So I've already seen like 2-3 threads talking about only the new units. And they aren't really specific as far as details of the units. Most of the stuff is pretty speculative and generalized since no one has any idea how they would play out at all. With the new upgrades and evolutions of old units though, and even the outright removal of other units, it can be a little easier to judge those. I'm curious to see what everyone's opinions are about all the proposed changes so far. (also the other polls were kind of weak imho). Also more specifically, out of the new units - what you do and do not like about their abilities.
Another overlooked thing is the aesthetics. What do you guys think about the names and designs of these units and abilities?
============= Upgrades/Evolutions:
Hydralisk speed upgrade(Hive tech) I believe it has the same speed whether on or off creep once upgraded.
Corruptor change (Lair tech) Corruption has been removed. In it's place is a new ability that gives corruptors a very weak ground attack to buildings that is converted into minerals and gas for the corruptor's owner at a slow pace.
Hellion morph upgrade (Factory techlab tech) An upgrade that allows you to morph hellions into more heavy defensive units at a cost of speed and attack speed. (note this poll is different than the unit itself, this is about the upgrade/tech of it.)
Reaper changes (Barracks techlab tech) I don't think there are any upgrades at cost, but the changes are removal of the d8 charge bldg attack (still can attack structures with pistols) and the fact that it can regenerate life like some hybrid of shields/zerg regen when out of combat.
Ghost changes (Ghost academy tech) Instead of the traditional style of paying 25 energy to cloak and slowly draining the energy down to 0 until decloak (or uncloaking yourself). It now has a 1 time cost of X that has a limited duration that doesn't drain any further energy.
Additionally, ghosts can now cloak and decloak while calling down nuclear strikes.
Battlecruiser upgrade (Fusion core tech) Allows battlecrusises to activate an 'afterburner' that enables a boost in movement speed for a short duration (not sure if it costs energy)
Nexus changes (Nexus tech lol) The nexus can target any building owned by the player and equip it with a canon like defense on top that can only damage light units. The nexus can do a mass recall of any units anywhere and they will be disabled for a short duration as a result. I assume these both cost energy:
Zerg Viper: Flying zerg unit that has a one time use ability to target an unit and grant him permanent detection. Also has an ability to lay a cloud that reduces all units within to 1 attack range. Has a third ability to 'grab' units from a long range, can be used on enemy or allied units.
Terran Shredder: Ground robotic unit that deploys in an area to do DoTs to enemy units within the radius as long as allied units are not also within it's range. (does not count other shredders as allied units)
Terran Battle Hellion: The hellion morphs into a more armor/hp that does more damage in a wider radius. The downside is that it moves slower, has shorter range, and slower attack speed.
Terran Thor: Back to the original design from alpha, this is a heavy artillery unit that comes from fusion core tech. It is a '1 per player' mothership type unit that moves slow, does huge damage, slow attack, lots of armor and hp, and has an ability to 'nuke' a large ground area on a cooldown.
Protoss Oracle: Protoss air caster raid unit that has the ability to shutdown mineral fields to prevent collection for a short duration. Has another ability to view the tech of enemy structures to see what is being researched,upgraded, or built from them. Lastly, it has an ability to remove any building from being targeted or targeting for a short duration. This also effectively removes the building from the game, as tech normally provided from that structure is inaccessible for that duration as well.
Protoss Replicant: Another protoss caster that can copy any unit in vision and gain all abilities of that unit regardless if they are researched or not.
Feel free to correct any misinformation I have here if there is any.
PS- I'm not really sure what all the campaign units and evolutions are but if anyone has a list of all those changes so far, I would like to see polls and hear opinions of all those things for both single and multiplayer use. (example the raptorlings that can jump cliffs)
As far as the aesthetics, I really really dislike the name of 'swarm host'. Zerg really gets the shaft when it comes to naming their stuff (roach). I also don't think this thing looks scary or bulky enough to be a siege type unit. Why not call it locust cannon if you're going for basic stuff? Swarm Cannon, Locust Launcher, Brooder, etc. etc. Anything but swarm host. How'd we go from zergling, mutalisk, drone, etc. to roach, viper, swarm host? Create a new suffix or prefix and slap some weird greek word on it like before. Where is the creativity? heralox, gryphintor, medusarit
Glad the thor is gone, but the new one is just kinda overlapping tech and just a novelty really. They took it out of the alpha because of this reason in fact. Its basically just an Odin from the campaign right?
Love the hydra speed upgrade, but hive tech? wtf thats like giving me a lolipop, letting me open it slowly, and move it towards my mouth and then slaughtering my family in front of me.
Mothership out is good.
I think Carrier could have been reworked a bit, and either the void or the phoenix could have been reworked as well to fill the roles better.
Don't really like the Oracle, really undecided on it at this point. But at first glance it either seems really really cheap or really really useless. The building spying just seems like a useless overlap with the building removal. What would you rather do, block his spire indefinitely or just see that he's making mutas now?
Replicant kinda seems novelty with no real strategic value. Probably only good in certain uncommon defensive or offensive opportunity/situations.
Nexus abilities seem like they might be overpowered. Late game toss usually has a lot of chrono saved on their stuff so it's like infinite recalling and the canon thing is just icing on the cake really.
Shredder seems like it has a lot of potential for trapping and stuff but it did seem really really strong in the demo. I like the idea but undecided on it right now.
Hellion battle mode is kinda meh, but its probably really powerful. If you mix regular hellions and battle hellions together that is pretty nasty, and then there are tanks and warhound behind. I dunno mech might be way way buff.
Like the d8 removal of the reaper, but i dunno about the regen.
Ghost cloak stuff is ok, just curious on the numbers. EMP and snipe are really powerful, hopefully this uses a lot of mana to take away from that a little. I wish they would just make ghost light units and lower their HP,Damage, or range instead though.
Viper seems like it might be imbalanced, grabbing important units out of a battle to snipe or darkwarming terran for banes.. Ocular is kinda meh, I liked the overseer tbh.
Fungal + darkwarm + banes seems really really cheap. But then again, so does burrow charge ultras and burrow move banes.
Corruptor changes are probably for the best. Been more than a few games with corruptors unable to do anything at all when I can't/don't want broodlords right then and there.
Warhound looks stupid, looks like a shittier version of a mechwarrior 2 mech. It seems like a good unit though.
I'm a Zerg player, so I'll focus solely on some of the zerg stuff.
Hydra Speed - very much needed. Still, I'm not sure if it's enough to actually revitalize the unit. It's almost scary to think about people who've never played SC:BW and think Hydralisks are always just useless units.
Ultra Charge - Going to be very good, but this is going to be tough to make it a balanced ability. Ultralisks are so strong once they get into the enemy line, and this might just make it a little too easy. Still not totally decided on this point I guess.
Baneling Burrow Move - Words cannot describe how happy this would make me. Of course, it's also not going to happen. Blizzard might be optimistic about it now, but there is no way that this idea is actually going to carry over. An ability like this would be very much a waste. We already have infestors which can destroy practically any mineral line for, theoretically, free if they don't have detection. Baneling bombs are already super powerful, if you can place them right, and if you understand your opponent. This won't happen.
I really hope that the thor doesn't become a super unit. The only "tier 3" unit terran really has is the battlecruiser, I would love for a powerful, end game, tier 3 , expensive thor to exist to complement the warhound. Basically what they are going for now but make them massable + balanced (reduce radius of their ability, reduce damage, w/e). But being only able to build 1 would suck.
On October 23 2011 13:49 imareaver3 wrote: What does the [P] tag mean? When I saw this thread, I thought it was Protoss only until I read the OP.
It means poll I guess.
The main things I don't like are -The Hydra speed requiring hive tech -Warhound looks like an scv/mechwarrior thing -Swarm host seems a little bit wierd -Protoss replicant and oracle seem to be gimmicky/pointless -Nexus abilities seem like they should require some sort of tech requirements.
On October 23 2011 13:49 imareaver3 wrote: What does the [P] tag mean? When I saw this thread, I thought it was Protoss only until I read the OP.
It means poll I guess.
The main things I don't like are -The Hydra speed requiring hive tech -Warhound looks like an scv/mechwarrior thing -Swarm host seems a little bit wierd -Protoss replicant and oracle seem to be gimmicky/pointless -Nexus abilities seem like they should require some sort of tech requirements.
The viper grab is the silliest shit ive seen in an RTS to date.... i cant even believe the poll is at 40 40 20 right now O . O.... Ultra burrow charge slightly less ridiculous but in my opinion both of these abilities are incredibly un-zerglike. From my perspective the swarm lures you onto their creep, they fight on their terms, and when you overstep just a bit too far they surround and consume you. Charging into groups of enemies and / or pulling them in... i dono. I dono.
For pure aesthetics, I think Swarm Host is a wonderful name for a zerg unit, I hope the unit works. I'm not sure about the name 'Viper' for the Zerg, probably just me, but it seems more one of those military names that the Terran would use (like the real life Cobra helicopter.)
For the warhound, Blizzard really need to look at the Matrix mech or the Avatar mech, or District 9 for that matter, all of which are far more cool looking then this blocky looking, colourful Star Wars ATST with arms (the real ATST is cool of course). However, I think the function of the warhound will better than the thor. I almost wonder if they could phase out the marauder with the warhound.
I'm also happy to see faster hydralisks. They were such iconic units in broodwar and I hate how they've been replaced by the uninspired roach (If you lose to roaches, you didn't macro correctly. There is nothing tricky about roaches- Day9). Here's to a new renaissance of hydralisks!
Protoss really are getting the extremely short end of the stick here. It is crazy how lame the Replicant is. It is like Blizzard is saying, "Just don't play Protoss".
On October 23 2011 14:05 Hall0wed wrote: Protoss really are getting the extremely short end of the stick here. It is crazy how lame the Replicant is. It is like Blizzard is saying, "Just don't play Protoss".
To put it simply that's pretty true lol. "Hey your units suck, steal the other races!" tbh though, no one really used mind control and this is kinda worse version of it.
These polls are just the typical knee jerk reactions.
For the most part, at least for Protoss, they are adding completely new unit concepts to the game using Mechanics we have never used before, thus the vast majority of players can't accurately gauge their strength.
Also, people shouldn't be surprised that Protoss didn't get any shiny units on the level of the Viper or Swarm host. Zerg were really lacking in that department and Terran needed something more to make Mech more viable against Protoss.
But Protoss already had a ton of different units for every situation, what they really lacked was units that had depth and could reward skilled players.
I like to think of this like Tetris, Zerg are getting the Line piece, Terran getting the L block and Protoss end up getting the S and Z blocks.
No one likes getting S and Z blocks, since those are the blocks that usually end up fucking over the players the most. Sometimes it is not even clear where you should put it, but in the end those are the pieces that separate the good players from the bad the most :p
Good analogy Dommk, but those new S and Z pieces seem like they might not be the best solutions to the problems of the race as just a 'theoretical' standpoint.
Swarm Hosts - Idk why but i really like these guys, im really excited about them.
Oracle - This is like a better overseer, i really like it, though im a zerg player. Its a unit that i feel is useful if you have actions and multitasking for it. Feel like that's why toss players don't like it.
Viper - i like its spells, not sure how i feel about its detection tho.
Things i don't like
Replicators - would rather toss have a unique unit. Not that i think its imba or anything.
Thors, - Don't mind them moving it back to Fusion Core, though i dislike they only allow you to build one. The MS made more since with the limit to one. If they don't want people massing them, just give them a really high supply.
To stay with the Tetris metaphor, I feel like Protoss has far to many square blocks (collosi 1a units) and I was hoping some of them would be taking out to be replaced by some of those other more interesting blocks.
I don't really like the new protoss stuff. It all seems too gimmicky and not really true to the way starcraft works. I think the best changes were made to zerg, not from a balance standpoint or anything.
I didn't like the siphon ability until I realized it was zerg's way to use up extra queen energy for macro, just like terran can call down multiple mules and toss can use multiple chronos. Zerg can siphon their own buildings and transfuse them, for some 'free' minerals, only at the expense of queen energy. I still don't like that corruptors are essentially useless in combat once any air dies (unlike vikings and voidrays) but oh well, this will also make it less punishing to make a lot of corruptors in anticipation of a colossus attack. Because corruptors are pretty slow and expensive, I don't see this ability as a viable harassment technique though.
Most of times I will just say "time will tell" about those things. But I really don't understand the need for baneling-burrow-movement when you can do baneling drops with less tech (assuming baneling-borrow-movement is hive).
On October 23 2011 14:14 Scisyhp wrote: I didn't like the siphon ability until I realized it was zerg's way to use up extra queen energy for macro, just like terran can call down multiple mules and toss can use multiple chronos. Zerg can siphon their own buildings and transfuse them, for some 'free' minerals, only at the expense of queen energy. I still don't like that corruptors are essentially useless in combat once any air dies (unlike vikings and voidrays) but oh well, this will also make it less punishing to make a lot of corruptors in anticipation of a colossus attack. Because corruptors are pretty slow and expensive, I don't see this ability as a viable harassment technique though.
I don't think you can siphon allied structures. I think they gave the ability as a use for a bunch of corruptors in the downtime if you dont need or dont want (or cant since it takes a large time and mineral investment to get a greater spire) to make broodlords with them.
(example being (huge run on sentence time!) a stalker/collosus army that you just repelled by killing his 6 collosus with 15 corruptors from his 2 robos that he is chroning more collosus out of but you traded all the roaches with his stalkers.)
The main things I don't like are -The Hydra speed requiring hive tech -Warhound looks like an scv/mechwarrior thing -Swarm host seems a little bit wierd -Protoss replicant and oracle seem to be gimmicky/pointless -Nexus abilities seem like they should require some sort of tech requirements.
good thread, breaking down the polls like this seems a better way to gauge community reaction than the more general 'do you like the whole race changes' sort of polls. Still, am definitely looking forward to seeing how the new multiplayer content works out.
Hydra Speed - Hive tech: This one just strikes me as odd, Hydras are very much a mid-game unit as they are heavily countered by late game tech which with the addition of the new thor becomes severely focusesd on splash damage. This seems like it would be of very little use unless you're going for timing push with a rush to hydra speed tech.
Ultralisk Charge - Ultralisk with blink?! Hell yeah! This would actually solve both ultras mobility and the front line problem as it will free up the surface areas the ridiclously large ultras used to take.
Baneling burrow move -- At first glance this would be the defnition of imblanace, as any lack of detection from your opponent would mean gg. As someone who isn't a fan of stealth attack in any form, this seems like somethign that would create a lot of frustrating losses.
Corruption removal + Siphon - So now our weak AA is also a amazingly weak ground attacker? To get some proportion, this would means that 8 corruptors would do the same damage as a single zergling. The income part would be intresting if you could use it on your own buildings.
Helion morph- So, it's a stronger helion, with wider stronger bursts....Yeah, I don't really like using lings anyway, it's not like they are the core of any zerg army against terran, I'll just go roachs. sure. I can't wait for them to outrun my roachs in one mode then morph inside a mineral line and one shot everything. Great idea!
D8 Removal + Reaper regenration - Love it! Reapers are such solo units they would really benefit from the healing as they don't have medivacs around them. I think with this upgrade reapers will really shine as late game harassers. The D8 was in my opinion much too strong today and would have certianly been so with the regen. so cool stuff! The unit is cool I would love to see it used more often.
Ghost cloack - Without the numbers this one is a bit hard to call. As a zerg player I don't see that many ghosts so I'm passing judgment on this one.
Battlecruiser - She can't take it Jim!! This sounds awesome, it would be intresting to see how they would implement it, would it be a blink forward kind of thing or just a speed upgrade, the speed upgrade might be a bit of a problem as you might see some high-level kiting and sniping with battlecrusiers, then again that would be AWESOME!
Nexus Recal- So protoss never loses another base race ever again? Or can teleport the entire army to anywhere in the map with a dedicated nexus.That's an intresting choice, I guess with a high enough cost...oh, it's just energy....Yeah, this will work.
Nexus building defense- Hard to tell without numbers. how much energy does it cost? How much damage does it do? Seems like too much of a straight counter to early pool, I don't like such obvious counters, they take the depth out of the game.
Viper - Flying defiler... enough said? There seems to be a real imbalance cooking here as I can defet any ground army in the game with three vipers + three infestors + enough baneling, throw down the anti-range cloud, fungal the units inside, then roll the banes in, gg. I can't do it but destiny will never lose a ground army with this. Oh and how can I forget...GET OVER HERE!
Swarm host- Zerg needs a mid-game siege unit for area control, no question there, but in the videos it looked very weak. The units came very slowly and didn't seem to deal damage as much as draw splash damage. Once again, impossible to call without nubmers but seems like a good direction.
Shredder - The DPS in the demo video seems insane, as two take out a large group of lings as they are running by. What if terran takes a third and just drops 6 of these? Also, does it effect air?
Man if they are going to be even gayer with the reaper give back its range and reduce roach range...
seriously the only thing wrong with them was that they could kite off creep and kill spines in 10 hits. without buildingbombs one spine holds them off fine, no need to be super gay to an already-useless unit
Replicant seems like a copout when they really ran out of ideas for protoss units. "hmm, lets just make it turn into anything" Feels a lot like they could have just done dark archons or leave that ability to infestors.
Hydra speed - I would have liked to see this moved to lair and hydras moved to lair (possibly switched with roaches) abduction seems really goofy or something like the infestor should have. Detection is interesting, especially on a burrowed roach
Burrowed banelings I could take or leave.
Swarmhost - I'd like lurkers, the cooldown seems a little too steep but I'm sure it could be balanced. I just don't see them doing much on their own besides being a minor annoyance, not like lurkers which are true area denial with splash damage which is something I feel is lacking even with the baneling change.
The other units I'm not sure how they will change how they play for the other races. I guess it's what they wanted/needed?
All the new Protoss units as far as I know are very gas heavy so none of them really will not be used until late game or just never used. That much gas in the early or mid game will weaken the army quite a bit for units that don't really do anything to help you in a fight. I really don't see the Replicant getting much use, the only unit that would be useful to copy is the Infestor. I do however see the High Templar being a must get unit vs Zerg just for protection from their casters. It will be interesting to see how much the Tempest gets used do to its 300 300 cost, it seems like something you wouldn't even consider until you are on 4 bases, and a lot of games don't make it to that point right now, that could change depending on how these new units change the game though. The Nexus abilities right now see a little imba but I'm sure they will be changed a lot before it comes out. But I guess we will see when the beta starts.
I'll give it time to try it out, but from the sounds of what they are adding to protoss I think I'm gonna change races and wait to see until they do for the 2nd expansion. The theoreticals of what they announced don't make me excited at all. The replicant has potential maybe to be interesting, but the oracle seems like a waste of a unit to me.
On October 23 2011 14:07 Dommk wrote: These polls are just the typical knee jerk reactions.
For the most part, at least for Protoss, they are adding completely new unit concepts to the game using Mechanics we have never used before, thus the vast majority of players can't accurately gauge their strength.
Also, people shouldn't be surprised that Protoss didn't get any shiny units on the level of the Viper or Swarm host. Zerg were really lacking in that department and Terran needed something more to make Mech more viable against Protoss.
But Protoss already had a ton of different units for every situation, what they really lacked was units that had depth and could reward skilled players.
I like to think of this like Tetris, Zerg are getting the Line piece, Terran getting the L block and Protoss end up getting the S and Z blocks.
No one likes getting S and Z blocks, since those are the blocks that usually end up fucking over the players the most. Sometimes it is not even clear where you should put it, but in the end those are the pieces that separate the good players from the bad the most :p
Quoteing this for the truth.
So many toss are angry. I feel like the only toss who's ready to hit taldarim altar in a pvt. Once its 3 base vs 3 base i got some really good ideas for 2 oracles and a warp prism with 4 zealots. We can actually out multitask our opponents now. We have shit to do other than build units and attack in a big ball.
The replicator is a little gimicky, and wont have alot of use except for copying casters or copying some terran unit to help defend an allin (1 tank to stop 1/1/1).
Nexus cannon needs to be changed to not work on pylons or gas. Recall is fucking sweet, almost to the point of op.
Toss is already one of the highest micro races in the game especially in the early game. This will reward high apm/multitasking and allow us to be completely aggressive with a town portal so we dont have to commit so often, cause currently we have to commit to any battle once outside base.
On October 23 2011 13:49 imareaver3 wrote: What does the [P] tag mean? When I saw this thread, I thought it was Protoss only until I read the OP.
