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On July 25 2012 22:52 Charon1979 wrote:Show nested quote +Anyone who thinks you can't dodge Storm to a meaningful degree needs to watch Taeja vs First from MLG Summer Arena. You always take minimum of 20 damage. Yes, you dont take the full 80 but there is "hidden" damage. Even if I pull back my units perfectly, I get damaged by the storm AND get free hits from the toss army. Fungal roots you but in most cases zerg units are medium ranged or melee units, so you can always fight back. You cant fight back AND dodge the storm. If you decide to fight back, you take even twice the damage of fungal. The number of free hits storm generates on a zerg army is quite huge, maby not so huge against T because they are already at range and a step back means the stalker are out of range too.
Well, storm does friendly, so a lot of you own units get hurt if you really want to get those "free" hits 
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Not really as Z tries to get as close as possible (hug the roaches!). A single storm to the 2nd row causes the army to move back and get hit while retreating. Toss can just hold ground, no need to pursue through the storm. But most toss will storm their own army (at least the zealots) anyways so I guess it doesnt matter. But then again I keep hearing that toss players have WAAAAAAAAY better unit control... strange
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On July 25 2012 22:52 Charon1979 wrote:Show nested quote +Anyone who thinks you can't dodge Storm to a meaningful degree needs to watch Taeja vs First from MLG Summer Arena. You always take minimum of 20 damage. Yes, you dont take the full 80 but there is "hidden" damage. Even if I pull back my units perfectly, I get damaged by the storm AND get free hits from the toss army. Fungal roots you but in most cases zerg units are medium ranged or melee units, so you can always fight back. You cant fight back AND dodge the storm. If you decide to fight back, you take even twice the damage of fungal. The number of free hits storm generates on a zerg army is quite huge, maby not so huge against T because they are already at range and a step back means the stalker are out of range too.
But it doesn't actually matter as much against Z because Storm doesn't 1-shot kill Roaches, Broodlords, or Corruptors. It does 1-shot kill Marines, which is why Terran needs to be dodging it. I'm going to be completely honest and tell you straight up that if you think Storm is actually really strong against anything other than Muta/Ling/Bane, you're kidding yourself. It's just extra AoE damage for the late game in most situations. I mean, don't get me wrong, it certainly helps to throw down Storms on a Zerg army, but it definitely won't be the deciding factor in the battle like it is against Terran. Fungal is a problem because it prevents the Fungaled player from actually doing any micro. At all. If a bunch of air units somehow get Fungaled, they are dead and cannot be saved. That's just kind of shitty in my opinion. Even though Storm does more damage, if you have fast reaction time you can minimize the damage even if you're not expecting to be Stormed. Against Fungal, Protoss and Terran lose the primary advantage they have at that point in the game: mobility.
Landing Storms and using Ghosts effectively against a player with strong mechanics is extremely hard, especially since overmaking either of the two units can make you lose. I'm not trying to say that Infestor control is easy, but landing good Fungals is not difficult in the sense that you simply wait for your opponent to clump up (which will always happen regardless of how good one's army control is) and seize the opportunity. What sucks about this is that literally 1 second of a mistake can be capitalized on to definitely kill the units in question. Since most of T/P lategame against Z consists in dancing all over the map without directly engaging, getting Fungaled basically means you need to abandon that part of your army to die, since it's not feasible to save it by engaging the Zerg.
You also fail to point out that in any cases, the player who gets Fungaled doesn't want to "fight back" at that point. If I'm blinking around with 10 Stalkers and they eat a Fungal, what comfort is it to know that they can fight back as they get swarmed by 30 Roaches and Broodlords? They're still not going to kill a single unit before they die. Same with Terran. Who cares if the Terran player killed 5 or 6 Lings for the price of 15 Marines and two Medivacs? The biggest problem is that Fungal can be chained, meaning that as long as the Zerg has energy, the other player can't micro. Let that sink in. Why would you want a sell that eliminates micro, does damage, and has no disadvantages, in this game? At least in BW, Stasis just took units out of the battle for awhile. At least Storm is cast by a slow unit, does its damage over 4 seconds, and can be dodged. At least EMP can never outrightly kill a unit and doesn't impede its movement speed.
What's the downside to Fungal? It does less damage than Storm? Sure, but Storms rarely hit for their full ticks anyway. Against Terran, the damage Fungal does to bio is enough that it doesn't really matter if it does less than Storm, since bio units have low health. Against Toss, the damage isn't the problem: it's the root. If you want to see what I mean, look at PvP. Storm is fucking worthless against pretty much every composition except Chargelot/Archon. Toss units have shields which means that the Storm rarely does anything, especially given the existence of Blink/Charge. Fungal, on the other hand, keeps Toss units from engaging in a proper position, does enough damage to kill Sentries after a couple of chains, and even freezes massive units (possibly the most unnecessary part of the spell).
