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On January 31 2015 07:34 DemigodcelpH wrote:Show nested quote +On January 31 2015 06:55 goswser wrote:On January 31 2015 06:37 DemigodcelpH wrote:
According to a stream test it takes just 4 Swarm Hosts to kill a Nexus in one volley. Just 3 may have enough DPS I don't know how badly it was overkilled. Bad free unit design aside it seems pretty broken to me. Yes it just takes 4 to kill a nexus, but its not one volley lol. Its the entire lifespan of the locusts shooting the nexus with zero protoss response. The new sh will need to have the numbers tweaked to be a useful harass unit, because right now they're just a worse version of mutalisks. Yes they kill nexus' faster than mutas, but they are far worse at killing workers, defending, base trading, escaping, and forcing a response from the protoss. And they basically force you into committing to an allin strategy as well, because if you don't kill / cripple the protoss with them then he will kill you with his deathball easily since you spent too much gas / supply on your shs. In additon, in the same time and for the same cost that it takes you to make 4 sh with flying locusts upgrade you can have a hive and 4 vipers, so the sh basically need to be as good as that would be as well to be worthwhile. It doesn't take much supply to use the new SH. You only need 3 or 4 to kill a base in one volley from across the map. He has units? Trade units for free units. He has canons/turrets? Trade canons/turrets for free units. Then kill the base.
Yeah....you can't do it from across the map. And gl trading free units for protoss units with 4 swarmhosts worth of locusts. The locusts will just die without killing anything. Like I said, its not one volley lol. A volley is one shot from each locust. 8 locusts shooting a nexus once each doesn't kill the nexus. They have to sit next to it and keep shooting it for like 30 seconds to kill it lol.
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On January 31 2015 07:58 goswser wrote:Show nested quote +On January 31 2015 07:34 DemigodcelpH wrote:On January 31 2015 06:55 goswser wrote:On January 31 2015 06:37 DemigodcelpH wrote:
According to a stream test it takes just 4 Swarm Hosts to kill a Nexus in one volley. Just 3 may have enough DPS I don't know how badly it was overkilled. Bad free unit design aside it seems pretty broken to me. Yes it just takes 4 to kill a nexus, but its not one volley lol. Its the entire lifespan of the locusts shooting the nexus with zero protoss response. The new sh will need to have the numbers tweaked to be a useful harass unit, because right now they're just a worse version of mutalisks. Yes they kill nexus' faster than mutas, but they are far worse at killing workers, defending, base trading, escaping, and forcing a response from the protoss. And they basically force you into committing to an allin strategy as well, because if you don't kill / cripple the protoss with them then he will kill you with his deathball easily since you spent too much gas / supply on your shs. In additon, in the same time and for the same cost that it takes you to make 4 sh with flying locusts upgrade you can have a hive and 4 vipers, so the sh basically need to be as good as that would be as well to be worthwhile. It doesn't take much supply to use the new SH. You only need 3 or 4 to kill a base in one volley from across the map. He has units? Trade units for free units. He has canons/turrets? Trade canons/turrets for free units. Then kill the base. Yeah....you can't do it from across the map. And gl trading free units for protoss units with 4 swarmhosts worth of locusts. The locusts will just die without killing anything. Like I said, its not one volley lol. A volley is one shot from each locust. 8 locusts shooting a nexus once each doesn't kill the nexus. They have to sit next to it and keep shooting it for like 30 seconds to kill it lol.
What if they were given an ability that gave them extra seconds on their lifespan based on how much damage they dealt? Would that make them more useful as artillery, without increasing their stalemate potential?