It means poll I guess.
The main things I don't like are -The Hydra speed requiring hive tech -Warhound looks like an scv/mechwarrior thing -Swarm host seems a little bit wierd -Protoss replicant and oracle seem to be gimmicky/pointless -Nexus abilities seem like they should require some sort of tech requirements.
Agree with all of these, though I think the defensive cannon Nexus ability should just be available right away.. In addition, the new corruptor ability is still not enough. It needs a damage type change or should just be outright removed. With the new viper pull spell, I don't even see why anyone would make corruptors to counter Colossus when you can just pull it into your army and focus it down.
Good poll. I agree with the majority on most but come on, does the hellion really need to be better? It's already super cheap and good as is.
And the tempest is just lame. I don't know why people dislike the other two toss units, they actually could be interesting, but the tempest is specifically for mass mutas. How many games do zergs go muta into the lategame? Usually never.
pretty much all the changes seem super cool (not worrying about balance, but simply coolness) except for the warhound and oracle. Warhound because its kinda meh, just any old unit, nothing cool about it, and oracle because it seems just plain boring. Sure it can disrupt mining and buildings, but thats not fun, its just annoying. The whole mineral thing could be cool as a secondary ability for a unit, if they had a more substantial primary function. Now obviously I haven't seen any games with these units in them, so i could be totally wrong, this is just my thoughts from hearing about them.
I don't like the Tempest because it is 300/300. Like Holy shit. Fucking Mothership 2.0. Just make it worse and have it 300/200 or something, ridiculous
On October 23 2011 13:49 imareaver3 wrote: What does the [P] tag mean? When I saw this thread, I thought it was Protoss only until I read the OP.
It means poll I guess.
The main things I don't like are -The Hydra speed requiring hive tech -Warhound looks like an scv/mechwarrior thing -Swarm host seems a little bit wierd -Protoss replicant and oracle seem to be gimmicky/pointless -Nexus abilities seem like they should require some sort of tech requirements.
Agree with all of these. In addition, the new corruptor ability is still not enough. It needs a damage type change or should just be outright removed. With the new viper pull spell, I don't even see why anyone would make corruptors to counter Colossus when you can just pull it into your army and focus it down.
To early to say what it 'needs'. When people go broods or make corrupters to kill vr or colo, they make like 10ish or even more. Think about flying around with those sniping pylons. Its a good thing that makes you use your unit, not every unit in the game needs an 'awesome' ability. Sometimes an AA unit can just be an AA unit you know.
Back in beta terrans and zerg used some pretty cool things. Like when they scouted colo they would use their vikings/corrupters to snoop/snipe colo and shit by flying into the main real quick.
Terrans these days are to use to scan and 'make this unit comp cause its my BO'. And zerg really need to take a book out of how terrans use vikings.
battle hellions have less attack speed? that doesn't sound right o.o
anyways I would love the thor unit
I don't understand why they can't keep the mothership in too, then
i mean if they wanted protoss to have a super unit cus they're protoss, and wanted to replace mothership, then fine, but they're switching the super unit to terran now
On October 23 2011 14:45 Yoshi Kirishima wrote: battle hellions have less attack speed? that doesn't sound right o.o
anyways I would love the thor unit
I don't understand why they can't keep the mothership in too, then
i mean if they wanted protoss to have a super unit cus they're protoss, and wanted to replace mothership, then fine, but they're switching the super unit to terran now
yea makes me wonder if zerg is getting the flying thing with spines all over it for Legacy of the void and then they will be like lol jk heres the mofo ship back u all got 1 per deck units.
I had some thoughts about these new units in relationship to the non-mirror match-ups.
TvZ
Terran gets a better counter to Mutalisks in the Warhound, an ability to that allows those mass Hellions that you used to harass to become effective front line fighters, and a unit that can control spaces alone to limit harrassment, especially vs low HP units like Zerglings.
What does this mean? Zerglings as a main fighter will become worthless versus Hellions, and as a harrassment unit, they will be ineffective against Shredders. Mutalisks will also become weaker.
So what will Zerg build? Hydras which will still get eaten by Tanks and Hellions? Roaches which are Hellion and Marauder meat? Going to be interesting... hopefully those two new units are good. I'm worried that Zerg will lose their ability to harrass while Terran won't and TvZ will become incredibly one-sided. You can now raid with Hellions and then use them effectively in big fights? But Zerg loses their unit that can do that in the Zergling and you expect the game to be balanced in the end?
Blizzard is almost saying "lets stop Zerg harass, but not let them stop Terran harass, see how that works for TvZ..."
TvP
In TvP, apparently Mech more viable with Hellions being able to counter Zealots better and Warhounds getting a bonus against everything except Zealots basically.
Hopefully they will weaken bio to compensate for this, but they said nothing about that. People aren't really having too many issues with mass Chargelots, sure it forces some micro from the Terran player, but the fact is TvP has been skewed toward the Terran for a long time.
Interestingly it could be the Sentry that saves Protoss. Unless the Warhound is considered a massive unit it won't be able to break forcefields, and this could be the saving grace against Terran Mech for Protoss, just dividing up a force of Terran units bit by bit.
PvZ
In PvZ, we can see the Colossus being sucked into swarms by Vipers, only to have the Protoss replicate the Viper and pull it right back. Would be pretty odd.
Mutalisks also get a hard counter in the Tempest, and this makes Phoenixes (a very situational unit to begin with) less useful in PvZ. The new Zerg artillery unit is interesting, but will probably end up as Colossus fodder.
We'll have to see how it all pans out. I'm really worried about TvZ though. Zerg depends so much on harass, and it makes the match up interesting, and the changes to Terran help limit harassment, while also increasing the potential for Terran to harass (ie Terran wins a big battle, converts all Hellions into Speed mode, and roasts all Zerg workers for a quick GG). As a Protoss player, I hope TvP doesn't become even worse too.
On October 23 2011 14:45 Yoshi Kirishima wrote: battle hellions have less attack speed? that doesn't sound right o.o
anyways I would love the thor unit
I don't understand why they can't keep the mothership in too, then
i mean if they wanted protoss to have a super unit cus they're protoss, and wanted to replace mothership, then fine, but they're switching the super unit to terran now
Well, it does look like Battle Hellions have a different cone of fire compared to normal Hellions. Right now, it looks very similar to the cone of fire used by the campaign Firebat.
On October 23 2011 14:07 Dommk wrote: These polls are just the typical knee jerk reactions.
For the most part, at least for Protoss, they are adding completely new unit concepts to the game using Mechanics we have never used before, thus the vast majority of players can't accurately gauge their strength.
Also, people shouldn't be surprised that Protoss didn't get any shiny units on the level of the Viper or Swarm host. Zerg were really lacking in that department and Terran needed something more to make Mech more viable against Protoss.
But Protoss already had a ton of different units for every situation, what they really lacked was units that had depth and could reward skilled players.
I like to think of this like Tetris, Zerg are getting the Line piece, Terran getting the L block and Protoss end up getting the S and Z blocks.
No one likes getting S and Z blocks, since those are the blocks that usually end up fucking over the players the most. Sometimes it is not even clear where you should put it, but in the end those are the pieces that separate the good players from the bad the most :p
Least favorite: Thor (no hero units please), Replicant (For it's cost there is no reason to replicate anything other than an SCV for mules, and you shouldn't be able to add another race's macro mechanic like that)
HotS: Marines eat zealots/immortals/air, Warhound eats stalker/sentry/colossus/air even harder than marauders?
I have a feeling the answer is always going to be "well Protoss can replicate whatever unit they want..."
On October 23 2011 15:03 Sinensis wrote: Least favorite: Thor (no hero units please), Replicant (For it's cost there is no reason to replicate anything other than an SCV for mules, and you shouldn't be able to add another race's macro mechanic like that)
Here is what you do. Bring a Warp Prism or two into the Terran base filled with Replicants, drop em and make them into Mules. Then Recall the whole force, start mining and LOL. Or you just do what you said, replicate an SCV, recall it, then make CC's instead of the Nexus and just drop Mules.
On October 23 2011 13:49 imareaver3 wrote: What does the [P] tag mean? When I saw this thread, I thought it was Protoss only until I read the OP.
It means poll I guess.
The main things I don't like are -The Hydra speed requiring hive tech -Warhound looks like an scv/mechwarrior thing -Swarm host seems a little bit wierd -Protoss replicant and oracle seem to be gimmicky/pointless -Nexus abilities seem like they should require some sort of tech requirements.
Agree with all of these. In addition, the new corruptor ability is still not enough. It needs a damage type change or should just be outright removed. With the new viper pull spell, I don't even see why anyone would make corruptors to counter Colossus when you can just pull it into your army and focus it down.
To early to say what it 'needs'. When people go broods or make corrupters to kill vr or colo, they make like 10ish or even more. Think about flying around with those sniping pylons. Its a good thing that makes you use your unit, not every unit in the game needs an 'awesome' ability. Sometimes an AA unit can just be an AA unit you know.
Back in beta terrans and zerg used some pretty cool things. Like when they scouted colo they would use their vikings/corrupters to snoop/snipe colo and shit by flying into the main real quick.
Terrans these days are to use to scan and 'make this unit comp cause its my BO'. And zerg really need to take a book out of how terrans use vikings.
I know; I am probably inferring a little too much, but what else can we do but theorycraft? It's interesting and amusing.
As for the corruptor ability, I don't think the consolation of being able to leech some minerals from a Protoss base is going to mean much when their remaining ball of stalkers is rampaging through your base because you spent your gas and supply on corruptors and didn't have enough leftover for your ground army. I hate corruptors and consider them, like Hydralisks, a unit that just utterly fails at what they're supposed to do. Unlike Vikings, Corruptors have an absolutely miserable DPS to gas cost ratio. The only way for them to kill 2 or 3 Colossus before they completely annihilate your ground army is to ridiculously overinvest gas and supply cap into corruptors, then hope you can morph them to broodlords or delay your opponent long enough for the next production cycle to kick in. The opportunity to not have to create corruptors and risk overmaking them is why I'm hoping the Viper doesn't get nerfed too hard as the development progresses.
HotS: Marines eat zealots/immortals/air, Warhound eats stalker/sentry/colossus/air even harder than marauders?
Don't forget Battle Hellions wrecking Chargelots.
Blizzard was more interested in giving Terran even more ways of kicking Protoss's ass than fixing the core of Protoss gameplay. smh
According to Browder/Kim, Blizzard thinks that Chargelots in PvT requiring kiting was too much to ask of Terran players. "Terran players had to kite like crazy." Poor dears.
i personally don't care for the new T ground defense. Watching an entire army of lings not be able to make it through that choke kind of made me depressed.
Since almost all zerg units have such a short range, i feel like that's just going to absolutely SHRED all little backstabs. To a point where they hardly have a use.
T can still drop a medivac or two of marines and snipe some structures, but apparently zerg running a pack of lings around to snipe some stuff isn't the game working as intended.
anyway, i'm holding a lot of judgment for when the game is actually released. I believe a few things will be changed, though
On October 23 2011 15:20 reneg wrote: T can still drop a medivac or two of marines and snipe some structures, but apparently zerg running a pack of lings around to snipe some stuff isn't the game working as intended.
anyway, i'm holding a lot of judgment for when the game is actually released. I believe a few things will be changed, though
Yep. And with Hellions effective in armies in Battle mode, you can basically kiss Zerglings goodbye. I'm not sure what will replace them too since Marauders and Tanks eat Roaches while Hydras need a Hive for speed (and also get eaten by Hellions). Will be interesting...
If the Warhound provides good AA, then Mutalisk harass is going to be reduced too... Zerg isn't really getting any extra protection against harass from Terran either...
On October 23 2011 14:05 Hall0wed wrote: Protoss really are getting the extremely short end of the stick here. It is crazy how lame the Replicant is. It is like Blizzard is saying, "Just don't play Protoss".
QFT. After seeing all the possible changes right now, i can't help but feel that the protoss changes are underwhelming compared to the terran and zerg changes. I'll discuss these changes from the protoss perspective.
I personally feel that the oracle is too gimmicky to be an alterative stargate tech unit to scout and "counter" cloaked banshees. What you basically have to do to counter cloaked banshees is very counter-intuitive: 1. you have to position your oracle near the enemy's stargate 2. wait for the cloaked banshee to fly into your base and have your army positioned under the banshee. 3. go back to your oracle to disable the starport 4. pray that the terran is not smart enough to use marines to defend the starport
Protoss will still have a problem with detection in HotS with stargate tech if the oracle's unit dynamics is roughly the same as i envision.
As far as the replicant goes, i get the feeling from blizzard that blizzard desperately doesn't want to add another unit to the protoss death ball, but still want protoss to have a way to fight "OP" units/ tactics (terran 1/1/1 all-ins and ghost EMP). In the end, they created a half-ass unit to fulfill a half-ass role.
I am sad that blizzard is removing the carrier and not trying to rework it. Such a classic unit of starcraft shouldn't go the way of the dinosaurs. The tempest as a substitute for the carrier is ok, but its capital ship status means that it may only be useful in late-game mass muta situations and not in any other situation.
While other races' units are getting reworked/ buffed, protoss units are largely untouched. The stalker is still the the worst scaling late game unit of the game. The void ray's mechanics is very problematic in a sense that it will either be underwhelming, or make a situation incredible lope-sided.
The nexus buff is great in a sense that it fixes a big mobility issue that protoss has when terrans and zerg can abuse mobility and stretch protoss thin. And in early game FFE situations in PvZ.
We'll see if this situation changes in the future.
Many of these units have the ooo and ahhh factor right now. When the game is released people will start noticing how unbalanced the game is and throw units and abilities out the window. Kind of like how everyone hates the colossus.
Oracle building spying: we tell you what they're making, but there's a catch - you have to scout it first! Think of all the extra information you gain from this ability!
hydra speed: love this. i've been saying for a year now that hydras should get their speed upgrade at hive tech. i feel like the hydra's slow speed off creep during the midgame actually makes it a more interesting unit: defensive positioning and having foresight are really important because of it, not to mention creep spread. but as the game gets longer and huge armies are being flung across the map over and over, it gets old and that vulnerability does nothing except slow your armies down.
ultra charge: im not sure i like this. it looks kind of goofy and it recycles the zealot charge concept. watching ultras in pro games the last 6 months or so, they can be pretty scary when microed into the battle properly, and at the right times. i do feel like they needed tweaking, but this is a pretty artificial solution. still, i can live with it if it has a positive impact on the game balance-wise.
baneling burrow move: i think i like this. it comes late enough in the game that it could possibly be made to be balanced, and the more burrow mechanics the zergier and the zergier the better. at the same time though, i feel like it'll kill a new and very exciting micro mechanic: laying baneling landmines in the middle of a fight. if that's the effect it would have, then i'd rather not have burrow-walking banelings. the game needs to keep developing high skill ceiling techniques like burrowing banes midfight. but maybe it won't kill that skill. maybe it'll further incentivize it.
corruption removal: i can't say i'll miss it too much. it wasn't a lot of fun to use. but it definitely had utility. it was at mlg that stephano raped some toss with mass corruption, right? i feel like most pros just forget this thing exists when it does make a difference. i'm ok with it being removed though, as long as whatever replaces it is cooler.
siphon ability: speaking of which, this is not cooler. maybe if it was useable against ground units it would be decent. i dunno, i guess we'll see in beta if it makes any difference. i'm not particularly impressed by the concept though.1 mineral a second for 50 seconds (assuming the opponent ignores the corrupter for a full 50 seconds) is one pair of zerglings. the whole idea just reeks of jumping the shark.
hellion morph upgrade: don't care. i'll let experts in terran game balance worry about this. i guess it makes sense that it would have to be an upgrade though, considering it's the gasless base unit for the factory.
reaper D8 charge removal: i'm ok with this. it's pretty ridiculous what reapers in a bunker can do to an early expanding, late-pooling zerg, and most of the reaper's utility currently comes from its ability to kill hella workers. its ability to mow down buildings never seems to be the main reason why it gets built, and removing this ability certainly won't affect the likelihood of reapers being made past the 10 minute mark (which is currently very very low even without this ability being cut.)
reaper regeneration: on one hand, i've always thought the limited use of reapers largely came from how expensive they are compared to how fragile they are. so i'm glad blizzard has caught on to this. on the other hand, it's kind of an artificial solution. if reapers can regenerate out of battle, why isn't that technology being used with the marines and marauders too? (no one point this out to dustin browder, please, for the love of god.) this is sort of an 'aesthetics' complaint because it doesn't make sense. but if it makes the reaper a more useful and exciting unit in the long run, then i'll suspend my disbelief for the sake of "ESPORTS!!!"
ghost cloak change: don't care, can't imagine this will change anything significantly other than to babysit terrans a little more.
ability to cloak during nuke: ditto.
battlecruiser charge upgrade: is this actually an upgrade? not sure it needs to be. they already have to upgrade yamato cannon and potentially the energy upgrade, during a stage of the game where the game isn't likely to last a whole lot longer anyway. honestly i think it should start with this ability. it's a cool concept. balance gurus can comment on if this needs to be an upgrade or not, i have no clue, but i can't see pros going out of their way to research this. it's hard to plan for emergency situations where your battlecruisers are just barely out of range to save the day.
nexus recall: i love this. i love that recall is being moved to a more accessible unit/structure. it's a very protoss-esque ability that i think will come to redefine a lot of protoss strategies. for all the laziness blizzard has shown towards protoss, this is huge and i hope it makes it through to release. it may need to be re-balanced (require research or a certain tech building, etc, not gonna guess until we see it in action) but it's an excellent idea. i play zerg and i hate ZvP enough as it is and i still think this should stay in the game. maybe it should require warp gate tech? that seems like a reasonable limitation, and one that is relatively convincing from a "lore" standpoint.
nexus arcshield: i like the concept but it seems like it could be broken. it'd be nice if they manage to balance it in beta and it stays in the game, but i wouldn't be too gutted if it got cut out. they may just need to nerf the damage it does. a little bit goes a long way in the early game. OH, and it needs to not be castable on all buildings. maybe just pylons and nexuses? or have a limited range. cos that report about the arcshield/gas steal cheese was ridiculous. shit like that cannot be allowed to happen.
overseer removed: i do not agree with this. there was no reason for this at all. so what if it's a boring unit? so is the observer. the overseer was the logical form of detection for zerg, and it came with a pair of situationally useful spells that i will miss a little bit (the 5% of the times that i am able to sneak a changeling through are priceless). plus, it's a cool model. also, just look at terran: nothing got cut. there's redundancy all over, and they intend to balance that? ok, but not at the expense of zerg and protoss please. i don't like feeling like i play a second class race. either make all the races minimalistic, or load all the races up with toys and redundant units. don't apply one design philosophy to terran and a different one to the other two.
carrier removed: i feel pretty much the same about this as i do the overseer. there's no point in removing it. all they're doing is removing potential. it took years for brood war to settle into the metagame it has now. now i'm definitely no brood war expert but i'm pretty sure there were entire units that went ignored for a very long time before becoming very important units, right? the SC2 carrier could have been one of those units. some day in a couple years, what if, say, the TvP metagame drive protoss towards a really stargate-heavy build? well herpderp it sure would be nice to have some carriers right about now!
mothership removed: i think you get the idea by now: i don't like any of the unit cuts and i don't think they should be happening. if a unit is breaking the game then maybe, but none of these cut units are doing that. they're just being neglected because they aren't viable (yet.) there's absolutely no reason to cut the mothership. it barely makes an appearance in pro games because it's too hard to plan for making one. and the few times it does show up in a game, it's a huge treat. a flashy treat too, great for spectators. vortex is a flawed spell that can make zero difference or all the difference, and it's impossible to plan for. so who cares? leave it alone. let the players dream up ways to use it. since recall has been moved elsewhere, maybe it could just have planet cracker back? a weaker version of planet cracker maybe? i just don't see the point in removing this thing. it's just a button on the bottom right of the screen most people never push. seems to be jumping the gun a little, a year and some change after the game came out.
thor removed: the thor hasn't been removed. but i guess it's been more significantly altered than any other unit in the game so i'll comment on that later.
