The Overseer and Zerg Scouting - Page 2

On November 10 2011 07:39 darkscream wrote:


if it granted vision of that unit and made it a detector for you, like queens could do in brood war.

1. Overlord speed upgrade will be Hatchery tech.

On November 10 2011 07:28 ruhrohraggy wrote:
I've been thinking the same thing! On one hand it seems like they are convinced to remove the Overseer and make it much more difficult for Zerg to get detection in order to buff DTs, which cannot do much once scouted. On the other hand, it removes Zergs race specific scouting unit - undoubtedly this will have to change.

I wouldn't worry because it is very apparent that there will need to be some change before HotS release. Things are going to change a lot in the beta. Some thoughts I have had is that maybe:
1. Overlord speed upgrade will be Hatchery tech.
2. Another unit gets the ability to cast Changelings (possibly Overlords, although making all Overlords have energy could have unintended side effects).
3. Vipers are fast (not as fast as Mutas obviously :D)
4. Viper detection ability is usable on enemy units (maybe an energy decrease on the ability as well to allow for scouting more). This brings it's own problems as well - it would practically require every Zerg player to make Vipers, and in ZvP a Protoss player can destroy a Zergs offensive/defensive capabilities by using Feedback.

Those are just some random thoughts I had, would be interesting to see what other people think!

TL;DR - Don't worry, things will change in beta if it's not balanced.

On November 10 2011 07:49 SpaceYeti wrote:
I'm glad other people are thinking about this as well. The major problem I see with what we do know about HotS is that removing the overseer and moving detection onto the Viper as a castable buff delays both scouting AND detection for the Zerg player. Overseers allowed you to scout effectively almost immediately after the Lair was done, as well as having multiple mobile detectors. The Viper means you will have only 1 mobile detector, slightly delayed after your Lair, and have to wait for ovie speed to finish before you can effectively scout your opponent. It's a small, but very significant delay to having adequate intel and detection.

The bigger problem, however, is that given it's necessity for detection, the Viper will be an ESSENTIAL unit. This makes balancing its costs and the strength of its other abilities problematic because Blizzard intends the Viper to be a powerful siege-breaking caster. I can't imagine the developers finding a good balance between making the Viper affordable enough to get every game when you need them and at the same time powerful enough to allow the Zerg player to crush entrenched positions with Blinding Cloud and snipe essential units with Abduct.

I really hope that they revert their decision to cut the overseer, leaving it in as just a detector, without Changeling or Contaminate. That would allow them to remove the detection role from the Viper and balance it strictly as a powerful support unit. We'll see what happens....

On November 10 2011 08:14 El Caz wrote:
Terrans spend energy (which translates into less mining speed) for their scouting and detection and it costs them zero units. Protoss can send in hallucinations at the risk of losing zero units, costing only sentry energy (and the upgrade). Zerg will lose it's "zero cost" unit. Having any unit be a detector has all sorts of cool gimmicks and tricks tied to it (I wonder if a ground unit gets turned into a detector, does it still detect while burrowed?) but I guess we'll have to wait and see if all these new possibilities compensates the loss of a scouting ability that only costs energy.