Don't talk about how good Storm is against Zerg when you have Fungal Growth. I would gladly trade Storm for the ability to Fungal a Muta flock and basically ensure that every single Muta dies, or for the ability to stop retreating Lings/Roaches in their tracks, or for the ability to freeze Corruptors over my army so that my Stalkers can kill them.
EDIT: besides, by the time Protoss has Templar+ a large army, you will almost definitely have BL/Infestor, which means that your Roaches only serve the purpose of killing any aggressively Blinking Stalkers. There's no need to attack a 200/200 Protoss army with 20 Roaches. It's suicide with or without Storm.
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Austria24417 Posts
On July 25 2012 23:08 Shiori wrote:Show nested quote +On July 25 2012 22:52 Charon1979 wrote:Anyone who thinks you can't dodge Storm to a meaningful degree needs to watch Taeja vs First from MLG Summer Arena. You always take minimum of 20 damage. Yes, you dont take the full 80 but there is "hidden" damage. Even if I pull back my units perfectly, I get damaged by the storm AND get free hits from the toss army. Fungal roots you but in most cases zerg units are medium ranged or melee units, so you can always fight back. You cant fight back AND dodge the storm. If you decide to fight back, you take even twice the damage of fungal. The number of free hits storm generates on a zerg army is quite huge, maby not so huge against T because they are already at range and a step back means the stalker are out of range too. But it doesn't actually matter as much against Z because Storm doesn't 1-shot kill Roaches, Broodlords, or Corruptors. It does 1-shot kill Marines, which is why Terran needs to be dodging it. I'm going to be completely honest and tell you straight up that if you think Storm is actually really strong against anything other than Muta/Ling/Bane, you're kidding yourself. It's just extra AoE damage for the late game in most situations. I mean, don't get me wrong, it certainly helps to throw down Storms on a Zerg army, but it definitely won't be the deciding factor in the battle like it is against Terran. Fungal is a problem because it prevents the Fungaled player from actually doing any micro. At all. If a bunch of air units somehow get Fungaled, they are dead and cannot be saved. That's just kind of shitty in my opinion. Even though Storm does more damage, if you have fast reaction time you can minimize the damage even if you're not expecting to be Stormed. Against Fungal, Protoss and Terran lose the primary advantage they have at that point in the game: mobility. Landing Storms and using Ghosts effectively against a player with strong mechanics is extremely hard, especially since overmaking either of the two units can make you lose. I'm not trying to say that Infestor control is easy, but landing good Fungals is not difficult in the sense that you simply wait for your opponent to clump up (which will always happen regardless of how good one's army control is) and seize the opportunity. What sucks about this is that literally 1 second of a mistake can be capitalized on to definitely kill the units in question. Since most of T/P lategame against Z consists in dancing all over the map without directly engaging, getting Fungaled basically means you need to abandon that part of your army to die, since it's not feasible to save it by engaging the Zerg. You also fail to point out that in any cases, the player who gets Fungaled doesn't want to "fight back" at that point. If I'm blinking around with 10 Stalkers and they eat a Fungal, what comfort is it to know that they can fight back as they get swarmed by 30 Roaches and Broodlords? They're still not going to kill a single unit before they die. Same with Terran. Who cares if the Terran player killed 5 or 6 Lings for the price of 15 Marines and two Medivacs? The biggest problem is that Fungal can be chained, meaning that as long as the Zerg has energy, the other player can't micro. Let that sink in. Why would you want a sell that eliminates micro, does damage, and has no disadvantages, in this game? At least in BW, Stasis just took units out of the battle for awhile. At least Storm is cast by a slow unit, does its damage over 4 seconds, and can be dodged. At least EMP can never outrightly kill a unit and doesn't impede its movement speed. What's the downside to Fungal? It does less damage than Storm? Sure, but Storms rarely hit for their full ticks anyway. Against Terran, the damage Fungal does to bio is enough that it doesn't really matter if it does less than Storm, since bio units have low health. Against Toss, the damage isn't the problem: it's the root. If you want to see what I mean, look at PvP. Storm is fucking worthless against pretty much every composition except Chargelot/Archon. Toss units have shields which means that the Storm rarely does anything, especially given the existence of Blink/Charge. Fungal, on the other hand, keeps Toss units from engaging in a proper position, does enough damage to kill Sentries after a couple of chains, and even freezes massive units (possibly the most unnecessary part of the spell).Don't talk about how good Storm is against Zerg when you have Fungal Growth. I would gladly trade Storm for the ability to Fungal a Muta flock and basically ensure that every single Muta dies, or for the ability to stop retreating Lings/Roaches in their tracks, or for the ability to freeze Corruptors over my army so that my Stalkers can kill them. EDIT: besides, by the time Protoss has Templar+ a large army, you will almost definitely have BL/Infestor, which means that your Roaches only serve the purpose of killing any aggressively Blinking Stalkers. There's no need to attack a 200/200 Protoss army with 20 Roaches. It's suicide with or without Storm.