viper: love this. the blinding cloud (just call it dark swarm please, blizz, you're not fooling anyone) is the main thing i'm excited about. i have mixed feelings about occular parasite: i've commented in another thread about how i think it should be a parasite-style spell. if the overseer were still in the game, i would say it should be exactly the parasite spell the BW queen had. if the overseer is gone, then the viper should start with detection and have the one-time ability to transfer that detection to another unit. the mechanic as it is currently is a bit wtf: why grant detection to something else when you don't even have it yourself? this is a suspension of disbelief issue and i'm kind of annoyed with it. the "pull" spell is ok i guess. it probably needs to be very high cost if it stays the way it is. i'd like something a bit more interesting in place of it though. aesthetically the viper is pretty cool, no complaints. i'm happy about the unit overall, but i do think it could do with some tweaks. again, not from a balance standpoint, cos who knows right now, but just from a design standpoint.
swarm host: this is my favorite thing about the whole expansion so far. this little guy is great. he looks great and the concept is great. mobile unit generators. great concept for zerg. we'll see how it factors into the balance of the game. but compared to some of the potential issues in the other changes, i feel like this will be pretty easy for blizz to balance. increase the spawn rate, decrease locust damage, etc etc, they have a lot of options in adjusting numbers.
warhound: okay, i'm not gonna pull punches here: visually, this thing looks retarded. but nevermind that. why didn't they just put the goliath back into multiplayer? cos essentially that's what this is, except it also does bonus damage to armored. which marauders already do. and siege tanks. i personally don't think the thor needed to be replaced anyway. one of my least favorite announced changes.
shredder: i guess this sounds like an interesting concept. we'll see in beta if it needs to be nerfed. whether it was necessary or not is another discussion entirely - i'm of the opinion that terran doesn't need anymore toys until toss and zerg catch up a bit more.
battle hellion: i'm okay with this. it looks reasonably cool. but again, is it at all necessary? and that's an honest question: how does this affect the game? conceptually i'm fine with it. if i have to suspend disbelief enough to accept walking mechs, vikings transforming, tanks doubling as artillery cannons etc etc then this isn't really a problem. but is there any point to adding this? does it accomplish anything that couldn't be accomplished by just microing normal hellions better?
the new thor: see my post on the warhound.
oracle: good unit concept, decent model. i'm all for toss getting a utility caster with a less defined roll than the sentry. problem is, two of its abilities are total crap. i don't even care if its mineral freezing spell turns out to be good for the balance of the game - it's an extremely boring and transparent attempt at forcing a role on a unit for 'competitive play'. same with preordain. both these abilities need to be cut ASAP. phase shift is good. it's flexible and potentially powerful. here's a brainstorm: replace the other two abilities with maelstrom and stasis field, maybe? just throwing that out there. i know blizz doesn't want to copy and paste everything from brood war, and that's fair. but these two abilities need to go, or this unit is gonna suck, if not from a balance standpoint then from a purely design and enjoyability standpoint.
replicant: great protoss campaign unit. terrible protoss multiplayer unit. it'll be impossible to balance so i'm pretty confident it'll get cut anyway, but on the off chance that it doesn't get cut, it's just a really uninspired lazy fix to problems toss is having.
tempest: visually, this thing looks amazing. i love the art. gameplay-wise, meh, who knows until beta. seems weird for a 'capitol ship' to overlap so badly with the standard flying units that race already has. being so expensive and high tech, intuitively it seems like it would be more cost effective to just mass phoenix instead. i dunno. we'll see what happens in beta. i think they need to make this unit more interesting though. and to reiterate, i don't think the carrier should have been cut to begin with, so in my perfect little world the tempest would be given some other more unique purpose than just being a sturdy source of AtA splash damage.
An issue with baneling burrow movement, I think its an absolutely terrible idea. Nothing to do with balance, but with baneling mines ATM there is an emphasis on position, and trying to sneak them in strategic locations without terran seeing. As a spectator it is great, because there is constant tension whenever they on the field, you can almost feel yourself holding your breath as a bunch of marines start heading in that direction, a sigh of relief when they back off/scan and kill banelings, and then finally excitement when a pack walk over a baneling mine and get destroyed. Letting banelings move just removes much of this excitement and tension that exists, and makes it too easy to move them into key positions, or to just move them straight underneath a terran to punish them for no detection.
I feel same way about Oracle mineral coating; from a spectators point of view it is terribly lame, stuff like baneling mines/nukes are so fun to watch because of the capacity for epic damage, and the moments of tension as you watch an overlord of banelings head towards a mineral line or a nuke called down, culminating in excitement when it works, or when crisis is avoided by expert response. Even with harassment that doesn't end in a huge explosion (like banshee harass) you can still be amazed at how much damage can be done with a little expert micro.
When you look at the Oracle's mineral goop, there is no excitement or tension, no potential for game ending damage and destruction...it just flys in with decent speed, goops shit up and leaves. There is no capacity for creative play, it doesn't reward good decision making or micro, its just the same repetitive fly in, goop up and leave, then watch as your opponent attacks it with his workers/whatever units he has around, over and over again...
burrow banelings come at hive tech, would be interesting to see how useful it is. I suspect it will allow Z to switch to a more cost efficient unit to deal with mass ghosts in late TvZ matchup when ghosts can deal with all tier 3 units.
Swarm host is interesting, hopefully they can balance it well.
The protoss units excites me the most to be honest, all these new possible strategies with these units are unimagineable
I actually got to play all the races and all the units and personally, I loved all the Protoss stuff. I also loved the viper grab. Everything, that the polls said they "disliked", I liked, because I thought it added a whole new paradigm and a whole new set of strategies.
I think it's really hard to make a good sound judgement call on it...if you haven't actually played it. I thought they did a good job.
This is what I don't understand, why can't Blizzard look at what made BW so successful and try to emulate it? Seems pretty logical to me but no they got to experiment and take so many unnecessary risks into their product. If they are going to bring a unit that's similar to Lurkers, why not just add the Lurker back in place? I think that would show homage to the the veterans AND balance the game.
The only thing I can definitively say I don't like are the new corruptor and thor. The corruptor was already the most boring unit in the game and now all that's changed is that one dull spell has been replaced with something just as equally dull. The Thor is just dumb. Superunits belong in Warcraft 3 and Supreme Commander, not Starcraft.
On October 23 2011 15:50 ArvickHero wrote: swarm host sounds pretty weak at what its supposed to do (control area), why not just bring back the lurker :l
The swarm host seems comparable, honestly. Spawns 90 HP units 2 at a time, basically giving you an infinite army of super-zerglings harassing any expansion or softening up a siege line, and unless the locusts have a timer/cap, you could easily hold back 5 swarm hosts until you have enough locusts to overrun the opponent's army without risking any losses.
On October 23 2011 15:50 ArvickHero wrote: swarm host sounds pretty weak at what its supposed to do (control area), why not just bring back the lurker :l
The swarm host seems comparable, honestly. Spawns 90 HP units 2 at a time, basically giving you an infinite army of super-zerglings harassing any expansion or softening up a siege line, and unless the locusts have a timer/cap, you could easily hold back 5 swarm hosts until you have enough locusts to overrun the opponent's army without risking any losses.
I imagine that will be the case. If you could just build up those locusts with no limitation then Zerg would be unstoppable lol. Swarm Host sounds like it'd be pretty good in battles (locusts tanking and messin w/ enemy AI etc), but as a defensive purpose it kinda sucks (and therefore cannot control area like Lurkers).
On October 23 2011 15:50 ArvickHero wrote: swarm host sounds pretty weak at what its supposed to do (control area), why not just bring back the lurker :l
The swarm host seems comparable, honestly. Spawns 90 HP units 2 at a time, basically giving you an infinite army of super-zerglings harassing any expansion or softening up a siege line, and unless the locusts have a timer/cap, you could easily hold back 5 swarm hosts until you have enough locusts to overrun the opponent's army without risking any losses.
I imagine that will be the case. If you could just build up those locusts with no limitation then Zerg would be unstoppable lol. Swarm Host sounds like it'd be pretty good in battles (locusts tanking and messin w/ enemy AI etc), but as a defensive purpose it kinda sucks (and therefore cannot control area like Lurkers).
At least then people might stop complaining that it's UP? :p
Personally, I think that hosts and lurkers have a different enough way of controlling space that they aren't really comparable, but I guess people really love their spider hydras.
the only real use that i see for banelings burrow movement is against sentry FFs in early-mid game but it is only hive so it's useless. i think that most of the changes could work if they tweak them correctly, for example the hydra speed - at hive tech = bad, at lair = good. baneling burrow - at lair = imba? at hive=useless, but, if u make a special animation to the banelings when they are moving underground so it is easy to spot, then they could be useful in TvP while still not being imba, i don't think that burrowed banes movement have any use against Terran, just make raven/scan and missile turret near your planetary - which u make anyway to counter mutas, and u will be ok.
This is a great poll, although I'd take it with a grain of salt. I don't think it reflects whether units will be balanced or not, but it definitely reflects how exciting a unit appears and that's really valuable info.
I only play toss, so I'll keep my comments confined to them. 1. Replicant. This is entirely based on cost. If it's cheap enough that it could make sense to copy the new warhounds or swarm hosts then it will be good. If it's only good by copying a major caster, it will probably suck. One idea to chew on though: pvp blink stalkers transferring into replicants if your opponent has at least one immortal. Now you'll have 5 immortals o_o
2. Oracle: I think this unit depends entirely on its speed and therefore how well it can zip into a base without suiciding into AA units. It should be primarily about the building shift thing and the other two abilities just complement that. For example, let's say that you do a stargate build vs. Terran. Build an oracle first, go to their base and use preordain to check if they're researching cloak or siege mode. If they are, shift the starport or factory out, stalling enough for you to prep defenses. If you have leftover energy, stop the mineral patch with a mule on it and see if your opponent notices. If the oracle is fast enough to muck around without getting killed by vikings or marines, then this would work out pretty well.
3. Tempest. This unit better be amazing. At 75s build time and 300/300 cost, one tempest should immediately swing air power in my favor. It looks cool and I'd like to think that the aoe will be strong enough to scale really well, such that ~4 tempests could win the sky not only vs. mass muta but also vs. mass corruptor or mass viking, making colossus/tempest into a viable endgame when you're on 4+ bases. This is a nice unit though because it's inherently in the right spot and can be balanced by tweaking numbers such as range or damage.
4. nexus changes: I'm probably in the minority here, but I like the gas steal arc shield rush. It's super gimmicky, but so is a 6-pool or a bunker rush. It's also really easy to stop, since you can just pull stuff to kill the gas while it's building. It should probably require the gateway before you can activate the power, maybe even the core in order to give the opponent time to get rid of it, but punishing inattentive opponents is a good thing. The recall, on the other hand, is just really flavorful and super amazing. It's much better at offense since you can move out and attack then escape. I'd love to see something with blink stalkers into a base followed by a recall. On defense, the length of the stun might prevent you from saving most of your expo, but we'll see.
I'll open up by saying I'm a Protoss player and that I have selected a few things to talk about in these polls. These are my opinions and I'm sorry if I offend anyone. Shedder - sounds stupid Replicant - totally stupid Oracle - absolutely stupid because you can 'block mineral fields'. ?!~?!?!??!?!?! Removal of Carrier - really stupid because they never tweaked it or changed it's build time... I don't care how much David Kim tested it, I want to see Huk and Naniwa use it to beat other top pros in a game that doesn't go past an hour. Removal of Mothership - I guess that's okay.. it doesn't jive well because the other two races didn't have a 'one time' unit that had cool abilites. Change of Thor to a 'one time' unit - Stupid. The Thor is good as a whole, and has places where it is needed, like vs. large muta balls and in SCV pull allins. This makes so sense to me. Swarm Host - Why wouldn't you just give us Lurker... Why do you have to make a new unit that doesn't look as cool and has a less cool attack. Also, Hydras are still useless, which brings to m to... Hydralisk - Speed upgrade, awesome! Why would you make it Hive tech? Too imbalanced to have fast Hydras in the midgame where you want to have them? Viper - Ocular Parasite - See, this doesn't make sense to me. Overseers were great after the cost reduction, and now you just removed them and decided to give this strange ability. What Zerg unit in the midgame has enough survivability that you would want to give it detection permanently? At least your opponent's units won't auto-target Overseers. Corrupter Removal - As a player who played Zerg up until high Diamond... I approve. But the Viper had better be a suitable replacement Viper - ability to pull units to them - WOW. WOW. "hi colossus, come over here into this swarm of roaches.." Nexus Recall - "yeah, MOthership is too good, has recall.. let's just get rid of Mothership and give Recall to the building you start the game with." Baneling Burrow Movement - Maybe Terrans will make Ravens so that they don't have to scan every 10 seconds after they move out?
I'm very skeptical of this expansion... it sounds like rather than trying to fill rolls and tweak units that needed tweaking to be stronger overall (corrupter/hydra) or were never used (carrier) they just removed them, gave them stupid abilities and/or added strange new units that are more complex, or have ridiculous abilites (oracle). I'm in HUGE favour of small tweaks and gradual changes rather than adding 2-3 units for each race all at once... X.X
EDIT: the Nexus - warp in cannon on building thing - is really cool, because if a Zerg ever 6 pools you it makes them 80% more stupid!!! This change is epic because now 1/3 Zerg allins should never be seen again.
On October 23 2011 14:11 Falling wrote: To stay with the Tetris metaphor, I feel like Protoss has far to many square blocks (collosi 1a units) and I was hoping some of them would be taking out to be replaced by some of those other more interesting blocks.
The way I see Protoss in the Tetris metaphor is that they are trying to take these blocks out of the game and try to bludgeon their opponent, hoping that they will fall unconscious quickly before the cops show up. It doesn't matter if their opponent is a ninja or has a gun, they still have to run with their fat nerd body to catch up and hope he can bludgeon him to death in the same way. If he tries to throw the blocks to hit the ninja gunwielder or to avoid getting blood on his shirt so the cops don't take him in, Mother Protoss comes in, slaps him and takes his blocks away (Void Ray, Warp Gate and Mothership much?)
I mean, just look at warp prism harass. It just looks so unnatural. Sending in thousands of minerals worth of zealots hoping that their opponent doesn't look at that part of the map until they kill the expansion? I mean seriously.
Also, once HoTS comes out Protoss' better not find any actual cool ways to use these units besides putting them in their 1 army control group, otherwise Blizzard will come in and snatch that unit away, leaving poor Protoss out alone in the wilderness to fend off wolves, bears, and firebreathing dune buggy mechs,
Sorry for getting carried away with that metaphor btw.
Ultra charge should be remade into a ground-level charge not a burrow charge.
Tunnelings. Nice.
Not really sure on the corruption removal. It has to depend on things like whether vipers have a normal attack.
Siphon is just really weird. So C&C.
Hellion transformations. No comment. Yet.
Reaper changes...eh..not really sure cause ever since the factory nerf they have hardly been used. But I guess the whole hp regen thing matches up well with being a hit&run unit.
Ghosts can cloak while firing nukes even now. Its just that now it's duration based instead of toggled. No comments yet.
Battlecruiser charge. Marvelous. IM_mvp would be intrigued.
Nexus recall is good, provided they balance the stun time properly. Maybe in accordance to distance from the nexus.
Nexus autocannons. I guess this auto-shuts down 6-pools. Undecided.
Sucks to have the overseer removed. Seriously. The viper definitely costs alot more and are higher up in the tech tree.
Why is the carrier removed? Makes completely no sense. Tempests don't cover their roles.
Mommaship is gone, well, I'm not so sure about this one but they seem to have moved the mass recall to the Nexus and confined it as a pure defensive ability.
Thor's removal shoulda been good but the replacement. It's going backwards.
Viper ocular parasite. Really nice concept. But single-use only means you definitely need more vipers to make more detectors. Can they give buildings the parasite?
Reverse dark swarm is the best thing I've seen here. Perfect against a certain race which I won't play because I have self-respect. Woots no melee units!
The viper grab is gimmicky, but I think that it's quite a perfect answer to things like colossus range upgrades and siege mode. Zerg's current max ground attack range is 7(upgraded hydras), which is pitiful. Question is, can it be used on air units too(pulling battlecruiser)?
The viper is really a very good unit all around, but the biggest question is that whether or not they will be given a normal attack or be given the infestor treatment. Being a pure support caster like the sentry, there is no reason not to give them a normal attack.
The swarm host. Just WTF were they thinking. It's just really really gimmicky. From the videos I've seen, the spawn rate isn't spectacular so their usefulness will depend on how long the swarmlings can live. If they are broodling standard then seriously this unit sucks. The only situation where is see it as viable is countering drops by burrowing a few in your base/mineral line.
Am I missing something or is the warhound just a marauder with half of Thor anti-air rockets? This unit is just lame.
The shredder will definitely add some really interesting gameplay to all Terran matchups. A small scale rip-field generator. But I would prefer it if they wouldn't stop while friendlies are around but they will friendly fire. Terran's are always the guys who friendly fire. Even the lore says so.
Battle hellions. They looks damn ridiculous to me, and I still have no idea how they work. If the transformation grants extra hp, can they transform back to normal hellions? How is the hp calculated?
New Thor ability is just another way to fire a nuke. No.
The new Thor unit is just what they had in the beta/campaign(Odin). No.
The oracle mineral blocking is simply too gimmicky. It would be over or underpowered based on how the barriers can be removed.
Building spying is just too much. Protoss already has a cloaked detector unit. Why give them even more detection? They are not a reactive race. Well at least not as reactive as Zerg. So how come Zerg has shit detection options while toss gets to scout everything?
The temporary building removal is like the ultimate version of the overseer contaminate. Will have to see the cost-duration balance but in general a nice concept.
Replicant. Weird, makes no sense and possibly OP. Replicating immortals/Archons/ravens/siege tanks. *shudders*
Tempests are nice in design but I don't get why Toss is getting another anti-light air unit on top of the phoenix. Does not replace the Carrier IMHO.
On October 23 2011 16:14 Daralii wrote: Regarding the oracle's speed, it's apparently significantly faster than a hellion.
That's, actually potentially pretty strong. Call it gimmicky if you want, but if 2 of these things are zipping around the map, they are going to heavily frustrate an opponent. Forget the stupid mineral ability, that's just gravy for when you have extra micro time and you need something to do. The building shift with that speed could be nuts.
Here's a scenario. Stargate opener vs. zerg, harass w/ a void and phoenix, get a couple of oracles and shift out their roach warren and spawning pool. Take your third unmolested.
On October 23 2011 16:14 Daralii wrote: Regarding the oracle's speed, it's apparently significantly faster than a hellion.
That's, actually potentially pretty strong. Call it gimmicky if you want, but if 2 of these things are zipping around the map, they are going to heavily frustrate an opponent. Forget the stupid mineral ability, that's just gravy for when you have extra micro time and you need something to do. The building shift with that speed could be nuts.
Here's a scenario. Stargate opener vs. zerg, harass w/ a void and phoenix, get a couple of oracles and shift out their roach warren and spawning pool. Take your third unmolested.
Really curious as to whether or not phase shifting a tech building will stop that unit from being produced...
In my opinion, we just have to wait how all this evolves during pro games and through time.
Yeah well, we can discuss these new abilities and units, but fact is, most of us haven't played them yet and can't make any real judgement.
Sure, some new stuff might seem unbalanced/weak/wrong, but i think we just have to see.
I personally like everything new that is being added to the game. Anyone will find a way to use these new things. And if there isn't a way found to deal with these, Blizzard will take it out. Nice and simple
The main problem might be, that during this "lets see how the unit works"-period there are some tournaments being played with these units. And the imbalance of the units might affect the outcome of these matches..... Well...
bah, i guess its wait and see. As far as I know, I think the oracle will allow me to revert back to doing timing pushes against zerg every games, and make them even more brutal. I guess i could take those 10 mins wins after all (that is, if the building phase thingy does work as advertised)
Oracle: I personally didn't think of a stargat unit for that prize, unable to attack when they told us protoss will get a raiding unit for early-, mid-game...
Nexus recall: PvPs will last forever. You will recall your army to your base when you are losing the fight and it will be almost impossible to snipe an expansion, if your opponent can teleport to it.
I hope they will add an upgrade for psi storm to make extra damage vs. mechanical units to make it viable against terran mech and even in PvP.
'Dark Swarm' Hi Defiler..... Ocular Parasite... Hi SC1 Queen..... (The detection is better but...still come on.) Grab.... Okay. So I has tank line. I has broodlords.... I has roach.... I pull da tank to da roach. Tank goes...boom. Hydra speed... REALLY Big plus. But hive tech really?
