I'm zerg so maybe i haven't to say it but with hydra buff i just have to make a modify 200pop stephano roach but with 200/200 hydra around 12-13min and beat every toss and terran with constant rally while taking only 4gaz.
If toss holding i go spire and mass muta to kill collossus if terran holding i just addultralisk/infestor with my hydras. Yeah as hydra cost low gaz pretty sure i can afford but i don't think anyway T/P can hold mass hydra unless if i macro bad or do epic micro fail.
It's just broken and will make gm leagues like 100% of zerg.
Something better for promote hydra is make hydra upgrades cheaper or combine them (honestly the +1 range upgrade is a must but too expensive and make zerg really need to commit into hydra tech while the unit is only good in midgame for timing and as support of some units so teching hydra is a bit all-in right now)
As for the other change, i don't understand david logic. He want to balance late game with a tempest buff which can turn the unit into a mid game building harassee (speciali with habitation station in the map pool has he seen sos playing ?)
I don't really think a duration reduction on PO is the best way to go about nerfing it. 50 seconds of 13 range cannon is still a very long time and very good at shutting down attacks. I would rather see something like a range reduction or a significant energy cost increase. And for the MSC itself, an energy cost increase on time warp is certainly a good thing, though its sight range is definitely also in need of reduction.
Lol Stephano will return and do a 12 minute hydralisk max. ))) On a more serious note, I think the tempest change will have an awful impact on PvT and PvZ (early game). I know this may not effect master and grandmaster players, but I have seen some proxy tempest play in both of these match ups, and it can be awfully effective. The damage bonus vs Structures will be awfully difficult to hold with both of these races if proxy tempest were to occur. Blizzard, I know you said you were hesitant to implement this change, and I sure hope you don't.
I think the best move here is increase of time warp cost.
It was too low, during blink all-ins you would see players using their initial two warps and then quickly after a third, sometimes even a fourth if the battle extended.
I honestly can't see working balance patch withouth making other protoss MU broken or unplayable. Nothing will change in a race that need a redesign. It is just silly how gimmicky protoss is.
On January 24 2014 07:20 Tyrhanius wrote: Something better for promote hydra is make hydra upgrades cheaper or combine them (honestly the +1 range upgrade is a must but too expensive and make zerg really need to commit into hydra tech while the unit is only good in midgame for timing and as support of some units so teching hydra is a bit all-in right now)
Yes, if they want to make the roach --> hydra transition easier in ZvZ, then maybe better to lower the 400 gas of infrastructure you need to get them going (den + ups), rather than lower the hydra cost? Now you just make them more powerful once you get them, but still a high starting cost.
I really love hydralisk change. it may change ZvZ completely, because instead roach/muta wars we will have hydra-festor wars or something more cool and different.
Hmmmm… about that swarm host problem, I've thought, why not make the swarm hosts the same as in the campaign? they are not burrowed, they are only rooted, so you no longer need detection to kill them, and since they are not burrowed, the zerg army cannot move on top on them, which makes things much harder on tight maps. just something I've been thinking lately...
Ok first of all, yes about the roach, but god no about hydraling... it destroys gateway hahaha
It actually doesn't. Gateway units with good forcefields can beat hydra/ling quite easily.
This will kill SG openings.
Good. Protoss has too many viable openings as it is, zerg needs some way to shut down a few of them without committing fully.
Idk what point of your post was more ridiculous, the fact you think sentry zealot stalker is good composition against mass hydraling (unless you're counting storm and archons as gateway, in which case, you're kinda missing the point of the issue with this thing), or the fact you think it's good to get rid of stargate openings lol
You're being overly dramatic. This will not kill SG openings, it will make them more risky. Which is good, currently protoss can get away more or less any opening because of PO. Giving Z and T more ways to punish bad/greedy P openings is a good move.
And no, zealot sentry stalker of roughly equal army size can beat hydra/ling. You may not be able to, but many protoss players are.
sg openers shouldn't be "powerful" in the way robo play is anyway. the fact that toss is able to open sg and take a third with voids+sentries+simcity is a reflection of how incredibly powerful skilled defensive protoss play can be. giving z a way to go aggro and punish it is hardly breaking the matchup. and if the timing hits too hard, why not think "how can we fine tune this - upgrade research time, hydra den morph time, etc." instead of "NO! you may not use hydralisks for more than a tiny timing-based window before we hard counter them with two different core techs!"
the hallucination here is that zerg will somehow be able to simply power an unstoppable hydra/ling army while still going balls to the wall macro, which i just can't see being the case. hydra aggression is very risky without the speed upgrade because speedless hydras are very hard to evac if things go wrong. if you go speed upgrade first, you have no range. if you wait for range, it takes forever or you need to go double den. if you don't get upgrades, the units kind of suck. protoss seems to think that if they're not allowed to scout a timing and defend it WHILE taking a third then the build is OP. maybe build some units on 2base for... *gasp* defense?!
On January 24 2014 07:35 PrivateGG wrote: Hmmmm… about that swarm host problem, I've thought, why not make the swarm hosts the same as in the campaign? they are not burrowed, they are only rooted, so you no longer need detection to kill them, and since they are not burrowed, the zerg army cannot move on top on them, which makes things much harder on tight maps. just something I've been thinking lately...
Then swarm hosts will become completely useless.
In campaign, non-cloaked Swarm Hosts were strong because of other mutations, such as faster Locust spawn, or locusts atacking air, or air locusts
If you want to nerf, think a bit about compensating buffs.
On January 24 2014 07:35 PrivateGG wrote: Hmmmm… about that swarm host problem, I've thought, why not make the swarm hosts the same as in the campaign? they are not burrowed, they are only rooted, so you no longer need detection to kill them, and since they are not burrowed, the zerg army cannot move on top on them, which makes things much harder on tight maps. just something I've been thinking lately...
that has absolutely nothing to do with the swarm host + static d + viper style that people think is ruining the game. that makes swarm hosts weaker in the MIDGAME where they NEED to be able to overwhelm deathballs that can't be otherwise engaged
I am kind of ok with all changes, except the Hydra one. Making them SIGNIFICANTLY cheaper? I mean really? They are ok the way they are. There damage output is insane as is, and the downside of their lack of speed has been kind of addressed in HotS - making them replaceable more easily is overkill imho.
Typical David Kim changes. I don't think the Tempest change will help at all. It'd make them broken in team games at least. And I just remembered there's carriers in this game hahah.
hydras are already really cost effective zvp. only 25 gas would be ridiculous. I don't understand why blizzard wants protoss to rely more on splash damage and the collosus. with this buff there would be wayyyy too many hydras to go anything BUT collosus
On January 24 2014 07:31 Existor wrote: I really love hydralisk change. it may change ZvZ completely, because instead roach/muta wars we will have hydra-festor wars or something more cool and different.
I thought the purpose of this balance test map was to explore changes to the TvP matchup. Why are they testing changes to hydras and tempests? Maybe focusing on one thing at a time would be a better approach.
EPT
))) On a more serious note, I think the tempest change will have an awful impact on PvT and PvZ (early game). I know this may not effect master and grandmaster players, but I have seen some proxy tempest play in both of these match ups, and it can be awfully effective. The damage bonus vs Structures will be awfully difficult to hold with both of these races if proxy tempest were to occur. Blizzard, I know you said you were hesitant to implement this change, and I sure hope you don't.
