant. this may feel like a needless overalp with the DoT effect of fungal growth though...
question: what about flying units? affected or not; do they fly above or 'within' the frnzy-cloud? (frenzy is so the wrong name for this..)
Keep up the good brainstorming people!
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A new idea: what if frenzy remained a one target ability with similar stats, but spread - - not as suggested above - but spread in a small area or to one more target, every set timeunit?
for example, it could sprea to one uit more every second! .... what makes this interesting is again, the shared duration of all the frenzy targets; tehy'd all run out of frenzy at the same time, some one casting, or a set of castings - would have the most effect when the frenzy was about to run out - unless it was prevetnted from spreading! this should siutationally affect tactical priorities!
come on. keep posting here, its a worthwhile topic!
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I don't care about the exact mechanics much, but corruption should be able to use up all corruptor energy.
They have only one ability and if they are fighting massive targets, most of them won't even need to cast once, so their energy just piles up.
It could be a simple auto-cast 10 bonus damage on 1 attack for 25 energy and it would be better than the current one, since the more energy they have the better they are in combat, and like casters it's more effective if you build them in advance, instead of the last moment, so planning beforehand is rewarded, e.t.c.
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I was thinking of taking Frenzy completely out
Replacing it with a spell called screech
It would cost 100 energy
The Infestor makes a loud screech to stun all units, including your own
But your units recover much faster
7 range?
The effects would be short as to not overkill an army
Like 2 second stun for your army and 3 for theirs
This could be used to run if you think your going to lose
Or used as to get a small edge in a battle
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Frenzy, In order of importance:
***** Fix the Brood Lord bug! (the one with the main BL damage per each ling shot)
**** Extend the Frenzy of the BL unto each of its broodlings
*** Increase the Frenzy duration a little bit
** Perhaps, enable Frenzied units to break Force Fields and escape Vortex (since they should be able to deal with traps and snares)
* Protection from Feedback and EMP is probably too much to ask for, even though it kinda fits the description of avoiding mind manipulation
Corruption, I kinda like it as it is. It seems to me it would be too easy if it was passive ability or transferred after death.. Maybe allow it to be cast vs buildings too. As of now the only spell vs buildings is Contamination, which only stops production and research.
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why come up with ur own spells when u can just straight rip from dota? nice.
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I would like to see frenzy become some kind of AoE buff. Zerg are known for multitudes of fast, weak units and I think it would fit nicely with that concept. It would, of course, have to be balanced but I think it could be something unique to Zerg.
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protoss need help against critical mass tanks and that's about it for balance on a large scale... any other tweaking should be to make weak stuff VIABLE - not pathetically overpowered.
also, i kinda disagree that frenzy is useless..
it gives more damage than regular damage upgrades accross the board. okay it's not as good as fungal growth in most situations, so it could do with a tweak - but i think people just overlook it because they can't see anything happen except smoke start coming off a unit.
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again, saying its usless and saying its no a well adjusted ability is different things.
frenzy generally isnt practical to use on anyhting but ultralisks, and the results produced by the ability are very onedimensional; the abilitys current state isnt a good one. so spit some ideas to improve it, or we might get stuck with it as it is.
i think its a fundamentaly bad mindset to be afraid of switching some abilities around if they are bad, merely out of fear of disrupting any momentary balance.. its beta, we need to make sure ability concept are all fleshed out so that they can help contribute to fun dynamic and interesting game play.
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Frenzy: Make it an aoe originating from the location of the infestor that increases attack speed and makes units immune to the snares. The risk is exposing your infestors but it's much stronger than the single target version currently in play. Also gives zerg an added element of positioning on the battlefield which gives the ability a wide range of implementation based on skill.
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Frenzy
50 energy, 10 second duration, multiple friendly targets, ground only
Any Frenzied Zerg recieves an attack speed bonus while on creep
Obviously this works for ground units and doesn't enhance banelings (which are already super awesome). I wanted the ability to be situational, but more importantly makes frenzy a much more passive agressive ability, puts an emphasis on good creep coverage, and only gives zerg an advantage offensively with good micro combos (Queen/Infestor, Overlord/Infestor).