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On January 31 2015 06:55 goswser wrote:Show nested quote +On January 31 2015 06:37 DemigodcelpH wrote:
According to a stream test it takes just 4 Swarm Hosts to kill a Nexus in one volley. Just 3 may have enough DPS I don't know how badly it was overkilled. Bad free unit design aside it seems pretty broken to me. Yes it just takes 4 to kill a nexus, but its not one volley lol. Its the entire lifespan of the locusts shooting the nexus with zero protoss response. The new sh will need to have the numbers tweaked to be a useful harass unit, because right now they're just a worse version of mutalisks. Yes they kill nexus' faster than mutas, but they are far worse at killing workers, defending, base trading, escaping, and forcing a response from the protoss. And they basically force you into committing to an allin strategy as well, because if you don't kill / cripple the protoss with them then he will kill you with his deathball easily since you spent too much gas / supply on your shs. In additon, in the same time and for the same cost that it takes you to make 4 sh with flying locusts upgrade you can have a hive and 4 vipers, so the sh basically need to be as good as that would be as well to be worthwhile.
Yeah I came to to the same conclusions about mutas or "harassbased" swarm hosts.
In general I would like to raise the two questions:
a) is it even desired to give zerg another harass unit and to make it useful it needs to be as good as the mutalisk or even better in some way. And mutas are already terribly strong and often force opponents into very strong hardcounters (phoenix) and have forced multiple patches on the game (phoenix range, thor priority, widow mine rebuff).
b) is it even possible that a purely harasbased unit exists in the lategame and is worth lots of gas? Because in all honesty, not a single harass unit in the lategame right now fullfills those traits. They are either reasonably strong combat units on top of being strong harrassment units (medivacs, mutalisks, banshees) or extremely cheap on the gas costs (warp prism+zealots, zergling runbys, mass hellions).
When you are around 200supply and your opponent is around there as well, you can rarely afford to make aomething like mass oracle. Your units have to benefit you in combat a lot, or be so cgeap that you can easily waste them and then remake something better. A harrass host is the complete opposite of that. It pays off slowly but also cant fight. So I feel likw the new version will eventually need to get balanced around releasing quite some damage on an army too or zerg will die to timings or in 200/200 battles when using them.
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On January 31 2015 07:58 goswser wrote:Show nested quote +On January 31 2015 07:34 DemigodcelpH wrote:On January 31 2015 06:55 goswser wrote:On January 31 2015 06:37 DemigodcelpH wrote:
According to a stream test it takes just 4 Swarm Hosts to kill a Nexus in one volley. Just 3 may have enough DPS I don't know how badly it was overkilled. Bad free unit design aside it seems pretty broken to me. Yes it just takes 4 to kill a nexus, but its not one volley lol. Its the entire lifespan of the locusts shooting the nexus with zero protoss response. The new sh will need to have the numbers tweaked to be a useful harass unit, because right now they're just a worse version of mutalisks. Yes they kill nexus' faster than mutas, but they are far worse at killing workers, defending, base trading, escaping, and forcing a response from the protoss. And they basically force you into committing to an allin strategy as well, because if you don't kill / cripple the protoss with them then he will kill you with his deathball easily since you spent too much gas / supply on your shs. In additon, in the same time and for the same cost that it takes you to make 4 sh with flying locusts upgrade you can have a hive and 4 vipers, so the sh basically need to be as good as that would be as well to be worthwhile. It doesn't take much supply to use the new SH. You only need 3 or 4 to kill a base in one volley from across the map. He has units? Trade units for free units. He has canons/turrets? Trade canons/turrets for free units. Then kill the base. They have to sit next to it and keep shooting it for like 30 seconds to kill it lol.
It was more like 6 seconds.