Everything they did to terran made me laugh my arse off. Good bye...thor (kinda happy) Warhound..... what a...cute, cliche name huh? Shredder, eh. Undecided but. Seems like it would be good EN-Mass. Ghost changes - 100% change the ghost dynamic and who..cloaks in the middle of a nuke call down anyway? cloak beforehand.
Toss? Okay, replicant I see being REALLY good if used adeptly. -Clone Tank. Clone Infestor. - Drop you to enemy base CLONE YOUR DRONE / SCV?! (Yes, Mind Control...only maybe better) - The Tempest seems useful - Oracale....the only useful thing is building phase. - Nexus New ability. Well....we already can see how it can be abused as a post already stated. 9 Assim / shield / shut early game down. (Who needs harass unit when you can just shut down mining before even depo or pool... or gateway.... Zerg wont be able to deal with that... 3 pylon block off. who needs cannon rush?! Just save your energy and BOOM there you go pylon in your min line....oh arc shield.... oh damned..... Oh what?! You still have 2 gate proxy zeal comming?! GG Kthxbai.)
rest of the crap idk. Seems like they are just trying to come up with more gimic units. At least in SC1 (I am not talking difference between the two) Each unit had a TRUE defined role. Were just getting to that point now with WoL. If they wish to start over again? (It's been 1 year....how long did BW take to get to where it is now? 8.)
Soooo idk. We will see, but who knows. Maybe it will be good but from this standpoint and thought process on ballance (im not talking stupid low league bullcrap. Talking from an analytical view) Some of these abilites when coupled with others will prove to be way to strong
Seige Line + Sherreders + couple bunks + couple turrets (Your not breaking it.) Fungal + Grab + Burrow Move Ling + DS = lol?! BB army. Phase + Mass Recall Replicant + Phase + Mass Recall Arc Shield ANY Toss building Not sure what else there might be off top of my head.....but.
Honestly. Dunno. Can't we just get our Goliath back?! War hound is pretty much a goliath anyway...... How about defiler?! Hey..we get the viper. Detection for zerg?! Still lair tech, probably needs to be researched now.....
Anyway Take care just a few thoughts on it.
Edit: Also. Oracale. For harass....ill just phase your Hatch / Nexus / CC you want to mine?! LOL NO. You can have your mineral patches.... I'll just make your return point vanish.
I really don't understand all the hate for the replicant, it's such an interesting unit in it's potential. Protoss are supposed to be the race of the most advanced technology but often their tech doesn't seem to outshine terran, but this thing does. I mean nano tech duplication, hell yes, that's the tech that needs to be unleashed.
The oracle is also being misjudged in my opinion. It's mineral block ability seems like it will play less of a harrass factor than the building shut down though. It's primary harrass use may well be shutting down gas geysers. the openings it give's against static based defense is awesome, it'll make stargate tech more viable in a whole set of ways.
....Wow, I just can't wrap my head around the hate for the replicant. Blizzard is like, i think we'll give protoss the most expansive tool box in the game, and some people are like: this won't create new strategies >_<*. I'm thinking of how fun it will be to EMP ghosts or PDD against vikings. It really does open up the skill cap for protoss so much to have such flexibility. We've had mind control before, so it's not like a protoss controlling terran or zerg units is unprecedented, only it's style is. The cost means that the protoss will have to be smart about making his copied units cost effective... but let's be honest, cloaked banshees often are and a tank or two in the right spot can be game changing for defense. Replicated ghosts and infestors stack extremely well with high templar, so i think the higher cost is worth it. The best part is the 4 food cost will make it a unit you'll only want a few of in your end game comp.
To be honest I think the recall ability was an amazing ability for the mothership, and now that the nexus has it I am really afraid for zergs early game vs protoss.
Generally in early game ZvP (as it is now) Z tries to get an economic lead by droning and expanding while poking with one or two lings and leaving them out side the toss's base to watch for him to push out.
If the protoss does push out the zerg must determine if they think it is an attack or just toss going in shark mode, and then the zerg must make units to attack/defend, or more drones.
With recall on the nexus (assuming they can use it earlish game), A toss can be constantly pushing all the way towards the zerg punishing them any time the zerg doesnt have enough units, and the second they look like they might be over run you simply recall without or any loss, and if the zerg over produced defenses, the protoss ought to be economically ahead now and can continue this process until they can simply go crush the zerg.
This is a worry of mine atm about recall being on the nexus (teir 0) instead of the mothership the highest teir unit
Void Ray was always one of the worst looking units.
I think they could have modified the Carrier into replacing the Void Ray, instead of scrapping it. I am fairly sure almost everyone thinks the Carrier is cooler than the Void Ray.
Have to answer undecided for most of them. Don't think it makes much sense judging and justfieing something that we have never tried, or even seen used in a real game yet. Not to mention that countless things will be tweaked before HotS is actually released.
On October 23 2011 17:43 Dystisis wrote: Void Ray was always one of the worst looking units.
I think they could have modified the Carrier into replacing the Void Ray, instead of scrapping it. I am fairly sure almost everyone thinks the Carrier is cooler than the Void Ray.
People keep calling the viper the new deflier (dark swarm). But isnt it more like dweb? dweb and dark swarm are totally different ... dark swarm is100x better than dweb which the viper dosent have...
On October 23 2011 17:43 Dystisis wrote: Void Ray was always one of the worst looking units.
I think they could have modified the Carrier into replacing the Void Ray, instead of scrapping it. I am fairly sure almost everyone thinks the Carrier is cooler than the Void Ray.
VR looks cool. Just because you dont like it doesnt mean its garbage.
To the OP...just one thing...the first reaction everyone had from the description was OMG zerg got darkswarm back (myself included) but when we saw it in action and when it was explain, it isnt DS...its the zerg version of DWeb...so why still calling it DS?
On October 23 2011 17:43 Dystisis wrote: Void Ray was always one of the worst looking units.
I think they could have modified the Carrier into replacing the Void Ray, instead of scrapping it. I am fairly sure almost everyone thinks the Carrier is cooler than the Void Ray.
VR looks cool. Just because you dont like it doesnt mean its garbage.
To the OP...just one thing...the first reaction everyone had from the description was OMG zerg got darkswarm back (myself included) but when we saw it in action and when it was explain, it isnt DS...its the zerg version of DWeb...so why still calling it DS?
Just a minor thing.
Edit: rofl poster above me said the same thing :p
I'd say it's better than DWeb, just because it seems to screw with the AI. The marines in the demonstration video ran forward to attack, because their range was reduced to melee rather than their ranged attack being disabled. Look away for a second and your marines all just ran through a few clouds and into banelings.
I'm sad they removed units which have only been underused Why can't Protoss just have Carrier and Tempest and Mothership? Just leave it in the game and tweak it a bit.
They made Protoss feel really gimmicky, the mechanics of most units look stupid and unpractical, I like the concept of a fast raider, but it has a 'cast' function that probably is restricted by energy rather than cd and those web things + the mineral shields look like it'd be sinking a lot of gas and tech just to stop mining. Stargate tech was crap because it's highly niche and impractical vs mass AA ground and they put in more niche units in it :/. Replicant while it sounds really cool seems either gamebreaking or really underwhelming, I heard it was 4 supply 200/200. I suppose if you replicate banshees or immortals it'd be provide situational utility but that just means you've skipped tech to build units. I'm not really sure I like how Protoss is going to be played, the ball style blows but they discourage air play from being viable end game against straight up ground. They've put in a bunch of utility but I don't see Protoss moving away from Stalker/Collo without a decent way to control marine/maruader or broodlord/festor.
Oh man, removing the Carrier is like removing zealots but for air. (I am not using usability, cost etc for this analogy but I used the symbolic significance to the Protoss Race :/) I wouldn't mind if the phoenix or Vray get removed to make way for the Carrier tbh. Oh well, I like the tempest a lot as well as the Oracle's dweb. I don't get the hate on the replicant :/ It has so much potential. Its Protoss. What did you expect? Time will tell I guess.
Since the Viper comes directly after Hive tech and the fact that it is really needed for detection It's cost can't be too much. But then it's 'Grab' ability seems a little to strong.
Maybe they should make it a upgrade just like neural and storm...?
I like a lot of the changes on second thoughts. Not necessarily because of the units, but because of the way maps and gameplay is likely to change if these go through. All of the new space controlling units and movement options should mean that the large, open maps will be a lot more balanced and therefore common. Don't you guys mostly like long macro games? I think HOTS will lend itself much better to them.
Firstly, Protoss' probably OP ability to punish tech rushes via the replicator. Any tech rush against a macro Protoss is probably going to have to cross the map to beat itself. The better economy of the Protoss and the free upgrades on any tech unit should offset the high cost of the replicator and mean that if the rush is thwarted the Protoss is going to be in an excellent position. If this works like I think it will, fast expands and faster thirds for P all become a lot more likely and viable in PvT, possibly in PvZ too (you could even make a bunch of immortals, voids or storm enabled HTs really fast, so economic roach or hydra allins are probably a big nono). Of course, it's still a lazy attempt to fix P early game, but for an appropriate cost reduction (which it needs, perhaps 200-150? though the void ray would be cheaper this way then, perhaps just reducing the void cost to the same price would be okay, they're really expensive as it is). I think it would be good if it was reworked to only copy your own units, perhaps making it an expensive but very supply inefficient way to quickly get out tech units. I think a lot of people have overlooked the possibility of getting out a couple of very fast storms with this without needing to save a ton of chrono, which I could see working well against marine heavy T all-ins.
The expensive Oracle may become very useful to Protoss as it should be more affordable if they can get additional bases up quickly and safely and with its high speed should be both far more difficult to defend against and far better at scouting than T and Z equivalents. It could even help defend an FFE against a roach push by zoning out whichever building the roaches focus down just before it dies, if the ability isn't too expensive. Also, the phase ability also allows tech rushes to be punished by delaying upgrades and forcing some portion of the army to stay back to stop minerals from being forcefielded (thereby denying the ability to reinforce), so while the actual cost of getting one might kill you, it can still help.
While the Shredder on current maps will invalidate zergling harass, I can easily see the average choke width or number of paths outside of the nat increasing moderately to compensate. As a result Shredders become something Terran needs to invest into at least a few of in order to block any pathways, essentially becoming a necessary drain on factory time and supply for T before they can push out rather than simply an OP defensive unit that can individually block chokes and is completely impossible to break. Either way, simple investment by T into the Shredders as an immobile, completely defensive unit is never a disaster for Z. And with T possibly not relying so heavily on keeping units back or morphing distant bases into planetaries might make nydus considerably better. Alternatively, maybe the Viper can grab a morphed Shredder and pull it out of the way, opening up a path for units. A bit more involved than normal, and costing a bunch of Viper energy, but leaving the harass very viable. Just be careful not to pull the Shredder into your pack of lings, cause I don't think the pull will disable it!
Swarm Host is a bit crap in my opinion. I like the concept, but the current design of two, very slowly spawned units won't control space well at all without considerable investment into a bunch of them, so the locusts spawn in big numbers. And if that's the case, you probably may as well leave an army there or just invest into something mobile enough to just run over there to defend. They're also extremely slow from the vids, so getting them across the map to attack is going to be a complete pain if you make a bunch of them, which means you'll need ovie drops, but they don't really look OP enough to justify the extra expense. Not a patch on the Shredder.
Mass Recall should mean bigger chokes and larger maps won't be overly detrimental to Protoss, though the fact they'll need to keep energy up on them means it'll severely limit the amount of chronoboost that they can spend mid-late game. Keeping their nexus energy low will probably become an important task for Z and T if there is any danger of a baserace. The possibility of just warping back sentries to FF the other army out while all the DPS units go into the enemy base is scary though. T is probably going to need another massive ground unit with the Thor out (Warhound?), especially if they go mech, as they won't even have medivacs with a mech army to fly over the FFs. I dunno, siege tank vs FF might actually be fun to watch.
Anyway, setting up new expos will still be tricky for P at least, as Nexus start with 0 energy, meaning P will really have to babysit. I can see every nexus having Mass Recall being a bit of a pain for spectators and a match observer to keep track of, though. Controlling several nexus to respond to multiple drops with recalls to all the correct places will be really difficult though, especially with the way everyone is currently hotkeying every nexus all to the same key.
Bigger maps would make mutas much more likely due to their mobility and as a result the Tempest probably becomes pretty useful to shut it down. The unit isn't very interesting in itself though, as I can't see any strategic plays coming out of it, it's basically an anti-muta unit. Maybe pretty much unpunishable overlord hunting, though that's just more broken than fun. I think it's likely they'll add something to it before release, as currently it's really flavourless. Corruptor gets another really useless ability. It really needs something like the ability to slow enemy attack speed (albeit very briefly) so it can actually be microed against
Hydra speed, will be necessary if the average map becomes larger. Definitely good.
Baneling burrow movement, it's way less scary if the maps become bigger and as a result chokes become larger, the banes are less likely to connect even with movement. Also the new Terran Warhound makes the marine much less of an anti-air cornerstone for the T army, so perfect landmines shouldn't be as game ending as often.
Detection for Zerg went out of the window with ocular implant being a one time use spell. DTs and Banshees should be way more effective at containing them mid-early game, and additionally keeping track of which units have detection is going to become a real pain. One thing I don't like is that Zerg may end up having to sac supply just to get more Vipers out late game if all their detectors die. We'll probably see a lot more spores from Zerg as a result. Phoenix may also get a neat role as a detection assassin Bisu style, and Banshee rushes vs Z could easily become even more OP without a fast flying detector readily available to accompany Queens. Unless maybe the Viper can implant itself with its own eye (dumb idea, right? ).
I think everyone is ignoring the fact that dark swarm is going to be op as shit vs protoss. Everyone is thinking herp derp its gud vs marines. But drop a fungal and a swarm on a protoss army with colossi and you just nullified a tier 3 unit and the cost to upgrade range, no to mention the bulk of the toss ball is usually stalkers, so now they have 1 range and then auto lose to roaches that are now out ranging them or w/e unit you decide to use to 1a into the protoss death ball.
BTW why does blizzard always ignore the actual pronunciation or use of short forms or nicknames and try to substitute their own similar version.Sure a death ball is technically a ball of death, but there is a key nuance, with the blizz version it could be a bouncy ball from the dollar store, oh wait that's the protoss replicator... meh bad.
On October 23 2011 18:42 Sightbain wrote: I think everyone is ignoring the fact that dark swarm is going to be op as shit vs protoss. Everyone is thinking herp derp its gud vs marines. But drop a fungal and a swarm on a protoss army with colossi and you just nullified a tier 3 unit and the cost to upgrade range, no to mention the bulk of the toss ball is usually stalkers, so now they have 1 range and then auto lose to roaches that are now out ranging them or w/e unit you decide to use to 1a into the protoss death ball.
BTW why does blizzard always ignore the actual pronunciation or use of short forms or nicknames and try to substitute their own similar version.Sure a death ball is technically a ball of death, but there is a key nuance, with the blizz version it could be a bouncy ball from the dollar store, oh wait that's the protoss replicator... meh bad.
Less death ball play leads to more entertaining games. These hypothetical Protoss players will learn to micro their units with more than one hotkey after their whole army gets caught a few times.
Shredder - i don't understand why terran needs another unit to defend/control space, they have siege tanks, bunkers, sensor towers, and planetary fortresses already...
Viper - the grab is a silly spell. makes positioning much less important and that is one of the things blizz said they want to make more important, zergs should use counter attacks/drops/mutas to force your opponent to reposition their army
Corruptor - i guess it can harass buildings after you kill all the collo in ZvP, still pretty useless in ZvZ / ZvT other than to make broodlords, blizz still needs to fix this unit
Tempest - toss already has HT-psi storm, Archon splash, blink stalkers, and phoenix who do bonus dmg to light. Why do they need AOE vs light air?
Oracle - phase shift is a good spell, but i think it will be better as a research spell for the phoenix, that way they can continue to harass even if there are turrets/spores/cannons and toss can continue to mass phoenix in PvZ, and they won't need to worry about mass light air, therefore no need for tempest - mineral-block is kinda derp... no real permanent damage. i guess it can seriously disrupt economy, but the skill itself is too specific, players can hardly be creative with it, and it isn't micro intensive
Replicator - blizz couldn't think of a new toss unit so they gave them the ability to copy. there, i said it. - it's not that i don't think it's a good/useful unit, but come on... this isn't really creative
Arc Shield - not bad but research must be required do I even have to explain why?
P.S. - contaminate is really important for delaying collo/tank/hatch production IMO i use it all the time i am going to miss it QQ - all the other changes i am quite happy with and i am excited for HOTS! thx blizz
Why do people care about carrier's being removed? They weren't used in the slightest... just because they worked in BW isn't a valid reason to keep them
so battlecruiser not only gets regular speed buff from patch (which i like), but now it gets a boost ability (no mention of def matrix or that missle barrage)....
carrier: removed
also removed: mothership
now terran get a mothership-like change to the thor.
what is so wrong with improving carriers, keeping mothership, having one-build super thor, and even some kinda omegalisk or leviathan thing form the zerg. or this:
i like most of the changes, not the removals, the new unit mostly SEEM cool, but 200/200 for replicant is pricey; oracle still seems like weak harass*; VIPER PULL THINGY IS GOOFY (but not that bad); WTF tempest... details pls?; love mass recall nexus; warhound is battletech (mechwarrior) rip-off (just make goliath 2.0 look like goliath!); shredder is cool but weird to control; battle hellion neat-o; swarm lord is in the right direction...
i feel good about how they are thinking, and i hope they keep up with teamliquid forums, b/c the input here is usually well thought out, and i spent all this time here, too!
*oracle has some interesting properties. the building stasis is neat. there is an old version of the photon cannon known as the phase cannon. this could teleport around pylon fields similar to zerg's mobile static defense. what if... this phase cannon could be used (perhaps make it a forge or robo upgrade) to teleport into pylon power... of a warp prism... your oracle could provide cover and distraction for a siege of an are similar to terran just plopping down bunkers and turrets... just a thought i felt i needed to share. no attack seems like a cheat... make it DETECT and make sure it's not 150/200 (maybe 200/100, it's not an arbiter). i like the building stasis, and the tech view. makes tech fakes not only harder, but more thought out. the nexus ability for the turret on a building needs to be a simple upgrade to put a (slightly better) photon cannon on top of the nexus.
I'm still waiting for somebody to explain how burrow-move Banelings at Hive tech is OP.
If you can't get mobile detection out by the time the Zerg's at Hive you deserve to lose. I fail to see how it's worse than DTs, which, although being more expensive individually and not having splash damage, come earlier and presumably move alot faster.
I'll only cover the Zerg stuff for the moment with one exception because I'm lazy.
Banelings with burrowed movement with the speed as it is at the moment is just unlikely to get through beta. My initial response was something along the lines of "lol OP" but I realised that with Observers, Ravens and Vipers there's no reason anyone should not have detection available so maybe it's not so bad will have to see it in competetive play - still think it's a bit fast though.
Ultralisk burrow charge, I'm wanting to know a couple of things before making a final decision. Can I burrow charge cliff walk with vision? What is the range on it, if it's a 10 yard range that I can just use to get my Ultralisks unstuck and actually fighting for instance I'm quite happy with that. In the video it seemed the Ultra basically blinked, if that's the case would it still destroy FF's in the way?
Viper's abilities are cool with the exception of the Ocular Parasite being a one time use thing. Up the energy cost so it can't be spammed or put a cooldown on it, because as it is it costs significantly more than an Overseer, doesn't provide the scouting potential of an Overseer, doesn't seem to be creatable during morphing a Hive (built from Lair it seems) and will overall mean significantly less detection available. I like the concept but not the execution.
The blinding attack it has it pretty awesome, and coupled with the Swarm Host could create a nice window of disarray where a Zerg player can actually attack in a slightly more tactical manner. Going to be complained at like hell though by Diamond league and below I imagine.
The pull attack requiring 100 energy meas it's basically not going to be used more than once a game at max and I envisage a lot of Viper snipes from Terran and Protoss especially basically making this something that is going to work very rarely and usually just cost the Zerg player.
Finally on the Zerg side of things we have Corruptor change, which I kinda like but *needs* a "Can't target friendly" limit - 300 + 50 minerals for a hatch, drain for 1500 minerals, Zerg becomes unbeatable late game with a handful of Corruptors.
