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On February 01 2015 06:18 Grumbels wrote:
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.
They're definitely more susceptible to Thor volleys. Not so much Archons though, since by the time Archons can hit them, they're close enough to swoop down and start attacking. And at 90hp, they're susceptible to storms, but not as susceptible as they'd need to be for storming them to be worthwhile except during a push that's designed specifically to break through.
Basically, their collision radius appears to be the same, but their vulnerability to aerial AoE instead of ground AoE changes what types of things give them issues. Protoss has issues giving them issues. This might have to be addressed. Maybe if Locusts, upon taking damage, were given a 2 second speed nerf of 50%. This would make kiting them much more manageable, and storm would now eat them alive, so the Protoss player could trade energy on HTs for cooldown on the SHs.
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On February 02 2015 08:27 Pontius Pirate wrote:Show nested quote +On February 01 2015 06:18 Grumbels wrote:
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. They're definitely more susceptible to Thor volleys. Not so much Archons though, since by the time Archons can hit them, they're close enough to swoop down and start attacking. And at 90hp, they're susceptible to storms, but not as susceptible as they'd need to be for storming them to be worthwhile except during a push that's designed specifically to break through.
*It's 65HP for locusts unless I'm missing a change here.
With 60second cooldown though it is much easier to dedicate Templars to storming.
Previously you needed to keep ~5 Templar around so that you could storm the locusts every wave just once and the energy regeneration broke even with the Swarm Host cooldown. Which meant you needed like 8-10 Templar if you just wanted to storm every locust wave once and then have energy to feedback vipers and storm corruptors. So obviously defending locusts with storming was just not so good.
Now you can go with 2.5 Templar, which means you can really excessively trade free stuff for free stuff while you still have a lot of energy for everything else if you just go with the same Templar numbers. Also when you do this, because of the supply change it means you are keeping a bigger part of the zerg army in check than previously.
So doing the math here, it is much more likely that Protoss players should just storm bigger clumps of locusts upon sight everytime. The point here is obviously that a harass-host should avoid templars anyways.
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On February 01 2015 05:52 Grumbels wrote:
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 is why I can't empathize very well in these discussions complaining about free units, and worse is that the frustration people feel about them comes to the surface in these discussions where people rail against their "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).
35 range unit that should be avoided?
And beef I have it with it is it creates free buffer units that you cant close down unlike you can with other units with actual "ammo" range. you can just leapfrog backwards without any cost because of damage buffer it creates along with very good damage it does
Anyways, about to PDD nerf. How will terrans now deal with Tempests now we are at it? 20 second pdd for 100 energy won't do much against tempests volleys since they fire so slow anyway and only choice is to endure its 15 range shots while trying to not get hit by storms.
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I think the best thing Blizzard could do with swarm hosts at this point is to give them an attack functioning as support to locusts, which would then be nerfed significantly (the locusts, that is). This would free Blizzard from the dilemma of free units because they could simply nerf locusts and buff the swarm host attack until it feels right.
Also, this would help pushing swarm hosts into the role of a harasser since the unit wouldn't be countered by a single void ray or banshee on the map, and swarm hosts could still contribute to the Zerg army when on cooldown, thus stabilising the game.
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On February 03 2015 00:12 velvex wrote:
I think the best thing Blizzard could do with swarm hosts at this point is to give them an attack functioning as support to locusts, which would then be nerfed significantly (the locusts, that is). This would free Blizzard from the dilemma of free units because they could simply nerf locusts and buff the swarm host attack until it feels right.
Also, this would help pushing swarm hosts into the role of a harasser since the unit wouldn't be countered by a single void ray or banshee on the map, and swarm hosts could still contribute to the Zerg army when on cooldown, thus stabilising the game.
I think the concept of free units is only a problem if you can not kill locusts faster than they spawn which - arguably - currently is the case. However there are plenty of possibilities for counter-attacks and ranged damage to other stuff than locusts so this is a complicated discussion, but the effect of free units as currently being seen (not the new sh) tends to make games become LONG.
The current proposition of a new SH means new and unique ways to harass as zerg (finally) plus potentially new ways to make zerg armies without the huge need of a supply count into swarmhosts. We will see how it plays out once the swoop fix amongst other things goes live on the balance test map.
