If you have 14 lings VS 2 hellbats without any upgrades and group both tight together and then attack each other without any micro in the unit tester. Result: The lings will kill the hellbats leaving 6-8 lings.
If I do the same with the hellbats under a blinding cloud sometimes both hellbats stay alive while all lings die. Sometimes lings win with 1 or 2 left!
Why? Because the attack radius is 2 and the FIRST flame does only hit the first row of lings without blinding cloud. With blindingcloud the first flame almost kills 6 lings.
*UPDATE*
While the thread-title is a little provocative, I want to sum up the thread to actually get the point on what this is about: Actually its not so much about blinding cloud as the exact scenario with slow lings (T1) vs hellbats under a blinding cloud (T3) will rarely happen. BUT the finding leads to the question on how to use hellbats in an efficient way. For any scenario like in video where units run to the hellbats and try to attack them it is better (for the hellbats) to let them come near before the first attack, as this one hits MORE untis before cooldown. In a late game scenario with different unit compositions it might not be so crucial, but in other scenarios like a hellbat/marine all-in it might be the win to micro hellbats to be more efficient. So it might be better to move them in melee range and then attack rather than just a-moving. But be aware that roaches etc might kite them.
I will do it later (need to get the capture tool running again .,.)and edit my first post. Kind of crazy, but logical if you think of... more lings are in the 2-range if they attack when they are under the blinding cloud and less lings are in the range if they attack already when the first ling is in the radius (and the other behind it). But it might depend on the engagement and formation of the lings, too... I will play around a little more..
i'm guessing this has something to do with where the zerglings stack in relation to where the first few hellbat shots are as not all 14 zerglings can get a perfect surround on both hellbats.
but hey mb it is a bug, would love to see a video.
Interesting, but seemingly situational, as one would imagine that if there's more than a single file row of hellbats, then it would be beneficial as the back row does not attack, correct?
On April 02 2013 13:39 TerranosaurusWrecks wrote: i'm guessing this has something to do with where the zerglings stack in relation to where the first few hellbat shots are as not all 14 zerglings can get a perfect surround on both hellbats.
exactly. it's analogous to a tank shot hitting the edge of a roach ball, versus hitting the center.
Of course when firing at max range the hellbat splash won't be hitting as many lings as possible... Enough so that apparently being at melee range is better against lings even though you're supposed to have a range advantage, meaning shots fired before lings get in range. But closing the range faster may actually allow you to deal more splash damage, before the lings spread out to surround I guess.
But with micro I suppose the player can get their units to do this even if you don't blinding cloud. I've though of move commanding closer to something with a longer range like roaches, so maximize splash, but I wouldn't have expected it to be beneficial against lings. Probably zealots as well.
Thanks for the info. I think there are various situations where you should cast blinding cloud on hellbats and various situations where you shouldn't. I think it would be a good test to see what happens when you cast blinding cloud on say 6-8 hellbats. The hellbats in the back won't be able to shoot until they get surrounded by lings, so things might be different.
On April 02 2013 13:48 Gfire wrote: Of course when firing at max range the hellbat splash won't be hitting as many lings as possible... Enough so that apparently being at melee range is better against lings even though you're supposed to have a range advantage, meaning shots fired before lings get in range. But closing the range faster may actually allow you to deal more splash damage, before the lings spread out to surround I guess.
But with micro I suppose the player can get their units to do this even if you don't blinding cloud. I've though of move commanding closer to something with a longer range like roaches, so maximize splash, but I wouldn't have expected it to be beneficial against lings. Probably zealots as well.
What you said is true, but you make it sound like this was obvious to everyone with the bolded sentence. I don't think and overly large amount of people considered this with the use of blinding cloud initially though.
It makes complete sense, but I personally never realized that blinding cloud would make this happen despite complete understanding how the attack and blinding cloud work. Kind of neat. Still going to be very rare that you're making lings vs a player with hellbats in his army though
On April 02 2013 13:48 Gfire wrote: Of course when firing at max range the hellbat splash won't be hitting as many lings as possible... Enough so that apparently being at melee range is better against lings even though you're supposed to have a range advantage, meaning shots fired before lings get in range. But closing the range faster may actually allow you to deal more splash damage, before the lings spread out to surround I guess.
But with micro I suppose the player can get their units to do this even if you don't blinding cloud. I've though of move commanding closer to something with a longer range like roaches, so maximize splash, but I wouldn't have expected it to be beneficial against lings. Probably zealots as well.
What you said is true, but you make it sound like this was obvious to everyone with the bolded sentence. I don't think and overly large amount of people considered this with the use of blinding cloud initially though.
