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On May 07 2014 18:07 NovemberstOrm wrote:
Removing the Swarm Host affects other match-ups you can't just remove it.
You must be kidding. SH ruins all match-ups. Do we really need SH in PVZ?! For real?! What happens if it's suddenly removed? Zerg still has TONS of options in the match-up. Literally EVERY freaking zerg unit has it's place in it. Or are you trying to tell that SH is essential for zerg vs terran mech? Then tell me how in hell did zerg play vs terrran in WoL? It was ok right? All SH brings to TvZ mech is boring turtle games.
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On May 08 2014 00:44 insitelol wrote:Show nested quote +On May 07 2014 18:07 NovemberstOrm wrote:
Removing the Swarm Host affects other match-ups you can't just remove it. You must be kidding. SH ruins all match-ups. Do we really need SH in PVZ?! For real?! What happens if it's suddenly removed? Zerg still has TONS of options in the match-up. Literally EVERY freaking zerg unit has it's place in it. Or are you trying to tell that SH is essential for zerg vs terran mech? Then tell me how in hell did zerg play vs terrran in WoL? It was ok right? All SH brings to TvZ mech is staleness and boring turtle games.
yup, SHs are needed. Both for PvZ and TvZ. Especially for PvZ.
Saying it isn't needed is like saying you don't need the Colossus in PvZ, "because there are other styles". Though that may be actually "more true", since you can always take the easy Sentry/Immortal way out with Protoss and are not bound to play macrogames to have a balanced matchup. (unlike zerg that can't allin its way to balance against P)
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SH make boring turtle games only if both players are playing heavily defensive, aiming for a deathball. For example, in PvZ, I actually quite like it when a Z turtles, techs to SH, and says to the toss : come on man, break me before I have so many SHs you'll suffer a long and painful death. Of course I prefer to see the toss tearing the Z apart through agressive play and good harass, but even if the toss fails to win, those make entertaining games that could become quite frequent since you can't really hope to win against SH by counter turtling with the viper queen corruptor spore SH combination being so cost efficient.
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Northern Ireland27471 Posts
I'd be careful with introducing more specific unit counters, under the following vague rationale, you encourage the worst kind of turtling to late game armies potentially.
BL/Infestor was despised, Toss gets Tempests which annihilate broods. Protoss discover the power of Airtoss/Templar and turtling. Zerg can't engage that composition easily or particularly effectively once reached, but Shost and mass static defence enables them to grind the Toss down.
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On May 07 2014 23:01 Big J wrote:Show nested quote +On May 07 2014 19:58 Sapphire.lux wrote:On May 07 2014 18:33 Big J wrote:On May 07 2014 17:55 Xapti wrote:On May 07 2014 17:43 RaiZ wrote:
I
Don't
Understand
Why
SH
Isn't
Removed
For Chris Sake !!!
I already knew this unit was going to be so fucking boring within the first day of HotS beta. I just don't understand why they just don't want to admit they're so fucking wrong and remove this worst designed unit ever.
They just don't want to make further effort in redesigning the game and that is really pissing me off. I'm so fucking glad I'm not playing this game competitively anymore. Agreed. I don't understand how SHs were even allowed into this game, let alone why they were kept after testing. It took a ton of incompetence to not see that SH's were a problem as soon as they were introduced. It's really enraging at how incompetent they were with this unit. They took out Warhounds (a more obviously stupid unit albeit), why couldn't they have removed Swarm Hosts? As far as I remember the feedback for HotS beta was kind of like: "Warhounds are bullshit; hellbats and mines are no real units; all Terran gets is bullshit. They still have no clue about what the protoss units should look like. OMG, they are changing the oracle again. The only good additions to the game are the zerg units." Many people were quite happy with the SH in its most early days, as far as I remember. The problems only started after the beta, when the turtlemode playstyles with it got invented and when it turned out that any form of aggressive SH build just gets crushed by building the right units - which happen to be the units you build anyways against Zerg. Also it's not like it is "the swarm host is the problem". In ZvZ endgame people use SHs because drops and nydus and all that mobile play that should be good against static units is bad, in that matchup even worse. In ZvT it is being used when you enter the stage of the game where other maxed Zerg armies become laughable because Mech destroys them all, yet the Terran can still increase his army strength for another hour with more 2supply Ravens and less workers if he so pleases, and the only way to stand a chance is by trying to do free damage. ZvP... yeah right. It's totally on the SH and has nothing to do with the Protoss just sitting behind walls and canons and Colossi and Storms and crushing maxed