We’d like to give everyone an update on the current Balance Test Map and also address some of the recent Swarm Host stalemate situations going on.
On the Balance Test Map front:
There weren’t as many top level tournament games going on recently, so we’re unsure if what we were seeing towards the end of last year is still the case. We’re getting mixed feedback on various issues these days on the pro side. For example, in TvZ we still receive a lot of pro feedback on how Zerg has a slight disadvantage. However, we’re also now hearing from others that Zerg players have adapted better to mid-game timing attacks and now have a slight advantage in the match-up. We’re holding off on the proposed balance change for now until we can more clearly see what has changed in terms of match-up balance.
Rather than focusing on what occurred near the end of Season 3, please help us in focusing on what’s going on right now in the brand new season. We’ll continue to monitor the need for this change and provide further updates in the future.
Regarding the Swarm Host, we’d like to start testing two changes in a new Balance Test Map:
All Swarm Host changes from Void carried over to HotS.
Redesigned from a siege-tool to a mobile harass tool. Spawn Locust can now be used while unburrowed, but must be manually activated. Locusts have been buffed and can be upgraded at Tier 3 to fly over terrain. They must then swoop down to the ground to engage.
Raven Point Defense Drones duration decreasing to 20 seconds
Both of these changes are pretty significant, and while we typically avoid major design changes in balance updates, we feel it’s appropriate in this particular situation. Not only because we’d like to address the turtling scenarios, but also because we’ve already spent a lot of time on these changes internally.
However, we do have a few major concerns.
What happens to vs. Mech?
Internally we are seeing that it’s a nerf and a buff. Nerf for obvious reasons, and buff because Locusts swooping down to a Siege Tank line can be deadly if executed at just the right time. But we would need to know more for certain through public balance testing to see the exact strengths/weaknesses of this change in this scenario.
What happens to mass Protoss air supported by High Templar?
This is a bigger concern for us due to Locusts’ ability to zone out High Templar being greatly diminished. However, there will be a buff on the harassment front so we’re not sure where this will end up. Again, this is something that will need to be heavily tested, and we may need to make additional changes depending on how this turns out.
What happens to the highest pro level?
This issue isn’t as critical of an issue at the highest levels of play, especially the games going on in Korea. Korea has more major tournaments this year, and these changes could negatively/unnecessarily affect that skill level. This will be another area that we’ll need to watch out for.
We feel we’ll need to dedicate a longer period of time to test out major changes like this before potentially pushing them out to the live game. More than ever, getting a large amount of external testing and feedback will be critical to our decision making process. We’ll do our best to contact pro-players around the world to get their feedback, but we ask that everyone put an especially high emphasis in testing out the changes. Without the help of our community and the pros, it won’t be possible to push out a change of this magnitude.
Blizzard has also released specific details about the new swarm hosts here
Swarm Host
100/200/40
4 Supply
No longer start with Burrow
Enduring Locusts upgrade is no longer available.
Evolve Flying Locust upgrade has been added.
Spawn Locust
Cooldown 60 seconds Can be cast while burrowed or unburrowed. Must be manually cast. No longer has auto-cast. Spawns 2 Locusts. Locusts have a 30 second timed life.
Locust
12 damage
0.6 weapon speed
30 second duration
Evolve Flying Locust
Requires Lair
200/200/160
Allows Locusts spawned by Swarm Hosts to fly. Flying Locusts can use Swoop to land and attack.
Swoop: Orders the Locust to land at the targeted location, allowing it to attack.
Poll: What do you think about SH change ?
I like it (584)
74%
I don't like it (186)
23%
I don't care (24)
3%
794 total votes
Your vote: What do you think about SH change ?
(Vote): I like it (Vote): I don't like it (Vote): I don't care
Poll: What do you think about Raven change ?
I like it (502)
71%
I don't like it (173)
24%
I don't care (36)
5%
711 total votes
Your vote: What do you think about Raven change ?
(Vote): I like it (Vote): I don't like it (Vote): I don't care
Poll: Is Blizzard saving esport ?
I like it (504)
74%
I don't like it (114)
17%
I don't care (66)
10%
684 total votes
Your vote: Is Blizzard saving esport ?
(Vote): I like it (Vote): I don't like it (Vote): I don't care
David Kim dropping a Megaton here. Pretty reassuring as they realize that swarm host is in such dire straits design wise that waiting for an expansion is too long.
i like this changes but when ravens and swarmhosts are getting nerfed, tempests have to be nerfed too, so that zerg have a chance in lategame with BL/infestor. Also mech in tvp would become completely unplayable without a tempest nerf.
Well RIP my 1 base marine/raven/tank vs protoss that I copied from Journey
I hope they do something for mech tho, as a player that likes mech (playing and watching it) I like these changes a lot, but Raven was more than turtle unit, specially in TvT and sometimes in TvP (RIP Gumihos raven/tank pushes he does from time to time) PDD was a good unit in the early/mid game, and while I like these changes a lot they give something back (nothing big a bit of faster movement speed in the raven or something like that so you can get a few ravens with your army easily or something like that)
Its important to remember that while these units were bad design players made them for a reason
On January 21 2015 06:48 Charoisaur wrote: i like this changes but when ravens and swarmhosts are getting nerfed, tempests have to be nerfed too, so that zerg have a chance in lategame with BL/infestor. Also mech in tvp would become completely unplayable without a tempest nerf.
The trifecta of awful units, yeah they need to do something about tempest too
On January 21 2015 06:48 Charoisaur wrote: i like this changes but when ravens and swarmhosts are getting nerfed, tempests have to be nerfed too, so that zerg have a chance in lategame with BL/infestor. Also mech in tvp would become completely unplayable without a tempest nerf.
I don't think you should expect all of the changes in LotV to be conducted now. You might have to wait for those changes.
On January 21 2015 06:48 Charoisaur wrote: i like this changes but when ravens and swarmhosts are getting nerfed, tempests have to be nerfed too, so that zerg have a chance in lategame with BL/infestor. Also mech in tvp would become completely unplayable without a tempest nerf.
I don't think you should expect all of the changes in LotV to be conducted now. You might have to wait for those changes.
For those changes that happen to be just like these one (if they do go through)
Are they... are they actually testing Beta ideas in a test map, with no Beta in sight and many months left to make up their minds about how to change things further should that prove necessary?
I already felt like Protoss was doing well in lategame versus Swarm host/Corruptor /Viper as long as the protoss player stayed on even or more bases.
If Swarm hosts are nerfed like that (in the ultra lategame, since you can't really harass at that stage) then it might really become impossible for zerg to win.
so cool keep up the good work, also consider giving toss a midgame unit ling midgame viability and raven a buff(maybe to auto turrets or a new ability)
wow damn, there's the giant balance change everybody was asking blizz to have the balls to do. I'm impressed, I'm really intrigued as to what the testing will find. Will definitely be interesting.
On January 21 2015 06:55 KingAlphard wrote: I already felt like Protoss was doing well in lategame versus Swarm host/Corruptor /Viper as long as the protoss player stayed on even or more bases.
If Swarm hosts are nerfed like that (in the ultra lategame, since you can't really harass at that stage) then it might really become impossible for zerg to win.
the problem was is not that swarmhosts are OP but that they are causing hour long games that nobody wants to play or watch.
On January 21 2015 06:55 KingAlphard wrote: I already felt like Protoss was doing well in lategame versus Swarm host/Corruptor /Viper as long as the protoss player stayed on even or more bases.
If Swarm hosts are nerfed like that (in the ultra lategame, since you can't really harass at that stage) then it might really become impossible for zerg to win.
the problem was is not that swarmhosts are OP but that they are causing hour long games that nobody wants to play or watch.
And I agree. But they have to nerf protoss lategame too then, otherwise Zerg has no chance. Right now, Swarm host/corruptor/viper is the only composition that can compete with mass tempests/archons/hts.
On January 21 2015 07:00 pmp10 wrote: This is a insane change to be dropping on the players right now. Maybe if they wait till WCS season ends.
it's not like they're adding this. this is a test to see if these are the appropriate steps into improving the metagame. It won't be a while until we actually see what changes will/won't be made, if any.
Wow changing a mechanic is risky, and requires loads of internal testing.
I am impressed Blizzard realized there might be a problem with swarmhosts, but this reaction is quite drastic. I think simpler nerfs like movement speed or time to burrow could balance swarmhosts.
Can someone explain to me this change to SH. Is there any change to the strength of locusts or the number produced? I know they added the flying T3 upgrade, but besides that and the fact the locusts can be made while unburrowed, is there another change to the strength or costs of SH?
The new Swarm Host will need a lot of balancing and numbers tweaking considering it's pretty much a new unit now. Ideally they shouldn't implement these changes until at least the end of the first season.
lol you guys, i adapt to what's strong, it's not coincidence that i play swarm host right now and if it doesn't work anymore i'll do something else. winning is winning and learning how to win is becoming less and less of a problem to me as time goes on
as for the patch itself i don't have too many thoughts of it besides RIP brood lord, most neglected Z unit in the game just became even more useless.
On January 21 2015 07:03 Sundrop wrote: Can someone explain to me this change to SH. Is there any change to the strength of locusts or the number produced? I know they added the flying T3 upgrade, but besides that and the fact the locusts can be made while unburrowed, is there another change to the strength or costs of SH?
On January 21 2015 07:09 Liquid`Snute wrote: lol you guys, i adapt to what's strong, it's not coincidence that i play swarm host right now and if it doesn't work anymore i'll do something else. winning is winning and learning how to win is becoming less and less of a problem to me as time goes on
as for the patch itself i don't have too many thoughts of it besides RIP brood lord, most neglected Z unit in the game just became even more useless.
If you need anyone to talk to I'm here for you. Don't do anything Rash, you here me?
Flying Locusts, even if they can't attack while in the air just seems WAY too strong. Part of how Terran and Protoss are able to deal with the Swarm Hosts is killing them from long range. How are they suppose to do that now?
Im sad, swarmhost was one of my favorite units and one of the very few cost effective unit zerg has, they will probably become "useless" like the infestor, and zerg players will have to play whit garbage ground units until hive again!!
On January 21 2015 07:09 Liquid`Snute wrote: lol you guys, i adapt to what's strong, it's not coincidence that i play swarm host right now and if it doesn't work anymore i'll do something else. winning is winning and learning how to win is becoming less and less of a problem to me as time goes on
as for the patch itself i don't have too many thoughts of it besides RIP brood lord, most neglected Z unit in the game just became even more useless.
But if they nerf Tempest to compensate for the nerfs to the other two chief perpetrator turtle units, maybe that will help bring BLs back into the fold.
On January 21 2015 07:10 Orcasgt24 wrote: Flying Locusts, even if they can't attack while in the air just seems WAY too strong. Part of how Terran and Protoss are able to deal with the Swarm Hosts is killing them from long range. How are they suppose to do that now?
afaik they don't continuously spawn anymore and are much more delayed. So, I think it won't be so difficult.
On January 21 2015 07:10 Orcasgt24 wrote: Flying Locusts, even if they can't attack while in the air just seems WAY too strong. Part of how Terran and Protoss are able to deal with the Swarm Hosts is killing them from long range. How are they suppose to do that now?
I have played probably... 50 or so games on the lotv custom and the swarm host does NOT feel too strong. It sounds much stronger than it is. The resource cost is 100 minerals / 200 gas. Also, they can spawn every 50 or 60 seconds, but they only last 25 seconds. So even if they are left to expire, there is still around 30 seconds to capitalize.
Like locusts actually need a buff... they've always been beefy as fuck. Much more than they ever needed. And we've already seen how a single swarm of flying locusts alone is capable of taking down a nexus, so what's the purpose of further "testing" this lame change when it's clearly not balanced?
On January 21 2015 07:09 Liquid`Snute wrote: lol you guys, i adapt to what's strong, it's not coincidence that i play swarm host right now and if it doesn't work anymore i'll do something else. winning is winning and learning how to win is becoming less and less of a problem to me as time goes on
as for the patch itself i don't have too many thoughts of it besides RIP brood lord, most neglected Z unit in the game just became even more useless.
But if they nerf Tempest to compensate for the nerfs to the other two chief perpetrator turtle units, maybe that will help bring BLs back into the fold.
The problem is that Tempests are doing very well in PvP right now... or at least they don't deserve a nerf. Maybe they can change them in a way that makes them still effective against colossi, but not as a "camping" unit that works against any slow composition in the lategame.
I've always hated the swarm host and a redesign is probably a good idea. But the mere fact that this may be necessary is testament to how clueless Blizzard is when it comes to design.
Didnt think they'd even consider putting out some LotV stuff early thats interesting. But from that TB video showing the new locusts, shit might get crazy
I'm for SH change, but not without changing other zerg units. Without SH in current form zerg will not be able to fight protoss properly. Harass or no, zerg will die once protoss max out. LotV has added ravagers which breaks deathballing a little and there are other changes. I can't see how this change can go through alone.
On January 21 2015 07:00 pure.Wasted wrote: Snute...
Stephano...
Scarlett!!!
Does anyone know Snute personally? Is he on suicide watch yet?! This is his livelihood on the line here!
lol
I like Scarlett's SH usage though, she used them as harassment tool just as this proposition intends to do with SH.
She's just is more willing to park those things right outside of a damn base. Snute has always used them a bit more conservatively, and has tended to be more effective with them. This affects him a lot more than her.
Somedays I'm just wondering if Blizzard enjoys fucking with their own game.
It's VERY clear the majority of viewers and players dislike/hate/outrighthate the kinds of games that Swarm Hosts bring, and yet they want to encourage it?
They did this before with BL/Infestor and I'm completely amazed at how arrogant and seemingly ignorant the balance team is.
On January 21 2015 07:19 Gamegene wrote: Somedays I'm just wondering if Blizzard enjoys fucking with their own game.
It's VERY clear the majority of viewers and players dislike/hate/outrighthate the kinds of games that Swarm Hosts bring, and yet they want to encourage it?
They did this before with BL/Infestor and I'm completely amazed at how arrogant and seemingly ignorant the balance team is.
Yes they hate the neverending spawning stream of locust which draws the game into unbelievable lengths.
On January 21 2015 07:14 vhapter wrote: Like locusts actually need a buff... they've always been beefy as fuck. Much more than they ever needed. And we've already seen how a single swarm of flying locusts alone is capable of taking down a nexus, so what's the purpose of further "testing" this lame change when it's clearly not balanced?
On January 21 2015 06:55 KingAlphard wrote: I already felt like Protoss was doing well in lategame versus Swarm host/Corruptor /Viper as long as the protoss player stayed on even or more bases.
If Swarm hosts are nerfed like that (in the ultra lategame, since you can't really harass at that stage) then it might really become impossible for zerg to win.
IMO this address more lower leagues than pros.
I think I am pretty good against SH PvZ style, but on some maps it is impossible to win. How it works in lower leagues: You build HUGE amount of static D and 20-ish SH. You burrow SH, leave them with static D, aim locusts and FORGET!!!! Then you control your army and attack on a different location. Since you cannot defend 2 places at the same time you will be overrun in a long game. I am talking about 40 spores, 40 spines or more. I usually win, but there are scenarios where I lose - like when I have to mine on the other side of the map(main is undefended OR new mining place is undefended).
Again, this is mainly problem in lower leagues, my example is from Diamond EU. And as I said, I feel pretty confident against this style, but when the map is huge(Inferno Pools), or can be easily divided(Overgrowth), or you can switch the locust stream easily(Daybreak(I think)), it is huge problem and IMO it is zergs game to lose(wrong viper usage, kamikaze vipers, too much energy on vipers(feedback) etc.).
I do not think this is huge problem on pro scene, at least I have not seen any huge problems repeating frequently.
Edit> Please, please, realize that I am exaggerating. You cannot "forget" them per se ,-)
Edit 2> I usually win by doing herO style(in my Diamond way low APM lulz miss clicking style ), 2 warp prisms(or pylon + WP) and warping tons of zealots to reset the tech repeatedly, killing bases, killing creep. I can only recommend this.
On January 21 2015 07:14 vhapter wrote: Like locusts actually need a buff... they've always been beefy as fuck. Much more than they ever needed. And we've already seen how a single swarm of flying locusts alone is capable of taking down a nexus, so what's the purpose of further "testing" this lame change when it's clearly not balanced?
To... balance it?
lol classic pessimistic user response to literally every balance test blizzard does... "this isnt perfect yet, so why even bother?! blizzard cant do anything right so this will fail too! this is why sc2 is dead!"
On January 21 2015 06:55 KingAlphard wrote: I already felt like Protoss was doing well in lategame versus Swarm host/Corruptor /Viper as long as the protoss player stayed on even or more bases.
If Swarm hosts are nerfed like that (in the ultra lategame, since you can't really harass at that stage) then it might really become impossible for zerg to win.
IMO this address more lower leagues than pros.
I think I am pretty good against SH PvZ style, but on some maps it is impossible to win. How it works in lower leagues: You build HUGE amount of static D and 20-ish SH. You burrow SH, leave them with static D, aim locusts and FORGET!!!! Then you control your army and attack on a different location. Since you cannot defend 2 places at the same time you will be overrun in a long game. I am talking about 40 spores, 40 spines or more. I usually win, but there are scenarios where I lose - like when I have to mine on the other side of the map(main is undefended OR new mining place is undefended).
Again, this is mainly problem in lower leagues, my example is from Diamond EU. And as I said, I feel pretty confident against this style, but when the map is huge(Inferno Pools), or can be easily divided(Overgrowth), or you can switch the locust stream easily(Daybreak(I think)), it is huge problem and IMO it is zergs game to lose(wrong viper usage, kamikaze vipers, too much energy on vipers(feedback) etc.).
I do not think this is huge problem on pro scene, at least I have not seen any huge problems repeating frequently.
i see your point but i don't agree with you that SH is broken at lower levels, i am diamond zerg and for every SH turtle game i've easily won by starving out protoss i've also played one where i fucked up my swarm host positioning and the protoss literally just walked on top of all 20-30 and killed them for free, or destroyed all my tech and economy with zealot harass. i agree that it was a design problem that made for bad games, but you're overstating the idea that zergs can just "autowin" without thinking or doing anything skillful.
Love the initiative, but here is one thing: It doesn't matter if PDD is 5seconds or 1000seconds for anything but current swarm hosts in ZvT.
You engage with hydralisks? PDD. 20seconds, 5seconds, 1000seconds, the limit is its energy here. You engage with mutalisks? PDD. 20seconds, 5seconds, 1000seconds, the limit is its energy here. You engage with queens? PDD. 20seconds, 5seconds, 1000seconds, the limit is its energy here. You engage with Corruptors? PDD. 20seconds, 5seconds, 1000seconds, the limit is its energy here.
It doesn't matter for all the combat units. If after 20seconds of combat the PDD runs out with energy on it, that just means the Terran has had a quadrillion of Ravens and too much energy to begin with. The only thing that is effected is the "old" implementation of the swarm host, which will fight multiple times under the same PDD. For all other units it is running in, taking tank shots, PDDs get placed and then you have to commit or you have taken a thousand damage from tank shots.
That being said with the Swarm Host redesign noone can say how ZvMech will look like to begin with. And for ZvP, this could completely break the matchup in one way or another. It's great, and interesting. Finally, blizzard is taking a risk for the sake of improving the game!
On January 21 2015 06:42 Seiniyta wrote: David Kim dropping a Megaton here. Pretty reassuring as they realize that swarm host is in such dire straits design wise that waiting for an expansion is too long.
I do remember when Dustin Browder told us that the Swarm Host was going to be an offensive unit to allow Zerg to end the game in the mid-game if they got ahead right before the HOTS Beta.
Right around that same time, David Kim called the Siege Tank boring.
Good thing they didn't create a boring unit in the Swarm Host.
Interesting. Nice to see LotV changes coming faster than the game itself. On the other hand I loved the tactical and long games (ofc not the few hours ones ;] ), hope we will still observe some. ^^
On January 21 2015 07:14 vhapter wrote: Like locusts actually need a buff... they've always been beefy as fuck. Much more than they ever needed. And we've already seen how a single swarm of flying locusts alone is capable of taking down a nexus, so what's the purpose of further "testing" this lame change when it's clearly not balanced?
To... balance it?
lol classic pessimistic user response to literally every balance test blizzard does... "this isnt perfect yet, so why even bother?! blizzard cant do anything right so this will fail too! this is why sc2 is dead!"
On January 21 2015 06:55 KingAlphard wrote: I already felt like Protoss was doing well in lategame versus Swarm host/Corruptor /Viper as long as the protoss player stayed on even or more bases.
If Swarm hosts are nerfed like that (in the ultra lategame, since you can't really harass at that stage) then it might really become impossible for zerg to win.
IMO this address more lower leagues than pros.
I think I am pretty good against SH PvZ style, but on some maps it is impossible to win. How it works in lower leagues: You build HUGE amount of static D and 20-ish SH. You burrow SH, leave them with static D, aim locusts and FORGET!!!! Then you control your army and attack on a different location. Since you cannot defend 2 places at the same time you will be overrun in a long game. I am talking about 40 spores, 40 spines or more. I usually win, but there are scenarios where I lose - like when I have to mine on the other side of the map(main is undefended OR new mining place is undefended).
Again, this is mainly problem in lower leagues, my example is from Diamond EU. And as I said, I feel pretty confident against this style, but when the map is huge(Inferno Pools), or can be easily divided(Overgrowth), or you can switch the locust stream easily(Daybreak(I think)), it is huge problem and IMO it is zergs game to lose(wrong viper usage, kamikaze vipers, too much energy on vipers(feedback) etc.).
I do not think this is huge problem on pro scene, at least I have not seen any huge problems repeating frequently.
i see your point but i don't agree with you that SH is broken at lower levels, i am diamond zerg and for every SH turtle game i've easily won by starving out protoss i've also played one where i fucked up my swarm host positioning and the protoss literally just walked on top of all 20-30 and killed them for free, or destroyed all my tech and economy with zealot harass. i agree that it was a design problem that made for bad games, but you're overstating the idea that zergs can just "autowin" without thinking or doing anything skillful.
Read my edits, I realized it is not spoken so you cannot see I am exaggerating ,-) I agree with your points, it is not autowin, but it is easier to do multiprong attacks with SH than with Protoss or Terran because SH have autocast. Even turning off the autocast could be enough ,-)
On January 21 2015 07:30 Big J wrote: Love the initiative, but here is one thing: It doesn't matter if PDD is 5seconds or 1000seconds for anything but current swarm hosts in ZvT.
You engage with hydralisks? PDD. 20seconds, 5seconds, 1000seconds, the limit is its energy here. You engage with mutalisks? PDD. 20seconds, 5seconds, 1000seconds, the limit is its energy here. You engage with queens? PDD. 20seconds, 5seconds, 1000seconds, the limit is its energy here. You engage with Corruptors? PDD. 20seconds, 5seconds, 1000seconds, the limit is its energy here.
It doesn't matter for all the combat units. If after 20seconds of combat the PDD runs out with energy on it, that just means the Terran has had a quadrillion of Ravens and too much energy to begin with. The only thing that is effected is the "old" implementation of the swarm host, which will fight multiple times under the same PDD. For all other units it is running in, taking tank shots, PDDs get placed and then you have to commit or you have taken a thousand damage from tank shots.
That being said with the Swarm Host redesign noone can say how ZvMech will look like to begin with. And for ZvP, this could completely break the matchup in one way or another. It's great, and interesting. Finally, blizzard is taking a risk for the sake of improving the game!
So what you're saying is that an energy nerf would be far more useful?
I had the interesting idea of dropping Raven max energy to 100 and decreasing the cost of all their spells by half, both to make them effectively gain energy faster, and to make it so that they don't die to a feedback, making them usable against Protoss. It makes the Raven a "faster", more dynamic unit, and increases its non-turtle utility.
Well, since they announced the SH change I look more at campaign units, and I think that they just picked up the wrong strain. Flying locuts are probably going to be destructive in terms of game balance: hard to defend, demand heavy AA, no cost. And they want to apply that + giving more speed to the spawning unit. What about no?
At least via ground is quite defendable. Even if Thors and terran mech could be viable because thors would kill them so easily (positive point), that makes also Ravens quite innefective. The change could be very interesting, but balance then would be really tight. Flying locust also override Broodlords since they are more mobile, have lots of damage, cheaper and low risk.
IMAO they should buff Broodlords in terms of mobility/range, reduce Locust lifetime and adjust cooldown, and then discuss about functionality. The Carrion SH strain from the campaign, with the bonus speed and control, is more tactical. Just adjust the Deep tunnel range. Reinforce at various points, spawn creep, some tumor, and the turtling is gone.
On January 21 2015 07:30 Big J wrote: Love the initiative, but here is one thing: It doesn't matter if PDD is 5seconds or 1000seconds for anything but current swarm hosts in ZvT.
You engage with hydralisks? PDD. 20seconds, 5seconds, 1000seconds, the limit is its energy here. You engage with mutalisks? PDD. 20seconds, 5seconds, 1000seconds, the limit is its energy here. You engage with queens? PDD. 20seconds, 5seconds, 1000seconds, the limit is its energy here. You engage with Corruptors? PDD. 20seconds, 5seconds, 1000seconds, the limit is its energy here.
It doesn't matter for all the combat units. If after 20seconds of combat the PDD runs out with energy on it, that just means the Terran has had a quadrillion of Ravens and too much energy to begin with. The only thing that is effected is the "old" implementation of the swarm host, which will fight multiple times under the same PDD. For all other units it is running in, taking tank shots, PDDs get placed and then you have to commit or you have taken a thousand damage from tank shots.
That being said with the Swarm Host redesign noone can say how ZvMech will look like to begin with. And for ZvP, this could completely break the matchup in one way or another. It's great, and interesting. Finally, blizzard is taking a risk for the sake of improving the game!
So what you're saying is that an energy nerf would be far more useful?
I had the interesting idea of dropping Raven max energy to 100 and decreasing the cost of all their spells by half, both to make them effectively gain energy faster, and to make it so that they don't die to a feedback, making them usable against Protoss. It makes the Raven a "faster", more dynamic unit, and increases its non-turtle utility.
Energy nerf is an example. In general I don't think anyone enjoys any game situation in which a lot of PDDs can be dropped at once, it just renders certain units completely useless the moment this game situation arises. Personally, I'd like to have it get overkill in a way that if multiple PDDs overlap in radius, they all lose energy for each projectile one takes down*. Therefore, the good early-midgame relations with e.g. marauders or vikings would change at all, but the mass PDD bullshit would turn inefficient.
*I do understand that this is hard to realize, since the way that multiple radii work, a projectile only ever touches the radius of a single PDD. But maybe there is a way, like the PDDs just connect if one is within the radius of another.
On January 21 2015 07:42 deacon.frost wrote: Was there any different balance update which was so positively accepted? oO I cannot remember one... (though I have a memory of goldfish :D)
This is even more popular than the bunker build time increase by 5 seconds.
On January 21 2015 07:14 Shinespark wrote: I've always hated the swarm host and a redesign is probably a good idea. But the mere fact that this may be necessary is testament to how clueless Blizzard is when it comes to design.
Or it's a testament that people make mistakes, even Blizzard, and they are more than willing to correct theirs.
On January 21 2015 07:42 deacon.frost wrote: Was there any different balance update which was so positively accepted? oO I cannot remember one... (though I have a memory of goldfish :D)
The patch where the Warhound got cut?
This isn't a balance patch though, it's a game design patch. That goes a long way to explaining why it's being received so well. No one knows yet who comes out on top in what MU. People would be more partisan if they could see the future, I imagine.
On January 21 2015 07:14 Shinespark wrote: I've always hated the swarm host and a redesign is probably a good idea. But the mere fact that this may be necessary is testament to how clueless Blizzard is when it comes to design.
Or it's a testament that people make mistakes, even Blizzard, and they are more than willing to correct theirs.
If this was true, they would have already removed SH from the game.
On January 21 2015 07:30 Big J wrote: Love the initiative, but here is one thing: It doesn't matter if PDD is 5seconds or 1000seconds for anything but current swarm hosts in ZvT.
You engage with hydralisks? PDD. 20seconds, 5seconds, 1000seconds, the limit is its energy here. You engage with mutalisks? PDD. 20seconds, 5seconds, 1000seconds, the limit is its energy here. You engage with queens? PDD. 20seconds, 5seconds, 1000seconds, the limit is its energy here. You engage with Corruptors? PDD. 20seconds, 5seconds, 1000seconds, the limit is its energy here.
It doesn't matter for all the combat units. If after 20seconds of combat the PDD runs out with energy on it, that just means the Terran has had a quadrillion of Ravens and too much energy to begin with. The only thing that is effected is the "old" implementation of the swarm host, which will fight multiple times under the same PDD. For all other units it is running in, taking tank shots, PDDs get placed and then you have to commit or you have taken a thousand damage from tank shots.
That being said with the Swarm Host redesign noone can say how ZvMech will look like to begin with. And for ZvP, this could completely break the matchup in one way or another. It's great, and interesting. Finally, blizzard is taking a risk for the sake of improving the game!
So what you're saying is that an energy nerf would be far more useful?
I had the interesting idea of dropping Raven max energy to 100 and decreasing the cost of all their spells by half, both to make them effectively gain energy faster, and to make it so that they don't die to a feedback, making them usable against Protoss. It makes the Raven a "faster", more dynamic unit, and increases its non-turtle utility.
Energy nerf is an example. In general I don't think anyone enjoys any game situation in which a lot of PDDs can be dropped at once, it just renders certain units completely useless the moment this game situation arises. Personally, I'd like to have it get overkill in a way that if multiple PDDs overlap in radius, they all lose energy for each projectile one takes down*. Therefore, the good early-midgame relations with e.g. marauders or vikings would change at all, but the mass PDD bullshit would turn inefficient.
*I do understand that this is hard to realize, since the way that multiple radii work, a projectile only ever touches the radius of a single PDD. But maybe there is a way, like the PDDs just connect if one is within the radius of another.
You could go even more extreme in this, if you wanted. The absolutely balls-deep version of this idea would be for them to shoot down each other's shots, so that having PDDs within range of other PDDs instantly makes them useless, and thus forces sparing usage (as per early game pushes) or intelligent positioning, thus stopping the SUPER turtly sky terran ball strategies.
On January 21 2015 07:40 Big J wrote: *I do understand that this is hard to realize, since the way that multiple radii work, a projectile only ever touches the radius of a single PDD. But maybe there is a way, like the PDDs just connect if one is within the radius of another.