The only non Zerg unit I have to mention is the Replicator which as it stands now just couldn't be balanced - you can't possibly balance a race around potentially having any tech in the game. Fungal/Storm and the fact it becomes cheaper (and if the unit takes less than 74 seconds to make, faster too) for Protoss to produce Brood Lords than for Zerg are two immediately insane points and I just cn't see anyway of this working out. This is the one concept that was brought up that I feel should be removed and in return give something legitimately cool to our Protoss brothers and sisters.
Why do people care about carrier's being removed? They weren't used in the slightest... just because they worked in BW isn't a valid reason to keep them
Well it is certainly a reason to try and tweak them around. If they try to give a new role to the thor the way they do, instead of simply removing the unit, it is presumably because they liked the "concept" of the massive mech unit with cannons on the back.
Honestly, if the carrier (as is, capital ship requiring fleet beacon that builds interceptors to attack) was reworked to do fulfill the same role as the tempest, I still would take the carrier. Not for a particular balance reason, but because it is your iconic protoss air unit.
Don't get me wrong, if the new capital ship had an entirely different mechanic (say a short range cone AoE, or something specific like that), there would be no way to keep it. You can't tweak a reaver into a colossus, the units are too different. But if you need a fleet beacon unit to have a long range anti-air AoE and a ground attack, you could also give the AoE to the interceptors and rebalance the unit accordingly. It would still feel like a carrier.
the new thor is pretty fucking retarded if you ask me. overall i feel like the zerg changes are the most "successful" ones with some tweaks. the terran ones are horrible and the protoss ones even worst
On October 23 2011 18:27 Zorgaz wrote: Since the Viper comes directly after Hive tech and the fact that it is really needed for detection It's cost can't be too much. But then it's 'Grab' ability seems a little to strong.
Maybe they should make it a upgrade just like neural and storm...?
hellions are pretty strong in general with the transit mode mech becomes INVINCIBLE omg tt you got the nice splash + the mobility and if you are attacking you just remove the mobile part to a stronger fighting ability, hope it doesnt turn out to be as strong as i think but thats maybe coz i am zerg
I'm surprised so many people like the Reaper's regeneration ability. I don't see how it would encourage you to make more of them. I also feel if someone's Reaper barely gets out with 5HP then it deserves to die to a single Stalker shot if you stop paying attention to it for a moment.
On October 23 2011 19:20 ProxyKnoxy wrote: Why do people care about carrier's being removed? They weren't used in the slightest... just because they worked in BW isn't a valid reason to keep them
It's the freaking Carrier, removing it is absurd. It's like if Blizzard thought Marines were a little too strong, so they removed them from the game.
There is nothing more emblematic of the Protoss race than a proud victory fleet of Carriers raining death upon their enemies. They need to make that a plausible thing, not remove Carriers from the game.
i feel like warhound is not going to be used often because marauder seem so much better in this role so i think they will either remove marauder or give warhound really huge dmg vs mechanical
I don't see why people are so against the baneling burrow movement... you don't even get it till hive tech and if you don't have detection at that stage of the game then I'm sorry to say you have problems with your gameplay.
I'm digging the new units and changes for the most part. As a Terran the Ultralisk charge thing is scary but hopefully when it's all said and balanced everything will work out for all 3 races.
Tempest battle video looked awsesome, when 4 tempest raped about 15 mutas. But, a Tempest requires a fleet beacon and the costs of 300/300 (!!!) means: almost useless against muta harras. mutas harras can start at minute 11-12. 75 secs buildtime on the other hand is a huge improvement (120 secs for the carrier). i hope they do good against broodlords.
the replicant: why should i build a unit for 200/200 to get a unit from the opponent? thats more than an immortal, almost as much as a colossus.
The more and more I think about it, the more I am excited for this and wan't to play around in the beta, seems overall positive so far. I don't understand Siphon though for the Corruptor, seems really gimmicky and redundant to me, corruption is actually more useful.
people like the tempest but hate the removal of the carrier? It had to be one or the other and I think the tempest will have more utility and more strength. The biggest weakness of a carrier was that you had to build up interceptors and that those interceptors could be killed, your DPS could be removed. The tempest doesn't have that weakness, so I'm interested to see how good it's DPS is against ground as well as against vikings.
On October 24 2011 07:02 ypslala wrote: the replicant: why should i build a unit for 200/200 to get a unit from the opponent? thats more than an immortal, almost as much as a colossus.
The main thing is that it gives you any unit specific upgrades, in addition to making your unit comp incredibly flexible. Assuming it can be used on friendly units, I can see it being incredibly useful for replicating templar, for example.
On October 24 2011 07:08 emc wrote: people like the tempest but hate the removal of the carrier? It had to be one or the other and I think the tempest will have more utility and more strength. The biggest weakness of a carrier was that you had to build up interceptors and that those interceptors could be killed, your DPS could be removed. The tempest doesn't have that weakness, so I'm interested to see how good it's DPS is against ground as well as against vikings.
35 damage to a single target at ~6 range, as of the build shown off at Blizzcon.
On October 24 2011 07:02 ypslala wrote: Tempest battle video looked awsesome, when 4 tempest raped about 15 mutas. But, a Tempest requires a fleet beacon and the costs of 300/300 (!!!) means: almost useless against muta harras. mutas harras can start at minute 11-12. 75 secs buildtime on the other hand is a huge improvement (120 secs for the carrier). i hope they do good against broodlords.
the replicant: why should i build a unit for 200/200 to get a unit from the opponent? thats more than an immortal, almost as much as a colossus.
i like nexus changes.
well muta harass can start that early but you can also end the game that early if they go for muta. Muta numbers get scary in the late late game, thats what this tempest is for. It's for late game, against 40-50 mutas, not 10-15 mutas, you have stalkers and cannons for that...
On October 24 2011 06:38 Zazzles wrote: i feel like warhound is not going to be used often because marauder seem so much better in this role so i think they will either remove marauder or give warhound really huge dmg vs mechanical
I doubt it. It's mech so you can use it without getting barracks and it won't die so damn quickly to collosus etc.
On October 24 2011 06:38 Zazzles wrote: i feel like warhound is not going to be used often because marauder seem so much better in this role so i think they will either remove marauder or give warhound really huge dmg vs mechanical
I doubt it. It's mech so you can use it without getting barracks and it won't die so damn quickly to collosus etc.
And it's an easily massable muta counter that isn't the marine.
On October 24 2011 06:38 Zazzles wrote: i feel like warhound is not going to be used often because marauder seem so much better in this role so i think they will either remove marauder or give warhound really huge dmg vs mechanical
I doubt it. It's mech so you can use it without getting barracks and it won't die so damn quickly to collosus etc.
indeed. The warhound is great against mechanical units where the marauder is only good against armored. We may see TvP evolve from bio in early-mid game to fully mech in the late game, where marauders get replaces by warhounds and marines get replaced by battle hellions.
In TvZ the warhound will only be useful against mutas because there are no mechanical units for zerg. I kinda wish the marauder was removed and the warhound did + to armored but I don't think I want the warhound owning all my roaches and ultras.
On October 23 2011 19:20 ProxyKnoxy wrote: Why do people care about carrier's being removed? They weren't used in the slightest... just because they worked in BW isn't a valid reason to keep them
It's the freaking Carrier, removing it is absurd. It's like if Blizzard thought Marines were a little too strong, so they removed them from the game.
There is nothing more emblematic of the Protoss race than a proud victory fleet of Carriers raining death upon their enemies. They need to make that a plausible thing, not remove Carriers from the game.
carriers nor the mother ship honestly wasnt suppose to be in the game in the first place, but they kept it because of some attachment they had to it. the thing honestly has no place in SC2. i litterally massed 10-12 carriers in a 4v4 team game all of them fully upgraded and they died to 3-3 marines. the marines melted the interceptors in like 5 seconds and the carriers cant run from stimmed rines so they all just died. its a insanely weak unit for its cost. i actully prefer them to remove it and replace it with a better unit.
the tempest gives so much air control compared to a carrier which will give it some usefulness in PvZ against broodlord comps and in PvT to protect ur colos from vikings. much MUCH more useful.
"Love the hydra speed upgrade, but hive tech? wtf thats like giving me a lolipop, letting me open it slowly, and move it towards my mouth and then slaughtering my family in front of me."
I'll only comment on the Zerg changes for now as I've given those the most thought:
Viper: Awesome change, really what the Zerg needs a nice support caster, but as is, this thing is in for a lot of trouble. Zerg has horrible anti-air as it is, 1 viking or pheonix and this thing is done for. Don't get me wrong, what I am saying is very situational but think about. Hydra speed is Hive so don't expect to see them before that, and speed is not the only problem they have. Zerg has no other reasonable AA at that point in the game (lair tech). Going to make infestors? Well where in the hell are you going to get all that gas? Between Viper, Infestor, and lets say you DO make Hydras, thats absurb amount of gas. Second issue with it is the detection. I think it'll only be plausible if it becomes a detector itself or can self cast, OR what I plan on doing, is forcing Ovie speed upgrade and making that a detector and just leaving it back a tad. Other than that its going to make detection a mess for Zerg.
Swarm Host: Also nice change, FINALLY something that feels zergy but once again, how are we going to get these things? Lair Tech we have the now mandatory Viper for its effects and detection and the infest as well as all sorts of upgrades and tech. They also seem to be rather ineffective in low numbers and their Locusts are slow. Obvious that is easily changed if need be but, finding the balance could be hard. Remember these can be left at your base for defense and would making attacking zerg very very difficult. Nice change but will definitely need some tweaking.
Hydra Speed: Oh thank god we needed this, but its not all we need. There are other huge fundamental flaws with the hydra, mostly in the role, cost, and health departments. Its very nicely complimented by the Viper but once again...where are you going to get all that gas? Oh and don't let me forget....Hive Tech. Now this seems as though Blizz is forcing faster tech out of Zerg to make our units remotely useful. Its too far away it needs to be moved to Lair. At that point in the game due to the cost and inefficiency of the hydra as it is, no one will see a point to their speed upgrade.
Bane Burrow Move: Once again...Hive tech to make our units useful. I understand the detection issues and what not, but like so many have said...if you don't have detect by even the mid game, you have serious issues in your gameplay. The baneling as it is is upsettingly inefficient and almost never carries its cost into the battlefield. You either need to over make or completely dominate the control and flow of the battlefield in order to use them. The tech is too far away. Oh I want to add...I love that their actually doing more with burrow, it seems like such a horrible mechanic beyond roachs regen and infestors trying to stay alive.
Ultra Charge: Sweet Jesus on ice skates did we need this. Why wasn't this left in the game way back when? Nice change, very useful, totally fixes the issues of the Ultra, maybe it doesnt have to burrow to get it done. Kind of silly for such a big thing to shoot through the ground but whatever. It is what we needed out of the Ultra.
Siphon: This doesn't strike me as a good change at all. I mean its nice and certainly forces the opponent to rethink attacking you after he just decimated your roach/hydra/ling/fest ball but its not enough at the current 1/1/1 resource dps scale. Notice how I inferred its only use even after this change. ROACH/HYDRA/CORRUPTER! Obviously I am talking ZvP which is the only place it finds any use. And still beyond that it doesnt fix or make up for the fact that "Hey I just made 10 Corrupters to deal with 4 Colo, now that the Colo are dead but I didn't finish off his Deahtball I can't reinforce as effectively because I had to make 10 Corrupters." Lol a bit of a stretch but still, running those new useless Money Dump units to go snag 1 mineral 1 gas and 1 dps on buildings when the Protoss can easily warp in about 8-10 stalks and stop you....not that awesome. Oh and don't for get about the rest of his army running to your base to attack before you can collect resources for your next larvae cycle. Doesn't add to the unit and just isn't the kind of change the Corrupter needs to make it useful. Sorry =/
Sorry for the Critting Wall of Text (:
It seems all Blizz focused on is Late game and finally making most of our useless units semi effective BUT ONLY until the late game. Now I think the changes are smart and in the right direction, but not in the right place. They did nothing to fix the massive holes in the Zerg early and middle game. Where is the decent easily massable T1 Unit? Or the AA? Where is the effective ranged unit when lings dont cut it that wont leave us behind after being forced to make them (Thats right I'm looking at you Roach)? Where is the zergy feel of swarming your opponent throughout the match? They seem to have only applied these niches that the Zerg have to the late game.
Zerg Swarm Host --> Engulfer Why? "Swarm" being in the name seems somewhat odd/misplaced; "Engulfer" fits the "defiler"/"infestor" style of name, and it too accurately describes the unit's use.
Viper --> Mantis Why? "Viper" does not seem to fit the look and role here. This is not a primary attacking, aggressive unit. Moreover, this unit looks nothing like a snake. "Mantis" not only describes its look, but also seems to fit its less aggressive "caster" style role a little better.
On October 24 2011 07:35 FallDownMarigold wrote: Proposed name changes:
Zerg Viper --> Mantis Why? "Viper" does not seem to fit the look and role here. This is not a primary attacking, aggressive unit. Moreover, this unit looks nothing like a snake. "Mantis" not only describes its look, but also seems to fit its less aggressive "caster" style role a little better.
Looks more like a dragonfly than anything else... it just had 6 wings.
I just don't see why the thor isn't being removed all together. The newer version sounds pretty pointless and very gimmicky. I wish Blizzard would stop with these 'only 1 on the field' super units.
Oh, and does anyone know if Shredders only damage bio units? I saw a video that says it does radiation damage. So will it work against other types of units? I would assume it does since Probes are non-bio.
The best and biggest change for protoss in HotS, imo, is the Nexus Recall ability.
Imagine lategame medivac harass by terran. Imagine all the probes from 1 base being recalled to a different nexus. Instead of warping in units, recall a group to deffend from harrass. Take a hidden base-----> Recall workers to it, instead of risking a long travel b/n the entire map, with transfering probes. Sniping 3rd bases as protoss then recalling. Blink harrass---->recall back to town, when it gets too hot and can't escape. Proxy Nexus at the middle of the map, to serve as a recall beacon.
The community's opinion is absolutely useless. I honestly think that if you would do a poll about what units and dynamics people like in WoL that first of all, a lot of people will simply dislike everything, either because it belongs to their race - and they're stuck with this awful and pathetic race - or because it belongs to the enemy races - and of course their units are lame and overpowered; second of all, if you would compare and contrast with a hypothetical poll at the start of beta you'd find they have little in common as reaction is just based on emotion, not on suspending judgement before seeing it in action, while that's supposed to be the only thing that matters.
Fact is that calling the Replicant lame and gimmicky might be fun to do now, but how can you be sure that players won't come up with a million and one clever uses of it? To me this unit has a lot of potential for outthinking your opponent and in any case, until you see it in use you won't be able to get a good feel for it. Why outright say you dislike it then?
Similarly for the shredder. I keep being surprised this concept is universally disliked. It's quite similar to spidermines and gives you board control that is always thought to be such a beloved concept. Was that just a vocal minority and do we really just want more attack-move units? There's positive reception of battle-hellion, goliath, tempest, swarm host -- it's notable that except for the viper basically all the units that can be used in a straight-up fight are rated highly, while the more tricky units (that require you to see them in action first) are rated badly.
What I think is that Blizzard does 'get it', but they might have a shallow understanding of what 'it' means. Take micro, if they come up with cool micro mechanics they're certainly not going to go out of their way to remove it and of course they'll be happy with it. However, if they don't have a really strong understanding of micro then if there's ever a trade-off between micro-ability and something else, it can become harder to argue for. Now Starcraft II has two design constraints that influence this a lot: 1) they want the game to be playable by casuals, therefore maps must be small and filled with rocks, races must have armies that you can attack-move across the map. 2) they want it to be playable on higher latency and for people that have worse computers. Both of those ensure that you can't have the super-responsive and intricate mutalisk micro that you saw in Brood War. Instead there will be units like the shredder: you can set them up beforehand if you're not a fast player, but they have also uses for faster players. I think if you err too much on always having multiple, 'casual' uses for every unit you have the chance to miss out on some potential though. That said, it's still very much possible to create cool and responsive micro. (marine vs baneling)
If Starcraft Ii as a spectator activity becomes profitable and widespread enough then Blizzard also might think there is more of a market in just making the game fun to watch instead of fun to play. (and the former translates to fun to play for more competitively minded players -- even if Blizzard really just has to create better game modes for casuals if they want to keep their interest)
Another issue with Blizzard developing this expansion is someone like David Kim: he approaches new unit design from the perspective of 'holes in WoL that need filling up'. It's a complete insider's perspective where you can only try to augment the existing structure, not replace it. I hope they mostly keep him far away from the design process and just let him work on balancing the units the actual designers come up with.
Once upon a time back in the late 1990s I decided to play Protoss mainly because of one unit: the carrier... now its gone RIP. I would like the Tempest if there wasn't the removal of the carrier. Basicly the only thing I really like about the Protoss changes are the Nexus Upgrades. I don't like the way they are going with Protoss, so I don't think I will play them in the future, at least not with these new concepts.
In general I think they are making to much changes and I think this will result in a lot balance problems so either we will have to wait longer on HOTS or in the first couple of months after the release there will be lots of whine.
* Viper's grab? Sure the animation looks like shit right now, but it's such an awesome skill! * Replicant? Yeah it might be tough to balance, but at worst it will end up being a situational unit. I think it looks really bleeding cool. So why the hate?
Biggest personal gripe...
The new thor - I don't want a fantasy super unit! The races are founded on the ideals of quantity (zerg), quality (protoss), and versatility (terran). If anybody has a fantasy super unit that you can only build one of, it's PROTOSS. If you're going to remove the mothership, I say you should replace it with a fantasy super version of the Carrier! That would probably please the people who wanted the Carrier to be reworked instead of removed. And then the thor can be removed if the warhound is that much better. But seriously, a super Thor doesn't feel like Terran
Most excited about...
The new Zerg units! I'm a Terran player in case you didn't notice, but the Viper just looks soooo sweet, kinda like a flying defiler, and the spells will be so good it'll change a lot of the gameplay. Also, the ability to siege with Swarm Host (you know, assuming it's balanced right) will be a ton of fun. Also, I can't wait to replicate a cloaked banshee while playing as Toss.
On October 24 2011 07:55 TheRealPaciFist wrote: Why so much hate for...
* Viper's grab? Sure the animation looks like shit right now, but it's such an awesome skill! * Replicant? Yeah it might be tough to balance, but at worst it will end up being a situational unit. I think it looks really bleeding cool. So why the hate?
Biggest personal gripe...
The new thor - I don't want a fantasy super unit! The races are founded on the ideals of quantity (zerg), quality (protoss), and versatility (terran). If anybody has a fantasy super unit that you can only build one of, it's PROTOSS. If you're going to remove the mothership, I say you should replace it with a fantasy super version of the Carrier! That would probably please the people who wanted the Carrier to be reworked instead of removed. And then the thor can be removed if the warhound is that much better. But seriously, a super Thor doesn't feel like Terran
Most excited about...
The new Zerg units! I'm a Terran player in case you didn't notice, but the Viper just looks soooo sweet, kinda like a flying defiler, and the spells will be so good it'll change a lot of the gameplay. Also, the ability to siege with Swarm Host (you know, assuming it's balanced right) will be a ton of fun. Also, I can't wait to replicate a cloaked banshee while playing as Toss.
I think they saud that they want the Thor to be a unit that low league players can have fun with in team games, but will balance it in a way that pros will hardly ever use it. About the banshee, even if the copied banshee didn't have cloak, the replicate will have (as the replicator currently works).
On October 24 2011 07:55 TheRealPaciFist wrote: Why so much hate for...
* Viper's grab? Sure the animation looks like shit right now, but it's such an awesome skill! * Replicant? Yeah it might be tough to balance, but at worst it will end up being a situational unit. I think it looks really bleeding cool. So why the hate?
Biggest personal gripe...
The new thor - I don't want a fantasy super unit! The races are founded on the ideals of quantity (zerg), quality (protoss), and versatility (terran). If anybody has a fantasy super unit that you can only build one of, it's PROTOSS. If you're going to remove the mothership, I say you should replace it with a fantasy super version of the Carrier! That would probably please the people who wanted the Carrier to be reworked instead of removed. And then the thor can be removed if the warhound is that much better. But seriously, a super Thor doesn't feel like Terran
Most excited about...
The new Zerg units! I'm a Terran player in case you didn't notice, but the Viper just looks soooo sweet, kinda like a flying defiler, and the spells will be so good it'll change a lot of the gameplay. Also, the ability to siege with Swarm Host (you know, assuming it's balanced right) will be a ton of fun. Also, I can't wait to replicate a cloaked banshee while playing as Toss.
