EPTCall to Action: January 29 Balance Testing - Page 5
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Doodsmack
United States7224 Posts
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Circumstance
United States11403 Posts
On January 30 2015 09:57 Doodsmack wrote: Is swoop manually activated? It'd have to be if it moves in the air and attacks from the ground. | ||
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Pontius Pirate
United States1557 Posts
On January 30 2015 09:52 varsovie wrote: I don't really understand this change. Most of the time they were emptied in less than 20 seconds anyway. The only problem with 3 minutes PDD was that it made it very easy to leapfrog or turtle, and maybe allowed for too many shots if you considered the regen. Anyway quite a nerf, haven't they tough of replacing it with an equivalent to defensive matrix instead? PDD is boring, it's an hard counter to missiles units more so those shooting slowly, which is like every AA of the game, and you can't "micro" around or do cool trick, it just creates a no-kill zone. D-matrix does increase friendly unit survivability, but can be microed around by the opposing player with focus fire, and it has some cool effects like using it on a cheap unit to draw AoE, or to save a critically low HP capital unit. Even the area of effect can be reproduced, couple of D-matrix on a Thor make it basically a no-fly-zone for mutalisk. Once upon a time I suggested the idea that PDD shots would actually activate other PDD shots, therefore setting off a chain reaction that would instantly deplete both of them of energy. It would force players to position them intelligently and never overlap them. Possibly to the point where players might shoot their own PDD down if it was getting low on energy in order to place another one within its range. Not only that, but you could even afford buff the PDD if you did that. I love seeing those things when they're either spread out or in small numbers. They're even fun to use. | ||
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Big J
Austria16289 Posts
On January 30 2015 09:30 Ramiz1989 wrote: The thing is, 5 Swarm Hosts for example don't take much supply, but are pain in the ass to deal with if they constantly harass from long range and are constantly being repositioned, and 5 Swarm Hosts are definitely doing more damage than 10 Mutalisks. I am not even sure why would you want to mass new Swarm Hosts, that is the whole point why they are redesigned... they are even harder to mass now with cost and supply changes. They are probably supposed to work like Terran drops, harassing and killing important structures but unlike with Mutas, you aren't losing anything if Protoss just warp-ins 10 Stalkers, use Photon Overcharge or have few Cannons in base. Even in head on engagements, 6-8 Swarm Hosts definitely have more dps than 12-16 Mutas. I think you are massively undervaluing mutalisks in an engagement. Their key trait is that they are invulnerable to many units attacks, i.e. any unit that cannot shoot air. Their value is that all your other stuff trades with the stalkers/marines and then the stalker count drops and you clean up the stalker/zealot/collossus/immortal with the mutalisks. Also you are underestimating how much damage even just 10 mutalisks can do in a full minute of harassment (the cooldown of a locust wave). It is up to 5000, much more than the new locusts do in the 10seconds they are able to harass after landing. While this isn't realistic that you get a full minute of harass in with mutas, it means that the opponent has to react quite heavily to prevent this from happening. So they pay off very easily by holding the opponent back and forcing lots of defenses. Most of all though, the mutalisk is still way, way faster, grants mapcontrol and self-scouting where to harass, while the swarm host requires other units to provide mapcontrol and guidance where to launch so that its waves aren't wasted into the defense. Obviously Goswser (as well as his opponents) didn't play the new swarm host to the best of its potential, but I fully agree with what he is saying. You can't really be out with them against blink stalkers, or phoenix because 2.95speed is just less than 2.95+blink or 4.25speed. You need to support the SH... which is just very weak if you have to support a harass unit so it can harass... On January 30 2015 10:06 Circumstance wrote: It'd have to be if it moves in the air and attacks from the ground. I think it works like that: You rally somewhere, if the locust finds a target* in aggro range it moves there and swoops down once it is in swoop range. You can also manually target them to prevent autoswooping, and you can manually swoop them. *the target is prioritized as usual; like combat units over workers, workers over buildings etc... | ||
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vhapter
Brazil677 Posts
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Ramiz1989
12124 Posts
On January 30 2015 10:12 Big J wrote: I think you are massively undervaluing mutalisks in an engagement. Their key trait is that they are invulnerable to many units attacks, i.e. any unit that cannot shoot air. Their value is that all your other stuff trades with the stalkers/marines and then the stalker count drops and you clean up the stalker/zealot/collossus/immortal with the mutalisks. Also you are underestimating how much damage even just 10 mutalisks can do in a full minute of harassment (the cooldown of a locust wave). It is up to 5000, much more than the new locusts do in the 10seconds they are able to harass after landing. While this isn't realistic that you get a full minute of harass in with mutas, it means that the opponent has to react quite heavily to prevent this from happening. So they pay off very easily by holding the opponent back and forcing lots of defenses. Most of all though, the mutalisk is still way, way faster, grants mapcontrol and self-scouting where to harass, while the swarm host requires other units to provide mapcontrol and guidance where to launch so that its waves aren't wasted into the defense. Obviously Goswser (as well as his opponents) didn't play the new swarm host to the best of its potential, but I fully agree with what he is saying. You can't really be out with them against blink stalkers, or phoenix because 2.95speed is just less than 2.95+blink or 4.25speed. You need to support the SH... which is just very weak if you have to support a harass unit so it can harass... You don't really need to support SHs to harass, it can harass from distance quite nicely. Your other units should be used as distraction for harassment to take great effect. I am not undervaluing Mutalisks at all, I've played a ton of matches and watched a ton of matches, I know