I 100% agree. Not saying that Fungal is imbalanced but it's definitely the most cost efficient spell in the game if used correctly. Zerg and terran players have been complaining about Forcefields forever because they negate micro... well, Fungal also does damage, keeps units in place completely and hits air.
Lategame, a single fungal is a one hit K.O. once there are enough brood lords in the air. Maybe give my stalkers the ability to blink at least, that way I can at least try to get close to brood lords. At that point in the game, stalkers and archons are my only anti air and both get stopped in their tracks if a zerg player has decent infestor control.
Overall I'd say the biggest balance issues lie with:
- PvT early / midgame
- TvP lategame
- PvZ + TvZ lategame
and I'm not sure if there's a good solution for zergs against the immortal/sentry all in, but that does seem rather strong to me.
I'm not talking about super lategame here because that's either not yet figured out completely (TvZ, TvP) or rather balanced (PvZ).
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On July 25 2012 23:33 monkybone wrote:
Dodging storm is not only reducing damage, it is also reducing the dps of your own army by moving groups of units. So storm does a TON of damage in this sense.
It depends against whom though. In the case of Terran, really good splitting means your units are only out of combat for a second or so (see Taeja vs First, as I said before) and it actually puts them in a better position to fight Colossi/the Protoss army in general. The only units with enough range to keep hitting you while you retreat from Storm are Colossi, and even then, just barely, since many Protoss Storms only catch the tail end of a retreating Stimmed bio force.
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As someone who race switches a lot, but mains zerg, I can understand a lot of this frustration people have with fungal. Frankly I wish zerg had a more fun and reliable mechanic, although that's partly because my control with infestors is sub-par.
However, if stalkers were able to blink out, that'd basically demolish the end game composition of zergs as all other units are either too expensive or too fragile and are wiped out by late game Toss deathball/splash capacity. However, I think that I may could stomach a change to the way fungal works, such that a stalker can still blink, but it will take the regular damage of fungal +10 immediately upon blinking. Obviously I haven't been able to test this, but I think it'd at least alleviate some of the problems P have with getting chain fungaled while not allowing stalkers to blindly blink straight toward the infestors with no immediate consequence. Other changes that I think could be considered would be to only reduce the movement speed of massive units like Thors and mechanical air units by a significant percent, not straight up immobilize them while at the same time dealing slightly more damage to massive mechanical units.
Not perfect or perhaps viable solutions by any means, but just brainstorming on my part to make the mechanic more neutrally balanced while not destroying the matchup.
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Maybe the solution is to simply make Infestors very slow - like, HT speed off Creep and normal speed on creep. A lot of the difficulty of casting Storm doesn't lie in T-clicking on a clump of units, but in getting the slow ass Templar in a position to do it against an extremely mobile Terran army, without getting them sniped, EMPd, or just killed by a small pack of bio. That's why you sometimes see Zealots getting Stormed - not because the Protoss is bad or he misclicked - the Storm was well aimed at the time he cast it, but the Templar was a few pixels too far back, so it lands a second later than it should have, hitting Zealots. Incidentally, this also accounts for a lot of missed FFs - not poor accuracy, just a Sentry trailing behind an army and doing his thing too late.
In any case, maybe fungal would be more reasonable (especially vs Terran) if Infestors were more vulnerable and easier to snipe if out of position.
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Storm does damage either way, land or miss. You still force a stim from a terran army trying to run away from mass chargelots + archon + stalker.
Stim + the first hits by the chargelots + storm = dead bio.
You have to literally be out macrod and therefore outnumbered severly in a fight or have awful positioning and observer use to have emps land all over your army.
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On July 25 2012 23:54 cydial wrote:
Storm does damage either way, land or miss. You still force a stim from a terran army trying to run away from mass chargelots + archon + stalker.