It makes complete sense, but I personally never realized that blinding cloud would make this happen despite complete understanding how the attack and blinding cloud work. Kind of neat. Still going to be very rare that you're making lings vs a player with hellbats in his army though
Ah, sorry, that was not my intention. I'm in the same boat as you... I hadn't thought of how it would play out either. My phrasing was poor.
Thanks, the video is a lot more helpful than those drawings.
It really does look like the big difference is with the first shot... It's quite significant. They do very little in the first shot without blinding cloud. I wonder how easy it would be to move command to get them to delay their first shot all the time.
Is this a belated april fools and the hellbats in the second video are just 3-3 compared to when they have no upgrades without blinding cloud? I am sorry if my accusations are incorrect but I find it hard to believe this at this time of the year.
On April 02 2013 13:36 latan wrote: doesn't make sense to me, probably a bug. is the hellbat attack instant?
Basically, with blinding cloud on, the hellbats are being forced to wait to fire until the lings are close. When the lings are close, the first shot hits ALL THE LINGS (tm). This actually makes the lings die faster.
You can reproduce this easily by holding fire until things close from the maximum range (where the attack would only hit the first few) and waiting for them to get closer before attacking, so you can hit more with the first attack, like the vid shows it actually helps a lot more than attacking early to start cooldown earlier.
Ah, video and pics help so much, I was confused why at first, but I believed it anyways. Now I know why I'm believing. Theoretically and small-expiremenentally it seems correct, but we'll have to see in games. i.e., use Take Command feature and don't use it/use it.
the only reason it works like this is because its amove, if you micro'd the hellbats not to fire until the lings were close and clumped, it would be the same thing
wow, i'm actually a little surprised, but this is a great piece of knowledge to be found!
I mean you probably won't have that many zerglings attacking hellbats while you are using blinding cloud, but you never know when this could come in handy, it probably isn't the way blizzard intended but i don't think that it is worth patching. you aren't going to waste blinding cloud on hellbats anyway, and even if you do then it's only a little extra damage as it will only effect the first wave of zerglings.
In theory, move command micro is pretty essential for hellbats early. This is quite the significant difference, and early game is probably worth the extra effort to do.
On April 02 2013 15:00 iMrising wrote: I think blizz might have not intended this .-.
A unit that was specifically designed to help terran m&m compositions in melee range, becomes more effective when it's range get further reduced to true melee? Who would have thought....
On April 02 2013 15:17 FakeDeath wrote: So is this a bug?
No, it's a result of slow rate of fire and attacks being more effective when targets are given more time to approach so that more of them are in the splash radius. It's exactly the same with regular hellions just less prominent
On April 02 2013 15:17 FakeDeath wrote: So is this a bug?
It's just an after affect of how the Hellbat animation works. This also means that you need to be moving forward with the Hellbats to maximize DPS as a Terran player instead of being content with an attack command.
Maybe someone would like to do some extra tests with a mixed unit composition. Now we know hellbats can kill lings more efficient if they are at the frontline under blinding cloud, but what happens if they are stucked behind marines, marauders?
It is difficult to constantly place them in the front row, maybe that will further differentiate the best from the better players. Also it might add another tactical aspect where backstabbing with lings become much more efficient.
On April 02 2013 14:29 ChristianS wrote: From the other side of things, then, might it be beneficial to move-command hellbats until lings have a surround? Edit: Woah, ninja'd.
On April 02 2013 14:59 darkscream wrote: the title of this thread is way misleading
the only reason it works like this is because its amove, if you micro'd the hellbats not to fire until the lings were close and clumped, it would be the same thing
What's so misleading about it? It says not to blinding cloud hellbats and the explanation/video show why; seems pretty straightforward to me.
Yeah Terran can mitigate it (to a pretty large degree probably) but it's an increase in required unit control for him and you save energy on your vipers so it seems like a informative piece of information to share.
On April 02 2013 15:42 Ghanburighan wrote: Nice find, and as others have said. Makes me rather think about move-command micro to increase hellbat damage.
Not really viable, because:
1. Speedlings =/= slowlings. Trying to "micro" will probably lead to even less damage done. 2. Speedling on creep will come so fast that you won't even be able to blink.
On April 02 2013 15:58 Grobyc wrote: What's so misleading about it?
it's a-move vs a-move. which doesn't/shouldn't ever happen.
The terran could force this without blinding cloud by not firing with the hellbats until the correct time.
The zerg could still use blindling cloud and actually split his units up instead of blobbing them.
The title of the post is DO NOT USE BLINDING CLOUD AGAINST HELLBATS. It's misleading because it should actually be "do not a-move lings into hellbats in a blinding cloud"..
On April 02 2013 15:58 Grobyc wrote: What's so misleading about it?
it's a-move vs a-move. which doesn't/shouldn't ever happen.