You could increase PDD range and add delay between registering a projectile and disarming it. Once registered PDD would always fire and lose energy. That way projectiles would likely get intercepted by more PDDs.
edit: Pontius Pirate's idea would be the best skillwise
On January 21 2015 07:15 TAMinator wrote: Didnt think they'd even consider putting out some LotV stuff early thats interesting. But from that TB video showing the new locusts, shit might get crazy
The idea is to balance around the new Swarm Hosts. We expect that other changes will need to be considered as we go through testing. This is the first step. We'll first need to see how these play out to know what potential changes will follow.
I think these changes look great, any buff to swarmhosts with this design can be done/undone without triggering long stalemates and certainly this has to be implemented. I certainly hope these changes as they are some of the most great balance changes in history of sc2 for a "patch" will be tested on broadcasted stream.
On January 21 2015 07:15 TAMinator wrote: Didnt think they'd even consider putting out some LotV stuff early thats interesting. But from that TB video showing the new locusts, shit might get crazy
The idea is to balance around the new Swarm Hosts. We expect that other changes will need to be considered as we go through testing. This is the first step. We'll first need to see how these play out to know what potential changes will follow.
Thank you so much for this guys! I hope we see it in the game as soon as possible. It's gonna completely shake up the meta.
On January 21 2015 07:14 Shinespark wrote: I've always hated the swarm host and a redesign is probably a good idea. But the mere fact that this may be necessary is testament to how clueless Blizzard is when it comes to design.
Or it's a testament that people make mistakes, even Blizzard, and they are more than willing to correct theirs.
If this was true, they would have already removed SH from the game.
Your opinion is such an undenieable fact... oh wait it's still going to be in lotv. What was the relevance of butting in only too say what isn't true ? So what makes your point true other than you personal perspective of the matter? Nothing but okey. I like the SH redesign but i'm hoping protoss air late game doesn't just shit all over zerg now. Void collosus + 6 sentries can already shit over SH compositions by the 14 minute mark. I like the way protoss has a way to deal with it, my concern is rather will protoss be able to do it too often now ? More of a question i suppose lol.
As for the pdd, good change been waiting for that all sc 2 long. It's been this way for so long because the raven was underutilised for a very long time. But since all the hots patches to raven, it became a godly unit. Even to this day people still haven't harnessed the full potential of the unit ( medivac boost + seeker missileing it ) I know this trick isn't easy to perform.. but neither was ling micro vs widow mines in the first 2 months of hots.
I like how both the SH and raven can be used as harass+ late game options. Too many people seem to consider them as mid game + late late late game necessities but i beg to differ. You can do raven mineral line harass quite easily. People are just extremely stubborn, why play different when other styles work 30-70% of the time ( depends on your skill/opponents, a bit of rng) The entire point to a strategy game is to reformat your choices to have a higher winrate. Not for every game... not all builds have to work on every map.
I swear the desire/expectation of people to make every build work on said map compared to other better maps is just highly ignorant. It has plagued balance and the relative reality of the condition per game. Which is why balance whine can be predominantly negative or entirely counterproductive.
On January 21 2015 07:15 TAMinator wrote: Didnt think they'd even consider putting out some LotV stuff early thats interesting. But from that TB video showing the new locusts, shit might get crazy
The idea is to balance around the new Swarm Hosts. We expect that other changes will need to be considered as we go through testing. This is the first step. We'll first need to see how these play out to know what potential changes will follow.
Thanks Psione, good to know everyone is back in the office now
These changes look great im happy that they are finally adresing how stupid and boring swarmhost and raven turtle styles are. As a terran player however I;m not surre the raven nerf is enough If the duration on pdds was shorter i don't think id care tbh. I have always wanted ravens to be nerfed since they overbuffed them but im nut sure if the pdd nerf is big enough to realy kill the 80% raven late game compositions dead. And yes they should make this a dead style. these kind of stratagies are boring to play and boring to play against and way to rewarding with out taking alot of effort to pull off (well at least the raven style i cant speack for swarmhosting zergs).
On January 21 2015 07:14 vhapter wrote: Like locusts actually need a buff... they've always been beefy as fuck. Much more than they ever needed. And we've already seen how a single swarm of flying locusts alone is capable of taking down a nexus, so what's the purpose of further "testing" this lame change when it's clearly not balanced?
To... balance it?
Does this look balanced to you? I think it goes without saying that losing your nexus to single wave of flying locusts is retarded. This video alone is enough to show how imbalanced flying locusts are currently. This is not harassment, this is bullshit.
On January 21 2015 07:14 vhapter wrote: Like locusts actually need a buff... they've always been beefy as fuck. Much more than they ever needed. And we've already seen how a single swarm of flying locusts alone is capable of taking down a nexus, so what's the purpose of further "testing" this lame change when it's clearly not balanced?
To... balance it?
Does this look balanced to you? I think it goes without saying that losing your nexus to single wave of flying locusts is retarded. This video alone is enough to show how imbalanced flying locusts are currently. This is not harassment, this is bullshit.
On January 21 2015 07:14 vhapter wrote: Like locusts actually need a buff... they've always been beefy as fuck. Much more than they ever needed. And we've already seen how a single swarm of flying locusts alone is capable of taking down a nexus, so what's the purpose of further "testing" this lame change when it's clearly not balanced?
To... balance it?
Does this look balanced to you? I think it goes without saying that losing your nexus to single wave of flying locusts is retarded. This video alone is enough to show how imbalanced flying locusts are currently. This is not harassment, this is bullshit.
Really cool but I don't see how SH play wouldn't be even more prevalent at the highest levels with this. Or how it wouldn't be grossly OP (see TB Axiom void tourney for the power of air SH)
On January 21 2015 07:14 vhapter wrote: Like locusts actually need a buff... they've always been beefy as fuck. Much more than they ever needed. And we've already seen how a single swarm of flying locusts alone is capable of taking down a nexus, so what's the purpose of further "testing" this lame change when it's clearly not balanced?
To... balance it?
Does this look balanced to you? I think it goes without saying that losing your nexus to single wave of flying locusts is retarded. This video alone is enough to show how imbalanced flying locusts are currently. This is not harassment, this is bullshit.
Keep in mind he invested thousands of resources into that tier 3 tech and has over 30 supply committed to it..
The swarm hosts weren't even close to Crank's gold base. They were like what? Maybe 1/4 of their total duration and still rekt his nexus easily. If that kind of thing was normal, the reactions would have been very different.
On January 21 2015 07:14 vhapter wrote: Like locusts actually need a buff... they've always been beefy as fuck. Much more than they ever needed. And we've already seen how a single swarm of flying locusts alone is capable of taking down a nexus, so what's the purpose of further "testing" this lame change when it's clearly not balanced?
To... balance it?
Does this look balanced to you? I think it goes without saying that losing your nexus to single wave of flying locusts is retarded. This video alone is enough to show how imbalanced flying locusts are currently. This is not harassment, this is bullshit.
On January 21 2015 07:14 vhapter wrote: Like locusts actually need a buff... they've always been beefy as fuck. Much more than they ever needed. And we've already seen how a single swarm of flying locusts alone is capable of taking down a nexus, so what's the purpose of further "testing" this lame change when it's clearly not balanced?
To... balance it?
Does this look balanced to you? I think it goes without saying that losing your nexus to single wave of flying locusts is retarded. This video alone is enough to show how imbalanced flying locusts are currently. This is not harassment, this is bullshit.
The link you give is of a lotv unoficial game mod. hmmmm does it go without saying that what you linked isn't relevant ? As in it's not the same game..... The mineral/gas differences and harvesters at the start are entirely different from the get go. So in essence your argument is fictional for the time being. It only assumes a form of prediction, not any actual accurate presentation of data. Do we really have to go over that it wouldn't play out anywhere near the same ? You can't always use the argument of when people get better, things could be OP. What's the point of even adding anything new then? If we always fear the after effect. I'll quote my own personal experience... When hots was released i was scared to death of reapers. But in the end we learned how to deal with it. Yes reapers got then utilized to do a hellion/reaper timing with the option of banshees. Again i was afraid, omg what happened next ? We dealt with the cards given to us.
We don't need conservative fear mongering in a strategy game, unless you provide mathematical proof or an accurate video. Even then it's not fear mongering, just more relevant accurate perspective.
On January 21 2015 07:14 vhapter wrote: Like locusts actually need a buff... they've always been beefy as fuck. Much more than they ever needed. And we've already seen how a single swarm of flying locusts alone is capable of taking down a nexus, so what's the purpose of further "testing" this lame change when it's clearly not balanced?
To... balance it?
Does this look balanced to you? I think it goes without saying that losing your nexus to single wave of flying locusts is retarded. This video alone is enough to show how imbalanced flying locusts are currently. This is not harassment, this is bullshit.
Keep in mind he invested thousands of resources into that tier 3 tech and has over 30 supply committed to it..
The swarm hosts weren't even close to Crank's gold base. They were like what? Maybe 1/4 of their total duration and still rekt his nexus easily. If that kind of thing was normal, the reactions would have been very different.
It's Habitation Station dude, the air distance is actually pretty close. And they expired immediately after killing the nexus. And I'm pretty sure they had upgrades. That's literally the maximum they could do in that situation.
On January 21 2015 07:14 vhapter wrote: Like locusts actually need a buff... they've always been beefy as fuck. Much more than they ever needed. And we've already seen how a single swarm of flying locusts alone is capable of taking down a nexus, so what's the purpose of further "testing" this lame change when it's clearly not balanced?
To... balance it?
Does this look balanced to you? I think it goes without saying that losing your nexus to single wave of flying locusts is retarded. This video alone is enough to show how imbalanced flying locusts are currently. This is not harassment, this is bullshit.
On January 21 2015 07:14 vhapter wrote: Like locusts actually need a buff... they've always been beefy as fuck. Much more than they ever needed. And we've already seen how a single swarm of flying locusts alone is capable of taking down a nexus, so what's the purpose of further "testing" this lame change when it's clearly not balanced?
To... balance it?
Does this look balanced to you? I think it goes without saying that losing your nexus to single wave of flying locusts is retarded. This video alone is enough to show how imbalanced flying locusts are currently. This is not harassment, this is bullshit.
I am impressed by the willingness to make big changes on Blizzard's part. How they we turn out I am not sure, but this is still stepping in the right direction.
On January 21 2015 07:14 vhapter wrote: Like locusts actually need a buff... they've always been beefy as fuck. Much more than they ever needed. And we've already seen how a single swarm of flying locusts alone is capable of taking down a nexus, so what's the purpose of further "testing" this lame change when it's clearly not balanced?
To... balance it?
Does this look balanced to you? I think it goes without saying that losing your nexus to single wave of flying locusts is retarded. This video alone is enough to show how imbalanced flying locusts are currently. This is not harassment, this is bullshit.
Keep in mind he invested thousands of resources into that tier 3 tech and has over 30 supply committed to it..
The swarm hosts weren't even close to Crank's gold base. They were like what? Maybe 1/4 of their total duration and still rekt his nexus easily. If that kind of thing was normal, the reactions would have been very different.
It's Habitation Station dude, the air distance is actually pretty close. And they expired immediately after killing the nexus. And I'm pretty sure they had upgrades. That's literally the maximum they could do in that situation.
It's not like they need to do more than that. Considering how slow the protoss army is, it shouldn't be difficult to nydus your way around the map sniping bases.
You don't even need to kill a nexus - think about how many probes would've died to locust harassment even if there had been half the swarm host count you saw in the video. Flying locusts will either do a fuckton of damage or get the zerg killed if they leave the player to vulnerable. Neither thing is actually good.
On January 21 2015 07:14 vhapter wrote: Like locusts actually need a buff... they've always been beefy as fuck. Much more than they ever needed. And we've already seen how a single swarm of flying locusts alone is capable of taking down a nexus, so what's the purpose of further "testing" this lame change when it's clearly not balanced?
To... balance it?
Does this look balanced to you? I think it goes without saying that losing your nexus to single wave of flying locusts is retarded. This video alone is enough to show how imbalanced flying locusts are currently. This is not harassment, this is bullshit.
You seem to be struggling with the concept of balancing.
It's not balanced now.
That is why it's on the test map.
When Blizzard sees what all the games are like, they can tweak the numbers and make any other necessary changes.
It will be balanced then.
I know they have to make changes, I just don't think they need more data before they attempt to do something about it.
You don't need more data to say precisely how much damage they should do? Precisely what the resource cost should be? You already have all the perfect numbers? Or are you trying to suggest that flying locusts will be OP even if SH costs 10,000 minerals, and there is no conceivable way to balance the unit, and the only possible thing to do is to remove the flight upgrade?
You're being silly. Even if flying locusts turn out to be difficult to balance or simply unfun for the game, putting the unit up on the test map will let Blizzard see precisely what makes it a bad idea, and what aspects of it can be salvaged.
On January 21 2015 08:07 caznitch wrote: Really cool but I don't see how SH play wouldn't be even more prevalent at the highest levels with this. Or how it wouldn't be grossly OP (see TB Axiom void tourney for the power of air SH)
Just needs to hit live weaker than it is in the LoTV alpha.
On January 21 2015 06:42 Seiniyta wrote: David Kim dropping a Megaton here. Pretty reassuring as they realize that swarm host is in such dire straits design wise that waiting for an expansion is too long.
Sort of learned their lesson with the Infestor you would hope.
On January 21 2015 07:14 vhapter wrote: Like locusts actually need a buff... they've always been beefy as fuck. Much more than they ever needed. And we've already seen how a single swarm of flying locusts alone is capable of taking down a nexus, so what's the purpose of further "testing" this lame change when it's clearly not balanced?
To... balance it?
Does this look balanced to you? I think it goes without saying that losing your nexus to single wave of flying locusts is retarded. This video alone is enough to show how imbalanced flying locusts are currently. This is not harassment, this is bullshit.
Keep in mind he invested thousands of resources into that tier 3 tech and has over 30 supply committed to it..
The swarm hosts weren't even close to Crank's gold base. They were like what? Maybe 1/4 of their total duration and still rekt his nexus easily. If that kind of thing was normal, the reactions would have been very different.
It's Habitation Station dude, the air distance is actually pretty close. And they expired immediately after killing the nexus. And I'm pretty sure they had upgrades. That's literally the maximum they could do in that situation.
It's not like they need to do more than that. Considering how slow the protoss army is, it shouldn't be difficult to nydus your way around the map sniping bases.
You don't even need to kill a nexus - think about how many probes would've died to locust harassment even if there had been half the swarm host count you saw in the video. Flying locusts will either do a fuckton of damage or get the zerg killed if they leave the player to vulnerable. Neither thing is actually good.
That all could be a problem, but I'm sure there'll be balance checks before it's put in the game. Don't worry too much man
On January 21 2015 07:14 vhapter wrote: Like locusts actually need a buff... they've always been beefy as fuck. Much more than they ever needed. And we've already seen how a single swarm of flying locusts alone is capable of taking down a nexus, so what's the purpose of further "testing" this lame change when it's clearly not balanced?
To... balance it?
Does this look balanced to you? I think it goes without saying that losing your nexus to single wave of flying locusts is retarded. This video alone is enough to show how imbalanced flying locusts are currently. This is not harassment, this is bullshit.
Keep in mind he invested thousands of resources into that tier 3 tech and has over 30 supply committed to it..
The swarm hosts weren't even close to Crank's gold base. They were like what? Maybe 1/4 of their total duration and still rekt his nexus easily. If that kind of thing was normal, the reactions would have been very different.
It's Habitation Station dude, the air distance is actually pretty close. And they expired immediately after killing the nexus. And I'm pretty sure they had upgrades. That's literally the maximum they could do in that situation.
It's not like they need to do more than that. Considering how slow the protoss army is, it shouldn't be difficult to nydus your way around the map sniping bases.
The Protoss army is actually extremely mobile with cliff walking, blink, charge, recall, and instant reinforncement with warpgates.
I have no idea if these changes are good or bad. But i am interested: do most people believe this is a good change regarding balance? Or because fuck mech and camping, those bastards are going to get rekt now?
On January 21 2015 07:14 Shinespark wrote: I've always hated the swarm host and a redesign is probably a good idea. But the mere fact that this may be necessary is testament to how clueless Blizzard is when it comes to design.
Or it's a testament that people make mistakes, even Blizzard, and they are more than willing to correct theirs.
Made a mistake? I don't think you know what means.
Making a mistake is when you accidentally pour your orange juice in the cereal of your customer instead of milk. But if you do it purposely over and over for years despite being told repeatedly over a long period of time by your customers that they hate orange juice on cereal, then it isn't a mistake. It's arrogance.
So yeah, what we see here is arrogance failing. They tried everything they could to make orange juice taste great on cereal.
But a lot of us knew from the start it tasted terrible. This was a long time coming.
On January 21 2015 07:14 vhapter wrote: Like locusts actually need a buff... they've always been beefy as fuck. Much more than they ever needed. And we've already seen how a single swarm of flying locusts alone is capable of taking down a nexus, so what's the purpose of further "testing" this lame change when it's clearly not balanced?
To... balance it?
Does this look balanced to you? I think it goes without saying that losing your nexus to single wave of flying locusts is retarded. This video alone is enough to show how imbalanced flying locusts are currently. This is not harassment, this is bullshit.
Keep in mind he invested thousands of resources into that tier 3 tech and has over 30 supply committed to it..
The swarm hosts weren't even close to Crank's gold base. They were like what? Maybe 1/4 of their total duration and still rekt his nexus easily. If that kind of thing was normal, the reactions would have been very different.
It's Habitation Station dude, the air distance is actually pretty close. And they expired immediately after killing the nexus. And I'm pretty sure they had upgrades. That's literally the maximum they could do in that situation.
It's not like they need to do more than that. Considering how slow the protoss army is, it shouldn't be difficult to nydus your way around the map sniping bases.
You don't even need to kill a nexus - think about how many probes would've died to locust harassment even if there had been half the swarm host count you saw in the video. Flying locusts will either do a fuckton of damage or get the zerg killed if they leave the player to vulnerable. Neither thing is actually good.
That all could be a problem, but I'm sure there'll be balance checks before it's put in the game. Don't worry too much man
I hope so. Considering the fact that swarm hosts are one of the new units in HOTS, Blizzard is taking way too long to balance them. This is them leaving things unfinished just so they can make more money with LOTV, since PvZ has become one of the most disgusting matchups I've ever seen in rts. I hope they finally fix this stupid unit though. Removing them from the game would most likely be even better, but that's just not going to happen.
Long overdue. I might have to rethink when to get lunch/dinner, take a shower, shit, piss, stretch, nap, walk around, etc. while watching a long tournament, though.
On January 21 2015 07:14 Shinespark wrote: I've always hated the swarm host and a redesign is probably a good idea. But the mere fact that this may be necessary is testament to how clueless Blizzard is when it comes to design.
Or it's a testament that people make mistakes, even Blizzard, and they are more than willing to correct theirs.
If this was true, they would have already removed SH from the game.
Correcting one's mistake doesn't necessarily mean doing exactly what you want.
On January 21 2015 07:14 vhapter wrote: Like locusts actually need a buff... they've always been beefy as fuck. Much more than they ever needed. And we've already seen how a single swarm of flying locusts alone is capable of taking down a nexus, so what's the purpose of further "testing" this lame change when it's clearly not balanced?
To... balance it?
Does this look balanced to you? I think it goes without saying that losing your nexus to single wave of flying locusts is retarded. This video alone is enough to show how imbalanced flying locusts are currently. This is not harassment, this is bullshit.
You seem to be struggling with the concept of balancing.
It's not balanced now.
That is why it's on the test map.
When Blizzard sees what all the games are like, they can tweak the numbers and make any other necessary changes.
It will be balanced then.
The necessary change is removing free units from the game entirely.
That's the only way to balance Swarm Hosts.
Free units are anti-RTS.
EDIT:
But Blizzard seems to be pandering to casuals by introducing simpler mechanics/over-simplifying the early-game. I guess I can't say that I'm surprised that flying locusts are their "big idea" to fix Swarm Hosts because designing a unit properly is clearly beyond their area of expertise.
So I guess the only way to balance Zerg buildings is to make them stop spawning Broodlings when they're destroyed? Those free Broodlings sure do break the game.
On January 21 2015 07:14 Shinespark wrote: I've always hated the swarm host and a redesign is probably a good idea. But the mere fact that this may be necessary is testament to how clueless Blizzard is when it comes to design.
Or it's a testament that people make mistakes, even Blizzard, and they are more than willing to correct theirs.
Made a mistake? I don't think you know what means.
Making a mistake is when you accidentally pour your orange juice in the cereal of your customer instead of milk. But if you do it purposely over and over for years despite being told repeatedly over a long period of time by your customers that they hate orange juice on cereal, then it isn't a mistake. It's arrogance.
So yeah, what we see here is arrogance failing. They tried everything they could to make orange juice taste great on cereal.
But a lot of us knew from the start it tasted terrible. This was a long time coming.
Arrogance is stubbornly refusing to acknowledge a mistake and this is clearly not the case.
On January 21 2015 07:14 Shinespark wrote: I've always hated the swarm host and a redesign is probably a good idea. But the mere fact that this may be necessary is testament to how clueless Blizzard is when it comes to design.
Or it's a testament that people make mistakes, even Blizzard, and they are more than willing to correct theirs.
If this was true, they would have already removed SH from the game.
Correcting one's mistake doesn't necessarily mean doing exactly what you want.
That's true, and I won't speak for everyone else, but removing swarm hosts from the game would probably make it more interesting and balanced than changing them.
On January 21 2015 07:14 vhapter wrote: Like locusts actually need a buff... they've always been beefy as fuck. Much more than they ever needed. And we've already seen how a single swarm of flying locusts alone is capable of taking down a nexus, so what's the purpose of further "testing" this lame change when it's clearly not balanced?
To... balance it?
Does this look balanced to you? I think it goes without saying that losing your nexus to single wave of flying locusts is retarded. This video alone is enough to show how imbalanced flying locusts are currently. This is not harassment, this is bullshit.
You seem to be struggling with the concept of balancing.
It's not balanced now.
That is why it's on the test map.
When Blizzard sees what all the games are like, they can tweak the numbers and make any other necessary changes.
It will be balanced then.
The necessary change is removing free units from the game entirely.
That's the only way to balance Swarm Hosts.
Free units are anti-RTS.
EDIT:
But Blizzard seems to be pandering to casuals by introducing simpler mechanics/over-simplifying the early-game. I guess I can't say that I'm surprised that flying locusts are their "big idea" to fix Swarm Hosts because designing a unit properly is clearly beyond their area of expertise.
So I guess the only way to balance Zerg buildings is to make them stop spawning Broodlings when they're destroyed? Those free Broodlings sure do break the game.
The thing that scares me about this is that flying locusts with too much dps might snipe bases too easily (as shown in TB's lotv show matches), which could have serious drawbacks on map design. This is definitely something that needs to be tested a -lot- and by progamers, not random scrubs on bnet.
On January 21 2015 07:14 vhapter wrote: Like locusts actually need a buff... they've always been beefy as fuck. Much more than they ever needed. And we've already seen how a single swarm of flying locusts alone is capable of taking down a nexus, so what's the purpose of further "testing" this lame change when it's clearly not balanced?
To... balance it?
Does this look balanced to you? I think it goes without saying that losing your nexus to single wave of flying locusts is retarded. This video alone is enough to show how imbalanced flying locusts are currently. This is not harassment, this is bullshit.
You seem to be struggling with the concept of balancing.
It's not balanced now.
That is why it's on the test map.
When Blizzard sees what all the games are like, they can tweak the numbers and make any other necessary changes.
It will be balanced then.
The necessary change is removing free units from the game entirely.
That's the only way to balance Swarm Hosts.
Free units are anti-RTS.
EDIT:
But Blizzard seems to be pandering to casuals by introducing simpler mechanics/over-simplifying the early-game. I guess I can't say that I'm surprised that flying locusts are their "big idea" to fix Swarm Hosts because designing a unit properly is clearly beyond their area of expertise.
So I guess the only way to balance Zerg buildings is to make them stop spawning Broodlings when they're destroyed? Those free Broodlings sure do break the game.
To a certain extent, they actually do in that you need to hard counter them. I'm sure people have already complained about tempests in this thread, but the truth is that we need them. Starcraft 2 has too many hard counters.
I guess it's cool that they're doing this change before LotV, but I think they don't realize how bad late game ZvP will be for Zergs now... Without swarmhost, there's no way to zone out HT. Once Protoss gets to colo/HT/tempest they'll just win every single game :/
On January 21 2015 08:55 SC2Towelie wrote: I guess it's cool that they're doing this change before LotV, but I think they don't realize how bad late game ZvP will be for Zergs now... Without swarmhost, there's no way to zone out HT. Once Protoss gets to colo/HT/tempest they'll just win every single game :/
They literally said that they are aware of exactly that problem, the SH change is a starting point and they will balance around it.
On January 21 2015 07:56 Psione wrote: The idea is to balance around the new Swarm Hosts. We expect that other changes will need to be considered as we go through testing. This is the first step. We'll first need to see how these play out to know what potential changes will follow.
What happens to mass Protoss air supported by High Templar?
This is a bigger concern for us due to Locusts’ ability to zone out High Templar being greatly diminished. However, there will be a buff on the harassment front so we’re not sure where this will end up. Again, this is something that will need to be heavily tested, and we may need to make additional changes depending on how this turns out.
On January 21 2015 08:55 SC2Towelie wrote: I guess it's cool that they're doing this change before LotV, but I think they don't realize how bad late game ZvP will be for Zergs now... Without swarmhost, there's no way to zone out HT. Once Protoss gets to colo/HT/tempest they'll just win every single game :/
nerf tempests so BLs get viable again -> balanced game
I am surprised to see this, I guess it would mean that lotv won't be coming out so soon? Or that they are not sure how people react to new swarmhost and they want to test it out before too late? Neither way I am excited for it
Okay. I get that PDD was/is a bit too strong. But from 180 seconds all the way down to 20 seconds!? That's a MASSIVE nerf! A way I could see it being fair would be making Durable Materials increase the duration to AT LEAST 60 seconds. Though the swarm host change seems really interesting.
And I hate to be "that guy" but why does Photon Overcharge still last a full minute?
On January 21 2015 09:19 HeyImFinn wrote: Okay. I get that PDD was/is a bit too strong. But from 180 seconds all the way down to 20 seconds!? That's a MASSIVE nerf! A way I could see it being fair would be making Durable Materials increase the duration to AT LEAST 60 seconds. Though the swarm host change seems really interesting.
And I hate to be "that guy" but why does Photon Overcharge still last a full minute?
I'd imagine it's similar to the mothership core nerf, where they want the spell to only be useful for a short time during battle.
On January 21 2015 09:16 ETisME wrote: I am surprised to see this, I guess it would mean that lotv won't be coming out so soon? Or that they are not sure how people react to new swarmhost and they want to test it out before too late? Neither way I am excited for it
If HotS was any model for the release of LotV, we still have a full year ahead of us. And so far all the dates - reveal, no beta start date yet, so its probably gonna take till summer and then half a year of testing - are quite similar. At this point in WoL (2012) the Infestor menance hadn't even started and we can really only hope that blizzard doesn't let HotS die in the next year by abandoning ship.
And I think you are right, they want to test the deep Swarm Host changes before they put it into LotV. They have been getting a lot of negative feedback about leaving the unit in the game at all and I think this is really their last chance to make the whole free unit concept work. So better not put it into LotV untested. Also after matches like Lillekanin's they really have to patch just to ensure tournament schedules. Say, that match would happen at Blizzcon or Dreamhack. all the brackets are ruined, games have to be postponed to the next day... That's some serious business concern for tournament organizers! Patching is the way to go here, even if the 3hour games were fun...
On January 21 2015 08:59 Musicus wrote: They literally said that they are aware of exactly that problem, the SH change is a starting point and they will balance around it.
I guess most of people including me are especially skeptical about this. Blizzard was never keen on making big changes and this one is pretty big even for an expansion. I wonder if they will go through with all changes necessary and not just keep HotS in half broken state.
To say how big it is, you have to see that zerg could never engage maxed protoss without massing static defence and waves of free units. WoL - BL/infestor and static defence, HotS so far SH/viper/corruptor even more static defence. Other lategame winning strategies are mass muta basetrade and queen/ultra/viper/infestor (but this one is neither good enough nor too fun). Changing this will be necessary in LotV, but unless you want BL/inf again there will have to be a lot of changes.
On January 21 2015 09:19 HeyImFinn wrote: Okay. I get that PDD was/is a bit too strong. But from 180 seconds all the way down to 20 seconds!? That's a MASSIVE nerf! A way I could see it being fair would be making Durable Materials increase the duration to AT LEAST 60 seconds. Though the swarm host change seems really interesting.
And I hate to be "that guy" but why does Photon Overcharge still last a full minute?
I'd imagine it's similar to the mothership core nerf, where they want the spell to only be useful for a short time during battle.
Theres a difference betwen changing the duration of a spell to last 33% of the original to changing a spell to last 11,1% of the original
"Balance the game around this one change" is always a risky proposition, and never one I've personally cared for. I understand that it's extreme cases that cause Blizzard to take action (Stephano vs. Petraeus is singlehandedly responsible for Brood Lords getting the Frenzied ability), and the Lillekanin game is absolutely indicative of a serious problem, but I do think that this, like every other Test Map change, has to be tweaked before implementation can be put on the table.
On January 21 2015 09:36 Circumstance wrote: "Balance the game around this one change" is always a risky proposition, and never one I've personally cared for. I understand that it's extreme cases that cause Blizzard to take action (Stephano vs. Petraeus is singlehandedly responsible for Brood Lords getting the Frenzied ability), and the Lillekanin game is absolutely indicative of a serious problem, but I do think that this, like every other Test Map change, has to be tweaked before implementation can be put on the table.
Let me rephrase it to be less scary. It's more about this being the first step. We're aware of the many potential issues that could pop up in the first iteration of the balance test map. Once we've seen how that works out, we'll look at what additional changes may need to be made. Could be the Swarm Host, could be to other units, etc. It's just a matter of seeing how it works out in the first map.
Interesting for sure. I am still not sure if this is the better approach to the issue, especially after seeing what a few SH did to Crank's gold base haha. Will definitely have to wait and see though, it could make gameplay a lot more bearable in the longer games. :D
On January 21 2015 06:55 KingAlphard wrote: I already felt like Protoss was doing well in lategame versus Swarm host/Corruptor /Viper as long as the protoss player stayed on even or more bases.
