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Canada8157 Posts
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http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/blog/17779094/call-to-action-january-29-balance-testing-1-29-2015
We’ve just published a Balance Test Map to the StarCraft II Custom Games list titled “Deadwing LE (2.1.8 Balance v1.0)”. In this test map, we’ll be testing major changes to the Swarm Host as well as a reduction on the duration of the Point Defense Drone. These changes are more significant than any we’ve tested before and we’ll be relying on community participation to ensure they are tested thoroughly. Below we’ve outlined the changes, as well as how you can test them out in a way that is both fun and easy! Remember however that none of these changes are final. We intend to explore how each change impacts the game and potentially test more changes after reviewing your feedback. Let’s have a look now at the full list of changes you can check out in this version: Balance Test Map ChangesBalance Test Map: “Deadwing LE (2.1.8 Balance v1.0)”Zerg- Swarm Host
- Cost modified from 200 Minerals and 100 Vespene to 100 Minerals and 200 Vespene
- Supply cost increased from 3 to 4
- Movement speed increased from 2.25 to 2.95
- Swarm Hosts now require the Burrow research in order to burrow
- Swarm Hosts no longer collide with Locusts
- Spawn Locusts – This ability has been reworked
- Auto-cast removed, Spawn Locusts must now be manually cast.
- Spawn Locusts cooldown increased from 25 seconds to 60 seconds
- Casting Spawn Locusts no longer requires a Swarm Host to be burrowed
- Locust
- Weapon speed increased from .8 to .6
- Locust duration increased from 15 seconds (+10 seconds with Enduring Locusts) to 30 seconds
- Infestation Pit
- Enduring Locusts – This upgrade has been removed
- New upgrade: Flying Locusts - Allows Locusts spawned by Swarm Hosts to fly. Flying Locusts can use Swoop to land and attack
- Requires Lair
- Cost is 200 Minerals, 200 Vespene, 160 seconds
- 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
Terran- Raven
- Point Defense Drone duration decreased from 180 seconds to 20 seconds
Balance Testing Extension Mod
We’ve also updated the Extension Mod for balance testing, so that you can try your hand with these changes on maps other than Deadwing. Those of you who are interested in trying out the Extension Mod can use the following steps to get a game started:
1. Navigate to Browse Maps on the Custom Games menu,
2. Select a map and click the Create with Mod button in the lower right corner,
3. Choose to sort by Blizzard Mods from the dropdown list at the top of the screen.
4. Select the “Balance Test Mod” Extension from the list and then hit Create Game.
New “Balance Testers” Group
In order to make finding an opponent as easy as possible, we’ve gone ahead and set up a group where you can find players of similar skill to play with in the Balance Test Map! To join this group, simply follow these steps:
1. Press the “Groups” icon in the bottom right, next to “Menu”
2. Click “Find” to bring up the list of all featured Groups
3. Search for "Balance Testers" in the top-right corner
Now that you’ve joined the StarCraft II balance tester community, you’ll find it much easier to find players of similar skills who are also interested in testing out our balance test maps, including this one!
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Clever move to do that testmap on Deadwing. But please, do something about tempests too.
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ZergSwarm Host - Swarm Hosts no longer collide with Locusts
This really should've been the case since the beginning of the HotS beta.
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On January 30 2015 07:38 Pontius Pirate wrote:This really should've been the case since the beginning of the HotS beta.
Blizzard is... slow. 
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If we're going to do that seriously we need to play a lot of PvZ and TvP on those maps. I don't think the raven change can go through with no change at all to lategame protoss, but I don't want to advocate a change to lategame protoss before I know how PvZ looks like with those swarmhosts...
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I still think that the problem could've been solved with a simple change to the the enduring locusts ability that made them tankier instead of lasting longer. That would've made it nearly impossible to bullrush through them with Colossi and storms, but it would've been very easy to counterattack against them, making constant repositioning of SHs a complete and total necessity, rather than just a flashy move. I'm all for the LotV redesign once LotV rolls around, but I would've preferred a more elegant solution for HotS.
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On January 30 2015 07:44 Pontius Pirate wrote:
I still think that the problem could've been solved with a simple change to the the enduring locusts ability that made them tankier instead of lasting longer. That would've made it nearly impossible to bullrush through them with Colossi and storms, but it would've been very easy to counterattack against them, making constant repositioning of SHs a complete and total necessity, rather than just a flashy move. I'm all for the LotV redesign once LotV rolls around, but I would've preferred a more elegant solution for HotS.
If the swarm host is going to be massively redesigned, I'm OK with this change being tried out in HotS beforehand. Of course LotV will be a bit different but probably not THAT different either so I think it's a reasonable move.
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On January 30 2015 07:39 Nebuchad wrote:
If we're going to do that seriously we need to play a lot of PvZ and TvP on those maps. I don't think the raven change can go through with no change at all to lategame protoss, but I don't want to advocate a change to lategame protoss before I know how PvZ looks like with those swarmhosts...
What role do ravens play in TvP? Please don't act like mech is a thing here.
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Time to nerf the Tempest too, PDD and SH are the only things the other races have to deal with mass tempest/templar
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On January 30 2015 07:49 ( bush wrote:Show nested quote +On January 30 2015 07:39 Nebuchad wrote:
If we're going to do that seriously we need to play a lot of PvZ and TvP on those maps. I don't think the raven change can go through with no change at all to lategame protoss, but I don't want to advocate a change to lategame protoss before I know how PvZ looks like with those swarmhosts... What role do ravens play in TvP? Please don't act like mech is a thing here.
Endgame TvP revolves around Ghost/Viking/Raven/MMM support vs Collosus Templar Tempest Cannon
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On January 30 2015 07:51 SC2Toastie wrote:Show nested quote +On January 30 2015 07:49 ( bush wrote:On January 30 2015 07:39 Nebuchad wrote:
If we're going to do that seriously we need to play a lot of PvZ and TvP on those maps. I don't think the raven change can go through with no change at all to lategame protoss, but I don't want to advocate a change to lategame protoss before I know how PvZ looks like with those swarmhosts... What role do ravens play in TvP? Please don't act like mech is a thing here. Endgame TvP revolves around Ghost/Viking/Raven/MMM support vs Collosus Templar Tempest Cannon
That's new for me. And I watch this game everyday since 2010.
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locust dps sounds like it's gonna be ridiculous now with this increased attack speed, I'll have to watch a stream of someone better than me playing on this test map lol
I guess here http://www.twitch.tv/nathanias
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Blizzard needs to change Tempests if they want to change Ravens.
And this may be a SH buff. +100 gas -100 minerals and +1 supply, but they move 30% faster, locust last much longer, locust have way higher DPS, and they fly.
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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!
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On January 30 2015 08:04 DemigodcelpH wrote:
Blizzard needs to change Tempests if they want to change Ravens.
Noone at a reasonable level is playing Ravens against Protoss. I understand you critics, but that's just some lowtier change. The Tempest should be changed, but for other reasons than Ravens not countering them anymore. That's a complete non-issue in the current state of the Boys vs Protoss matchup.
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On January 30 2015 08:06 Big J wrote:Show nested quote +On January 30 2015 08:04 DemigodcelpH wrote:
Blizzard needs to change Tempests if they want to change Ravens. Noone at a reasonable level is playing Ravens against Protoss. I understand you critics, but that's just some lowtier change. The Tempest should be changed, but for other reasons than Ravens not countering them anymore. That's a complete non-issue in the current state of the Boys vs Protoss matchup.
Mech exists. This is a balance thread, so we should consider all play-styles. Not just Zerg perspective, or bio perspective.
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Can't wait to see the results of this, great move Blizz!
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On January 30 2015 08:08 DemigodcelpH wrote:Show nested quote +On January 30 2015 08:06 Big J wrote:On January 30 2015 08:04 DemigodcelpH wrote:
Blizzard needs to change Tempests if they want to change Ravens. Noone at a reasonable level is playing Ravens against Protoss. I understand you critics, but that's just some lowtier change. The Tempest should be changed, but for other reasons than Ravens not countering them anymore. That's a complete non-issue in the current state of the Boys vs Protoss matchup. Mech exists. This is a balance thread, so we should consider all play-styles. Not just Zerg perspective, or bio perspective.
I don't want to dig into what playstyles you are "supposed to be able to play" too much, especially since I'm all about making more playstyles viable, but note that the game is simply being balanced around "what works". At this point, Mech has as much of a "right to exist" vs Protoss as Sentry/Voidray or any other completely random Protoss composition vs Terran has. It's just a combination of units that some people want to be working, not anything that needs to be working. If tanks don't work against Immortals, then I guess don't play them. Just like a Protoss doesn't run mass voidrays into marines and then complains that it doesn't work.
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Really excited to see what the results will show, I do forsee a lot of tweaking for this to be done just right. Also thank god for the non-collision move, really a nice touch to something that's been a pain in the ass for so long.
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Somewhere, Snute is crying
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On January 30 2015 08:16 Big J wrote:Show nested quote +On January 30 2015 08:08 DemigodcelpH wrote:On January 30 2015 08:06 Big J wrote:On January 30 2015 08:04 DemigodcelpH wrote:
Blizzard needs to change Tempests if they want to change Ravens. Noone at a reasonable level is playing Ravens against Protoss. I understand you critics, but that's just some lowtier change. The Tempest should be changed, but for other reasons than Ravens not countering them anymore. That's a complete non-issue in the current state of the Boys vs Protoss matchup. Mech exists. This is a balance thread, so we should consider all play-styles. Not just Zerg perspective, or bio perspective. I don't want to dig into what playstyles you are "supposed to be able to play" too much, especially since I'm all about making more playstyles viable, but note that the game is simply being balanced around "what works". At this point, Mech has as much of a "right to exist" vs Protoss as Sentry/Voidray or any other completely random Protoss composition vs Terran has. It's just a combination of units that some people want to be working, not anything that needs to be working. If tanks don't work against Immortals, then I guess don't play them. Just like a Protoss doesn't run mass voidrays into marines and then complains that it doesn't work.
well you'd be surprised how many low level protosses in random 4's would think otherwise ahaha, but yeah I fully agree with your points. It would be cool to see Mech be viable, but it's not a popular enough composition that it's causing problems with the enjoyment of the game in a large way like Mech v SH are.
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On January 30 2015 08:06 Big J wrote:Show nested quote +On January 30 2015 08:04 DemigodcelpH wrote:
Blizzard needs to change Tempests if they want to change Ravens. Noone at a reasonable level is playing Ravens against Protoss. I understand you critics, but that's just some lowtier change. The Tempest should be changed, but for other reasons than Ravens not countering them anymore. That's a complete non-issue in the current state of the Boys vs Protoss matchup.
people play mech vs protoss all the time in team games
as usual balance patches only apply to 1v1 with no consideration to the effects on team games ;;
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"Cost modified from 200 Minerals and 100 Vespene to 100 Minerals and 200 Vespene"
"Cost is 200 Minerals, 200 Vespene, 160 seconds"
Euh, am I misreading something?
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watching the new locust uselessly fail here is another idea: flying banelings that swarmhosts shoot instead.
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On January 30 2015 08:16 Big J wrote:Show nested quote +On January 30 2015 08:08 DemigodcelpH wrote:On January 30 2015 08:06 Big J wrote:On January 30 2015 08:04 DemigodcelpH wrote:
Blizzard needs to change Tempests if they want to change Ravens. Noone at a reasonable level is playing Ravens against Protoss. I understand you critics, but that's just some lowtier change. The Tempest should be changed, but for other reasons than Ravens not countering them anymore. That's a complete non-issue in the current state of the Boys vs Protoss matchup. Mech exists. This is a balance thread, so we should consider all play-styles. Not just Zerg perspective, or bio perspective. I don't want to dig into what playstyles you are "supposed to be able to play" too much, especially since I'm all about making more playstyles viable, but note that the game is simply being balanced around "what works". At this point, Mech has as much of a "right to exist" vs Protoss as Sentry/Voidray or any other completely random Protoss composition vs Terran has. It's just a combination of units that some people want to be working, not anything that needs to be working. If tanks don't work against Immortals, then I guess don't play them. Just like a Protoss doesn't run mass voidrays into marines and then complains that it doesn't work.
You're backpedaling now because I called you out for not fairly thinking for all races. This isn't something minor like an isolated unit vs unit interaction. This is about the viability of a major playstyle. There's no reason for half of Terran to not be viable. This change was aimed at the standoff in TvZ, and not Protoss or Mech. So when it clips mech in other matchups, something that is already struggling, all without being intended that's an issue.
Tempests are standard vs mech (something you obviously didn't know), and with a Raven nerf but no change to Protoss Tempest + HT is unstoppable. Mech just went from "you will probably lose" to "you lose". The ramifications of all potential changes should be considered.
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USER TESTED REVIEW
Hello,
I'm a mid-diamond zerg and I've recently tested the new swarm host changes against the A.I. First off I personally love this change that might be done to the SH, it makes it a much more supportive and harassment orientated unit, I can see it bring the pep back to some games that were otherwise starvation fests.
Now something I didn't like and want to point out that needs to be changed: If you shift + command them to attack(the locus) or spawn at a certain location, if they land directly on top of the structure/unit they freeze, and don't attack that structure, looks like they just lock up and do nothing. There needs to be a space in-between for them to work. Also if they just spawn right on top of a build or so forth the same thing happens, they don't attack at all.
I'm attaching a 35 minute game against crappy AI as I check out the new changes to the SH. DISCLAIMER: I do BM the AI in the first couple of minutes, this is not the kind of player I am. I played this offline with no knowledge I was going to upload it. I apologize if that offends anyone.
Hope these issues are resolved then I think it's a fantastic change.
http://drop.sc/393202
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On January 30 2015 08:24 Yorbon wrote:
"Cost modified from 200 Minerals and 100 Vespene to 100 Minerals and 200 Vespene"
"Cost is 200 Minerals, 200 Vespene, 160 seconds"
Euh, am I misreading something?
The 2nd one is the cost of the upgrade.