I think they saud that they want the Thor to be a unit that low league players can have fun with in team games, but will balance it in a way that pros will hardly ever use it. About the banshee, even if the copied banshee didn't have cloak, the replicate will have (as the replicator currently works).
I'm really hoping it works on friendly units, too. Researching storm is too mainstream. >_>
The Hydra Speed thing seem like a slap on the face. Basically Blizzard intentionally removed it in vanilla so it could be readded in the expansion for $$$
On October 24 2011 08:09 Sufficiency wrote: The Hydra Speed thing seem like a slap on the face. Basically Blizzard intentionally removed it in vanilla so it could be readded in the expansion for $$$
No, it would be OP to have a hydra the same way it was in BW... It was for balance.
On October 24 2011 08:04 Techno wrote: I would really love to have a 1 on 1, real life argument with someone saying the new Protoss units are weak or they dont like them.
I love the Tempest, I think the Oracle will be used more for breaking front lines then harassing, and I think the Replecant is a silly gimmick which will be useful in very special situations but generally useless.
On October 24 2011 07:51 nShade wrote: The best and biggest change for protoss in HotS, imo, is the Nexus Recall ability.
Imagine lategame medivac harass by terran. Imagine all the probes from 1 base being recalled to a different nexus. Instead of warping in units, recall a group to deffend from harrass. Take a hidden base-----> Recall workers to it, instead of risking a long travel b/n the entire map, with transfering probes. Sniping 3rd bases as protoss then recalling. Blink harrass---->recall back to town, when it gets too hot and can't escape. Proxy Nexus at the middle of the map, to serve as a recall beacon.
So many options will be open!
Yeah, a lot of options. Taking sneaky expansions and recalling your probes there and back again when it's noticed would be awesome.
Same with the replicant. About to get a 1-1-1 push in your face? Replicate a siege tank and get a defenders advantage.
I do believe these two mechanics are so swingy it's going to get nerfed to hell and back again or plainly removed. If they manage to balance the game with them in I am going to get impressed.
I think people are really underestimating the replicant.
Don't worry, I did too at first. I think that copying infestors in PvZ is gonna be HUGE. Seriously, infestors are good in ZvP, but they're even BETTER in PvZ.
Beyond that, the first siege tank you copy actually is cost efficient due to getting the siege tank research along with the unit, so that first tank with siege mode of yours (the protoss) cost 200/200 while thiers (the terran's) cost 150/125 + 100/100.
So that's something to consider. I do think that the cost of replicants for infestors in PvZ is worth it.
The change that I'm most displeased about is Arc Shield. I heard the name and thought aha! THIS must be how they're finally fixing early game PvP... but no, only matters with light units... so I really don't see why it was necessary.
I really like the terran units, which are making mech viable in TvP and making the game more like BW. But i dont know if zerg would be still able to deal with Ghost/Mech, cause the new zerg units don seem to be too helpful. And the Protoss units are just stupid.
On October 24 2011 08:17 Paljas wrote: I really like the terran units, which are making mech viable in TvP and making the game more like BW. But i dont know if zerg would be still able to deal with Ghost/Mech, cause the new zerg units don seem to be too helpful. And the Protoss units are just stupid.
Viper pull away siege tanks 1 by 1 or use that cloud thing to rush the siege tanks. Infact, the viper is going to be amazing! :o
Viper grab should be like Pudge Hook of dota. A Line Skillshot that get the first ally/enemy it touchs. So the enemy can put a zealot in the middle of the way to save the colosus.
On October 24 2011 07:51 nShade wrote: The best and biggest change for protoss in HotS, imo, is the Nexus Recall ability.
Imagine lategame medivac harass by terran. Imagine all the probes from 1 base being recalled to a different nexus. Instead of warping in units, recall a group to deffend from harrass. Take a hidden base-----> Recall workers to it, instead of risking a long travel b/n the entire map, with transfering probes. Sniping 3rd bases as protoss then recalling. Blink harrass---->recall back to town, when it gets too hot and can't escape. Proxy Nexus at the middle of the map, to serve as a recall beacon.
So many options will be open!
Recall is by far the biggest protoss change, especially considering how terrible the new units are. But I just don't see it happening, I don't think Blizzard will just give us mass recall at 75 energy cost, unlimited usage. It sounds OP as hell
I wonder if its just toss's voting on the toss units because most of us would have loved a good carrier lol. I'm confused why any toss would take the tempest over the replicant seeing as its just going to die to corruptors, seriously the only counter to corruptors is stalkers and they are terrible against air. They just don't do enough damage. I like the oracle and the replicant now that i've thought about how to use them, but more testing will either prove or disprove my theorycrafting.
On October 24 2011 07:51 nShade wrote: The best and biggest change for protoss in HotS, imo, is the Nexus Recall ability.
Imagine lategame medivac harass by terran. Imagine all the probes from 1 base being recalled to a different nexus. Instead of warping in units, recall a group to deffend from harrass. Take a hidden base-----> Recall workers to it, instead of risking a long travel b/n the entire map, with transfering probes. Sniping 3rd bases as protoss then recalling. Blink harrass---->recall back to town, when it gets too hot and can't escape. Proxy Nexus at the middle of the map, to serve as a recall beacon.
So many options will be open!
Recall is by far the biggest protoss change, especially considering how terrible the new units are. But I just don't see it happening, I don't think Blizzard will just give us mass recall at 75 energy cost, unlimited usage. It sounds OP as hell
Radius seems really small, though. It was about a hex wider than a colossus in the video shown.
i feel like blizz coulda instead tried to fix the carrier instead of dropping it completely. however, they seem very adamant about the fact that its only gone as of right now and that there is still the possibility of return. underused units generally give us the most excitement during a professional game so its not extremely needed to remove them
On October 24 2011 07:51 nShade wrote: The best and biggest change for protoss in HotS, imo, is the Nexus Recall ability.
Imagine lategame medivac harass by terran. Imagine all the probes from 1 base being recalled to a different nexus. Instead of warping in units, recall a group to deffend from harrass. Take a hidden base-----> Recall workers to it, instead of risking a long travel b/n the entire map, with transfering probes. Sniping 3rd bases as protoss then recalling. Blink harrass---->recall back to town, when it gets too hot and can't escape. Proxy Nexus at the middle of the map, to serve as a recall beacon.
So many options will be open!
Yeah, a lot of options. Taking sneaky expansions and recalling your probes there and back again when it's noticed would be awesome.
Same with the replicant. About to get a 1-1-1 push in your face? Replicate a siege tank and get a defenders advantage.
I do believe these two mechanics are so swingy it's going to get nerfed to hell and back again or plainly removed. If they manage to balance the game with them in I am going to get impressed.
did you saw the radius of the mass recal, it is a very small one. I think it is fine.
On October 24 2011 08:37 Brutaxilos wrote: i feel like blizz coulda instead tried to fix the carrier instead of dropping it completely. however, they seem very adamant about the fact that its only gone as of right now and that there is still the possibility of return. underused units generally give us the most excitement during a professional game so its not extremely needed to remove them
I won't be at all surprised if it's added back in between now and launch. This is the second time in SC2's development that they cut the carrier. Oddly enough, the original replacement was named the tempest, too.
On October 24 2011 08:26 haitike wrote: Viper grab should be like Pudge Hook of dota. A Line Skillshot that get the first ally/enemy it touchs. So the enemy can put a zealot in the middle of the way to save the colosus.
More micro is always better.
and thus taking away micro that protoss would have to do....all that would even do is give more advantages to protoss who put everything in one giant death ball
On October 24 2011 08:47 ShatterZer0 wrote: Ultralisks also lost their anti armor damage and gained anti light damage fyi.
Really? I would've figured between banelings and fungal growth, Blizzard would think Zerg has enough AOE damage to deal with masses of light units. I have no strong feelings about this change.
the new thor is gonna be crazy op.... they are saying its pretty much the alpha thor... wich is the same as the Odin in the campaign and that thing is so op its crazy... i hope it doesnt make it to the release or turtle terran its gonna be unstoppable.
On October 23 2011 14:07 Dommk wrote: These polls are just the typical knee jerk reactions.
For the most part, at least for Protoss, they are adding completely new unit concepts to the game using Mechanics we have never used before, thus the vast majority of players can't accurately gauge their strength.
Also, people shouldn't be surprised that Protoss didn't get any shiny units on the level of the Viper or Swarm host. Zerg were really lacking in that department and Terran needed something more to make Mech more viable against Protoss.
But Protoss already had a ton of different units for every situation, what they really lacked was units that had depth and could reward skilled players.
I like to think of this like Tetris, Zerg are getting the Line piece, Terran getting the L block and Protoss end up getting the S and Z blocks.
No one likes getting S and Z blocks, since those are the blocks that usually end up fucking over the players the most. Sometimes it is not even clear where you should put it, but in the end those are the pieces that separate the good players from the bad the most :p
Quoteing this for the truth.
So many toss are angry. I feel like the only toss who's ready to hit taldarim altar in a pvt. Once its 3 base vs 3 base i got some really good ideas for 2 oracles and a warp prism with 4 zealots. We can actually out multitask our opponents now. We have shit to do other than build units and attack in a big ball.
The replicator is a little gimicky, and wont have alot of use except for copying casters or copying some terran unit to help defend an allin (1 tank to stop 1/1/1).
Nexus cannon needs to be changed to not work on pylons or gas. Recall is fucking sweet, almost to the point of op.
Toss is already one of the highest micro races in the game especially in the early game. This will reward high apm/multitasking and allow us to be completely aggressive with a town portal so we dont have to commit so often, cause currently we have to commit to any battle once outside base.
Holy moly I just had the idea of replicatig a banshee in 1/1/1 and kiting the marines to death.
FYI.... Tempest stats: Unit Type: Armored, Mechanical, and Massive Shields: 150 Health: 300 AtG: 35 damage with 2.2 attack speed. AtA: 22 damage with 3.0 attack speed
Yeah... no damage bonuses from what I can tell from selecting the unit. Yes, Corruptors slaughter them in small numbers and Vikings slaughter them in large numbers... Fungaling them clumped still makes them insta dead T.T
On October 23 2011 14:07 Dommk wrote: These polls are just the typical knee jerk reactions.
For the most part, at least for Protoss, they are adding completely new unit concepts to the game using Mechanics we have never used before, thus the vast majority of players can't accurately gauge their strength.
Also, people shouldn't be surprised that Protoss didn't get any shiny units on the level of the Viper or Swarm host. Zerg were really lacking in that department and Terran needed something more to make Mech more viable against Protoss.
But Protoss already had a ton of different units for every situation, what they really lacked was units that had depth and could reward skilled players.
I like to think of this like Tetris, Zerg are getting the Line piece, Terran getting the L block and Protoss end up getting the S and Z blocks.
No one likes getting S and Z blocks, since those are the blocks that usually end up fucking over the players the most. Sometimes it is not even clear where you should put it, but in the end those are the pieces that separate the good players from the bad the most :p
Quoteing this for the truth.
So many toss are angry. I feel like the only toss who's ready to hit taldarim altar in a pvt. Once its 3 base vs 3 base i got some really good ideas for 2 oracles and a warp prism with 4 zealots. We can actually out multitask our opponents now. We have shit to do other than build units and attack in a big ball.
The replicator is a little gimicky, and wont have alot of use except for copying casters or copying some terran unit to help defend an allin (1 tank to stop 1/1/1).
Nexus cannon needs to be changed to not work on pylons or gas. Recall is fucking sweet, almost to the point of op.
Toss is already one of the highest micro races in the game especially in the early game. This will reward high apm/multitasking and allow us to be completely aggressive with a town portal so we dont have to commit so often, cause currently we have to commit to any battle once outside base.
Holy moly I just had the idea of replicatig a CLOAKED banshee in 1/1/1 and kiting the marines to death.
Fixed it for ya~! Because replicated units come with ALL of the tech associated with a unit (sans attack/armor)
On October 24 2011 08:44 Fishgle wrote: Why do people dislike Viper's Hook? It's great for killing colossus or help attack into siege lines.
Exactly because of that... A protoss comp with even ONE fewer colossus is insanely weakened... Vipers can pretty much instakill TWO from 13+ range away.... You just need to sac a speed ovie or a SINGLE zling...
On October 24 2011 08:36 Qikz wrote: The tempest does AOE to all air units, not just mutas so stacked corrupters will too be attacked by the tempest.
Lol the tempest sounds like a joke. We all know mutalists can magic box thors, what makes the tempest any different? Bigger aoe? Maybe.
However, we do know that corruptors are 'capital ship hunters' so we can assume they will perform decently well against tempests. Vikings are superior to pretty much anything because of their range. I'm not sure how they would fair against battlecruisers but given the demonstration video, they don't seem to have particularly high DPS, and yamato cannon tips any 1 v 1 battle in the BC's favor.
They are likely going to do well against phoenixes, but maybe phoenixes can fly in and fly out before the charging up of the tempest is complete. Against VRs, I'm not sure, but VRs seem to do well against slow firing, massive, armored targets.
So, other than swatting mutalisks (foolishly clumped up mutalisks, mind you) what are tempests good for?
On October 24 2011 07:55 TheRealPaciFist wrote: Why so much hate for...
* Viper's grab? Sure the animation looks like shit right now, but it's such an awesome skill! * Replicant? Yeah it might be tough to balance, but at worst it will end up being a situational unit. I think it looks really bleeding cool. So why the hate?
Biggest personal gripe...
The new thor - I don't want a fantasy super unit! The races are founded on the ideals of quantity (zerg), quality (protoss), and versatility (terran). If anybody has a fantasy super unit that you can only build one of, it's PROTOSS. If you're going to remove the mothership, I say you should replace it with a fantasy super version of the Carrier! That would probably please the people who wanted the Carrier to be reworked instead of removed. And then the thor can be removed if the warhound is that much better. But seriously, a super Thor doesn't feel like Terran
Most excited about...
The new Zerg units! I'm a Terran player in case you didn't notice, but the Viper just looks soooo sweet, kinda like a flying defiler, and the spells will be so good it'll change a lot of the gameplay. Also, the ability to siege with Swarm Host (you know, assuming it's balanced right) will be a ton of fun. Also, I can't wait to replicate a cloaked banshee while playing as Toss.
I think they saud that they want the Thor to be a unit that low league players can have fun with in team games, but will balance it in a way that pros will hardly ever use it. About the banshee, even if the copied banshee didn't have cloak, the replicate will have (as the replicator currently works).
And I'm arguing that they should have given this low league fun unit to Protoss instead of Terran, because it just doesn't feel right on Terran.
And yeah I know, getting cloak even if they don't have it will be awesome
On October 24 2011 07:53 Grumbels wrote: The community's opinion is absolutely useless. I honestly think that if you would do a poll about what units and dynamics people like in WoL that first of all, a lot of people will simply dislike everything, either because it belongs to their race - and they're stuck with this awful and pathetic race - or because it belongs to the enemy races - and of course their units are lame and overpowered; second of all, if you would compare and contrast with a hypothetical poll at the start of beta you'd find they have little in common as reaction is just based on emotion, not on suspending judgement before seeing it in action, while that's supposed to be the only thing that matters.
Fact is that calling the Replicant lame and gimmicky might be fun to do now, but how can you be sure that players won't come up with a million and one clever uses of it? To me this unit has a lot of potential for outthinking your opponent and in any case, until you see it in use you won't be able to get a good feel for it. Why outright say you dislike it then?
Similarly for the shredder. I keep being surprised this concept is universally disliked. It's quite similar to spidermines and gives you board control that is always thought to be such a beloved concept. Was that just a vocal minority and do we really just want more attack-move units? There's positive reception of battle-hellion, goliath, tempest, swarm host -- it's notable that except for the viper basically all the units that can be used in a straight-up fight are rated highly, while the more tricky units (that require you to see them in action first) are rated badly.
What I think is that Blizzard does 'get it', but they might have a shallow understanding of what 'it' means. Take micro, if they come up with cool micro mechanics they're certainly not going to go out of their way to remove it and of course they'll be happy with it. However, if they don't have a really strong understanding of micro then if there's ever a trade-off between micro-ability and something else, it can become harder to argue for. Now Starcraft II has two design constraints that influence this a lot: 1) they want the game to be playable by casuals, therefore maps must be small and filled with rocks, races must have armies that you can attack-move across the map. 2) they want it to be playable on higher latency and for people that have worse computers. Both of those ensure that you can't have the super-responsive and intricate mutalisk micro that you saw in Brood War. Instead there will be units like the shredder: you can set them up beforehand if you're not a fast player, but they have also uses for faster players. I think if you err too much on always having multiple, 'casual' uses for every unit you have the chance to miss out on some potential though. That said, it's still very much possible to create cool and responsive micro. (marine vs baneling)
If Starcraft Ii as a spectator activity becomes profitable and widespread enough then Blizzard also might think there is more of a market in just making the game fun to watch instead of fun to play. (and the former translates to fun to play for more competitively minded players -- even if Blizzard really just has to create better game modes for casuals if they want to keep their interest)
Another issue with Blizzard developing this expansion is someone like David Kim: he approaches new unit design from the perspective of 'holes in WoL that need filling up'. It's a complete insider's perspective where you can only try to augment the existing structure, not replace it. I hope they mostly keep him far away from the design process and just let him work on balancing the units the actual designers come up with.
If we are on the topic...
1.(Replicant) Please tell me if this is an intelligent way to make a unit... ok get ready. Lets make a unit ... that transforms into enemy unit-.-... Hell YEAH!. Because Prottos apparently are technologically inferior race and has to copy other races... and they cant come up with their own shit... coz they are soooo old. They are tired of the tribal predator like ways... they want to become humans T_T or zerg(touching). I believe that protoss needs to slay zerg not become one(where is the hate T_T?). From players perspective ... If I wanted to have ghost ... id play Terran.Give me so original prottos shit so that I can say "im going to rape some ass with some blinklots" instead of "im going to rape some ass with ghosts..." some guy asks u if u play terran ..."no man I'm just reproducing... I mean replicating".
2. shredder will be Loved by terrans i guarantee ... "I failed no worries ive PF a shreder 3 tanks and turrets...well guess im still safe:D" I mean it looks like a solid unit.
3. viper... cool unit probably the best design so far. The concept is old but they made it that so it fits with the overall zerg feel.
4.Swarm host... how can one introduce such thing after introducing lurker? Its like lurker v1/2. so it is not exciting at all.I mean come on ofc it is disappointing ,I'd take lurker over swarm host any time.It even has half assed name "SwarmHost" they could name it "Lucus Mushroom".
In the end... Blizzard removes 2 Protoss unts and add 3 units that are really difficult to make them work and expensive as well.Protoss IS expensive and they get more cost inefficient units. On the other hand we have terran loads of transforming, cloacking units ,some zone control units. 3 new units an upgraded helion(Firebat) ,Goliath/Maruader type mech unit and a spider mine that doesn't explode (and can be relocated talk about cost efficiency). Reaper health regeneration (cost efficiency again?). Mega thor (oh noes those mutas can kill thor lets make it that it works somehow). Helion (gets killed by roaches and stalkers) Fuck no lets make him work as well. Can u spot whats wrong with this picture? Im happy for terran and zerg(I am a zerg player) because blizzard kinda gets terran and zerg,but I feel bad for toss. But hey they get the nexus abilities ... they really got slapped in the face this time and u cant deny that.
The last hope is that they'll make protoss units cheaper and exchange replicant for something else. In general Zerg and Terran is fine.
On October 24 2011 07:55 TheRealPaciFist wrote: Why so much hate for...
* Viper's grab? Sure the animation looks like shit right now, but it's such an awesome skill! * Replicant? Yeah it might be tough to balance, but at worst it will end up being a situational unit. I think it looks really bleeding cool. So why the hate?
Biggest personal gripe...
The new thor - I don't want a fantasy super unit! The races are founded on the ideals of quantity (zerg), quality (protoss), and versatility (terran). If anybody has a fantasy super unit that you can only build one of, it's PROTOSS. If you're going to remove the mothership, I say you should replace it with a fantasy super version of the Carrier! That would probably please the people who wanted the Carrier to be reworked instead of removed. And then the thor can be removed if the warhound is that much better. But seriously, a super Thor doesn't feel like Terran
Most excited about...