SH-less Zerg with 160supply armies. What needs to be done to remove SHs is some combo of the following things: -) a way to trade of T1-T2 ground army for zerg (like the medivac can do for Terran bio), so that P/T turtle becomes harder -) a better transition of those T1-T2 ground units into the lategame. Instead of having worthless hydra/roach/ling supply sitting around, make those units scary again in the lategame through T3 upgrades or some form of support units (though I feel like the Viper already does that and it's not enough for as long as a roach costs the same supply as a templar) -) a normal siege unit. Something that stops every Zerg player from going like: "oh, a choke point. Time to expand 5more times and wait until the opponent runs out of money, because I will never be able to go through there." And before someone tells me I'm just biased and want buffs... nope. I'd be happy with any insufficient buff of the above, even if it makes me drop two leagues and imbalances the game for a couple of months. But it has to be more than "hohoho, go and figure how to play without SHs". Because that's what everyZerg and their swarmmother has tried. You do sound a bit biased though. When HOTS came out, Terran and Protoss were so shit, so so shit, that by comparison the SH looked in a good place. It was a "potentially" functional unit that looked relatively unique. Although, most of the Zerg positive feedback was centered around the Viper, as a micro dependent and anti death ball unit. Most of the new additions for HOTS were bad, let's not forget this. The example you give with Terran adding more power through the 2 supply Raven is not a defense for the SH but just more, IMO correct, criticism of the state of the game. Massing casters is bad for obvious reasons, SH or not. If BLs and Vipers are not working as siege and choke breaking options it is because of more terrible HOTS additions, like the Tempests or spamable Ravens. The whole "add more casters" is rooted in their supplycosts. At the end of the day, a caster with a damage spell is hardly anything more or less than a combat unit with very low attackspeed and very high attackdamage. Yet they are not treated as such supply-balancewise, so, naturally they are the best units to max out on.
That is why you have to be more creative in making these spells. You can have them as support and not dmg dealers. The Viper is a great example of this. PDD is also a very good spell in this sense. Or, you give some very strong drawback, like super slow speed (HT) or maybe high supply. There are options.
Though it is definitely fixable. blizzard has done so with the ghost and the infestor when they had too powerful spells. Maybe too much, but yeah, we don't see them massed anytime a lategame happens these days.
They fixed the "massing" problem sure, but created others. Ghosts are now irrelevant in 2/3 MUs and Infestors are still capable of ending the game in a unticlimactic fashion with FG against air, though very rare.
BLs are bad to break chokes, because it requires air superiority. So when you have a ground army, it's kind of careless to add BLs unless that army can keep antiair back. Which infestors and hydras can't really these days, since they can be countered pretty hard themselves by the units you need the BLs for. While when you are not relying solely on a ground army to begin with and have air superiority, it means you are playing mutalisks and you don't need to care too much for chokes, because the idea is to not attack there anyways with a fast harassment unit.
Vipers usually can't break chokes, because the army is sitting behind the choke. By design, the unit is not suited for that job. It is good at defending a choke that your opponent wants to go through, but bad - sometimes even counterproductive when advancing into your own blinding clouds - at making you go through one.
Sorry if I sound biased to you. I don't know how else to formulate it. At the end of the day, I don't think it is possible to point out why bullshit like SH is needed without calling the cause of it bullshit as well in some way. And I know that not every Terran or Protoss would play those "max out and keep on adding better units" styles that the SH is required against if it wasn't for requiring those styles against SHs. But that doesn't mean it is not a problem.
Chokes, by definition, even in real life, are about defending a space with inferior forces. There is no question that you should need a superior army to break a position. Talking about Terran, if you have an army of Tanks with support behind a choke not even a retarded Immortal Archon Protoss army could break that. So needing air units and air superiority is not some design problem with the BL, it's normal. That HOTS gave us another gem of a super hard counter in the Tempest it's true, but again, having stupid units on one side is not an argument not to change or criticise other stupid units. Hope it makes sense lol
It seems to me that there is a bit of a chicken and the egg thing going around. Zerg says SH are a must against mech so they have no choice but to use them and Terran says it is forced to never move out and add Ravens because SHs root the Terran mech army in place. You won't really know the truth unless you take away the option from one of the two sides and see what happens.