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On January 30 2015 07:49 ( bush wrote:Show nested quote +On January 30 2015 07:39 Nebuchad wrote:
If we're going to do that seriously we need to play a lot of PvZ and TvP on those maps. I don't think the raven change can go through with no change at all to lategame protoss, but I don't want to advocate a change to lategame protoss before I know how PvZ looks like with those swarmhosts... What role do ravens play in TvP? Please don't act like mech is a thing here.
Here you go:
http://www.twitch.tv/marko_mech_god
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Canada8157 Posts
On January 30 2015 08:24 Yorbon wrote:
"Cost modified from 200 Minerals and 100 Vespene to 100 Minerals and 200 Vespene"
"Cost is 200 Minerals, 200 Vespene, 160 seconds"
Euh, am I misreading something?
fixed, i messed up the listing
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I don't think there's any denying these SH and Raven major changes absolutely CANNOT go without a big overhaul of the tempest too. Blizzard mentioned they were aware of that topical issue in their previous message and I'm pretty sure that after a few weeks of testing another iteration of the map with modified tempests (I'd be okay with removed !) will be published.
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On January 30 2015 08:38 [PkF] Wire wrote:
I don't think there's any denying these SH and Raven major changes absolutely CANNOT go without a big overhaul of the tempest too. Blizzard mentioned they were aware of that topical issue in their previous message and I'm pretty sure that after a few weeks of testing another iteration of the map with modified tempests (I'd be okay with removed !) will be published.
The thing is, their "new" Tempest(LotV alpha) is actually way worse than the current one. 
And seeing that they are slowly including changes from alpha here, I am not sure I want new Tempests, lol.
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On January 30 2015 08:42 Ramiz1989 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 30 2015 08:38 [PkF] Wire wrote:
I don't think there's any denying these SH and Raven major changes absolutely CANNOT go without a big overhaul of the tempest too. Blizzard mentioned they were aware of that topical issue in their previous message and I'm pretty sure that after a few weeks of testing another iteration of the map with modified tempests (I'd be okay with removed !) will be published. The thing is, their "new" Tempest(LotV alpha) is actually way worse than the current one. And seeing that they are slowly including changes from alpha here, I am not sure I want new Tempests, lol.
That's why this is probably the opportunity or never to push up better changes for the Tempest -which, if you ask me, would be a mere removal and a cut of the carrier production time, which is already in the alpha as well.
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Canada8157 Posts
lol new flying locusts sometimes don't attack anything
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Watching Minigun - Goswser on Nathanias stream right now. Swarm hosts as a 200 gas purely harassed oriented unit seems to make no sense at all. That patch will need a lot of working to be worth it.
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On January 30 2015 08:29 GGuMake wrote:USER TESTED REVIEWHello, I'm a mid-diamond zerg and I've recently tested the new swarm host changes against the A.I. First off I personally love this change that might be done to the SH, it makes it a much more supportive and harassment orientated unit, I can see it bring the pep back to some games that were otherwise starvation fests. Now something I didn't like and want to point out that needs to be changed: If you shift + command them to attack(the locus) or spawn at a certain location, if they land directly on top of the structure/unit they freeze, and don't attack that structure, looks like they just lock up and do nothing. There needs to be a space in-between for them to work. Also if they just spawn right on top of a build or so forth the same thing happens, they don't attack at all. I'm attaching a 35 minute game against crappy AI as I check out the new changes to the SH. DISCLAIMER: I do BM the AI in the first couple of minutes, this is not the kind of player I am. I played this offline with no knowledge I was going to upload it. I apologize if that offends anyone. Hope these issues are resolved then I think it's a fantastic change. http://drop.sc/393202
Good finds, the freezing thing when they landed directly on a gateway just happened on nathanias stream too.
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On January 30 2015 08:26 DemigodcelpH wrote:Show nested quote +On January 30 2015 08:16 Big J wrote:On January 30 2015 08:08 DemigodcelpH wrote:On January 30 2015 08:06 Big J wrote:On January 30 2015 08:04 DemigodcelpH wrote:
Blizzard needs to change Tempests if they want to change Ravens. Noone at a reasonable level is playing Ravens against Protoss. I understand you critics, but that's just some lowtier change. The Tempest should be changed, but for other reasons than Ravens not countering them anymore. That's a complete non-issue in the current state of the Boys vs Protoss matchup. Mech exists. This is a balance thread, so we should consider all play-styles. Not just Zerg perspective, or bio perspective. I don't want to dig into what playstyles you are "supposed to be able to play" too much, especially since I'm all about making more playstyles viable, but note that the game is simply being balanced around "what works". At this point, Mech has as much of a "right to exist" vs Protoss as Sentry/Voidray or any other completely random Protoss composition vs Terran has. It's just a combination of units that some people want to be working, not anything that needs to be working. If tanks don't work against Immortals, then I guess don't play them. Just like a Protoss doesn't run mass voidrays into marines and then complains that it doesn't work. You're backpedaling now because I called you out for not fairly thinking for all races. This isn't something minor like an isolated unit vs unit interaction. This is about the viability of a major playstyle. There's no reason for half of Terran to not be viable. Tempests are standard vs mech (something you obviously didn't know), and with a Raven nerf but no change to Protoss Tempest + HT is unstoppable. Mech just went from "you will probably lose" to "you lose". The ramifications of all potential changes should be considered.
I don't know much about mech tvp but your reasoning is fundamentally wrong. If the protoss gets mass tempest/ht deathball then your screwed?
Sounds like something that has existed a lot in SC2, this was how protoss worked for large parts of WoL, protoss gets perfect deathball-> you die.
Terran mech with tons of ravens vs zerg is perhaps an even better example, terran maxed out mech army (8 orbitals 20 workers rest is army) with tanks, vikings and a shit ton of ravens. Unless terran messes upp majorly (like letting Z abduct the army over and over or let it get fungaled over and over) the zerg is fucked without a shadow of a chance.
The answer, don't let them get there, thats what we zergs has had to deal with in a lot of instances.
As for the proposed changes, double gas cost seems pretty hefty lol, this obviously makes SH a very late game option only. GL throwing 2000 gas around for 10 SH early/mid game, then you need to pay gas for all the tech and possible upgrades too. Just.... ouch, not that I ever went SH anyway though, this pretty much seals the deal on me continuing not to use them though.
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On January 30 2015 08:52 [PkF] Wire wrote:
Watching Minigun - Goswser on Nathanias stream right now. Swarm hosts as a 200 gas purely harassed oriented unit seems to make no sense at all. That patch will need a lot of working to be worth it.
OK the building glitch was a problem. With the DPS now displayed that makes more sense.
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On January 30 2015 08:04 DemigodcelpH wrote:
Blizzard needs to change Tempests if they want to change Ravens.
And this actually looks like a SH buff. +100 gas -100 minerals and +1 supply, but they move 30% faster, locust last much longer, locust have way higher DPS, and they fly.
I think you underestimate how much +100 gas and +1 supply is. 200 gas is a lot for one unit, and the +1 supply makes it so you cant make too many SH or else your army will just be walked over. Keep in mind that the cool down is pretty long for the SH. Too many SH and youll have dead supplies for like 30 seconds.
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Canada13379 Posts
On January 30 2015 08:56 phodacbiet wrote:Show nested quote +On January 30 2015 08:04 DemigodcelpH wrote:
Blizzard needs to change Tempests if they want to change Ravens.
And this actually looks like a SH buff. +100 gas -100 minerals and +1 supply, but they move 30% faster, locust last much longer, locust have way higher DPS, and they fly. I think you underestimate how much +100 gas and +1 supply is. 200 gas is a lot for one unit, and the +1 supply makes it so you cant make too many SH or else your army will just be walked over. Keep in mind that the cool down is pretty long for the SH. Too many SH and youll have dead supplies for like 30 seconds.
It also limits the transitions that people can do afterwards.
Thats the important thing to note about the gas cost.
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I can actually understand where this is going now. I like it quite a lot, it seems to give Z harass potential kinda similar to T drops (by air, crazy DPS). It should be dealt with quite easily with phoenix openings but the idea is really interesting.
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Im actually impressed at the fact blizzard made swarmhost not collide with swarmhost. With how they been the past 11 years I would have been sure they would have made it so the locust drag the swarmhost with them. Hoping this change creates a lot of 10 swarmhost into tech switches for the zerg (kind of like what rogue tried vs gumiho) and not mass static d games.
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Something I'd like to see in the showcased games is if there's a graphics difference between a swarm host burrowing to spawn locusts before and after burrow is actually researched.
I'm really happy to see Minigun open with phoenix here, it should help the P control the harass possibilities of the SHs once flying locusts is researched a lot.
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On January 30 2015 08:58 ZeromuS wrote:Show nested quote +On January 30 2015 08:56 phodacbiet wrote:On January 30 2015 08:04 DemigodcelpH wrote:
Blizzard needs to change Tempests if they want to change Ravens.
And this actually looks like a SH buff. +100 gas -100 minerals and +1 supply, but they move 30% faster, locust last much longer, locust have way higher DPS, and they fly. I think you underestimate how much +100 gas and +1 supply is. 200 gas is a lot for one unit, and the +1 supply makes it so you cant make too many SH or else your army will just be walked over. Keep in mind that the cool down is pretty long for the SH. Too many SH and youll have dead supplies for like 30 seconds. It also limits the transitions that people can do afterwards. Thats the important thing to note about the gas cost.
It also means that you are either going SHs later, or you go them more zergling heavy instead of e.g. roaches. Which plays a huge role in holding timing pushes. Theorycrafting, going SHs in the midgame vs Mech sounds like a massive coinflip since you shouldn't be able to hold anything including some hellbats. Especially given the 60second waves of locusts instead of 30seconds.
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From the first few games, I'm thinking that the dps could be lowered a bit in exchange for a slightly faster respawn timer, a higher creep speed bonus, and the ability to have locusts return to the air after landing.
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On January 30 2015 09:09 Pontius Pirate wrote:
From the first few games, I'm thinking that the dps could be lowered a bit in exchange for a slightly faster respawn timer, a higher creep speed bonus, and the ability to have locusts return to the air after landing.
Agree. Lower DPS but slightly faster cooldown could be interesting to try.
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Canada8157 Posts
Lowering the cooldown would just result in the previous iteration of swarmhosts, that's what blizzard wants to avoid
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I have to agree with Goswser points here, though I could see a lot of the problems he mentions (lack of mobility etc) resolved with Nyduses.
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From watching these games, new SH seems kinda useless... for stopping the Protoss deathball anyways.
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On January 30 2015 08:56 phodacbiet wrote:Show nested quote +On January 30 2015 08:04 DemigodcelpH wrote:
Blizzard needs to change Tempests if they want to change Ravens.
And this actually looks like a SH buff. +100 gas -100 minerals and +1 supply, but they move 30% faster, locust last much longer, locust have way higher DPS, and they fly. I think you underestimate how much +100 gas and +1 supply is. 200 gas is a lot for one unit, and the +1 supply makes it so you cant make too many SH or else your army will just be walked over. Keep in mind that the cool down is pretty long for the SH. Too many SH and youll have dead supplies for like 30 seconds.
I consider the Ghost cost change to cost less gas and more minerals as a nerf in combination with Bio. And if you watch Swarmhosts heavy games, the Zerg usually floats gas. This change makes it basically easier to get more spines and spores out. That is assuming that Swarmhosts still functions like now. And since spines and spores don't cost supply and the Locust are basically stronger the increased supply makes it only easier to clear Locust waves. Well it would if they wouldn't fly and avoid the stronger AoEs that way.
I can easily see them working like Infestors WoL style now. Except they don't even need energy and are not psionic so snipe and EMP/Feedback doesn't work. Trade and then hide behind the spine forest. But I really need to test this more though. And you can outrun almost everything not Zerg based :p .
But they do need more control now. Nothing the Koreans aren't already doing. But it won't be that easy anymore. Probably the reason why they got better in almost all fields.
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Probably saying this for the 3rd or 4th time in a different thread, but I don't see why you would build them at all...
Just build 30mutalisks instead of 15 of them. Way better at harassing. Way better at defending. Provide antiair. Are much faster. Neither of them can combat. But mutas can basetrade.
Like in the Goswser game... he builds 30mutas and actually harasses. Forces pheonixes instead of the Protoss being able to build the deathball he wants.
Like the Pet vs iaguz game on Overgrowth. Instead of forcing mass turrets at once location and sometimes picking up a tank, forcing mass turrets at all locations and picking up anything left and right.
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I actually think ppl build simply way way way too many swarmhosts.
They aren't an actual unit to win you big fights anymore, they seem more of a harass unit to have out on the map in numbers of 4-6 and actively harass.
(8-12 mutas would definetely be worse at harassing than 4-6 swarmhosts with their new insane DPS)
Incase of blinkstalkers, you simply use speedlings, you already have out on your map (as gosuuser had but didnt use)
Seems like a good Unit for offensive zergs that enjoy multitasking over the defensive players now.
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On January 30 2015 09:14 Jer99 wrote:
Lowering the cooldown would just result in the previous iteration of swarmhosts, that's what blizzard wants to avoid
Nah, only if you lowered it by a shitload. The cooldown was previously effectively 27 seconds with 15 second locusts. Once enduring was researched, it was 27 seconds with 25 second locusts. That's only 2 seconds of punishment time for counterattacks. They are currently on a 60 second respawn timer with 25 second locusts, giving a full 35 seconds for punishment. This is excessive. In fact, without enduring locusts, each wave can already be punished in the 12 seconds of locust-less time. You could lower the timer as far as 40 seconds of respawn time and you'd still have SH's that are not terribly useful defensively.
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On January 30 2015 09:15 Big J wrote:
Probably saying this for the 3rd or 4th time in a different thread, but I don't see why you would build them at all...
Just build 30mutalisks instead of 15 of them. Way better at harassing. Way better at defending. Provide antiair. Are much faster. Neither of them can combat. But mutas can basetrade.