The new Zerg units! I'm a Terran player in case you didn't notice, but the Viper just looks soooo sweet, kinda like a flying defiler, and the spells will be so good it'll change a lot of the gameplay. Also, the ability to siege with Swarm Host (you know, assuming it's balanced right) will be a ton of fun. Also, I can't wait to replicate a cloaked banshee while playing as Toss.
I think they saud that they want the Thor to be a unit that low league players can have fun with in team games, but will balance it in a way that pros will hardly ever use it. About the banshee, even if the copied banshee didn't have cloak, the replicate will have (as the replicator currently works).
And I'm arguing that they should have given this low league fun unit to Protoss instead of Terran, because it just doesn't feel right on Terran.
And yeah I know, getting cloak even if they don't have it will be awesome
I'd personally like it if they brought back the alpha mothership. It was useless as a giant arbiter, so they might as well give it back its original abilities with an enormous nerf, just so newbies can play with it.
On October 24 2011 08:44 Fishgle wrote: Why do people dislike Viper's Hook? It's great for killing colossus or help attack into siege lines.
1. It looks like Looney Tunes 2. It removes actual compensatory micro and army splitting an army has to do, which is one of the main reasons BW or any RTS is exciting. 3. It looks stupid 4. It looks stupid 5. It's another ability where a spell replaces actual micro.
It should be ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE to break a good siege line. In a nutshell, that's what made BW popular for 10 years. Siege lines being ridiculously OP, and people finding ways to overcome that. For once, please forget your amateur ladder ambitions and think about what's best for watching the game.
I would suggest that vipers can have units stick to them, and then the viper takes itself and the units to the enemy unit. At least that's feasible. It still removes actual good fundamental micro though.
On October 24 2011 08:44 Fishgle wrote: Why do people dislike Viper's Hook? It's great for killing colossus or help attack into siege lines.
1. It looks like Looney Tunes 2. It removes actual compensatory micro and army splitting an army has to do, which is one of the main reasons BW or any RTS is exciting. 3. It looks stupid 4. It looks stupid 5. It's another ability where a spell replaces actual micro.
It should be ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE to break a good siege line. In a nutshell, that's what made BW popular for 10 years. Siege lines being ridiculously OP, and people finding ways to overcome that. For once, please forget your amateur ladder ambitions and think about what's best for watching the game.
So, you're angry that zerg gets to micro with something besides target firing and fungal? It also does not look stupid, and you make yourself sound stupid by saying two points but stretching it out into 5 "points."
Then again, that's coming from someone who thinks that something from their own race "deserves" to be OP. I honestly doubt that people were watching BW for so long because of tank lines.
Anyway, hydra speed. Nuff said, we've been asking for it forever, finally got it.
Ultra Charge: Yeah, now we actually get to use our ultras instead of them dancing around the DB
Bling burrow move: meh, not really needed, but it could help for positioning bling mines as the marines come around.
Mothership and carrier gone: Well, they were never really used (except by Kiwi), and carriers were kinda imba if you could somehow get a large number of them.
Replicator: Undecided. It might work, but we'll see.
Tempest: /drool. If they aren't like a void/super-phoenix combo, they should be nice. Just don't fuck the build time up.
On October 24 2011 08:44 Fishgle wrote: Why do people dislike Viper's Hook? It's great for killing colossus or help attack into siege lines.
1. It looks like Looney Tunes 2. It removes actual compensatory micro and army splitting an army has to do, which is one of the main reasons BW or any RTS is exciting. 3. It looks stupid 4. It looks stupid 5. It's another ability where a spell replaces actual micro.
It should be ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE to break a good siege line. In a nutshell, that's what made BW popular for 10 years. Siege lines being ridiculously OP, and people finding ways to overcome that. For once, please forget your amateur ladder ambitions and think about what's best for watching the game.
guys guys guys... viper hook is just an alternate spawn broodling.
YES, i know you can't SB a reaver, but viper hooking a colossus doesn't create two broodlings either, not to mention a viper by itself won't do much. Really, it is spawn broodling with a tweak.
On October 24 2011 08:44 Fishgle wrote: Why do people dislike Viper's Hook? It's great for killing colossus or help attack into siege lines.
1. It looks like Looney Tunes 2. It removes actual compensatory micro and army splitting an army has to do, which is one of the main reasons BW or any RTS is exciting. 3. It looks stupid 4. It looks stupid 5. It's another ability where a spell replaces actual micro.
It should be ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE to break a good siege line. In a nutshell, that's what made BW popular for 10 years. Siege lines being ridiculously OP, and people finding ways to overcome that. For once, please forget your amateur ladder ambitions and think about what's best for watching the game.
I think this ability looks insanely fun. It means you actually have to keep an eye on those precious siege lines. I can't wait to play around with it.
On October 24 2011 08:44 Fishgle wrote: Why do people dislike Viper's Hook? It's great for killing colossus or help attack into siege lines.
because its too good at doing exactly that... a couple of vipers and suddenly your enemy loses his core units and you just roll him over.
except if you use just cloud the tankline you can still break it just as easy. -.-
but the thing its that it isnt only good for that... every single race normally uses some core units (colossi, thors,tanks) and being able to just take it and kill it witouth your enemy being able to do anything about it its the point that is broken... right now the viper seems like it will force protoss to all-in everygame cause they cant depend on core units like templars or colossi because they will get pulled away and killed before you can do anything about it.
Warhound is terran's only beefy unit(240hp) which has good anti-mech and anti-air, hellion transforms make them not complete garbage after the initial cheesing phase of the game.
The current niche which the hydra inhabits is that it is useful in low numbers when defending certain cheeses and when putting on pressure before heavy AoE attacks come out. They are not mobile which means they need to either be Nydused or dropped in order to get in and out in any realistic time. I don't like the hydra speed upgrade because the goal of any play which provokes hydras is to force the zerg to produce static defenses and hydras so the zerg sacrifices map control and can't counter pressure. Hydra speed is accomplished by nydus and drops, but those are countered by scouting whereas hydra speed will be countered by forcefields and heavy AoE (colossi or fungal). This might make hydras viable in ZvT, but I doubt it. I would rather a change which promotes more utility for the hydra, this change promotes more all-in with the hydra.
Ultra Charge
Burrow blink. Ultras need a change, but I don't think this is it. It looks like a no-micro skill which also obviates strong positioning and planning from the defender. It's so strong that I think T will need marauders and P will need immortals before the ultra is out. I think any buff to the Ultra needs to be more subtle, like allowing units to run underneath it. This allows the defender to plan, and micro against the ultra without turning the ultra into an a-move, micro destroying machine.
Baneling Burrow Move
I do like this change. It's hive-tech which means you'll know to prepare for it long in advance and you'll have detection unless the game is really weird. Banelings are not the most cost-effective AoE attack, but a pair of them can instantly destroy workers or marines instantly and this ability will make these situations easier to create. Against a mineral line, you'll probably still have more success with drops because overlords move faster than blings and from unpredictable angles. Terran will likely need to build ravens in the mid-game, or else they will have to slow their pushes down and build a string of missile turrets anywhere they plan to set up. Actually not game-shattering like a lot of people seem to think.
Corruption Removal
Corruption is a silly ability. I think it's fine as it is, but I don't care if it's gone either. As zerg, I tend to focus on positioning, fungals and injects. The cooldown on corruption makes it difficult to use with any regularity and the benefit isn't terribly useful. I don't understand why the corruptor needs any spell at all to be honest.
Siphon Ability
I want to reserve judgement on this one, but I think it's pretty bizarre. One thing that I haven't seen anybody mention is that any zerg which finds a random pylon in the field will be able to leech 400 minerals off of it. Does anybody know if you get minerals off shields? Consider Antiga Shipyard, where Protoss typically builds a pylon at your third so they can reinforce their push. If you make corruptors to hold off the push, you could attach to the pylon afterwards and start siphoning minerals. If they warp in to defend the pylon, you just a-move your army in and pull out before you destroy the pylon. Park an overlord over it and leave occasionally so the shields can regen. 60 minerals per minute is a higher rate than what a drone will harvest. Basically other armies will want to destroy any buildings they can't defend if that's true. I believe creep tumors are buildings as well, which might make this spell an interesting way of removing them. You could also siphon from the enemy's base during an attack, which which provide a real use for the corruptor outside or killing colossi.
Hellion Morph Upgrade
I believe the popular thought is that the hellion is already a disgusting unit which only costs minerals, why make it even better? If this actually gets implemented, I hope that it is an upgrade and not something the hellion can do by default (like how the viking currently works). I have been using hellions a lot in all matchups and I think it's a deal breaker if the unit costs gas. What I think Blizzard is trying to do here is make mech more viable, which is commendable but the hellion is already one of the most powerful and versatile units in the game - an upgrade to this unit is not necessary.
Reaper D8 Charge Removal
The reaper isn't used often, so I don't think this will really have any effect on the game. The D8 charges are cool, but the reaper itself isn't terribly survivable in the early game. I think it makes sense for the D8 charge to be removed to make way for a separate buff with the intent of increasing utility.
Reaper Regeneration
I'm not sure if this is the change the reaper needed, but it's interesting nonetheless. I think the reaper was overnerfed, and I wouldn't mind a rethink on how the unit functions. If you've ever tried MMA's play on Metalopolis, then you know that you move your reapers onto watchtowers after a couple queens are out because they are really expensive and really vulnerable. Medivacs come quite late which sorda retires the unit, but I presume this regeneration will be about a quick as zerg regeneration. At any rate, I'm excited to try this change.
Cloak cost change
It seems like a weird ability. The Blizzard guys seemed to sell the idea as if it were a buff to one of the strongest units in the game. That was about the time I realized that Blizzard is not on the same page as the rest of the world when it came to game design. Anyhow, it's cool that the ghost will need to be "microed" or checked in on or whatever to make sure he's still invisible and killing everything. I would just rather not see this change implemented because it's not very intuitive to me and the other units with a toggle cloak can leave it on permanently so I'd rather see the ability streamlined.
Ability to cloak during nuke
I really don't like this. I like that players have to bank energy to maintain cloak while nuking, and have to decide whether or not to spend that energy. This seems to be a sort of dumbing down of the game which really takes away from good planning and unit management. At the best, you have to reactivate cloak partway through a nuke (due to other change), at worst you will be able to decide whether or not to cloak during a nuke calldown so that you can destroy energy and save energy to snipe what's left.
Battlecruiser charge upgrade
I like this change only if it's a nerf. I mean that I expect that they will revert the recent speed buff to BCs and put this cooldown-based ability in its place. I think it would be even better if it took energy over time (like how ghost and banshee cloaking currently works) so you could budget speed boosts and willingly deplete your energy so you can't get feedbacked.
Nexus Recall
I'm not sure if this ability might be too powerful, but I think it is an excellent ability overall. The obvious implications are that you will be able to push out with your army, and use recall to save your army if it's a bad engagement; you will also be able to harass or snipe an expansion and then recall your army before it gets wiped out. This functions very similar to how town portal worked in WC3 and I expect it won't take long before the entire community can use this ability like an old pro. Late game Protoss will have a large amount of recall available to them at any given point, and even a nexus at a dried up base will be a valuable target so this spell is denied.
The reason why it might be overpowered is that it will turn the whole Protoss army into a strong harass. You could blink into your opponent's fifth on Shattered Temple, snipe their base and recall home just as the enemy is coming up the ramp. Static defense will literally need to be everywhere in order to stop the most mobile Protoss units from blitzing past them, doing damage and teleporting home. The only way to abuse this is to attack different Protoss locations simultaneously, and constantly so that the Protoss has to recall around and lose energy so they can't recall out of your bases. I think this will be the most powerful ability in the game and can't speak enough for it. I don't know if it's "macro nexus" good, but it's up there.
Nexus Building Defenses
Apparently these are as strong as a photon cannon, but only against light units? Does the spell automatically target light units if they're in range, or do you have to do that yourself? I've already heard of people building assimilators in their opponent's mineral line at blizzcon, then casting the spell on it and taking out the mineral line. I bet that will get patched fairly quickly. I do think that much of the value of this spell is lost if it only works on light units. The problem units in the early game are marauders, roaches and stalkers. This spell might save money on cannons in a forge fast expand, but I doubt it will actually be used very often because cannons are not good against light units (or anything that is massed).
Overseer removed
To any zerg player who liked this change, don't forget that Overseers didn't cost any supply. I think the overseer was a bit of a hassle because it's got to do something useful if it costs gas, but it can't do anything powerful if it doesn't cost supply. I was hoping we'd see overseers cost 100 minerals and don't have spells next patch (or just changelings), and observers cost 25/50. The price of mobile detection is incredibly high in this game and zerg/protoss needs to tech up to get it. I'm not sure why this is the case and I don't think that cloaked units would be used any less if detectors were even cheaper. I'm personally okay with the overseer, I just think that their is a spell/cost conflict.
Carrier removed
Just when I was using it of course. This unit is an icon of starcraft for me, and it's a shame that it's gotta go. To be fair with myself, I think the unit is not used often and I after playing HotS for a week I'm sure I would have forgotten all about it. We are seeing carriers being implemented in higher level play so maybe they won't be removed after all, I can't say. It's too bad they don't work the same way they do in BW or else I'm sure we'd see them all the time.
Mothership removed
I view this as "mothership removed and only useful power put on nexus." Honestly, if nexus can cast mass recall in exchange for mothership then I don't miss it. The invisibility thing is kinda cool for protecting HTs, but I don't think it's the end-all-and-be-all of the game. The vortex is kinda useless once the archon toilet got nerfed (which isn't a bad thing). If you're not aware, the archon toilet still works on air units, which is great because you can use vortex to suck in vikings/corruptors and dump archons in so that your colossi or carriers are untouchable for a game-winning period of the game. I use the Mothership more and more recently and I like it, but I think it's a little gimmicky and it's weird that you can only make one. I'd rather see arbiters brought back.
Thor removed
The muta/thor dynamic is one of the most interesting dynamics in the game imo. If you a-move your mutas, then you do more damage overall but could potentially lose all your mutas in a single volley if your opponent has thors. If you magic box your mutas around, then you might lose some dps but you are really safe against thors. This is reminiscent of the micro battles in BW and I think that we need more of these types of dynamics in SC2. I don't think that this dynamic will be as strong against the Warhound because there will be more of them which means the mutas will need to just avoid them and hope the sling/bling can crush through them.
Viper Ocular Parasite
I think the idea of turning a muta into a detector when going muta/ling in TvZ sounds like a novel idea. Also turning queens into detectors because they typically defend banshee/DT rushes anyhow is probably going to become standard. Really, if you have several different control groups operating independently, then you could have a detector in each group. Primarily, I think zerg will have more available detection than they know what to do with - especially if the detection spell endures after the caster is killed. This will of course be opposed by the fact that zerg units die in droves in large engagements, but if you choose your detectors intelligently then the amount of detectors you have should increase over the duration of the game.
Viper 'Dark Swarm'
As everyone's been saying, this is more similar to the corsair's disruption web ability. If this makes it to the release, I don't think the Ultras burrow blink ability will be necessary. This will have a similar utility that dark swarm had, and ultra/ling will benefit as a result. Laying fungal and dark swarm down while a-moving ultra/ling in will be pretty darn good. This is the type of buff that zerg needs and I can't like it enough.
Viper 'Grab'
This ability disgusts me. It ruins positioning and smart play and because the viper will be so available, I see zerg snatching all the expensive units from the opponents army, then easily winning the game. The intent is to stop colossus harass? Seriously? Anything stops colossus harass which is why nobody does it. Just having come corruptors or neural parasite accomplishes the same goal, I don't think another counter is at all necessary. It's not a good thing that zerg will be able to destroy tanks with a couple clicks because tanks are supposed to kill banelings so the entire terran army doesn't die instantly. I think anybody could write a novel about why this ability is the worst idea in the list.
Swarm Host
I don't like this unit for many reasons. I've seen a lot of people comparing it to the Lurker, and someone actually said that the Swarm Host is artillery and the Lurker wasn't. The Lurker is the definition of artillery, the Swarm Host is a caster like a Necromancer with Meat Wagon from WC3. I don't like the Swarm Host only because it looks like it does the same thing that the Brood Lord does, but from the ground. I don't know why Blizzard resists bringing the Lurker back in, but it would be infinitely more useful than this thing. The locusts look weak enough that I would almost rather not scanning them and just stim and run past. I'll catch them when they try to burrow behind me. They're supposed to be used to set up contains, while constantly attacking the enemy's wall. It might be powerful in lower leagues, but I bet it will be skipped in higher leagues.
Warhound
This unit looks like a goliath which is worse against ground units, but does splash vs air. The thor already does splash versus air and I think it functions fine in its current state. I just don't understand the Warhound. I honestly wouldn't mind if the goliath was implemented as it exists in the campaign, with bonus vs armored air units. The big thing is that mech doesn't have a meat shield in front of the tanks and either this unit, the goliath or the battle hellion will all do that. If it does some damage vs ground and can attack air, it's probably a good addition. I don't think it should do splash damage if it's massable - like the rest of mech. I also think the model looks stupid.
Shredder
This unit looks kinda nifty. It looks like it has very long range and it attacks air, so I'm not sure how you're supposed to clean these things up. I think that Terran actually has the best space control, unlike what Blizzard was saying but this unit complements it well and I disagree with the negativity. One thing I really like about this unit is that it will have different utility on different maps and in different positions. I think it will be quite a useful unit overall, and as long as it can be destroyed without losing units to it then I think it's fine. If it had range 5, I think that would be perfect.
Battlemode unit
Really bad idea. So the hellion gets dropped in the enemy's base, drives around and destroys the mineral line then backs into a corner and goes battlemode to clean up all the zealots. I hope the hp buff is completely removed and it just gains 1 armor in battlemode. Battlemode is probably a bad idea overall, but I doubt it's going to be removed since the animation exists. Expect the hellion to get nerfed until it's almost useless because this battlemode looks disgusting. It also angers me when Dustin Browder said the hellion was only useful in the early-midgame when the current TvT metagame involves hellions all game. With the Warhound, I'm sure hellions will already be useful in all matchups because there is another tanking unit. I think Blizzard is messing around with the mech too much and that they don't understand that hellions are incredible good and why mech isn't viable in all matchups. I expect an immediate metagame shift in HotS to mech in all matchups if the battlehellion goes through as is.
New Thor ability
Too stupid for words.
New Thor unit
Blizzard: "We thought the Mothership was stupid because it was a unique unit, so we removed it and made the Thor a unique unit instead." You could almost hear David Kim's hesitation at the presentation as he realized what he was saying. I think that if the Thor is changed from how it currently operates, it will probably be removed from the game. I don't understand what it's good for, the mothership is only useful as a support unit and I don't think that people want a super powerful a-move unit. Thor rushes with SCV repair will take on a new meaning entirely because the AoE attack could destroy an entire army. Just dumb.
Oracle mineral blocking
I want to make a distinction with respect to Protoss harass first: the best harass is in the Stargate tech line. Blink and warp prism harass just can't do the damage and don't have the same kind of map control that void ray or phoenix harass does. If Protoss are crying for more harass options, it's gotta be tier 2 because there are plenty of late game harass options and it can't be too expensive if it's not robo/twilight because stargate tech does not complement a late game composition as well and is expensive to tech to.
I do really like this ability though. there's another thread on it which claims that you can put 600hp of shields down - that's a bunker and half that the opponent has to clean up so they can get back to mining. It looks like it has fair range and it almost impossible to stop without flying units of your own. The unit is supposedly as fast as a phoenix, so it will be able to dart in, stop mining for up to 45s and dart out. If anything, I think this spell might be too powerful and too tricky to balance. If workers can clean it up without help from the army then it's useless. If it requires an army to clean it up then it will be very hard to Terran to deal with it because they don't have static defense which targets ground units.
Oracle building spying
Let me do some spying for you right now. You see a spire, they went mutas. You see a roach warren, they went roaches. You see a ghost academy, they're getting ghosts. Saved you some energy. Also, I can't imagine any situation where you'd want to see what's being upgraded except to see the first upgrade on a tech lab to help see if they're putting on pressure or expanding. You can see upgrades on units and most buildings will only build one type of unit. This ability won't be used very often.
Oracle building removing
This ability is kinda cute. It's like the contaminate ability of the overseer (so probably not useful), but can also be used on your own buildings to make them invulnerable. If you build an oracle off an expand, you should be able to come out of any harassment a little better if you save your artosis pylon, or robo bay from being sniped. Does not actually do damage, but could be interesting. I think my oracle will be using energy to stop enemy mining though.