The terran could force this without blinding cloud by not firing with the hellbats until the correct time.
The zerg could still use blindling cloud and actually split his units up instead of blobbing them.
The title of the post is DO NOT USE BLINDING CLOUD AGAINST HELLBATS. It's misleading because it should actually be "do not a-move lings into hellbats in a blinding cloud"..
i think you'll find a-move vs. a-move happens quite a lot!
On April 02 2013 16:07 Aerisky wrote: Does this mean you should put hellbats on hold position or somehow get them to delay their attack until lings are closer?
Hold position wouldn't delay anything. Hold positioned units still attack as soon as something comes into range (except workers and such). Move command, though!
Why is this test with vipers and slow lings? If I have vipers out, I'd probably have ling speed as well. What is the result of the test with speedlings?
It makes perfect sense. Think BW lurkers and why stop spamming lurkers was so useful. If you wait so that the splash will hit more units, of course more will die faster.
On April 02 2013 15:58 Grobyc wrote: What's so misleading about it?
it's a-move vs a-move. which doesn't/shouldn't ever happen.
The terran could force this without blinding cloud by not firing with the hellbats until the correct time.
The zerg could still use blindling cloud and actually split his units up instead of blobbing them.
The title of the post is DO NOT USE BLINDING CLOUD AGAINST HELLBATS. It's misleading because it should actually be "do not a-move lings into hellbats in a blinding cloud"..
Title says don't blinding cloud vs hellbats which is indeed more effective in the majority of situations, likely vs other zerg units as well as the splash damage hits them more as well. Yeah it leaves some information out, details go in the OP. It's honestly not as misleading as you make it seem. I could easily point out half a dozen current threads that have less detailed titles. Meh.
when are you actually going to blinding cloud 2 hellbats vs 14 lings? i'd like to see this with 10+ of them vs 50+ lings or something. the power of blinding cloud is that units in the middle of the death ball do nothing.
I tested a lot of different late game scenarios with this idea and it doesn't seem to matter when you have normal circumstances (lings with speed etc). I didn't get the move command into attack command with hellbats to work either.
Still a nice find, but at least in my experience it won't affect normal game play.
This is just a specific case where waiting to fire the first shot with the hellbats is better which blinding cloud causes to happen. I doubt this is really the case with much bigger numbers or if the zerg micro's a bit more.
It would be interesting to see if this also happens with roaches. Even more so if it might be beneficial to move command your hellbats slightly into the enemy before attacking to get better surface area.
And as a nice Terran gentleman, I can give this piece of pro-advice to my good Zerg fellows: DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES CAST BLINDING CLOUD ON MARINES OR MARAUDERS! It actually makes them stronger, because it's like they're eating vegetables, and it's actually good for their body. Kind of the same deal with Fungal Growth, by the way.
On April 02 2013 17:08 ZenithM wrote: And as a nice Terran gentleman, I can give this piece of pro-advice to my good Zerg fellows: DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES CAST BLINDING CLOUD ON MARINES OR MARAUDERS! It actually makes them stronger, because it's like they're eating vegetables, and it's actually good for their body. Kind of the same deal with Fungal Growth, by the way.
Don't thank me guys.
Tbh I think zerg should just stop using the ability alltogether, it increases the dps of all units, especially tanks!
On a more serious note, interesting find. Sadly don't think there will be a way to use it practically. I suppose when fighting roaches, this illustrates just how important it is to move the hellbats from 2 range to 1, but then the roaches are normally kiting when hellbats are alive anyway..
Any time you test hellbats vs zerglings you're likely to get some strange results. Just a-moving them, sometimes lings actually manage to kill them efficiently, sometimes they don't even get a hit. The funny thing is, the more I try to micro lings the more they die.
Test this with speedlings, as someone said, as slowlings vs hellbats is never gonna happen. i suspect the difference becomes pretty minute, as they spread out much quicker.
So like the guy above me just said... this isn't just about blinding cloud.
People can micro their hellbats to own lings even more [now] by telling the hellbats to move before engaging clumps of zerglings.
On April 02 2013 18:36 Surili wrote: Test this with speedlings, as someone said, as slowlings vs hellbats is never gonna happen. i suspect the difference becomes pretty minute, as they spread out much quicker.
VERY good point. I didn't bother to watch the video; I kinda assumed the lings would have had speed. Not having speed is just a ridiculously unrealistic scenario (unless you were playing campaign )
The title should be Do not blinding cloud locusts unless you are building anything other than lings.
On Topic: This is an interesting concept. But I guess I'm not surprised no one realized this until now because it only really effects Hellbat vs Lings + Blinding cloud, which is a scenario in which you would not really use a blinding cloud anyway. Even if you had a composition which included lings and other units you would not cast blinding cloud until the lings are dead.