Good point. Except higher DPS, 30 mutas do the job better than 15 SHs. It was quite painful to see how harmless they were in the second game, in the first game they looked kinda cool but phoenix into blink colossi shuts them down really really hard. I don't think 4-6 SHs squads would be enough to be a real threat. The locusts are not invincible while they're flying and they're pretty slow.
The dream : they remove tempest and swarm host and give us the lurker already.
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After watching the game:
They are currently way UP.
Possibilities that can help out:
- Revert supply and cost nerfs
- Make each SH spawn more locusts, maybe 3 or 4
There should definitely be some guaranteed damage when a locusts casts swoop on an enemy unit, kind of like how charge also does guaranteed damage. But in the match I don't think this was the case?
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what games are you watching? where? ?_?
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On January 30 2015 09:21 Lexender wrote:
what games are you watching? where? ?_?
Showmatches on Nathanias stream. Unfortunately for you, they're over  .
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you know i really like the idea of SH with flying locusts becoming more harassment oriented. There could be some really cool things you can do with SH + nydus canals. Like popping nydus outside opponents base on one side and another on the other side, attack with locusts from one direction then reposition through nydus to the other side and attack with locusts.
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United Kingdom20277 Posts
Terran
Raven
Point Defense Drone duration decreased from 180 seconds to 20 seconds
LOL
why didn't they just half the duration 1-3 years ago? I mean, leaving it this long then reducing it by a factor of 9 is pretty insane
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There were showmatches streamed on nathanias's twitch channel, but it just finished. Might be visible in past broadcasts though.
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On January 30 2015 09:15 Big J wrote:
Like in the Goswser game... he builds 30mutas and actually harasses. Forces pheonixes instead of the Protoss being able to build the deathball he wants.
Like the Pet vs iaguz game on Overgrowth. Instead of forcing mass turrets at once location and sometimes picking up a tank, forcing mass turrets at all locations and picking up anything left and right.
To be perfectly frank, Gosuuser and Petraeus played pretty trash in regards to the new SHs. They repeatedly burrowed their hosts when they were under attack, when they're now fast enough to escape army units, leaving them to be easily picked off and not able to spawn locusts. Furthermore, they rallied their locusts straight into the army. You can't win army vs army with the new SHs, because the respawn timer is too long. You have to use them to pull the opponent in different directions, as is their design goal. Seriously, both of the zerg players were so stubborn that it made me sad to see them used as examples of SH play for the showmatches. Put them in the hands of Impact or Leenock and you've got an extremely different story.
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On January 30 2015 09:15 FeyFey wrote:Show nested quote +On January 30 2015 08:56 phodacbiet wrote:On January 30 2015 08:04 DemigodcelpH wrote:
Blizzard needs to change Tempests if they want to change Ravens.
And this actually looks like a SH buff. +100 gas -100 minerals and +1 supply, but they move 30% faster, locust last much longer, locust have way higher DPS, and they fly. I think you underestimate how much +100 gas and +1 supply is. 200 gas is a lot for one unit, and the +1 supply makes it so you cant make too many SH or else your army will just be walked over. Keep in mind that the cool down is pretty long for the SH. Too many SH and youll have dead supplies for like 30 seconds. I consider the Ghost cost change to cost less gas and more minerals as a nerf in combination with Bio. And if you watch Swarmhosts heavy games, the Zerg usually floats gas. This change makes it basically easier to get more spines and spores out. That is assuming that Swarmhosts still functions like now. And since spines and spores don't cost supply and the Locust are basically stronger the increased supply makes it only easier to clear Locust waves. Well it would if they wouldn't fly and avoid the stronger AoEs that way. I can easily see them working like Infestors WoL style now. Except they don't even need energy and are not psionic so snipe and EMP/Feedback doesn't work. Trade and then hide behind the spine forest. But I really need to test this more though. And you can outrun almost everything not Zerg based :p . But they do need more control now. Nothing the Koreans aren't already doing. But it won't be that easy anymore. Probably the reason why they got better in almost all fields.
The only reason zerg floated gas when going SH is because nothing of the Zerg was dying. SH with 25 seconds locust could send waves after waves with nothing dying. Now that swarm hosts have a 60 seconds cool down, there is a MASSIVE window to attack the Zerg. Zergs cant sit around and wait anymore so the gas floating issue shouldnt happen.
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On January 30 2015 09:21 H0i wrote:
After watching the game:
They are currently way UP.
Possibilities that can help out:
- Revert supply and cost nerfs
- Make each SH spawn more locusts, maybe 3 or 4
There should definitely be some guaranteed damage when a locusts casts swoop on an enemy unit, kind of like how charge also does guaranteed damage. But in the match I don't think this was the case?
It would be nice for them to do their default damage as part of their swoop if their swoop targets a unit, kind of like BLs' attack, but less severe. You could combine that with allowing the locusts to swoop back into the air and avoid return attacks, and then swoop right back down again.
On January 30 2015 09:22 [PkF] Wire wrote:Show nested quote +On January 30 2015 09:21 Lexender wrote:
what games are you watching? where? ?_? Showmatches on Nathanias stream. Unfortunately for you, they're over .
He's doing more later tonight, he said.
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On January 30 2015 09:22 Cyro wrote:Show nested quote +Terran
Raven
Point Defense Drone duration decreased from 180 seconds to 20 seconds LOL why didn't they just half the duration 1-3 years ago? I mean, leaving it this long then reducing it by a factor of 9 is pretty insane
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.
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On January 30 2015 09:24 Pontius Pirate wrote:Show nested quote +On January 30 2015 09:15 Big J wrote:
Like in the Goswser game... he builds 30mutas and actually harasses. Forces pheonixes instead of the Protoss being able to build the deathball he wants.
Like the Pet vs iaguz game on Overgrowth. Instead of forcing mass turrets at once location and sometimes picking up a tank, forcing mass turrets at all locations and picking up anything left and right. To be perfectly frank, Gosuuser and Petraeus played pretty trash in regards to the new SHs. They repeatedly burrowed their hosts when they were under attack, when they're now fast enough to escape army units, leaving them to be easily picked off and not able to spawn locusts. Furthermore, they rallied their locusts straight into the army. You can't win army vs army with the new SHs, because the respawn timer is too long. You have to use them to pull the opponent in different directions, as is their design goal. Seriously, both of the zerg players were so stubborn that it made me sad to see them used as examples of SH play for the showmatches. Put them in the hands of Impact or Leenock and you've got an extremely different story.
They're not fast enough to escape phoenix/blink stalkers/stimmed bio though. It's strange but I feel like the other campaign version -the one that could appear everywhere you had creep- would have far more potential as a harass oriented unit.
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On January 30 2015 09:15 Big J wrote:
Probably saying this for the 3rd or 4th time in a different thread, but I don't see why you would build them at all...
Just build 30mutalisks instead of 15 of them. Way better at harassing. Way better at defending. Provide antiair. Are much faster. Neither of them can combat. But mutas can basetrade.
Like in the Goswser game... he builds 30mutas and actually harasses. Forces pheonixes instead of the Protoss being able to build the deathball he wants.
Like the Pet vs iaguz game on Overgrowth. Instead of forcing mass turrets at once location and sometimes picking up a tank, forcing mass turrets at all locations and picking up anything left and right.
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.
On January 30 2015 09:29 [PkF] Wire wrote:Show nested quote +On January 30 2015 09:24 Pontius Pirate wrote:On January 30 2015 09:15 Big J wrote:
Like in the Goswser game... he builds 30mutas and actually harasses. Forces pheonixes instead of the Protoss being able to build the deathball he wants.
Like the Pet vs iaguz game on Overgrowth. Instead of forcing mass turrets at once location and sometimes picking up a tank, forcing mass turrets at all locations and picking up anything left and right. To be perfectly frank, Gosuuser and Petraeus played pretty trash in regards to the new SHs. They repeatedly burrowed their hosts when they were under attack, when they're now fast enough to escape army units, leaving them to be easily picked off and not able to spawn locusts. Furthermore, they rallied their locusts straight into the army. You can't win army vs army with the new SHs, because the respawn timer is too long. You have to use them to pull the opponent in different directions, as is their design goal. Seriously, both of the zerg players were so stubborn that it made me sad to see them used as examples of SH play for the showmatches. Put them in the hands of Impact or Leenock and you've got an extremely different story. They're not fast enough to escape phoenix/blink stalkers/stimmed bio though. It's strange but I feel like the other campaign version -the one that could appear everywhere you had creep- would have far more potential as a harass oriented unit.
Of course they have more potential, and are far more broken lol. Swarm Hosts that produce creep and can teleport almost anywhere on the map are insane.
They probably are my favorite campaign units, the Creeper strain. Just beautiful.
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My knee jerk reaction is to hate it, but I think the SH changes are good, overall. Zerg and mech players I think are going to have a hard time dealing with flying locusts, simply because Terran mech anti air sucks, and zerg is extremely limited with reflexive anti air responses. Everyone else though shouldnt have too much of an issue with it.
I really think buffing the locust life is the better option, not their dps, especially considering its going to be longer between waves and you're going to be sinking a considerable amount of supply and gas into SH to even make them worth harassing with.
The Raven nerf seems stupidly extreme, simply because it supremely limits gameplay options with a unit no one uses anyway. Thats almost literally the story of Starcraft 2: "Use these units, because these ones suck and have no use."
Overall I think Blizzard is always a step behind what they SHOULD be doing: Making more options and playstyles. The idea they have in their heads to "make more interesting matches" is a good one, but the path they take to accomplish it is flawed. An expansion shouldnt be focused on just invigorating one aspect of the game, or just fixing something stupid they broke in the first place, but about making it feel like a much better experience overall.
I hope LOTV is really the injection that's needed to keep more pro's in the scene, but I doubt it will be. I think in the end SC2 would be better served by way more fan and community customization rather than waiting for blizzard to make it the game we all wish it would be.
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On January 30 2015 08:54 Shuffleblade wrote:Show nested quote +On January 30 2015 08:26 DemigodcelpH wrote:On January 30 2015 08:16 Big J wrote:On January 30 2015 08:08 DemigodcelpH wrote:On January 30 2015 08:06 Big J wrote:On January 30 2015 08:04 DemigodcelpH wrote:
Blizzard needs to change Tempests if they want to change Ravens. Noone at a reasonable level is playing Ravens against Protoss. I understand you critics, but that's just some lowtier change. The Tempest should be changed, but for other reasons than Ravens not countering them anymore. That's a complete non-issue in the current state of the Boys vs Protoss matchup. Mech exists. This is a balance thread, so we should consider all play-styles. Not just Zerg perspective, or bio perspective. I don't want to dig into what playstyles you are "supposed to be able to play" too much, especially since I'm all about making more playstyles viable, but note that the game is simply being balanced around "what works". At this point, Mech has as much of a "right to exist" vs Protoss as Sentry/Voidray or any other completely random Protoss composition vs Terran has. It's just a combination of units that some people want to be working, not anything that needs to be working. If tanks don't work against Immortals, then I guess don't play them. Just like a Protoss doesn't run mass voidrays into marines and then complains that it doesn't work. You're backpedaling now because I called you out for not fairly thinking for all races. This isn't something minor like an isolated unit vs unit interaction. This is about the viability of a major playstyle. There's no reason for half of Terran to not be viable. Tempests are standard vs mech (something you obviously didn't know), and with a Raven nerf but no change to Protoss Tempest + HT is unstoppable. Mech just went from "you will probably lose" to "you lose". The ramifications of all potential changes should be considered. I don't know much about mech tvp but your reasoning is fundamentally wrong. If the protoss gets mass tempest/ht deathball then your screwed?
Reasoning is not fundamentally wrong at all. This should've stopped at the "don't know much about mech tvp" part.
On January 30 2015 08:54 Shuffleblade wrote:Sounds like something that has existed a lot in SC2, this was how protoss worked for large parts of WoL, protoss gets perfect deathball-> you die.
Tempest is not the "perfect deathball". It's the standard Protoss response to mech after Immortals.
On January 30 2015 08:54 Shuffleblade wrote:Terran mech with tons of ravens vs zerg is perhaps an even better example
The dynamic of mech vs Z is that Zerg gets free economic reign, free ability to expand and quadruple upgrade and cover the entire map in creep in exchange for mech having better direct confrontations and no mobility. The mech player doesn't have to kill just one 200/200 Z army. It has to kill 2 or potentially even 3 because of the instant remaxes.
And even so Zerg has the Viper which gives it the ability to fight mech head on, so even not counting the remaxes and economic reign a Zerg player can still just roll over a mech army head-on with a good engage.
On January 30 2015 08:54 Shuffleblade wrote:The answer, don't let them get there
This is the Zerg answer. Mech cannot do these things. Mech is slower and weaker than Protoss, so it needs to have a head-on fighting chance. Thematically Protoss is supposed to be beefy but high-tech and a bit more mobile, while pure mech is supposed to be pathetically immobile but with enough firepower to hold off.
You went really deep into mech in your post so I wanted to address that, but this is not a mech thread. All people are saying is that if a change aimed at TvZ stalemates inadvertently makes mech in other matchups into even worse state then that needs to be monitored or accounted for as well, as it wasn't the intention of the change.
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On January 30 2015 09:30 Ramiz1989 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 30 2015 09:15 Big J wrote:
Probably saying this for the 3rd or 4th time in a different thread, but I don't see why you would build them at all...
Just build 30mutalisks instead of 15 of them. Way better at harassing. Way better at defending. Provide antiair. Are much faster. Neither of them can combat. But mutas can basetrade.
Like in the Goswser game... he builds 30mutas and actually harasses. Forces pheonixes instead of the Protoss being able to build the deathball he wants.
Like the Pet vs iaguz game on Overgrowth. Instead of forcing mass turrets at once location and sometimes picking up a tank, forcing mass turrets at all locations and picking up anything left and right. 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 agree we need to see the new SHs in the hands of someone who would use them as a hitsquad and be very active with them. But frankly, 1000 gas to kill some workers and buildings doesn't seem worth it at all.
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On January 30 2015 09:32 [PkF] Wire wrote:Show nested quote +On January 30 2015 09:30 Ramiz1989 wrote:On January 30 2015 09:15 Big J wrote:
Probably saying this for the 3rd or 4th time in a different thread, but I don't see why you would build them at all...
