Designated Balance Discussion Thread - Page 488

On May 20 2013 16:35 playa wrote:
Swarm hosts have ruined the game. Facing broodlords was 100x easier and a lot more balanced. On maps where you can easily control the middle with swarm hosts plus defend most of your expansions, I wish they would just give zerg an auto win and save everyone the time and trouble. Even in games where I have, literally, every expansion and the opponent just has swarm hosts, plus a few buildings, it's always tense and I have no idea, still, if I can manage to win, regardless of 10k/10k and way more psi.

Did they lose some art guys or something, too? Vipers just requiring a hive. Swarm hosts not requiring any new building. Why not just get rid of the hydra den, roach warren, etc, etc. Obviously these things were added for no good reason. Just have everything require a lair or hive. Let's just make it to where everyone is hacking and can see what zerg is making for the sake of balance, since it's such a great idea to not have any of these units require a new building.

Even on a mediocre econ, zerg can go muta, swarm host, ultra, ling? Give me a break. Time to remove the colossus bay (I would remember the name but having additional buildings is antiquated) or w/e.

I'm tired of people pretending it isn't bs and it's not flawed design to have a unit spawning free units non stop and you have to be incredibly lucky to even attack the swarm hosts. Hopefully this is a thread where you can whine... because it's not possible not to when being realistic.

If you have 100 psi or less and your opponent has every expo on the map, yet you're sticking around, something is very wrong when that makes sense to do.

On May 20 2013 17:24 Roblin wrote:


dude, quit whining.
first of all, if you float 10k/10k then maybe there's something wrong with your basic macro?
secondly you said absolutely nothing about how you went about trying to fight the swarm hosts, so we have no idea how dumb your attacks were.

this may be the designated balance discussion thread but that doesn't mean balance whine somehow carries any weight in any kind of discussion, if you want to be taken seriously, begin by presenting what you think is over or underpowered, in this case you seem to think swarm host are overpowered, you also go on tangents talking about some other units, but those does not seem to be the main focus.

then, once you have clearly explained what you think is over/underpowered, provide some kind of evidence of your statement, anecdotal stories is not evidence, as far as we know you could just be a player with a style that is extremely ineffective vs swarm hosts, or you could just be bad. better evidence would be actual replays or vods from competitive matches.

finally, you should either give an example of a change that would fix the issue, or admit that you do not know how to fix it.

below is an example of how to present your case better:
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I believe swarmhosts are overpowered in matchup(s) A(, B, C), they are too costeffective.

we can see in [replay link] that I have D mining bases vs my opponents E, and yet said opponent can stay in the game without being outmacroed, even though I played, to my knowledge, much better than my opponent, I claim this because of reason F and G.

I have no idea how to fix it though.
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there are 3 kinds of answers you can get from such a post:
1. agreeing posts from people who's experience match your own.
2. disagreeing posts from people who's experience contradict your own.
3. a claim that your evidence is invalid, inconclusive, or insufficient, generally with notes about why the evidence is faulty, such as points of time in replays where clearly wrong decisions were made, given the available information, and what decision should have been made instead.

p.s. when you say psi, I assume you mean the protoss supply, please just say supply instead, it's much clearer to use a universal name for all races instead of individual ones, especially since psi stands for Pounds per Square Inch, a measurement unit of pressure.

On May 20 2013 17:53 playa wrote:If you don't see a problem with swarm hosts, you're either plat or incredibly biased. ... It's a balance thread, and I'm merely casting a vote for swarm hosts are imbalanced and there's no way they don't see a nerf in the future.

On May 20 2013 17:59 Nekovivie wrote:


Speaking from a purely spectator point of view, we almost never see Swarm Hosts being used competitively, so what about them is actually nerf worthy?

Unless all top players have some kind of unwritten gentlemans rule where they don't make them becuase they are overpowered.Yeah...can't see that one working out.

On May 20 2013 20:57 Xequecal wrote:


You didn't see broodfestor in the vast majority of PvZ games at the end of WoL, either. This is because Protoss knew it was unbeatable and always aimed to end the game earlier. It's not any different now.

PvZ isn't technically "imbalanced" right now either, Protoss still has immensely strong midgame strategies that win enough to make up for the fact that the late game is an autoloss. Again, pretty much exactly like it was at the end of WoL.

On May 20 2013 23:42 Big J wrote:


This is much too early to call... Mass swarm host with viper/corruptor/infestor/static support is surely an extremly strong army to attack into head on in PvZ, but so is voidray/Colossus/HT or straight up skytoss and all their variations.
From what we have seen so far those compositions often win because they are being played of a gamble or an advantage (Protoss 3base builds that are either not rushed at all or rushed badly, zergs that defend a 2base attack and then go into swarm hosts).
If there is going to be a safe way to get to them and if one side has a distinct advantage when both players end up somewhat evenly in the midgame is hard to tell at this point. And in Protoss matchups it's generally really hard to tell, as Protoss simply can't play a fast 3base build against a fast 3base build, which more often than not means that Protoss just goes with certain disadvantages into the lategame, which they have to make up with by investing into different advantages and therefore the situation is always somewhat asymetric.