The more i talk about it the more i get pissed that there are so many poor aspects in the design of this game and that Blizzard never listened to any serious fan feedback (not mine). When you read about LOTV and how they don't intend on making big changes so as not to disturb the current player base is just depressing.
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Hmmm. So Blizzard is looking at possible changes to the swarmhost, but as of right now wants to see if it is possible to change balance in some other, smaller way...
Sounds like swarmhost changes for LOTV!
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I really do think they will change the Swarm Host in LotV. They are just limiting major unit redesigns to a fresh expansion, which makes sense to me.
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they took a page out of starbow  there the hydralisk deals bonus damage vs biological air units ^^
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On May 08 2014 00:44 insitelol wrote:Show nested quote +On May 07 2014 18:07 NovemberstOrm wrote:
Removing the Swarm Host affects other match-ups you can't just remove it. You must be kidding. SH ruins all match-ups. Do we really need SH in PVZ?! For real?! What happens if it's suddenly removed? Zerg still has TONS of options in the match-up. Literally EVERY freaking zerg unit has it's place in it. Or are you trying to tell that SH is essential for zerg vs terran mech? Then tell me how in hell did zerg play vs terrran in WoL? It was ok right? All SH brings to TvZ mech is boring turtle games.
PvZ would be completely unplayable without SwarmHost, and mech in TvZ too. It doesn't mean that, right now, you can't play without Swarmhost, but if you remove the threat of that option, the other play style, like mutalisk, roach hydra viper timing or even the fast ultralisk can't work at all.
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Bisutopia19398 Posts
A completely out of the box idea that will never happen.
- Make the the ability to spawn locust be a castable ability.
- Make the castable abilty take health from the SH like stim.
- Swarm Host Regain health like any other unit, but more quickly on creep
- Can use Queens to tranfuse them back to full health quickly so they can continue casting spawn locust
- Enable burrow movement for balance
- Buff spawn locusts
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On May 08 2014 02:44 BisuDagger wrote:A completely out of the box idea that will never happen. - Make the the ability to spawn locust be a castable ability.
- Make the castable abilty take health from the SH like stim.
- Swarm Host Regain health like any other unit, but more quickly on creep
- Can use Queens to tranfuse them back to full health quickly so they can continue casting spawn locust
- Enable burrow movement for balance
- Buff spawn locusts
That's already the case.
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Bisutopia19398 Posts
On May 08 2014 02:45 Big J wrote:Show nested quote +On May 08 2014 02:44 BisuDagger wrote:A completely out of the box idea that will never happen. - Make the the ability to spawn locust be a castable ability.
- Make the castable abilty take health from the SH like stim.
- Swarm Host Regain health like any other unit, but more quickly on creep
- Can use Queens to tranfuse them back to full health quickly so they can continue casting spawn locust
- Enable burrow movement for balance
- Buff spawn locusts
That's already the case.
I just meant in combination with the second point. Eliminate auto spawn. It could be each Spawn Locust stim does 3 waves per cast but will not cast with out issueing the command manually.
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Counterproposal:
- Decrease locust health
- Decrease locust range
- Decrease locust speed off creep
- Drastically increase locust damage output
Effect? Locusts can quickly be taken out by tanks/colossi but become much more effective in combination with other units (like roaches). SH players are using combined arms tactics far too little in my opinion.
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There is a an extremely easy fix to this problem, do absolutely nothing else but make broodlords specifically, no other unit, but broodlords, immune to abduct. vipers abducting in pvz is necessary, just stop it as a thing in ZVZ, how hard is that?
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On May 08 2014 00:44 insitelol wrote:Show nested quote +On May 07 2014 18:07 NovemberstOrm wrote:
Removing the Swarm Host affects other match-ups you can't just remove it. You must be kidding. SH ruins all match-ups. Do we really need SH in PVZ?! For real?! What happens if it's suddenly removed? Zerg still has TONS of options in the match-up. Literally EVERY freaking zerg unit has it's place in it. Or are you trying to tell that SH is essential for zerg vs terran mech? Then tell me how in hell did zerg play vs terrran in WoL? It was ok right? All SH brings to TvZ mech is boring turtle games.
