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On October 25 2011 18:30 Hattori_Hanzo wrote:Show nested quote +On October 25 2011 18:19 Umpteen wrote:On October 25 2011 17:44 Remb wrote:
I don't understand. This is just a Brood Lord.
Spawns free minions with a duration. It's slow. It's a siege unit. It has large range. The only difference is one requires anti-air one requires detection.
I literally can not think of a strategy using Swarm Host, that can not be replaced by Brood Lords.
It's particularly ignorant of posters saying this will be used to break "turtling" players. This is exactly what the Brood Lord does.
Why then, make a unit that serves the exact same role as a Brood Lord.
One might say: Swarm Host comes before Hive tech, so Swarm Host has a role. But essentially, Blizzard could make Brood Lord lair tech and it would be the EXACT same thing. And it would be imbalanced.
I am so adamant at how identical a Swarm Host is to a Brood Lord, that I suspect Blizzard might be removing the Brood Lord.
edit: also there were rumors about removing the Corruptor. So if Corruptor is gone, you can't make Brood Lords. It's speculation, but this makes a lot of sense. Swarm hosts are by no means identical to Brood Lords. Brood Lord: Does guaranteed damage every time it fires, with broodlings spawning in melee range and thus also guaranteed to provoke friendly splash, should tanks be sieged nearby. Necessitates an immediate response. Minimum DPS: 8 (plus 4 if the broodling gets to nibble anything) Swarm Host: Burrows and spawns the first two Locusts in approximately the same set-up time as the Terran Shredder (yes, really). No guaranteed damage: if there aren't enough Locusts, none of them will get through. Those who are saying you should stagger-burrow Hosts are, to my mind, setting up a nice slow conveyor-belt of Locusts, about as useful as streaming slow, melee-only roaches in two-by-two. If we assume every single Locust gets a hit in (which strikes me as quite generous), the effective DPS of a Swarm host is two. Imagine 5 broodlords, rather than 9 swarm hosts, laying siege to the same entrenched position as in the swarm host video, and grant them whatever support units you were presuming existed. Exactly. Except that in your example, that will never happen due to BL being hive tech, unless of course you're in bronze league then yes, that scenario could happen, your opponent still on one base, with just 5 siege tanks and 20 marines by the time you have 2 bases, teched up to hive, got corruptors, morphed them and moved to their base. Do you post while drunk?
On occasion 
http://www.youtube.com/user/compLexityINSIDER#p/search/20/gCbKKr9VGIA
(Spanishiwa hitting a 2-base Terran with fast broodlords)
In fairness, a lot depends upon how useful Swarm Hosts can be in defence. Zerg's problem with 'cute' tech has always been surviving long enough to use it.
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On October 25 2011 19:42 fleeze wrote:Show nested quote +On October 25 2011 19:38 iky43210 wrote:On October 25 2011 19:33 fleeze wrote:On October 25 2011 18:57 Dommk wrote:On October 25 2011 17:31 Treble557 wrote:
By blizzards logic, the Swarm Host is Redundant for the same reason the Lurker was. The baneling.
gg blizz.
No it isn't Swarm Hosts are not good for immediate defense, like the Lurker or the Baneling. They have something like 15seconds of ramp up time, so if you expect to use them like Lurkers/Siege tanks then they are probably going to archive very little. You won't be able to push forward as well as Lurkers/Tanks because of this. It feels more like a unit that you would use to apply constant pressure to a location. Like outside a Protoss base. It won't be that hard to stop in the late game, but think early two base where Protoss are still teching to Colossus. All they have to defend themselves at that time are Forcefields and Static defense, no real AOE. well, exactly. you won't be able to push forward at all with swarm hosts .and if your timing window closes and he gets colossi your swarm hosts are dead. great for a "space controlling" unit to be hard countered by colossi or siege tanks. just look at that video in the OP again and image there would be tanks at the top of the cliff... have fun walking up (or even down when defending your own base) with those slow melee units through a choke.
You could use these in those Spine crawler/Hydralisk pushes to move creep tumors and burn forcefields and just chip away at the enemy army in general.
yes because buffing the famous spine crawler / hydra push is what all zerg have requested for such a long time... colossi shuts this down quickly. so it's a niche tactic.
IMO, the most important thing about this unit is that you need an army to back up the Locust to inflict the most damage, you can't use them like a Siege tank where it will do all the work.
In terms of a single attack, the Swarm host is a waste of army supply, but they only become efficient if you have to attack a position more than once
in fact, they won't be better with your army. with what unit do you want to cover your swarm hosts exactly? zerg isn't terran. we don't have long range vikings to protect tanks from air and a bunch of ranged units to. swarm hosts also have a range of zero (they're melee...) so how does this prevent a terran to just engage and clean up those 2 locusts per host with the army and sieging? a terran could pushing his siege line forward will actually push the swarm hosts back because they can do nothing to prevent it... even better with protoss. colossi > swarm host (and hydra, the most obvious unit it has synergies with). compare that to a terran push with 3 tanks sieging below your ramp. THIS is actually space control... Swarm Host: Burrows and spawns the first two Locusts in approximately the same set-up time as the Terran Shredder (yes, really). No guaranteed damage: if there aren't enough Locusts, none of them will get through. Those who are saying you should stagger-burrow Hosts are, to my mind, setting up a nice slow conveyor-belt of Locusts, about as useful as streaming slow, melee-only roaches in two-by-two. If we assume every single Locust gets a hit in (which strikes me as quite generous), the effective DPS of a Swarm host is two.
Although their DPS is low due to the long spawn time, if you actually attacked WITH the locust then it is a different story. If you think about attacking in waves then you don't really include the time in which your army is retreating and your getting back into formation. If you use each wave of Locust as the signal attack with the rest of your army then backout when they are dead then they are quite a strong unit, mostly because during the first few seconds they actually do decent damage. Kind of like a Carrier in that sense, their DPS is actually quite mediocre but they have ridiculous burst DPS. Due to graviton catapult their damage their DPS is something like 3 times higher during initial release than when they have settled down. Kinda why it is pretty advantageous to hit and run with Carriers the only use of locusts is tanking and i'd imagine the best dps behind them would be hydras. and they get countered by the same long range siege units of terran and protoss. for the gas cost of a swarm host you could build 4 roaches. i think they would do a better job in tanking for the hydras and we all know how good roach/hydra is nowadays. the problem is that this unit is supposed to control space which it simply isn't. it has neither a long enough range (well no range at all) nor splash. just free units. hell it would be better if it would just spawn infested terrans... this unit has no role in the game in it's current state and will be very difficult to balance properly. either you have overpowered free units or they suck. I think the point of swarm host isn't to break siege tank lines, but preventing the sieges or marines from moving forward. If the locusts have enough hp to make it to the tank line melee range, then it has served its purpose how can a unit without AOE prevent marines from moving forward? that's like stoping marine with pure zerglings. you need LOTS of them and when marines reach critical mass you are dead without AOE.
because if marines pokes forward, they'll get hit by not only the locusts but also siege tanks friendly fire.
Those locusts currently also do alot of damage too. From the video presentation, imagine that bunker is actually a group of marines. Not so pretty now
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i don't like the swarm host is a good for game play due to it's attacks. lets say that i burrowed two of them and then it's so easy for a terran to drop a couple of marines on top of them behind the attack line.
Also if you time the attack you can just go and kill the swarm host straight up when it's recharging its offensive capabilities. that's my 2 cents...
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On October 25 2011 19:43 iky43210 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 25 2011 19:42 fleeze wrote:On October 25 2011 19:38 iky43210 wrote:On October 25 2011 19:33 fleeze wrote:On October 25 2011 18:57 Dommk wrote:On October 25 2011 17:31 Treble557 wrote:
By blizzards logic, the Swarm Host is Redundant for the same reason the Lurker was. The baneling.
gg blizz.
