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I think it is important to remember that, in the video, the SH is by itself. People are mentioning that a pack of marines could scan and stim to kill it but I can't help but imagine having an infestor there waiting to fungal the pack of marines and lings to run out and surround them, killing the marines allowing the SH to continue its assault.
Still though, I'm not as excited about this unit as I am for the other zerg changes. I was excited when I heard we were getting a siege type unit and I honestly thought it was going to be something that shot a projectile that exploded on impact for splash damage, but I guess that is too similar to the siege tank. Edit: Exactly like the siege tank
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I have a feeling by the end of the beta the swarm host will release more locusts faster that are a lot weaker.
As it is now 15-18 seconds (whichever i don't remember) is FAAAAAAAAR too long between bursts.
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I think it could be strong indirectly as it might force the Terran to unseige? They have a lot of hp so if you have a lot of them you can probably win engagements
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Imagine if the Locusts exploded upon death much like that of a Baneling.
Yeeeeeeeaaaaaah, that'd do the trick.
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I think u are right with half the things u say. Redundancy: I agree with the the redundancy with the Broodlord. Both units to basicly the same, but the Broodlord is better at it, though it is more expensive. The Swarmhost seems to be a cheaper Broodloard, while cheap doesnt really describe him properly. I think the comparsion between Infested marines and the locusts is just plain unlogic, because there is no energycost on the locusts. This changes the dynamic between the spells completly!
Damage Output: Here I'm completly with you.
To your idea: Yeah mb this is not bad... I hate to bring this, but a more direct attack like the lurker would fit in the game much more. If the damage of that burrowed unit does take to much time it will be to easy to kill it. Compare them with Siege Tanks. What would you think of a siege tank that does the same DPS, but the damage would be dealed constantly. It would be much easier to kill it imo. Thats the same think Im afraid of with the swarm host. It doesnt have to be THE Lurker attack, but there needs to be a more direct instantaneous dmg to make up for a longer setup time
What do u guys think?
btw. Imagine in this video there wouldnt be seiegetanks killing themselves, but a marine/Marauader ball with medivacs. Im fairly certain, that nothing would die.
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Personally, I think they should shoot out mini banelings or something similar. But with lowered damage of course and maybe would have a speed upgrade like the baneling or make the baneling and the mini baneling have the same upgrade.
It would be nice to see this unit have a slightly smaller radius and do about 5 damage per explosion.
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One thing that would make this unit equal to the lurker and keep the clunky mechanic it has now is to keep the locust burrowed until they reach their rally point destination. To make it work they can give them a HP reduction - right now they have 80 hp.
The splash idea only works for tanks and banelings. And it mostly relies on your opponent having no micro. 2 locust per Swarm host is just too little, relying on dedicating most of your army to it. Ramming 20 lings into a wall with dark swarm will be a lot better.
Then again ... Maybe the locust will be better with the new dark swarm too.
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when i first saw it i thought: "awesome"
now... well to be honest it doesn't look that good. and i agree it shoots way too slow. i hardly see much potential for them.
time will tell, right now it seems worse than for example a lurker would've been but i don't think we even need lurkers, as banelings are so good (burrow movement seems imba).
still i fail to see many people using them, although i wonder how good agressive zerg builds with them as a siege unit would be... though i don't think too good.
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Can we stop calling it the new Dark Swarm and just call it the new Disruption Web? Because that actually makes a lot more sense.
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This unit is just a retarded re-design of the lurker. Just give us the damn lurker this is just an immobile brood lord that won't hold areas. I agree with the OP.
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Some questions:
1. If you just put a SH in the middle of nowhere, will it keep spawning a Locust that just hang around till the timer goes out? And if it just stay there, will you have to select and move the Locusts yourself to attack if you burrow one outside the enemy base?
2. I might have lived under a rock, but how do you access it? Does it evolve from Hydra? Or stand alone Infestation tech?
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The difference is, the swarm host is burrowed, has a persistent presence, and i believe is armored, as in the demo video they shrug off a tank shot easily enough.
This doesn't apply to the infestor because all of its spells are relatively expensive, and you have to pick and choose your engagements. Same with broodlords, but instead of energy, you have opportunity cost. You pay a lot of money and tech into these units that supplement your army, but without support, they can fall extremely easily.
The swarm host's presence is much more persistent, and can hold down locations much better. It'll be very hard to run 8 marines up a ramp blocked by swarm hosts and spines, conversely doing such things with broodlords or infestors are first of all very expensive, and in many scenarios they might have just served a better purpose as part of your army.
I personally would never make a broodlord and hold position it over a ramp to my expansion for the entirety of a game, but I would definitely do this with swarm hosts. This was a common tactic in brood war and It'll make the game much more interesting in my opinion
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On October 25 2011 01:27 Stropheum wrote: The difference is, the swarm host is burrowed, has a persistent presence, and i believe is armored, as in the demo video they shrug off a tank shot easily enough.
This doesn't apply to the infestor because all of its spells are relatively expensive, and you have to pick and choose your engagements. Same with broodlords, but instead of energy, you have opportunity cost. You pay a lot of money and tech into these units that supplement your army, but without support, they can fall extremely easily.