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On January 31 2015 07:58 goswser wrote:Show nested quote +On January 31 2015 07:34 DemigodcelpH wrote:On January 31 2015 06:55 goswser wrote:On January 31 2015 06:37 DemigodcelpH wrote:
According to a stream test it takes just 4 Swarm Hosts to kill a Nexus in one volley. Just 3 may have enough DPS I don't know how badly it was overkilled. Bad free unit design aside it seems pretty broken to me. Yes it just takes 4 to kill a nexus, but its not one volley lol. Its the entire lifespan of the locusts shooting the nexus with zero protoss response. The new sh will need to have the numbers tweaked to be a useful harass unit, because right now they're just a worse version of mutalisks. Yes they kill nexus' faster than mutas, but they are far worse at killing workers, defending, base trading, escaping, and forcing a response from the protoss. And they basically force you into committing to an allin strategy as well, because if you don't kill / cripple the protoss with them then he will kill you with his deathball easily since you spent too much gas / supply on your shs. In additon, in the same time and for the same cost that it takes you to make 4 sh with flying locusts upgrade you can have a hive and 4 vipers, so the sh basically need to be as good as that would be as well to be worthwhile. It doesn't take much supply to use the new SH. You only need 3 or 4 to kill a base in one volley from across the map. He has units? Trade units for free units. He has canons/turrets? Trade canons/turrets for free units. Then kill the base. Yeah....you can't do it from across the map. And gl trading free units for protoss units with 4 swarmhosts worth of locusts. The locusts will just die without killing anything. Like I said, its not one volley lol. A volley is one shot from each locust. 8 locusts shooting a nexus once each doesn't kill the nexus. They have to sit next to it and keep shooting it for like 30 seconds to kill it lol.
I am not sure what were you seeing, but 30 seconds is huge exaggeration. 8 Locusts don't need more than 10 seconds to kill a Nexus, and even if they do take longer it is nowhere near the 30 seconds.
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I´m sorry if I had missed it, but is there any approximation as to where will they probably implement this? Nothing specific, I mean, this is meant for HotS right? Are we looking at month, two months, next season, does anyone know?
Thanks
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On January 31 2015 22:00 MrFreeman wrote:
I´m sorry if I had missed it, but is there any approximation as to where will they probably implement this? Nothing specific, I mean, this is meant for HotS right? Are we looking at month, two months, next season, does anyone know?
Thanks
It is for HOTS, yes, but they weren't specific. All they have said is that this needs to be tested quite a bit before it goes live because these are huge design changes in the middle of expansion.
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On January 30 2015 07:39 purakushi wrote:Show nested quote +On January 30 2015 07:38 Pontius Pirate wrote:ZergSwarm Host - Swarm Hosts no longer collide with Locusts
This really should've been the case since the beginning of the HotS beta. Blizzard is... slow. 
Man that is putting it nicely.
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On January 31 2015 12:40 Ramiz1989 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 31 2015 07:58 goswser wrote:On January 31 2015 07:34 DemigodcelpH wrote:On January 31 2015 06:55 goswser wrote:On January 31 2015 06:37 DemigodcelpH wrote:
According to a stream test it takes just 4 Swarm Hosts to kill a Nexus in one volley. Just 3 may have enough DPS I don't know how badly it was overkilled. Bad free unit design aside it seems pretty broken to me. Yes it just takes 4 to kill a nexus, but its not one volley lol. Its the entire lifespan of the locusts shooting the nexus with zero protoss response. The new sh will need to have the numbers tweaked to be a useful harass unit, because right now they're just a worse version of mutalisks. Yes they kill nexus' faster than mutas, but they are far worse at killing workers, defending, base trading, escaping, and forcing a response from the protoss. And they basically force you into committing to an allin strategy as well, because if you don't kill / cripple the protoss with them then he will kill you with his deathball easily since you spent too much gas / supply on your shs. In additon, in the same time and for the same cost that it takes you to make 4 sh with flying locusts upgrade you can have a hive and 4 vipers, so the sh basically need to be as good as that would be as well to be worthwhile. It doesn't take much supply to use the new SH. You only need 3 or 4 to kill a base in one volley from across the map. He has units? Trade units for free units. He has canons/turrets? Trade canons/turrets for free units. Then kill the base. Yeah....you can't do it from across the map. And gl trading free units for protoss units with 4 swarmhosts worth of locusts. The locusts will just die without killing anything. Like I said, its not one volley lol. A volley is one shot from each locust. 8 locusts shooting a nexus once each doesn't kill the nexus. They have to sit next to it and keep shooting it for like 30 seconds to kill it lol. I am not sure what were you seeing, but 30 seconds is huge exaggeration. 8 Locusts don't need more than 10 seconds to kill a Nexus, and even if they do take longer it is nowhere near the 30 seconds.