No it isn't Swarm Hosts are not good for immediate defense, like the Lurker or the Baneling. They have something like 15seconds of ramp up time, so if you expect to use them like Lurkers/Siege tanks then they are probably going to archive very little. You won't be able to push forward as well as Lurkers/Tanks because of this. It feels more like a unit that you would use to apply constant pressure to a location. Like outside a Protoss base. It won't be that hard to stop in the late game, but think early two base where Protoss are still teching to Colossus. All they have to defend themselves at that time are Forcefields and Static defense, no real AOE. well, exactly. you won't be able to push forward at all with swarm hosts .and if your timing window closes and he gets colossi your swarm hosts are dead. great for a "space controlling" unit to be hard countered by colossi or siege tanks. just look at that video in the OP again and image there would be tanks at the top of the cliff... have fun walking up (or even down when defending your own base) with those slow melee units through a choke.
You could use these in those Spine crawler/Hydralisk pushes to move creep tumors and burn forcefields and just chip away at the enemy army in general.
yes because buffing the famous spine crawler / hydra push is what all zerg have requested for such a long time... colossi shuts this down quickly. so it's a niche tactic.
IMO, the most important thing about this unit is that you need an army to back up the Locust to inflict the most damage, you can't use them like a Siege tank where it will do all the work.
In terms of a single attack, the Swarm host is a waste of army supply, but they only become efficient if you have to attack a position more than once
in fact, they won't be better with your army. with what unit do you want to cover your swarm hosts exactly? zerg isn't terran. we don't have long range vikings to protect tanks from air and a bunch of ranged units to. swarm hosts also have a range of zero (they're melee...) so how does this prevent a terran to just engage and clean up those 2 locusts per host with the army and sieging? a terran could pushing his siege line forward will actually push the swarm hosts back because they can do nothing to prevent it... even better with protoss. colossi > swarm host (and hydra, the most obvious unit it has synergies with). compare that to a terran push with 3 tanks sieging below your ramp. THIS is actually space control... Swarm Host: Burrows and spawns the first two Locusts in approximately the same set-up time as the Terran Shredder (yes, really). No guaranteed damage: if there aren't enough Locusts, none of them will get through. Those who are saying you should stagger-burrow Hosts are, to my mind, setting up a nice slow conveyor-belt of Locusts, about as useful as streaming slow, melee-only roaches in two-by-two. If we assume every single Locust gets a hit in (which strikes me as quite generous), the effective DPS of a Swarm host is two.
Although their DPS is low due to the long spawn time, if you actually attacked WITH the locust then it is a different story. If you think about attacking in waves then you don't really include the time in which your army is retreating and your getting back into formation. If you use each wave of Locust as the signal attack with the rest of your army then backout when they are dead then they are quite a strong unit, mostly because during the first few seconds they actually do decent damage. Kind of like a Carrier in that sense, their DPS is actually quite mediocre but they have ridiculous burst DPS. Due to graviton catapult their damage their DPS is something like 3 times higher during initial release than when they have settled down. Kinda why it is pretty advantageous to hit and run with Carriers the only use of locusts is tanking and i'd imagine the best dps behind them would be hydras. and they get countered by the same long range siege units of terran and protoss. for the gas cost of a swarm host you could build 4 roaches. i think they would do a better job in tanking for the hydras and we all know how good roach/hydra is nowadays. the problem is that this unit is supposed to control space which it simply isn't. it has neither a long enough range (well no range at all) nor splash. just free units. hell it would be better if it would just spawn infested terrans... this unit has no role in the game in it's current state and will be very difficult to balance properly. either you have overpowered free units or they suck. I think the point of swarm host isn't to break siege tank lines, but preventing the sieges or marines from moving forward. If the locusts have enough hp to make it to the tank line melee range, then it has served its purpose how can a unit without AOE prevent marines from moving forward? that's like stoping marine with pure zerglings. you need LOTS of them and when marines reach critical mass you are dead without AOE. because if marines pokes forward, they'll get hit by not only the locusts but also siege tanks friendly fire.
isn't this the same "space control" as parking a group of lings? they will achieve exactly the same.
terran will just unsiege stim in some marines and take the hosts out.
Those locusts currently also do alot of damage too. From the video presentation, imagine that bunker is actually a group of marines. Not so pretty now
in this video there are 9!!! swarm hosts. that's 1800 / 900 in resources.
you could get 7-8 tanks for the same cost. now compare the damage done again...
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On October 25 2011 19:50 archonOOid wrote:
i don't like the swarm host is a good for game play due to it's attacks. lets say that i burrowed two of them and then it's so easy for a terran to drop a couple of marines on top of them behind the attack line.
Also if you time the attack you can just go and kill the swarm host straight up when it's recharging its offensive capabilities. that's my 2 cents...
Don't leave swarm hosts by themselves?
Also it might sounds weird, but hydra could potentially be one of the stable units in TvZ since now that viper and hydra speed increase exists
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On October 25 2011 19:52 fleeze wrote:Show nested quote +On October 25 2011 19:43 iky43210 wrote:On October 25 2011 19:42 fleeze wrote:On October 25 2011 19:38 iky43210 wrote:On October 25 2011 19:33 fleeze wrote:On October 25 2011 18:57 Dommk wrote:On October 25 2011 17:31 Treble557 wrote:
By blizzards logic, the Swarm Host is Redundant for the same reason the Lurker was. The baneling.
gg blizz.
No it isn't Swarm Hosts are not good for immediate defense, like the Lurker or the Baneling. They have something like 15seconds of ramp up time, so if you expect to use them like Lurkers/Siege tanks then they are probably going to archive very little. You won't be able to push forward as well as Lurkers/Tanks because of this. It feels more like a unit that you would use to apply constant pressure to a location. Like outside a Protoss base. It won't be that hard to stop in the late game, but think early two base where Protoss are still teching to Colossus. All they have to defend themselves at that time are Forcefields and Static defense, no real AOE. well, exactly. you won't be able to push forward at all with swarm hosts .and if your timing window closes and he gets colossi your swarm hosts are dead. great for a "space controlling" unit to be hard countered by colossi or siege tanks. just look at that video in the OP again and image there would be tanks at the top of the cliff... have fun walking up (or even down when defending your own base) with those slow melee units through a choke.
You could use these in those Spine crawler/Hydralisk pushes to move creep tumors and burn forcefields and just chip away at the enemy army in general.
yes because buffing the famous spine crawler / hydra push is what all zerg have requested for such a long time... colossi shuts this down quickly. so it's a niche tactic.
IMO, the most important thing about this unit is that you need an army to back up the Locust to inflict the most damage, you can't use them like a Siege tank where it will do all the work.
In terms of a single attack, the Swarm host is a waste of army supply, but they only become efficient if you have to attack a position more than once
in fact, they won't be better with your army. with what unit do you want to cover your swarm hosts exactly? zerg isn't terran. we don't have long range vikings to protect tanks from air and a bunch of ranged units to. swarm hosts also have a range of zero (they're melee...) so how does this prevent a terran to just engage and clean up those 2 locusts per host with the army and sieging? a terran could pushing his siege line forward will actually push the swarm hosts back because they can do nothing to prevent it... even better with protoss. colossi > swarm host (and hydra, the most obvious unit it has synergies with). compare that to a terran push with 3 tanks sieging below your ramp. THIS is actually space control... Swarm Host: Burrows and spawns the first two Locusts in approximately the same set-up time as the Terran Shredder (yes, really). No guaranteed damage: if there aren't enough Locusts, none of them will get through. Those who are saying you should stagger-burrow Hosts are, to my mind, setting up a nice slow conveyor-belt of Locusts, about as useful as streaming slow, melee-only roaches in two-by-two. If we assume every single Locust gets a hit in (which strikes me as quite generous), the effective DPS of a Swarm host is two.