If Swarm hosts are nerfed like that (in the ultra lategame, since you can't really harass at that stage) then it might really become impossible for zerg to win.
Well, zergs need to do what terrans has been doing since 2010: stop the protoss before lategame or die tryin'
On January 21 2015 09:19 HeyImFinn wrote: Okay. I get that PDD was/is a bit too strong. But from 180 seconds all the way down to 20 seconds!? That's a MASSIVE nerf! A way I could see it being fair would be making Durable Materials increase the duration to AT LEAST 60 seconds. Though the swarm host change seems really interesting.
And I hate to be "that guy" but why does Photon Overcharge still last a full minute?
On January 21 2015 06:55 KingAlphard wrote: I already felt like Protoss was doing well in lategame versus Swarm host/Corruptor /Viper as long as the protoss player stayed on even or more bases.
If Swarm hosts are nerfed like that (in the ultra lategame, since you can't really harass at that stage) then it might really become impossible for zerg to win.
Well, zergs need to do what terrans has been doing since 2010: stop the protoss before lategame or die tryin'
On January 21 2015 09:36 Circumstance wrote: "Balance the game around this one change" is always a risky proposition, and never one I've personally cared for. I understand that it's extreme cases that cause Blizzard to take action (Stephano vs. Petraeus is singlehandedly responsible for Brood Lords getting the Frenzied ability), and the Lillekanin game is absolutely indicative of a serious problem, but I do think that this, like every other Test Map change, has to be tweaked before implementation can be put on the table.
Let me rephrase it to be less scary. It's more about this being the first step. We're aware of the many potential issues that could pop up in the first iteration of the balance test map. Once we've seen how that works out, we'll look at what additional changes may need to be made. Could be the Swarm Host, could be to other units, etc. It's just a matter of seeing how it works out in the first map.
That's reasurring, because it kind of reminded me how you guys balanced the game around the forcefield instead of doing something with that.
On January 21 2015 09:16 ETisME wrote: I am surprised to see this, I guess it would mean that lotv won't be coming out so soon? Or that they are not sure how people react to new swarmhost and they want to test it out before too late? Neither way I am excited for it
If HotS was any model for the release of LotV, we still have a full year ahead of us. And so far all the dates - reveal, no beta start date yet, so its probably gonna take till summer and then half a year of testing - are quite similar. At this point in WoL (2012) the Infestor menance hadn't even started and we can really only hope that blizzard doesn't let HotS die in the next year by abandoning ship.
And I think you are right, they want to test the deep Swarm Host changes before they put it into LotV. They have been getting a lot of negative feedback about leaving the unit in the game at all and I think this is really their last chance to make the whole free unit concept work. So better not put it into LotV untested. Also after matches like Lillekanin's they really have to patch just to ensure tournament schedules. Say, that match would happen at Blizzcon or Dreamhack. all the brackets are ruined, games have to be postponed to the next day... That's some serious business concern for tournament organizers! Patching is the way to go here, even if the 3hour games were fun...
Agree completely. I am just worried that the new swarmhost with hots economy will give the wrong impression. I would prefer them to push the beta or alpha test earlier instead.
I think they should just take the darn thing out. I don't know why they insist on its presence in the game. No more free units... OR give everyone free units of some kind. This is all just a bandaid for a bullet wound in my opinion.
And Blizzard didn't even wait until beta to change the swarm host. Lol, swarm host was horribly designed with no role to fill in the game... I guess good job, Blizzard? Even though it took about a couple of years?
Cooldown 60 seconds Can be cast while burrowed or unburrowed. Must be manually cast. No longer has auto-cast. Spawns 2 Locusts. Locusts have a 30 second timed life.
Locust
12 damage
0.6 weapon speed
30 second duration
Evolve Flying Locust
Requires Lair
200/200/160
Allows Locusts spawned by Swarm Hosts to fly. Flying Locusts can use Swoop to land and attack.
Swoop: Orders the Locust to land at the targeted location, allowing it to attack.
Horrible change to SH. They are fine the way they are now and they are the only option to defeating the Protoss deathball straight-up. If Blizz is going to neuter the SH this way they need to redesign the Protoss race.
I don't get it, why not simply make locust spawn manual and be done with it ?! It's that simple! Why mess with the Raven PDDs in such a drastic manner, and pretty much destroy the only soft counter terran has to mass tempests game play ? (that if the terran survives until toss transitions to air)
I don't know why this guys at blizzard come up with such complicated "solutions", maybe , being involved for so many years in this product they are unable (mentally) to come up with simple solutions.
I am really happy that those changes might come earlier than LotV. Those two units really need some rework.
As for the SH: Well, the flying locust actually look really scary within the LotV Custom mod. But so do 2 medivacs with stimmed bio and a zealot warp in. All those can take down a base behind enemy’s lines within a few seconds. The difference is that you do not risk resources, when sniping a base with flying locusts, but supply. If the recharge time does not change, you will have a lot of dead supply for 1 minute after sending out those locusts (similar to recharging widow mines). This should give the opponent enough time to deal some counter damage … maybe. Only problem is, you do not need to kill the base within one locust wave when playing against Z or P. So you do not need that much supply in SH, which could be a problem. But the flying locust should at least get rid of the stalement by bypassing siege tank and colossus fire. Never understood why SH spawned mass units in the first place. This always forces more tanks and colossus’ (colossi?), without being able to break a siege line. Might have been better, if a single, strong unit was spawned, which could actually tank some shots and reach those siege units with their fancy splash damage and kill them. Thus forcing units with higher single target damage like Immortals or Marauders, making the army vulnerable to lings and other Zerg units.
As for the Raven: The PDD change should forces a lot of engagements and disengagements by the attacker, which sounds interessting. But as the raven user has to wait for the attacker to commit to a fight to not waste energy on PDDs that watch the enemy walk away, the attacker should be able to slowly take down single units from the raven user. If the raven user attacks and can chose the time of the battle, I see no big difference to the PDD we have now. There are rarely battles that last more than 20s. How many ravens would be needed to always have a PDD active with the changed duration?
On January 21 2015 10:59 ElMeanYo wrote: Horrible change to SH. They are fine the way they are now and they are the only option to defeating the Protoss deathball straight-up. If Blizz is going to neuter the SH this way they need to redesign the Protoss race.
They specifically noted that they'll probably have to make balance updates to other races if this change goes through.
We will see how this one goes. We might see some potent timing pushes with Swarm Hosts now if Protoss plays a bit too greedy as new Locusts are ridiculously strong and you can't just kite them around or attack them, you have to FF or run away, and you can't run away if you want to defend your third.
Thing Blizzard didn't say in their posts(if SHs are actually the ones from Alpha) is that they cost 100/200 instead of 200/100, and another very important thing, they have movement speed of a Stalker now. Yes, the Stalker, which means 2.95, very fast for such unit. This also means that you can actually play aggressively with them now in these kind of timings, as they won't be dead the moment Protoss finds the path to them.
This could also be not viable of course, but I would really love to see somebody tries that out(like Snute's old style where he would rush with Queens and Swarm Hosts in your face, and just keep relying units there).
On January 21 2015 07:54 stuchiu wrote: Snute actually has extremely diverse skills, as far as I know he's only ever used SH because they are the strongest comp by far for Zerg.
I think this is true, I just didn't like how smug and defensive he is about using Swarm Hosts on stream. Like he made fun of anyone who thought the old swarm host was boring as if that wasn't most of the community.
I like it being lair. That would encourage it to be used in mid game, having it in hive feels incredibly late and not useful especially for hots economy
sigh well im done with sc2 now. for all the ppl that think this is good for sc2 then they havent tried the lotv custom or saw the shoutcraft with qxc aka this http://sc2hl.com/highlight/1266 if you think this is fine then have fun with this awful game. really just think if thats tanks,ht, your base that can't do anything vs the flying locust even if you have +10 vikings and turrets they still get in and kill everything. GG sc2
the only way this is ok is if you double the supply and take away the upgrades and making then hive units, then maybe its ok
On January 21 2015 11:50 Jer99 wrote: They attack nearly as fast as a stimmed marine
with higher hp and doubled damage.
Damage is the same, their DPS is higher because of attack speed. Their HP remains unchanged.
You didnt understand me. They got the double damage of a marine, the same attack speed as the stimmed marine 0.56 to 0.6 and higher health then a marine. And now you dont need a borrow. Roach Swarmhost viper should be THE thing to overcome the protoss before he has his latest game techs. And when you think about overgrowth, a 3 base protoss will allways lose one base: Either the main army with locust will go up one ramp/attack the third or the flying locust fly in your main and do havock. 12 Swarmhost are needed to kill a Nexus in 4 secs, 3 secs for a orbital/planetary.
Locust are not light units, they are not taken down by the thor very fast and with +1 armor, they have easy times to reach the thors and crush them in 1 sec.
On January 21 2015 11:50 Jer99 wrote: They attack nearly as fast as a stimmed marine
with higher hp and doubled damage.
Damage is the same, their DPS is higher because of attack speed. Their HP remains unchanged.
You didnt understand me. They got the double damage of a marine, the same attack speed as the stimmed marine 0.56 to 0.6 and higher health then a marine. And now you dont need a borrow. Roach Swarmhost viper should be THE thing to overcome the protoss before he has his latest game techs. And when you think about overgrowth, a 3 base protoss will allways lose one base: Either the main army with locust will go up one ramp/attack the third or the flying locust fly in your main and do havock. 12 Swarmhost are needed to kill a Nexus in 4 secs, 3 secs for a orbital/planetary.
Locust are not light units, they are not taken down by the thor very fast and with +1 armor, they have easy times to reach the thors and crush them in 1 sec.
These stats are just extremly strong.
Only problem is that they are not 200/100/3 but 100/200/4 now. You need to survive long enough to make a lot of Swarm Hosts and even then, opponent has 30 seconds window to just kill you as you have around 30-40 supply of useless units.
Yes, they sound extremely good and strong on paper, but I am sure that they will be balanced out and that they won't be broken as people think.
On January 21 2015 11:50 Jer99 wrote: They attack nearly as fast as a stimmed marine
with higher hp and doubled damage.
Damage is the same, their DPS is higher because of attack speed. Their HP remains unchanged.
You didnt understand me. They got the double damage of a marine, the same attack speed as the stimmed marine 0.56 to 0.6 and higher health then a marine. And now you dont need a borrow. Roach Swarmhost viper should be THE thing to overcome the protoss before he has his latest game techs. And when you think about overgrowth, a 3 base protoss will allways lose one base: Either the main army with locust will go up one ramp/attack the third or the flying locust fly in your main and do havock. 12 Swarmhost are needed to kill a Nexus in 4 secs, 3 secs for a orbital/planetary.
Locust are not light units, they are not taken down by the thor very fast and with +1 armor, they have easy times to reach the thors and crush them in 1 sec.
These stats are just extremly strong.
Only problem is that they are not 200/100/3 but 100/200/4 now. You need to survive long enough to make a lot of Swarm Hosts and even then, opponent has 30 seconds window to just kill you as you have around 30-40 supply of useless units.
Yes, they sound extremely good and strong on paper, but I am sure that they will be balanced out and that they won't be broken as people think.
Sorry, but I cant believe in "they will be balanced out".
yeah you got the 30 secs window, but the zerg has this window in what he can crush you extremly hard in the face. Or think of nidus host timing. Nidus up. 10-12 hosts out, locust destroy everything, host back at home I think these locust have just way too strong stats for being pure free unit. They looked very strong in LotV beta and they could look even stronger now. I will play the test maps to check this out and i hope i am wrong. But I see these guys bring havoc on protoss and mech. Terran can go bio, bio will be fast enough to abuse the 30 sec timing window. Protoss and mech are slow ass guys.
Bold moves, protoss air could be an issue with SH change, but in all honesty I'd rather deal with that bullshit than the mass raven garbage we're currently subjected to.
Wow. Swarm hosts get nerfed out of existence with this patch (200 gas per swarm host?) At their high supply cost and high spawn locust cooldown I cannot see them being supply-efficient units in any matchup.
On January 21 2015 11:51 starslayer wrote: sigh well im done with sc2 now. for all the ppl that think this is good for sc2 then they havent tried the lotv custom or saw the shoutcraft with qxc aka this http://sc2hl.com/highlight/1266 if you think this is fine then have fun with this awful game. really just think if thats tanks,ht, your base that can't do anything vs the flying locust even if you have +10 vikings and turrets they still get in and kill everything. GG sc2
the only way this is ok is if you double the supply and take away the upgrades and making then hive units, then maybe its ok
Not entirely worth writing it off immediately because of one game and one situation.
LOL what in the actual fuck are they thinking with the swarm host?? seriously! buff locusts, really!??
i mean ok, swarm hosts will cost more gas, and require more supply, and no auto-cast, BUT the locust dps increased and they now last for 30 seconds, which is longer than the 25 second-lifespan after researching enduring locusts! thank god for the 60-second cooldown on locust spawning. the flying thing is also nuts...as if they weren't strong enough, lets let locusts fly over terrain!
Callllllllllm dowwwwwwn. Deep breaths. Yes, the flying locusts look strong. HOWEVER, spending 1200/2400 and 48 freakin supply leaves you very vulnerable. You may have noticed (in the clip on page 6) the carriers ravaging the rest of zergs bases. Because he was vulnerable. Because he spent all his money on swarmhosts.
Well... this is an insanely massive buff to my skytoss playstyle. Wouldn't mind seeing a Tempest nerf. Don't really care for the unit anyways.
Either way, I hate SH, whether I use them or play against them (play Random). So happy to hear that. Also good change to Raven PDD, would be nice to see a buff to the cast range or something else to make them more useful vs P.
On January 21 2015 11:51 starslayer wrote: sigh well im done with sc2 now. for all the ppl that think this is good for sc2 then they havent tried the lotv custom or saw the shoutcraft with qxc aka this http://sc2hl.com/highlight/1266 if you think this is fine then have fun with this awful game. really just think if thats tanks,ht, your base that can't do anything vs the flying locust even if you have +10 vikings and turrets they still get in and kill everything. GG sc2
the only way this is ok is if you double the supply and take away the upgrades and making then hive units, then maybe its ok
Not entirely worth writing it off immediately because of one game and one situation.
its not just that one time the very first game on the first day of lotv custom it happened to me and ive played a bunch trying mech vs this and its just silly, i mean you don't have to use every idea i said that would be to crazy but its a very strong unit and people will see this and realize this wasn't a good idea. but it doesnt matter people think it is so gl hf everyone.
edit what would really shake the game up and make it better would be to make hydras tier 1 and bam zerg good delete sh nerf raven and tempest there we fix sc2. KAPPA
On January 21 2015 13:42 Lobotomist wrote: Callllllllllm dowwwwwwn. Deep breaths. Yes, the flying locusts look strong. HOWEVER, spending 1200/2400 and 48 freakin supply leaves you very vulnerable. You may have noticed (in the clip on page 6) the carriers ravaging the rest of zergs bases. Because he was vulnerable. Because he spent all his money on swarmhosts.
That begs the question - how the hell is that good unit design? That stinks.
On January 21 2015 14:43 NKexquisite wrote: How far can locusts fly? Cany they fly up walls? This will be so broken...
They can fly right into your dreams like Freddy Kruger. They are on top of Mount Olympus with Zues. They are in the pits of hell with Satan and Hitler. They are everywhere. And they can walk up walls even. Be afraid.
On January 21 2015 13:42 Lobotomist wrote: Callllllllllm dowwwwwwn. Deep breaths. Yes, the flying locusts look strong. HOWEVER, spending 1200/2400 and 48 freakin supply leaves you very vulnerable. You may have noticed (in the clip on page 6) the carriers ravaging the rest of zergs bases. Because he was vulnerable. Because he spent all his money on swarmhosts.
That begs the question - how the hell is that good unit design? That stinks.
Just don't make as many swarmhosts. The intent of the redesigned version is that massing them is bad. Sure then your locust waves can't 1 shot nexuses, but that's also kind of the point.
Why are they trying to balance things with swarm hosts... It one of the least microable, uninteresting units in the game plus it seems to lead to lots of endless standoffs
I watched the clip of the nexus getting sniped and I felt a little chilled, but what we're not seeing so much in the video is the fact that the Protoss player is stomping the Zerg's guts out on other fronts, and those Swarm Hosts are going to be useless for about 30 seconds after that. Maybe locusts need to lose their life timer a little faster when they're in the air or something to curb the harass range but this can all be tested.
That aside, it's not like the Terran and Protoss armies are entirely without "units that do good damage to flying Light things". A couple Thors can probably annihilate a clump of Locusts (getting at least a pair of volleys off while the Locusts wing their way in), and a few Phoenixes might be able to snipe at the Locusts and intercept them.
For cost: 3 Hosts: 300/600/12 6 Phoenixes: 900/600/12 (way more minerals, but that's 1 Phoenix per Locust: you can probably cut back) 2 Thors: 600/400/12 (save on gas, Mech floats minerals anyway)
Yeah the problem is Locusts keep their slow moving speed, if only something must have been buffed is their Move speed. The protoss just will mass colossus, hit and run Locust, taking no dommage and has a free windows of 30s where he crush any zerg ground army.
The SH is mandatory in ZvP late gate as nothing can tank the Deathball Collosusi/mmortal/Storm/tempest, and no zerg air army can directly engage P air army, you need to pick unit 1 by 1 and you need Locust to Zone HT. Ofc it's bad designed, but they let this since beta.
It's not a balance Thing, it's just removing the only way zerg have found to counter the broken deathball (Immortal hard counter ultra, Collosus/Storm crush roach/hydra, Void crush Corruptor, Tempest crush broodlord, what left ? SH), again Blizzard show they don't know nothing about their own game, they just hear all the bad player whining : "The game is so long, please remove the SH" (and give me auto-win when i Have hit my 200/200 after camping).
It's not beacause Blizzard claim it's a siege unit, that it's a siege unit. A siege unit, is Tank or collosus, that out range some units. Imagine if Collosus, or Tank throw a slow projectible you can kill without taking dammage ? Do you keep calling them a siege unit ? When i play LOTV, i see SH, and was : "OK, they kill the unit, like they do at the end of WOL with the Infestor, but i have ravager and i can shot with the missile to kill packed army, so let's try". But here, DK don't give us any new way to counter deathball, they make the Hugest nerf on PvZ ever, while Z is the laggy race at the moment on a unfavorable map pool... Seriously, it's silly, if it's patched like that, you can delete the zerg race...
On January 21 2015 06:48 Pontius Pirate wrote: Blizzard, may your wives be fertile, your children be above-average, and your car start on the first turn of the key, even in the dead of winter!
what about mech in tvz? they're buffing and nerfing left and right but no one seems to think what it does to mech. Against sh style mech is gonna be as dead as mech vs protoss. And everyone is gonna be going sh when it hits live, you know that. Manual activation is a joke, at pro level, it's just a bit more micro. Different control group and it's like injects. Makes no difference
On January 21 2015 15:54 Noonius wrote: what about mech in tvz? they're buffing and nerfing left and right but no one seems to think what it does to mech. Against sh style mech is gonna be as dead as mech vs protoss. And everyone is gonna be going sh when it hits live, you know that. Manual activation is a joke, at pro level, it's just a bit more micro. Different control group and it's like injects. Makes no difference
seriously? it's not just a flat buff to swarmhosts, even considering the manual activation. now they're left without active locusts a full 50% of the time in 30 second intervals, giving you windows to ignore the locusts completely.
edit:
On January 21 2015 15:46 Liman wrote: How about some decent maps?
yes please. turtly uber-macro maps (see: deadwing) were a part of the cause of the whole swarmhost/turtle mech problem in the first place.
On January 21 2015 15:54 Noonius wrote: what about mech in tvz? they're buffing and nerfing left and right but no one seems to think what it does to mech. Against sh style mech is gonna be as dead as mech vs protoss. And everyone is gonna be going sh when it hits live, you know that. Manual activation is a joke, at pro level, it's just a bit more micro. Different control group and it's like injects. Makes no difference
Sh will be more expensive than tank and 4 supply. You just make as many tank he has SH and you negate the SH wave (thor +tourett for the flying locust), just max on 200 like always and you can push and win with the increase of supply zerg will have less army !
As soon as I heard about this being in LotV, I was confused as to why they wouldn't at least test it in HotS. But, now that they are going to test it, it makes me think that LotV beta is never coming and Protoss has 0 new units atm.
Why are there people wanting BL infestor back? Do people not remember the end of WOL Era? Holy shit those were as painful to watch as swarmhost vs mech, except that the final engagement always depended on single button (vortex or neural, first to land wins)
If zerg late game is to be buffed, ultralisks are the way to go. Ultra ling muta or something, or something like bw late game zvp/zvt, where ling ultra devourer was the b&b that could challenge terran mech or late game protoss. Edit 1: typo. God damn typing on phone is tough
I can't believe I'm saying it, but I like these changes. PDD is annoying in TvT and Swarm Host is imo THE worst unit in the history of SC2. Of course let's first see how it works in practice and what progamers will say about it. But in general it seems to be that these are very positive changes.
I'm all in on the design changes but what exactly has happened since the latest update that makes blizzard think zerg does not have problems in both matchups?
After they recognized that zerg is underperforming all wcs and ssl qualifiers took place where zerg performed by far the worst, especially in korea.
On January 21 2015 16:04 playa wrote: As soon as I heard about this being in LotV, I was confused as to why they wouldn't at least test it in HotS. But, now that they are going to test it, it makes me think that LotV beta is never coming and Protoss has 0 new units atm.
Protoss got most new units in HotS and they got very powerfull one in lotv. So stop complain about it
I'm still disappointed there isn't even a mention of widow mine. Well, at least we will get to check out the new swarm hosts, which may be interesting.
On January 21 2015 16:04 playa wrote: As soon as I heard about this being in LotV, I was confused as to why they wouldn't at least test it in HotS. But, now that they are going to test it, it makes me think that LotV beta is never coming and Protoss has 0 new units atm.
Protoss got most new units in HotS and they got very powerfull one in lotv. So stop complain about it
Complaining? I'm just saying this made sense to do from the start. If they're doing this now, I get the feel that LotV beta won't be coming out for a long, long time.
They decided to make LotV not because they had new ideas, but because that was the plan from the get go. It's a forced expansion and they won't release it until Toss has new units. Personally, I couldn't care less about LotV. I think this is great news. It merely makes me curious about how the contrived LotV will pan out. At this point, maybe Toss doesn't get any new units and there is a major redesign. Either way, it doesn't look promising on that front.
On January 21 2015 16:50 Homunculus159 wrote: I think it is quite funny how people are crying about the new SH being OP even though they are still in Alpha.
I am new here so please someone tell me. Is it always like that after patches?
I am really glad Blizzard is being active. That is very good. I hope there can be some tournament/showmatches organized to let the pros play with these changes to get realistic feedback on the changes.
Wow, things are actually heating up, good job blizzard!
Are we finally getting Blizzard to lend us an ear?
I'm thinking back on Destinys article/blog and recently the swarmhost whining has been pretty toned down. Which means they are reacting to what we want not what we are whining about. A good sign from Blizz!
On January 21 2015 16:57 DarkLordOlli wrote: Going to counter flying locusts with mass phoenix. Probably going to die a lot
What if flying Locusts had less hp when in the air so 1 or two phoenix shots could take it down (and a single thor shot). Sure, they still hit structures and stuff like a truck. But they might not be as efective against an army with air units in them. Which would make them more of a harrassing unit. Something like that could work maybe.
On January 21 2015 16:57 DarkLordOlli wrote: Going to counter flying locusts with mass phoenix. Probably going to die a lot
What if flying Locusts had less hp when in the air so 1 or two phoenix shots could take it down (and a single thor shot). Sure, they still hit structures and stuff like a truck. But they might not be as efective against an army with air units in them. Which would make them more of a harrassing unit. Something like that could work maybe.
I dunno if they are light or not but if Phoenix and Thors would counter them quite easy I think. I like the changes. Especially to the PDD. I hate TvT with mass Ravens
I feel like this has to be a response to the WCS drama, Blizzard can't afford 4h matches in those tournaments. It used to not be a problem because wcs was mostly koreans anyway, but now that it's more foreigner heavy the specter of swarm host vs mech is looming. More evidence that foreigners suck.
On January 21 2015 18:18 Zax19 wrote: Cool changes but the locust dps is insane (40 per swarm host)...
They also don't last very long, and have two additional animations they MUST do before attacking(getting into the air and dropping to ground). Take that + the fact that they have to move and realistically they have but a few seconds to actually do damage. If they didn't have that kind of DPS then it would be stupid(also flying locusts are practically T3).
I am excited, really want to see how this plays out! I think muta + SH could actually be a thing, making Zerg much more exciting.
On January 21 2015 18:18 Zax19 wrote: Cool changes but the locust dps is insane (40 per swarm host)...
So... less than a Thor (46.9)? (same gas cost).
DPS per minute is necessarily less than 1200 (locusts have a 30 second life span, and a 60 second cooldown). While Thor DPS per minute is 2814.
***
This is an interesting change, and probably more geared towards making LotV better, rather than the very last tournaments of HotS. I like the testing, but I'll mostly keep an eye on PvZ and subsequent changes there.
Well, such a Swarm Host Nerf without the additional LotV changes is just going to break ZvP completely, imo. And balancing around the new Swarm Hosts seems a bit weird, considering the other New Units in LotV might do exactly that, or at least are supposed to do that. Of course Swarm Hosts are annoying, but they're necessary... unfortunately.
It's a start. I guess. Something is still severely missing, though. I don't know why in 2011 I loved watching tournaments and now it just bores me to death. Oh how I miss completely overpowered tech units that counter each other with offense and destruction instead of defensive stalling(Compare Science Vessel and Arbiter with Raven and Tempest etc.)
On January 21 2015 18:47 Swisslink wrote: Well, such a Swarm Host Nerf without the additional LotV changes is just going to break ZvP completely, imo. And balancing around the new Swarm Hosts seems a bit weird, considering the other New Units in LotV might do exactly that, or at least are supposed to do that. Of course Swarm Hosts are annoying, but they're necessary... unfortunately.
This. Everyone here is like "woohoo no more long SH games" but what are we going to see from Zergs in ZvP? Anything into mutaswitch into baserace? That's going to get ugly fast. Lol at the Raven change though. It's a good beginning, but it would be cool if they realized that the Raven is flawed in its very design.
On January 21 2015 18:47 Swisslink wrote: Well, such a Swarm Host Nerf without the additional LotV changes is just going to break ZvP completely, imo. And balancing around the new Swarm Hosts seems a bit weird, considering the other New Units in LotV might do exactly that, or at least are supposed to do that. Of course Swarm Hosts are annoying, but they're necessary... unfortunately.
My guess is:
They don't know HOW exactly the new swarm host breaks the game, so they're looking for ways to get help from the community regarding that.
Then, they buff/nerf stuff accordingly to have an even playing field for new units.
On January 21 2015 18:47 Swisslink wrote: Well, such a Swarm Host Nerf without the additional LotV changes is just going to break ZvP completely, imo. And balancing around the new Swarm Hosts seems a bit weird, considering the other New Units in LotV might do exactly that, or at least are supposed to do that. Of course Swarm Hosts are annoying, but they're necessary... unfortunately.
This. Everyone here is like "woohoo no more long SH games" but what are we going to see from Zergs in ZvP? .
Uhh... Thats the point of this balance test. You realize that?
On January 21 2015 18:56 BurningRanger wrote: How am I supposed to defend my bases against flying Locusts now? Especially when playing Mech.
With stuff. Like everyone else. When meching you have so many spare minerals, just place a few turrets like you'd do anyway.
You're talking about turret rings I assume, like I'd do against large Muta flocks? You know Locusts are free units. They can fight till they die without any resources lost. Imagine Mutas could do that. Turret rings won't last too long. I'd have to rebuild them over and over until eventually I'm out of minerals... and then?
I wonder if flying locusts could actually be a buff vs colossus/templar armies. They don't usually have much AA and locusts wont get killed by colossi anymore -> could jump right at templar
On January 21 2015 18:56 BurningRanger wrote: How am I supposed to defend my bases against flying Locusts now? Especially when playing Mech.
With stuff. Like everyone else. When meching you have so many spare minerals, just place a few turrets like you'd do anyway.
You're talking about turret rings I assume, like I'd do against large Muta flocks? You know Locusts are free units. They can fight till they die without any resources lost. Imagine Mutas could do that. Turret rings won't last too long. I'd have to rebuild them over and over until eventually I'm out of minerals... and then?
But the locust has to land first. Also a sh spawns only 2 locust and is pretty much dead weight for half a minute
On January 21 2015 18:56 BurningRanger wrote: How am I supposed to defend my bases against flying Locusts now? Especially when playing Mech.
With stuff. Like everyone else. When meching you have so many spare minerals, just place a few turrets like you'd do anyway.
You're talking about turret rings I assume, like I'd do against large Muta flocks? You know Locusts are free units. They can fight till they die without any resources lost. Imagine Mutas could do that. Turret rings won't last too long. I'd have to rebuild them over and over until eventually I'm out of minerals... and then?
Locusts have a kinda long animation to approach/land, and they also take quite a bit of space away. So I'm sure that a turret ring will do just fine against a reasonable amount of swarmhosts, and if they have a shitton of them so that you lose a base instantly, just kill their other bases as their main army will be incredibly small.
On January 21 2015 18:47 Swisslink wrote: Well, such a Swarm Host Nerf without the additional LotV changes is just going to break ZvP completely, imo. And balancing around the new Swarm Hosts seems a bit weird, considering the other New Units in LotV might do exactly that, or at least are supposed to do that. Of course Swarm Hosts are annoying, but they're necessary... unfortunately.
My guess is:
They don't know HOW exactly the new swarm host breaks the game, so they're looking for ways to get help from the community regarding that.
Then, they buff/nerf stuff accordingly to have an even playing field for new units.
Yeah, but does it make much sense to change all the HotS-Units to balance out the Swarm Host Nerf, while LotV is around the corner with completely new units and answers to this Swarm Host Nerf? I mean, it's cool from a spectators point of view - but the players have to adapt to these huge changes (and if the game's supposed to be balanced around the Swarm Host Nerf, the changes are going to be huge, no doubt about that) and as soon as LotV hits, most of these changes have to be reverted, because the new units in LotV will overlap with the required adjustments they're doing now to balance the New Swarm Host.
The community doesn't really know a lot about these new units. One Protoss unit hasn't even been shown yet (apparently).
