EPTI am a mid-masters zerg player, and i think swarm hosts are awesome! It's the only way to beat a late game protoss or mech army very cost effectively
Designated Balance Discussion Thread - Page 470
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Scones
Wales99 Posts
I am a mid-masters zerg player, and i think swarm hosts are awesome! It's the only way to beat a late game protoss or mech army very cost effectively | ||
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Goldfish
2230 Posts
On April 28 2013 05:56 freetgy wrote: or you make just a turrent just in case and get the upgrades you would get anyway? @SH i don't like swarm hosts either, their design makes it that they are either super good or super bad there is no real in between. Agreed, I edited something in my initial post about this. On April 28 2013 06:03 ETisME wrote: I reckon the problem with swarm host is that it just don't work well at a professional gamer level. it might be the lack of mobility, difficulty to know when to add how many swarm host, too easily to lose all the swarm host, too much babysitting etcetc Also agreed. I think a solution is to this is: 1. Reduce initial Locust time from 15 seconds to 10 seconds. 2. Increase Enduring Locusts upgrade from 200/200 and 120 seconds to something higher (maybe 170 seconds for the Enduring Locust upgrade "if" they are too strong early game). 3. Greatly increase the speed Swarm Host move and burrow, and also increase the Locust speed in general. While this may seem redundant with Locust time reduction, it lowers the potential overall damage dealt from a single Swarm Host due to lesser time Locust last, and so the travel time between Swarm Host + Locust and their target could remain the same. Maybe burrow speed should be 3x faster (nearly instant), movement maybe 33% faster (for both Swarm Hosts and Locust). This makes Swarm Host much more mobile but since Locust time is reduced (15 to 10 seconds) and Enduring Locust upgrade time is increased, then Swarm Hosts damage potential (until Enduring Locust upgrade is researched anyway) is reduced. Also this makes 1 or 2 Swarm Hosts a bit more viable. The main problem of why 1-3 Swarm Hosts can't do anything (and why building 1-3 Swarm Host probably isn't efficient compared to building another unit or building a ton of Swarm Hosts at once) is that Swarm Hosts need a lot of preparation and setup for them to work. Speed increase might help reduce that problem and make Swarm Hosts in smaller numbers somewhat useful. | ||
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aksfjh
United States4853 Posts
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plogamer
Canada3132 Posts
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Assirra
Belgium4169 Posts
On April 28 2013 13:12 plogamer wrote: Zerg wins dreamhack, zergs discuss swarm host design .. in the balance thread. lol Where else? Try to make a thread about changing units and it will get closed with note "put it on battle.net" Also, it once again shown in Dreamhack that the swarmhosts are the new hydra's (you make them, you lose) and people would rather not have that. | ||
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DemigodcelpH
1138 Posts
On April 28 2013 06:11 Scones wrote: I must be playing a different game to you all. I am a mid-masters zerg player, and i think swarm hosts are awesome! It's the only way to beat a late game protoss or mech army very cost effectively My play with it has also been the same bordering on broken; the swarmhost does not need a buff in any shape or form. | ||
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ETisME
12275 Posts
Personally I would love to see any korean have a specific swarm hosts build but it so far appears not gonna happen anytime soon | ||
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Klipsys
United States1533 Posts
On April 28 2013 05:39 larse wrote: Dustin Browder and David Kim constantly stated that swarmhost is their favorite unit in HOTS because it feels new and zergy. Yeah, right. Swarmhost is now declared the most useless unit in the game. There is zero successful swarmhost play since HOTS, except a couple of very cheesy and gimmick ones. Not in SPL, not in GSTL, not in GSL, not in Dreamhack, not in WCS qualifiers. On April 28 2013 05:45 Sepi wrote: Swarmhosts are so bad. They have no purpose in the game, although the blizzard so clearly stated that they want to only keep units that have an actual role in the game. Haha, guess they failed on that part. Yeah, It sucks that SC2 is static and can't be changed and tweaked. Fuck blizzard for not making a new unit perfectly the first time.... | ||
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Zarahtra
Iceland4053 Posts