Although their DPS is low due to the long spawn time, if you actually attacked WITH the locust then it is a different story. If you think about attacking in waves then you don't really include the time in which your army is retreating and your getting back into formation. If you use each wave of Locust as the signal attack with the rest of your army then backout when they are dead then they are quite a strong unit, mostly because during the first few seconds they actually do decent damage. Kind of like a Carrier in that sense, their DPS is actually quite mediocre but they have ridiculous burst DPS. Due to graviton catapult their damage their DPS is something like 3 times higher during initial release than when they have settled down. Kinda why it is pretty advantageous to hit and run with Carriers the only use of locusts is tanking and i'd imagine the best dps behind them would be hydras. and they get countered by the same long range siege units of terran and protoss. for the gas cost of a swarm host you could build 4 roaches. i think they would do a better job in tanking for the hydras and we all know how good roach/hydra is nowadays. the problem is that this unit is supposed to control space which it simply isn't. it has neither a long enough range (well no range at all) nor splash. just free units. hell it would be better if it would just spawn infested terrans... this unit has no role in the game in it's current state and will be very difficult to balance properly. either you have overpowered free units or they suck. I think the point of swarm host isn't to break siege tank lines, but preventing the sieges or marines from moving forward. If the locusts have enough hp to make it to the tank line melee range, then it has served its purpose how can a unit without AOE prevent marines from moving forward? that's like stoping marine with pure zerglings. you need LOTS of them and when marines reach critical mass you are dead without AOE. because if marines pokes forward, they'll get hit by not only the locusts but also siege tanks friendly fire. isn't this the same "space control" as parking a group of lings? they will achieve exactly the same. terran will just unsiege stim in some marines and take the hosts out. Show nested quote +Those locusts currently also do alot of damage too. From the video presentation, imagine that bunker is actually a group of marines. Not so pretty now in this video there are 9!!! swarm hosts. that's 1800 / 900 in resources. you could get 7-8 tanks for the same cost. now compare the damage done again...
and there was also 7-8 tanks in that video? along with bunkers and marines support. I don't understand your point.
With swarm host, you can actually create your own siege line to delay terran from pushing forward, if not completely halts it. Like I said before, they're not design to BREAK the tank lines. That'll just be ridiculous
if swarm host continues to spawn locusts, it'll be hard for marines or siege tanks to move forward without being under siege by not only locus but also siege tanks themselves
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Guys, these is really useful. Remeber how we always say zergs cant win even if they have an advantage against a turtling terran. Zergs can use their army advantage to constantly send locusts into the terran base, making the terrans lose a few units every now and then while mutalisks harass the main and pull away the marines.
It can work if we don't close our eyes and keep an open mind about it.
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On October 25 2011 19:54 iky43210 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 25 2011 19:52 fleeze wrote:On October 25 2011 19:43 iky43210 wrote:On October 25 2011 19:42 fleeze wrote:On October 25 2011 19:38 iky43210 wrote:On October 25 2011 19:33 fleeze wrote:On October 25 2011 18:57 Dommk wrote:On October 25 2011 17:31 Treble557 wrote:
By blizzards logic, the Swarm Host is Redundant for the same reason the Lurker was. The baneling.
gg blizz.
No it isn't Swarm Hosts are not good for immediate defense, like the Lurker or the Baneling. They have something like 15seconds of ramp up time, so if you expect to use them like Lurkers/Siege tanks then they are probably going to archive very little. You won't be able to push forward as well as Lurkers/Tanks because of this. It feels more like a unit that you would use to apply constant pressure to a location. Like outside a Protoss base. It won't be that hard to stop in the late game, but think early two base where Protoss are still teching to Colossus. All they have to defend themselves at that time are Forcefields and Static defense, no real AOE. well, exactly. you won't be able to push forward at all with swarm hosts .and if your timing window closes and he gets colossi your swarm hosts are dead. great for a "space controlling" unit to be hard countered by colossi or siege tanks. just look at that video in the OP again and image there would be tanks at the top of the cliff... have fun walking up (or even down when defending your own base) with those slow melee units through a choke.
You could use these in those Spine crawler/Hydralisk pushes to move creep tumors and burn forcefields and just chip away at the enemy army in general.
yes because buffing the famous spine crawler / hydra push is what all zerg have requested for such a long time... colossi shuts this down quickly. so it's a niche tactic.
IMO, the most important thing about this unit is that you need an army to back up the Locust to inflict the most damage, you can't use them like a Siege tank where it will do all the work.
In terms of a single attack, the Swarm host is a waste of army supply, but they only become efficient if you have to attack a position more than once
in fact, they won't be better with your army. with what unit do you want to cover your swarm hosts exactly? zerg isn't terran. we don't have long range vikings to protect tanks from air and a bunch of ranged units to. swarm hosts also have a range of zero (they're melee...) so how does this prevent a terran to just engage and clean up those 2 locusts per host with the army and sieging? a terran could pushing his siege line forward will actually push the swarm hosts back because they can do nothing to prevent it... even better with protoss. colossi > swarm host (and hydra, the most obvious unit it has synergies with). compare that to a terran push with 3 tanks sieging below your ramp. THIS is actually space control... Swarm Host: Burrows and spawns the first two Locusts in approximately the same set-up time as the Terran Shredder (yes, really). No guaranteed damage: if there aren't enough Locusts, none of them will get through. Those who are saying you should stagger-burrow Hosts are, to my mind, setting up a nice slow conveyor-belt of Locusts, about as useful as streaming slow, melee-only roaches in two-by-two. If we assume every single Locust gets a hit in (which strikes me as quite generous), the effective DPS of a Swarm host is two.
Although their DPS is low due to the long spawn time, if you actually attacked WITH the locust then it is a different story. If you think about attacking in waves then you don't really include the time in which your army is retreating and your getting back into formation. If you use each wave of Locust as the signal attack with the rest of your army then backout when they are dead then they are quite a strong unit, mostly because during the first few seconds they actually do decent damage. Kind of like a Carrier in that sense, their DPS is actually quite mediocre but they have ridiculous burst DPS. Due to graviton catapult their damage their DPS is something like 3 times higher during initial release than when they have settled down. Kinda why it is pretty advantageous to hit and run with Carriers the only use of locusts is tanking and i'd imagine the best dps behind them would be hydras. and they get countered by the same long range siege units of terran and protoss. for the gas cost of a swarm host you could build 4 roaches. i think they would do a better job in tanking for the hydras and we all know how good roach/hydra is nowadays. the problem is that this unit is supposed to control space which it simply isn't. it has neither a long enough range (well no range at all) nor splash. just free units. hell it would be better if it would just spawn infested terrans... this unit has no role in the game in it's current state and will be very difficult to balance properly. either you have overpowered free units or they suck. I think the point of swarm host isn't to break siege tank lines, but preventing the sieges or marines from moving forward. If the locusts have enough hp to make it to the tank line melee range, then it has served its purpose how can a unit without AOE prevent marines from moving forward? that's like stoping marine with pure zerglings. you need LOTS of them and when marines reach critical mass you are dead without AOE. because if marines pokes forward, they'll get hit by not only the locusts but also siege tanks friendly fire. isn't this the same "space control" as parking a group of lings? they will achieve exactly the same. terran will just unsiege stim in some marines and take the hosts out. Those locusts currently also do alot of damage too. From the video presentation, imagine that bunker is actually a group of marines. Not so pretty now in this video there are 9!!! swarm hosts. that's 1800 / 900 in resources. you could get 7-8 tanks for the same cost. now compare the damage done again... and there was also 7-8 tanks in that video? along with bunkers and marines support. I don't understand your point. if swarm host continues to spawn locusts, it'll be hard for marines or siege tanks to move forward without being under siege by not only locus but also siege tanks themselves
that's why you unsiege and then move in a group of marines. or just go in with your whole army and tanks unsieged. why wouldn't you? the zerg just wasted an insane amount of resources in useless units that sit there for 15 seconds doing nothing. it will be nearly impossible to balance this concept even in the beta. either locusts will be overpowered or they will suck.
also it's 5 tanks and 2 bunkers in the video. and most of the damage done is by the tanks themselves.
and now imagine a terran just putting 7-8 tanks below your ramp and compare it to those lame swarm hosts. i know i would take heavy losses moving out against tanks. but against melee single damage attackers? that's a fucking joke.