Just build 30mutalisks instead of 15 of them. Way better at harassing. Way better at defending. Provide antiair. Are much faster. Neither of them can combat. But mutas can basetrade.
Like in the Goswser game... he builds 30mutas and actually harasses. Forces pheonixes instead of the Protoss being able to build the deathball he wants.
Like the Pet vs iaguz game on Overgrowth. Instead of forcing mass turrets at once location and sometimes picking up a tank, forcing mass turrets at all locations and picking up anything left and right. 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 agree we need to see the new SHs in the hands of someone who would use them as a hitsquad and be very active with them. But frankly, 1000 gas to kill some workers and buildings doesn't seem worth it at all.
So it seems that they still have the problem of being too powerful in high numbers and too weak in low numbers.
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By the way, has Blizz given us any feedback on the preview balance testing map nerfing WM's damage vs shields?
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On January 30 2015 09:35 Pontius Pirate wrote:Show nested quote +On January 30 2015 09:32 [PkF] Wire wrote:On January 30 2015 09:30 Ramiz1989 wrote:On January 30 2015 09:15 Big J wrote:
Probably saying this for the 3rd or 4th time in a different thread, but I don't see why you would build them at all...
Just build 30mutalisks instead of 15 of them. Way better at harassing. Way better at defending. Provide antiair. Are much faster. Neither of them can combat. But mutas can basetrade.
Like in the Goswser game... he builds 30mutas and actually harasses. Forces pheonixes instead of the Protoss being able to build the deathball he wants.
Like the Pet vs iaguz game on Overgrowth. Instead of forcing mass turrets at once location and sometimes picking up a tank, forcing mass turrets at all locations and picking up anything left and right. 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 agree we need to see the new SHs in the hands of someone who would use them as a hitsquad and be very active with them. But frankly, 1000 gas to kill some workers and buildings doesn't seem worth it at all. So it seems that they still have the problem of being too powerful in high numbers and too weak in low numbers.
More like weak in low numbers and useless supply in high numbers seemingly. But once again maybe a 5 SHs squad in the hands of a very good player could be a nightmare to deal with, more playtesting is of course needed.
On January 30 2015 09:36 VengefulTree wrote:
By the way, has Blizz given us any feedback on the preview balance testing map nerfing WM's damage vs shields?
Soon.
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On January 30 2015 09:36 VengefulTree wrote:
By the way, has Blizz given us any feedback on the preview balance testing map nerfing WM's damage vs shields?
They said they are putting it on hold for now or something like that when they announced this test on Jan, 20th.
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On January 30 2015 09:32 [PkF] Wire wrote:Show nested quote +On January 30 2015 09:30 Ramiz1989 wrote:On January 30 2015 09:15 Big J wrote:
Probably saying this for the 3rd or 4th time in a different thread, but I don't see why you would build them at all...
Just build 30mutalisks instead of 15 of them. Way better at harassing. Way better at defending. Provide antiair. Are much faster. Neither of them can combat. But mutas can basetrade.
Like in the Goswser game... he builds 30mutas and actually harasses. Forces pheonixes instead of the Protoss being able to build the deathball he wants.
Like the Pet vs iaguz game on Overgrowth. Instead of forcing mass turrets at once location and sometimes picking up a tank, forcing mass turrets at all locations and picking up anything left and right. 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 agree we need to see the new SHs in the hands of someone who would use them as a hitsquad and be very active with them. But frankly, 1000 gas to kill some workers and buildings doesn't seem worth it at all.
Tell that to the guys that goes for 10 Mutas and then switch to something else. It creates reaction by opponent, while Zerg is tech switching, that is the whole point.
But unlike 10 Mutas, that are 1000/1000, 5 Swarm Hosts are 500/1000, and actually destroy buildings in matter of seconds. 10 Mutas will kill few workers and will fly away the moment they reach the turret or some anti-air arrives, but you can't deflect 10 Locusts with just Marines or Stalkers. I mean, of course you can but you will again trade units for nothing and they will kill stuff before you reach them anyway.
Just comparing these small numbers of units(I don't compare high numbers of SHs to anything because as I said, I don't think that people should make more than 10 of them anyway) I favor Swarm Hosts a lot over the Mutalisks.
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On January 30 2015 09:32 DemigodcelpH wrote:Show nested quote +On January 30 2015 08:54 Shuffleblade wrote:On January 30 2015 08:26 DemigodcelpH wrote:On January 30 2015 08:16 Big J wrote:On January 30 2015 08:08 DemigodcelpH wrote:On January 30 2015 08:06 Big J wrote:On January 30 2015 08:04 DemigodcelpH wrote:
Blizzard needs to change Tempests if they want to change Ravens. Noone at a reasonable level is playing Ravens against Protoss. I understand you critics, but that's just some lowtier change. The Tempest should be changed, but for other reasons than Ravens not countering them anymore. That's a complete non-issue in the current state of the Boys vs Protoss matchup. Mech exists. This is a balance thread, so we should consider all play-styles. Not just Zerg perspective, or bio perspective. I don't want to dig into what playstyles you are "supposed to be able to play" too much, especially since I'm all about making more playstyles viable, but note that the game is simply being balanced around "what works". At this point, Mech has as much of a "right to exist" vs Protoss as Sentry/Voidray or any other completely random Protoss composition vs Terran has. It's just a combination of units that some people want to be working, not anything that needs to be working. If tanks don't work against Immortals, then I guess don't play them. Just like a Protoss doesn't run mass voidrays into marines and then complains that it doesn't work. You're backpedaling now because I called you out for not fairly thinking for all races. This isn't something minor like an isolated unit vs unit interaction. This is about the viability of a major playstyle. There's no reason for half of Terran to not be viable. Tempests are standard vs mech (something you obviously didn't know), and with a Raven nerf but no change to Protoss Tempest + HT is unstoppable. Mech just went from "you will probably lose" to "you lose". The ramifications of all potential changes should be considered. I don't know much about mech tvp but your reasoning is fundamentally wrong. If the protoss gets mass tempest/ht deathball then your screwed? Reasoning is not fundamentally wrong at all. This should've stopped at the "don't know much about mech tvp" part. Show nested quote +On January 30 2015 08:54 Shuffleblade wrote:Sounds like something that has existed a lot in SC2, this was how protoss worked for large parts of WoL, protoss gets perfect deathball-> you die. Tempest is not the "perfect deathball". It's the standard Protoss response to mech after Immortals. Show nested quote +On January 30 2015 08:54 Shuffleblade wrote:Terran mech with tons of ravens vs zerg is perhaps an even better example The dynamic of mech vs Z is that Zerg gets free economic reign, free ability to expand and quadruple upgrade and cover the entire map in creep in exchange for mech having better direct confrontations and no mobility. The mech player doesn't have to kill just one 200/200 Z army. It has to kill 2 or potentially even 3 because of the instant remaxes. And even so Zerg has the Viper which gives it the ability to fight mech head on, so even not counting the remaxes and economic reign a Zerg player can still just roll over a mech army head-on with a good engage. Show nested quote +On January 30 2015 08:54 Shuffleblade wrote:The answer, don't let them get there This is the Zerg answer. Mech cannot do these things. Mech is slower and weaker than Protoss, so it needs to have a head-on fighting chance. Thematically Protoss is supposed to be beefy but high-tech and a bit more mobile, while pure mech is supposed to be pathetically immobile but with enough firepower to hold off. You went really deep into mech in your post so I wanted to address that, but this is not a mech thread. All people are saying is that if a change aimed at TvZ stalemates inadvertently makes mech in other matchups into even worse state then that needs to be monitored or accounted for as well, as it wasn't the intention of the change.
No that WAS the intention of the change, this is a patch to adress gameplay issues not balance issues, if mech gets weaker in other MU is VERY important for this patch
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Would flying locusts included in the "normal" SH state be something to consider, with the upgrade increasing DPS from the previous state to the current one for instance ? I mean, without flying locusts, harassing with locusts seems borderline impossible.
Good points in the post from Ramiz1989. I still think the idea has potential.
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On January 30 2015 09:43 [PkF] Wire wrote:
Would flying locusts included in the "normal" SH state be something to consider, with the upgrade increasing DPS from the previous state to the current one for instance ?
Good points in the post from Ramiz1989. I still think the idea has potential.
I think that they will be way too strong if you just remove the upgrade for flying. I know that you would nerf the damage, but then they would literally be better than Mutas if you want to rush them.
Spire takes a lot longer to build than Infestation pit, you will have more minerals for Lings and Roaches to support your Swarm Hosts, and first 5 Swarm Hosts could do a lot of damage even if you are prepared for them, while they are not in danger.
Even if they are somehow in danger, new Swarm Hosts will just walk away with their 2.95 movement speed.
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On January 30 2015 09:39 Ramiz1989 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 30 2015 09:32 [PkF] Wire wrote:On January 30 2015 09:30 Ramiz1989 wrote:On January 30 2015 09:15 Big J wrote:
Probably saying this for the 3rd or 4th time in a different thread, but I don't see why you would build them at all...
Just build 30mutalisks instead of 15 of them. Way better at harassing. Way better at defending. Provide antiair. Are much faster. Neither of them can combat. But mutas can basetrade.
Like in the Goswser game... he builds 30mutas and actually harasses. Forces pheonixes instead of the Protoss being able to build the deathball he wants.
Like the Pet vs iaguz game on Overgrowth. Instead of forcing mass turrets at once location and sometimes picking up a tank, forcing mass turrets at all locations and picking up anything left and right. 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 agree we need to see the new SHs in the hands of someone who would use them as a hitsquad and be very active with them. But frankly, 1000 gas to kill some workers and buildings doesn't seem worth it at all. Tell that to the guys that goes for 10 Mutas and then switch to something else. It creates reaction by opponent, while Zerg is tech switching, that is the whole point. But unlike 10 Mutas, that are 1000/1000, 5 Swarm Hosts are 500/1000, and actually destroy buildings in matter of seconds. 10 Mutas will kill few workers and will fly away the moment they reach the turret or some anti-air arrives, but you can't deflect 10 Locusts with just Marines or Stalkers. I mean, of course you can but you will again trade units for nothing and they will kill stuff before you reach them anyway.Just comparing these small numbers of units(I don't compare high numbers of SHs to anything because as I said, I don't think that people should make more than 10 of them anyway) I favor Swarm Hosts a lot over the Mutalisks.
This is an interesting. I don't know how good the role overlap is though.
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On January 30 2015 07:23 Jer99 wrote:Terran- Raven
- Point Defense Drone duration decreased from 180 seconds to 20 seconds
[/QUOTE]
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.
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On January 30 2015 09:48 Ramiz1989 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 30 2015 09:43 [PkF] Wire wrote:
Would flying locusts included in the "normal" SH state be something to consider, with the upgrade increasing DPS from the previous state to the current one for instance ?
Good points in the post from Ramiz1989. I still think the idea has potential. I think that they will be way too strong if you just remove the upgrade for flying. I know that you would nerf the damage, but then they would literally be better than Mutas if you want to rush them. Spire takes a lot longer to build than Infestation pit, you will have more minerals for Lings and Roaches to support your Swarm Hosts, and first 5 Swarm Hosts could do a lot of damage even if you are prepared for them, while they are not in danger. Even if they are somehow in danger, new Swarm Hosts will just walk away with their 2.95 movement speed.
Once again you seem to be right !
One thing I would have liked to see more precisely is how much time does a standard PvZ phoenix fleet (3-5) take to clean up locusts while they're flying. With good map awareness, a phoenix player should shut down the harass quite handily, and phoenix openers could come back with a vengeance as "safe against all harass" openers.
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I think the SH change is okay except for the flying locusts part. It seems a little too powerful and easy for things like nexus or orbital snipes without too much risk considering that locusts can respawn without cost in that sense.
I still feel that the SH rework or the direction that units that can spawn stuff should be more along the lines of having some form of resource cost to cast rather than it being free. Almost something like the carrier where the interceptors need to be bought.
Perhaps something like having 3 batches already trained in the SH upon production and requiring further investment in resources to train up more locusts. In late game scenarios, this seems pretty fair to me considering how more capability the locusts are being given.
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Is swoop manually activated?
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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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On January 30 2015 09:52 varsovie wrote:Show nested quote +On January 30 2015 07:23 Jer99 wrote:Terran- Raven
- Point Defense Drone duration decreased from 180 seconds to 20 seconds
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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On January 30 2015 09:30 Ramiz1989 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 30 2015 09:15 Big J wrote:
Probably saying this for the 3rd or 4th time in a different thread, but I don't see why you would build them at all...
Just build 30mutalisks instead of 15 of them. Way better at harassing. Way better at defending. Provide antiair. Are much faster. Neither of them can combat. But mutas can basetrade.
Like in the Goswser game... he builds 30mutas and actually harasses. Forces pheonixes instead of the Protoss being able to build the deathball he wants.
Like the Pet vs iaguz game on Overgrowth. Instead of forcing mass turrets at once location and sometimes picking up a tank, forcing mass turrets at all locations and picking up anything left and right. 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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May thy nexi rest in pieces.
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On January 30 2015 10:12 Big J wrote:Show nested quote +On January 30 2015 09:30 Ramiz1989 wrote:On January 30 2015 09:15 Big J wrote:
Probably saying this for the 3rd or 4th time in a different thread, but I don't see why you would build them at all...
Just build 30mutalisks instead of 15 of them. Way better at harassing. Way better at defending. Provide antiair. Are much faster. Neither of them can combat. But mutas can basetrade.
Like in the Goswser game... he builds 30mutas and actually harasses. Forces pheonixes instead of the Protoss being able to build the deathball he wants.
Like the Pet vs iaguz game on Overgrowth. Instead of forcing mass turrets at once location and sometimes picking up a tank, forcing mass turrets at all locations and picking up anything left and right. 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...
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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A 200 gas/4 supply unit that can't be part of the core army. Plus a unit that can no longer be cost efficient vs. mech/protoss deathball during a long game. Just what zerg needed!!!