Stim + the first hits by the chargelots + storm = dead bio.
You have to literally be out macrod and therefore outnumbered severly in a fight or have awful positioning and observer use to have emps land all over your army.
Not true at all. This isn't actual balance discussion: it's unadulterated whining.
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On July 25 2012 23:54 cydial wrote:
Storm does damage either way, land or miss. You still force a stim from a terran army trying to run away from mass chargelots + archon + stalker.
Stim + the first hits by the chargelots + storm = dead bio.
You have to literally be out macrod and therefore outnumbered severly in a fight or have awful positioning and observer use to have emps land all over your army.
as a terran player who's worst matchup had been TvP for a good 2-3 seasons, that's not true.
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Just make fungal something like an 85% speed reduction rather than a full snare. 85% is still tons and probably enough to murder errant mutas, while maybe allowing just enough movement that a chunk of units in an army can still retreat, or at least reposition themselves.
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The game is more or less balanced at this time. But the balance is not optimal. It consists of small imbalances that even themselves out. So if you want to balance the game out you should think of the race as a whole, so if you want to give something to the race you'd better think of what you will take away to keep the balance.
I think blizzard sooner or later will have to nerf the distinct racial abilities to bring more balance. For example Mules. They were necessary for terrans since they have to send workers to make buildings (and even protect those workers with more workers in early game). But I feel like Blizzard overcompensated especially in the part where Mules can harvest simultaniously with scvs. Essentially this makes Terran stronger economically and allows for crazy 200 army since u dont really need scvs on minerals late game. On the other hand there is a huge disadvantage for terran which is his production capacities. For example the output of barracks is just 50 minerals in 30 seconds. The gateway has twice more, and once upgraded it can teleport units. You need to build addon to make raxes churn out units effectively which takes time and resources. And even if you do that the delay from the time you start your buildings to the moment the payoff in the units they produced is huge (consider the difference with protoss: gateway being produced, short upgrade to warpgate, short warp in and you are ready to go. And with terran: barracks>addon>unit construction time> unit travel time). And after all of that because of the delay most likely you will be scouted and countered. The only time you cant be easily scouted is at early stages, which is one the reasons why terran is so prone to cheesy one base play. So the story of terran imbalances:
Mules+strong T1 units > construction capabilities and T1 unit build time have been nerfed.
I think eventually mules will be nerfed and construction system of terrans will be buffed.
Another example of distinct racial ability is zerg larva injects. The problem is it gives zerg the ability to macro up drones very fast. While the zerg was generally UP it wasnt a big deal. But generally as minor issues were resolved it now stands as a serious issue. Personally I feel it's a bit OP which shows very nicely in PvZ where a lot of people feel they need to 2 base allin or lose to zerg macro (among recent examples I watched WhiteRa - Bly, Slivko - Titan including the interviews). A slight nerf on larva inject (for example only 3 larva but at slightly faster time) will make zergs invest more into production (which is the reverse problem of terrans who have to invest too much time and resources) and generally will force zergs to be more carefull about larva spending.
About protoss. I always felt like the warp in offensive potential is too much for which protoss pays with bad gateway units (I think all should agree that T1 gateway units < MM or lingroach). What I'd like to see is an encreased warp in time (to 10-15 seconds to begin with). Also I'd like to see an upgrade for stalkers since I feel they are not bad at lots of roles but good at none. A nice thing would be a buff at twilight council which increases their battle stats but disables blink ability.
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On July 26 2012 00:49 Cheerio wrote:
Another example of distinct racial ability is zerg larva injects. The problem is it gives zerg the ability to macro up drones very fast. While the zerg was generally UP it wasnt a big deal. But generally as minor issues were resolved it now stands as a serious issue. Personally I feel it's a bit OP which shows very nicely in PvZ where a lot of people feel they need to 2 base allin or lose to zerg macro (among recent examples I watched WhiteRa - Bly, Slivko - Titan including the interviews). A slight nerf on larva inject (for example only 3 larva but at slightly faster time) will make zergs invest more into production (which is the reverse problem of terrans who have to invest too much time and resources) and generally will force zergs to be more carefull about larva spending.
About protoss. I always felt like the warp in offensive potential is too much for which protoss pays with bad gateway units (I think all should agree that T1 gateway units < MM or lingroach). What I'd like to see is an encreased warp in time (to 10-15 seconds to begin with). Also I'd like to see an upgrade for stalkers since I feel they are not bad at lots of roles but good at none. A nice thing would be a buff at twilight council which increases their battle stats but disables blink ability.