On October 25 2011 20:03 poorcloud wrote:
Guys, these is really useful. Remeber how we always say zergs cant win even if they have an advantage against a turtling terran. Zergs can use their army advantage to constantly send locusts into the terran base, making the terrans lose a few units every now and then while mutalisks harass the main and pull away the marines.
It can work if we don't close our eyes and keep an open mind about it.
or we could actually get a useful unit if we keep complaining.
your example sucks btw. broods would be much better and they take a long time to take out a fortified terran base. how long will those locusts take MOVING into the base, especially up a ramp?
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On October 25 2011 20:03 fleeze wrote:Show nested quote +On October 25 2011 19:54 iky43210 wrote:On October 25 2011 19:52 fleeze wrote:On October 25 2011 19:43 iky43210 wrote:On October 25 2011 19:42 fleeze wrote:On October 25 2011 19:38 iky43210 wrote:On October 25 2011 19:33 fleeze wrote:On October 25 2011 18:57 Dommk wrote:On October 25 2011 17:31 Treble557 wrote:
By blizzards logic, the Swarm Host is Redundant for the same reason the Lurker was. The baneling.
gg blizz.
No it isn't Swarm Hosts are not good for immediate defense, like the Lurker or the Baneling. They have something like 15seconds of ramp up time, so if you expect to use them like Lurkers/Siege tanks then they are probably going to archive very little. You won't be able to push forward as well as Lurkers/Tanks because of this. It feels more like a unit that you would use to apply constant pressure to a location. Like outside a Protoss base. It won't be that hard to stop in the late game, but think early two base where Protoss are still teching to Colossus. All they have to defend themselves at that time are Forcefields and Static defense, no real AOE. well, exactly. you won't be able to push forward at all with swarm hosts .and if your timing window closes and he gets colossi your swarm hosts are dead. great for a "space controlling" unit to be hard countered by colossi or siege tanks. just look at that video in the OP again and image there would be tanks at the top of the cliff... have fun walking up (or even down when defending your own base) with those slow melee units through a choke.
You could use these in those Spine crawler/Hydralisk pushes to move creep tumors and burn forcefields and just chip away at the enemy army in general.
yes because buffing the famous spine crawler / hydra push is what all zerg have requested for such a long time... colossi shuts this down quickly. so it's a niche tactic.
IMO, the most important thing about this unit is that you need an army to back up the Locust to inflict the most damage, you can't use them like a Siege tank where it will do all the work.
In terms of a single attack, the Swarm host is a waste of army supply, but they only become efficient if you have to attack a position more than once
in fact, they won't be better with your army. with what unit do you want to cover your swarm hosts exactly? zerg isn't terran. we don't have long range vikings to protect tanks from air and a bunch of ranged units to. swarm hosts also have a range of zero (they're melee...) so how does this prevent a terran to just engage and clean up those 2 locusts per host with the army and sieging? a terran could pushing his siege line forward will actually push the swarm hosts back because they can do nothing to prevent it... even better with protoss. colossi > swarm host (and hydra, the most obvious unit it has synergies with). compare that to a terran push with 3 tanks sieging below your ramp. THIS is actually space control... Swarm Host: Burrows and spawns the first two Locusts in approximately the same set-up time as the Terran Shredder (yes, really). No guaranteed damage: if there aren't enough Locusts, none of them will get through. Those who are saying you should stagger-burrow Hosts are, to my mind, setting up a nice slow conveyor-belt of Locusts, about as useful as streaming slow, melee-only roaches in two-by-two. If we assume every single Locust gets a hit in (which strikes me as quite generous), the effective DPS of a Swarm host is two.
Although their DPS is low due to the long spawn time, if you actually attacked WITH the locust then it is a different story. If you think about attacking in waves then you don't really include the time in which your army is retreating and your getting back into formation. If you use each wave of Locust as the signal attack with the rest of your army then backout when they are dead then they are quite a strong unit, mostly because during the first few seconds they actually do decent damage. Kind of like a Carrier in that sense, their DPS is actually quite mediocre but they have ridiculous burst DPS. Due to graviton catapult their damage their DPS is something like 3 times higher during initial release than when they have settled down. Kinda why it is pretty advantageous to hit and run with Carriers the only use of locusts is tanking and i'd imagine the best dps behind them would be hydras. and they get countered by the same long range siege units of terran and protoss. for the gas cost of a swarm host you could build 4 roaches. i think they would do a better job in tanking for the hydras and we all know how good roach/hydra is nowadays. the problem is that this unit is supposed to control space which it simply isn't. it has neither a long enough range (well no range at all) nor splash. just free units. hell it would be better if it would just spawn infested terrans... this unit has no role in the game in it's current state and will be very difficult to balance properly. either you have overpowered free units or they suck. I think the point of swarm host isn't to break siege tank lines, but preventing the sieges or marines from moving forward. If the locusts have enough hp to make it to the tank line melee range, then it has served its purpose how can a unit without AOE prevent marines from moving forward? that's like stoping marine with pure zerglings. you need LOTS of them and when marines reach critical mass you are dead without AOE. because if marines pokes forward, they'll get hit by not only the locusts but also siege tanks friendly fire. isn't this the same "space control" as parking a group of lings? they will achieve exactly the same. terran will just unsiege stim in some marines and take the hosts out. Those locusts currently also do alot of damage too. From the video presentation, imagine that bunker is actually a group of marines. Not so pretty now in this video there are 9!!! swarm hosts. that's 1800 / 900 in resources. you could get 7-8 tanks for the same cost. now compare the damage done again... and there was also 7-8 tanks in that video? along with bunkers and marines support. I don't understand your point. if swarm host continues to spawn locusts, it'll be hard for marines or siege tanks to move forward without being under siege by not only locus but also siege tanks themselves that's why you unsiege and then move in a group of marines. or just go in with your whole army and tanks unsieged. why wouldn't you? the zerg just wasted an insane amount of resources in useless units that sit there for 15 seconds doing nothing. it will be nearly impossible to balance this concept even in the beta. either locusts will be overpowered or they will suck. also it's 5 tanks and 2 bunkers in the video. and most of the damage done is by the tanks themselves. and now imagine a terran just putting 7-8 tanks below your ramp and compare it to those lame swarm hosts. i know i would take heavy losses moving out against tanks. but against melee single damage attackers? that's a fucking joke.
ah, yes. unsiege the tanks to move in the marines. That'll definitely do well against the lings/banelings/vipers or infestors waiting right behind the line
I just checked the video again, I counted 6 tanks. Yes there are damage done by the siege tanks themselves, but isn't that exactly the point I was making? It doesn't matter if the dmg comes from swarm locust or siege tank, it has the same effects and achieve the same goals.
Anyway, mathematically thats not possible. bunkers have 400 hp and 6 siege tank friendly fire is 90 dmg per round, I see about 2 rounds worth of friendly fire, making it at ~180 dmg from FF and ~220 dmg from locusts (~ because few dead marines)
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On October 25 2011 20:04 iky43210 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 25 2011 20:03 fleeze wrote:On October 25 2011 19:54 iky43210 wrote:On October 25 2011 19:52 fleeze wrote:On October 25 2011 19:43 iky43210 wrote:On October 25 2011 19:42 fleeze wrote:On October 25 2011 19:38 iky43210 wrote:On October 25 2011 19:33 fleeze wrote:On October 25 2011 18:57 Dommk wrote:On October 25 2011 17:31 Treble557 wrote:
By blizzards logic, the Swarm Host is Redundant for the same reason the Lurker was. The baneling.
gg blizz.