12 damage (11 with the 1 building armor), 0.6 attack speed -> 18.33 dps. With a 2000hp nexus -> 109sec for 1 locust (ignoring shield regen). ~13.5 for 8.
The main issue being that those locusts would have to first fly their slow asses to the nexus, land and start firing (ignoring the current "let's not do anything" bug), while the protoss has no cannons, no units in place, is asleep and does nothing to kill them before
And given their speed and the big blob they make on the minimap, that's a *lot* more time to notice and react than against, say, a storm drop, an oracle or boosted medivacs. All that for 800 gas and 16 supply, after Lair and Infestation Pit, having to cross the entire map on foot.
That does not quite sound like the most effective harass in the game that will utterly destroy terrans and protosses everywhere.
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On January 31 2015 10:15 Big J wrote:Show nested quote +On January 31 2015 06:55 goswser wrote:On January 31 2015 06:37 DemigodcelpH wrote:
According to a stream test it takes just 4 Swarm Hosts to kill a Nexus in one volley. Just 3 may have enough DPS I don't know how badly it was overkilled. Bad free unit design aside it seems pretty broken to me. Yes it just takes 4 to kill a nexus, but its not one volley lol. Its the entire lifespan of the locusts shooting the nexus with zero protoss response. The new sh will need to have the numbers tweaked to be a useful harass unit, because right now they're just a worse version of mutalisks. Yes they kill nexus' faster than mutas, but they are far worse at killing workers, defending, base trading, escaping, and forcing a response from the protoss. And they basically force you into committing to an allin strategy as well, because if you don't kill / cripple the protoss with them then he will kill you with his deathball easily since you spent too much gas / supply on your shs. In additon, in the same time and for the same cost that it takes you to make 4 sh with flying locusts upgrade you can have a hive and 4 vipers, so the sh basically need to be as good as that would be as well to be worthwhile. Yeah I came to to the same conclusions about mutas or "harassbased" swarm hosts. In general I would like to raise the two questions: a) is it even desired to give zerg another harass unit and to make it useful it needs to be as good as the mutalisk or even better in some way. And mutas are already terribly strong and often force opponents into very strong hardcounters (phoenix) and have forced multiple patches on the game (phoenix range, thor priority, widow mine rebuff). b) is it even possible that a purely harasbased unit exists in the lategame and is worth lots of gas? Because in all honesty, not a single harass unit in the lategame right now fullfills those traits. They are either reasonably strong combat units on top of being strong harrassment units (medivacs, mutalisks, banshees) or extremely cheap on the gas costs (warp prism+zealots, zergling runbys, mass hellions). When you are around 200supply and your opponent is around there as well, you can rarely afford to make aomething like mass oracle. Your units have to benefit you in combat a lot, or be so cgeap that you can easily waste them and then remake something better. A harrass host is the complete opposite of that. It pays off slowly but also cant fight. So I feel likw the new version will eventually need to get balanced around releasing quite some damage on an army too or zerg will die to timings or in 200/200 battles when using them.
The reasons I believe it is good to give zerg another harass unit is exactly because the mutalisks has, somewhat categorically defined, "hardcounters" immediately turning the mutalisk into a timing-based harass unit and then into a basetrade unit. Does it fail to do any of these things, it usually means lose since they hardly ever win an evenly based comp vs comp deathball fight.