"Only 3 larva but at slightly faster time". You just CAN'T nerf Zerg in the current situation in that way. If Protoss executes a good Sentry Immortal all-in Zerg already has to hit every Inject pretty much perfectly to stop it. Although I don't think a nerf is even needed regarding the newest tournament results. You already see Terran adepting and Protoss has pretty much as good results as Zerg currently.
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On July 26 2012 04:02 roym899 wrote:Show nested quote +On July 26 2012 00:49 Cheerio wrote:
Another example of distinct racial ability is zerg larva injects. The problem is it gives zerg the ability to macro up drones very fast. While the zerg was generally UP it wasnt a big deal. But generally as minor issues were resolved it now stands as a serious issue. Personally I feel it's a bit OP which shows very nicely in PvZ where a lot of people feel they need to 2 base allin or lose to zerg macro (among recent examples I watched WhiteRa - Bly, Slivko - Titan including the interviews). A slight nerf on larva inject (for example only 3 larva but at slightly faster time) will make zergs invest more into production (which is the reverse problem of terrans who have to invest too much time and resources) and generally will force zergs to be more carefull about larva spending.
About protoss. I always felt like the warp in offensive potential is too much for which protoss pays with bad gateway units (I think all should agree that T1 gateway units < MM or lingroach). What I'd like to see is an encreased warp in time (to 10-15 seconds to begin with). Also I'd like to see an upgrade for stalkers since I feel they are not bad at lots of roles but good at none. A nice thing would be a buff at twilight council which increases their battle stats but disables blink ability. "Only 3 larva but at slightly faster time". You just CAN'T nerf Zerg in the current situation in that way. If Protoss executes a good Sentry Immortal all-in Zerg already has to hit every Inject pretty much perfectly to stop it. Although I don't think a nerf is even needed regarding the newest tournament results. You already see Terran adepting and Protoss has pretty much as good results as Zerg currently.
Because ONE tournament win by a very good terran (who played one zerg) means anything....
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I think the big issue with TvP is the discrepancy between Pro and your average SC2 player. Most pros have no issue dodging storms and EMPing Templar perfectly. As a result the Protoss army is completely demolished. On the other hand you have your average Joe, miss an EMP and doesn't Dodge in time and as a result he gets shredded by Storm. What really kills most Terran pros is not the power of Splash, but rather the reinforcement mechanic that makes mass Chargelot Archon really hard to stop after a big battle.
This is all the result from the fact that TvP is more about simply Blob Firepower wars, in which neither race has any ability to hold a defensive position and comeback from a lategame supply deficit.
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On July 25 2012 23:20 DarkLordOlli wrote:Show nested quote +On July 25 2012 23:08 Shiori wrote:On July 25 2012 22:52 Charon1979 wrote:Anyone who thinks you can't dodge Storm to a meaningful degree needs to watch Taeja vs First from MLG Summer Arena. You always take minimum of 20 damage. Yes, you dont take the full 80 but there is "hidden" damage. Even if I pull back my units perfectly, I get damaged by the storm AND get free hits from the toss army. Fungal roots you but in most cases zerg units are medium ranged or melee units, so you can always fight back. You cant fight back AND dodge the storm. If you decide to fight back, you take even twice the damage of fungal. The number of free hits storm generates on a zerg army is quite huge, maby not so huge against T because they are already at range and a step back means the stalker are out of range too. But it doesn't actually matter as much against Z because Storm doesn't 1-shot kill Roaches, Broodlords, or Corruptors. It does 1-shot kill Marines, which is why Terran needs to be dodging it. I'm going to be completely honest and tell you straight up that if you think Storm is actually really strong against anything other than Muta/Ling/Bane, you're kidding yourself. It's just extra AoE damage for the late game in most situations. I mean, don't get me wrong, it certainly helps to throw down Storms on a Zerg army, but it definitely won't be the deciding factor in the battle like it is against Terran. Fungal is a problem because it prevents the Fungaled player from actually doing any micro. At all. If a bunch of air units somehow get Fungaled, they are dead and cannot be saved. That's just kind of shitty in my opinion. Even though Storm does more damage, if you have fast reaction time you can minimize the damage even if you're not expecting to be Stormed. Against Fungal, Protoss and Terran lose the primary advantage they have at that point in the game: mobility. Landing Storms and using Ghosts effectively against a player with strong mechanics is extremely hard, especially since overmaking either of the two units can make you lose. I'm not trying to say that Infestor control is easy, but landing