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On February 03 2015 00:16 TheoMikkelsen wrote:Show nested quote +On February 03 2015 00:12 velvex wrote:
I think the best thing Blizzard could do with swarm hosts at this point is to give them an attack functioning as support to locusts, which would then be nerfed significantly (the locusts, that is). This would free Blizzard from the dilemma of free units because they could simply nerf locusts and buff the swarm host attack until it feels right.
Also, this would help pushing swarm hosts into the role of a harasser since the unit wouldn't be countered by a single void ray or banshee on the map, and swarm hosts could still contribute to the Zerg army when on cooldown, thus stabilising the game.
I think the concept of free units is only a problem if you can not kill locusts faster than they spawn which - arguably - currently is the case. However there are plenty of possibilities for counter-attacks and ranged damage to other stuff than locusts so this is a complicated discussion, but the effect of free units as currently being seen (not the new sh) tends to make games become LONG. The current proposition of a new SH means new and unique ways to harass as zerg (finally) plus potentially new ways to make zerg armies without the huge need of a supply count into swarmhosts. We will see how it plays out once the swoop fix amongst other things goes live on the balance test map.
I agree free units aren't necessarily broken, but there's certainly a problem with how it's done with the current swarm host, and I'm not sure whether having a cooldown > locust life time is really a fix. It's probably better, but de-emphasising the free units part in favour of a regular attack like I suggested looks at least as promising to me.
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Has someone tested WM vs new flying SH? Is it good?
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I figure this link is relevant here:
http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/16200920325
I did some analysis on the new SH along with a timing strategy and some replays (diamond level). The TL;DR is that I think they can be an effective unit with a midgame timing into a lategame harass unit.
If protosses plat+, preferably playing macro toss into fast colossus, want to run some test games with me, message me in-game at Defenestratr.483.
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On February 03 2015 00:16 TheoMikkelsen wrote:Show nested quote +On February 03 2015 00:12 velvex wrote:
I think the best thing Blizzard could do with swarm hosts at this point is to give them an attack functioning as support to locusts, which would then be nerfed significantly (the locusts, that is). This would free Blizzard from the dilemma of free units because they could simply nerf locusts and buff the swarm host attack until it feels right.
Also, this would help pushing swarm hosts into the role of a harasser since the unit wouldn't be countered by a single void ray or banshee on the map, and swarm hosts could still contribute to the Zerg army when on cooldown, thus stabilising the game.
I think the concept of free units is only a problem if you can not kill locusts faster than they spawn which - arguably - currently is the case. However there are plenty of possibilities for counter-attacks and ranged damage to other stuff than locusts so this is a complicated discussion, but the effect of free units as currently being seen (not the new sh) tends to make games become LONG. The current proposition of a new SH means new and unique ways to harass as zerg (finally) plus potentially new ways to make zerg armies without the huge need of a supply count into swarmhosts. We will see how it plays out once the swoop fix amongst other things goes live on the balance test map.
I think swarm host design would be best if you'd always have to only engage one or two waves when pushing against swarm hosts and then to have the unit balanced around that. Because a very high number of waves sort of implies very frequent spawning time and waves that take a long time to kill, so that you have a very small window of actually advancing and getting closer to the swarm hosts. If by default it's only one wave then it's easy enough to buff the locust hp or whatever to balance the unit without it immediately becoming broken because you've just quadrupled the number of waves you have to fight.
I think there is some math behind the swarm host concept that would show this. Basically, just adding one second to the time-to-kill is a significant buff if locusts spawn every 25 seconds, while it's meaningless if they spawn every 60 seconds (because of both proportions and relations to map size and discrete number of waves)
The main idea is to normalize the unit so that it more closely resembles, say, an infestor who casts a finite number of infested terrans for one battle and then has spent its energy pool, which is a lot closer to a regular unit. And once you've established this direction for the swarm host you can start to give it buffs like flying locusts and whatnot, all those things might be okay since the power level of the unit is less fragile.
I should add, I've always said that enduring locusts should be removed because it extends the range of the unit too much and because it removes windows of vulnerability. I don't think that line of thinking really fits with the concept behind this post, but I wanted to mention it so emphasize it's more complex and that there are multiple approaches.