On May 20 2013 23:46 Reborn8u wrote:


When the swarm host was first revealed, I asked the question why in the name of starcraft would they add another infinite free unit producer after they were unable or unwilling to fix the BL infestor fiasco in wol. I have no idea what they were thinking.

On May 20 2013 23:50 Big J wrote:


And I have yet to see a boring game with swarm hosts, compared to a thousand boring games we have seen with Broodlord/Infestor.

On May 21 2013 01:08 Jermstuddog wrote:
The complaints about the swarm host came out of left field.

Wasn't Blizzard talking about buffing the swarm host LAST WEEK because it is underutilized?

And now we've determined that it needs to be nerfed?

I love this whine, just my flavor

On May 21 2013 00:26 Rabiator wrote:

Just watch it become boring after a few more games ...

At the beginning of WoL people had fun watching the deathball because it was NEW and EXCITING, but ask them now what they think of the concept and they will answer you that it is boring and bad for the gameplay. The same will happen to the rather (too?) powerful harrassment and the endless stream of Locusts which were added in HotS. So "having fun watching" is a really bad method of judging the state of the game and it should certainly not be the top criterion as you make it out to be.

The problem of Locusts really is that if there are too many of them there is nothing to counter them efficiently without losing anything.+ Show Spoiler + Even if it is only a few hit points lost on a single Stalker that is a win for the Zerg, because eventually the Protoss will have to replace it while the Zerg has lost nothing. Not even Siege Tanks will get rid of them quickly at 65 hit points and non-armored ... you need three hits at the core splash radius to kill them and there are not too many Locusts in that radius. Sooo ... we are back at the same old "don't let them get there" counter-strategy of Blizzard (instead of giving us units which can deal with them for an equal amount of effort, but they failed to do that with Broodlords already).

The slow and rather tedious nature of the Swarm Host attack method is pretty boring to watch too; the Broodlord at least was "close to the action" but the Swarm Host is miles away. Apart from that the Locusts are "nearly invisible" (that is only a little bit exaggerated) on creep and thus not really good to watch in the first place. Mid-brownish to dark-purple is a rather small contrast and this really does make them hard to see for a viewer. It joins most of the other Zerg units in that problem, but since they are usually much bigger AND they move faster it isnt as big of a problem for the "real Zerg units". On a sand colored map this isnt a problem, but once you have spread creep it changes again. So from a scientific POV at least your comment of "seeing" is pretty wrong at least half the time.

IMO the Locusts need to be made weak against one type of unit (light or armored) so you have a chance to block them without losing too much while keeping the "you didnt build counters to that unit and thus you die" part of it. Just change the attack from "12 vs all" to "5 + 7 vs light". There are too many Zerg units which are good against everything (= have no "bonus" damage) already ...

On May 21 2013 01:08 Jermstuddog wrote:
The complaints about the swarm host came out of left field.

Wasn't Blizzard talking about buffing the swarm host LAST WEEK because it is underutilized?

And now we've determined that it needs to be nerfed?

I love this whine, just my flavor

On May 21 2013 04:48 aldochillbro wrote:
so I've been playing pvz and not going allin...and it is so broken. I had 9 3/3 collosus, many high templar, and blink stalker and couldn't break the swarm host(3/3 as well, i think there were like 16 of them). there was no static defense or other units coming into play, just the locusts. this is broken in so many ways because it counters all "ground units". you can't get aoe to defeat it if you go skytoss because the locusts will kill the ht's long before you can storm an army and pure skytoss is very beatable as zerg(even when you somehow manage to get a maxed skytoss army).

the worst thing about them is that they're incredible mobile and there is absolutely no reason to lose a single swarm host with good control. they have a crazy range and can unburrow and move really fast.

does any zerg have a response that I can try for this? given the composition is swarmhosts, vipers, corrupters, infestors, and maybe hydras? is the answer always just to 2base allin?

On May 21 2013 05:12 fdsdfg wrote:


9 Colossus is too many. You should have 4 or 5, any more don't provide any benefit as they can't all fire.

Play patiently with blink. Let gateways tank swarmhost shots when possible. Be very very fast with feedback on vipers. Don't be afraid to forcefield or storm locusts if it gives you an opportunity to move in. Make use of zealots on their bases but do not include them with your swarmhost battles. Once you bring the battle to the swarmhosts, it doesn't matter if they can unburrow because colossi burn the locusts as they spawn (hitting the swarmhosts), and there's not enough resistance for the stalkers to blink forward and kill unburrowed swarmhosts.

If it gets really lategame, implement more stargate units. Oracle + tempests will put the long stalemates back in your favor because you can pick away at everything safely.