Plus, both protoss and terran has ways to do structrual and economical damage throughout the lategame which, arguably, is some zerg arguably needs through this unit which, unlike drops, has a unique harass capability not seen before. Furthermore, no one has been able to just proove the new swarmhost is useless in deathball fights. After a patch fixes the swoop bug and/or some stats are adjusted, it will be worthwhile testing how to help initiate in fights. No one "states" per se they HAVE to be a harass unit, just like nobody says immortals are tanks when in fact they apply superior DPS to armored units etc, or vikings are "assault/raid" units when in fact they mostly are just anti-colossus and tvt units.
So I would never declare it a harassbased unit untill it actually has had proper gameplay for a longer period, and even if the main focus for the execution of the unit for starters is harass, that is not just bad because there is a subjective opinion about it. I see no objective judgement determining which units has what roles in a game as long as the gameplay in the full perspective is improved and better, which a lot of pro players already from naked observations has agreed upon.
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The cool thing about the new swarmhost is its such a powerful force against structures that it pressures protoss to break up their deathball even more and keep more small groups at home. Whereas ordinarily if, for example, the protoss was facing mutas, mutas have to all harass the same place together to be optimal (meaning high templars + cannons can stall pretty well), so the toss breaks up his deathball less.
But with 8 swarmhosts or 10 swarmhosts, you can break them up in groups of 5 and harass two separate places.
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On February 01 2015 02:01 TheoMikkelsen wrote:Show nested quote +On January 31 2015 10:15 Big J wrote:On January 31 2015 06:55 goswser wrote:On January 31 2015 06:37 DemigodcelpH wrote:
According to a stream test it takes just 4 Swarm Hosts to kill a Nexus in one volley. Just 3 may have enough DPS I don't know how badly it was overkilled. Bad free unit design aside it seems pretty broken to me. Yes it just takes 4 to kill a nexus, but its not one volley lol. Its the entire lifespan of the locusts shooting the nexus with zero protoss response. The new sh will need to have the numbers tweaked to be a useful harass unit, because right now they're just a worse version of mutalisks. Yes they kill nexus' faster than mutas, but they are far worse at killing workers, defending, base trading, escaping, and forcing a response from the protoss. And they basically force you into committing to an allin strategy as well, because if you don't kill / cripple the protoss with them then he will kill you with his deathball easily since you spent too much gas / supply on your shs. In additon, in the same time and for the same cost that it takes you to make 4 sh with flying locusts upgrade you can have a hive and 4 vipers, so the sh basically need to be as good as that would be as well to be worthwhile. Yeah I came to to the same conclusions about mutas or "harassbased" swarm hosts. In general I would like to raise the two questions: a) is it even desired to give zerg another harass unit and to make it useful it needs to be as good as the mutalisk or even better in some way. And mutas are already terribly strong and often force opponents into very strong hardcounters (phoenix) and have forced multiple patches on the game (phoenix range, thor priority, widow mine rebuff). b) is it even possible that a purely harasbased unit exists in the lategame and is worth lots of gas? Because in all honesty, not a single harass unit in the lategame right now fullfills those traits. They are either reasonably strong combat units on top of being strong harrassment units (medivacs, mutalisks, banshees) or extremely cheap on the gas costs (warp prism+zealots, zergling runbys, mass hellions). When you are around 200supply and your opponent is around there as well, you can rarely afford to make aomething like mass oracle. Your units have to benefit you in combat a lot, or be so cgeap that you can easily waste them and then remake something better. A harrass host is the complete opposite of that. It pays off slowly but also cant fight. So I feel likw the new version will eventually need to get balanced around releasing quite some damage on an army too or zerg will die to timings or in 200/200 battles when using them. The reasons I believe it is good to give zerg another harass unit is exactly because the mutalisks has, somewhat categorically defined, "hardcounters" immediately turning the mutalisk into a timing-based harass unit and then into a basetrade unit. Does it fail to do any of these things, it usually means lose since they hardly ever win an evenly based comp vs comp deathball fight.
Hm, that's only really true against Protoss and Zerg though. Against Terrans mutalisks hardly ever stop to work unless it is full-retardo Mech and its after 25mins (in which case the Terran also doesn't have a good harass unit).