On January 21 2015 19:13 DarkLordOlli wrote: I wonder if flying locusts could actually be a buff vs colossus/templar armies. They don't usually have much AA and locusts wont get killed by colossi anymore -> could jump right at templar
A brief perusal of the LotV tournament TB arranged should suggest otherwise. SH really don't have the power to zone out the protoss deathball anymore in LotV. Locusts are still slow and have short range. Implementing this change absent the complimentary changes of LotV is just going to break the game. Zerg will have no realistic way of dealing with late game mech and protoss armies.
I don't care too much if this happens tbh, as I see it the game is just coasting until LotV anyway, where the real game actually begins, the game we should have had in 2010.
On January 21 2015 19:24 Everlong wrote: Acknowledge own mistakes, remove SH from the game, problem solved, everyone is happy now...
And every Zerg is dead if he doesn't go for some kind of mid-game push. Great.
They could buff something else, or add new unit, whatever.. Just remove the fucking thing from the game already.
Care to make some suggestiones?
I'm not a game developer, nor am I a game designer. But I can tell when something is clearly wrong. I'm pretty sure a team of people which can come up with a unit like Swarm Host is able to come up with some ideas to tweak some Zerg units to make up for the removal of it.
On January 21 2015 19:24 Everlong wrote: Acknowledge own mistakes, remove SH from the game, problem solved, everyone is happy now...
And every Zerg is dead if he doesn't go for some kind of mid-game push. Great.
welcome to terran in wol against z and p
Oh, the good old "Terran was in this situation before - now it's your turn!"? Just because the same thing happened before doesn't justify another imbalance.
I'm all for them nerfing/changing the swarmhost and nerfing the raven some, there's just a few huge issues with this:
Terran has no late game unit except the raven, so nerfing the raven is basically nerfing Terran late game. That is a really huge nerf, more than people realize.
Also, if raven PDD is nerfed tempests must ALSO be severely nerfed because right now if you go mech vs Protoss they are able to mass 20+ tempests with templar and the only counter to it is...to mass ravens for PDD. And a 20 sec PDD is going to be autoloss because it takes forever to accumulate raven energy versus the opponent's "infinite energy" shooting tempests.
So yes, swarmhost nerf please, raven nerf ONLY if blizzard is willing to nerf Tempests with them.
On January 21 2015 19:24 Everlong wrote: Acknowledge own mistakes, remove SH from the game, problem solved, everyone is happy now...
And every Zerg is dead if he doesn't go for some kind of mid-game push. Great.
They could buff something else, or add new unit, whatever.. Just remove the fucking thing from the game already.
Care to make some suggestiones?
I'm not a game developer, nor am I a game designer. But I can tell when something is clearly wrong. I'm pretty sure a team of people which can come up with a unit like Swarm Host is able to come up with some ideas to tweak some Zerg units to make up for the removal of it.
They're doing that. It's called legacy of the void.
On January 21 2015 19:24 Everlong wrote: Acknowledge own mistakes, remove SH from the game, problem solved, everyone is happy now...
And every Zerg is dead if he doesn't go for some kind of mid-game push. Great.
They could buff something else, or add new unit, whatever.. Just remove the fucking thing from the game already.
Care to make some suggestiones?
I'm not a game developer, nor am I a game designer. But I can tell when something is clearly wrong. I'm pretty sure a team of people which can come up with a unit like Swarm Host is able to come up with some ideas to tweak some Zerg units to make up for the removal of it.
They're doing that. It's called legacy of the void.
Last time I checked, Swar Host was still the unit they plan on to be involved in LotV. Has this changed?
On January 21 2015 19:24 Everlong wrote: Acknowledge own mistakes, remove SH from the game, problem solved, everyone is happy now...
And every Zerg is dead if he doesn't go for some kind of mid-game push. Great.
They could buff something else, or add new unit, whatever.. Just remove the fucking thing from the game already.
Care to make some suggestiones?
I'm not a game developer, nor am I a game designer. But I can tell when something is clearly wrong. I'm pretty sure a team of people which can come up with a unit like Swarm Host is able to come up with some ideas to tweak some Zerg units to make up for the removal of it.
They're doing that. It's called legacy of the void.
Last time I checked, Swar Host was still the unit they plan on to be involved in LotV. Has this changed?
The Swarm Host in LotV is not a turtle-unit at all. Therefore the unit can't be compared to the Swarm Host in HotS.
On January 21 2015 19:24 Everlong wrote: Acknowledge own mistakes, remove SH from the game, problem solved, everyone is happy now...
And every Zerg is dead if he doesn't go for some kind of mid-game push. Great.
They could buff something else, or add new unit, whatever.. Just remove the fucking thing from the game already.
Care to make some suggestiones?
I'm not a game developer, nor am I a game designer. But I can tell when something is clearly wrong. I'm pretty sure a team of people which can come up with a unit like Swarm Host is able to come up with some ideas to tweak some Zerg units to make up for the removal of it.
They're doing that. It's called legacy of the void.
Last time I checked, Swar Host was still the unit they plan on to be involved in LotV. Has this changed?
So what in your opinion is wrong with new swarmhosts (keeping in mind it is still alpha)
On January 21 2015 19:24 Everlong wrote: Acknowledge own mistakes, remove SH from the game, problem solved, everyone is happy now...
And every Zerg is dead if he doesn't go for some kind of mid-game push. Great.
They could buff something else, or add new unit, whatever.. Just remove the fucking thing from the game already.
Care to make some suggestiones?
I'm not a game developer, nor am I a game designer. But I can tell when something is clearly wrong. I'm pretty sure a team of people which can come up with a unit like Swarm Host is able to come up with some ideas to tweak some Zerg units to make up for the removal of it.
They're doing that. It's called legacy of the void.
Last time I checked, Swar Host was still the unit they plan on to be involved in LotV. Has this changed?
No, but its role in the game is radically changed, so it's basically a removal of the old SH and the addition of a new SH + Lurkers.
On January 21 2015 19:24 Everlong wrote: Acknowledge own mistakes, remove SH from the game, problem solved, everyone is happy now...
And every Zerg is dead if he doesn't go for some kind of mid-game push. Great.
They could buff something else, or add new unit, whatever.. Just remove the fucking thing from the game already.
Care to make some suggestiones?
I'm not a game developer, nor am I a game designer. But I can tell when something is clearly wrong. I'm pretty sure a team of people which can come up with a unit like Swarm Host is able to come up with some ideas to tweak some Zerg units to make up for the removal of it.
They're doing that. It's called legacy of the void.
Last time I checked, Swar Host was still the unit they plan on to be involved in LotV. Has this changed?
No, but its role in the game is radically changed, so it's basically a removal of the old SH and the addition of a new SH + Lurkers.
Well that and ravagers making roach-based play really really strong.
On January 21 2015 19:24 Everlong wrote: Acknowledge own mistakes, remove SH from the game, problem solved, everyone is happy now...
And every Zerg is dead if he doesn't go for some kind of mid-game push. Great.
They could buff something else, or add new unit, whatever.. Just remove the fucking thing from the game already.
Care to make some suggestiones?
I'm not a game developer, nor am I a game designer. But I can tell when something is clearly wrong. I'm pretty sure a team of people which can come up with a unit like Swarm Host is able to come up with some ideas to tweak some Zerg units to make up for the removal of it.
They're doing that. It's called legacy of the void.
Last time I checked, Swar Host was still the unit they plan on to be involved in LotV. Has this changed?
No, but its role in the game is radically changed, so it's basically a removal of the old SH and the addition of a new SH + Lurkers.
Well that and ravagers making roach-based play really really strong.
I dunno, right now ravagers seem not that strong, with their mortar attack being really easy to dodge.
On January 21 2015 19:24 Everlong wrote: Acknowledge own mistakes, remove SH from the game, problem solved, everyone is happy now...
And every Zerg is dead if he doesn't go for some kind of mid-game push. Great.
They could buff something else, or add new unit, whatever.. Just remove the fucking thing from the game already.
Care to make some suggestiones?
I'm not a game developer, nor am I a game designer. But I can tell when something is clearly wrong. I'm pretty sure a team of people which can come up with a unit like Swarm Host is able to come up with some ideas to tweak some Zerg units to make up for the removal of it.
They're doing that. It's called legacy of the void.
Last time I checked, Swar Host was still the unit they plan on to be involved in LotV. Has this changed?
No, but its role in the game is radically changed, so it's basically a removal of the old SH and the addition of a new SH + Lurkers.
Well that and ravagers making roach-based play really really strong.
I dunno, right now ravagers seem not that strong, with their mortar attack being really easy to dodge.
They are pretty strong vs balls (mech/toss) and generally good for zoning out
On January 21 2015 19:24 Everlong wrote: Acknowledge own mistakes, remove SH from the game, problem solved, everyone is happy now...
And every Zerg is dead if he doesn't go for some kind of mid-game push. Great.
They could buff something else, or add new unit, whatever.. Just remove the fucking thing from the game already.
Care to make some suggestiones?
I'm not a game developer, nor am I a game designer. But I can tell when something is clearly wrong. I'm pretty sure a team of people which can come up with a unit like Swarm Host is able to come up with some ideas to tweak some Zerg units to make up for the removal of it.
They're doing that. It's called legacy of the void.
Last time I checked, Swar Host was still the unit they plan on to be involved in LotV. Has this changed?
No, but its role in the game is radically changed, so it's basically a removal of the old SH and the addition of a new SH + Lurkers.
Well that and ravagers making roach-based play really really strong.
I dunno, right now ravagers seem not that strong, with their mortar attack being really easy to dodge.
They are really good at zoning, though. You make your opponent decide to either a) take damage or b) leave the fight with units, giving you an opportunity
They are also great at damaging immobile armies(mech etc), combine that with the harrassing opportunity swarmhosts have and I think it could play out really well in LotV.
No idea how good the new SHs will actually be in HotS, though. Thats what we got the map for I guess!
On January 21 2015 19:24 Everlong wrote: Acknowledge own mistakes, remove SH from the game, problem solved, everyone is happy now...
And every Zerg is dead if he doesn't go for some kind of mid-game push. Great.
They could buff something else, or add new unit, whatever.. Just remove the fucking thing from the game already.
Care to make some suggestiones?
I'm not a game developer, nor am I a game designer. But I can tell when something is clearly wrong. I'm pretty sure a team of people which can come up with a unit like Swarm Host is able to come up with some ideas to tweak some Zerg units to make up for the removal of it.
They're doing that. It's called legacy of the void.
Last time I checked, Swar Host was still the unit they plan on to be involved in LotV. Has this changed?
So what in your opinion is wrong with new swarmhosts (keeping in mind it is still alpha)
I think flying locusts are very wrong. For harrasment purposes, you have Mutalisks, which can overcome terrain. The fact that you can't really do anything to the locusts until they land is potentially even worse then current respawn timer. Lurker and Ravagers seem to be enough for siege/harrasment options. The new nydus worm is also a way to harass, so I don't really understand the role they are supposed to fill. You can't expect the new Swarm Host to stop Protoss deathball from marching in I think too. So why keep it in the game? It has been the source of frustration the last year or so and I don't think it is going to be much different, even with changes they plan on doing, I still think it is going to be very kind of allin strat, very annoying to deal with and frustrating for both sides.
edit: Also, it seems like they want people to use them the same way Brood Lord is used, so it overlaps here too.
I see Swarm Hosts replacing Broodlords now. Strong punshing, air as the only efficient way to deal it....
They should buff Broodlord play (specially micro and speed/acceleration) which is the air siege unit of zerg and also late tech. Swarm Hosts could be more mobile, interesting or funky on abilities. No need for free flying harassers that come out from a ground speedy unit, easily destroying your lategame bases in a locust wave. It also makes Swarm Hosts useless without upgrade (same as they are now) which is not good. Every unit should have a viable style without upgrade and then having an interesting upgrade that gives them bonus functionality, not viability. Locusts spawning without autoballing is a solution also worth considering, as it minimizes the splash effect from tanks and storms.
The campaign Carrion (spawning creep, ability to move within creep) and stats are fare more interesting for SH. Slightly weaker, far more mobile, an effective siege as it forms domination over terrain. Lategame territorial domination becomes then a nightmare for turtles. Dominating the field is something very zergy and really interesting, both offensively and defensively.
Other parts of the Zerg tech are also underused or worth improving to help the lategame: Nydus tech, Drop tech, Ultralisk AI (which is horrible).
On January 21 2015 19:24 Everlong wrote: Acknowledge own mistakes, remove SH from the game, problem solved, everyone is happy now...
And every Zerg is dead if he doesn't go for some kind of mid-game push. Great.
They could buff something else, or add new unit, whatever.. Just remove the fucking thing from the game already.
Care to make some suggestiones?
I'm not a game developer, nor am I a game designer. But I can tell when something is clearly wrong. I'm pretty sure a team of people which can come up with a unit like Swarm Host is able to come up with some ideas to tweak some Zerg units to make up for the removal of it.
They're doing that. It's called legacy of the void.
Last time I checked, Swar Host was still the unit they plan on to be involved in LotV. Has this changed?
So what in your opinion is wrong with new swarmhosts (keeping in mind it is still alpha)
I think flying locusts are very wrong. For harrasment purposes, you have Mutalisks, which can overcome terrain. The fact that you can't really do anything to the locusts until they land is potentially even worse then current respawn timer. Lurker and Ravagers seem to be enough for siege/harrasment options. The new nydus worm is also a way to harass, so I don't really understand the role they are supposed to fill. You can't expect the new Swarm Host to stop Protoss deathball from marching in I think too. So why keep it in the game? It has been the source of frustration the last year or so and I don't think it is going to be much different, even with changes they plan on doing, I still think it is going to be very kind of allin strat, very annoying to deal with and frustrating for both sides.
edit: Also, it seems like they want people to use them the same way Brood Lord is used, so it overlaps here too.
I agree that they kinda take away the role of the broodlords but you actually can damage the locust while they are in the air potentially killing them before they even do landing animation. Though the new sh are used seperately from the army. Like with broodlords you would need a lot of support for them whereas here its more compareable to zealot harass or a medivac drop. And of course tempests need a nerf for broodlords to be viable again. Also the new sh are good vs mech without enough air support. I think with the new sh matches are gonna be interesting and i am interested to see how they are gonna be used. I do not think its gonna be frustrating like the old sh was to play against. I mean if it does not work and they are unusable maybe they will remove it. With this and tge legacy of the void plans they showed that they are willing to make drastic changes if needed.
I just think we should at least give the new sh a chance
On January 21 2015 20:17 algue wrote: The problem remains that the Swarm Host is able to deal damage without taking any risk whatsoever
Battlecruisers can deal damage without taking risk. Yamato. Tempests can deal damage without taking risk. Long range weapon. Protoss army can deal damage without taking risk. Recall. Terrans can lose SCVs without taking risk. MULEs. Widow mines can deal damage without taking risk. Kill detection and cover with marines.
On January 21 2015 20:17 algue wrote: The problem remains that the Swarm Host is able to deal damage without taking any risk whatsoever
Battlecruisers can deal damage without taking risk. Yamato. Tempests can deal damage without taking risk. Long range weapon. Protoss army can deal damage without taking risk. Recall. Terrans can lose SCVs without taking risk. MULEs. Widow mines can deal damage without taking risk. Kill detection and cover with marines.
Continue?
Your risk with the points you mentioned is that you can actually lose your units to other units whereas the sh can spawn locusts comfortably from far away.
On January 21 2015 20:17 algue wrote: The problem remains that the Swarm Host is able to deal damage without taking any risk whatsoever
Battlecruisers can deal damage without taking risk. Yamato. Tempests can deal damage without taking risk. Long range weapon. Protoss army can deal damage without taking risk. Recall. Terrans can lose SCVs without taking risk. MULEs. Widow mines can deal damage without taking risk. Kill detection and cover with marines.
Continue?
Your risk with the points you mentioned is that you can actually lose your units to other units whereas the sh can spawn locusts comfortably from far away.
While being exposed, horribly slow and most of the time out of position....
So yeah, they're not really risk free unless you have free map control, in which case mostly everything is risk free.
On January 21 2015 20:17 algue wrote: The problem remains that the Swarm Host is able to deal damage without taking any risk whatsoever
Battlecruisers can deal damage without taking risk. Yamato. Tempests can deal damage without taking risk. Long range weapon. Protoss army can deal damage without taking risk. Recall. Terrans can lose SCVs without taking risk. MULEs. Widow mines can deal damage without taking risk. Kill detection and cover with marines.
Continue?
Your risk with the points you mentioned is that you can actually lose your units to other units whereas the sh can spawn locusts comfortably from far away.
While being burrowed, horribly slow and most of the time out of position....
So yeah, they're not really risk free unless you have free map control, in which case mostly everything is risk free.
It really depends since most of the time (talking about pro games) they are used defensively which is pretty much riskfree compared to BCs attacking or a protoss army with recall. And afterwards they just spawn endless waves of free units who travel through most of the map. I mean yeah sure if the Sh are somewhere out of position without static D support it is a risk but it doesnt happen that often or at least not to good SH users. Especially not against mech. And most of the time it forces pvz into the very late game.
On January 21 2015 19:24 Everlong wrote: Acknowledge own mistakes, remove SH from the game, problem solved, everyone is happy now...
And every Zerg is dead if he doesn't go for some kind of mid-game push. Great.
They could buff something else, or add new unit, whatever.. Just remove the fucking thing from the game already.
Care to make some suggestiones?
I'm not a game developer, nor am I a game designer. But I can tell when something is clearly wrong. I'm pretty sure a team of people which can come up with a unit like Swarm Host is able to come up with some ideas to tweak some Zerg units to make up for the removal of it.
They're doing that. It's called legacy of the void.
Last time I checked, Swar Host was still the unit they plan on to be involved in LotV. Has this changed?
So what in your opinion is wrong with new swarmhosts (keeping in mind it is still alpha)
I think flying locusts are very wrong. For harrasment purposes, you have Mutalisks, which can overcome terrain. The fact that you can't really do anything to the locusts until they land is potentially even worse then current respawn timer. Lurker and Ravagers seem to be enough for siege/harrasment options. The new nydus worm is also a way to harass, so I don't really understand the role they are supposed to fill. You can't expect the new Swarm Host to stop Protoss deathball from marching in I think too. So why keep it in the game? It has been the source of frustration the last year or so and I don't think it is going to be much different, even with changes they plan on doing, I still think it is going to be very kind of allin strat, very annoying to deal with and frustrating for both sides.
edit: Also, it seems like they want people to use them the same way Brood Lord is used, so it overlaps here too.
I agree that they kinda take away the role of the broodlords but you actually can damage the locust while they are in the air potentially killing them before they even do landing animation. Though the new sh are used seperately from the army. Like with broodlords you would need a lot of support for them whereas here its more compareable to zealot harass or a medivac drop. And of course tempests need a nerf for broodlords to be viable again. Also the new sh are good vs mech without enough air support. I think with the new sh matches are gonna be interesting and i am interested to see how they are gonna be used. I do not think its gonna be frustrating like the old sh was to play against. I mean if it does not work and they are unusable maybe they will remove it. With this and tge legacy of the void plans they showed that they are willing to make drastic changes if needed.
I just think we should at least give the new sh a chance
You just described the real problem. A tech replaces the other one. And now, thinking about numbers, just imagine how hard is to kill a big locust wave without splash damage. Then imagine that applied in the air terrain. Then, that situation is real and the only counter is than using mass thors or mass archons/phoenix. (extremely cost innefficient given the cost/risk for the zerg player).
They should buff broodlords control and micro, giving them some speed, range and maybe +1 armor and lowering morphing times for Greter Spire and BL cocoon. This automatically helps the Zerg lategame, breaks the stalemate, gives them more cost efficiency as they can flee much better. More speed + some range are needed for the Broodlord and would lead to interesting battles. Then , rethink the Swarmhost for a midgame viable and interesting choice. And start balancing PDD and Tempests then after the broodlords are viable and not a damn flying brick (as a Protoss player I think that the Tempest damage is out of control).
My theory regarding the new SH is that at first people will be happy as it adds more multitaksing and less staleness, but over time, it will turn out to be an unbalanceable unit that is also kinda boring as it doesn't really reward micro. I am not too sure this unit will make it into the final LOTV release.
On January 21 2015 07:09 Liquid`Snute wrote: lol you guys, i adapt to what's strong, it's not coincidence that i play swarm host right now and if it doesn't work anymore i'll do something else. winning is winning and learning how to win is becoming less and less of a problem to me as time goes on
as for the patch itself i don't have too many thoughts of it besides RIP brood lord, most neglected Z unit in the game just became even more useless.
U wanna make a comparison with Broodlord vs Carrier? :D both are pretty useless, well, battlecruiser probably stands near.
And yea, please, I wanna play my PvT with templar openings
On January 21 2015 19:24 Everlong wrote: Acknowledge own mistakes, remove SH from the game, problem solved, everyone is happy now...
And every Zerg is dead if he doesn't go for some kind of mid-game push. Great.
They could buff something else, or add new unit, whatever.. Just remove the fucking thing from the game already.
Care to make some suggestiones?
I'm not a game developer, nor am I a game designer. But I can tell when something is clearly wrong. I'm pretty sure a team of people which can come up with a unit like Swarm Host is able to come up with some ideas to tweak some Zerg units to make up for the removal of it.
They're doing that. It's called legacy of the void.
Last time I checked, Swar Host was still the unit they plan on to be involved in LotV. Has this changed?
So what in your opinion is wrong with new swarmhosts (keeping in mind it is still alpha)
Still spawns free-units.
Ergo, still anti-RTS.
You can't balance free units in an economy-driven game.
I'd rather have a reworked SH than nothing, though. Blizzard is never-ever going to remove a unit sadly, otherwise there'd be a couple gone already.
And every Zerg is dead if he doesn't go for some kind of mid-game push. Great.
They could buff something else, or add new unit, whatever.. Just remove the fucking thing from the game already.
Care to make some suggestiones?
I'm not a game developer, nor am I a game designer. But I can tell when something is clearly wrong. I'm pretty sure a team of people which can come up with a unit like Swarm Host is able to come up with some ideas to tweak some Zerg units to make up for the removal of it.
They're doing that. It's called legacy of the void.
Last time I checked, Swar Host was still the unit they plan on to be involved in LotV. Has this changed?
So what in your opinion is wrong with new swarmhosts (keeping in mind it is still alpha)
I think flying locusts are very wrong. For harrasment purposes, you have Mutalisks, which can overcome terrain. The fact that you can't really do anything to the locusts until they land is potentially even worse then current respawn timer. Lurker and Ravagers seem to be enough for siege/harrasment options. The new nydus worm is also a way to harass, so I don't really understand the role they are supposed to fill. You can't expect the new Swarm Host to stop Protoss deathball from marching in I think too. So why keep it in the game? It has been the source of frustration the last year or so and I don't think it is going to be much different, even with changes they plan on doing, I still think it is going to be very kind of allin strat, very annoying to deal with and frustrating for both sides.
edit: Also, it seems like they want people to use them the same way Brood Lord is used, so it overlaps here too.
I agree that they kinda take away the role of the broodlords but you actually can damage the locust while they are in the air potentially killing them before they even do landing animation. Though the new sh are used seperately from the army. Like with broodlords you would need a lot of support for them whereas here its more compareable to zealot harass or a medivac drop. And of course tempests need a nerf for broodlords to be viable again. Also the new sh are good vs mech without enough air support. I think with the new sh matches are gonna be interesting and i am interested to see how they are gonna be used. I do not think its gonna be frustrating like the old sh was to play against. I mean if it does not work and they are unusable maybe they will remove it. With this and tge legacy of the void plans they showed that they are willing to make drastic changes if needed.
I just think we should at least give the new sh a chance
You just described the real problem. A tech replaces the other one. And now, thinking about numbers, just imagine how hard is to kill a big locust wave without splash damage. Then imagine that applied in the air terrain. Then, that situation is real and the only counter is than using mass thors or mass archons/phoenix. (extremely cost innefficient given the cost/risk for the zerg player).
They should buff broodlords control and micro, giving them some speed, range and maybe +1 armor and lowering morphing times for Greter Spire and BL cocoon. This automatically helps the Zerg lategame, breaks the stalemate, gives them more cost efficiency as they can flee much better. More speed + some range are needed for the Broodlord and would lead to interesting battles. Then , rethink the Swarmhost for a midgame viable and interesting choice. And start balancing PDD and Tempests then after the broodlords are viable and not a damn flying brick (as a Protoss player I think that the Tempest damage is out of control).
Yeah tempests needs a nerf so BCs can be used in TvP and Broodlords in ZvP. Yeah your points are valid but its a start that they are changing the Sh. We will see how it works out in testing
Reaver for Protoss -> Remove Colossus Vulture (with mines) for Terran -> Remove Hellion and Widow Mine Lurker for Zerg -> Remove Swarmhost -> get epic game back
On January 21 2015 19:24 Everlong wrote: Acknowledge own mistakes, remove SH from the game, problem solved, everyone is happy now...
And every Zerg is dead if he doesn't go for some kind of mid-game push. Great.
They could buff something else, or add new unit, whatever.. Just remove the fucking thing from the game already.
Care to make some suggestiones?
I'm not a game developer, nor am I a game designer. But I can tell when something is clearly wrong. I'm pretty sure a team of people which can come up with a unit like Swarm Host is able to come up with some ideas to tweak some Zerg units to make up for the removal of it.
They're doing that. It's called legacy of the void.
Last time I checked, Swar Host was still the unit they plan on to be involved in LotV. Has this changed?
So what in your opinion is wrong with new swarmhosts (keeping in mind it is still alpha)
Still spawns free-units.
Ergo, still anti-RTS.
You can't balance free units in an economy-driven game.
I'd rather have a reworked SH than nothing, though. Blizzard is never-ever going to remove a unit sadly, otherwise there'd be a couple gone already.
I dunno. They also removed the warhound and if the Sh turns out to not being able to be balanced i can sse a removal of the unit
And every Zerg is dead if he doesn't go for some kind of mid-game push. Great.
They could buff something else, or add new unit, whatever.. Just remove the fucking thing from the game already.
Care to make some suggestiones?
I'm not a game developer, nor am I a game designer. But I can tell when something is clearly wrong. I'm pretty sure a team of people which can come up with a unit like Swarm Host is able to come up with some ideas to tweak some Zerg units to make up for the removal of it.
They're doing that. It's called legacy of the void.
Last time I checked, Swar Host was still the unit they plan on to be involved in LotV. Has this changed?
So what in your opinion is wrong with new swarmhosts (keeping in mind it is still alpha)
Still spawns free-units.
Ergo, still anti-RTS.
You can't balance free units in an economy-driven game.
I'd rather have a reworked SH than nothing, though. Blizzard is never-ever going to remove a unit sadly, otherwise there'd be a couple gone already.
I dunno. They also removed the warhound and if the Sh turns out to not being able to be balanced i can sse a removal of the unit
They removed the warhound off a beta. They introduce and scratch a unit all the time in production, but they never do it on a released product.
So yeah, every unit that is in the game now will stay in there forever. Because ... I don't know.
And every Zerg is dead if he doesn't go for some kind of mid-game push. Great.
They could buff something else, or add new unit, whatever.. Just remove the fucking thing from the game already.
Care to make some suggestiones?
I'm not a game developer, nor am I a game designer. But I can tell when something is clearly wrong. I'm pretty sure a team of people which can come up with a unit like Swarm Host is able to come up with some ideas to tweak some Zerg units to make up for the removal of it.
They're doing that. It's called legacy of the void.
Last time I checked, Swar Host was still the unit they plan on to be involved in LotV. Has this changed?
So what in your opinion is wrong with new swarmhosts (keeping in mind it is still alpha)
Still spawns free-units.
Ergo, still anti-RTS.
You can't balance free units in an economy-driven game.
I'd rather have a reworked SH than nothing, though. Blizzard is never-ever going to remove a unit sadly, otherwise there'd be a couple gone already.
I'd rather have the brains of the design-team members responsible for the SH reworked. That would also be better than nothing.
I'd like to know how many people are involved in the first place.
On January 21 2015 20:59 SonGoku wrote: Reaver for Protoss -> Remove Colossus Vulture (with mines) for Terran -> Remove Hellion and Widow Mine Lurker for Zerg -> Remove Swarmhost -> get epic game back
There is this game called BW. You should try playing that instead...
I'll trade colosus for reaver even in sc2, any day, any year.
The problem remains that the Swarm Host is able to deal damage without taking any risk whatsoever
Exactly. It really doesn't much as much difference whether SHs will be used defensively or offensively if the unit-interaction consist of free units attacking enemy units from a 30-range distance. Compare that to somone dropping Marines from a Medivac and the enemy zerg player trying to deal with that by splitting up his Muta/bling army. The latter actually creates interesting interactions while the former maintains the main issue with free units and long range.
Free units can be interesting if the "spawning unit" needs to be close to the battle. For instance, I like the concept behind ITs on the Infestor as the Infestor needs to be part of the actual engagement, and if you harass with it you neeed to get into the enemy base (not 100% sold on the actual implementation of the ITs though - but the concept works unlike any of the SHs concepts).
The problem remains that the Swarm Host is able to deal damage without taking any risk whatsoever
Exactly. It really doesn't much as much difference whether SHs will be used defensively or offensively if the unit-interaction consist of free units attacking enemy units from a 30-range distance. Compare that to somone dropping Marines from a Medivac and the enemy zerg player trying to deal with that by splitting up his Muta/bling army. The latter actually creates interesting interactions while the former maintains the main issue with free units and long range.
Free units can be interesting if the "spawning unit" needs to be close to the battle. For instance, I like the concept behind ITs on the Infestor as the Infestor needs to be part of the actual engagement, and if you harass with it you neeed to get into the enemy base (not 100% sold on the actual implementation of the ITs though - but the concept works unlike any of the SHs concepts).
Honestly the SH is probably better off removed (a worse designed toxic version of the Lurker which is a unit that they avoided out of pride but ended up adding in LoTV anyways), but I'll take a harassment focused SH over the current one any day.
On January 21 2015 21:54 syroz wrote: It's strange. Such a core change before LotV.
It is very couragous but it will change the game balance drastically.
I don't know yet if it's a good idea.
I wish they went through with many more of those changes before LotV. Like the warpgate one would be really nice and the state of warpgate has been critizised for 4.5years now.
The sh change is a hidden way to delete the unit, 200gaz and 4 supply, the cooldown incresead, still the slow locusts movespeed, way too weak off creap, that will make SH a waste of gaz and supply. Using the gaz on mutas will be far more effective and you will have more army for less supply. Sadly Mutas is an unreliable style on ZvP, it's rely only on surprise. No protoss will loose vs a Zerg who always go mutas.