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So, I just watched Avilo bitch about how Mech is impossible vs Protoss with 20 sec PDD.
I thought about it a bit in the game (enjoying his continuous whining and hinting the opponent is hacking). Whilst 20 seconds is short, I don't think it is so short to make lategame Terran vs Protoss completely imbalanced. What it does force however, is more careful PDD casting instead of just jamming 10 down the second you fear an engagement might happen - Because they actually run out now, you have to consider how fast the energy depletes compared to the time, so you don't overlap to much.
This is actually an interesting application  !
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On February 03 2015 07:49 SC2Toastie wrote:So, I just watched Avilo bitch about how Mech is impossible vs Protoss with 20 sec PDD. I thought about it a bit in the game (enjoying his continuous whining and hinting the opponent is hacking). Whilst 20 seconds is short, I don't think it is so short to make lategame Terran vs Protoss completely imbalanced. What it does force however, is more careful PDD casting instead of just jamming 10 down the second you fear an engagement might happen - Because they actually run out now, you have to consider how fast the energy depletes compared to the time, so you don't overlap to much. This is actually an interesting application !
This sounds like it works how it should work. Endless PDD spamming was basically terran version of SH. Sounds good!
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On February 03 2015 14:48 RaFox17 wrote:Show nested quote +On February 03 2015 07:49 SC2Toastie wrote:So, I just watched Avilo bitch about how Mech is impossible vs Protoss with 20 sec PDD. I thought about it a bit in the game (enjoying his continuous whining and hinting the opponent is hacking). Whilst 20 seconds is short, I don't think it is so short to make lategame Terran vs Protoss completely imbalanced. What it does force however, is more careful PDD casting instead of just jamming 10 down the second you fear an engagement might happen - Because they actually run out now, you have to consider how fast the energy depletes compared to the time, so you don't overlap to much. This is actually an interesting application ! This sounds like it works how it should work. Endless PDD spamming was basically terran version of SH. Sounds good!
PDD spamming equal to swarm host ?!?!? swarm host do DAMAGE, PDD´s don´t! it´s as simple as that... also swarm hosts don´t need energy to cast anything so please don´t compare 2 very different units... spellcaster and siege units can´t be compared...
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On February 03 2015 18:34 KOtical wrote:Show nested quote +On February 03 2015 14:48 RaFox17 wrote:On February 03 2015 07:49 SC2Toastie wrote:So, I just watched Avilo bitch about how Mech is impossible vs Protoss with 20 sec PDD. I thought about it a bit in the game (enjoying his continuous whining and hinting the opponent is hacking). Whilst 20 seconds is short, I don't think it is so short to make lategame Terran vs Protoss completely imbalanced. What it does force however, is more careful PDD casting instead of just jamming 10 down the second you fear an engagement might happen - Because they actually run out now, you have to consider how fast the energy depletes compared to the time, so you don't overlap to much. This is actually an interesting application ! This sounds like it works how it should work. Endless PDD spamming was basically terran version of SH. Sounds good! PDD spamming equal to swarm host ?!?!? swarm host do DAMAGE, PDD´s don´t! it´s as simple as that... also swarm hosts don´t need energy to cast anything so please don´t compare 2 very different units... spellcaster and siege units can´t be compared...
You're right, spwllcasters and siege units can't be compared.
but isn't a spellcaster just a burst/slow attack speed combat unit?
The swarm host can be seen as a spellvaster, having a new attack every 60 seconds.
Whilst PDD doesn't directly deal damage, it allows your units to survive longer and deal more damage.
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China6331 Posts
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Is the fix for the teleporting locust bug?
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I tested the new SWH agaisnt the elite IA (TERRAN Mech economic) and i would say that the concept is ok but must chenge the value
1.- Time spawn locust 40 segs
2.- Supply cost 3
a replay
http://ggtracker.com/matches/5794081
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On January 30 2015 07:51 SC2Toastie wrote:
Time to nerf the Tempest too, PDD and SH are the only things the other races have to deal with mass tempest/templar
No. Raven was a problem. Tempests are not.
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EPT