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somewhere avilo is crying hahaha
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On January 30 2015 09:28 HeyImFinn wrote:Show nested quote +On January 30 2015 09:22 Cyro wrote:Terran
Raven
Point Defense Drone duration decreased from 180 seconds to 20 seconds LOL why didn't they just half the duration 1-3 years ago? I mean, leaving it this long then reducing it by a factor of 9 is pretty insane 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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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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On January 30 2015 11:22 29 fps wrote:Show nested quote +On January 30 2015 09:28 HeyImFinn wrote:On January 30 2015 09:22 Cyro wrote:Terran
Raven
Point Defense Drone duration decreased from 180 seconds to 20 seconds LOL why didn't they just half the duration 1-3 years ago? I mean, leaving it this long then reducing it by a factor of 9 is pretty insane 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...
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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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.
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On January 30 2015 11:22 29 fps wrote:Show nested quote +On January 30 2015 09:28 HeyImFinn wrote:On January 30 2015 09:22 Cyro wrote:Terran
Raven
Point Defense Drone duration decreased from 180 seconds to 20 seconds LOL why didn't they just half the duration 1-3 years ago? I mean, leaving it this long then reducing it by a factor of 9 is pretty insane 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...
38 seconds, maybe? Just like dark swarm.
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On January 30 2015 11:32 Darth Caedus wrote:Show nested quote +On January 30 2015 11:22 29 fps wrote:On January 30 2015 09:28 HeyImFinn wrote:On January 30 2015 09:22 Cyro wrote:Terran
Raven
Point Defense Drone duration decreased from 180 seconds to 20 seconds LOL why didn't they just half the duration 1-3 years ago? I mean, leaving it this long then reducing it by a factor of 9 is pretty insane 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... 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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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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in the LotV announcement video, locusts could be spawned on the move and shs couldn't burrow before burrow was actually researched. Is it still the case ? It didn't seem so, I think Goswser was burrowing his shs quite frequently. It's a shame if it's indeed not the case any more, would suit the harass role better.
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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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On January 30 2015 08:06 Big J wrote:Show nested quote +On January 30 2015 08:04 DemigodcelpH wrote:
Blizzard needs to change Tempests if they want to change Ravens. 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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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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PDD going from 180 seconds to 20 has to be the biggest nerf in SC2 history percentage wise.
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On January 30 2015 11:50 Lexender wrote:Show nested quote +On January 30 2015 11:32 Darth Caedus wrote:On January 30 2015 11:22 29 fps wrote:On January 30 2015 09:28 HeyImFinn wrote:On January 30 2015 09:22 Cyro wrote:Terran
Raven
Point Defense Drone duration decreased from 180 seconds to 20 seconds LOL why didn't they just half the duration 1-3 years ago? I mean, leaving it this long then reducing it by a factor of 9 is pretty insane 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... 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.
Agreed.
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i don't like the pdd change... atleast give it a 50mana requirement... damn...
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Where's Widow mine NERF?!!!
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Seeker
Where dat snitch at?36938 Posts
Can we just remove swarm hosts from the game? :/
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blah, the only good thing is increasing the spawn locust cooldown. everything else is crazy lol.
On January 30 2015 08:20 Larkin wrote:
Somewhere, Snute is crying
why, swarmhosts and locusts were buffed, meanwhile swarm host defense is weakened. none of the swarm host changes will affect the top level players i don't think.
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I hope they didnt kill TvZ mech with this. Without tanks hitting locust, they are guaranteed to get a couple of tanks every wave.
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On January 30 2015 15:34 Seeker wrote:
Can we just remove swarm hosts from the game? :/
There wasn't a single day for last 2 yeasrs i hadn't been thinking about that.
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what about Widow Mine change?
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On January 30 2015 15:36 CycoDude wrote:blah, the only good thing is increasing the spawn locust cooldown. everything else is crazy lol. why, swarmhosts and locusts were buffed, meanwhile swarm host defense is weakened. none of the swarm host changes will affect the top level players i don't think.
Are you crazy? Zvp is largely swarmhost style
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In regard to the PDD:
Great change, really needed to be honest. The PDD is so ridiculous OP against missile based armies that 20 seconds is plenty, when the enemy attack you have an insta-win the fight button. Now however that insta-win only lasts 20 seconds instead which is very very reasonable.
In regards to the SH:
I still think they are waay too costly in gas to ever be worth it. Some posters are saying that 4-5 SH can be pretty cost efficient which I agree with but that is only when you only need to pay the costs of the units themselves but going down the tech path costs money too. The only two ways I think Sh will be viable is
1) either when going ling infestor and you get the tech for free anyway, going 4-5 SH for harass.
2) Or when going heavy roaches and then transitioning into a few SH to bolster to roach pushes and then harassing while transitioning behind it.
Going pure SH will totally suck, getting the tech out costs too much to be worth it and getting the upgrade will only happen in very very specific situations (or maps) because if its only worth building 4-5 SH then its probably not worth investing so much money into an upgrades just for the SH.
This basically kills the SH, which I don't mind that much since Ts mech is getting nerfed to compensate.
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On January 30 2015 15:34 Seeker wrote:
Can we just remove swarm hosts from the game? :/
May as well ask if we can remove Zerg from the game
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I feel some people don't really understand the impact of the PDD change, the raven is simply not going to be used at all EVER, it just became an overpriced detector, I don't really care about massing ravens but nerfing the raven so much is too much of a knee jerk reaction, specially considering that the raven is the only spellcaster that terran has that isn't almost exclusive to TvP.
The raven doesn't need a nerf it needs a redesing (altough not a big one)
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On January 30 2015 17:47 Lexender wrote:
I feel some people don't really understand the impact of the PDD change, the raven is simply not going to be used at all EVER, it just became an overpriced detector, I don't really care about massing ravens but nerfing the raven so much is too much of a knee jerk reaction, specially considering that the raven is the only spellcaster that terran has that isn't almost exclusive to TvP.
The raven doesn't need a nerf it needs a redesing (altough not a big one)
I'm also worried about the matchup with tempest, but autoturret and pdd take 4 fucking minutes atm which is far too long.
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On January 30 2015 15:34 Seeker wrote:
Can we just remove swarm hosts from the game? :/
Remove Protoss first and we have a deal!
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On January 30 2015 20:40 Ramiz1989 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 30 2015 15:34 Seeker wrote:
Can we just remove swarm hosts from the game? :/ Remove Protoss first and we have a deal!
This is quite good idea. I enjoy watching SH vs SH more than PvP.
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On January 30 2015 20:40 Ramiz1989 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 30 2015 15:34 Seeker wrote:
Can we just remove swarm hosts from the game? :/ Remove Protoss first and we have a deal!
I'd advice you to remove a lot of your salt intake CUS YOUR SALTYYYY ^_^
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On January 30 2015 20:57 SatedSC2 wrote:Show nested quote +Locust duration increased from 15 seconds (+10 seconds with Enduring Locusts) to 30 seconds Ahahahaha. No. Just no. This is bollocks.
You read the rest of the changes?
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On January 30 2015 20:54 SC2Toastie wrote:Show nested quote +On January 30 2015 20:40 Ramiz1989 wrote:On January 30 2015 15:34 Seeker wrote:
Can we just remove swarm hosts from the game? :/ Remove Protoss first and we have a deal! I'd advice you to remove a lot of your salt intake CUS YOUR SALTYYYY ^_^
Your comment makes zero sense.
On January 30 2015 20:57 SatedSC2 wrote:Show nested quote +Locust duration increased from 15 seconds (+10 seconds with Enduring Locusts) to 30 seconds Ahahahaha. No. Just no. This is bollocks.
Yeah, let's read one line and ignore the other 50.
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On January 30 2015 20:57 SatedSC2 wrote:Show nested quote +Locust duration increased from 15 seconds (+10 seconds with Enduring Locusts) to 30 seconds Ahahahaha. No. Just no. This is bollocks.
Someone here have a severe Selective Reading Syndrome
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On January 30 2015 20:40 Ramiz1989 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 30 2015 15:34 Seeker wrote:
Can we just remove swarm hosts from the game? :/ Remove Protoss first and we have a deal!
Id be fine if I could just turn the matchup off. Shall all the Ps be unable to find an opponent until they made all the bullsgit unavailable.
The most fun part is how most P streamers hate to play against P too. ^^
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On January 30 2015 21:26 Big J wrote:Show nested quote +On January 30 2015 20:40 Ramiz1989 wrote:On January 30 2015 15:34 Seeker wrote:
Can we just remove swarm hosts from the game? :/ Remove Protoss first and we have a deal! Id be fine if I could just turn the matchup off. Shall all the Ps be unable to find an opponent until they made all the bullsgit unavailable. The most fun part is how most P streamers hate to play against P too. ^^
Well, that would be as good as removing them, since nobody would turn on the "vP" matchup. :d
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When people says that Flying Locust will break TvZ mech, I'm not sure quiet yet. An important fact to take into consideration is that now WM is a somewhat viable response to SH . It can hit both ground and air and with the HP of locust you can pretty much deny a clump of locust with a handfull of mines. The main change is that now the time between two locust wave is superior than the mine cooldown. SO every single wave will have some charged mines as a response.
The mine tank turtle dream might be a thing now. We will need a lot of testing to see how SH synergize with other mech counter such as mutas and ultralisk. Charge with ultralisk in mines field to allow locust to hit tanks might be a good way to break siege lines.
I remember when HTOmario showed us some sexy style with mass mines that I'm still using from time to time. This style might become very potent now.
This change is really exciting because it opens tons of possibility for openings and aggressive styles in both TvP and TvZ. I am just worried that in one matchup Z got the long stick and in the other the short stick. I hope this will balance out by its own !
The raven nerf might indicate that balance team identified that the SH redesign is leading to an advantage of mech terran vs zerg.
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On January 30 2015 21:52 SatedSC2 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 30 2015 21:06 SC2Toastie wrote:On January 30 2015 20:57 SatedSC2 wrote:Locust duration increased from 15 seconds (+10 seconds with Enduring Locusts) to 30 seconds Ahahahaha. No. Just no. This is bollocks. You read the rest of the changes? Show nested quote +On January 30 2015 21:12 Ramiz1989 wrote:On January 30 2015 20:54 SC2Toastie wrote:On January 30 2015 20:40 Ramiz1989 wrote:On January 30 2015 15:34 Seeker wrote:
Can we just remove swarm hosts from the game? :/ Remove Protoss first and we have a deal! I'd advice you to remove a lot of your salt intake CUS YOUR SALTYYYY ^_^ Your comment makes zero sense. On January 30 2015 20:57 SatedSC2 wrote:Locust duration increased from 15 seconds (+10 seconds with Enduring Locusts) to 30 seconds Ahahahaha. No. Just no. This is bollocks. Yeah, let's read one line and ignore the other 50. Show nested quote +On January 30 2015 21:24 OtherWorld wrote:On January 30 2015 20:57 SatedSC2 wrote:Locust duration increased from 15 seconds (+10 seconds with Enduring Locusts) to 30 seconds Ahahahaha. No. Just no. This is bollocks. Someone here have a severe Selective Reading Syndrome It's not selective reading. It's not that I didn't read the other changes. It's that I don't think the other changes balance out how bullshit that one change is. Swarm Hosts Free units shouldn't be in the game. At all. Ever. Blizzard should stop trying to fix them and give Zerg a different unit that actually fulfills the role that the Swarm Host was supposed to fill. The reason Brood Lords are currently tolerable is because they have hard-counters that dissuade their use, and because Broodlings don't last half a fucking minute. EDIT: And it's funny how many people still harbour resentment towards Protoss for a period of success that was completely based on map-balance and not unit balance, whereas the Zerg period of success (which lasted much longer) was entirely based upon unit balance. But whatever, I get it. Protoss are the bastard child of Starcraft and everyone hates us for no good reason. S'cool.
So SH cost essentially doubling, a complete waste of money and supply for half the time are not important details? The fact it is essentially a 5 second more Locust for 30 second more no locust trade doesn't matter?
People don't resent Protoss for that (sidenote, blink and MSC were nerfed, so there was a part unit balance in there), you act like you are the victim here which is a bit silly, especially given no testing has been done at all.
Also, people hate Protoss for the amount of ridiculous freewin/freeloss builds they have and for some stupid mechanics like forcefield and motherbullshitcore and the overreliance on key units. Which sadly is all you get to deal with when playing on ladder.
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On January 30 2015 22:00 klup wrote:
Mines
I actually agree with the Mine part, Mines with Sensor Tower support can be a mobile response to Locust 0_0
cool!
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And it's funny how many people still harbour resentment towards Protoss for a period of success that was completely based on map-balance and not unit balance, whereas the Zerg period of success (which lasted much longer) was entirely based upon unit balance. But whatever, I get it. Protoss are the bastard child of Starcraft and everyone hates us for no good reason. S'cool.
Bullshit. Noone hates Protoss for their power period. People hate it because of force fields. Because of Warpgate allins. Because of Warpgate with some tech allins. Because of the Collossus and its affiliated deathballs.
You wanna talk stuff that shouldn't be in the game? Stuff that people have identified as bullshit 5years ago and is driving people away from the game? Swarm Hosts get fixed (or it is being tried at least), that's great. It's been long overdue. Protoss remains the same shitrace that noone wants to play against with its coinflips and boring deathballs and no interesting middleground in between most of the time.
Ground units shouldn't be able to stand on top of each other. Period. The Collosus hasn't been redesigned in 5years, after like a million threads have been made. Talking about the beloved child of blizzard.
The LotV warpgate change should be implemented TODAY and then the game should be balanced around it. Just like the Swarm Host change the Swarm host should be removed. Forcefields should be removed or given hitpoints. Nothing else. Not in LotV. NOW.
You keep on bringing up how SHs are bullshit and I agree fully. But when it's you own garden of well-grown bullshit (do I need to refer to the "how can I make the game maximum annoying for my opponent"-strategy threads of yours?), all you can identify is "irrational Protoss hate". Lol.