The only option is Broodlord but a heavy nerf on skytoss is needed with nerfing HT/tempest and void ray. Or you can just make Protoss auto win after 20min
The problem remains that the Swarm Host is able to deal damage without taking any risk whatsoever
Exactly. It really doesn't much as much difference whether SHs will be used defensively or offensively if the unit-interaction consist of free units attacking enemy units from a 30-range distance. Compare that to somone dropping Marines from a Medivac and the enemy zerg player trying to deal with that by splitting up his Muta/bling army. The latter actually creates interesting interactions while the former maintains the main issue with free units and long range.
Free units can be interesting if the "spawning unit" needs to be close to the battle. For instance, I like the concept behind ITs on the Infestor as the Infestor needs to be part of the actual engagement, and if you harass with it you neeed to get into the enemy base (not 100% sold on the actual implementation of the ITs though - but the concept works unlike any of the SHs concepts).
Artillery units have existed from the start of RTS games. Only difference with SH is their projectiles are slower and killable
On January 21 2015 19:24 Everlong wrote: Acknowledge own mistakes, remove SH from the game, problem solved, everyone is happy now...
And every Zerg is dead if he doesn't go for some kind of mid-game push. Great.
They could buff something else, or add new unit, whatever.. Just remove the fucking thing from the game already.
Care to make some suggestiones?
I'm not a game developer, nor am I a game designer. But I can tell when something is clearly wrong. I'm pretty sure a team of people which can come up with a unit like Swarm Host is able to come up with some ideas to tweak some Zerg units to make up for the removal of it.
They're doing that. It's called legacy of the void.
Last time I checked, Swar Host was still the unit they plan on to be involved in LotV. Has this changed?
So what in your opinion is wrong with new swarmhosts (keeping in mind it is still alpha)
Still spawns free-units.
Ergo, still anti-RTS.
You can't balance free units in an economy-driven game.
Of course you can. It is all about whether you risk putting the swarmhost in danger while using them.
Broodlords for example, though broken in combination with the old fungal, are perfectly fine even though they spawn free units. The reason being that you expose them to a great danger of being picked off when using them. That way, it becomes very hard to get infinite value out of their spawning capabilities because they will be killed in action sooner or later.
The old swarmhosts are not fine however. They can spawn units which engage the enemy halfway across the map, so they are rarely in danger themselves. No clue about the new swarmhosts though, haven't played them yet.
On January 21 2015 21:54 syroz wrote: It's strange. Such a core change before LotV.
It is very couragous but it will change the game balance drastically.
I don't know yet if it's a good idea.
Balance isn't bad right now as far as win-rates go. Terran has looked favoured but only because of the maps being Terran favoured. The game as it is can be balanced using maps alone, no changes need to be made to the units.
These changes aren't aimed at balancing the game in a win-rate sense (if they are then Blizzard are being dumber than usual), they're aimed at removing two things that nobody finds fun to watch/play against. Fun requires "balancing" as well!
Don't equate "balancing for fun" with "balancing design". Calling it a "for fun" thing greatly understates our efforts to get Blizzard to fix some of SC2's shitty design.
The problem remains that the Swarm Host is able to deal damage without taking any risk whatsoever
Exactly. It really doesn't much as much difference whether SHs will be used defensively or offensively if the unit-interaction consist of free units attacking enemy units from a 30-range distance. Compare that to somone dropping Marines from a Medivac and the enemy zerg player trying to deal with that by splitting up his Muta/bling army. The latter actually creates interesting interactions while the former maintains the main issue with free units and long range.
Free units can be interesting if the "spawning unit" needs to be close to the battle. For instance, I like the concept behind ITs on the Infestor as the Infestor needs to be part of the actual engagement, and if you harass with it you neeed to get into the enemy base (not 100% sold on the actual implementation of the ITs though - but the concept works unlike any of the SHs concepts).
Artillery units have existed from the start of RTS games. Only difference with SH is their projectiles are slower and killable
Yeah, but most of them have some of those traits with good reasoning: - often being slow - often only 2-3times the range of a standard infantry unit - often unprecise, slow moving projectiles - often requiring vision to fully capitalize on the range - often only good against buildings and certain units
The swarm host has much more range than that, doesn't require vision (!!!) and is just good or at least OK vs everything (exception: air). With the drawback being that it isn't good at actually doing what an artillery is designed to do, which is killing a position if you get in siege range.
So what happens to late game ZvP if these changes get implemented? Roach Hydra Viper is hardly an efficient alternative when fighting colossus heavy comps.
Tempests will need to be nerfed to the ground though, and I hope it happens. This unit is terrible and boring. It made sense when it was first introduced, as an anti muta flock weapon ; in its current form, it just doesn't fulfill any role a fully-fledged carrier -that, thank God, LotV will give us- couldn't fulfill. And hopefully, from this situation shall a harass oriented SH play and a strong brood lord arise.
The problem remains that the Swarm Host is able to deal damage without taking any risk whatsoever
Exactly. It really doesn't much as much difference whether SHs will be used defensively or offensively if the unit-interaction consist of free units attacking enemy units from a 30-range distance. Compare that to somone dropping Marines from a Medivac and the enemy zerg player trying to deal with that by splitting up his Muta/bling army. The latter actually creates interesting interactions while the former maintains the main issue with free units and long range.
Free units can be interesting if the "spawning unit" needs to be close to the battle. For instance, I like the concept behind ITs on the Infestor as the Infestor needs to be part of the actual engagement, and if you harass with it you neeed to get into the enemy base (not 100% sold on the actual implementation of the ITs though - but the concept works unlike any of the SHs concepts).
Artillery units have existed from the start of RTS games. Only difference with SH is their projectiles are slower and killable
Most artillery units are part of an actual unit vs unit interaction. With Siege Tanks you can (typically) fight them. You don't just run around from their projectiles all day long (Locusts are kinda like the projectiles of the SH).
Honestly the SH is probably better off removed (a worse designed toxic version of the Lurker which is a unit that they avoided out of pride but ended up adding in LoTV anyways), but I'll take a harassment focused SH over the current one any day.
The SH could have been redesgiend to have the same role as a Lurker. That means a mobile medium-to-high range unit which is a bit better defensively than offensively, but could be used in both situations.
With the Lurker being added to LOTV, I just rather see the SH being removed, and I rather see them working on overlord drops in order to buff zerg harass play.
On January 21 2015 22:31 Jvattic wrote: So what happens to late game ZvP if these changes get implemented? Roach Hydra Viper is hardly an efficient alternative when fighting colossus heavy comps.
Broodlord + Corruptor + Viper + Ultralisk? I don't know, but Zerg really needs a better way to deal with late game ZvP because I really don't see Zergs winning late-game ZvP easily without base racing or getting said comp with Broodlord etc, which is super expensive and I'm pretty sure Zergs can't turtle up that long without dying.
The problem remains that the Swarm Host is able to deal damage without taking any risk whatsoever
Exactly. It really doesn't much as much difference whether SHs will be used defensively or offensively if the unit-interaction consist of free units attacking enemy units from a 30-range distance. Compare that to somone dropping Marines from a Medivac and the enemy zerg player trying to deal with that by splitting up his Muta/bling army. The latter actually creates interesting interactions while the former maintains the main issue with free units and long range.
Free units can be interesting if the "spawning unit" needs to be close to the battle. For instance, I like the concept behind ITs on the Infestor as the Infestor needs to be part of the actual engagement, and if you harass with it you neeed to get into the enemy base (not 100% sold on the actual implementation of the ITs though - but the concept works unlike any of the SHs concepts).
Artillery units have existed from the start of RTS games. Only difference with SH is their projectiles are slower and killable
Yeah, but most of them have some of those traits with good reasoning: - often being slow - often only 2-3times the range of a standard infantry unit - often unprecise, slow moving projectiles - often requiring vision to fully capitalize on the range - often only good against buildings and certain units
The swarm host has much more range than that, doesn't require vision (!!!) and is just good or at least OK vs everything (exception: air). With the drawback being that it isn't good at actually doing what an artillery is designed to do, which is killing a position if you get in siege range.
Slow? Check. Both host and "ammo". 2-3 times range? Only in Blizzard games. There were plenty of really high range artillery units in other games. Uprecise? Yes. Slow? check. Vision? yes, but their projectiles usually would not be stopable and they fire faster. And some allowed firing into dark like in Total Annihilation. Only good vs buildings? That is different from game to game.
I feel like you are only looking at Blizzard products. How many different RTS games did you play?
On January 21 2015 23:02 Sapphire.lux wrote: Not that they were very strong to begin with, but with flying locusts i see Tanks being useless. Tempests probably need to be nerfed to.
I would say it's the opposite, Flying Locusts are useless if you have few Thors and Vikings around. They are light 65 HP units, 3 Thors could probably wipe majority of them before they land.
On the other hand, I don't think that Swarm Hosts will be even used against Mech in their new form, or at least not the same way they are used now because they cannot contain Terran anymore, and that was the most important thing that they were used for. I guess that we will see them for harassment or for some timings but I doubt that mech will have big problems with Swarm Hosts as they had with the old ones.
The problem remains that the Swarm Host is able to deal damage without taking any risk whatsoever
Exactly. It really doesn't much as much difference whether SHs will be used defensively or offensively if the unit-interaction consist of free units attacking enemy units from a 30-range distance. Compare that to somone dropping Marines from a Medivac and the enemy zerg player trying to deal with that by splitting up his Muta/bling army. The latter actually creates interesting interactions while the former maintains the main issue with free units and long range.
Free units can be interesting if the "spawning unit" needs to be close to the battle. For instance, I like the concept behind ITs on the Infestor as the Infestor needs to be part of the actual engagement, and if you harass with it you neeed to get into the enemy base (not 100% sold on the actual implementation of the ITs though - but the concept works unlike any of the SHs concepts).
Artillery units have existed from the start of RTS games. Only difference with SH is their projectiles are slower and killable
Most artillery units are part of an actual unit vs unit interaction. With Siege Tanks you can (typically) fight them. You don't just run around from their projectiles all day long (Locusts are kinda like the projectiles of the SH).
Honestly the SH is probably better off removed (a worse designed toxic version of the Lurker which is a unit that they avoided out of pride but ended up adding in LoTV anyways), but I'll take a harassment focused SH over the current one any day.
The SH could have been redesgiend to have the same role as a Lurker. That means a mobile medium-to-high range unit which is a bit better defensively than offensively, but could be used in both situations.
With the Lurker being added to LOTV, I just rather see the SH being removed, and I rather see them working on overlord drops in order to buff zerg harass play.
It does not matter as long as they work as artillery units.
The problem of SH was that their interaction with other units caused slow, long and boring games. Free units themselves are not cause of problem.
I am not defending old SH design, I love new SH and they should have been like this from the start. I just think the problem is not in "free units". I just see locusts as ammo that creates different interactions with other units than Tanks or Colossi do.
On January 21 2015 23:02 Sapphire.lux wrote: Not that they were very strong to begin with, but with flying locusts i see Tanks being useless. Tempests probably need to be nerfed to.
I would say it's the opposite, Flying Locusts are useless if you have few Thors and Vikings around. They are light 65 HP units, 3 Thors could probably wipe majority of them before they land.
On the other hand, I don't think that Swarm Hosts will be even used against Mech in their new form, or at least not the same way they are used now because they cannot contain Terran anymore, and that was the most important thing that they were used for. I guess that we will see them for harassment or for some timings but I doubt that mech will have big problems with Swarm Hosts as they had with the old ones.
I don't see how a couple of thors could take out those things in time. Maybe SH would turn out as a bad solution vs mech in the first place though, so we'll see. I just really hate the idea of flying free units.
It does not matter as long as they work as artillery units.
What do you mean it doens't matter? If a unit prevents actual engagements from occuring, then it's super-boring, regardless of whether it's an artillery unit or not.
The problem of SH was that their interaction with other units caused slow, long and boring games. Free units themselves are not cause of problem.
¨ Yes, free units in itself isn't in the issue, that's what I implied in my previous comment.. But any type of unit that just fires an ability from a long range and doesn't reward any interesting micro is at best "boring". At worst, it can stale the game (which is what the current SH does).
But regardless, I don't see any fun about attacking with this unit every 60th second. If the zerg has lots of SHs, the enemy will respond by moving his army away and when the Locusts are gone, he will want to have an engagement and the zerg player will retreat as he has dead weights in the SH. In this scenario, it will be like a cat chasing a mouse.
If on the other hand, the zerg has few SHs, the enemy will simply a-move kill the Locusts.
Regardless of the scenario, the unit doens't create any new fun micro-interactions. Instead, I fear that it may replace other forms of harass-oriented units (since zerg can only afford to have X amount of supply invested into units that aren't good in an engagement).
That's why I wrote that that this unit may give off a good first impression since it will be an improvement over the current SH, but over time people will realize that this type of "harass-unit" is pretty boring.
The problem remains that the Swarm Host is able to deal damage without taking any risk whatsoever
Exactly. It really doesn't much as much difference whether SHs will be used defensively or offensively if the unit-interaction consist of free units attacking enemy units from a 30-range distance. Compare that to somone dropping Marines from a Medivac and the enemy zerg player trying to deal with that by splitting up his Muta/bling army. The latter actually creates interesting interactions while the former maintains the main issue with free units and long range.
Free units can be interesting if the "spawning unit" needs to be close to the battle. For instance, I like the concept behind ITs on the Infestor as the Infestor needs to be part of the actual engagement, and if you harass with it you neeed to get into the enemy base (not 100% sold on the actual implementation of the ITs though - but the concept works unlike any of the SHs concepts).
Artillery units have existed from the start of RTS games. Only difference with SH is their projectiles are slower and killable
Yeah, but most of them have some of those traits with good reasoning: - often being slow - often only 2-3times the range of a standard infantry unit - often unprecise, slow moving projectiles - often requiring vision to fully capitalize on the range - often only good against buildings and certain units
The swarm host has much more range than that, doesn't require vision (!!!) and is just good or at least OK vs everything (exception: air). With the drawback being that it isn't good at actually doing what an artillery is designed to do, which is killing a position if you get in siege range.
Slow? Check. Both host and "ammo". 2-3 times range? Only in Blizzard games. There were plenty of really high range artillery units in other games. Uprecise? Yes. Slow? check. Vision? yes, but their projectiles usually would not be stopable and they fire faster. And some allowed firing into dark like in Total Annihilation. Only good vs buildings? That is different from game to game.
I feel like you are only looking at Blizzard products. How many different RTS games did you play?
The host isn't slow. It just needs to burrow+spawn which means it has a downtime of a few seconds in between movement, but then you can run around at normal speed+creep bonus for 20seconds and quickly change locations or retreat back*. Other siege weapons can't do that, they actually have to stay around to keep on producing damage. And they are really slower. In starcraft for example, all the other siege or siegelike units (Tempest, Broodlord, Colossus, Siege Tank, Carrier) have 2.25 speed or less. Swarm Hosts on creep have the speed of a stalker. Also the projectiles aren't unprecise in the sense that I thought of, hence, once launched you can just reposition and the projectile will hit the empty location. The locusts don't, they can travel beyond their spawning point or even just sidewards and go where the opponent is retreating to. I guess the unprecise part is of course that they eventually run out of live time, yet still, it is not like with what I describe. Because say you shoot with a CnC dreadnought. Then you either target a building in the base, or the army. If it is the army, the army can move away. If it is the building, the army can just try and engage you meanwhile. With swarm hosts however, you target the area, and when the army retreats you just kill the nexus instead. So there is kind of a guarantee that you get something done - which is the reason why what you get done cannot be much with that amount of range. Which is the reason why most zerg players aren't really happy with the unit either and why games then last 3hours.
*the retreating while the enemy has to fight the locusts is the reason why attacking through locusts isn't fruitful most of the time, as the swarm hosts will be long gone when you reach the origin point of the spawn.
No, I'm not just looking at blizzard products. I'm talking about the usual artillery-like units. I can give you a lot of non-blizzard examples. Of course there are others too. And I wrote those traits as "often", not always. And not all of them of course. But there are certain patterns that if you do deviate from them, the artillery units can easily become kind of boring: e.g. I don't like the static artillery in SupCom too much. They have so much range (if you play on smaller maps), that you can destroy targets from your own base. Same goes for nukes in that game. They don't require ghost targetting or something, you just kill a base with it unless he has the anti-nuke. Not very good design imo.
For the better examples of siege weapons I like: Dreadnought (and similar water units) in CnC: slow moving, bad against all air and most sea units, can only move on water and can be attacked from the coast if it really tries to use its full range into the land. The projectiles are slow and can be dodged, but on the upside, the unit really gets shit done. It's not like a swarm host that you deal with in 5mins when you have enough colossi, it kills your base now. Deal with it. Now. Artillery in CnC:Tiberium Wars: The damage in a battle was not that high and the shot was dodgeable. Also the unit was slow and had a siege mechanism. Empire Earth: Various siege engines that often were only good against buildings/walls/towers; or if not had a dodgable shot (or usually both) Warlords Battlecry: Most siege weapons were only strong against buildings and barely outranging towers.
That is slow man. Fast is marine or unsieged tank. Slow is SH no matter how you try to spin it. Speed is not just moving but also how often it can "fire" and how long it needs to set up.
Tanks are also slow units as they need 1.5s to set up before firing.
On January 21 2015 23:02 Sapphire.lux wrote: Not that they were very strong to begin with, but with flying locusts i see Tanks being useless. Tempests probably need to be nerfed to.
I would say it's the opposite, Flying Locusts are useless if you have few Thors and Vikings around. They are light 65 HP units, 3 Thors could probably wipe majority of them before they land.
On the other hand, I don't think that Swarm Hosts will be even used against Mech in their new form, or at least not the same way they are used now because they cannot contain Terran anymore, and that was the most important thing that they were used for. I guess that we will see them for harassment or for some timings but I doubt that mech will have big problems with Swarm Hosts as they had with the old ones.
Take all the bases in the map. Hope terran waits for 25min. Hit him with 7 200/200 armies, after that switch to mutas with no drones and basetrade or die to seeker missiles :D Edit: Hope they increase the energy requirement for PDD cause thats the terran version of free unit that makes the games alongside with SH idiotic.
1) The locusts are better. How this does not make me wanna use them to overrun a tank position is beyond me. Like, previously I got little done with a wave of locusts. Now I get more done with a wave of locusts, for the price of less waves. So where do I send those waves? In a base to die to the counterattack while my 30 supply of more expensive Swarm Hosts are afk, or at his army? Well, when I send them, I propably need to kill army with them. Because when I invest into Swarm Hosts instead of something else, I have to rely on them preventing my opponent from just killing me.
2) flying locust looked cool in the current videos. But think about it, the locust then is a light, air unit that needs a landing animation before it attacks: Phoenix Thor Turret Marine Viking
Meanwhile the Locusts don't tank for your Ultralisks and Infestors anymore! I'm not sure that the upgrade does improve the locust, or rather makes it more vulnerable as then it can be countered by air and ground attacks when those attacks are properly coordinated.
On January 21 2015 23:33 -Archangel- wrote: That is slow man. Fast is marine or unsieged tank. Slow is SH no matter how you try to spin it. Speed is not just moving but also how often it can "fire" and how long it needs to set up.
Tanks are also slow units as they need 1.5s to set up before firing.
And unsieged tank or stimed marine are 2.25. When they are on the map, they have to be in a ball that cannot be overwhelmed by something that is actually fast like 3.0 speed roaches, 4.7speed zerglings, 2.95speed Stalkers with blink, 4.25speed hellions. Those things are fast. A marine on its own isn't very fast. Stim helps of course. What makes it mobile is the medivac allowing it to go out even if it could be overwhelmed and of course the transport function of the same unit.
The swarm host isn't fast, but it is on the top end of siege weapons in starcraft and additionally has much more time to move around because it actually does not fight.
On January 21 2015 23:40 Big J wrote: Btw, two concerns about the new Swarm Host:
1) The locusts are better. How this does not make me wanna use them to overrun a tank position is beyond me. Like, previously I got little done with a wave of locusts. Now I get more done with a wave of locusts, for the price of less waves. So where do I send those waves? In a base to die to the counterattack while my 30 supply of more expensive Swarm Hosts are afk, or at his army? Well, when I send them, I propably need to kill army with them. Because when I invest into Swarm Hosts instead of something else, I have to rely on them preventing my opponent from just killing me.
2) flying locust looked cool in the current videos. But think about it, the locust then is a light, air unit that needs a landing animation before it attacks: Phoenix Thor Turret Marine Viking
Meanwhile the Locusts don't tank for your Ultralisks and Infestors anymore! I'm not sure that the upgrade does improve the locust, or rather makes it more vulnerable as then it can be countered by air and ground attacks when those attacks are properly coordinated.
Basically it sounds like if you use SH to attack a mech army it´s kinda all-inn from your side. You have to commit because if you don´t mech army has a huge window when you have less supply. If you commit you have to crush or stop them and then remix and kill them?
On January 21 2015 23:44 -Archangel- wrote: I think the point is to use them to attack less defended bases and hope terran Mech is too slow to counterattack.
The question is whether it fullfills that purpose. Like, the original idea of the swarm host was a siege weapon that allows zerg to siege opponents in the midgame if they get mapcontrol. That never happened. The design and the purpose never came together. So what makes the design and the purpose come together with the new swarm host (and new purpose)? How does blizzard ensure that the swarm host does what they want it to do this time, after the miserable failure with the current swarm host, the current Tempest (anti-deathball unit because it shoots from afar, yeah lol; the tempest is THE deathball addition to Protoss in HotS), or the widow mine (a mine that protects the flanks of Mechplay and prevents counterattacking when Mech moves out; yeah right, that has probably never happened).
On January 21 2015 23:40 Big J wrote: Btw, two concerns about the new Swarm Host:
1) The locusts are better. How this does not make me wanna use them to overrun a tank position is beyond me. Like, previously I got little done with a wave of locusts. Now I get more done with a wave of locusts, for the price of less waves. So where do I send those waves? In a base to die to the counterattack while my 30 supply of more expensive Swarm Hosts are afk, or at his army? Well, when I send them, I propably need to kill army with them. Because when I invest into Swarm Hosts instead of something else, I have to rely on them preventing my opponent from just killing me.
2) flying locust looked cool in the current videos. But think about it, the locust then is a light, air unit that needs a landing animation before it attacks: Phoenix Thor Turret Marine Viking
Meanwhile the Locusts don't tank for your Ultralisks and Infestors anymore! I'm not sure that the upgrade does improve the locust, or rather makes it more vulnerable as then it can be countered by air and ground attacks when those attacks are properly coordinated.
Basically it sounds like if you use SH to attack a mech army it´s kinda all-inn from your side. You have to commit because if you don´t mech army has a huge window when you have less supply. If you commit you have to crush or stop them and then remix and kill them?
Yeah, that's what I was thinking too. So if I attack their army and fail, I'm allin. If I use my cooldown to kill an Orbital Command Center or Planetry Fortrass and do not bind the army at all with the locust, not damage the Mech army at all, wouldn't that just make an attack - starting the moment the Terran realizes I started the locusts - even more severe than if I did attack the army and fail in the first place?
On January 21 2015 23:33 -Archangel- wrote: That is slow man. Fast is marine or unsieged tank. Slow is SH no matter how you try to spin it. Speed is not just moving but also how often it can "fire" and how long it needs to set up.
Tanks are also slow units as they need 1.5s to set up before firing.
And unsieged tank or stimed marine are 2.25. When they are on the map, they have to be in a ball that cannot be overwhelmed by something that is actually fast like 3.0 speed roaches, 4.7speed zerglings, 2.95speed Stalkers with blink, 4.25speed hellions. Those things are fast. A marine on its own isn't very fast. Stim helps of course. What makes it mobile is the medivac allowing it to go out even if it could be overwhelmed and of course the transport function of the same unit.
The swarm host isn't fast, but it is on the top end of siege weapons in starcraft and additionally has much more time to move around because it actually does not fight.
Nice how you ignored the point of my post and only read what you wanted to read.
On January 21 2015 23:40 Big J wrote: Btw, two concerns about the new Swarm Host:
1) The locusts are better. How this does not make me wanna use them to overrun a tank position is beyond me. Like, previously I got little done with a wave of locusts. Now I get more done with a wave of locusts, for the price of less waves. So where do I send those waves? In a base to die to the counterattack while my 30 supply of more expensive Swarm Hosts are afk, or at his army? Well, when I send them, I propably need to kill army with them. Because when I invest into Swarm Hosts instead of something else, I have to rely on them preventing my opponent from just killing me.
2) flying locust looked cool in the current videos. But think about it, the locust then is a light, air unit that needs a landing animation before it attacks: Phoenix Thor Turret Marine Viking
Meanwhile the Locusts don't tank for your Ultralisks and Infestors anymore! I'm not sure that the upgrade does improve the locust, or rather makes it more vulnerable as then it can be countered by air and ground attacks when those attacks are properly coordinated.
1) the locusts are better at dealing dmg as soon as they are actually in range to do so. Even right now that oftentimes won't be the case though cause the locusts simply die before they can do actual dmg. If anything these changes make swarmhost "timings" better (or a thing), but in actual macro games they are horrible now. But that was actually kinda the idea, swarmhosts are meant to be used as harassment now (2.)which is why the flying locust upgrade makes sense)
On January 21 2015 23:40 Big J wrote: Btw, two concerns about the new Swarm Host:
1) The locusts are better. How this does not make me wanna use them to overrun a tank position is beyond me. Like, previously I got little done with a wave of locusts. Now I get more done with a wave of locusts, for the price of less waves. So where do I send those waves? In a base to die to the counterattack while my 30 supply of more expensive Swarm Hosts are afk, or at his army? Well, when I send them, I propably need to kill army with them. Because when I invest into Swarm Hosts instead of something else, I have to rely on them preventing my opponent from just killing me.
2) flying locust looked cool in the current videos. But think about it, the locust then is a light, air unit that needs a landing animation before it attacks: Phoenix Thor Turret Marine Viking
Meanwhile the Locusts don't tank for your Ultralisks and Infestors anymore! I'm not sure that the upgrade does improve the locust, or rather makes it more vulnerable as then it can be countered by air and ground attacks when those attacks are properly coordinated.
1) the locusts are better at dealing dmg as soon as they are actually in range to do so. Even right now that oftentimes won't be the case though cause the locusts simply die before they can do actual dmg. If anything these changes make swarmhost "timings" better (or a thing), but in actual macro games they are horrible now. But that was actually kinda the idea, swarmhosts are meant to be used as harassment now (2.)which is why the flying locust upgrade makes sense)
How do you fight against a mech army then? Are you forced to do early/midgame roach/bane/ling busts to cripple terran economy in order to get ahead and finish him before they reach 200/200?
On January 21 2015 23:40 Big J wrote: Btw, two concerns about the new Swarm Host:
1) The locusts are better. How this does not make me wanna use them to overrun a tank position is beyond me. Like, previously I got little done with a wave of locusts. Now I get more done with a wave of locusts, for the price of less waves. So where do I send those waves? In a base to die to the counterattack while my 30 supply of more expensive Swarm Hosts are afk, or at his army? Well, when I send them, I propably need to kill army with them. Because when I invest into Swarm Hosts instead of something else, I have to rely on them preventing my opponent from just killing me.
2) flying locust looked cool in the current videos. But think about it, the locust then is a light, air unit that needs a landing animation before it attacks: Phoenix Thor Turret Marine Viking
Meanwhile the Locusts don't tank for your Ultralisks and Infestors anymore! I'm not sure that the upgrade does improve the locust, or rather makes it more vulnerable as then it can be countered by air and ground attacks when those attacks are properly coordinated.
1) the locusts are better at dealing dmg as soon as they are actually in range to do so. Even right now that oftentimes won't be the case though cause the locusts simply die before they can do actual dmg. If anything these changes make swarmhost "timings" better (or a thing), but in actual macro games they are horrible now. But that was actually kinda the idea, swarmhosts are meant to be used as harassment now (2.)which is why the flying locust upgrade makes sense)
How do you fight against a mech army then? Are you forced to do early/midgame roach/bane/ling busts to cripple terran economy in order to get ahead and finish him before they reach 200/200?
considering they nerfed ravens i think you need to go into broodlord/corrupter/infestor with a few swarmhosts to harass
On January 21 2015 23:40 Big J wrote: Btw, two concerns about the new Swarm Host:
1) The locusts are better. How this does not make me wanna use them to overrun a tank position is beyond me. Like, previously I got little done with a wave of locusts. Now I get more done with a wave of locusts, for the price of less waves. So where do I send those waves? In a base to die to the counterattack while my 30 supply of more expensive Swarm Hosts are afk, or at his army? Well, when I send them, I propably need to kill army with them. Because when I invest into Swarm Hosts instead of something else, I have to rely on them preventing my opponent from just killing me.
2) flying locust looked cool in the current videos. But think about it, the locust then is a light, air unit that needs a landing animation before it attacks: Phoenix Thor Turret Marine Viking
Meanwhile the Locusts don't tank for your Ultralisks and Infestors anymore! I'm not sure that the upgrade does improve the locust, or rather makes it more vulnerable as then it can be countered by air and ground attacks when those attacks are properly coordinated.
1) the locusts are better at dealing dmg as soon as they are actually in range to do so. Even right now that oftentimes won't be the case though cause the locusts simply die before they can do actual dmg. If anything these changes make swarmhost "timings" better (or a thing), but in actual macro games they are horrible now. But that was actually kinda the idea, swarmhosts are meant to be used as harassment now (2.)which is why the flying locust upgrade makes sense)
How do you fight against a mech army then? Are you forced to do early/midgame roach/bane/ling busts to cripple terran economy in order to get ahead and finish him before they reach 200/200?
Thats how you always have to deal with a meching terran, otherwise they'll get Ravens and then you can't win anymore.
Not sure if the Raven change will change anything. 20 seconds is still long enough to take out almost all the damage of an attack.
On January 21 2015 23:40 Big J wrote: Btw, two concerns about the new Swarm Host:
1) The locusts are better. How this does not make me wanna use them to overrun a tank position is beyond me. Like, previously I got little done with a wave of locusts. Now I get more done with a wave of locusts, for the price of less waves. So where do I send those waves? In a base to die to the counterattack while my 30 supply of more expensive Swarm Hosts are afk, or at his army? Well, when I send them, I propably need to kill army with them. Because when I invest into Swarm Hosts instead of something else, I have to rely on them preventing my opponent from just killing me.