exactly how good 10 Mutalisks can be when opponent isn't prepared, but then again when they are prepared 10 Mutalisks will do close to 0 damage. I don't know how many times I saw pro Zerg rushing ~10 Mutalisks just to run on few enemy Turrets and do nothing or even losing a Muta. What I am doing is that I am overvaluing Swarm Hosts or Locusts to be precise, and there is a good reason I am doing that. What 10 Mutas can do - harass, kill a lot of workers if enemy isn't prepared well, gain map control. What 10 Mutas can't do - destroy important buildings(including Nexuses and Hatcheries) in 4 seconds, and at this point I don't care if I killed 15 or 0 workers if my enemy doesn't have a base. Swarm Hosts are less mobile, and you can't have map control as you can with Mutas, but they are certainly doing a lot more damage than Mutas and can still stay out of danger. Not sure about your last few sentences, if he has Blink and/or Phoenixes, you can't harass either way even with Mutalisks, even worse if he has Phoenixes and you go for Mutalisks while not knowing that, you are guaranteed to lose them all to any competent player. You will always lose a bunch of Mutalisks against simple Blink from 10+ Stalkers where Swarm Hosts can still launch Locusts and deal damage to their mains/expansions. It also depends against what I am playing, for example if I see Terran opening with Banshees into Medivacs drops, going for Swarm Hosts would be suicidal. But I would definitely go for Swarm Hosts if I play against Mech without Banshee openings or against Protoss that isn't going Stargate. | ||
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Darth Caedus
United States326 Posts
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Riner1212
United States337 Posts
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29 fps
United States5725 Posts
On January 30 2015 09:28 HeyImFinn wrote: Honestly, why is nobody talking about this? I mean the swarm host change is huge (and neeeeds to be tweaked), but that's a massive nerf to PDD. 180 to 20... that is a huge change. Shouldn't they try a number in between? Maybe 60 or 90... | ||
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ShambhalaWar
United States930 Posts
On January 30 2015 11:20 Riner1212 wrote: somewhere avilo is crying hahaha XD He was already crying though... :/ Seriously though, f**k ravens... This was long overdue, pdd was insanely broken... Next step is that auto turret time. Love that blizz is trying to hardcore changes though... sc2 def needs it. | ||
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Darth Caedus
United States326 Posts
On January 30 2015 11:22 29 fps wrote: 180 to 20... that is a huge change. Shouldn't they try a number in between? Maybe 60 or 90... Because in fights that matter all the charges of PDD are used in less than 10 seconds.... Why do they have to stick around for forever? | ||
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sparklyresidue
United States5524 Posts
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royalroadweed
United States8301 Posts
On January 30 2015 11:22 29 fps wrote: 180 to 20... that is a huge change. Shouldn't they try a number in between? Maybe 60 or 90... 38 seconds, maybe? Just like dark swarm. | ||
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Lexender
Mexico2658 Posts
On January 30 2015 11:32 Darth Caedus wrote: Because in fights that matter all the charges of PDD are used in less than 10 seconds.... Why do they have to stick around for forever? PDDs don't move, I think 60 seconds should be ok, so they last the same as a nexus canon, but 20 seconds is too short for all the energy, if they are going to do something like that they reduce the energy cost and the total energy they have, its either an expensive spell that last long and can tank a lot of shots or a cheap spell that very short and can tank a few shots but not this retarded change that makes no sense. | ||
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Cricketer12
United States14000 Posts
On January 30 2015 08:04 Big J wrote: woa, woa, woa... them hidden changes: Swarm Hosts no longer collide with Locusts this is actually really nice of them and long overdue in terms of just fun design!!! Btw, no burrow need also means no more akwardly waddling swarm hosts because they were too slow to burrow. If nothing else comes out of this, I hope we can keep some of that stuff! I actually thought that was pretty massive this is pretty insane, non zergs regain pashun? there was a guy in my lecture last semester he saw me on tl and said he doesnt play anymore cause of swarmhosts...Blizzard restores college pashun | ||
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[PkF] Wire
France24239 Posts
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royalroadweed
United States8301 Posts
On January 30 2015 11:39 sparklyresidue wrote: Anyone else have weird problems with the locusts not attacking properly at melee range? I had a Nexus surrounded and they looked to be "attacking" but barely any damage was registering. It seemed like only 1 or 2 of the locusts was hitting anything. I've noticed that as well. Nathanias have a showmatch with the patch where petraeus yoinked a thor and the locusts aggroed on it and landed but only 2 of them attached it initially. The other ones stared attacked but after a huge delay. It might be a bug. | ||
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Nebuchad
Switzerland12472 Posts
On January 30 2015 08:06 Big J wrote: Noone at a reasonable level is playing Ravens against Protoss. I watched Naniwa play vs that on his stream literally today. Well it's GM Europe fair enough but you can't really say it's unreasonable level. Also if it was unreasonable, that means you just win in TvP once you get enough tempests, which is not a claim I would dismiss, but even if the claim is true it's still relevant to changing the balance, as you can't just say "oh yeah you already lost TvP in that stage, so now we're going to make sure you get DESTROYED in that stage instead of just losing"... | ||
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Riner1212
United States337 Posts
On January 30 2015 11:31 ShambhalaWar wrote: XD He was already crying though... :/ Seriously though, f**k ravens... This was long overdue, pdd was insanely broken... Next step is that auto turret time. Love that blizz is trying to hardcore changes though... sc2 def needs it. personally i dont care. lol i quit this game along time ago. makes no difference to me haha. but i can assure you. you wont be seeing much of mech. due to swarmhost verstality. espeically since raven nerf. | ||
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NKexquisite
United States911 Posts
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