Note that in all the three cases, Protoss/Zerg/Mech lategame the mutalisk stops working not because it cannot harass anymore, but because you eventually need to take on the enemy army and harass becomes an inefficient playstyle. The reason why you are losing in those scenarios isn't that harass isn't getting stuff done, but that your opponent just goes and kills you and you cannot engage because mutas aren't that good fighters eventually. Hence, point b) I made.
Plus, both protoss and terran has ways to do structrual and economical damage throughout the lategame which, arguably, is some zerg arguably needs through this unit which, unlike drops, has a unique harass capability not seen before.
Not again how Protoss uses pylons and warp prisms for that which cost 0-2supply and only warps in 10-20supply that then gets traded away very fast again, always allowing Protoss to go for a 200/200 army without sparing supply for harass.
In the Terrans case, the harass units are from his main army. They are units he would build regardless. Same story for mutalisk/zerglings/baneling vs bio harass. You build aall those harass/runby capable units anyways for combating.
Point b) I'm making.
Furthermore, no one has been able to just proove the new swarmhost is useless in deathball fights. After a patch fixes the swoop bug and/or some stats are adjusted, it will be worthwhile testing how to help initiate in fights. No one "states" per se they HAVE to be a harass unit, just like nobody says immortals are tanks when in fact they apply superior DPS to armored units etc, or vikings are "assault/raid" units when in fact they mostly are just anti-colossus and tvt units.
So I would never declare it a harassbased unit untill it actually has had proper gameplay for a longer period, and even if the main focus for the execution of the unit for starters is harass, that is not just bad because there is a subjective opinion about it. I see no objective judgement determining which units has what roles in a game as long as the gameplay in the full perspective is improved and better, which a lot of pro players already from naked observations has agreed upon.
This is of course true. Just from the current gameplay examples and stats it didn't look too good at fighting and it was the declared design goal of blizzard that the swarm host is being used to harass. The extra gas and supply costs heavily indicate this (a 100/200 4supply unit in a game in which HTs, Ravens and Infestors cost 2supply and 300/200 Tempests only 4supply is a supplyinefficient joke unless it is terribly costefficient in direct lategame engagments).
This is obviously referring to b) which isn't said it will be the case (as you rightfully point out). It's more of a general question whether a unit that isn't efficient in main army battles (and doesn't generate money of course) does make sense at all.
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Raven
Point Defense Drone duration decreased from 180 seconds to 20 seconds
Holy crap this is probably the biggest balance patch nerf i've ever seen in all competitive games like ever.
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On February 01 2015 02:47 Big J wrote:Show nested quote +On February 01 2015 02:01 TheoMikkelsen wrote:On January 31 2015 10:15 Big J wrote:On January 31 2015 06:55 goswser wrote:On January 31 2015 06:37 DemigodcelpH wrote:
According to a stream test it takes just 4 Swarm Hosts to kill a Nexus in one volley. Just 3 may have enough DPS I don't know how badly it was overkilled. Bad free unit design aside it seems pretty broken to me. Yes it just takes 4 to kill a nexus, but its not one volley lol. Its the entire lifespan of the locusts shooting the nexus with zero protoss response. The new sh will need to have the numbers tweaked to be a useful harass unit, because right now they're just a worse version of mutalisks. Yes they kill nexus' faster than mutas, but they are far worse at killing workers, defending, base trading, escaping, and forcing a response from the protoss. And they basically force you into committing to an allin strategy as well, because if you don't kill / cripple the protoss with them then he will kill you with his deathball easily since you spent too much gas / supply on your shs. In additon, in the same time and for the same cost that it takes you to make 4 sh with flying locusts upgrade you can have a hive and 4 vipers, so the sh basically need to be as good as that would be as well to be worthwhile. Yeah I came to to the same conclusions about mutas or "harassbased" swarm hosts. In general I would like to raise the two questions: a) is it even desired to give zerg another harass unit and to make it useful it needs