2) flying locust looked cool in the current videos. But think about it, the locust then is a light, air unit that needs a landing animation before it attacks: Phoenix Thor Turret Marine Viking
Meanwhile the Locusts don't tank for your Ultralisks and Infestors anymore! I'm not sure that the upgrade does improve the locust, or rather makes it more vulnerable as then it can be countered by air and ground attacks when those attacks are properly coordinated.
1) the locusts are better at dealing dmg as soon as they are actually in range to do so. Even right now that oftentimes won't be the case though cause the locusts simply die before they can do actual dmg. If anything these changes make swarmhost "timings" better (or a thing), but in actual macro games they are horrible now. But that was actually kinda the idea, swarmhosts are meant to be used as harassment now (2.)which is why the flying locust upgrade makes sense)
How do you fight against a mech army then? Are you forced to do early/midgame roach/bane/ling busts to cripple terran economy in order to get ahead and finish him before they reach 200/200?
considering they nerfed ravens i think you need to go into broodlord/corrupter/infestor with a few swarmhosts to harass
Not sure about the raven nerf. You still can just spam PDD if you have 15-20 ravens.
On January 21 2015 23:40 Big J wrote: Btw, two concerns about the new Swarm Host:
1) The locusts are better. How this does not make me wanna use them to overrun a tank position is beyond me. Like, previously I got little done with a wave of locusts. Now I get more done with a wave of locusts, for the price of less waves. So where do I send those waves? In a base to die to the counterattack while my 30 supply of more expensive Swarm Hosts are afk, or at his army? Well, when I send them, I propably need to kill army with them. Because when I invest into Swarm Hosts instead of something else, I have to rely on them preventing my opponent from just killing me.
2) flying locust looked cool in the current videos. But think about it, the locust then is a light, air unit that needs a landing animation before it attacks: Phoenix Thor Turret Marine Viking
Meanwhile the Locusts don't tank for your Ultralisks and Infestors anymore! I'm not sure that the upgrade does improve the locust, or rather makes it more vulnerable as then it can be countered by air and ground attacks when those attacks are properly coordinated.
1) the locusts are better at dealing dmg as soon as they are actually in range to do so. Even right now that oftentimes won't be the case though cause the locusts simply die before they can do actual dmg. If anything these changes make swarmhost "timings" better (or a thing), but in actual macro games they are horrible now. But that was actually kinda the idea, swarmhosts are meant to be used as harassment now (2.)which is why the flying locust upgrade makes sense)
How do you fight against a mech army then? Are you forced to do early/midgame roach/bane/ling busts to cripple terran economy in order to get ahead and finish him before they reach 200/200?
considering they nerfed ravens i think you need to go into broodlord/corrupter/infestor with a few swarmhosts to harass
Not sure about the raven nerf. You still can just spam PDD if you have 15-20 ravens.
Sure, but these pdds will be gone in 20 seconds, so you "just" have to disengage if that happens. So yeah don't know if that actually works that well, but that's my idea atm :D
On January 21 2015 23:40 Big J wrote: Btw, two concerns about the new Swarm Host:
1) The locusts are better. How this does not make me wanna use them to overrun a tank position is beyond me. Like, previously I got little done with a wave of locusts. Now I get more done with a wave of locusts, for the price of less waves. So where do I send those waves? In a base to die to the counterattack while my 30 supply of more expensive Swarm Hosts are afk, or at his army? Well, when I send them, I propably need to kill army with them. Because when I invest into Swarm Hosts instead of something else, I have to rely on them preventing my opponent from just killing me.
2) flying locust looked cool in the current videos. But think about it, the locust then is a light, air unit that needs a landing animation before it attacks: Phoenix Thor Turret Marine Viking
Meanwhile the Locusts don't tank for your Ultralisks and Infestors anymore! I'm not sure that the upgrade does improve the locust, or rather makes it more vulnerable as then it can be countered by air and ground attacks when those attacks are properly coordinated.
1) the locusts are better at dealing dmg as soon as they are actually in range to do so. Even right now that oftentimes won't be the case though cause the locusts simply die before they can do actual dmg. If anything these changes make swarmhost "timings" better (or a thing), but in actual macro games they are horrible now. But that was actually kinda the idea, swarmhosts are meant to be used as harassment now (2.)which is why the flying locust upgrade makes sense)
How do you fight against a mech army then? Are you forced to do early/midgame roach/bane/ling busts to cripple terran economy in order to get ahead and finish him before they reach 200/200?
considering they nerfed ravens i think you need to go into broodlord/corrupter/infestor with a few swarmhosts to harass
Not sure about the raven nerf. You still can just spam PDD if you have 15-20 ravens.
Sure, but these pdds will be gone in 20 seconds, so you "just" have to disengage if that happens. So yeah don't know if that actually works that well, but that's my idea atm :D
Disengaging is not actually a thing with Swarm Hosts. Once you are caught with them having to move, terran reestablishes his army so that when you burrow to spawn locusts, you'll have tankwaves blasting your hosts.
On January 22 2015 00:06 straycat wrote: So vs mech you'll just be rushing hive? That research time tho... Death by mech timing, is that the new thing?
If it's not 2 base mech, going Hive against mech is not unreasonable.
On January 21 2015 23:40 Big J wrote: Btw, two concerns about the new Swarm Host:
1) The locusts are better. How this does not make me wanna use them to overrun a tank position is beyond me. Like, previously I got little done with a wave of locusts. Now I get more done with a wave of locusts, for the price of less waves. So where do I send those waves? In a base to die to the counterattack while my 30 supply of more expensive Swarm Hosts are afk, or at his army? Well, when I send them, I propably need to kill army with them. Because when I invest into Swarm Hosts instead of something else, I have to rely on them preventing my opponent from just killing me.
2) flying locust looked cool in the current videos. But think about it, the locust then is a light, air unit that needs a landing animation before it attacks: Phoenix Thor Turret Marine Viking
Meanwhile the Locusts don't tank for your Ultralisks and Infestors anymore! I'm not sure that the upgrade does improve the locust, or rather makes it more vulnerable as then it can be countered by air and ground attacks when those attacks are properly coordinated.
1) the locusts are better at dealing dmg as soon as they are actually in range to do so. Even right now that oftentimes won't be the case though cause the locusts simply die before they can do actual dmg. If anything these changes make swarmhost "timings" better (or a thing), but in actual macro games they are horrible now. But that was actually kinda the idea, swarmhosts are meant to be used as harassment now (2.)which is why the flying locust upgrade makes sense)
How do you fight against a mech army then? Are you forced to do early/midgame roach/bane/ling busts to cripple terran economy in order to get ahead and finish him before they reach 200/200?
considering they nerfed ravens i think you need to go into broodlord/corrupter/infestor with a few swarmhosts to harass
Not sure about the raven nerf. You still can just spam PDD if you have 15-20 ravens.
Sure, but these pdds will be gone in 20 seconds, so you "just" have to disengage if that happens. So yeah don't know if that actually works that well, but that's my idea atm :D
Disengaging is not actually a thing with Swarm Hosts. Once you are caught with them having to move, terran reestablishes his army so that when you burrow to spawn locusts, you'll have tankwaves blasting your hosts.
On January 22 2015 00:06 straycat wrote: So vs mech you'll just be rushing hive? That research time tho... Death by mech timing, is that the new thing?
If it's not 2 base mech, going Hive against mech is not unreasonable.
You won't use swarmhosts as main army anymore, that's exactly the point The new swarmhost isn't actually good at fighting big mech armies , the old swarmhost wasn't goot at it either, BUT he made sure the mech army can't really move. The new sh doesn't do that.
On January 21 2015 23:40 Big J wrote: Btw, two concerns about the new Swarm Host:
1) The locusts are better. How this does not make me wanna use them to overrun a tank position is beyond me. Like, previously I got little done with a wave of locusts. Now I get more done with a wave of locusts, for the price of less waves. So where do I send those waves? In a base to die to the counterattack while my 30 supply of more expensive Swarm Hosts are afk, or at his army? Well, when I send them, I propably need to kill army with them. Because when I invest into Swarm Hosts instead of something else, I have to rely on them preventing my opponent from just killing me.
2) flying locust looked cool in the current videos. But think about it, the locust then is a light, air unit that needs a landing animation before it attacks: Phoenix Thor Turret Marine Viking
Meanwhile the Locusts don't tank for your Ultralisks and Infestors anymore! I'm not sure that the upgrade does improve the locust, or rather makes it more vulnerable as then it can be countered by air and ground attacks when those attacks are properly coordinated.
1) the locusts are better at dealing dmg as soon as they are actually in range to do so. Even right now that oftentimes won't be the case though cause the locusts simply die before they can do actual dmg. If anything these changes make swarmhost "timings" better (or a thing), but in actual macro games they are horrible now. But that was actually kinda the idea, swarmhosts are meant to be used as harassment now (2.)which is why the flying locust upgrade makes sense)
How do you fight against a mech army then? Are you forced to do early/midgame roach/bane/ling busts to cripple terran economy in order to get ahead and finish him before they reach 200/200?
considering they nerfed ravens i think you need to go into broodlord/corrupter/infestor with a few swarmhosts to harass
Not sure about the raven nerf. You still can just spam PDD if you have 15-20 ravens.
Sure, but these pdds will be gone in 20 seconds, so you "just" have to disengage if that happens. So yeah don't know if that actually works that well, but that's my idea atm :D
Disengaging is not actually a thing with Swarm Hosts. Once you are caught with them having to move, terran reestablishes his army so that when you burrow to spawn locusts, you'll have tankwaves blasting your hosts.
On January 22 2015 00:06 straycat wrote: So vs mech you'll just be rushing hive? That research time tho... Death by mech timing, is that the new thing?
If it's not 2 base mech, going Hive against mech is not unreasonable.
You won't use swarmhosts as main army anymore, that's exactly the point The new swarmhost isn't actually good at fighting big mech armies , the old swarmhost wasn't goot at it either, BUT he made sure the mech army can't really move. The new sh doesn't do that.
I don't agree with that. What would your main army be? Roaches?
On January 21 2015 16:04 playa wrote: As soon as I heard about this being in LotV, I was confused as to why they wouldn't at least test it in HotS. But, now that they are going to test it, it makes me think that LotV beta is never coming and Protoss has 0 new units atm.
Protoss got most new units in HotS and they got very powerfull one in lotv. So stop complain about it
Complaining? I'm just saying this made sense to do from the start. If they're doing this now, I get the feel that LotV beta won't be coming out for a long, long time.
They decided to make LotV not because they had new ideas, but because that was the plan from the get go. It's a forced expansion and they won't release it until Toss has new units. Personally, I couldn't care less about LotV. I think this is great news. It merely makes me curious about how the contrived LotV will pan out. At this point, maybe Toss doesn't get any new units and there is a major redesign. Either way, it doesn't look promising on that front.
What do you mean Toss doesn't get new units? They're getting the Disruptor and likely a new Gateway unit.
On January 21 2015 23:40 Big J wrote: Btw, two concerns about the new Swarm Host:
1) The locusts are better. How this does not make me wanna use them to overrun a tank position is beyond me. Like, previously I got little done with a wave of locusts. Now I get more done with a wave of locusts, for the price of less waves. So where do I send those waves? In a base to die to the counterattack while my 30 supply of more expensive Swarm Hosts are afk, or at his army? Well, when I send them, I propably need to kill army with them. Because when I invest into Swarm Hosts instead of something else, I have to rely on them preventing my opponent from just killing me.
2) flying locust looked cool in the current videos. But think about it, the locust then is a light, air unit that needs a landing animation before it attacks: Phoenix Thor Turret Marine Viking
Meanwhile the Locusts don't tank for your Ultralisks and Infestors anymore! I'm not sure that the upgrade does improve the locust, or rather makes it more vulnerable as then it can be countered by air and ground attacks when those attacks are properly coordinated.
1) the locusts are better at dealing dmg as soon as they are actually in range to do so. Even right now that oftentimes won't be the case though cause the locusts simply die before they can do actual dmg. If anything these changes make swarmhost "timings" better (or a thing), but in actual macro games they are horrible now. But that was actually kinda the idea, swarmhosts are meant to be used as harassment now (2.)which is why the flying locust upgrade makes sense)
How do you fight against a mech army then? Are you forced to do early/midgame roach/bane/ling busts to cripple terran economy in order to get ahead and finish him before they reach 200/200?
considering they nerfed ravens i think you need to go into broodlord/corrupter/infestor with a few swarmhosts to harass
Not sure about the raven nerf. You still can just spam PDD if you have 15-20 ravens.
Sure, but these pdds will be gone in 20 seconds, so you "just" have to disengage if that happens. So yeah don't know if that actually works that well, but that's my idea atm :D
Disengaging is not actually a thing with Swarm Hosts. Once you are caught with them having to move, terran reestablishes his army so that when you burrow to spawn locusts, you'll have tankwaves blasting your hosts.
On January 22 2015 00:06 straycat wrote: So vs mech you'll just be rushing hive? That research time tho... Death by mech timing, is that the new thing?
If it's not 2 base mech, going Hive against mech is not unreasonable.
You won't use swarmhosts as main army anymore, that's exactly the point The new swarmhost isn't actually good at fighting big mech armies , the old swarmhost wasn't goot at it either, BUT he made sure the mech army can't really move. The new sh doesn't do that.
I don't agree with that. What would your main army be? Roaches?
Why don't you agree with that? I think people have to start with roaches and transition into broodlord/corrupter/infestor as lategame army. Or maybe roach/hydra/viper to end it before super lategame. Swarmhosts maybe to harass a little bit (you don't need a lot of them for that purpose though). Maybe swarmhost timings become a thing now (cause they do more dps than before), but as time goes on locusts aren't really used to do a lot of dmg, they merely pin the mech army down. That won't really work with a 60 second delay between waves
On January 21 2015 23:40 Big J wrote: Btw, two concerns about the new Swarm Host:
1) The locusts are better. How this does not make me wanna use them to overrun a tank position is beyond me. Like, previously I got little done with a wave of locusts. Now I get more done with a wave of locusts, for the price of less waves. So where do I send those waves? In a base to die to the counterattack while my 30 supply of more expensive Swarm Hosts are afk, or at his army? Well, when I send them, I propably need to kill army with them. Because when I invest into Swarm Hosts instead of something else, I have to rely on them preventing my opponent from just killing me.
2) flying locust looked cool in the current videos. But think about it, the locust then is a light, air unit that needs a landing animation before it attacks: Phoenix Thor Turret Marine Viking
Meanwhile the Locusts don't tank for your Ultralisks and Infestors anymore! I'm not sure that the upgrade does improve the locust, or rather makes it more vulnerable as then it can be countered by air and ground attacks when those attacks are properly coordinated.
1) the locusts are better at dealing dmg as soon as they are actually in range to do so. Even right now that oftentimes won't be the case though cause the locusts simply die before they can do actual dmg. If anything these changes make swarmhost "timings" better (or a thing), but in actual macro games they are horrible now. But that was actually kinda the idea, swarmhosts are meant to be used as harassment now (2.)which is why the flying locust upgrade makes sense)
How do you fight against a mech army then? Are you forced to do early/midgame roach/bane/ling busts to cripple terran economy in order to get ahead and finish him before they reach 200/200?
considering they nerfed ravens i think you need to go into broodlord/corrupter/infestor with a few swarmhosts to harass
Not sure about the raven nerf. You still can just spam PDD if you have 15-20 ravens.
Sure, but these pdds will be gone in 20 seconds, so you "just" have to disengage if that happens. So yeah don't know if that actually works that well, but that's my idea atm :D
Disengaging is not actually a thing with Swarm Hosts. Once you are caught with them having to move, terran reestablishes his army so that when you burrow to spawn locusts, you'll have tankwaves blasting your hosts.
On January 22 2015 00:06 straycat wrote: So vs mech you'll just be rushing hive? That research time tho... Death by mech timing, is that the new thing?
If it's not 2 base mech, going Hive against mech is not unreasonable.
You won't use swarmhosts as main army anymore, that's exactly the point The new swarmhost isn't actually good at fighting big mech armies , the old swarmhost wasn't goot at it either, BUT he made sure the mech army can't really move. The new sh doesn't do that.
I don't agree with that. What would your main army be? Roaches?
Why don't you agree with that? I think people have to start with roaches and transition into broodlord/corrupter/infestor as lategame army. Or maybe roach/hydra/viper to end it before super lategame. Swarmhosts maybe to harass a little bit (you don't need a lot of them for that purpose though). Maybe swarmhost timings become a thing now (cause they do more dps than before), but as time goes on locusts aren't really used to do a lot of dmg, they merely pin the mech army down. That won't really work with a 60 second delay between waves
Because all those units you just listed are extremely vulnerable to Terran mech. Broodlords get shredded by Thors and Vikings, and Corruptors are extremely volatile as well without proper support.
Support that Infestors could just give, but then Terran can 100% dictate the point of time, pace and positions of ANY engagement since you can only fungal outside of tank range. And Vipers really only help against terran mech balls, which is not the case against a smart player.
Without Swarm Hosts to make room and give the Zerg the opportunity to dictate part of the engagement, Zerg is having an uphill struggle basically the whole time.
Not considering that all of these units require different tech paths, upgrades and are expensive on their own and very, very easily lost.
I'm curious if there has been any discussion on how the Siege Tank (which already had a very limited use) is rendered pretty damn useless with this change?
Additionally, zoning capabilities of Swarm Host change completely which might have the risk of Zerg once again being without proper area controlling units.
Raven with 20 secs lose a good bit of their zoning ability in early TvT, I'd rather see 40 secs (like LOTV) be tested first. In early TvT those shots are crucial, and being able to sort of wait the PDD out to save 2 Vikings may be very worth it and make the Raven useless.
As a last thing, I think Blizzard underestimates how strongly this changes PvZ in favor of Protoss.
In short, as a Random player who usually likes interesting changes, I am very worried. But I'm unsure if discussion on any of these topics has happened already (could anybody give me the page number?).
On January 22 2015 00:43 GinDo wrote: The only thing I dont like is that now the SH is exactly like the BL.
But w/e I welcome change.
Um, not exactly. It can be built faster, it's more mobile, it can be transported with Nydus, it is immune to tempests (kinda) and blink stalkers because of mobility, and it have longer range.
But if seriously, after this change I see no reason to build brood lord. They are more expensive, more vulnerable to everything, they require Hive + Greater spire, they are slow and have less health
On January 21 2015 23:55 The_Red_Viper wrote: [quote]
1) the locusts are better at dealing dmg as soon as they are actually in range to do so. Even right now that oftentimes won't be the case though cause the locusts simply die before they can do actual dmg. If anything these changes make swarmhost "timings" better (or a thing), but in actual macro games they are horrible now. But that was actually kinda the idea, swarmhosts are meant to be used as harassment now (2.)which is why the flying locust upgrade makes sense)
How do you fight against a mech army then? Are you forced to do early/midgame roach/bane/ling busts to cripple terran economy in order to get ahead and finish him before they reach 200/200?
considering they nerfed ravens i think you need to go into broodlord/corrupter/infestor with a few swarmhosts to harass
Not sure about the raven nerf. You still can just spam PDD if you have 15-20 ravens.
Sure, but these pdds will be gone in 20 seconds, so you "just" have to disengage if that happens. So yeah don't know if that actually works that well, but that's my idea atm :D
Disengaging is not actually a thing with Swarm Hosts. Once you are caught with them having to move, terran reestablishes his army so that when you burrow to spawn locusts, you'll have tankwaves blasting your hosts.
On January 22 2015 00:06 straycat wrote: So vs mech you'll just be rushing hive? That research time tho... Death by mech timing, is that the new thing?
If it's not 2 base mech, going Hive against mech is not unreasonable.
You won't use swarmhosts as main army anymore, that's exactly the point The new swarmhost isn't actually good at fighting big mech armies , the old swarmhost wasn't goot at it either, BUT he made sure the mech army can't really move. The new sh doesn't do that.
I don't agree with that. What would your main army be? Roaches?
Why don't you agree with that? I think people have to start with roaches and transition into broodlord/corrupter/infestor as lategame army. Or maybe roach/hydra/viper to end it before super lategame. Swarmhosts maybe to harass a little bit (you don't need a lot of them for that purpose though). Maybe swarmhost timings become a thing now (cause they do more dps than before), but as time goes on locusts aren't really used to do a lot of dmg, they merely pin the mech army down. That won't really work with a 60 second delay between waves
Because all those units you just listed are extremely vulnerable to Terran mech. Broodlords get shredded by Thors and Vikings, and Corruptors are extremely volatile as well without proper support.
Support that Infestors could just give, but then Terran can 100% dictate the point of time, pace and positions of ANY engagement since you can only fungal outside of tank range. And Vipers really only help against terran mech balls, which is not the case against a smart player.
Without Swarm Hosts to make room and give the Zerg the opportunity to dictate part of the engagement, Zerg is having an uphill struggle basically the whole time.
Not considering that all of these units require different tech paths, upgrades and are expensive on their own and very, very easily lost.
Well blizzard already said that they are aware of possible issues fighting the other two races now. I think it is better to balance the game around more exciting units than having swarmhost reign supreme So yeah we will see if zerg can deal with mech now
After all, I don't think that these changes are going to get through for at least 1 month, because a lot of new balance issues will pop up with this over time, and they will have to adjust other races as well.
On January 22 2015 00:43 GinDo wrote: The only thing I dont like is that now the SH is exactly like the BL.
But w/e I welcome change.
Um, not exactly. It can be built faster, it's more mobile, it can be transported with Nydus, it is immune to tempests (kinda) and blink stalkers because of mobility, and it have longer range.
But if seriously, after this change I see no reason to build brood lord. They are more expensive, more vulnerable to everything, they require Hive + Greater spire, they are slow and have less health
With the long cooldown, SH are now (supposedly) relegated to a harass type role only. If you're doing a huge push through the front/middle trying to break a fortified position, BL still show more value.
Both Ravens and Swarm hosts are only problematic when massed.
I think it would be better to keep Swarm hosts and Ravens as they are but increase their supply to four.
That way Zerg could still use Swarm hosts in the midgame in order to transition to hive, but it would be harder to mass 20+ of them since they would take up a lot of supply.
Ravens would remain a good support unit, but less viable when massed since they would take up too much supply.
Probably someone already pointed that out, but while I'm positive about the changes and their necessity, I'm also a bit worried: 1) what do zerg supposed to do against mech? and plz don't say "kill them before they get there", as it's forcing the zerg into ridiculous situation where he has a timer to kill a turtling terran, hammering it's head against a simcity protected by siege tanks. 2) how zerg will be able to deal with protoss deathball? again, solutions in the spirit of "rush them" does not qualify, since there is no point in turning this match-up into an all-in builds and counter-builds (not because it's not viable, but rather because of the small amount of scenarios the match up will produce).
I do want to state that I wasn't too concerned with this points in regards of LOTV because of 2 reasons: 1) I felt that the Lurker (with it's range upgrade) was a possible replacement for the SH. 2) More importently, the decrease in the amount of available resources in each base means that gearing up toward the late game unit composition is going to be harder. Naturally, those circumstances does not apply in HOTS...
On January 22 2015 03:34 batatm wrote: Probably someone already pointed that out, but while I'm positive about the changes and their necessity, I'm also a bit worried: 1) what do zerg supposed to do against mech? and plz don't say "kill them before they get there", as it's forcing the zerg into ridiculous situation where he has a timer to kill a turtling terran, hammering it's head against a simcity protected by siege tanks. 2) how zerg will be able to deal with protoss deathball? again, solutions in the spirit of "rush them" does not qualify, since there is no point in turning this match-up into an all-in builds and counter-builds (not because it's not viable, but rather because of the small amount of scenarios the match up will produce).
They are aware of those concerns and will address them (by buffing Z in some way or by nerfing those compositions, which I think would be the right move -turtle mech and tempests do nothing good for the game) after they gather some pro feedback.
On January 22 2015 02:03 MockHamill wrote: Both Ravens and Swarm hosts are only problematic when massed.
I think it would be better to keep Swarm hosts and Ravens as they are but increase their supply to four.
That way Zerg could still use Swarm hosts in the midgame in order to transition to hive, but it would be harder to mass 20+ of them since they would take up a lot of supply.
Ravens would remain a good support unit, but less viable when massed since they would take up too much supply.
Man that would make getting an early Raven out against cloak banshee or hyper fast burrow roach play even more a pain in the ass
On January 22 2015 02:03 MockHamill wrote: Both Ravens and Swarm hosts are only problematic when massed.
I think it would be better to keep Swarm hosts and Ravens as they are but increase their supply to four.
That way Zerg could still use Swarm hosts in the midgame in order to transition to hive, but it would be harder to mass 20+ of them since they would take up a lot of supply.
Ravens would remain a good support unit, but less viable when massed since they would take up too much supply.
Man that would make getting an early Raven out against cloak banshee or hyper fast burrow roach play even more a pain in the ass
No, that doesn't matter much if you are getting a single Raven.
On January 22 2015 04:57 Big J wrote: Can we please get a burning behavior on buildings that fly for too long? Or just count them as units and not as buildings when they are flying?
I guess zerg just isn't allowed to have cost effective units... Cant wait for the nerfs on the lurker.
As much as people dislike swarmhosts there seems to be a lack of understanding that they were the only unit that could give zerg sustainability. In WoL that role fell onto the infestor, but because apparently there wasn't enough counters for infestor based play they decided to just nerf it to shit just in time for HOTS, which gave zerg the swarm host. Out of necessity for many "mass em up" strats/2 base play the swarmhost became a staple to at least give the zerg something to hold onto, or someway to comeback after losing a third base.
I honestly think zerg is facing an identity crises, which wouldn't be so bad if the units themselves, weak as they maybe in blob fights, were changed to having lower supply - 1 supply abound for many of the zerg units. If that were the case I dont believe there would be such a need for such cost effective units and we wouldn't be in this situation in the first place.
On January 22 2015 00:43 GinDo wrote: The only thing I dont like is that now the SH is exactly like the BL.
But w/e I welcome change.
Um, not exactly. It can be built faster, it's more mobile, it can be transported with Nydus, it is immune to tempests (kinda) and blink stalkers because of mobility, and it have longer range.
But if seriously, after this change I see no reason to build brood lord. They are more expensive, more vulnerable to everything, they require Hive + Greater spire, they are slow and have less health
That point is a thing, and it's that Broodlords are quite bad if not massed, snowballed with queen/infestor. Too slow, too fragile, and a big money and time investment, easily reached by its air counters. I would like to see a bit of redesign for every race for this.
- Improved Broodlords, specially speed and some range. - Vikings being 8 range but 2.81 speed, and more dynamic on shot-movement mechanics. - PDD being 45 seconds and Durable materials removed. - Protoss colossus could reduce their range a bit too.
On January 22 2015 05:31 Energizer wrote: I guess zerg just isn't allowed to have cost effective units... Cant wait for the nerfs on the lurker.
As much as people dislike swarmhosts there seems to be a lack of understanding that they were the only unit that could give zerg sustainability. In WoL that role fell onto the infestor, but because apparently there wasn't enough counters for infestor based play they decided to just nerf it to shit just in time for HOTS, which gave zerg the swarm host. Out of necessity for many "mass em up" strats/2 base play the swarmhost became a staple to at least give the zerg something to hold onto, or someway to comeback after losing a third base.
I honestly think zerg is facing an identity crises, which wouldn't be so bad if the units themselves, weak as they maybe in blob fights, were changed to having lower supply - 1 supply abound for many of the zerg units. If that were the case I dont believe there would be such a need for such cost effective units and we wouldn't be in this situation in the first place.
get salty zerg, I have just faced that swarm host cancer style on ladder, I get NaNiwa and others completely, this is ruining passion if not sc2...
On January 22 2015 02:03 MockHamill wrote: Both Ravens and Swarm hosts are only problematic when massed.
I think it would be better to keep Swarm hosts and Ravens as they are but increase their supply to four.
That way Zerg could still use Swarm hosts in the midgame in order to transition to hive, but it would be harder to mass 20+ of them since they would take up a lot of supply.
Ravens would remain a good support unit, but less viable when massed since they would take up too much supply.
Man that would make getting an early Raven out against cloak banshee or hyper fast burrow roach play even more a pain in the ass
No, that doesn't matter much if you are getting a single Raven.
On January 22 2015 05:31 Energizer wrote: I guess zerg just isn't allowed to have cost effective units... Cant wait for the nerfs on the lurker.
As much as people dislike swarmhosts there seems to be a lack of understanding that they were the only unit that could give zerg sustainability. In WoL that role fell onto the infestor, but because apparently there wasn't enough counters for infestor based play they decided to just nerf it to shit just in time for HOTS, which gave zerg the swarm host. Out of necessity for many "mass em up" strats/2 base play the swarmhost became a staple to at least give the zerg something to hold onto, or someway to comeback after losing a third base.
I honestly think zerg is facing an identity crises, which wouldn't be so bad if the units themselves, weak as they maybe in blob fights, were changed to having lower supply - 1 supply abound for many of the zerg units. If that were the case I dont believe there would be such a need for such cost effective units and we wouldn't be in this situation in the first place.
get salty zerg, I have just faced that swarm host cancer style on ladder, I get NaNiwa and others completely, this is ruining passion if not sc2...
Marines have been ruining my passion for decades, dont see me complaining.
On January 22 2015 02:03 MockHamill wrote: Both Ravens and Swarm hosts are only problematic when massed.
I think it would be better to keep Swarm hosts and Ravens as they are but increase their supply to four.
That way Zerg could still use Swarm hosts in the midgame in order to transition to hive, but it would be harder to mass 20+ of them since they would take up a lot of supply.
Ravens would remain a good support unit, but less viable when massed since they would take up too much supply.
Man that would make getting an early Raven out against cloak banshee or hyper fast burrow roach play even more a pain in the ass
No, that doesn't matter much if you are getting a single Raven.
Lol ye it does, majorly 0_0
One more supply on a Raven matters a lot when you need only one against Banshees? It matters if you want to mass them, it almost doesn't matter at all if you only need that one. That is one Marine less.
On January 22 2015 05:31 Energizer wrote: I guess zerg just isn't allowed to have cost effective units... Cant wait for the nerfs on the lurker.
As much as people dislike swarmhosts there seems to be a lack of understanding that they were the only unit that could give zerg sustainability. In WoL that role fell onto the infestor, but because apparently there wasn't enough counters for infestor based play they decided to just nerf it to shit just in time for HOTS, which gave zerg the swarm host. Out of necessity for many "mass em up" strats/2 base play the swarmhost became a staple to at least give the zerg something to hold onto, or someway to comeback after losing a third base.