No it isn't Swarm Hosts are not good for immediate defense, like the Lurker or the Baneling. They have something like 15seconds of ramp up time, so if you expect to use them like Lurkers/Siege tanks then they are probably going to archive very little. You won't be able to push forward as well as Lurkers/Tanks because of this. It feels more like a unit that you would use to apply constant pressure to a location. Like outside a Protoss base. It won't be that hard to stop in the late game, but think early two base where Protoss are still teching to Colossus. All they have to defend themselves at that time are Forcefields and Static defense, no real AOE. well, exactly. you won't be able to push forward at all with swarm hosts .and if your timing window closes and he gets colossi your swarm hosts are dead. great for a "space controlling" unit to be hard countered by colossi or siege tanks. just look at that video in the OP again and image there would be tanks at the top of the cliff... have fun walking up (or even down when defending your own base) with those slow melee units through a choke.
You could use these in those Spine crawler/Hydralisk pushes to move creep tumors and burn forcefields and just chip away at the enemy army in general.
yes because buffing the famous spine crawler / hydra push is what all zerg have requested for such a long time... colossi shuts this down quickly. so it's a niche tactic.
IMO, the most important thing about this unit is that you need an army to back up the Locust to inflict the most damage, you can't use them like a Siege tank where it will do all the work.
In terms of a single attack, the Swarm host is a waste of army supply, but they only become efficient if you have to attack a position more than once
in fact, they won't be better with your army. with what unit do you want to cover your swarm hosts exactly? zerg isn't terran. we don't have long range vikings to protect tanks from air and a bunch of ranged units to. swarm hosts also have a range of zero (they're melee...) so how does this prevent a terran to just engage and clean up those 2 locusts per host with the army and sieging? a terran could pushing his siege line forward will actually push the swarm hosts back because they can do nothing to prevent it... even better with protoss. colossi > swarm host (and hydra, the most obvious unit it has synergies with). compare that to a terran push with 3 tanks sieging below your ramp. THIS is actually space control... Swarm Host: Burrows and spawns the first two Locusts in approximately the same set-up time as the Terran Shredder (yes, really). No guaranteed damage: if there aren't enough Locusts, none of them will get through. Those who are saying you should stagger-burrow Hosts are, to my mind, setting up a nice slow conveyor-belt of Locusts, about as useful as streaming slow, melee-only roaches in two-by-two. If we assume every single Locust gets a hit in (which strikes me as quite generous), the effective DPS of a Swarm host is two.
Although their DPS is low due to the long spawn time, if you actually attacked WITH the locust then it is a different story. If you think about attacking in waves then you don't really include the time in which your army is retreating and your getting back into formation. If you use each wave of Locust as the signal attack with the rest of your army then backout when they are dead then they are quite a strong unit, mostly because during the first few seconds they actually do decent damage. Kind of like a Carrier in that sense, their DPS is actually quite mediocre but they have ridiculous burst DPS. Due to graviton catapult their damage their DPS is something like 3 times higher during initial release than when they have settled down. Kinda why it is pretty advantageous to hit and run with Carriers the only use of locusts is tanking and i'd imagine the best dps behind them would be hydras. and they get countered by the same long range siege units of terran and protoss. for the gas cost of a swarm host you could build 4 roaches. i think they would do a better job in tanking for the hydras and we all know how good roach/hydra is nowadays. the problem is that this unit is supposed to control space which it simply isn't. it has neither a long enough range (well no range at all) nor splash. just free units. hell it would be better if it would just spawn infested terrans... this unit has no role in the game in it's current state and will be very difficult to balance properly. either you have overpowered free units or they suck. I think the point of swarm host isn't to break siege tank lines, but preventing the sieges or marines from moving forward. If the locusts have enough hp to make it to the tank line melee range, then it has served its purpose how can a unit without AOE prevent marines from moving forward? that's like stoping marine with pure zerglings. you need LOTS of them and when marines reach critical mass you are dead without AOE. because if marines pokes forward, they'll get hit by not only the locusts but also siege tanks friendly fire. isn't this the same "space control" as parking a group of lings? they will achieve exactly the same. terran will just unsiege stim in some marines and take the hosts out. Those locusts currently also do alot of damage too. From the video presentation, imagine that bunker is actually a group of marines. Not so pretty now in this video there are 9!!! swarm hosts. that's 1800 / 900 in resources. you could get 7-8 tanks for the same cost. now compare the damage done again... and there was also 7-8 tanks in that video? along with bunkers and marines support. I don't understand your point. if swarm host continues to spawn locusts, it'll be hard for marines or siege tanks to move forward without being under siege by not only locus but also siege tanks themselves that's why you unsiege and then move in a group of marines. or just go in with your whole army and tanks unsieged. why wouldn't you? the zerg just wasted an insane amount of resources in useless units that sit there for 15 seconds doing nothing. it will be nearly impossible to balance this concept even in the beta. either locusts will be overpowered or they will suck. also it's 5 tanks and 2 bunkers in the video. and most of the damage done is by the tanks themselves. and now imagine a terran just putting 7-8 tanks below your ramp and compare it to those lame swarm hosts. i know i would take heavy losses moving out against tanks. but against melee single damage attackers? that's a fucking joke. ah, yes. unsiege the tanks to move in the marines. That'll definitely do well against the lings/banelings/vipers or infestors waiting right behind the line I just checked the video again, I counted 6 tanks. Yes there are damage done by the siege tanks themselves, but isn't that exactly the point I was making? It doesn't matter if the dmg comes from swarm locust or siege tank, it has the same effects and achieve the same goals. Anyway, mathematically thats not possible. bunkers have 400 hp and 6 siege tank friendly fire is 90 dmg per round, I see about 2 rounds worth of friendly fire, making it at 180 dmg from FF and 220 dmg from locusts
and how many damage would those 7-8 tanks do in one volley against a zerg army? and how often would they fire? how can you control space with melee units though they are free?
and just in case you still think thier worthwhile try the same against colossi that don't have friendly splash.
or make a similar terran composition. what would those locusts do against hellion / marine? exactly, nothing.
it's dumb and pointless for a unit to rely on a specific enemy unit to do any damage. that's called bad design.
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On October 25 2011 20:22 fleeze wrote:Show nested quote +On October 25 2011 20:04 iky43210 wrote:On October 25 2011 20:03 fleeze wrote:On October 25 2011 19:54 iky43210 wrote:On October 25 2011 19:52 fleeze wrote:On October 25 2011 19:43 iky43210 wrote:On October 25 2011 19:42 fleeze wrote:On October 25 2011 19:38 iky43210 wrote:On October 25 2011 19:33 fleeze wrote:On October 25 2011 18:57 Dommk wrote:
[quote]
No it isn't
Swarm Hosts are not good for immediate defense, like the Lurker or the Baneling. They have something like 15seconds of ramp up time, so if you expect to use them like Lurkers/Siege tanks then they are probably going to archive very little.
You won't be able to push forward as well as Lurkers/Tanks because of this. It feels more like a unit that you would use to apply constant pressure to a location. Like outside a Protoss base. It won't be that hard to stop in the late game, but think early two base where Protoss are still teching to Colossus. All they have to defend themselves at that time are Forcefields and Static defense, no real AOE.
well, exactly. you won't be able to push forward at all with swarm hosts .and if your timing window closes and he gets colossi your swarm hosts are dead. great for a "space controlling" unit to be hard countered by colossi or siege tanks. just look at that video in the OP again and image there would be tanks at the top of the cliff... have fun walking up (or even down when defending your own base) with those slow melee units through a choke.
You could use these in those Spine crawler/Hydralisk pushes to move creep tumors and burn forcefields and just chip away at the enemy army in general.
yes because buffing the famous spine crawler / hydra push is what all zerg have requested for such a long time... colossi shuts this down quickly. so it's a niche tactic.