to be as good as the mutalisk or even better in some way. And mutas are already terribly strong and often force opponents into very strong hardcounters (phoenix) and have forced multiple patches on the game (phoenix range, thor priority, widow mine rebuff). b) is it even possible that a purely harasbased unit exists in the lategame and is worth lots of gas? Because in all honesty, not a single harass unit in the lategame right now fullfills those traits. They are either reasonably strong combat units on top of being strong harrassment units (medivacs, mutalisks, banshees) or extremely cheap on the gas costs (warp prism+zealots, zergling runbys, mass hellions). When you are around 200supply and your opponent is around there as well, you can rarely afford to make aomething like mass oracle. Your units have to benefit you in combat a lot, or be so cgeap that you can easily waste them and then remake something better. A harrass host is the complete opposite of that. It pays off slowly but also cant fight. So I feel likw the new version will eventually need to get balanced around releasing quite some damage on an army too or zerg will die to timings or in 200/200 battles when using them. The reasons I believe it is good to give zerg another harass unit is exactly because the mutalisks has, somewhat categorically defined, "hardcounters" immediately turning the mutalisk into a timing-based harass unit and then into a basetrade unit. Does it fail to do any of these things, it usually means lose since they hardly ever win an evenly based comp vs comp deathball fight. Hm, that's only really true against Protoss and Zerg though. Against Terrans mutalisks hardly ever stop to work unless it is full-retardo Mech and its after 25mins (in which case the Terran also doesn't have a good harass unit). Note that in all the three cases, Protoss/Zerg/Mech lategame the mutalisk stops working not because it cannot harass anymore, but because you eventually need to take on the enemy army and harass becomes an inefficient playstyle. The reason why you are losing in those scenarios isn't that harass isn't getting stuff done, but that your opponent just goes and kills you and you cannot engage because mutas aren't that good fighters eventually. Hence, point b) I made. Show nested quote +Plus, both protoss and terran has ways to do structrual and economical damage throughout the lategame which, arguably, is some zerg arguably needs through this unit which, unlike drops, has a unique harass capability not seen before. Not again how Protoss uses pylons and warp prisms for that which cost 0-2supply and only warps in 10-20supply that then gets traded away very fast again, always allowing Protoss to go for a 200/200 army without sparing supply for harass. In the Terrans case, the harass units are from his main army. They are units he would build regardless. Same story for mutalisk/zerglings/baneling vs bio harass. You build aall those harass/runby capable units anyways for combating. Point b) I'm making. Show nested quote +Furthermore, no one has been able to just proove the new swarmhost is useless in deathball fights. After a patch fixes the swoop bug and/or some stats are adjusted, it will be worthwhile testing how to help initiate in fights. No one "states" per se they HAVE to be a harass unit, just like nobody says immortals are tanks when in fact they apply superior DPS to armored units etc, or vikings are "assault/raid" units when in fact they mostly are just anti-colossus and tvt units.
So I would never declare it a harassbased unit untill it actually has had proper gameplay for a longer period, and even if the main focus for the execution of the unit for starters is harass, that is not just bad because there is a subjective opinion about it. I see no objective judgement determining which units has what roles in a game as long as the gameplay in the full perspective is improved and better, which a lot of pro players already from naked observations has agreed upon. This is of course true. Just from the current gameplay examples and stats it didn't look too good at fighting and it was the declared design goal of blizzard that the swarm host is being used to harass. The extra gas and supply costs heavily indicate this (a 100/200 4supply unit in a game in which HTs, Ravens and Infestors cost 2supply and 300/200 Tempests only 4supply is a supplyinefficient joke unless it is terribly costefficient in direct lategame engagments). This is obviously referring to b) which isn't said it will be the case (as you rightfully point out). It's more of a general question whether a unit that isn't efficient in main army battles (and doesn't generate money of course) does make sense at all.