On April 02 2013 18:36 Surili wrote: Test this with speedlings, as someone said, as slowlings vs hellbats is never gonna happen. i suspect the difference becomes pretty minute, as they spread out much quicker.
doesn't make much of a difference
the attack damage happens in an instant, it's not a dot, it's a damage-impulse. and the first attack necessarily hits less lings if you don't have blinding cloud, regardless of speed.
anyway if you have a criticall mass of hellbats which is not that many at all they will own an unlimited amount of lings with or without binding cloud;)
On April 02 2013 17:08 ZenithM wrote: And as a nice Terran gentleman, I can give this piece of pro-advice to my good Zerg fellows: DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES CAST BLINDING CLOUD ON MARINES OR MARAUDERS! It actually makes them stronger, because it's like they're eating vegetables, and it's actually good for their body. Kind of the same deal with Fungal Growth, by the way.
Don't thank me guys.
Now that you mention it, I've recently discovered similar symptoms on my siege tanks. Blinding cloud makes them 5x stronger and also invisible whilst inside the cloud. I would really discourage the use of this ability against Terran mechanical armies.
While this is a useful find, it quickly becomes obsolete once you have more hellbats, if there more than 1 rank of hellbats the blinding cloud will stop some of them attacking entirely, which would be much better for the zerg. Why you'd attack hellbats with lings is beyond me though, those things are crazy good.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think firebats did something similar in BW. At the very least you're suppose to leave your firebats when the lings come running in to the dark swarm.
On April 02 2013 22:43 kc2siq wrote: Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think firebats did something similar in BW. At the very least you're suppose to leave your firebats when the lings come running in to the dark swarm.
Then again, haven't played/watched in forever...
I don't think they did anything surprising under dark swarm, they just weren't effected due to all of the damage being splash. Swarm simply moved the damage 1 space (hex? some unit of measurement that I am not familiar with) closer to the damage dealer, thus immediate non-splash projectiles (like marine fire) was negated completely, yet tanks were only hindered somewhat, as the point in which the damage is being dealt is moved, but there is still a splash effect. Firebats just kind of blew fire through everything and didn't give a fuck.
On a related note, microing Hellbats to be at melee range when attacking Marines instead of being at 2 range actually lets them trade much better against the Marines. During the beta, I played around in the HotS unit tester and found out that blindly a-moving Hellbats against Marines gave poorer results than if I went for the full Hellbat hug against the Marines.
On April 02 2013 22:43 kc2siq wrote: Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think firebats did something similar in BW. At the very least you're suppose to leave your firebats when the lings come running in to the dark swarm.
Then again, haven't played/watched in forever...
I don't think they did anything surprising under dark swarm, they just weren't effected due to all of the damage being splash. Swarm simply moved the damage 1 space (hex? some unit of measurement that I am not familiar with) closer to the damage dealer, thus immediate non-splash projectiles (like marine fire) was negated completely, yet tanks were only hindered somewhat, as the point in which the damage is being dealt is moved, but there is still a splash effect. Firebats just kind of blew fire through everything and didn't give a fuck.
Nah, siege tanks don't do direct damage, only splash, so if you spread properly tanks are basically negated using dark swarm. The firebat's attack isn't a projectile I think, so he still does his main weapon damage+splash. Just looked it up on liquipedia:
Under Dark Swarm, the projectile is shifted to the side. Therefore, the point of impact is also shifted to the side. Since the point of impact is shifted to the side, units under Dark Swarm are only affected by the splash damage of those units with radial splash. In addition, if a unit is on top of the shifted point of impact, it takes full damage from the attack. Burrowed units do not take damage from radial splash under Dark Swarm. There are a few exceptions to this effect, and they are the: Reaver, Infested Terran, Firebat, and Spider Mine. In the case of these units, they don't have a projectile attack sprite, so their attacks are not shifted at all. The two airborne radial splash damage dealers both do not attack ground, thus they never come into conflict with Dark Swarm.
So in other words Reaver,IT,Firebat, Spider Mine direct attack works,but every other unit, only the splash damage or melee attacks or storm/irradiate/plaguuuuuuuuuu work under dark swarm. Talk about OP =D.
now that I think about it, it's all because of a hold fire, they are able to save their attack until most of the lings arrive instead of the hellbat shooting ASAP which results in less damage.
Pretty interesting, I don't think this really applies to zerg because they will be using roach/hydra. However, for terran this poses an interesting way to use hellbats in early-mid game TvZ against heavy ling compositions. Is it more efficient to actually let lings get closer before you attack? using movement to hold fire then pressing s when the lings get close enough could potentially lead to more upfront damage.
EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/glNh5lf.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imm.io/11Cnu.png)