On April 28 2013 14:38 DemigodcelpH wrote: My play with it has also been the same bordering on broken; the swarmhost does not need a buff in any shape or form. My experience against SH is really only that if you allow the zerg to stock pile gas, SH becomes an issue, if he can't make like 10+ SHs at once I feel I can stabalize quite quickly and just push through it normally(with mech). With that in mind I'd venture a guess that pro players don't allow the zergs to stockpile enough for SH to be effective(aswell as most just playing bio where SH doesn't work really). But yeah, I don't really like the idea of buffing SH so they are very effective in small numbers, mostly because I feel zerg doesn't need to commit enough gas then into certain units. I already feel vipers are very cheap on gas for the zerg army(since you can suck energy you need so few), adding another cheap unit for great gains is iffy imo. | ||
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larse
1611 Posts
All HOTS new units feel very peripheral, especially the zerg ones. Compare to the BW addition to SC1, most BW new units are very core units. You have to use medic, valkyrie, lurker, dark templar, and corsair. You just can't play the game without using them. But in HOTS, you don't have to use new units. It's nice to have all the new units but they are just there. Pros can still win games consistently without even look at the new units. This just once again shows the incompetence of SC2 game design team. | ||
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Toosneaky
United States114 Posts
I just don't like how there is no middle ground with them. It seems like right now, if you go swarmhosts, you better get a LOT of them to be effective. | ||
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convention
United States622 Posts
On April 28 2013 15:14 larse wrote: To the extend the discussion on swarmhost, I have to say something about all the new units. All HOTS new units feel very peripheral, especially the zerg ones. Compare to the BW addition to SC1, most BW new units are very core units. You have to use medic, valkyrie, lurker, dark templar, and corsair. You just can't play the game without using them. But in HOTS, you don't have to use new units. It's nice to have all the new units but they are just there. Pros can still win games consistently without even look at the new units. This just once again shows the incompetence of SC2 game design team. How does HotS units not being the most dominant units mean that the design team messed up? I would say the opposite actually. The new units add a new way to play without completely eclipsing the old units. Thus there are more play styles that can be had by the players. Protoss can now add a few air units to a composition, terran can now add a few mines and helllbats to a composition. But if the whole protoss composition changed, then we are no longer tweaking the game to make it exciting, we are just re-rolling the dice completely and hoping the outcome is better than the first roll. | ||
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Big J
Austria16289 Posts
On April 28 2013 06:13 Goldfish wrote: Agreed, I edited something in my initial post about this. Also agreed. I think a solution is to this is: 1. Reduce initial Locust time from 15 seconds to 10 seconds. 2. Increase Enduring Locusts upgrade from 200/200 and 120 seconds to something higher (maybe 170 seconds for the Enduring Locust upgrade "if" they are too strong early game). 3. Greatly increase the speed Swarm Host move and burrow, and also increase the Locust speed in general. While this may seem redundant with Locust time reduction, it lowers the potential overall damage dealt from a single Swarm Host due to lesser time Locust last, and so the travel time between Swarm Host + Locust and their target could remain the same. Maybe burrow speed should be 3x faster (nearly instant), movement maybe 33% faster (for both Swarm Hosts and Locust). This makes Swarm Host much more mobile but since Locust time is reduced (15 to 10 seconds) and Enduring Locust upgrade time is increased, then Swarm Hosts damage potential (until Enduring Locust upgrade is researched anyway) is reduced. Also this makes 1 or 2 Swarm Hosts a bit more viable. The main problem of why 1-3 Swarm Hosts can't do anything (and why building 1-3 Swarm Host probably isn't efficient compared to building another unit or building a ton of Swarm Hosts at once) is that Swarm Hosts need a lot of preparation and setup for them to work. Speed increase might help reduce that problem and make Swarm Hosts in smaller numbers somewhat useful. Im not sure if there is anything really wrong with swarm hosts at this point. Maybe the long burrow/spawn animation and the unability to queue burrow+rally point. But, what do you expect from them? They are already good in many situations ZvP when you are ahead --> exactly what blizzad wanted. A midgame "finisher", so that zerg doesn't have to play the broodlord