Replicant
Apparently you can copy workers and build an entire terran/zerg army. My goal will be to get shredders and macro orbital commands. Other than that I don't think this unit will be terribly useful and probably won't make it to release. The examples given were "infestor and ghost." Infestor could be cool, but you need a fair amount of them to do anything useful and replicants are pretty expensive; ghosts are obviously not terribly useful against terran. Can you clone your own units? These guys could be useful in PvP where you don't get colossus tech, then mass replicants and clone your opponent's colossus so you have more colossi for cheaper and free range upgrade, then roll them over. I think the replicant will be most useful on expensive units like thors and ultralisks, which don't require any special micro.
Tempest
David Kim missed the memo. Protoss has plenty of options for dealing with massed light air units in tier 3, that's why everyone immediately techs to HTs and Archons as a response. The problem is that in tier 2, you need to start blink research and debate putting down stargates and trying to defend them because mutas can really pick protoss apart in tier 2. It's pretty balanced right now though and I can assure you that the Tempest won't help one iota if it requires a fleet beacon. The tempest will be useful if it kills vikings and corruptors so you can keep your colossus alive, but I'm not holding my breath. The unit looks really cool, but unless it's pretty fierce against ground units I've already got it in the scrap bin.
I'm not sure if this ability might be too powerful, but I think it is an excellent ability overall. The obvious implications are that you will be able to push out with your army, and use recall to save your army if it's a bad engagement; you will also be able to harass or snipe an expansion and then recall your army before it gets wiped out. This functions very similar to how town portal worked in WC3 and I expect it won't take long before the entire community can use this ability like an old pro. Late game Protoss will have a large amount of recall available to them at any given point, and even a nexus at a dried up base will be a valuable target so this spell is denied.
The reason why it might be overpowered is that it will turn the whole Protoss army into a strong harass. You could blink into your opponent's fifth on Shattered Temple, snipe their base and recall home just as the enemy is coming up the ramp. Static defense will literally need to be everywhere in order to stop the most mobile Protoss units from blitzing past them, doing damage and teleporting home. The only way to abuse this is to attack different Protoss locations simultaneously, and constantly so that the Protoss has to recall around and lose energy so they can't recall out of your bases. I think this will be the most powerful ability in the game and can't speak enough for it. I don't know if it's "macro nexus" good, but it's up there.
This ability will have a cooldown and you won't be able to chain multiple recalls with multiple Nexuses (Nexi?).
They added more abilities and spells than we could have ever expected. The game just got a lot more fun as far as I'm concerned. Multiple ways to solve each problem, and endless more problems.
Drop the Roach and Marauder, and give the Swarm Host's minions a bit more speed and life (seconds not HP)
Like the reaper demolition nerf (been seeing a ton of reaper cheese lately on the ladder), like the buffs to zerg units (hydra speed, finally), dislike the new terran units (seriously, they say terran is the most "complete" race, so lets give them a bunch more stuff?), toss still getting the shaft.
I don't see how anyone could dislike anything here. All of these units are cool ideas, as are the theories behind them. The only pseudo-logical way you can justify whining about units you've never actually seen in the context of a game is one of potential imbalance-- potential imbalance. Save your judgement until you've actually tried these units out. Until then, be glad Blizzard is actively trying to make a cooler game.
I'm really excited about the replicant. Too expensive to mass steal units, except massive-class units, which they can't steal, makes them amazing units for situational play. I see them as a mix of taking specialist units (ghosts/tanks/infestors), or a desperation defence unit (mass replicating your own void rays/immortals as a last resort, if you desperately need it)
Some of these comments and complaints are ludicrous. Complaining about the art and name of a unit? Are you all seriously children with nothing better to do, and how does that really effect the enjoyment from the game? And how in the world can you have any real discussion about the usefulness of a unit when maybe .0001% of the people in this thread actually have used them, and of those .0001% less than .0001% is a progamer who's decent at the game?
I don't understand all of this at all. Especially the bronze protoss whiners who are complain about units THEY HAVE NEVER USED.
Like the hydra speed, I don't like it that it is hive tech. It would beat the use of creep. Maybe id rather have a way to spread creep whereever my hydras go, including when attacking. Creep cannon ? Make it happen!!
Don't like the shredder : it totally eliminates the counterattack style from zerg. If terrans feel it should be nerfed abit, ok, but with the current shredder it removes it alltogether. 1 unit eliminating an entire playstyle : Me No Like.
Don't like burrow movement : Most burrow banes are used in lair tech, kind of the same thing with the hydras. I however do not view it as OP : 1 raven eliminates the threat, as long as you also have 1 sieged tank somewhere. I am going to assume they move REALLY slow. This is just another one of those 'we won't give you lurker but we will give you something thats damn close... but sucks'
Don't like corruption removal : I like the dmg taken increase on units. What about they make it a sick dmg increase, but with a very high cd. easier for zerg to handle those initial deathballs, and not making the ability too OP as they need to wait a long time to use again. I always liked the idea of making my opponents army stinky I guess, I would rather have them explore more with corruption rather than removing it.
Anyone with me if we petition to keep either Carrier or Mothership? (at least one?)
You'd have me, and since the carrier removal has the lowest approbation rating of all HotS changes, I bet we wouldn't be alone. Not sure that petitionning is the most constructive approach, though.
Hydralisk speed was needed imo, though hive tech is a bit harsh.
Ultra charge is cool and some sort of pathing fix was needed, though this might be slightly OP depending on future balance changes.
Burrowed baneling movement is ridiculous imo, as if those units aren't cost effective enough vs light with unit clumping and relatively undefended expansions. I doubt this will actually make it into HoTS as it would be the straw that broke the camels back in forcing terrans to get a few ravens in every game.
Removing corruption is good as it was a useless ability imo (a number of people have researched that it actually lowers damage done in a huge battle due to casting time), although the new ability seems just as terrible.
Hellion shape change: undecided on this, seems like it might only be useful if my hellions get cornered by anything other than light units, but who knows how it might play out.
Reaper change might be the final change that causes me personally to never use the unit again, i liked using them to take down bunkers early game or flat out kill P's that forge FE. Yeah they can still snipe workers/marines easy enough, but for the build time they'll no longer be worth it for me personally.
Ghost changes: to cloak while nuking is cool, don't know what I think about the new way of handling cloak energy costs, will have to see how it plays out.
Battlecruiser afterburner is cool
Nexus changes are meh, the mass recall might be OP late game when toss have plenty of energy unspent, though it might address some P mobility issues. The cannon on buildings thing I don't see being very useful - if you're at the point of losing buildings and needing that last line of defense, there's a good chance you're going to lose it anyway imo.
Overseer and mothership removal is okay, carrier removal is not. Carriers just needed to be tweaked, and the new unit will not be the right answer for P's to handle muta harass.
New Thor unit is basically the mothership, blizz is stupid for removing the mothership on the grounds of not liking "hero" units but just giving it to Terran instead, but i thoroughly enjoy the idea of taking out an entire group of infestors at once using the aoe cannon. However, adding warhounds in place might make it easier/quicker to mass up some muta harass defense. As far as the warhound goes, it looks silly/weak, but should make a good unit.
Viper: the detection ability is good. The dark swarm synergy with infestors seems like it would be insanely OP though, and just doesn't seem to fit well in SC2 given how much more effective aoe units/abilities there are, especially for zerg. The grab abilitity, well I don't like abilities that allow other players to move my forces, hope this doesn't make it into play.
Swarm host is the new lurker, I'm concerned about their use with BL's and bugging out unit movement ai with all the spawnlings on the map
Shredder is a cool idea, will be nice expansion denial unit, but doubt their effectiveness for my own base defense. Another undecided, will ahve to see how it plays out.
Oracle abilities seem stupid as can be, another example of taking away one unit (overseer) and giving it to another race.
Replicant seems like a cool idea, but might serve a limited use do to cost, which of course has to be high in order to keep things balanced. Another undecided for me.
TL:DR Overall, it seems like they're really turning this into SC2:BW in ways, lots of original units coming back in different forms with different names, and I'm not sure they all fit with SC2 game mechanics. There also seems to be a lot of abilities that are just gimmicky (including collapsible rocks lol). Zergs are getting some serious loving which I imagine will be toned down eventually, but again any balance discussion now is far too soon. Terran will have more mech options and basically puts them where they were in BW. Protoss might finally have some more mobility but loses a lot of nostalgia for me, replacing the epic carrier with gimmicky spells/units.
A lot of Protoss players are feeling a bit shafted, and that's easy to understand.
They lost the Carrier instead of Blizzard just adding an upgrade for additional interceptor armor or something, they got a harass unit that doesn't kill workers, they lost the Mothership (good) but didn't get an Arbiter in it's place (dang), and they got the Replicator, which probably won't make it past the beta just like the weird "every building can be a weak photon cannon" spell. All this happened while the other two races got decent improvements without losing much in the process.
HOWEVER I think with some tweaking some of these new abilities will be really, really, really good.
Mass Recall is going to be insane mid and late game. I think this will have a hard time being balanced. Imagine a late game P with 3-5 Nexi with the normal amount of saved up energy. The army can poke and prod, be super aggressive without ever having to commit to an engagement. That's scary (for everybody).
Also, the new disruption web, whatever its called now, is going to have some serious synergy with Phoenix harass. Think about it, when do you stop Phoenix harassment? When 2 or 3 spores/ turrets go up. Add in an Oracle, which are really fast, and suddenly Phoenix harass can go on nearly all game. Zerg will have a really hard time with this since the Phoenix just lift off the Queens already. Small amounts of mutas aren't good v Phoenix, so what do they do now? Corruptors or Hydras? That's less than ideal. Terran will have to leave some Marines on the mineral line now to clean up the harass, and that's great for Protoss. The cluster of MMM or whatever is a bit smaller now.
The Tempest might not be exactly what the top Protoss players want right now, but if it turns out to be more cost effective than the Carrier (RIP), then that's not really worth complaining about. My hope is that the AA has enough range where I can fight off Vikings clusters from sniping my Collosus. That alone can make my "death ball" much, much stronger.
The Replicant does seem kinda silly, but that might be a unit used solely in lower level team games, where is might be really fun to play with. Other than that, I doubt we'll ever see it in competitive matches.
Overall, I think the changes are good. Not all amazing, some are strange, but some are very strong. With some tweaking I'm optimistic that Blizzard can take out the weird/useless stuff and come up with something that fills in the Protoss weakness by the time HoS comes out. :D
The main things I don't like are -The Hydra speed requiring hive tech -Warhound looks like an scv/mechwarrior thing -Swarm host seems a little bit wierd -Protoss replicant and oracle seem to be gimmicky/pointless -Nexus abilities seem like they should require some sort of tech requirements.
Really do agree on that pretty much. Though I think Hydra speed later isnt that bad, because it just requieres you to adjust more and decide more. The Warhound really looks bad and I dont like his attack... It really should be more of a very heavy machine Cannon.
Just watched the video of the Terran units, Personally I would like the warhound to be a little smaller. At first I liked it a lot but after seeing it in action I am a little dissapoint :/
On October 23 2011 14:11 Cyanocyst wrote: Favorite things.
Swarm Hosts - Idk why but i really like these guys, im really excited about them.
Oracle - This is like a better overseer, i really like it, though im a zerg player. Its a unit that i feel is useful if you have actions and multitasking for it. Feel like that's why toss players don't like it.
Viper - i like its spells, not sure how i feel about its detection tho.
Things i don't like
Replicators - would rather toss have a unique unit. Not that i think its imba or anything.
Thors, - Don't mind them moving it back to Fusion Core, though i dislike they only allow you to build one. The MS made more since with the limit to one. If they don't want people massing them, just give them a really high supply.
WoL is still relatively young, and the uses of the Carrier had not been fully explored. Now they never will be It did see occasional use in tournament matches.
With the Warhound and Battle Hellion making Mech much more attractive in PvT, the Carrier would have found a lot more usefulness in that matchup. With PvP developing into a more macro-oriented match, it might have become useful there as well.
Meanwhile, the Tempest seems like it's constructed to combat exactly one unit in exactly one matchup.
Really, all the Carrier needed was a survivability improvement for the Interceptors. It feels like such an iconic loss. eSports audiences got so excited whenever they'd come out.
Are Hydras after upgrade really as fast off creep as they are on creep?? That makes them faster than Ultras or Roaches off creep! That seems really huge to me, with range 6, anti air and much higher dps, I can see zerg transitioning from max roach to max hydra armies late game versus toss.
I mostly wish the Zerg siege unit was something more to the tune of a DIRECT lurker reference, say instead of shooting a line of spines, throwing spines up in one AoE area in slightly different patterns each time (Zerg like, you know? And so it's not a tank copy) with a broader spread than a tank but less damage and not as broad as a bw lurker's spread. Also have much less range than a tank but be able to slowly move while burrowed. Maybe give them almost colossus range. But swarm host is far from useless looking, I'm just nostalgic.
I wish they would keep the overseer. I really started to embrace that unit (esp. after the resource buff.) I feel like changelings are one of the coolest scouting tools.. even if you opponent sees them right away, you have an opportunity to see unit compositions, tech buildings, etc.
Maybe they can consider taking the detection abilities away from the viper and just keep the overseer.
Soooo maybe mass armies of swarm host could cause a weird metagame with having an infinitely spawning army to endlessly harass an army that can exhaust, seems to me a little, how do i say this, unsafe?
On October 25 2011 07:26 pPingu wrote: I just hate the idea of the "pull" capacity of the viper, it's one of those anti-micro things like fungal where you can't do anything
With replicants the Protoss could Pull the Colossi back xDDD Colossus Tug O' War~!
On October 25 2011 07:39 FroZen(-_-) wrote: Soooo maybe mass armies of swarm host could cause a weird metagame with having an infinitely spawning army to endlessly harass an army that can exhaust, seems to me a little, how do i say this, unsafe?
Just like broodlords?
For the moment they spawn slower than broodlings though.
On October 24 2011 08:44 Fishgle wrote: Why do people dislike Viper's Hook? It's great for killing colossus or help attack into siege lines.
1. It looks like Looney Tunes 2. It removes actual compensatory micro and army splitting an army has to do, which is one of the main reasons BW or any RTS is exciting. 3. It looks stupid 4. It looks stupid 5. It's another ability where a spell replaces actual micro.
It should be ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE to break a good siege line. In a nutshell, that's what made BW popular for 10 years. Siege lines being ridiculously OP, and people finding ways to overcome that. For once, please forget your amateur ladder ambitions and think about what's best for watching the game.
Then how about we make it cost 50 more energy and call it "Spawn Broodling" -.-
On October 24 2011 12:10 Fluttershy wrote: I LOVE the hellion and warhound.
Warhound is terran's only beefy unit(240hp) which has good anti-mech and anti-air, hellion transforms make them not complete garbage after the initial cheesing phase of the game.
Terran with beefy units... what in the FUCK is this world coming to....
Terran was always the Nuclear Fucking PUNCH with the backbone of glass... I mean seriously, get a fully upgraded Zealot in Broodwar and have it go up against ANY Terran ground unit... Terran with beefy units mean Protoss with DPS and Zerg without Zergling runby's.... Oh... wait... LOL I didn't even meant to do that.. xDD
On October 25 2011 07:26 pPingu wrote: I just hate the idea of the "pull" capacity of the viper, it's one of those anti-micro things like fungal where you can't do anything
They should make it just like the Pudge's meathook works, where it's an attack that pulls the first unit it comes into contact with.
Not sure I buy the anti-micro arguments, BW had lockdown, stasis field and maelstrom. SC2 only has fungal, and it lasts a shorter amount of time.
The split second it takes the viper to pull something is more like the forcefield ability, controlling the battlefield rather than something that prevents micro. (My ramp is blocked! I can't micro half my units that should be in the battle!)
On October 24 2011 08:44 Fishgle wrote: Why do people dislike Viper's Hook? It's great for killing colossus or help attack into siege lines.
1. It looks like Looney Tunes 2. It removes actual compensatory micro and army splitting an army has to do, which is one of the main reasons BW or any RTS is exciting. 3. It looks stupid 4. It looks stupid 5. It's another ability where a spell replaces actual micro.
It should be ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE to break a good siege line. In a nutshell, that's what made BW popular for 10 years. Siege lines being ridiculously OP, and people finding ways to overcome that. For once, please forget your amateur ladder ambitions and think about what's best for watching the game.
Then how about we make it cost 50 more energy and call it "Spawn Broodling" -.-
Yeah, that was my thoughts exactly as well. I hate things that don't really make sense in the realm of physical possibility. How can an organic flying creature pull a massive (probably like 500 tons in weight) Protoss Colossus over a great distance so suddenly? It doesn't look right.
On October 24 2011 12:10 Fluttershy wrote: I LOVE the hellion and warhound.
Warhound is terran's only beefy unit(240hp) which has good anti-mech and anti-air, hellion transforms make them not complete garbage after the initial cheesing phase of the game.
Terran with beefy units... what in the FUCK is this world coming to....
Terran was always the Nuclear Fucking PUNCH with the backbone of glass... I mean seriously, get a fully upgraded Zealot in Broodwar and have it go up against ANY Terran ground unit... Terran with beefy units mean Protoss with DPS and Zerg without Zergling runby's.... Oh... wait... LOL I didn't even meant to do that.. xDD
This I also agree with. With the Marauder, the extra HP on the marines, and now the beefy Warhounds, they're really getting rid of that glass cannon feel that made Terrans so awesome in BW. Sigh.. im pretty sure anytime blizzard comes out with anything for SC2, a ton of BW nostalgia will come back and haunt us all, and for good reason. There was just so much genius in the development of that game.
Fungal Growth + Dark Swarm + Banelings does not have a counter. You can only stay and watch your marines dying without backfiring. So, they could add a dispell (in mass) on Medivac which can dispell fungal or at least the roots effect from it.
sooo who expected other votes then 66/33 in a 3 race game ? People think its imba 66% are against it. People think its bad 33% against it .
And no they already get rid of terran bw style with the range reduce on marines and the damage ultra nerf on tanks, while the units in general started to move faster. So without the killer damage terran has they need something better to tank then vultures. And well the reason bw worked out was because there was no chance to attack midgame. Highground = end of attack wait for arbiters and vessels to conter arbiters in the right moment to destroy the toss army or get your army destroyed to have to retreat to the next high ground/choke. Just realize the sc2 mechanics don't allow a way back to looking like bw. The defender advantage is not 60% better units anymore. The ambition in sc2 is that you have to make your units be 60% more effective and it works in most places. And saying force fields and other spells block micro is funny, only blocks micro if you let it happen which is a good punishment really. I like the hook atleast better then spawn broodling. Wonder if they make the energy needed x supply . So the stonger the unit the more energy you need hehe. (probably to good against casters). It will be atleast easier for the toss to feedback not needing a dark archon, and not so bad as the unit doesn't instant die.
Anyway i love complains that start like broodwar was better ... most stuff in sc2 was just taken out of bw remodeled to fit into another race and made less unforgiving.
On October 28 2011 22:33 FeyFey wrote: sooo who expected other votes then 66/33 in a 3 race game ? People think its imba 66% are against it. People think its bad 33% against it .
And no they already get rid of terran bw style with the range reduce on marines and the damage ultra nerf on tanks, while the units in general started to move faster. So without the killer damage terran has they need something better to tank then vultures. And well the reason bw worked out was because there was no chance to attack midgame. Highground = end of attack wait for arbiters and vessels to conter arbiters in the right moment to destroy the toss army or get your army destroyed to have to retreat to the next high ground/choke. Just realize the sc2 mechanics don't allow a way back to looking like bw. The defender advantage is not 60% better units anymore. The ambition in sc2 is that you have to make your units be 60% more effective and it works in most places. And saying force fields and other spells block micro is funny, only blocks micro if you let it happen which is a good punishment really. I like the hook atleast better then spawn broodling. Wonder if they make the energy needed x supply . So the stonger the unit the more energy you need hehe. (probably to good against casters). It will be atleast easier for the toss to feedback not needing a dark archon, and not so bad as the unit doesn't instant die.
Anyway i love complains that start like broodwar was better ... most stuff in sc2 was just taken out of bw remodeled to fit into another race and made less unforgiving.
Please, enlighten me how you stop forcefields before massive units come out. Baiting works only if the protoss takes the bait and makes the mistake of wasting ff, just in case you want to go in that direction. Other than that, a good protoss WILL cut your army in half.
EPT
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