Downside is that it could lead to some very boring cat and mouse scenarios when armies meet near the edge of creep. Also something to consider is that it makes the tech line Zergling-->Infestor-->Ultra more viable (might make defense too easy).
Corruption:
100 energy, 15 second duration, single target
Temporarily reduces range of unit by 1. If unit dies while corrupted, splashes onto nearby units, debuff and duration does not stack.
The main part is corruption turns into an ability that spreads. I've tried to think of lots of other debuffs, like damage reduction, attack speed, movement speed, or plain DoT, but the more I thought about those, I felt like they either 1.) Made it too difficult for opponents to retreat 2.) Too similar to other abilities 3.) Caused the propagation of corruption to spread too quickly. Reducing range reduces unit effectiveness, but in a much different manner. In large battles this might be too powerful -- hard to say -- perhaps another limitation could be that it only targets armored units? But then it serves almost no purpose in ZvZ...
Another reason I like this ability is Zerg's focus on melee/short range attacks. Rather than bring back dark swarm, an ability that allowed the zerg to get closer to the enemy, why not the other way around? Make them decide whether or not to come closer to us.
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I say remove frenzy and add a similar ability to consume like in SC:BW. Then also change the infestor upgrade for starting energy to an upgrade for max energy. That would be much more useful than this frenzy bs
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why dont we just make frenzy self casted from ultralisk with 30% damage increase instead of 20%, and make it a research?
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Corruption as a Disease:
How about make corruption something like Living Bomb from WoW.
You cast it on a target, and, in 15 seconds, any units within a few range of the target will also become corrupted, taking 10% more damage themselves. If spread again, 5% more damage. Does not stack.
Would add a bit more strategy-- cast it on a small unit to try and hope your opponent doesn't notice, getting his whole mass infected. Cast it on a unit they won't want to move away, such as a medivac, or a sieged tank, a mothership. Cast it on a large, important unit as you would now... with more possible benefits.
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I do not have to many problems with frenzy. I just spam it to any units around that i need to give it to before an attack and watch the benefits which are immense.
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On June 19 2010 08:03 Soulish wrote:
why dont we just make frenzy self casted from ultralisk with 30% damage increase instead of 20%, and make it a research?
then infestor is stuck with one less spell. thats the REAL problem here!
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On June 19 2010 04:51 mousepad wrote:
Corruption:
100 energy, 15 second duration, single target
Temporarily reduces range of unit by 1. If unit dies while corrupted, splashes onto nearby units, debuff and duration does not stack.
The main part is corruption turns into an ability that spreads. I've tried to think of lots of other debuffs, like damage reduction, attack speed, movement speed, or plain DoT, but the more I thought about those, I felt like they either 1.) Made it too difficult for opponents to retreat 2.) Too similar to other abilities 3.) Caused the propagation of corruption to spread too quickly. Reducing range reduces unit effectiveness, but in a much different manner. In large battles this might be too powerful -- hard to say -- perhaps another limitation could be that it only targets armored units? But then it serves almost no purpose in ZvZ...
Another reason I like this ability is Zerg's focus on melee/short range attacks. Rather than bring back dark swarm, an ability that allowed the zerg to get closer to the enemy, why not the other way around? Make them decide whether or not to come closer to us.
range reduction is brilliantly innovative for a debuff effect! im loving this idea!
-1 range means very different things on different units though - it doesnt mean much on units that have more than 5 base range.
i'd rather reduce the range by two or a percentage. especially considering it can be a bit tricky to kill those first targets to get the spread you want - without the spread, its barely worth anything.
... to ensure that crucial spread, it might combine better with my recent "spread over time" idea than the earlier "spread on kill" idea.. really, if it doesnt make things too intricate, a combination of the two mgiht be best (else, an enemy can boringly circumvent the ability by killing - or retreating - his own corrupted units before it spreads, with the combination, he'd need to isolate it and then kill it)
.... these ideas are starting to look interesting. i might make a test map with some trigger-altered abilities soon - specifically to illustrate how these spreading mechanisms would work!
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EPT