I honestly think zerg is facing an identity crises, which wouldn't be so bad if the units themselves, weak as they maybe in blob fights, were changed to having lower supply - 1 supply abound for many of the zerg units. If that were the case I dont believe there would be such a need for such cost effective units and we wouldn't be in this situation in the first place.
get salty zerg, I have just faced that swarm host cancer style on ladder, I get NaNiwa and others completely, this is ruining passion if not sc2...
Marines have been ruining my passion for decades, dont see me complaining.
Comparing Marines, one of the easiest units to deal with in the game, to SH is being dishonest. The SH is so toxic and unfair that it's current iteration is being shelved.
This is the first time they've done a major redesign of a unit without an expansion. They used to say they won't do major designs in the middle of an expansion.
Did PDD get reduced from 180 to 20, but durable materials still apply to make it 80 seconds?
On January 22 2015 05:31 Energizer wrote: I guess zerg just isn't allowed to have cost effective units... Cant wait for the nerfs on the lurker.
As much as people dislike swarmhosts there seems to be a lack of understanding that they were the only unit that could give zerg sustainability. In WoL that role fell onto the infestor, but because apparently there wasn't enough counters for infestor based play they decided to just nerf it to shit just in time for HOTS, which gave zerg the swarm host. Out of necessity for many "mass em up" strats/2 base play the swarmhost became a staple to at least give the zerg something to hold onto, or someway to comeback after losing a third base.
I honestly think zerg is facing an identity crises, which wouldn't be so bad if the units themselves, weak as they maybe in blob fights, were changed to having lower supply - 1 supply abound for many of the zerg units. If that were the case I dont believe there would be such a need for such cost effective units and we wouldn't be in this situation in the first place.
get salty zerg, I have just faced that swarm host cancer style on ladder, I get NaNiwa and others completely, this is ruining passion if not sc2...
Marines have been ruining my passion for decades, dont see me complaining.
Comparing Marines, one of the easiest units to deal with in the game, to SH is being dishonest. The SH is so toxic and unfair that it's current iteration is being shelved.
I chuckled. Then I facepalmed because you really think that. Maybe I'll make this my signature. It's actually that funny.
On January 22 2015 05:31 Energizer wrote: I guess zerg just isn't allowed to have cost effective units... Cant wait for the nerfs on the lurker.
As much as people dislike swarmhosts there seems to be a lack of understanding that they were the only unit that could give zerg sustainability. In WoL that role fell onto the infestor, but because apparently there wasn't enough counters for infestor based play they decided to just nerf it to shit just in time for HOTS, which gave zerg the swarm host. Out of necessity for many "mass em up" strats/2 base play the swarmhost became a staple to at least give the zerg something to hold onto, or someway to comeback after losing a third base.
I honestly think zerg is facing an identity crises, which wouldn't be so bad if the units themselves, weak as they maybe in blob fights, were changed to having lower supply - 1 supply abound for many of the zerg units. If that were the case I dont believe there would be such a need for such cost effective units and we wouldn't be in this situation in the first place.
get salty zerg, I have just faced that swarm host cancer style on ladder, I get NaNiwa and others completely, this is ruining passion if not sc2...
Marines have been ruining my passion for decades, dont see me complaining.
Comparing Marines, one of the easiest units to deal with in the game, to SH is being dishonest. The SH is so toxic and unfair that it's current iteration is being shelved.
I chuckled. Then I facepalmed because you really think that. Maybe I'll make this my signature. It's actually that funny.
Unmicroed, unstimmed, unCSed, unsupported Marines are pretty easy to kill.......
On January 22 2015 02:03 MockHamill wrote: Both Ravens and Swarm hosts are only problematic when massed.
I think it would be better to keep Swarm hosts and Ravens as they are but increase their supply to four.
That way Zerg could still use Swarm hosts in the midgame in order to transition to hive, but it would be harder to mass 20+ of them since they would take up a lot of supply.
Ravens would remain a good support unit, but less viable when massed since they would take up too much supply.
Man that would make getting an early Raven out against cloak banshee or hyper fast burrow roach play even more a pain in the ass
No, that doesn't matter much if you are getting a single Raven.
Lol ye it does, majorly 0_0
One more supply on a Raven matters a lot when you need only one against Banshees? It matters if you want to mass them, it almost doesn't matter at all if you only need that one. That is one Marine less.
It's fucks with bos for no reason and is a really stupid solution.
On January 22 2015 02:03 MockHamill wrote: Both Ravens and Swarm hosts are only problematic when massed.
I think it would be better to keep Swarm hosts and Ravens as they are but increase their supply to four.
That way Zerg could still use Swarm hosts in the midgame in order to transition to hive, but it would be harder to mass 20+ of them since they would take up a lot of supply.
Ravens would remain a good support unit, but less viable when massed since they would take up too much supply.
Man that would make getting an early Raven out against cloak banshee or hyper fast burrow roach play even more a pain in the ass
No, that doesn't matter much if you are getting a single Raven.
Lol ye it does, majorly 0_0
One more supply on a Raven matters a lot when you need only one against Banshees? It matters if you want to mass them, it almost doesn't matter at all if you only need that one. That is one Marine less.
It's fucks with bos for no reason and is a really stupid solution.
Well, to be fair a lot of spellcasters including the Raven would be much fairer in the lategame if they had just 3 instead of 2supply. Like HTs or that might have solved the Infestor problem of WoL without rendering the unit bad in the midgame. There is something stupid to having units that cost like 200 or 300 resources and then they cost the same supply as something that is 100/0 or 75/25. That's the main reason why certain compositions are just so much better than others in maxed scenarios, they are just double as costly (and "double" as strong) which forces everybody to start massing such high cost/low supply units eventually. (spellcasters aren't the only ones - e,g, banelings - , but some of the most prevalent) Whether that would be the best way to deal with mass Ravens I'm not sure as such stuff messes up builds and takes away from the swarmy mass army feeling of the game, but in principle I think it isn't wrong that this is a core weakness of the game.
Whole new Swarm Host too. This might pose a problem for Zerg against Protoss air and Terran Mech if Locusts don't auto cast when burrowed.
just fyi, those are the same stats as on the Custom LotV Alpha Mod!
And I don't think it is a problem if it doesn't autocast. With 60second cooldown, I think you really want to control when you use that and you don't want to accidently have the locusts spawn and then you get attacked with empty swarm host around.
On January 22 2015 07:45 GGzerG wrote: I don't think this is really going to fix the problem with Terrans camping and going mech vs Zerg lol...I want to see the new swarmHost though...
I think it might, based on the new DPS and ability of flying locusts, it may be hard for Terran camping mech players to kill all locusts prior to them doing dmg. In the past, it was less of an issue due to siege tanks. Pure speculation on my part, nothing more, but I am very optimistic at this point.
On January 22 2015 07:45 GGzerG wrote: I don't think this is really going to fix the problem with Terrans camping and going mech vs Zerg lol...I want to see the new swarmHost though...
I think it might, based on the new DPS and ability of flying locusts, it may be hard for Terran camping mech players to kill all locusts prior to them doing dmg. In the past, it was less of an issue due to siege tanks. Pure speculation on my part, nothing more, but I am very optimistic at this point.
I think that is the idea. Play tank defense too long and flying locusts come and wreck your shit.
They force both zerg and terran to be less passive. Raven nerf is a plus here as it makes terran passive game even harder.
On January 22 2015 07:45 GGzerG wrote: I don't think this is really going to fix the problem with Terrans camping and going mech vs Zerg lol...I want to see the new swarmHost though...
The PDD nerf should fix that. Previously the mech player could camp behind an effectively permanent PDD emplacement, but now with the 20 second timer Z should be able to bait out PDDs, retreat, and re-engage later when the PDDs are expired and the ravens' energy is diminished. That and the locust flight upgrade, as others mentioned.
On January 22 2015 00:27 Split. wrote: Applaudable move by blizzard. Sure it's kinda risky and will shake things up, making it hard for progamers, but it will be for the better of the game.
Progamers suddenly experiencing difficulties is what forces them to experiment, which usually creates the most interesting games. I daresay Blizzard should do things like this way more often.
On January 22 2015 00:27 Split. wrote: Applaudable move by blizzard. Sure it's kinda risky and will shake things up, making it hard for progamers, but it will be for the better of the game.
Progamers suddenly experiencing difficulties is what forces them to experiment, which usually creates the most interesting games. I daresay Blizzard should do things like this way more often.
I like Valve way of breaking DotA's meta regularly this way.
On January 22 2015 02:03 MockHamill wrote: Both Ravens and Swarm hosts are only problematic when massed.
I think it would be better to keep Swarm hosts and Ravens as they are but increase their supply to four.
That way Zerg could still use Swarm hosts in the midgame in order to transition to hive, but it would be harder to mass 20+ of them since they would take up a lot of supply.
Ravens would remain a good support unit, but less viable when massed since they would take up too much supply.
Might as well shake things up instead of making the boring unit more difficult to produce (the boring unit being SH in this case, Ravens are fine).
On January 22 2015 02:03 MockHamill wrote: Both Ravens and Swarm hosts are only problematic when massed.
I think it would be better to keep Swarm hosts and Ravens as they are but increase their supply to four.
That way Zerg could still use Swarm hosts in the midgame in order to transition to hive, but it would be harder to mass 20+ of them since they would take up a lot of supply.
Ravens would remain a good support unit, but less viable when massed since they would take up too much supply.
Might as well shake things up instead of making the boring unit more difficult to produce (the boring unit being SH in this case, Ravens are fine).
When you have 15-20 ravens you basically have a button that makes you take ZERO damage!! In what way is that good game play?
On January 22 2015 02:03 MockHamill wrote: Both Ravens and Swarm hosts are only problematic when massed.
I think it would be better to keep Swarm hosts and Ravens as they are but increase their supply to four.
That way Zerg could still use Swarm hosts in the midgame in order to transition to hive, but it would be harder to mass 20+ of them since they would take up a lot of supply.
Ravens would remain a good support unit, but less viable when massed since they would take up too much supply.
Might as well shake things up instead of making the boring unit more difficult to produce (the boring unit being SH in this case, Ravens are fine).
Interesting changes to the SH, I'm skeptical about how it will play out but i'm open to the idea.
Personally I would look to keep the SH identity as a seige unit (least until we get the lurker in LOTV). I would remove the Enduring Locusts Ability, reduce Locust damage and/or attack speed while buffing their health a bit.
The idea is to introduce downtime between waves to give the opponent windows of opportunity to counter attack and the damage nerf/health buff will encourage the use of Locusts as a buffer/front line damage sponge that compliments the Zerg army rather than being the entire army.
I'm looking at the new SW and think to myself "I want to position these to hit enemy outlying expansions, but if that's the case, why not just use lings that are cheaper and are more mobile?"
On January 22 2015 02:03 MockHamill wrote: Both Ravens and Swarm hosts are only problematic when massed.
I think it would be better to keep Swarm hosts and Ravens as they are but increase their supply to four.
That way Zerg could still use Swarm hosts in the midgame in order to transition to hive, but it would be harder to mass 20+ of them since they would take up a lot of supply.
Ravens would remain a good support unit, but less viable when massed since they would take up too much supply.
Might as well shake things up instead of making the boring unit more difficult to produce (the boring unit being SH in this case, Ravens are fine).
When you have 15-20 ravens you basically have a button that makes you take ZERO damage!! In what way is that good game play?
There's nothing wrong with taking "zero" damage. Its the way it works. Its static, lasts and long and needs time to acquire energy. It really, really good defensively and rewards a player for not attacking. I think it should just be made for aggressively. Increase raven speed, and decrease pdd duration is the best solution imo (or just replace it with defensive matrix).
Also, it feels so good hearing "you basically have a button that makes you take ZERO damage!!" from a zerg player. Finally zerg players everywhere admit that dark swarm was bullshit. Vindication has never felt so good :p
You might want to consider that mass ravens aren't used against any strat other than SHs ;D Fight the most boring of fire with, well, a lot of PDDs, as they say.
But I'm aware that some False Terrans have been using this boring style of mech without even being provoked into it by boring Zergs, so I won't cast the first stone. Just know that these are False Terrans and betray everything we manly Terrans stand for.
Does someone know how much space this PTR needs? 5GB? I have a SSD and dont have enough space.
I have already a terrible experience with Diablo3 in that case. I can never delete it, it download again while it is on "europe" and not "PTR" or whatever. I did post this problem on battle.net and nobody can help my problem. green posters tried to help me but without succes, blues ignore me
On January 23 2015 00:59 Dingodile wrote: Does someone know how much space this PTR needs? 5GB? I have a SSD and dont have enough space.
I have already a terrible experience with Diablo3 in that case. I can never delete it, it download again while it is on "europe" and not "PTR" or whatever. I did post this problem on battle.net and nobody can help my problem. green posters tried to help me but without succes, blues ignore me
It's going to be a map with changes mentioned (found in custom games under "Blizzard maps" category), PTR won't be running just for these balance tweaks.
On January 22 2015 02:03 MockHamill wrote: Both Ravens and Swarm hosts are only problematic when massed.
I think it would be better to keep Swarm hosts and Ravens as they are but increase their supply to four.
That way Zerg could still use Swarm hosts in the midgame in order to transition to hive, but it would be harder to mass 20+ of them since they would take up a lot of supply.
Ravens would remain a good support unit, but less viable when massed since they would take up too much supply.
Might as well shake things up instead of making the boring unit more difficult to produce (the boring unit being SH in this case, Ravens are fine).
rofl
EDIT: Upping the post quality by saying that ravens are dumb as fuck if terran gets to more than a little handful
On January 22 2015 02:03 MockHamill wrote: Both Ravens and Swarm hosts are only problematic when massed.
I think it would be better to keep Swarm hosts and Ravens as they are but increase their supply to four.
That way Zerg could still use Swarm hosts in the midgame in order to transition to hive, but it would be harder to mass 20+ of them since they would take up a lot of supply.
Ravens would remain a good support unit, but less viable when massed since they would take up too much supply.
Might as well shake things up instead of making the boring unit more difficult to produce (the boring unit being SH in this case, Ravens are fine).
When you have 15-20 ravens you basically have a button that makes you take ZERO damage!! In what way is that good game play?
There's nothing wrong with taking "zero" damage. Its the way it works. Its static, lasts and long and needs time to acquire energy. It really, really good defensively and rewards a player for not attacking. I think it should just be made for aggressively. Increase raven speed, and decrease pdd duration is the best solution imo (or just replace it with defensive matrix).
Also, it feels so good hearing "you basically have a button that makes you take ZERO damage!!" from a zerg player. Finally zerg players everywhere admit that dark swarm was bullshit. Vindication has never felt so good :p
Yes, dark swarm and pdds are definitely the same, and definitely just as boring
Can't wait for this to go live!! As a zerg player, I fucking hate using SH, it creates such boring games. I'd rather lose 10 games in a row that I could of won with SH, without them. I would love to use them as a support unit, which is what this patch will turn them into! love it!!!
OMG this is so awesome!! Zerg will be completely fucked lategame but finally there is space for Z buffs that are NOT superboring turtleshit units. :D
lategame hydras, ultras, BLs, infestors, corruptors, ovidrop, nydus, burrowplay etc....finally space for buffs to these units that are 10000% more fun than boring spore SH viper turtle shit.
On January 22 2015 00:27 Split. wrote: Applaudable move by blizzard. Sure it's kinda risky and will shake things up, making it hard for progamers, but it will be for the better of the game.
Progamers suddenly experiencing difficulties is what forces them to experiment, which usually creates the most interesting games. I daresay Blizzard should do things like this way more often.
I like Valve way of breaking DotA's meta regularly this way.
I'm not a DotA expert, but DotA's approach to asymmetry involves everyone having access to the same large number of heroes and then rotating through in the pick/ban/pick/ban system for people to get heroes. This means, at the very least, people need to be competent with multiple heroes and that significant patches will force people to adapt but are less likely to leave people or teams only competent with underpowered tools.
On the other hand, the top level of SC and SC2 emphasise total mastery of one particular race, out of only three choices, and so significant patches are very liable to leave a large segment of players stuck with an underperforming race until the next patch comes along.
It would be a buff to random players, though, and we all know random needs a buff
Has anyone tried the changes? I'm away from my SC2 computer at the moment, I'm curious about how people find them.
On January 22 2015 02:03 MockHamill wrote: Both Ravens and Swarm hosts are only problematic when massed.
I think it would be better to keep Swarm hosts and Ravens as they are but increase their supply to four.
That way Zerg could still use Swarm hosts in the midgame in order to transition to hive, but it would be harder to mass 20+ of them since they would take up a lot of supply.
Ravens would remain a good support unit, but less viable when massed since they would take up too much supply.
Might as well shake things up instead of making the boring unit more difficult to produce (the boring unit being SH in this case, Ravens are fine).
When you have 15-20 ravens you basically have a button that makes you take ZERO damage!! In what way is that good game play?
So you are saying zergs in brood war didn't have good game play? Think before you speak....
On January 23 2015 00:52 ZenithM wrote: You might want to consider that mass ravens aren't used against any strat other than SHs ;D Fight the most boring of fire with, well, a lot of PDDs, as they say.
But I'm aware that some False Terrans have been using this boring style of mech without even being provoked into it by boring Zergs, so I won't cast the first stone. Just know that these are False Terrans and betray everything we manly Terrans stand for.
Ravens is a good unit a lot of people don't understand how it works but they are just going make people never use them, the big problem of the duration of PDD is its energy regeneration rato, if PDD regenerated energy at the same speed as other units mass PDD would much mch weaker.
IMO ravens should be units you want to make (basically the only terran casters that works non-TvP) they should make the change to energy regeneration of the PDD, take out durable materials, buff the movement speed of ravens, and if they still want to reduce the duration of AT/PDD, reduce it cost (-25) so mass AT/PDD is not useful but having a few ravens becomes useful in small engaments
All in all I just dislike what they are doing with raven as terran is the race where spell caster are the least used
On January 23 2015 06:32 Lexender wrote: Ravens is a good unit a lot of people don't understand how it works but they are just going make people never use them, the big problem of the duration of PDD is its energy regeneration rato, if PDD regenerated energy at the same speed as other units mass PDD would much mch weaker.
IMO ravens should be units you want to make (basically the only terran casters that works non-TvP) they should make the change to energy regeneration of the PDD, take out durable materials, buff the movement speed of ravens, and if they still want to reduce the duration of AT/PDD, reduce it cost (-25) so mass AT/PDD is not useful but having a few ravens becomes useful in small engaments
All in all I just dislike what they are doing with raven as terran is the race where spell caster are the least used
Not bad ideas, I do think there is a lot of room for rebalancing the raven. I think I would rather having long lasting PDDs with lower energy regeneration than PDDs that only last 20 seconds but with the weird high energy regeneration.
I don't understand why people keep on arguing that reducing the PDD duration or the energy regeneration are the ways to go. The only scenario where this really matters, is current swarm hosts! In all other scenarios, the PDDs come down after, I repeat AFTER the engagment has started. And it doesn't matter at all whether the PDD then lasts 20 or 180seconds. It's gonna deplete its whole energy long before 20seconds are over. And the regeneration at best gives you 1-2 more blocked shots in a long engagment.
What these changes probably do is 1) that a Terran has to micro a little harder (not excessively spam PDDs before the Zerg is really committing - something that rarely happens at the prolevel to begin with), but it doesn't change how battles play out. and 2) "floating scenarios" in which the Terran preemptively places down a few PDDs become easier for zerg to win because of (1).
On January 23 2015 07:12 Big J wrote: I don't understand why people keep on arguing that reducing the PDD duration or the energy regeneration are the ways to go. The only scenario where this really matters, is current swarm hosts! In all other scenarios, the PDDs come down after, I repeat AFTER the engagment has started. And it doesn't matter at all whether the PDD then lasts 20 or 180seconds. It's gonna deplete its whole energy long before 20seconds are over. And the regeneration at best gives you 1-2 more blocked shots in a long engagment.
What these changes probably do is 1) that a Terran has to micro a little harder (not excessively spam PDDs before the Zerg is really committing - something that rarely happens at the prolevel to begin with), but it doesn't change how battles play out. and 2) "floating scenarios" in which the Terran preemptively places down a few PDDs become easier for zerg to win because of (1).
PDD last 180 seconds and has 200 energy, since 10= energy 1 shot, if you add durable materials wich makes PDDs last 240 seconds, after its initial 20 shots a PDD is cabaple of taking down extra 24 shots, this of course makes not so much difference in battles, if they happen around the map, but if you have mass ravens it makes a HUGE difference it gives ravens the capacity of only needing a few PDD to defend a location with still having PDD to defend another location.
Also I don't see why would someone drop the PDD after the engagement.
Nerfing the duration of the PDD so much without other changes kills the ravens and only makes them overpriced detectors
On January 23 2015 07:12 Big J wrote: I don't understand why people keep on arguing that reducing the PDD duration or the energy regeneration are the ways to go. The only scenario where this really matters, is current swarm hosts! In all other scenarios, the PDDs come down after, I repeat AFTER the engagment has started. And it doesn't matter at all whether the PDD then lasts 20 or 180seconds. It's gonna deplete its whole energy long before 20seconds are over. And the regeneration at best gives you 1-2 more blocked shots in a long engagment.
What these changes probably do is 1) that a Terran has to micro a little harder (not excessively spam PDDs before the Zerg is really committing - something that rarely happens at the prolevel to begin with), but it doesn't change how battles play out. and 2) "floating scenarios" in which the Terran preemptively places down a few PDDs become easier for zerg to win because of (1).
PDD last 180 seconds and has 200 energy, since 10= energy 1 shot, if you add durable materials wich makes PDDs last 240 seconds, after its initial 20 shots a PDD is cabaple of taking down extra 24 shots, this of course makes not so much difference in battles, if they happen around the map, but if you have mass ravens it makes a HUGE difference it gives ravens the capacity of only needing a few PDD to defend a location with still having PDD to defend another location.
Also I don't see why would someone drop the PDD after the engagement.
Nerfing the duration of the PDD so much without other changes kills the ravens and only makes them overpriced detectors
I said after the engagment has started. Not after the engagment. It's not like "oh, Zerg is 20range away, let's put down some PDDs; damn, he is not engaging, he baited them". It's rather like "his mutas and hydralisks are within 5,6,7 range and under heavy fire from to triple artillery combo, let's put down some PDDs. If he disengages now I have traded 375energy for 20units. Cool deal."
Again, the only time that really matters is if I can constantly siege you with something that is out of range of your triple artillery. That is current Swarm Hosts. With the current swarm host gone, the PDD nerf is very needless (unless the new swarm host has a similar siege effect as the current one). Of course there are rare scenarios where you put down PDDs against non-swarm host units, the Zerg disengages or remaxes and then 2mins later there are some PDDs left at that location and the zerg then cannot engage into that position. But how often does it come down to this? This is a very exotic scenario and absolutely not the point why having mass Raven is close to a win condition in TvZ currently.
I like it! SH and Ravens are so boring right now, so any change is good. And I love the Idea behind the new SH! Balance, shmalance! Let's see how the testing goes.
Wasn't going to post in here initially but I just realized they said that PDD only last 20 seconds... my thoughts from twitter...
if PDD only last 20 seconds doesnt that make mass tempests like.... really f'ing strong in PvT late game? The whole reason mass raven was good vs P late game was cuz if u had enough u could eventually negate the tempests with enough PDD/Energy But if they last 20 sec then the amount of times you have to recast the spell is so much higher that they lose their overall value .... Seems like some unintended side affects... @_@;;
Avilo will never be able to win with mech vs toss anymore xD I think this is actually a bad change if it affects Tempests vs T this much though, seems like ravens will become rather useless PvT whereas they were actually quite good if u had enough before..
On January 29 2015 11:57 -Kyo- wrote: Wasn't going to post in here initially but I just realized they said that PDD only last 20 seconds... my thoughts from twitter...
if PDD only last 20 seconds doesnt that make mass tempests like.... really f'ing strong in PvT late game? The whole reason mass raven was good vs P late game was cuz if u had enough u could eventually negate the tempests with enough PDD/Energy But if they last 20 sec then the amount of times you have to recast the spell is so much higher that they lose their overall value .... Seems like some unintended side affects... @_@;;
Avilo will never be able to win with mech vs toss anymore xD I think this is actually a bad change if it affects Tempests vs T this much though, seems like ravens will become rather useless PvT whereas they were actually quite good if u had enough before..
Yeah, they might as well have changed the Tempest while they were at it, tbh.
The one thing that I dislike is that tank pushes (the once in a blue moon Gumiho and others™ do them) are very dependant on raven (usually just 1), they were rare but now they will disapear :c
Raven PDD: don't care, the main goal when facing a terran adding a ton of ravens is not to let him add a ton of ravens. This number probably won't change much.
SH: so spawn locust into a main base is effectively a basetrade/all-in invitation button? cool i guess, if a toss or terran is turtling and teching let's have the zerg 'all-in' instead of contain and punish. If that gets boring revert to muta style base trade situations. super excited...
On January 29 2015 13:03 friendship wrote: Raven PDD: don't care, the main goal when facing a terran adding a ton of ravens is not to let him add a ton of ravens. This number probably won't change much.
SH: so spawn locust into a main base is effectively a basetrade/all-in invitation button? cool i guess, if a toss or terran is turtling and teching let's have the zerg 'all-in' instead of contain and punish. If that gets boring revert to muta style base trade situations. super excited...
I don't know that flying locusts are going to help much in base trade situations really, I can understand where you are coming from but um...do flying locusts shoot air units? I don't think the SwarmHost change is going to make it any easier to base trade with a Terran....I mean a little but regardless, they can just lift all of there buildings off to avoid from being attacked by the locusts...
On January 29 2015 13:03 friendship wrote: Raven PDD: don't care, the main goal when facing a terran adding a ton of ravens is not to let him add a ton of ravens. This number probably won't change much.
SH: so spawn locust into a main base is effectively a basetrade/all-in invitation button? cool i guess, if a toss or terran is turtling and teching let's have the zerg 'all-in' instead of contain and punish. If that gets boring revert to muta style base trade situations. super excited...
I don't know that flying locusts are going to help much in base trade situations really, I can understand where you are coming from but um...do flying locusts shoot air units? I don't think the SwarmHost change is going to make it any easier to base trade with a Terran....I mean a little but regardless, they can just lift all of there buildings off to avoid from being attacked by the locusts...
While you wait 60s for the next locust wave even the slowest mech army will destroy your bases or just kill your army that is lacking supply. I don´t think we have to worry about zerg´s base trading with SH.
On January 29 2015 13:03 friendship wrote: Raven PDD: don't care, the main goal when facing a terran adding a ton of ravens is not to let him add a ton of ravens. This number probably won't change much.
SH: so spawn locust into a main base is effectively a basetrade/all-in invitation button? cool i guess, if a toss or terran is turtling and teching let's have the zerg 'all-in' instead of contain and punish. If that gets boring revert to muta style base trade situations. super excited...
I don't know that flying locusts are going to help much in base trade situations really, I can understand where you are coming from but um...do flying locusts shoot air units? I don't think the SwarmHost change is going to make it any easier to base trade with a Terran....I mean a little but regardless, they can just lift all of there buildings off to avoid from being attacked by the locusts...
While you wait 60s for the next locust wave even the slowest mech army will destroy your bases or just kill your army that is lacking supply. I don´t think we have to worry about zerg´s base trading with SH.
I don't know about that. The current SH reloads so quickly you can't even advance, so some slower time is warranted to at least get the game moving. Of course, this is a nerf, so it has to be buffed in other ways, such as the flying locust. I imagine that with flying locust, it's overall stronger, able to pick off more mech units in the meantime, forces less tanks and more antiair, thors, or WM, which means your army can now engage more cost effectively.
Keep in mind the Zerg still will engage the mech finally once the SH locusts do move in, it's not like they would ever engage separately.
Although I'm of the opinion perhaps Spawn Locusts should be a casting ability (as they are making it), but they also have their own attack. For example, they may function as an anti-air unit (still when burrowed), giving it a dual role as a weak / ambush anti-air caster. How does this help vs mech? It doesn't, but at least it seems somewhat useful when the locusts aren't present.
On January 29 2015 13:03 friendship wrote: Raven PDD: don't care, the main goal when facing a terran adding a ton of ravens is not to let him add a ton of ravens. This number probably won't change much.
SH: so spawn locust into a main base is effectively a basetrade/all-in invitation button? cool i guess, if a toss or terran is turtling and teching let's have the zerg 'all-in' instead of contain and punish. If that gets boring revert to muta style base trade situations. super excited...
I don't know that flying locusts are going to help much in base trade situations really, I can understand where you are coming from but um...do flying locusts shoot air units? I don't think the SwarmHost change is going to make it any easier to base trade with a Terran....I mean a little but regardless, they can just lift all of there buildings off to avoid from being attacked by the locusts...
While you wait 60s for the next locust wave even the slowest mech army will destroy your bases or just kill your army that is lacking supply. I don´t think we have to worry about zerg´s base trading with SH.
To be fair, if they nerf both Raven and SH, they fricking absolutely need to redesign Tempest as well. This unit tbh has been only used to fight stalemate stupid situations that we will not have anymore because of the 2 nerfs/redesign.
The major problem with the tempest is that it hardcounter so much big air units that by its sole existence in the game it forbid the use of CattleBruiser and BroodLord. Not to mention that protoss army has enough of good units to deals with those already with the buffed skillray.
On January 29 2015 17:37 klup wrote: To be fair, if they nerf both Raven and SH, they fricking absolutely need to redesign Tempest as well. This unit tbh has been only used to fight stalemate stupid situations that we will not have anymore because of the 2 nerfs/redesign.
The major problem with the tempest is that it hardcounter so much big air units that by its sole existence in the game it forbid the use of CattleBruiser and BroodLord. Not to mention that protoss army has enough of good units to deals with those already with the buffed skillray.
Yea because Zerg never make Brood Lords any more at all! And Terrans were making so many BCs vs Protoss before HotS came out!
On January 29 2015 17:37 klup wrote: To be fair, if they nerf both Raven and SH, they fricking absolutely need to redesign Tempest as well. This unit tbh has been only used to fight stalemate stupid situations that we will not have anymore because of the 2 nerfs/redesign.
The major problem with the tempest is that it hardcounter so much big air units that by its sole existence in the game it forbid the use of CattleBruiser and BroodLord. Not to mention that protoss army has enough of good units to deals with those already with the buffed skillray.