IMO, the most important thing about this unit is that you need an army to back up the Locust to inflict the most damage, you can't use them like a Siege tank where it will do all the work.
In terms of a single attack, the Swarm host is a waste of army supply, but they only become efficient if you have to attack a position more than once
in fact, they won't be better with your army. with what unit do you want to cover your swarm hosts exactly? zerg isn't terran. we don't have long range vikings to protect tanks from air and a bunch of ranged units to. swarm hosts also have a range of zero (they're melee...) so how does this prevent a terran to just engage and clean up those 2 locusts per host with the army and sieging? a terran could pushing his siege line forward will actually push the swarm hosts back because they can do nothing to prevent it... even better with protoss. colossi > swarm host (and hydra, the most obvious unit it has synergies with). compare that to a terran push with 3 tanks sieging below your ramp. THIS is actually space control...
[quote]
Although their DPS is low due to the long spawn time, if you actually attacked WITH the locust then it is a different story. If you think about attacking in waves then you don't really include the time in which your army is retreating and your getting back into formation.
If you use each wave of Locust as the signal attack with the rest of your army then backout when they are dead then they are quite a strong unit, mostly because during the first few seconds they actually do decent damage.
Kind of like a Carrier in that sense, their DPS is actually quite mediocre but they have ridiculous burst DPS. Due to graviton catapult their damage their DPS is something like 3 times higher during initial release than when they have settled down. Kinda why it is pretty advantageous to hit and run with Carriers
the only use of locusts is tanking and i'd imagine the best dps behind them would be hydras. and they get countered by the same long range siege units of terran and protoss. for the gas cost of a swarm host you could build 4 roaches. i think they would do a better job in tanking for the hydras and we all know how good roach/hydra is nowadays. the problem is that this unit is supposed to control space which it simply isn't. it has neither a long enough range (well no range at all) nor splash. just free units. hell it would be better if it would just spawn infested terrans... this unit has no role in the game in it's current state and will be very difficult to balance properly. either you have overpowered free units or they suck. I think the point of swarm host isn't to break siege tank lines, but preventing the sieges or marines from moving forward. If the locusts have enough hp to make it to the tank line melee range, then it has served its purpose how can a unit without AOE prevent marines from moving forward? that's like stoping marine with pure zerglings. you need LOTS of them and when marines reach critical mass you are dead without AOE. because if marines pokes forward, they'll get hit by not only the locusts but also siege tanks friendly fire. isn't this the same "space control" as parking a group of lings? they will achieve exactly the same. terran will just unsiege stim in some marines and take the hosts out. Those locusts currently also do alot of damage too. From the video presentation, imagine that bunker is actually a group of marines. Not so pretty now in this video there are 9!!! swarm hosts. that's 1800 / 900 in resources. you could get 7-8 tanks for the same cost. now compare the damage done again... and there was also 7-8 tanks in that video? along with bunkers and marines support. I don't understand your point. if swarm host continues to spawn locusts, it'll be hard for marines or siege tanks to move forward without being under siege by not only locus but also siege tanks themselves that's why you unsiege and then move in a group of marines. or just go in with your whole army and tanks unsieged. why wouldn't you? the zerg just wasted an insane amount of resources in useless units that sit there for 15 seconds doing nothing. it will be nearly impossible to balance this concept even in the beta. either locusts will be overpowered or they will suck. also it's 5 tanks and 2 bunkers in the video. and most of the damage done is by the tanks themselves. and now imagine a terran just putting 7-8 tanks below your ramp and compare it to those lame swarm hosts. i know i would take heavy losses moving out against tanks. but against melee single damage attackers? that's a fucking joke. ah, yes. unsiege the tanks to move in the marines. That'll definitely do well against the lings/banelings/vipers or infestors waiting right behind the line I just checked the video again, I counted 6 tanks. Yes there are damage done by the siege tanks themselves, but isn't that exactly the point I was making? It doesn't matter if the dmg comes from swarm locust or siege tank, it has the same effects and achieve the same goals. Anyway, mathematically thats not possible. bunkers have 400 hp and 6 siege tank friendly fire is 90 dmg per round, I see about 2 rounds worth of friendly fire, making it at 180 dmg from FF and 220 dmg from locusts it's dumb and pointless for a unit to rely on a specific enemy unit to do any damage.
that's called meta games. You asked alot of questions, but none of them are really relevant to the point of the units.
It is still an amazing unit to have against other composition. Currently it does a ton of dps and takes a good beating, but its not suppose to be an unit that you mass in every occasion and thinks it'll turn out alright. We already have infestors for that
If blizzard can tweak numbers and make it slow down siege pushes, then it has already fulfilled its role
If locus swarm has the same firepower as siege tanks and can consistently break tank lines, we don't even need to play this game anymore, as zerg macro capability and swarm/infestors combo will prove impossible to beat
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On October 25 2011 20:25 iky43210 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 25 2011 20:22 fleeze wrote:On October 25 2011 20:04 iky43210 wrote:On October 25 2011 20:03 fleeze wrote:On October 25 2011 19:54 iky43210 wrote:On October 25 2011 19:52 fleeze wrote:On October 25 2011 19:43 iky43210 wrote:On October 25 2011 19:42 fleeze wrote:On October 25 2011 19:38 iky43210 wrote:On October 25 2011 19:33 fleeze wrote:
[quote]
well, exactly. you won't be able to push forward at all with swarm hosts .and if your timing window closes and he gets colossi your swarm hosts are dead. great for a "space controlling" unit to be hard countered by colossi or siege tanks. just look at that video in the OP again and image there would be tanks at the top of the cliff... have fun walking up (or even down when defending your own base) with those slow melee units through a choke.
[quote]
yes because buffing the famous spine crawler / hydra push is what all zerg have requested for such a long time... colossi shuts this down quickly. so it's a niche tactic.
[quote]
in fact, they won't be better with your army.
with what unit do you want to cover your swarm hosts exactly? zerg isn't terran. we don't have long range vikings to protect tanks from air and a bunch of ranged units to. swarm hosts also have a range of zero (they're melee...) so how does this prevent a terran to just engage and clean up those 2 locusts per host with the army and sieging? a terran could pushing his siege line forward will actually push the swarm hosts back because they can do nothing to prevent it...
even better with protoss. colossi > swarm host (and hydra, the most obvious unit it has synergies with).
compare that to a terran push with 3 tanks sieging below your ramp. THIS is actually space control...
[quote]
the only use of locusts is tanking and i'd imagine the best dps behind them would be hydras. and they get countered by the same long range siege units of terran and protoss. for the gas cost of a swarm host you could build 4 roaches. i think they would do a better job in tanking for the hydras and we all know how good roach/hydra is nowadays.
the problem is that this unit is supposed to control space which it simply isn't. it has neither a long enough range (well no range at all) nor splash. just free units. hell it would be better if it would just spawn infested terrans...