The swarm host's presence is much more persistent, and can hold down locations much better. It'll be very hard to run 8 marines up a ramp blocked by swarm hosts and spines, conversely doing such things with broodlords or infestors are first of all very expensive, and in many scenarios they might have just served a better purpose as part of your army.
I personally would never make a broodlord and hold position it over a ramp to my expansion for the entirety of a game, but I would definitely do this with swarm hosts. This was a common tactic in brood war and It'll make the game much more interesting in my opinion Haven't thought about that, as in blocking the ramp entry... but to be honest we hardly ever see marines running up a ramp ^^ They usually come by drop because the zerg has mapcontrol most of the time. Except they might be handy to defend hidden expansions for some time.
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I think it's very intentional that zerg have a few units that create units that require no food. I wouldn't call that redundant, swarm host is much faster to get than brood lord. I think the whole point is that you can hope to break a siege tank defense before 3rd tier. The little dudes released remind me of zealots, soaking up a good amount of damage so the rest of your army can run in without losing half you numbers to tank splash. And if your army doesn't quite break through, the next round of swarm host continue to do damage as your new zerglings arrive. It's very much an endless wave of zerg units.
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On October 25 2011 01:27 Stropheum wrote: I personally would never make a broodlord and hold position it over a ramp to my expansion for the entirety of a game, but I would definitely do this with swarm hosts. This was a common tactic in brood war and It'll make the game much more interesting in my opinion
Yes it was common with Lurkers.... But this is no Lurker. 8 Marine drops rofl-stomp a single or maybe two SwarmHosts very hard. I dont even believe the Locusts will outdmg the medivac heal
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On October 25 2011 01:27 Stropheum wrote: The difference is, the swarm host is burrowed, has a persistent presence, and i believe is armored, as in the demo video they shrug off a tank shot easily enough.
This doesn't apply to the infestor because all of its spells are relatively expensive, and you have to pick and choose your engagements. Same with broodlords, but instead of energy, you have opportunity cost. You pay a lot of money and tech into these units that supplement your army, but without support, they can fall extremely easily.
The swarm host's presence is much more persistent, and can hold down locations much better. It'll be very hard to run 8 marines up a ramp blocked by swarm hosts and spines, conversely doing such things with broodlords or infestors are first of all very expensive, and in many scenarios they might have just served a better purpose as part of your army.
I personally would never make a broodlord and hold position it over a ramp to my expansion for the entirety of a game, but I would definitely do this with swarm hosts. This was a common tactic in brood war and It'll make the game much more interesting in my opinion
The thing is that Swarm hosts are infestor pit timing, i.e. you'll barely have any up to stop the 9-minute siege tank-marine push. The lurker coming from the t1 hydra was available in time. Two swarm hosts will simply not spawn enough locusts to avoid getting scanned and sniped, while two lurkers were deadly to marines trying to break a choke.
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I hate this unit for two reasons:
1) It looks shit, and as it's been stated, its roles are already fulfilled by other units. 15 seconds is a really long time, the spawns are melee, slow and incredibly easy to kite. That video used 9 swarm hosts, and after 30 seconds they'd only destroyed two bunkers (and could've easily been scanned and killed in the meantime). Imagine what 9 tanks or 9 immortals could've done in that time...
2) It does not feel "zergy" at all. Since when was Zerg the slow, methodical grinding race? If anything that's Terran. Zerg is the speedy, agile, hit and run in a million places with overwhelming numbers of weak units race. Think about EVERY SINGLE ZERG UNIT in Broodwar - Lings, Hydras, Mutas, Scourges, Devourers, Ultras. They were faster, but weaker than their Terran and Protoss counterparts. Even the lurker was very fast when unburrowed, allowing it to run in and deploy quicker than siege tanks, but without the superior range or damage. I've hated the introduction of the roach for this very reason, and now Blizzard gives me the most disappointing addition yet.
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People in this thread are grossly underestimating the amount of damage these things can soak up. They have almost 90 hp per a locust! That means if you spread your SH out siege tanks will take a minimum of 2 shots to kill free units. And it's not like you can just ignore them either since the locusts deal fairly good dps.
SH is not a unit you just mass and win with. They're a support unit.
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On October 25 2011 01:37 Sueco wrote: The thing is that Swarm hosts are infestor pit timing, i.e. you'll barely have any up to stop the 9-minute siege tank-marine push. The lurker coming from the t1 hydra was available in time. Very good point! The same thing applies to Infestor, which can potentionally stop the Marine/tank push, but the timing for them to come out is so narrow that u have to rush to them and miss army
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there is a reason at why lurkers are not good in this game, and that's because marauders will rape them, as well marines are higher health, so lurkers would have to do more damage.
I think the swarm hosts overlaps too much with the broodlord. perhaps some sort of attack as well as its current ability. As it seems now, your just throwing in a couple roaches to die every 15 seconds. They will eventually have to do deal with it. But i don't think of it as a contain unit, there are just not enough of them, and they don't do enough damage. Also, in that preview, there were ALOT of swarm hosts, and it was just silly when they attacked.against that small force. Lurkers were not really siege units, at least, that's not how i thought of them, they were units that controlled space, and restricted paths of movement, if you were gonna dedicate to an attack as terran, you better go.
This is more like a weird broodlord now.
I'm not sure what its adding. Maybe in combination with the viper it could help. truly make it so that terran has to deal with it.
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