good Fungals is not difficult in the sense that you simply wait for your opponent to clump up (which will always happen regardless of how good one's army control is) and seize the opportunity. What sucks about this is that literally 1 second of a mistake can be capitalized on to definitely kill the units in question. Since most of T/P lategame against Z consists in dancing all over the map without directly engaging, getting Fungaled basically means you need to abandon that part of your army to die, since it's not feasible to save it by engaging the Zerg. You also fail to point out that in any cases, the player who gets Fungaled doesn't want to "fight back" at that point. If I'm blinking around with 10 Stalkers and they eat a Fungal, what comfort is it to know that they can fight back as they get swarmed by 30 Roaches and Broodlords? They're still not going to kill a single unit before they die. Same with Terran. Who cares if the Terran player killed 5 or 6 Lings for the price of 15 Marines and two Medivacs? The biggest problem is that Fungal can be chained, meaning that as long as the Zerg has energy, the other player can't micro. Let that sink in. Why would you want a sell that eliminates micro, does damage, and has no disadvantages, in this game? At least in BW, Stasis just took units out of the battle for awhile. At least Storm is cast by a slow unit, does its damage over 4 seconds, and can be dodged. At least EMP can never outrightly kill a unit and doesn't impede its movement speed. What's the downside to Fungal? It does less damage than Storm? Sure, but Storms rarely hit for their full ticks anyway. Against Terran, the damage Fungal does to bio is enough that it doesn't really matter if it does less than Storm, since bio units have low health. Against Toss, the damage isn't the problem: it's the root. If you want to see what I mean, look at PvP. Storm is fucking worthless against pretty much every composition except Chargelot/Archon. Toss units have shields which means that the Storm rarely does anything, especially given the existence of Blink/Charge. Fungal, on the other hand, keeps Toss units from engaging in a proper position, does enough damage to kill Sentries after a couple of chains, and even freezes massive units (possibly the most unnecessary part of the spell).Don't talk about how good Storm is against Zerg when you have Fungal Growth. I would gladly trade Storm for the ability to Fungal a Muta flock and basically ensure that every single Muta dies, or for the ability to stop retreating Lings/Roaches in their tracks, or for the ability to freeze Corruptors over my army so that my Stalkers can kill them. EDIT: besides, by the time Protoss has Templar+ a large army, you will almost definitely have BL/Infestor, which means that your Roaches only serve the purpose of killing any aggressively Blinking Stalkers. There's no need to attack a 200/200 Protoss army with 20 Roaches. It's suicide with or without Storm. I 100% agree. Not saying that Fungal is imbalanced but it's definitely the most cost efficient spell in the game if used correctly. Zerg and terran players have been complaining about Forcefields forever because they negate micro... well, Fungal also does damage, keeps units in place completely and hits air.
The problem with FF negating micro wouldn't be that big if Terrans had a symmetrical opportunity to negate micro of the Toss. Right now, FF shuts down most early aggression and messes up Terran armies in the field far beyond defensive use, while being easier to use than to avoid or deal with. This asymmetry itself is a pain. I'd suggest at least increased energy cost for FF to reduce the problem of FF spamming and delay Toss's ability to land a ton of them (making it harder while still possible to bust naturals and deny bunker repair). And/or make the FF attackable by something, e.g. concussive shots or EMP or just a ton of HP but still capable of being attacked by everything. This would be to prevent Toss, especially on lower levels, from being able to cut enemy armies in halves for easier destruction.
So:
Problem: Protoss can a bit too efficiently/easily negate rushes, cut field armies apart to destroy them half by half, cut off bunker repairs.
Solution: Increase FF energy cost from 50 to 60.
Effect: First FF comes slightly later (and can't be cast fresh out of gate) but the delay adds up with next FFs and there is only 3, not 4, that a single sentry can do when on full mana. Casting three in a row would require 180 and not 150 energy. Six sentries could cast a max of 18, not 24 FFs. This would somewhat reduce field armies getting slaughtered in early to mid game, limit the extent of negating Terran or Zerg micro, limit the extent to which Toss can deny bunker repair when n-gating, make it slightly harder to block the ramp off indefinitely (perhaps by requiring one more sentry for the job). This would also reduce luck factor or the ability for single ability spam to negate overall skill.
Side effect: Less sentry-centred play on ladder or sentry-based play forced to include a little more sentries, reducing the muscle part of the army (so you can't have plenty of blockers and a small group of damage dealers). More active Tosses, more real/varied battles (as opposed to the standard mill of chunking and chafing).