this unit has no role in the game in it's current state and will be very difficult to balance properly. either you have overpowered free units or they suck. I think the point of swarm host isn't to break siege tank lines, but preventing the sieges or marines from moving forward. If the locusts have enough hp to make it to the tank line melee range, then it has served its purpose how can a unit without AOE prevent marines from moving forward? that's like stoping marine with pure zerglings. you need LOTS of them and when marines reach critical mass you are dead without AOE. because if marines pokes forward, they'll get hit by not only the locusts but also siege tanks friendly fire. isn't this the same "space control" as parking a group of lings? they will achieve exactly the same. terran will just unsiege stim in some marines and take the hosts out. Those locusts currently also do alot of damage too. From the video presentation, imagine that bunker is actually a group of marines. Not so pretty now in this video there are 9!!! swarm hosts. that's 1800 / 900 in resources. you could get 7-8 tanks for the same cost. now compare the damage done again... and there was also 7-8 tanks in that video? along with bunkers and marines support. I don't understand your point. if swarm host continues to spawn locusts, it'll be hard for marines or siege tanks to move forward without being under siege by not only locus but also siege tanks themselves that's why you unsiege and then move in a group of marines. or just go in with your whole army and tanks unsieged. why wouldn't you? the zerg just wasted an insane amount of resources in useless units that sit there for 15 seconds doing nothing. it will be nearly impossible to balance this concept even in the beta. either locusts will be overpowered or they will suck. also it's 5 tanks and 2 bunkers in the video. and most of the damage done is by the tanks themselves. and now imagine a terran just putting 7-8 tanks below your ramp and compare it to those lame swarm hosts. i know i would take heavy losses moving out against tanks. but against melee single damage attackers? that's a fucking joke. ah, yes. unsiege the tanks to move in the marines. That'll definitely do well against the lings/banelings/vipers or infestors waiting right behind the line I just checked the video again, I counted 6 tanks. Yes there are damage done by the siege tanks themselves, but isn't that exactly the point I was making? It doesn't matter if the dmg comes from swarm locust or siege tank, it has the same effects and achieve the same goals. Anyway, mathematically thats not possible. bunkers have 400 hp and 6 siege tank friendly fire is 90 dmg per round, I see about 2 rounds worth of friendly fire, making it at 180 dmg from FF and 220 dmg from locusts it's dumb and pointless for a unit to rely on a specific enemy unit to do any damage. that's called meta games. You asked alot of questions, but none of them are really relevant to the point of the units. It is still an amazing unit to have against other composition. Alot of dps and takes a good beating, but its not suppose to be an unit that you mass in every occasion and thinks it'll turn out alright. We already have infestors for that
the problem is that this unit does not do what blizzard intended it to do. control space.
and zerg needs a space controlling unit more than a gimmicky unit that overlaps with other units.
to clarify: i didn't intend them to do the same damage as siege tanks. just comparing the threat of 7-8 siege tanks against 9 swarm hosts in holding a position.
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On October 25 2011 20:28 fleeze wrote:Show nested quote +On October 25 2011 20:25 iky43210 wrote:On October 25 2011 20:22 fleeze wrote:On October 25 2011 20:04 iky43210 wrote:On October 25 2011 20:03 fleeze wrote:On October 25 2011 19:54 iky43210 wrote:On October 25 2011 19:52 fleeze wrote:On October 25 2011 19:43 iky43210 wrote:On October 25 2011 19:42 fleeze wrote:On October 25 2011 19:38 iky43210 wrote:
[quote]
I think the point of swarm host isn't to break siege tank lines, but preventing the sieges or marines from moving forward.
If the locusts have enough hp to make it to the tank line melee range, then it has served its purpose how can a unit without AOE prevent marines from moving forward? that's like stoping marine with pure zerglings. you need LOTS of them and when marines reach critical mass you are dead without AOE. because if marines pokes forward, they'll get hit by not only the locusts but also siege tanks friendly fire. isn't this the same "space control" as parking a group of lings? they will achieve exactly the same. terran will just unsiege stim in some marines and take the hosts out. Those locusts currently also do alot of damage too. From the video presentation, imagine that bunker is actually a group of marines. Not so pretty now in this video there are 9!!! swarm hosts. that's 1800 / 900 in resources. you could get 7-8 tanks for the same cost. now compare the damage done again... and there was also 7-8 tanks in that video? along with bunkers and marines support. I don't understand your point. if swarm host continues to spawn locusts, it'll be hard for marines or siege tanks to move forward without being under siege by not only locus but also siege tanks themselves that's why you unsiege and then move in a group of marines. or just go in with your whole army and tanks unsieged. why wouldn't you? the zerg just wasted an insane amount of resources in useless units that sit there for 15 seconds doing nothing. it will be nearly impossible to balance this concept even in the beta. either locusts will be overpowered or they will suck. also it's 5 tanks and 2 bunkers in the video. and most of the damage done is by the tanks themselves. and now imagine a terran just putting 7-8 tanks below your ramp and compare it to those lame swarm hosts. i know i would take heavy losses moving out against tanks. but against melee single damage attackers? that's a fucking joke. ah, yes. unsiege the tanks to move in the marines. That'll definitely do well against the lings/banelings/vipers or infestors waiting right behind the line I just checked the video again, I counted 6 tanks. Yes there are damage done by the siege tanks themselves, but isn't that exactly the point I was making? It doesn't matter if the dmg comes from swarm locust or siege tank, it has the same effects and achieve the same goals. Anyway, mathematically thats not possible. bunkers have 400 hp and 6 siege tank friendly fire is 90 dmg per round, I see about 2 rounds worth of friendly fire, making it at 180 dmg from FF and 220 dmg from locusts it's dumb and pointless for a unit to rely on a specific enemy unit to do any damage. that's called meta games. You asked alot of questions, but none of them are really relevant to the point of the units. It is still an amazing unit to have against other composition. Alot of dps and takes a good beating, but its not suppose to be an unit that you mass in every occasion and thinks it'll turn out alright. We already have infestors for that the problem is that this unit does not do what blizzard intended it to do. control space. and zerg needs a space controlling unit more than a gimmicky unit that overlaps with other units.
How does it not control space if it slows and can completely halt Terran's advances? Do you seriously want a siege unit that rivals Siege tanks in firepower given current zerg mechanics?
Currently siege tanks also doesn't do much to "control spaces" against Protoss, and there's nothing wrong with that
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Overlap? Locusts do 3x the dps of broodlings and have 3 times the hp. You use broodlings to friendly fire terran units. You'd use locusts to actually tank for banelings/zerglings and if they do hit, hit hard. 20 dps unit befor upgrades (it was 16 dmg with <1s CD, right?).
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bad unit, why don't u reintroduce lurker then ?
It was a way better idea for map control
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On October 25 2011 20:43 dragonsuper wrote:
bad unit, why don't u reintroduce lurker then ?
It was a way better idea for map control
Tell me how that will be possible against Marauders backed by medivacs of equal supply. They have the same range and without scan, just load into the medivacs and continue on.
Tell me how that will be possible against blink stalkers of equal supply. They have same range and would basically just blink over the lurkers.
Well, f*ck, there goes your theory.
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On October 25 2011 21:02 Hattori_Hanzo wrote:Show nested quote +On October 25 2011 20:43 dragonsuper wrote:
bad unit, why don't u reintroduce lurker then ?
It was a way better idea for map control Tell me how that will be possible against Marauders backed by medivacs of equal supply. They have the same range and without scan, just load into the medivacs and continue on. Tell me how that will be possible against blink stalkers of equal supply. They have same range and would basically just blink over the lurkers. Well, f*ck, there goes your theory.
vs terran: i would be happy if terrans would at least be forced to build marauders. there's a reason you only see marauders against roaches or ultras atm.
vs toss: same with broodlords. you keep roaches/hydras beneath them. hf blinking in.
notice how both stalkers and marauders are countered by mass zerglings. it's silly talking about "equal supply". why would i ever want to fight mass marauder/stalker with lurkers ONLY. take it to equal supply of zergling / lurker and it will crush any mass marauder / stalkers.
a lurker would be supposed to do bonus to armored units (which zerg is lacking anyway) so it wouldn't be this bad and would lead to interesting micro decisions.
and lurkers can at least back up an army with AOE damage. swarm hosts just waste space with tanking locusts.
Well, f*ck, there goes your theory.
at least think before talking bullshit.
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On October 25 2011 20:03 fleeze wrote:Show nested quote +On October 25 2011 19:54 iky43210 wrote:On October 25 2011 19:52 fleeze wrote:On October 25 2011 19:43 iky43210 wrote:On October 25 2011 19:42 fleeze wrote:On October 25 2011 19:38 iky43210 wrote:On October 25 2011 19:33 fleeze wrote:On October 25 2011 18:57 Dommk wrote:On October 25 2011 17:31 Treble557 wrote:
By blizzards logic, the Swarm Host is Redundant for the same reason the Lurker was. The baneling.
gg blizz.