And since you bring in mapbalance vs unitbalance as if those were not connected: ZvP was Protoss and Terranfavored on Ohana during BL/Infestor. It was just "shitmaps" that werent like Ohana that catered to BL/Infestor, the units were fine trololololol. (now reform that sentence with whirlwind and blink stalkers and we get exactly your argument why blink stalkers are fine... funny)
No, blink stalkers + MsC were broken in TvP. Period.
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@Sated
I am not disliking Protoss because of balance reasons, balance will change from time to time and maps will also change it. I dislike Protoss because of their design and I am pretty sure that most of the people agrees with me on this, on the other hand you dislike Zerg because of free units which is also design problem.
It is all subjective, just like you hate free units, same way I think that Warpgates are pile of crap.
EDIT: Two posters before me pretty much described my thoughts.
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On January 30 2015 22:12 Big J wrote:Show nested quote +And it's funny how many people still harbour resentment towards Protoss for a period of success that was completely based on map-balance and not unit balance, whereas the Zerg period of success (which lasted much longer) was entirely based upon unit balance. But whatever, I get it. Protoss are the bastard child of Starcraft and everyone hates us for no good reason. S'cool. Bullshit. Noone hates Protoss for their power period. People hate it because of force fields. Because of Warpgate allins. Because of Warpgate with some tech allins. Because of the Collossus and its affiliated deathballs. You wanna talk stuff that shouldn't be in the game? Stuff that people have identified as bullshit 5years ago and is driving people away from the game? Swarm Hosts get fixed (or it is being tried at least), that's great. It's been long overdue. Protoss remains the same shitrace that noone wants to play against with its coinflips and boring deathballs and no interesting middleground in between most of the time. Ground units shouldn't be able to stand on top of each other. Period. The Collosus hasn't been redesigned in 5years, after like a million threads have been made. Talking about the beloved child of blizzard. The LotV warpgate change should be implemented TODAY and then the game should be balanced around it. Just like the Swarm Host change the Swarm host should be removed. Forcefields should be removed or given hitpoints. Nothing else. Not in LotV. NOW. You keep on bringing up how SHs are bullshit and I agree fully. But when it's you own garden of well-grown bullshit (do I need to refer to the "how can I make the game maximum annoying for my opponent"-strategy threads of yours?), all you can identify is "irrational Protoss hate". Lol. And since you bring in mapbalance vs unitbalance as if those were not connected: ZvP was Protoss and Terranfavored on Ohana during BL/Infestor. It was just shitmaps that werent like Ohana that catered to BL/Infestor, the units were fine trololololol. (now reform that sentence with whirlwind and blink stalkers and we get exactly your argument why blink stalkers are fine... funny) No, blink stalkers + MsC were broken in TvP. Period.
Don't respond to Sated, it only derails the post, for him everything of the other races is bullshit, except protoss wich is the perfect race that people hate for no reason because they're misunderstood.
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On January 30 2015 15:34 Seeker wrote:
Can we just remove swarm hosts from the game? :/
That's essentially what I'm asking for since they've been introduced. And I know a lot of other Zergs that feel the same way.
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On January 30 2015 22:29 SatedSC2 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 30 2015 22:22 Lexender wrote:On January 30 2015 22:12 Big J wrote:And it's funny how many people still harbour resentment towards Protoss for a period of success that was completely based on map-balance and not unit balance, whereas the Zerg period of success (which lasted much longer) was entirely based upon unit balance. But whatever, I get it. Protoss are the bastard child of Starcraft and everyone hates us for no good reason. S'cool. Bullshit. Noone hates Protoss for their power period. People hate it because of force fields. Because of Warpgate allins. Because of Warpgate with some tech allins. Because of the Collossus and its affiliated deathballs. You wanna talk stuff that shouldn't be in the game? Stuff that people have identified as bullshit 5years ago and is driving people away from the game? Swarm Hosts get fixed (or it is being tried at least), that's great. It's been long overdue. Protoss remains the same shitrace that noone wants to play against with its coinflips and boring deathballs and no interesting middleground in between most of the time. Ground units shouldn't be able to stand on top of each other. Period. The Collosus hasn't been redesigned in 5years, after like a million threads have been made. Talking about the beloved child of blizzard. The LotV warpgate change should be implemented TODAY and then the game should be balanced around it. Just like the Swarm Host change the Swarm host should be removed. Forcefields should be removed or given hitpoints. Nothing else. Not in LotV. NOW. You keep on bringing up how SHs are bullshit and I agree fully. But when it's you own garden of well-grown bullshit (do I need to refer to the "how can I make the game maximum annoying for my opponent"-strategy threads of yours?), all you can identify is "irrational Protoss hate". Lol. And since you bring in mapbalance vs unitbalance as if those were not connected: ZvP was Protoss and Terranfavored on Ohana during BL/Infestor. It was just shitmaps that werent like Ohana that catered to BL/Infestor, the units were fine trololololol. (now reform that sentence with whirlwind and blink stalkers and we get exactly your argument why blink stalkers are fine... funny) No, blink stalkers + MsC were broken in TvP. Period. Don't respond to Sated, it only derails the post, for him everything of the other races is bullshit, except protoss wich is the perfect race that people hate for no reason because they're misunderstood. I've made it very clear in a good many threads that I think the game is pretty balanced as it is as long as the right maps are used. There is a lot of bullshit all the races can do, but nothing think needs removing bar the SH. Even then, I think the SH is bullshit for design/fun reasons, not because they cause balance problems. So basically you're wrong. Nice try, better luck next time sucka.
There's a lot of bullshit all the races can do. But Protoss has like 3times the amount of the other races.
All of what I wrote about Protoss isn't a balance complain. The game is well-balanced. It's about design and fun. Exact same argument as yours. Again, you see it when it is against you in the form of the SH, you don't see it when you use the unfun things in the game.
And since you don't see it, you bring in balance arguments like baneling busts and forcefields, what the fuck? I specifically stated the game should get balanced around it. You just don't want to read or understand what other people write, bringing in strawmen arguments against balance-positions that noone took a stance for and being an asshole on top of it, "sucka".
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On January 30 2015 08:26 DemigodcelpH wrote:Show nested quote +On January 30 2015 08:16 Big J wrote:On January 30 2015 08:08 DemigodcelpH wrote:On January 30 2015 08:06 Big J wrote:On January 30 2015 08:04 DemigodcelpH wrote:
Blizzard needs to change Tempests if they want to change Ravens. Noone at a reasonable level is playing Ravens against Protoss. I understand you critics, but that's just some lowtier change. The Tempest should be changed, but for other reasons than Ravens not countering them anymore. That's a complete non-issue in the current state of the Boys vs Protoss matchup. Mech exists. This is a balance thread, so we should consider all play-styles. Not just Zerg perspective, or bio perspective. I don't want to dig into what playstyles you are "supposed to be able to play" too much, especially since I'm all about making more playstyles viable, but note that the game is simply being balanced around "what works". At this point, Mech has as much of a "right to exist" vs Protoss as Sentry/Voidray or any other completely random Protoss composition vs Terran has. It's just a combination of units that some people want to be working, not anything that needs to be working. If tanks don't work against Immortals, then I guess don't play them. Just like a Protoss doesn't run mass voidrays into marines and then complains that it doesn't work. You're backpedaling now because I called you out for not fairly thinking for all races. This isn't something minor like an isolated unit vs unit interaction. This is about the viability of a major playstyle. There's no reason for half of Terran to not be viable. This change was aimed at the standoff in TvZ, and not Protoss or Mech. So when it clips mech in other matchups, something that is already struggling, all without being intended that's an issue. Tempests are standard vs mech (something you obviously didn't know), and with a Raven nerf but no change to Protoss Tempest + HT is unstoppable. Mech just went from "you will probably lose" to "you lose". The ramifications of all potential changes should be considered.
As much as i agree that mech is a critical component of Terran that is not just a combination of random units but half the tech tree, mech in HOTS TvP does not actually exist at pro level. A few games out of 1000s or a couple of GM streamers don't really change that. The Balance is meant for pro play and Blizz has given up on mech for HOTS a long time ago.
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On January 30 2015 22:37 Big J wrote:Show nested quote +On January 30 2015 22:29 SatedSC2 wrote:On January 30 2015 22:22 Lexender wrote:On January 30 2015 22:12 Big J wrote:And it's funny how many people still harbour resentment towards Protoss for a period of success that was completely based on map-balance and not unit balance, whereas the Zerg period of success (which lasted much longer) was entirely based upon unit balance. But whatever, I get it. Protoss are the bastard child of Starcraft and everyone hates us for no good reason. S'cool. Bullshit. Noone hates Protoss for their power period. People hate it because of force fields. Because of Warpgate allins. Because of Warpgate with some tech allins. Because of the Collossus and its affiliated deathballs. You wanna talk stuff that shouldn't be in the game? Stuff that people have identified as bullshit 5years ago and is driving people away from the game? Swarm Hosts get fixed (or it is being tried at least), that's great. It's been long overdue. Protoss remains the same shitrace that noone wants to play against with its coinflips and boring deathballs and no interesting middleground in between most of the time. Ground units shouldn't be able to stand on top of each other. Period. The Collosus hasn't been redesigned in 5years, after like a million threads have been made. Talking about the beloved child of blizzard. The LotV warpgate change should be implemented TODAY and then the game should be balanced around it. Just like the Swarm Host change the Swarm host should be removed. Forcefields should be removed or given hitpoints. Nothing else. Not in LotV. NOW. You keep on bringing up how SHs are bullshit and I agree fully. But when it's you own garden of well-grown bullshit (do I need to refer to the "how can I make the game maximum annoying for my opponent"-strategy threads of yours?), all you can identify is "irrational Protoss hate". Lol. And since you bring in mapbalance vs unitbalance as if those were not connected: ZvP was Protoss and Terranfavored on Ohana during BL/Infestor. It was just shitmaps that werent like Ohana that catered to BL/Infestor, the units were fine trololololol. (now reform that sentence with whirlwind and blink stalkers and we get exactly your argument why blink stalkers are fine... funny) No, blink stalkers + MsC were broken in TvP. Period. Don't respond to Sated, it only derails the post, for him everything of the other races is bullshit, except protoss wich is the perfect race that people hate for no reason because they're misunderstood. I've made it very clear in a good many threads that I think the game is pretty balanced as it is as long as the right maps are used. There is a lot of bullshit all the races can do, but nothing think needs removing bar the SH. Even then, I think the SH is bullshit for design/fun reasons, not because they cause balance problems. So basically you're wrong. Nice try, better luck next time sucka. There's a lot of bullshit all the races can do. But Protoss has like 3times the amount of the other races. All of what I wrote about Protoss isn't a balance complain. The game is well-balanced. It's about design and fun. Exact same argument as yours. Again, you see it when it is against you in the form of the SH, you don't see it when you use the unfun things in the game. And since you don't see it, you bring in balance arguments like baneling busts and forcefields, what the fuck? I specifically stated the game should get balanced around it. You just don't want to read or understand what other people write, bringing in strawmen arguments against balance-positions that noone took a stance for and being an asshole on top of it, "sucka".
Yeah I don't think that there is point in arguing about this.
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On January 30 2015 22:29 SatedSC2 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 30 2015 22:22 Lexender wrote:On January 30 2015 22:12 Big J wrote:And it's funny how many people still harbour resentment towards Protoss for a period of success that was completely based on map-balance and not unit balance, whereas the Zerg period of success (which lasted much longer) was entirely based upon unit balance. But whatever, I get it. Protoss are the bastard child of Starcraft and everyone hates us for no good reason. S'cool. Bullshit. Noone hates Protoss for their power period. People hate it because of force fields. Because of Warpgate allins. Because of Warpgate with some tech allins. Because of the Collossus and its affiliated deathballs. You wanna talk stuff that shouldn't be in the game? Stuff that people have identified as bullshit 5years ago and is driving people away from the game? Swarm Hosts get fixed (or it is being tried at least), that's great. It's been long overdue. Protoss remains the same shitrace that noone wants to play against with its coinflips and boring deathballs and no interesting middleground in between most of the time. Ground units shouldn't be able to stand on top of each other. Period. The Collosus hasn't been redesigned in 5years, after like a million threads have been made. Talking about the beloved child of blizzard. The LotV warpgate change should be implemented TODAY and then the game should be balanced around it. Just like the Swarm Host change the Swarm host should be removed. Forcefields should be removed or given hitpoints. Nothing else. Not in LotV. NOW. You keep on bringing up how SHs are bullshit and I agree fully. But when it's you own garden of well-grown bullshit (do I need to refer to the "how can I make the game maximum annoying for my opponent"-strategy threads of yours?), all you can identify is "irrational Protoss hate". Lol. And since you bring in mapbalance vs unitbalance as if those were not connected: ZvP was Protoss and Terranfavored on Ohana during BL/Infestor. It was just shitmaps that werent like Ohana that catered to BL/Infestor, the units were fine trololololol. (now reform that sentence with whirlwind and blink stalkers and we get exactly your argument why blink stalkers are fine... funny) No, blink stalkers + MsC were broken in TvP. Period. Don't respond to Sated, it only derails the post, for him everything of the other races is bullshit, except protoss wich is the perfect race that people hate for no reason because they're misunderstood. I've made it very clear in a good many threads that I think the game is pretty balanced as it is as long as the right maps are used. There is a lot of bullshit all the races can do, but nothing I currently think needs removing bar the SH. Even then, I think the SH is bullshit for design/fun reasons, not because they cause balance problems. So basically you're wrong. Nice try, better luck next time sucka.
SH are awful for design not blance
Protoss is fine in balance (no mention of design)
You don't even try to make sence in your posts, seriously, every time somebody talks about the protoss design you talk about balance, also for you everything you don't like is bullshit (wich is ok) but when others don't like things about protoss you always bring balance and how terran/zerg dominated in X time.
I even remember what you posted after the WM buff vs protoss and how killing templars openings was a super nerf to protoss but every time somebody said how terran can't mech vs protoss you said that wasn't a problem and that mech was viable and it was the terrans fault.