Additional argument: FF seems to be intended as a ramp protection device and minor battlefield nuisance. The necessity to protect ramps has decreased with the nerf to Terran stim rushes and the slight nerf to barracks build time, and perhaps ramp vision nerf. There is no need to keep FF abusable in the battlefield. Toss would still be able to do all the things he can do now, just with a less overwhelming effect.
Overall I'd say the biggest balance issues lie with:
- PvT early / midgame
- TvP lategame
- PvZ + TvZ lategame
and I'm not sure if there's a good solution for zergs against the immortal/sentry all in, but that does seem rather strong to me.
I'm not talking about super lategame here because that's either not yet figured out completely (TvZ, TvP) or rather balanced (PvZ).
I tend to think PvT early game is balanced because in the earliest stages Toss is either equally or more powerful than Terran. Due to both FF and stim nerf the only mortal danger Toss had is averted, the rest IMHO the Toss can deal with, it doesn't pack such a punch compared to stim rushes from before the nerf. Especially in lower skill brackets, Terran can die very easily in the early game while Toss would need to die to 3 marauder push or something on the cheesy side.
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I think it'd be cool if one fungal slows units but you could stack a second to stop movement. No clue what it would do to balance but giving users more choices and making spells more dynamic is generally a good thing.
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On July 26 2012 05:15 NewbieOne wrote:Show nested quote +On July 25 2012 23:20 DarkLordOlli wrote:On July 25 2012 23:08 Shiori wrote:On July 25 2012 22:52 Charon1979 wrote:Anyone who thinks you can't dodge Storm to a meaningful degree needs to watch Taeja vs First from MLG Summer Arena. You always take minimum of 20 damage. Yes, you dont take the full 80 but there is "hidden" damage. Even if I pull back my units perfectly, I get damaged by the storm AND get free hits from the toss army. Fungal roots you but in most cases zerg units are medium ranged or melee units, so you can always fight back. You cant fight back AND dodge the storm. If you decide to fight back, you take even twice the damage of fungal. The number of free hits storm generates on a zerg army is quite huge, maby not so huge against T because they are already at range and a step back means the stalker are out of range too. But it doesn't actually matter as much against Z because Storm doesn't 1-shot kill Roaches, Broodlords, or Corruptors. It does 1-shot kill Marines, which is why Terran needs to be dodging it. I'm going to be completely honest and tell you straight up that if you think Storm is actually really strong against anything other than Muta/Ling/Bane, you're kidding yourself. It's just extra AoE damage for the late game in most situations. I mean, don't get me wrong, it certainly helps to throw down Storms on a Zerg army, but it definitely won't be the deciding factor in the battle like it is against Terran. Fungal is a problem because it prevents the Fungaled player from actually doing any micro. At all. If a bunch of air units somehow get Fungaled, they are dead and cannot be saved. That's just kind of shitty in my opinion. Even though Storm does more damage, if you have fast reaction time you can minimize the damage even if you're not expecting to be Stormed. Against Fungal, Protoss and Terran lose the primary advantage they have at that point in the game: mobility. Landing Storms and using Ghosts effectively against a player with strong mechanics is extremely hard, especially since overmaking either of the two units can make you lose. I'm not trying to say that Infestor control is easy, but landing good Fungals is not difficult in the sense that you simply wait for your opponent to clump up (which will always happen regardless of how good one's army control is) and seize the opportunity. What sucks about this is that literally 1 second of a mistake can be capitalized on to definitely kill the units in question. Since most of T/P lategame against Z consists in dancing all over the map without directly engaging, getting Fungaled basically means you need to abandon that part of your army to die, since it's not feasible to save it by engaging the Zerg. You also fail to point out that in any cases, the player who gets Fungaled doesn't want to "fight back" at that point. If I'm blinking around with 10 Stalkers and they eat a Fungal, what comfort is it to know that they can fight back as they get swarmed by 30 Roaches and Broodlords? They're still not going to kill a single unit before they die. Same with Terran. Who cares if the Terran player killed 5 or 6 Lings for the price of 15 Marines and two Medivacs? The biggest problem is that Fungal can be chained, meaning that as long as the Zerg has energy, the other player can't micro. Let that sink in. Why would you want a sell that eliminates micro, does damage, and has no disadvantages, in this game? At least in BW, Stasis just took units out of the battle for awhile. At least Storm is cast by a slow unit, does its damage over 4 seconds, and can be dodged. At least EMP can never outrightly kill a unit and doesn't impede its movement speed. What's the downside to Fungal? It does less damage than Storm? Sure, but Storms rarely hit for their full ticks anyway. Against Terran, the damage