That's 100% false and your personal opinion. Swarm host have not even came close to "running" other match ups. It's like no one in this thread watches top level StarCraft and only bring up 1 or 2 games from EU for their silly arguments on why they hate the unit.
Terran has no issue with swarm host, they have the best anti swarm host tools when going mech. Tanks and the Raven destroy them, even stated by Korean Terrrans and top level casters such as Artosis. Protoss in Korea have no issue at all dealing with Swarm host, Zergs in Korea even been using swarm host in non turtle ways such as using them to just pressure locations while using there main army to attack, like Symbol did in GSL last night, he lost that game btw because protoss knew how to deal with that army comp. Swarm host are incredibly non mobile and most maps we have are large and not turtle friendly.
Just because you low level players on the ladder dislike swarm host, don't mean it should be removed. Since I hate the dumb protoss units like storm, lets remove them I think they ruin all match up. If you removed swarm host, Protoss could just a move to victory once they hit mid to late game. Swarm host are actually needed to defeat a late game protoss army on most maps, only some maps are good for muta/corrupter style or base trade styles.
Sorry folks having all games last less then 15 mins are boring as crap. Mech games and TVZ games using swarm host are very entertaining that so far have been displayed on a pro lvl..
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On May 08 2014 02:51 And G wrote:Counterproposal: - Decrease locust health
- Decrease locust range
- Decrease locust speed off creep
- Drastically increase locust damage output
Effect? Locusts can quickly be taken out by tanks/colossi but become much more effective in combination with other units (like roaches). SH players are using combined arms tactics far too little in my opinion.
Um, no.
If anything I'd say make them faster and weaker and make them respawn more often.
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Bisutopia19398 Posts
On May 08 2014 02:56 whatami wrote:
There is a an extremely easy fix to this problem, do absolutely nothing else but make broodlords specifically, no other unit, but broodlords, immune to abduct. vipers abducting in pvz is necessary, just stop it as a thing in ZVZ, how hard is that?
This has been discussed to death in this thread. The whole point is to eliminate nerfing a unit's ability against another unit. It makes the game harder to understand for a new user who says "wait I can abduct massive units BUT not broodlords" and wonders why there is this bias there. The rules of the game need to makes sense and breaking the standard for these rules can lead to bad things. Storm to stong on drones, half damage to drones. Fungal too weak zealots, better buff it versus zealots. These are just random pit falls a dev team will run into if they the rules of the game.
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How about making abduct only affect ground units?
On May 08 2014 01:46 Qwyn wrote:
Hmmm. So Blizzard is looking at possible changes to the swarmhost, but as of right now wants to see if it is possible to change balance in some other, smaller way...
Sounds like swarmhost changes for LOTV!
SoonTM
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Nah gindo, then tempest/void/mothershipcore/carrier cannot be abduct, baaad impact on pvz.
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On May 08 2014 03:02 BisuDagger wrote:Show nested quote +On May 08 2014 02:56 whatami wrote:
There is a an extremely easy fix to this problem, do absolutely nothing else but make broodlords specifically, no other unit, but broodlords, immune to abduct. vipers abducting in pvz is necessary, just stop it as a thing in ZVZ, how hard is that? This has been discussed to death in this thread. The whole point is to eliminate nerfing a unit's ability against another unit. It makes the game harder to understand for a new user who says "wait I can abduct massive units BUT not broodlords" and wonders why there is this bias there. The rules of the game need to makes sense and breaking the standard for these rules can lead to bad things. Storm to stong on drones, half damage to drones. Fungal too weak zealots, better buff it versus zealots. These are just random pit falls a dev team will run into if they the rules of the game.
Meh, first time I tried to Fungal an Ultralisk 3 years ago and it didn't work, my first thought was "oh...so Fungal doesn't root Ultras...OK, cool." And that was that. It's not that big a deal.
And as for buffing/nerfing damage vs specific units, where do you think the unit classifications of light/armored/massive came from? It's a mechanic designed by RTS devs to make certain units react to certain attacks and spells in different ways. If Ultralisks get a "Frenzied" passive for CC immunity, why can't Brood Lords just have some kind of anti-abduct passive?
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EPT