Yea because Zerg never make Brood Lords any more at all! And Terrans were making so many BCs vs Protoss before HotS came out!
yes brood lords are really bad atm, I don't think I've seen a game where Protoss scouted brood lords and lost to them while not being already miles behind
On January 29 2015 17:37 klup wrote: To be fair, if they nerf both Raven and SH, they fricking absolutely need to redesign Tempest as well. This unit tbh has been only used to fight stalemate stupid situations that we will not have anymore because of the 2 nerfs/redesign.
The major problem with the tempest is that it hardcounter so much big air units that by its sole existence in the game it forbid the use of CattleBruiser and BroodLord. Not to mention that protoss army has enough of good units to deals with those already with the buffed skillray.
Yea because Zerg never make Brood Lords any more at all! And Terrans were making so many BCs vs Protoss before HotS came out!
yes brood lords are really bad atm, I don't think I've seen a game where Protoss scouted brood lords and lost to them while not being already miles behind
I kind of miss hive tech actually being good
Did you see Dark's recent games against Dear? He used broodlords well. ^^
Is it me or the map is not yet available ? I played a custom map a couple of days ago with the balance test module and the swarm hosts were unchanged (on EU server )
On January 29 2015 17:37 klup wrote: To be fair, if they nerf both Raven and SH, they fricking absolutely need to redesign Tempest as well. This unit tbh has been only used to fight stalemate stupid situations that we will not have anymore because of the 2 nerfs/redesign.
The major problem with the tempest is that it hardcounter so much big air units that by its sole existence in the game it forbid the use of CattleBruiser and BroodLord. Not to mention that protoss army has enough of good units to deals with those already with the buffed skillray.
Yea because Zerg never make Brood Lords any more at all! And Terrans were making so many BCs vs Protoss before HotS came out!
yes brood lords are really bad atm, I don't think I've seen a game where Protoss scouted brood lords and lost to them while not being already miles behind
I kind of miss hive tech actually being good
Did you see Dark's recent games against Dear? He used broodlords well. ^^
Mostly because Dear was broke and couldn't afford to switch to Stargate though.
Tempests need to be nerfed to the ground. That unit is terrible and doesn't even keep PvP from going into colossi wars while destroying any Z hope to use brood lords. The mere concept of such a long range air fighter that can shoot both ground and air is retarded. Rework them thoroughly.
On January 29 2015 21:48 [PkF] Wire wrote: Tempests need to be nerfed to the ground. That unit is terrible and doesn't even keep PvP from going into colossi wars while destroying any Z hope to use brood lords. The mere concept of such a long range air fighter that can shoot both ground and air is retarded. Rework them thoroughly.
On January 29 2015 21:56 idkfa wrote: Wasn't the Tempest supposed to be changed to target ground only with LotV? Might as well put that on the test map.
I think they havent found a way to properly redesign the tempest yet thats why its not implemented for testing. I dont think they want to stick with lotv alpha tempest.
Is this live? Any high level players trying it out today? Would love to see some matches and hear some opinions as this is a very big change for a testmap.
On January 29 2015 22:55 MrMatt wrote: Is this live? Any high level players trying it out today? Would love to see some matches and hear some opinions as this is a very big change for a testmap.
If the map goes live within a reasonable timeframe today it will be likely I will run a series of tests with good players. Regardless, as soon as the map is live, I will make stream/cast various games and matchups throughout the whole period the map is live and testable. It is likely I will host an event today if the map/map does in fact go live today. Feel free to msg me or this thread as I can not check as frequently as I would like.
On January 29 2015 17:37 klup wrote: To be fair, if they nerf both Raven and SH, they fricking absolutely need to redesign Tempest as well. This unit tbh has been only used to fight stalemate stupid situations that we will not have anymore because of the 2 nerfs/redesign.
The major problem with the tempest is that it hardcounter so much big air units that by its sole existence in the game it forbid the use of CattleBruiser and BroodLord. Not to mention that protoss army has enough of good units to deals with those already with the buffed skillray.
Yea because Zerg never make Brood Lords any more at all! And Terrans were making so many BCs vs Protoss before HotS came out!
Removing/Redesigning tempest opens possibilities. With this no brain unit that sole purpose is to hard counter mech and air terran you just narrow more the path of choice in this matchup and in ZvP matchup too with broodlord. That unit is silly and need a complete redesign. The problem with protoss is that they have already a capital ship a quick fighter/harass and a support/harass air unit and a standard multipurpose air unit. Hard to find a role for the tempest in that suiss knife army.
On January 29 2015 17:37 klup wrote: To be fair, if they nerf both Raven and SH, they fricking absolutely need to redesign Tempest as well. This unit tbh has been only used to fight stalemate stupid situations that we will not have anymore because of the 2 nerfs/redesign.
The major problem with the tempest is that it hardcounter so much big air units that by its sole existence in the game it forbid the use of CattleBruiser and BroodLord. Not to mention that protoss army has enough of good units to deals with those already with the buffed skillray.
Yea because Zerg never make Brood Lords any more at all! And Terrans were making so many BCs vs Protoss before HotS came out!
Removing/Redesigning tempest opens possibilities. With this no brain unit that sole purpose is to hard counter mech and air terran you just narrow more the path of choice in this matchup and in ZvP matchup too with broodlord. That unit is silly and need a complete redesign. The problem with protoss is that they have already a capital ship a quick fighter/harass and a support/harass air unit and a standard multipurpose air unit. Hard to find a role for the tempest in that suiss knife army.
What about and expensive combat caster (SHIELD BATTERY <3 / REPAIR PLATFORM!)
On January 29 2015 17:37 klup wrote: To be fair, if they nerf both Raven and SH, they fricking absolutely need to redesign Tempest as well. This unit tbh has been only used to fight stalemate stupid situations that we will not have anymore because of the 2 nerfs/redesign.
The major problem with the tempest is that it hardcounter so much big air units that by its sole existence in the game it forbid the use of CattleBruiser and BroodLord. Not to mention that protoss army has enough of good units to deals with those already with the buffed skillray.
Yea because Zerg never make Brood Lords any more at all! And Terrans were making so many BCs vs Protoss before HotS came out!
ZvP Broodlords have a very short time frame to work because you have the tech to 1 shot them if you scout the Greater Spire early before they actually hit the field........ Broodlords are an interesting unit and the LOTV redesigns will make them more usable.
As for TvP, part of the reason BCs aren't used is mech being bad. Other part is it being a very poor lategame transition.
On January 29 2015 21:48 [PkF] Wire wrote: Tempests need to be nerfed to the ground. That unit is terrible and doesn't even keep PvP from going into colossi wars while destroying any Z hope to use brood lords. The mere concept of such a long range air fighter that can shoot both ground and air is retarded. Rework them thoroughly.
I like this idea but might be too powerful against infestors because of "automatic sniper" if Zerg goes inf+bl+corrupters combo.
On January 29 2015 17:37 klup wrote: To be fair, if they nerf both Raven and SH, they fricking absolutely need to redesign Tempest as well. This unit tbh has been only used to fight stalemate stupid situations that we will not have anymore because of the 2 nerfs/redesign.
The major problem with the tempest is that it hardcounter so much big air units that by its sole existence in the game it forbid the use of CattleBruiser and BroodLord. Not to mention that protoss army has enough of good units to deals with those already with the buffed skillray.
Yea because Zerg never make Brood Lords any more at all! And Terrans were making so many BCs vs Protoss before HotS came out!
ZvP Broodlords have a very short time frame to work because you have the tech to 1 shot them if you scout the Greater Spire early before they actually hit the field........ Broodlords are an interesting unit and the LOTV redesigns will make them more usable.
As for TvP, part of the reason BCs aren't used is mech being bad. Other part is it being a very poor lategame transition.
If BCs are to be used in TvP they have to either:
1)Make them immune to feedback
2)Get rid of the energy and make Yamato a cool down ability
The fact that you can lose half the health 400/300 unit in a couple of seconds by a 25 energy ability is just too much, even if you have ghost it just take 1 feedback, and then a couple of storms finish the job.
BCs were countered by HT long before they were countered by tempest.
On January 29 2015 17:37 klup wrote: To be fair, if they nerf both Raven and SH, they fricking absolutely need to redesign Tempest as well. This unit tbh has been only used to fight stalemate stupid situations that we will not have anymore because of the 2 nerfs/redesign.
The major problem with the tempest is that it hardcounter so much big air units that by its sole existence in the game it forbid the use of CattleBruiser and BroodLord. Not to mention that protoss army has enough of good units to deals with those already with the buffed skillray.
Yea because Zerg never make Brood Lords any more at all! And Terrans were making so many BCs vs Protoss before HotS came out!
Removing/Redesigning tempest opens possibilities. With this no brain unit that sole purpose is to hard counter mech and air terran you just narrow more the path of choice in this matchup and in ZvP matchup too with broodlord. That unit is silly and need a complete redesign. The problem with protoss is that they have already a capital ship a quick fighter/harass and a support/harass air unit and a standard multipurpose air unit. Hard to find a role for the tempest in that suiss knife army.
What about and expensive combat caster (SHIELD BATTERY <3 / REPAIR PLATFORM!)
Like protoss doesn't have enough expensive casters?
On January 29 2015 17:37 klup wrote: To be fair, if they nerf both Raven and SH, they fricking absolutely need to redesign Tempest as well. This unit tbh has been only used to fight stalemate stupid situations that we will not have anymore because of the 2 nerfs/redesign.
The major problem with the tempest is that it hardcounter so much big air units that by its sole existence in the game it forbid the use of CattleBruiser and BroodLord. Not to mention that protoss army has enough of good units to deals with those already with the buffed skillray.
Yea because Zerg never make Brood Lords any more at all! And Terrans were making so many BCs vs Protoss before HotS came out!
Removing/Redesigning tempest opens possibilities. With this no brain unit that sole purpose is to hard counter mech and air terran you just narrow more the path of choice in this matchup and in ZvP matchup too with broodlord. That unit is silly and need a complete redesign. The problem with protoss is that they have already a capital ship a quick fighter/harass and a support/harass air unit and a standard multipurpose air unit. Hard to find a role for the tempest in that suiss knife army.
This, this and a thousand times this. The tempest would never have existed had we got a fully-fledged carrier at release. REMOVE THAT UNIT. Blizzard, please. Who loves the tempest except Rotterdam when he proxies them ? And frankly, proxy carrier sounds just as fun and would be just as good if carrier didn't take five hours to produce. Remove tempests, and give the carrier the capital ship role it should never have ceased to fulfill -reducing production time would pretty much do the trick. Carriers are so much more exciting than tempests, not to mention how beautiful they are and the nostalgic feeling they convey.
On January 29 2015 17:37 klup wrote: To be fair, if they nerf both Raven and SH, they fricking absolutely need to redesign Tempest as well. This unit tbh has been only used to fight stalemate stupid situations that we will not have anymore because of the 2 nerfs/redesign.
The major problem with the tempest is that it hardcounter so much big air units that by its sole existence in the game it forbid the use of CattleBruiser and BroodLord. Not to mention that protoss army has enough of good units to deals with those already with the buffed skillray.
Yea because Zerg never make Brood Lords any more at all! And Terrans were making so many BCs vs Protoss before HotS came out!
ZvP Broodlords have a very short time frame to work because you have the tech to 1 shot them if you scout the Greater Spire early before they actually hit the field........ Broodlords are an interesting unit and the LOTV redesigns will make them more usable.
As for TvP, part of the reason BCs aren't used is mech being bad. Other part is it being a very poor lategame transition.
If BCs are to be used in TvP they have to either:
1)Make them immune to feedback
2)Get rid of the energy and make Yamato a cool down ability
The fact that you can lose half the health 400/300 unit in a couple of seconds by a 25 energy ability is just too much, even if you have ghost it just take 1 feedback, and then a couple of storms finish the job.
BCs were countered by HT long before they were countered by tempest.
Ghost are superior to HT in the caster v caster fight, especially in higher numbers. Feedback is 50 energy BC loses closer to 1/3 of it's HP if it takes a FULL Feedback, which it never should. It takes ~20% damage if it has a Yamato.
You are exaggerating. BC aren't used because they are way to easy to counter for how hard it is to get them. That counter is mainly the Tempest - not the HT.
On January 29 2015 17:37 klup wrote: To be fair, if they nerf both Raven and SH, they fricking absolutely need to redesign Tempest as well. This unit tbh has been only used to fight stalemate stupid situations that we will not have anymore because of the 2 nerfs/redesign.
The major problem with the tempest is that it hardcounter so much big air units that by its sole existence in the game it forbid the use of CattleBruiser and BroodLord. Not to mention that protoss army has enough of good units to deals with those already with the buffed skillray.
Yea because Zerg never make Brood Lords any more at all! And Terrans were making so many BCs vs Protoss before HotS came out!
ZvP Broodlords have a very short time frame to work because you have the tech to 1 shot them if you scout the Greater Spire early before they actually hit the field........ Broodlords are an interesting unit and the LOTV redesigns will make them more usable.
As for TvP, part of the reason BCs aren't used is mech being bad. Other part is it being a very poor lategame transition.
If BCs are to be used in TvP they have to either:
1)Make them immune to feedback
2)Get rid of the energy and make Yamato a cool down ability
The fact that you can lose half the health 400/300 unit in a couple of seconds by a 25 energy ability is just too much, even if you have ghost it just take 1 feedback, and then a couple of storms finish the job.
BCs were countered by HT long before they were countered by tempest.
Ghost are superior to HT in the caster v caster fight, especially in higher numbers. Feedback is 50 energy BC loses closer to 1/3 of it's HP if it takes a FULL Feedback, which it never should. It takes ~20% damage if it has a Yamato.
You are exaggerating. BC aren't used because they are way to easy to counter for how hard it is to get them. That counter is mainly the Tempest - not the HT.
WoL BC vs Protoss was quite rare too though. I think it is just very hard to get them out in the first place because before you have many of them they are hardly a combat factor. Their dps is lower than MMMVG and their tanking abilities hardly come into play since the Protoss will mainly fight everything else first and then clean up the few BCs with Stalker/Templar. Assuming they havent been sniped for free beforehand because the BCs cannot keep up with MMMVG maneuvering, exposing them against Templar/Stalker to begin with.
You can try and fail a lot of drops and pokes before you can argue that going BC instead of just trying to keep the Protoss down and busy would have been better. And even when you get that BC mass that you need to force the opponent to waste dps on those 550HP/6armor monsters, they will have Tempests/VRs so you need Ravens, so after your transitioning phase against standard Protoss units you need another transitioning phase to just prevent the counters from destroying you.
I think the design of the BC shows why any form of AtA/AtG capital ship just isn't exciting. The unit design only makes sense if you cannot be countered by an easypeasy lowtech techswitch (like back into Marines - the bane of Carrier tech). But it also cannot be so powerful that it easypeasy gives you freewins if your opponent doesn't have hightech AtA, as you cannot expect an opponent to have specialist counters before you actually have the unit he needs to counter. So all those units (BL/Carrier/BC) need critical masses to withstand GtA - and in return need very hard counters to prevent a mass of them just being a freewin. Which means they often don't work because you cannot transition into them, or they give the opponent so much time that he can hardcounter them easily. Which then means it becomes a deathball match of countering the counters and balling everything up (Skyterran, WoL BL/Infestor/Corruptor, Protoss deathball). Colossi also lead to that because they work similarily (need 3+ Colossi, so a long transition time. Need to counter the counters and protect the colossi --> deathball).
On January 29 2015 23:45 klup wrote: Removing/Redesigning tempest opens possibilities. With this no brain unit that sole purpose is to hard counter mech and air terran you just narrow more the path of choice in this matchup and in ZvP matchup too with broodlord. That unit is silly and need a complete redesign. The problem with protoss is that they have already a capital ship a quick fighter/harass and a support/harass air unit and a standard multipurpose air unit. Hard to find a role for the tempest in that suiss knife army.
This, this and a thousand times this. The tempest would never have existed had we got a fully-fledged carrier at release. REMOVE THAT UNIT. Blizzard, please. Who loves the tempest except Rotterdam when he proxies them ? And frankly, proxy carrier sounds just as fun and would be just as good if carrier didn't take five hours to produce. Remove tempests, and give the carrier the capital ship role it should never have ceased to fulfill -reducing production time would pretty much do the trick. Carriers are so much more exciting than tempests, not to mention how beautiful they are and the nostalgic feeling they convey.
Agreed. The Tempest itself, besides effectively siphoning the Carrier's gas in the middle of the night by being a massive diverted power sink, nerfs the already crippled Carrier in PvP by way of extra damage to massive as well. The Tempest is not only an asshole, it's a traitor.
On January 30 2015 03:00 woopr wrote: really disappointing to see blizzard still trying to salvage the swarmhost
it needs to be removed
Nope. I love SH. Pretty cool unit.
Along with tempest and raven it makes everything exciting!
I think the concept is interesting, it just doesn't fit into the rest of the game. Most of the people were very positively excited towards the swarm host since they first showcased it in 2011.
It's very hard to find a place in which the Swarm Host, that has a very flat "action curve" - hence it always creates action, but never a lot - is exciting when everything else in the game has an action curve that is at 0 for most of the time, and then spikes very high for a few moments, to go back to 0 shortly afterwards (or be dead).
On January 29 2015 17:37 klup wrote: To be fair, if they nerf both Raven and SH, they fricking absolutely need to redesign Tempest as well. This unit tbh has been only used to fight stalemate stupid situations that we will not have anymore because of the 2 nerfs/redesign.
The major problem with the tempest is that it hardcounter so much big air units that by its sole existence in the game it forbid the use of CattleBruiser and BroodLord. Not to mention that protoss army has enough of good units to deals with those already with the buffed skillray.
Yea because Zerg never make Brood Lords any more at all! And Terrans were making so many BCs vs Protoss before HotS came out!
Removing/Redesigning tempest opens possibilities. With this no brain unit that sole purpose is to hard counter mech and air terran you just narrow more the path of choice in this matchup and in ZvP matchup too with broodlord. That unit is silly and need a complete redesign. The problem with protoss is that they have already a capital ship a quick fighter/harass and a support/harass air unit and a standard multipurpose air unit. Hard to find a role for the tempest in that suiss knife army.
This, this and a thousand times this. The tempest would never have existed had we got a fully-fledged carrier at release. REMOVE THAT UNIT. Blizzard, please. Who loves the tempest except Rotterdam when he proxies them ? And frankly, proxy carrier sounds just as fun and would be just as good if carrier didn't take five hours to produce. Remove tempests, and give the carrier the capital ship role it should never have ceased to fulfill -reducing production time would pretty much do the trick. Carriers are so much more exciting than tempests, not to mention how beautiful they are and the nostalgic feeling they convey.
The existence of the Tempest is really a testament to the lack of skill with the SC2 dev team. The whole concept of the unit has been silly from the start. It currently has no reason to exist other than making the game less diverse and interesting. You care about the carrier, the battlecruiser, and broodlords? Too bad. Here's a unit that takes no micro and fills an already filled role, and hardcounters them all. For no reason! Have fun.
With this no brain unit that sole purpose is to hard counter mech and air terran you just narrow more the path of choice in this matchup and in ZvP matchup too with broodlord. That unit is silly and need a complete redesign. The problem with protoss is that they have already a capital ship a quick fighter/harass and a support/harass air unit and a standard multipurpose air unit. Hard to find a role for the tempest in that suiss knife army.
On January 29 2015 17:37 klup wrote: To be fair, if they nerf both Raven and SH, they fricking absolutely need to redesign Tempest as well. This unit tbh has been only used to fight stalemate stupid situations that we will not have anymore because of the 2 nerfs/redesign.
The major problem with the tempest is that it hardcounter so much big air units that by its sole existence in the game it forbid the use of CattleBruiser and BroodLord. Not to mention that protoss army has enough of good units to deals with those already with the buffed skillray.
Yea because Zerg never make Brood Lords any more at all! And Terrans were making so many BCs vs Protoss before HotS came out!
Removing/Redesigning tempest opens possibilities. With this no brain unit that sole purpose is to hard counter mech and air terran you just narrow more the path of choice in this matchup and in ZvP matchup too with broodlord. That unit is silly and need a complete redesign. The problem with protoss is that they have already a capital ship a quick fighter/harass and a support/harass air unit and a standard multipurpose air unit. Hard to find a role for the tempest in that suiss knife army.
This, this and a thousand times this. The tempest would never have existed had we got a fully-fledged carrier at release. REMOVE THAT UNIT. Blizzard, please. Who loves the tempest except Rotterdam when he proxies them ? And frankly, proxy carrier sounds just as fun and would be just as good if carrier didn't take five hours to produce. Remove tempests, and give the carrier the capital ship role it should never have ceased to fulfill -reducing production time would pretty much do the trick. Carriers are so much more exciting than tempests, not to mention how beautiful they are and the nostalgic feeling they convey.
I agree. Reducing the carrier's build time slightly and maybe even giving them an extra 1 base armor (which is what the bw carrier had) would give them a lot more viability. Then you can just kill the Tempest.
On January 29 2015 17:37 klup wrote: To be fair, if they nerf both Raven and SH, they fricking absolutely need to redesign Tempest as well. This unit tbh has been only used to fight stalemate stupid situations that we will not have anymore because of the 2 nerfs/redesign.
The major problem with the tempest is that it hardcounter so much big air units that by its sole existence in the game it forbid the use of CattleBruiser and BroodLord. Not to mention that protoss army has enough of good units to deals with those already with the buffed skillray.
Yea because Zerg never make Brood Lords any more at all! And Terrans were making so many BCs vs Protoss before HotS came out!
ZvP Broodlords have a very short time frame to work because you have the tech to 1 shot them if you scout the Greater Spire early before they actually hit the field........ Broodlords are an interesting unit and the LOTV redesigns will make them more usable.
As for TvP, part of the reason BCs aren't used is mech being bad. Other part is it being a very poor lategame transition.
If BCs are to be used in TvP they have to either:
1)Make them immune to feedback
2)Get rid of the energy and make Yamato a cool down ability
The fact that you can lose half the health 400/300 unit in a couple of seconds by a 25 energy ability is just too much, even if you have ghost it just take 1 feedback, and then a couple of storms finish the job.
BCs were countered by HT long before they were countered by tempest.
Ghost are superior to HT in the caster v caster fight, especially in higher numbers. Feedback is 50 energy BC loses closer to 1/3 of it's HP if it takes a FULL Feedback, which it never should. It takes ~20% damage if it has a Yamato.
You are exaggerating. BC aren't used because they are way to easy to counter for how hard it is to get them. That counter is mainly the Tempest - not the HT.
Ok I always mess up with the feed back my bad , also a Battlecruiser has 200 energy and 550 HP so its somewhere in between 1/2 and 1/3 of its HP, also no I didn't take ghost out of the equation.
The thing here is, there no need for the BC to have energy, the biggest reason the sky terran/raven deathball isn't used in TvP is mainly the HT and only secondly the tempest, as many people point out HT+Tempest is the strongest composition of protoss and the reason SH existed, ravens follow shortly, while BC has many (MANY) other things that counter them they're still a capital ship and while awful they even see the ligh in TvT/TvZ from time to time, because they are strong and even if easy to counter can offer a lot of power (more than once I've seen BCs win a game in TvT, mostly bio vs mech) protoss already has a lot of unit that can deal with the BC in a strong way, but (with the exception of the tempest) the BC has the ability to fight back (with yamatos they can even fight well against an equal supply of void rays), the HT doesn't allows them to do this and while I think that the ghost is really strong one of the strongest terran units (they're fucking expensive after all) I really dislike the way they work with mech. With bio the ghost is very important but a ghostless army of bio is still capable of holding is own, with mech you depend too much on them, HT, archons and immortals are already very strong even with ghost in the mix, but without ghost a mech/sky army is simply incapable of winning, every non-bio unit in the terran structure is WAY too dependant in the ghost to work, wich is really awful design.
TL;DR: the BC is already countered by everything, but the feedback is just too much, and as other point out the HT WAS the WoL way of countering them. (Mvp vs Squirtle was a good showing of this, sure there the archon toilet back in the day, but even now archons and HT counter sky terran way too easily)
On January 29 2015 17:37 klup wrote: To be fair, if they nerf both Raven and SH, they fricking absolutely need to redesign Tempest as well. This unit tbh has been only used to fight stalemate stupid situations that we will not have anymore because of the 2 nerfs/redesign.
The major problem with the tempest is that it hardcounter so much big air units that by its sole existence in the game it forbid the use of CattleBruiser and BroodLord. Not to mention that protoss army has enough of good units to deals with those already with the buffed skillray.
Yea because Zerg never make Brood Lords any more at all! And Terrans were making so many BCs vs Protoss before HotS came out!
Removing/Redesigning tempest opens possibilities. With this no brain unit that sole purpose is to hard counter mech and air terran you just narrow more the path of choice in this matchup and in ZvP matchup too with broodlord. That unit is silly and need a complete redesign. The problem with protoss is that they have already a capital ship a quick fighter/harass and a support/harass air unit and a standard multipurpose air unit. Hard to find a role for the tempest in that suiss knife army.
This, this and a thousand times this. The tempest would never have existed had we got a fully-fledged carrier at release. REMOVE THAT UNIT. Blizzard, please. Who loves the tempest except Rotterdam when he proxies them ? And frankly, proxy carrier sounds just as fun and would be just as good if carrier didn't take five hours to produce. Remove tempests, and give the carrier the capital ship role it should never have ceased to fulfill -reducing production time would pretty much do the trick. Carriers are so much more exciting than tempests, not to mention how beautiful they are and the nostalgic feeling they convey.
I agree. Reducing the carrier's build time slightly and maybe even giving them an extra 1 base armor (which is what the bw carrier had) would give them a lot more viability. Then you can just kill the Tempest.
Lets not jump the gun. A properly micro'd carrier (leash range) has around 30 DPS at 14 range to both ground and air. The issue with this thread is not the carrier.
It's game design, and more specifically on this page, the crappy design of the Tempest how it should never exist in the first place. A redundant unit that fills an already filled role, requires no micro, and hardcounters all 3 capital ships (+ mech) out of existence.
SH would be a lot better if the locusts didn't get a creep speed buff bonus. All that does is give them a defensive advantage, while Blizzard wanted them to be used offensively.
That, and they shouldn't benefit from upgrades, similar to the IT.
Both these changes would make SH massing a lot shittier in the lategame, but only reduce their potential marginally in the midgame if used aggressively. Of course, there needs to be shit done to the other races too to compensate as unfortunately as it stands SH is the only option in many cases.
I hope Blizzard hurries up and releases this patch as soon as possible.
The current Swarm hosts are boring to watch, boring to use boring to play against. They even make Tempest seem like a well designed and interesting unit in comparison.
On February 08 2015 00:12 MockHamill wrote: I hope Blizzard hurries up and releases this patch as soon as possible.
The current Swarm hosts are boring to watch, boring to use boring to play against. They even make Tempest seem like a well designed and interesting unit in comparison.
I'd rather they thoroughly test it before gambling with people's jobs, careers and income, thank you very much.
On February 08 2015 00:12 MockHamill wrote: I hope Blizzard hurries up and releases this patch as soon as possible.
The current Swarm hosts are boring to watch, boring to use boring to play against. They even make Tempest seem like a well designed and interesting unit in comparison.
I'd rather they thoroughly test it before gambling with people's jobs, careers and income, thank you very much.
Sc2 is a game first and foremost. People's jobs, careers and income are ruining the fun for everyone else
On February 08 2015 00:12 MockHamill wrote: I hope Blizzard hurries up and releases this patch as soon as possible.
The current Swarm hosts are boring to watch, boring to use boring to play against. They even make Tempest seem like a well designed and interesting unit in comparison.
I completely disagree. I love the current swarmhost and I'm very sad they are changing it. The current changes make the unit boring, redundant and worst of all, completely useless.
If they change the SH at they better make some serious adjustments, because in the test map right now they are too finicky and ineffective to be worth the increased cost.
I loved the deep burrow and flying locusts in the campaign... I wish they would consider using those implementations.
I also had a thought that it would be cool to change the SH into basically a unit-thrower. Load it up with ground units like a overlord and it can 'throw' them a certain distance.
I'm not too familiar with how these maps work. If Blizzard likes these changes, and the game feels healthier, will we see these in HotS, or is this closer to a proof-of-concept for LOTV?
On February 10 2015 00:35 IntoTheheart wrote: I'm not too familiar with how these maps work. If Blizzard likes these changes, and the game feels healthier, will we see these in HotS, or is this closer to a proof-of-concept for LOTV?
Usually these maps are around for a month or so and then a combination of the following happens: - a change gets implemented in the game - the map gets updated with different/polished changes - nothing happens But yes, this change is made for HotS!
Would love to hear some update on the matter. Map has been around for some time now and I don't think there is a lot more input going to happen.
On February 10 2015 00:35 IntoTheheart wrote: I'm not too familiar with how these maps work. If Blizzard likes these changes, and the game feels healthier, will we see these in HotS, or is this closer to a proof-of-concept for LOTV?
Usually these maps are around for a month or so and then a combination of the following happens: - a change gets implemented in the game - the map gets updated with different/polished changes - nothing happens But yes, this change is made for HotS!
Would love to hear some update on the matter. Map has been around for some time now and I don't think there is a lot more input going to happen.
I think that they have the SH bugs on these maps only few days ago.
On February 10 2015 00:35 IntoTheheart wrote: I'm not too familiar with how these maps work. If Blizzard likes these changes, and the game feels healthier, will we see these in HotS, or is this closer to a proof-of-concept for LOTV?
Usually these maps are around for a month or so and then a combination of the following happens: - a change gets implemented in the game - the map gets updated with different/polished changes - nothing happens But yes, this change is made for HotS!
Would love to hear some update on the matter. Map has been around for some time now and I don't think there is a lot more input going to happen.
I think that they have the SH bugs on these maps only few days ago.
Ah right, shows they do watch it. Though what I'm waiting for is updates on the unit stats/costs and ideas on other changes to existing units to balance new advantages/disadvantages out. Because at the moment they basically implemented an alpha version of a unit on the testmap and I can't remember a single instance of an SC2 alpha unit making it unchanged into the game. They rather update the stats on a weekly basis in their betas when they say "this week we focus on ...". So I'd expect quite a few iterations of this new SH until they release it (if they release it that is).
EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/mk3nbTB.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/zdqN695.png)
), 2 warp prisms(or pylon + WP) and warping tons of zealots to reset the tech repeatedly, killing bases, killing creep. I can only recommend this.