Well sure, I spoke about PVZ, sorry. I also think most people, if not only, are worried about PVZ with regards to the new SH patch.
People are arguing against the swarmhost because of it´s design, but you speak as if you think the supply cost, the actual cost or it´s trading value is bad for i.e. lategame harass unlike what toss and terran can do. Sure, I have already said that not only does the swoop ability need a bug fix, but we might also want to reduce the resource cost and/or supply cost of the swarmhost though preferebly without giving the swarmhost more strength per se (SH health or locust DPS or health) but instead allow the unit to synergize more with various Z playstyles.
Now, I have also different points of views on if zerg actually CAN battle lategame T and P just as I have opinions about T being able to battle P. I know for sure the protoss lategame is easier than terrans, but I am not sure - depending on indiviudal games and players - terran is "underpowered" in lategame per se.
The same applies to ZVP, and maybe and plausibly TVZ, just as vica versa with any matchup. I have seen koreans numerous times perform 15+ minute games all the way to 20-25 minute games without making swarmhosts or up to 6 or even 12 making them just a fake-tech style of opener (obviously possible with the new swarmhost as well once tweaked properly.) I do not say the new SH is optimal design just like many units could have different roles, but I claim it is a better design. The actual balance of the unit, it´s numerical specifications, are to be adjusted according to the new, approved design.
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I don't think the design is better to be honest. The current numbers are just so far off from making it viable in combat and against offensive strategies (and therefore in my opinion workable all around) that the unit appears to be better designed because it cant trade well. But assuming it gets tweaked in cost/supply or similar as you say, it would still remain a free damage dealer through superlongrange, which is the crux of its bad design currently.
Also it is still a unit that has so little micro potential that it really should be removed just for that.
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I think units that spawn minions often demonstrate critical mass tendencies, which might be one reason why they're often problematic (infested terrans, brood lords, swarm hosts). However, I don't think that's why people dislike them. I think that from a psychological perspective it's simply frustrating to kill units and having to realize these trades are meaningless because those units are free. We can't effectively make the substitution: units = ammo, because we're too used to treating units as essentially equivalent to resources, it's too ingrained in our normal method of reading the game.
Personally I don't have any trouble making that substitution, which might be why I can't empathize very well with people that complain about free units, -- and worse is that their frustration comes to the surface in terms of pointing out "inherent flaws" (because if they dislike a unit there must be something fundamentally wrong with it from a gameplay perspective) even though they can somehow never be pinpointed (because the only actual gameplay effect of having these unit generators is the critical mass issue which is hardly the specific problem with the swarm host, which is otherwise more like a very long range unit that should be avoided unless you can kill it, much like how you shouldn't walk around in the range of siege tanks).
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On February 01 2015 04:03 Big J wrote:
it would still remain a free damage dealer through superlongrange, which is the crux of its bad design currently.
Also it is still a unit that has so little micro potential that it really should be removed just for that.
Now we're talking. I also agree that it should be removed.
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Anyhow, some theories in lieu of playing: are flying locusts more susceptible to area of effect attacks? I watched the blizzcon video and it seems that all flying locusts jump to the closest target and you could theorize they bunch up more, but maybe it's not noticeably different. And you can't attack them with colossi while flying so that's one important avenue of AoE damage removed. And flying locusts also seem slower compared to locusts on creep (?), so they're easier to avoid. The period between waves is so much larger now that you probably won't ever have to go through wave after wave of locusts in trying to push against a swarm host user, you'll just have to defeat 1-2 waves instead of 3-5.
All of it at least has the potential of giving swarm hosts which need to be used tactically to strike where the enemy main army is not. And with the high gas cost they compete with mutalisks and maybe they can fulfill a similar role. It seems kinda not skill intensive compared to expert mutalisk usage though.
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Wow PDD is so terrible now 20 in-game seconds is literally not worth the energy and they die so quickly.
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Any Plat/Dia Toss want to check out the test map? I'm online right now
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EPT