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@Sated : why would free units be necessarily bad? As long as the unit spawning the free units has enough weaknesses to balance its strenght of spawning free units, I don't see where the design issue is. Units with little to no drawbacks and that can be used en masse without problems are units badly designed. The ex-SH was one to some extent, I'll give you that. But now don't you think the new SH has enough weaknesses to make Zergs unable to just mass them without troubles?
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Sated, you are greatly derailing the subject at hand with untargeted complaints and ridiculous comparisons. We've got a designated thread for that.
Also, do not play the victim card if you started yourself.
Now, that being said, I want you to explain this to me:
SH cost essentially doubling does not matter because they spawn free units anyways.
So, can we make Collosi 1000/500? Because when you finally get 5 you can't kill them anyways? You say it changes nothing, but it changes everything. Timing, supporting techs, all get delayed massively.
As for SH staggering to fill up the 30 second cooldown, we're talking about double the SH for double the cost. Essentially, you want Zerg to pay 4 times as much for the same thing as they get now without changing anything else and you suppose that is fair?
It's not.
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On January 30 2015 23:13 OtherWorld wrote:
@Sated : why would free units be necessarily bad? As long as the unit spawning the free units has enough weaknesses to balance its strenght of spawning free units, I don't see where the design issue is. Units with little to no drawbacks and that can be used en masse without problems are units badly designed. The ex-SH was one to some extent, I'll give you that. But now don't you think the new SH has enough weaknesses to make Zergs unable to just mass them without troubles?
Everybody but him does. That 5 second buff to locust duration totally wrecks the game so much the other 5 changes don't even matter amirite?
A lot of people would agree with me that Warp Gate is poor for a RTS because it negates defenders advantage. Free permanent units are bad because you essentially negate limitations like supply and/or money. However, if the free units are spawned by a host and come with considerable drawbacks (they're very weak, long cooldown, immobile, exploitable, etcetera), you can balance around that and still have them be fun. Current Swarm Host miss the glaring weakness we'd like them to have. It works with broodlords because they are aerial and the fact Collosi are in the game in their current state (anther massive design flaw) means there are enough counters to them (loltempest).
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On January 30 2015 23:18 SatedSC2 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 30 2015 23:13 OtherWorld wrote:
@Sated : why would free units be necessarily bad? As long as the unit spawning the free units has enough weaknesses to balance its strenght of spawning free units, I don't see where the design issue is. Units with little to no drawbacks and that can be used en masse without problems are units badly designed. The ex-SH was one to some extent, I'll give you that. But now don't you think the new SH has enough weaknesses to make Zergs unable to just mass them without troubles? Because the game is balanced around maps having a set amount of resources. That the SH doesn't put itself at risk when Locusts attack means that the opponent has to expend resources (units/buildings that die) defending something that doesn't cost resources (Locusts that die). I think this is an irreconcilable problem with the design of the SH.
You are complaining about free units being a bad thing inherently, but you only have proof/statements against the implementation in the form of Swarm Hosts.
If the question is "what is the problem with free units", saying "swarm host don't put themselves at risk" you're greatly misunderstanding the subject at hand.
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On January 30 2015 23:22 SatedSC2 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 30 2015 23:15 SC2Toastie wrote:
Sated, you are greatly derailing the subject at hand with untargeted complaints and ridiculous comparisons... ... then goes on to claim that Colossi are remotely similar to a unit that doesn't put itself at risk when it attacks, and that is capable of spawning infinite free units. Not even worth my time.
That Selective Reading Syndrome shining through again?
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On January 30 2015 23:25 SatedSC2 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 30 2015 23:23 SC2Toastie wrote:On January 30 2015 23:22 SatedSC2 wrote:On January 30 2015 23:15 SC2Toastie wrote:
Sated, you are greatly derailing the subject at hand with untargeted complaints and ridiculous comparisons... ... then goes on to claim that Colossi are remotely similar to a unit that doesn't put itself at risk when it attacks, and that is capable of spawning infinite free units. Not even worth my time. That Selective Reading Syndrome shining through again? Nope. It's just that my retard senses are tingling. No one who thinks that 5 Colossi are incapable of being countered is someone who knows what they're talking about.
Calling me a retard really doesn't make you sound more clever either.
You're ignoring the fact that collosus comment was clearly just a simple example to make a point, a point that you cannot handle, so you go on to ridicule me personally.
Grow up.
On January 30 2015 23:25 SatedSC2 wrote:
EDIT:
Anyway, I'm going to stop posting here. I won't be happy with Swarm Hosts unless they're removed (or Locusts start costing resources) so I'm wasting my time.
Translation: Fuck you for using logic against me!!!! DON'T USE PROPER THINKING AGAINST ME! NOOOOOOOO! IT'S MY KRYPTONITE! MUST..... RETREAT.........
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On January 30 2015 23:18 SatedSC2 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 30 2015 23:13 OtherWorld wrote:
@Sated : why would free units be necessarily bad? As long as the unit spawning the free units has enough weaknesses to balance its strenght of spawning free units, I don't see where the design issue is. Units with little to no drawbacks and that can be used en masse without problems are units badly designed. The ex-SH was one to some extent, I'll give you that. But now don't you think the new SH has enough weaknesses to make Zergs unable to just mass them without troubles? Because the game is balanced around maps having a set amount of resources. That the SH doesn't put itself at risk when Locusts attack means that the opponent has to expend resources (units/buildings that die) defending something that doesn't cost resources (Locusts that die). I think this is an irreconcilable problem with the design of the SH.
But the SH puts itself at risk when it attack, precisely because the locusts are far away from him. Ever wondered why we don't see SH vs bio in ZvT? Ever wondered why herO wrecked Life in their first series in SSL? Because mobility > SH. So no you don't have to spend ressources on something that defends and dies against free units, you can spend ressources on circumventing the SHs (warpins/drop) or the locusts. Seen like that the SH becomes a unit dedicated to area control because, as you pointed out, you don't want to engage into free units with costly units. Besides, SH do cost ressources and locusts are their only way to attack.
On January 30 2015 23:25 SatedSC2 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 30 2015 23:23 SC2Toastie wrote:On January 30 2015 23:22 SatedSC2 wrote:On January 30 2015 23:15 SC2Toastie wrote:
Sated, you are greatly derailing the subject at hand with untargeted complaints and ridiculous comparisons... ... then goes on to claim that Colossi are remotely similar to a unit that doesn't put itself at risk when it attacks, and that is capable of spawning infinite free units. Not even worth my time. That Selective Reading Syndrome shining through again? Nope. It's just that my retard senses are tingling. No one who thinks that 5 Colossi are incapable of being countered is someone who knows what they're talking about. EDIT: Anyway, I'm going to stop posting here. I won't be happy with Swarm Hosts unless they're removed (or Locusts start costing resources) so I'm wasting my time.
To be perfectly honest with you and without any disrespect intended, it seems like you have some kind of mental block about the Swarm Host more than anything else.
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On January 30 2015 23:28 SC2Toastie wrote:Show nested quote +On January 30 2015 23:25 SatedSC2 wrote:On January 30 2015 23:23 SC2Toastie wrote:On January 30 2015 23:22 SatedSC2 wrote:On January 30 2015 23:15 SC2Toastie wrote:
Sated, you are greatly derailing the subject at hand with untargeted complaints and ridiculous comparisons... ... then goes on to claim that Colossi are remotely similar to a unit that doesn't put itself at risk when it attacks, and that is capable of spawning infinite free units. Not even worth my time. That Selective Reading Syndrome shining through again? Nope. It's just that my retard senses are tingling. No one who thinks that 5 Colossi are incapable of being countered is someone who knows what they're talking about. Calling me a retard really doesn't make you sound more clever either. You're ignoring the fact that collosus comment was clearly just a simple example to make a point, a point that you cannot handle, so you go on to ridicule me personally. Grow up. Show nested quote +On January 30 2015 23:25 SatedSC2 wrote:
EDIT:
Anyway, I'm going to stop posting here. I won't be happy with Swarm Hosts unless they're removed (or Locusts start costing resources) so I'm wasting my time. Translation: Fuck you for using logic against me!!!! DON'T USE PROPER THINKING AGAINST ME! NOOOOOOOO! IT'S MY KRYPTONITE! MUST..... RETREAT.........
To be fair the colossus example was extremely bad ! But yeah, no point trying to have a discussion with Sated on that topic, he's pretty adamant SH as a free unit spawner should be removed and I can't say I disagree with him.
Nevertheless, we have to deal with Blizzard's absolute reluctance to remove units -I think everyone would have been elated if the LotV presentation had begun with : "The SH is gone, the lurker is back. The Tempest is gone, the carrier is stronger". And I think that in that context, what Blizzard is trying to do with the SH is a good attempt. I must admit I'm worried locusts DPS might be too much to handle but I want to see it tried.
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On January 30 2015 23:35 [PkF] Wire wrote:Show nested quote +On January 30 2015 23:28 SC2Toastie wrote:On January 30 2015 23:25 SatedSC2 wrote:On January 30 2015 23:23 SC2Toastie wrote:On January 30 2015 23:22 SatedSC2 wrote:On January 30 2015 23:15 SC2Toastie wrote:
Sated, you are greatly derailing the subject at hand with untargeted complaints and ridiculous comparisons... ... then goes on to claim that Colossi are remotely similar to a unit that doesn't put itself at risk when it attacks, and that is capable of spawning infinite free units. Not even worth my time. That Selective Reading Syndrome shining through again? Nope. It's just that my retard senses are tingling. No one who thinks that 5 Colossi are incapable of being countered is someone who knows what they're talking about. Calling me a retard really doesn't make you sound more clever either. You're ignoring the fact that collosus comment was clearly just a simple example to make a point, a point that you cannot handle, so you go on to ridicule me personally. Grow up. On January 30 2015 23:25 SatedSC2 wrote:
EDIT:
Anyway, I'm going to stop posting here. I won't be happy with Swarm Hosts unless they're removed (or Locusts start costing resources) so I'm wasting my time. Translation: Fuck you for using logic against me!!!! DON'T USE PROPER THINKING AGAINST ME! NOOOOOOOO! IT'S MY KRYPTONITE! MUST..... RETREAT......... To be fair the colossus example was extremely bad ! But yeah, no point trying to have a discussion with Sated on that topic, he's pretty adamant SH as a free unit spawner should be removed and I can't say I disagree with him. Nevertheless, we have to deal with Blizzard's absolute reluctance to remove units -I think everyone would have been elated if the LotV presentation had begun with : "The SH is gone, the lurker is back. The Tempest is gone, the carrier is stronger". And I think that in that context, what Blizzard is trying to do with the SH is a good attempt. I must admit I'm worried locusts DPS might be too much to handle but I want to see it tried.
It is a stupid example but it's not about the example, it's about the point I tried to make.
I don't like the current iteration of SH either. But a longer cooldown might be the thing we need to fix it. Mech can now push against Swarm Host and so can Protoss. All of a sudden, we need to see Zerg respond in this mass tech switch style (Dark did it last week in SPL IIRC (vs Dear??)).
If the only little thing in this entire list of changes Sated can notice and complain about is a 20% increase in lifetime and he ignores all other changes (essentially double the cost, cooldown increased with 140%, etc), well............
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Very interesting things could indeed come out of that patch. Still, I hope they don't end up making Z a "I have to cripple him in the midgame or I'm doomed" race in ZvP and that something will be done on that absolute shame of an unit that the tempest is.
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On January 30 2015 23:52 [PkF] Wire wrote:
Very interesting things could indeed come out of that patch. Still, I hope they don't end up making Z a "I have to cripple him in the midgame or I'm doomed" race in ZvP and that something will be done on that absolute shame of an unit that the tempest is.
Tempest is the most problematic unit after Raven and SH are changed....
It limits so much just by being a unit in the game, you don't even have to make it to make BC and BL pretty impossible to use... It's range vs Terran without PDD is also problematic in those rare late-game scenarios...
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On January 30 2015 23:19 SC2Toastie wrote:Show nested quote +On January 30 2015 23:13 OtherWorld wrote:
@Sated : why would free units be necessarily bad? As long as the unit spawning the free units has enough weaknesses to balance its strenght of spawning free units, I don't see where the design issue is. Units with little to no drawbacks and that can be used en masse without problems are units badly designed. The ex-SH was one to some extent, I'll give you that. But now don't you think the new SH has enough weaknesses to make Zergs unable to just mass them without troubles? A lot of people would agree with me that Warp Gate is poor for a RTS because it negates defenders advantage.
I don't agree with that. The problem with Warp Gate is that there are no drawbacks compared to Gateway production. If the cooldown time on Warp Gates was maybe 1.5x that of Gateway production, the Protoss race would be completely fixed.
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On January 31 2015 03:04 Pontius Pirate wrote:Show nested quote +On January 30 2015 23:19 SC2Toastie wrote:On January 30 2015 23:13 OtherWorld wrote:
@Sated : why would free units be necessarily bad? As long as the unit spawning the free units has enough weaknesses to balance its strenght of spawning free units, I don't see where the design issue is. Units with little to no drawbacks and that can be used en masse without problems are units badly designed. The ex-SH was one to some extent, I'll give you that. But now don't you think the new SH has enough weaknesses to make Zergs unable to just mass them without troubles? A lot of people would agree with me that Warp Gate is poor for a RTS because it negates defenders advantage. I don't agree with that. The problem with Warp Gate is that there are no drawbacks compared to Gateway production. If the cooldown time on Warp Gates was maybe 1.5x that of Gateway production, the Protoss race would be completely fixed.
This is not really what this patch is about we are derailing the thread lol, but I think they just need to go the starbow way and have units that spawn only from the gateway so that:
->gateway units: strong but you can't rush with them since you can't warp them, good for combat (eg: BW Goon)
-> warpgate unit: not as strong but with more versatility good for harras/map control (eg: Stalker)
That way we warpgate rushes aren't broken, warpgate is still used and the protoss army no longer needs to rely on the colossus to fight.