No it isn't Swarm Hosts are not good for immediate defense, like the Lurker or the Baneling. They have something like 15seconds of ramp up time, so if you expect to use them like Lurkers/Siege tanks then they are probably going to archive very little. You won't be able to push forward as well as Lurkers/Tanks because of this. It feels more like a unit that you would use to apply constant pressure to a location. Like outside a Protoss base. It won't be that hard to stop in the late game, but think early two base where Protoss are still teching to Colossus. All they have to defend themselves at that time are Forcefields and Static defense, no real AOE. well, exactly. you won't be able to push forward at all with swarm hosts .and if your timing window closes and he gets colossi your swarm hosts are dead. great for a "space controlling" unit to be hard countered by colossi or siege tanks. just look at that video in the OP again and image there would be tanks at the top of the cliff... have fun walking up (or even down when defending your own base) with those slow melee units through a choke.
You could use these in those Spine crawler/Hydralisk pushes to move creep tumors and burn forcefields and just chip away at the enemy army in general.
yes because buffing the famous spine crawler / hydra push is what all zerg have requested for such a long time... colossi shuts this down quickly. so it's a niche tactic.
IMO, the most important thing about this unit is that you need an army to back up the Locust to inflict the most damage, you can't use them like a Siege tank where it will do all the work.
In terms of a single attack, the Swarm host is a waste of army supply, but they only become efficient if you have to attack a position more than once
in fact, they won't be better with your army. with what unit do you want to cover your swarm hosts exactly? zerg isn't terran. we don't have long range vikings to protect tanks from air and a bunch of ranged units to. swarm hosts also have a range of zero (they're melee...) so how does this prevent a terran to just engage and clean up those 2 locusts per host with the army and sieging? a terran could pushing his siege line forward will actually push the swarm hosts back because they can do nothing to prevent it... even better with protoss. colossi > swarm host (and hydra, the most obvious unit it has synergies with). compare that to a terran push with 3 tanks sieging below your ramp. THIS is actually space control... Swarm Host: Burrows and spawns the first two Locusts in approximately the same set-up time as the Terran Shredder (yes, really). No guaranteed damage: if there aren't enough Locusts, none of them will get through. Those who are saying you should stagger-burrow Hosts are, to my mind, setting up a nice slow conveyor-belt of Locusts, about as useful as streaming slow, melee-only roaches in two-by-two. If we assume every single Locust gets a hit in (which strikes me as quite generous), the effective DPS of a Swarm host is two.
Although their DPS is low due to the long spawn time, if you actually attacked WITH the locust then it is a different story. If you think about attacking in waves then you don't really include the time in which your army is retreating and your getting back into formation. If you use each wave of Locust as the signal attack with the rest of your army then backout when they are dead then they are quite a strong unit, mostly because during the first few seconds they actually do decent damage. Kind of like a Carrier in that sense, their DPS is actually quite mediocre but they have ridiculous burst DPS. Due to graviton catapult their damage their DPS is something like 3 times higher during initial release than when they have settled down. Kinda why it is pretty advantageous to hit and run with Carriers the only use of locusts is tanking and i'd imagine the best dps behind them would be hydras. and they get countered by the same long range siege units of terran and protoss. for the gas cost of a swarm host you could build 4 roaches. i think they would do a better job in tanking for the hydras and we all know how good roach/hydra is nowadays. the problem is that this unit is supposed to control space which it simply isn't. it has neither a long enough range (well no range at all) nor splash. just free units. hell it would be better if it would just spawn infested terrans... this unit has no role in the game in it's current state and will be very difficult to balance properly. either you have overpowered free units or they suck. I think the point of swarm host isn't to break siege tank lines, but preventing the sieges or marines from moving forward. If the locusts have enough hp to make it to the tank line melee range, then it has served its purpose how can a unit without AOE prevent marines from moving forward? that's like stoping marine with pure zerglings. you need LOTS of them and when marines reach critical mass you are dead without AOE. because if marines pokes forward, they'll get hit by not only the locusts but also siege tanks friendly fire. isn't this the same "space control" as parking a group of lings? they will achieve exactly the same. terran will just unsiege stim in some marines and take the hosts out. Those locusts currently also do alot of damage too. From the video presentation, imagine that bunker is actually a group of marines. Not so pretty now in this video there are 9!!! swarm hosts. that's 1800 / 900 in resources. you could get 7-8 tanks for the same cost. now compare the damage done again... and there was also 7-8 tanks in that video? along with bunkers and marines support. I don't understand your point. if swarm host continues to spawn locusts, it'll be hard for marines or siege tanks to move forward without being under siege by not only locus but also siege tanks themselves that's why you unsiege and then move in a group of marines. or just go in with your whole army and tanks unsieged. why wouldn't you? the zerg just wasted an insane amount of resources in useless units that sit there for 15 seconds doing nothing. it will be nearly impossible to balance this concept even in the beta. either locusts will be overpowered or they will suck. also it's 5 tanks and 2 bunkers in the video. and most of the damage done is by the tanks themselves. and now imagine a terran just putting 7-8 tanks below your ramp and compare it to those lame swarm hosts. i know i would take heavy losses moving out against tanks. but against melee single damage attackers? that's a fucking joke. Show nested quote +On October 25 2011 20:03 poorcloud wrote:
Guys, these is really useful. Remeber how we always say zergs cant win even if they have an advantage against a turtling terran. Zergs can use their army advantage to constantly send locusts into the terran base, making the terrans lose a few units every now and then while mutalisks harass the main and pull away the marines.
It can work if we don't close our eyes and keep an open mind about it. or we could actually get a useful unit if we keep complaining. your example sucks btw. broods would be much better and they take a long time to take out a fortified terran base. how long will those locusts take MOVING into the base, especially up a ramp?
Its frankly people like you who close off their minds to every possible strat/ideas which is why we get so many calls of OP/imba and so little innovation.
These locusts are used to break a fortified terran base, including ghosts + vikings + thors+ marines+tanks. Broods can get stuttered step by vikings + thors. These locusts can come from a way back even before siege tank range and did you see how much damage they were able to tank? Why would you need locusts to break into a terran base if your exchanging free units for terran units?
Even then, this may be at lair tech or something so it may make more sense to get this earlier than before broodlords.
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vs terran: i would be happy if terrans would at least be forced to build marauders. there's a reason you only see marauders against roaches or ultras atm.
vs toss: same with broodlords. you keep roaches/hydras beneath them. hf blinking in.
notice how both stalkers and marauders are countered by mass zerglings. it's silly talking about "equal supply". why would i ever want to fight mass marauder/stalker with lurkers ONLY. take it to equal supply of zergling / lurker and it will crush any mass marauder / stalkers.
a lurker would be supposed to do bonus to armored units (which zerg is lacking anyway) so it wouldn't be this bad and would lead to interesting micro decisions.
and lurkers can at least back up an army with AOE damage. swarm hosts just waste space with tanking locusts.
Well, f*ck, there goes your theory.
at least think before talking bullshit.
You didn't answer my question and address how Lurkers could control a Terran's space, given the existence of medivacs and marauders. There IS however a small window where lurkers can be useful, between the time the marine/tank/medivac counts get too high (10-12 min). Compared with the utility of Roaches, infestors and banelings; I hope you get idea.
in your Zerg example, you suddenly pulled out BL in mid-game AND roaches AND hydras.
An average game WITH BL AND ROACHES AND HYDRAS, an equally competent Protoss, EGHuK, the protoss death ball would already be out with at least 5 Colossi backed by HT and Zealots and Observers. Where are the Lurkers in that comp? Am I missing something here?
How does supposed to do damage to armored units suddenly result in interesting micro decisions and backup an army with AoE damage? Huh? The current BW burrow time would result in the battle being already over given how fast roaches and lings are already.
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EPT