Fungal does to bio is enough that it doesn't really matter if it does less than Storm, since bio units have low health. Against Toss, the damage isn't the problem: it's the root. If you want to see what I mean, look at PvP. Storm is fucking worthless against pretty much every composition except Chargelot/Archon. Toss units have shields which means that the Storm rarely does anything, especially given the existence of Blink/Charge. Fungal, on the other hand, keeps Toss units from engaging in a proper position, does enough damage to kill Sentries after a couple of chains, and even freezes massive units (possibly the most unnecessary part of the spell).Don't talk about how good Storm is against Zerg when you have Fungal Growth. I would gladly trade Storm for the ability to Fungal a Muta flock and basically ensure that every single Muta dies, or for the ability to stop retreating Lings/Roaches in their tracks, or for the ability to freeze Corruptors over my army so that my Stalkers can kill them. EDIT: besides, by the time Protoss has Templar+ a large army, you will almost definitely have BL/Infestor, which means that your Roaches only serve the purpose of killing any aggressively Blinking Stalkers. There's no need to attack a 200/200 Protoss army with 20 Roaches. It's suicide with or without Storm. I 100% agree. Not saying that Fungal is imbalanced but it's definitely the most cost efficient spell in the game if used correctly. Zerg and terran players have been complaining about Forcefields forever because they negate micro... well, Fungal also does damage, keeps units in place completely and hits air. The problem with FF negating micro wouldn't be that big if Terrans had a symmetrical opportunity to negate micro of the Toss. Right now, FF shuts down most early aggression and messes up Terran armies in the field far beyond defensive use, while being easier to use than to avoid or deal with. This asymmetry itself is a pain. I'd suggest at least increased energy cost for FF to reduce the problem of FF spamming and delay Toss's ability to land a ton of them (making it harder while still possible to bust naturals and deny bunker repair). And/or make the FF attackable by something, e.g. concussive shots or EMP or just a ton of HP but still capable of being attacked by everything. This would be to prevent Toss, especially on lower levels, from being able to cut enemy armies in halves for easier destruction. So: Problem: Protoss can a bit too efficiently/easily negate rushes, cut field armies apart to destroy them half by half, cut off bunker repairs. Solution: Increase FF energy cost from 50 to 60. Effect: First FF comes slightly later (and can't be cast fresh out of gate) but the delay adds up with next FFs and there is only 3, not 4, that a single sentry can do when on full mana. Casting three in a row would require 180 and not 150 energy. Six sentries could cast a max of 18, not 24 FFs. This would somewhat reduce field armies getting slaughtered in early to mid game, limit the extent of negating Terran or Zerg micro, limit the extent to which Toss can deny bunker repair when n-gating, make it slightly harder to block the ramp off indefinitely (perhaps by requiring one more sentry for the job). This would also reduce luck factor or the ability for single ability spam to negate overall skill. Side effect: Less sentry-centred play on ladder or sentry-based play forced to include a little more sentries, reducing the muscle part of the army (so you can't have plenty of blockers and a small group of damage dealers). More active Tosses, more real/varied battles (as opposed to the standard mill of chunking and chafing). Additional argument: FF seems to be intended as a ramp protection device and minor battlefield nuisance. The necessity to protect ramps has decreased with the nerf to Terran stim rushes and the slight nerf to barracks build time, and perhaps ramp vision nerf. There is no need to keep FF abusable in the battlefield. Toss would still be able to do all the things he can do now, just with a less overwhelming effect. Show nested quote +Overall I'd say the biggest balance issues lie with:
- PvT early / midgame
- TvP lategame
- PvZ + TvZ lategame
and I'm not sure if there's a good solution for zergs against the immortal/sentry all in, but that does seem rather strong to me.
I'm not talking about super lategame here because that's either not yet figured out completely (TvZ, TvP) or rather balanced (PvZ). I tend to think PvT early game is balanced because in the earliest stages Toss is either equally or more powerful than Terran. Due to both FF and stim nerf the only mortal danger Toss had is averted, the rest IMHO the Toss can deal with, it doesn't pack such a punch compared to stim rushes from before the nerf. Especially in lower skill brackets, Terran can die very easily in the early game while Toss would need to die to 3 marauder push or something on the cheesy side.
Actually, making buildings massive would be enough. That way a bunker has to be surrounded by forcefields in a way that no field touches the bunker. That way terran could set up a defense that allows SCVs to move but FF get dispelled.
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just a side note:
i have never seen that before - EU GMleague no terran in top 17. happy rank 18. 3 terrans in top 30...
not talking about balance though ^^
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EPT