game everytime an opponent turtles. I also think that they could be pretty good in a post mutalisk ZvZ world. Swarm Hosts suffer the same problems all other singlefire units have: -) they can be pretty useful against each other, as long as no marines are in the equation. -) they are in trouble against long range splash -) gameplaywise they are quite good against slow moving opponents like mech I mean, for me right now it sounds like they do as much as is balancwise capable. It's more that Terran's never do anything but mass marine these days, the timing window for pre-Colossus is usually tiny and ZvZ is that muta coinflipgame which doesn't allow spending of gas. Though two base hosts do give you a nice window in ZvP before Colossus, which is what we see/hear of most. I think it's less the swarm host that is badly balanced, it's more the fact that it often just doesn't do anything that roach/hydra can't achieve as well in ZvP, while transitioning better. But I believe at least in that matchup, swarm hosts could shine quite bright one day if the metagame just shifts a little bit around. | ||
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plogamer
Canada3132 Posts
On April 28 2013 14:21 Assirra wrote: Where else? Try to make a thread about changing units and it will get closed with note "put it on battle.net" Also, it once again shown in Dreamhack that the swarmhosts are the new hydra's (you make them, you lose) and people would rather not have that. Are you trying to have a discussion on the discussion of unit design in a thread designated for discussion of balance? You roughnecks are hereby charged with the crime of going wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy off-topic. tldr (you'll probably need this, trust me): if not whine about balance, whine about design. designated whining thread, more-like. | ||
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Big J
Austria16289 Posts
On April 28 2013 16:48 plogamer wrote: Are you trying to have a discussion on the discussion of unit design in a thread designated for discussion of balance? You roughnecks are hereby charged with the crime of going wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy off-topic. tldr (you'll probably need this, trust me): if not whine about balance, whine about design. designated whining thread, more-like. the fun part is that most people on the last pages who discussed swarm hosts don't seem to play zerg, so your original comment isn't quite right. (freegty, convention, larse, Goldfish...) It's more like: People saw some potential in Swarm Host play at Dreamhack, but it just didn't seem to be strong enough to them. So they are discussing what's wrong with that kind of play. | ||
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DemigodcelpH
1138 Posts
On April 28 2013 15:05 Zarahtra wrote: My experience against SH is really only that if you allow the zerg to stock pile gas, SH becomes an issue. Swarmhosts only cost 100 gas; they're easily massed and extremely effective able to more or less destroy anything on the ground (locusts even melt planetaries) with free units. You basically have to switch to air (generally not always possible) or base trade. | ||
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Big J
Austria16289 Posts
On April 28 2013 17:51 DemigodcelpH wrote: Swarmhosts only cost 100 gas; they're easily massed and extremely effective able to more or less destroy anything on the ground (locusts even melt planetaries) with free units. You basically have to switch to air (generally not always possible) or base trade. Colossus, marines, marauders, tanks or just big enough armies of immortals/archons destroy them on the ground | ||
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Ysellian
Netherlands9029 Posts
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Snowbear
Korea (South)1925 Posts
On April 28 2013 14:42 ETisME wrote: I think then it's upto whether blizzard wants swarm host to be a ladder-only unit? Personally I would love to see any korean have a specific swarm hosts build but it so far appears not gonna happen anytime soon Wait for stephano to show how to use them. Seriously, if there was no stephano, then in TvZ: - the ultra would be a ladder only unit - the roach + hydra composition would be a ladder only unit - the infestor would be a ladder only unit It took zergs more then a year to figure out that infestors are awesome. Same for ultralisks, and at then end of wol stephano finally showed that even roach hydra is viable. | ||
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Snowbear
Korea (South)1925 Posts
On April 28 2013 17:58 Big J wrote: Colossus, marines, marauders, tanks or just big enough armies of immortals/archons destroy them on the ground Not when they are protected by your army... | ||
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