Anyway I wonder if they will really go through with such huge nerf for the PDD with no other changes, because it seems like the raven is going to fade away (except for turtle play pretty much nobody uses them at all already)
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On January 30 2015 22:22 Lexender wrote:Show nested quote +On January 30 2015 22:12 Big J wrote:And it's funny how many people still harbour resentment towards Protoss for a period of success that was completely based on map-balance and not unit balance, whereas the Zerg period of success (which lasted much longer) was entirely based upon unit balance. But whatever, I get it. Protoss are the bastard child of Starcraft and everyone hates us for no good reason. S'cool. Bullshit. Noone hates Protoss for their power period. People hate it because of force fields. Because of Warpgate allins. Because of Warpgate with some tech allins. Because of the Collossus and its affiliated deathballs. You wanna talk stuff that shouldn't be in the game? Stuff that people have identified as bullshit 5years ago and is driving people away from the game? Swarm Hosts get fixed (or it is being tried at least), that's great. It's been long overdue. Protoss remains the same shitrace that noone wants to play against with its coinflips and boring deathballs and no interesting middleground in between most of the time. Ground units shouldn't be able to stand on top of each other. Period. The Collosus hasn't been redesigned in 5years, after like a million threads have been made. Talking about the beloved child of blizzard. The LotV warpgate change should be implemented TODAY and then the game should be balanced around it. Just like the Swarm Host change the Swarm host should be removed. Forcefields should be removed or given hitpoints. Nothing else. Not in LotV. NOW. You keep on bringing up how SHs are bullshit and I agree fully. But when it's you own garden of well-grown bullshit (do I need to refer to the "how can I make the game maximum annoying for my opponent"-strategy threads of yours?), all you can identify is "irrational Protoss hate". Lol. And since you bring in mapbalance vs unitbalance as if those were not connected: ZvP was Protoss and Terranfavored on Ohana during BL/Infestor. It was just shitmaps that werent like Ohana that catered to BL/Infestor, the units were fine trololololol. (now reform that sentence with whirlwind and blink stalkers and we get exactly your argument why blink stalkers are fine... funny) No, blink stalkers + MsC were broken in TvP. Period. Don't respond to Sated, it only derails the post, for him everything of the other races is bullshit, except protoss wich is the perfect race that people hate for no reason because they're misunderstood.
I haven't seen you write a single good post in this forum so I'm not sure you should be commenting on the worth of other frequent posters.
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On January 31 2015 03:20 Nebuchad wrote:Show nested quote +On January 30 2015 22:22 Lexender wrote:On January 30 2015 22:12 Big J wrote:And it's funny how many people still harbour resentment towards Protoss for a period of success that was completely based on map-balance and not unit balance, whereas the Zerg period of success (which lasted much longer) was entirely based upon unit balance. But whatever, I get it. Protoss are the bastard child of Starcraft and everyone hates us for no good reason. S'cool. Bullshit. Noone hates Protoss for their power period. People hate it because of force fields. Because of Warpgate allins. Because of Warpgate with some tech allins. Because of the Collossus and its affiliated deathballs. You wanna talk stuff that shouldn't be in the game? Stuff that people have identified as bullshit 5years ago and is driving people away from the game? Swarm Hosts get fixed (or it is being tried at least), that's great. It's been long overdue. Protoss remains the same shitrace that noone wants to play against with its coinflips and boring deathballs and no interesting middleground in between most of the time. Ground units shouldn't be able to stand on top of each other. Period. The Collosus hasn't been redesigned in 5years, after like a million threads have been made. Talking about the beloved child of blizzard. The LotV warpgate change should be implemented TODAY and then the game should be balanced around it. Just like the Swarm Host change the Swarm host should be removed. Forcefields should be removed or given hitpoints. Nothing else. Not in LotV. NOW. You keep on bringing up how SHs are bullshit and I agree fully. But when it's you own garden of well-grown bullshit (do I need to refer to the "how can I make the game maximum annoying for my opponent"-strategy threads of yours?), all you can identify is "irrational Protoss hate". Lol. And since you bring in mapbalance vs unitbalance as if those were not connected: ZvP was Protoss and Terranfavored on Ohana during BL/Infestor. It was just shitmaps that werent like Ohana that catered to BL/Infestor, the units were fine trololololol. (now reform that sentence with whirlwind and blink stalkers and we get exactly your argument why blink stalkers are fine... funny) No, blink stalkers + MsC were broken in TvP. Period. Don't respond to Sated, it only derails the post, for him everything of the other races is bullshit, except protoss wich is the perfect race that people hate for no reason because they're misunderstood. I haven't seen you write a single good post in this forum so I'm not sure you should be commenting on the worth of other frequent posters.
Maybe so, but all he is doing right now is coming saying that SH is bullshit and complaining about the game and what he likes and not likes, also I actually posted a good summary of what I think the raven changes should be (a small redesign basically) and some mech players agred with me, not that I'm saying my post was important but I really want to discuss wath the people think of the raven instead of simply going full Avilo on the raven nerf.
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On January 30 2015 22:29 SatedSC2 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 30 2015 22:22 Lexender wrote:On January 30 2015 22:12 Big J wrote:And it's funny how many people still harbour resentment towards Protoss for a period of success that was completely based on map-balance and not unit balance, whereas the Zerg period of success (which lasted much longer) was entirely based upon unit balance. But whatever, I get it. Protoss are the bastard child of Starcraft and everyone hates us for no good reason. S'cool. Bullshit. Noone hates Protoss for their power period. People hate it because of force fields. Because of Warpgate allins. Because of Warpgate with some tech allins. Because of the Collossus and its affiliated deathballs. You wanna talk stuff that shouldn't be in the game? Stuff that people have identified as bullshit 5years ago and is driving people away from the game? Swarm Hosts get fixed (or it is being tried at least), that's great. It's been long overdue. Protoss remains the same shitrace that noone wants to play against with its coinflips and boring deathballs and no interesting middleground in between most of the time. Ground units shouldn't be able to stand on top of each other. Period. The Collosus hasn't been redesigned in 5years, after like a million threads have been made. Talking about the beloved child of blizzard. The LotV warpgate change should be implemented TODAY and then the game should be balanced around it. Just like the Swarm Host change the Swarm host should be removed. Forcefields should be removed or given hitpoints. Nothing else. Not in LotV. NOW. You keep on bringing up how SHs are bullshit and I agree fully. But when it's you own garden of well-grown bullshit (do I need to refer to the "how can I make the game maximum annoying for my opponent"-strategy threads of yours?), all you can identify is "irrational Protoss hate". Lol. And since you bring in mapbalance vs unitbalance as if those were not connected: ZvP was Protoss and Terranfavored on Ohana during BL/Infestor. It was just shitmaps that werent like Ohana that catered to BL/Infestor, the units were fine trololololol. (now reform that sentence with whirlwind and blink stalkers and we get exactly your argument why blink stalkers are fine... funny) No, blink stalkers + MsC were broken in TvP. Period. Don't respond to Sated, it only derails the post, for him everything of the other races is bullshit, except protoss wich is the perfect race that people hate for no reason because they're misunderstood. I've made it very clear in a good many threads that I think the game is pretty balanced as it is as long as the right maps are used. There is a lot of bullshit all the races can do, but nothing I currently think needs removing bar the SH. Even then, I think the SH is bullshit for design/fun reasons, not because they cause balance problems. So basically you're wrong. Nice try, better luck next time sucka.
Really? Design reason/fun? Have you ever seen a full army get blocked off by forcefield and then have storm and colossus lazer beam them? I am sure those are very fun designs! Geez talk about selective whining.
The new Swarm Hosts are a step in the right direction. They cost 200 gas, 4 supplies, and have a THIRTY SECONDS down time where they just sit there and do nothing. That's two whole forcefields! (Imagine a toss forcefielding twice at a Zerg or Terran's ramp). That's how long of a timing window you have before the next wave. Meanwhile, the 16+ supplies spent on Swarm Hosts, because let's be real here no one is going to make 1 Swarm Host to harass, makes the zerg's main army 20 less supplies. I am sure the full protoss army can now A move into that no problem.
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Is there anyone in this thread who have actually played the balance test map ? The new locusts are bugged and don't even attack when landed ...
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On January 31 2015 03:48 Awin wrote:
Is there anyone in this thread who have actually played the balance test map ? The new locusts are bugged and don't even attack when landed ...
Yep we noted and Blizzard is aware of it too. They won't do anything when you target something directly with them from the air. Right now you have to let them swoop down next to something and then attack once they are landed. Or if you target something directly you have to move them first after they landed and then attack.
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On January 30 2015 23:52 [PkF] Wire wrote:
Very interesting things could indeed come out of that patch. Still, I hope they don't end up making Z a "I have to cripple him in the midgame or I'm doomed" race in ZvP and that something will be done on that absolute shame of an unit that the tempest is.
This patch is terrible IMO.I think the purpose of this patch is to officially break the game so everyone are forced to buy LOTV... just like the queen patch in WoL. The change to raven is really uncalled for especially with the weird locust buff.
"lets make things faster! lets make things also fly!" the dog in the lab strikes again
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Against turtle mech it is good for harrassing and causing friendly fire. Midgame pushes are a bit strong for Terran cause the SH is to expensive and not cost effective enough to stop it.
As for protoss it is complete shit. The flying locust are to slow to catch even a protoss deathball. And when they do, they dissappear the minute they land. Usually you want to attack with the locust but you cannot do that at all.
Some change I think may help. Lower Cd to 45-50~ ,10 seconds makes a difference, 60 is just to long when they are at your front door you basically only have 1 volly before you die. Increase Flying locust movement speed (not alot, but make it atleast fly faster than a queen offcreep with the locust being this slow it doesnt even feel like a zerg unit.) . Maybe something to compensate like, Flying locust uses up dbl the Time of the life of a locust in flight but make the movement speed as fast as slow lings? so that way you are forced to micro land asap. Last change would be Ground air Toggle. or just 2 completly different hotkey. Flying locust are horrible against protoss deathballs and ground locust are much more viable because you can create concaves with it. I think having 2 different hotkey can make you utilize the harrassment style or the defend style.
Edit: also the unit is to damn expensive for a Tier 2 unit. maybe something like 150-150. because 200-100 allowed players to make like 20 SH. and 100-200 you cant even afford 8 at times. 150-150 might be the number we're looking for, and we can treat it as a more expensive muta instead of an expensive infestor.
4 Supply might also be a bit extreme, When I had about 10 SH, my main army was so tiny when I was testing against turtle mech.
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Should this be a patch to HotS or a pre-Balance-Testing for LotV?
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On January 31 2015 04:02 CrayonSc2 wrote:
Against turtle mech it is good for harrassing and causing friendly fire. Midgame pushes are a bit strong for Terran cause the SH is to expensive and not cost effective enough to stop it.
As for protoss it is complete shit. The flying locust are to slow to catch even a protoss deathball. And when they do, they dissappear the minute they land. Usually you want to attack with the locust but you cannot do that at all.
Some change I think may help. Lower Cd to 45-50~ ,10 seconds makes a difference, 60 is just to long when they are at your front door you basically only have 1 volly before you die. Increase Flying locust movement speed (not alot, but make it atleast fly faster than a queen offcreep with the locust being this slow it doesnt even feel like a zerg unit.) . Maybe something to compensate like, Flying locust uses up dbl the Time of the life of a locust in flight but make the movement speed as fast as slow lings? so that way you are forced to micro land asap. Last change would be Ground air Toggle. or just 2 completly different hotkey. Flying locust are horrible against protoss deathballs and ground locust are much more viable because you can create concaves with it. I think having 2 different hotkey can make you utilize the harrassment style or the defend style.
I like everything you said, especially the flight speed and 2 hotkeys. It looks and feels really weird how slow they fly and you should definitely still be able to spawn ground locusts. I was really surprised when I was not able to do that after the upgrade finished.
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On January 31 2015 04:08 Musicus wrote:Show nested quote +On January 31 2015 04:02 CrayonSc2 wrote:
Against turtle mech it is good for harrassing and causing friendly fire. Midgame pushes are a bit strong for Terran cause the SH is to expensive and not cost effective enough to stop it.
As for protoss it is complete shit. The flying locust are to slow to catch even a protoss deathball. And when they do, they dissappear the minute they land. Usually you want to attack with the locust but you cannot do that at all.
Some change I think may help. Lower Cd to 45-50~ ,10 seconds makes a difference, 60 is just to long when they are at your front door you basically only have 1 volly before you die. Increase Flying locust movement speed (not alot, but make it atleast fly faster than a queen offcreep with the locust being this slow it doesnt even feel like a zerg unit.) . Maybe something to compensate like, Flying locust uses up dbl the Time of the life of a locust in flight but make the movement speed as fast as slow lings? so that way you are forced to micro land asap. Last change would be Ground air Toggle. or just 2 completly different hotkey. Flying locust are horrible against protoss deathballs and ground locust are much more viable because you can create concaves with it. I think having 2 different hotkey can make you utilize the harrassment style or the defend style. I like everything you said, especially the flight speed and 2 hotkeys. It looks and feels really weird how slow they fly and you should definitely still be able to spawn ground locusts. I was really surprised when I was not able to do that after the upgrade finished.
i edited in some more thoughts, Everything I said seems really biased but I am being completely honest when I see so many negative results when I was testing it out. The only thing that is positive about it, is basically against Turtle mech, cause you can snipe bases and pick off a seige tank here and there, but with the 60 second cooldown it makes you wonder if the harrass is even worth it. But against mech that is doing a Timing or just a Protoss deathball, (basically any big army moveout) the SH seems completly useless.
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On January 31 2015 04:13 CrayonSc2 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 31 2015 04:08 Musicus wrote:On January 31 2015 04:02 CrayonSc2 wrote:
Against turtle mech it is good for harrassing and causing friendly fire. Midgame pushes are a bit strong for Terran cause the SH is to expensive and not cost effective enough to stop it.
As for protoss it is complete shit. The flying locust are to slow to catch even a protoss deathball. And when they do, they dissappear the minute they land. Usually you want to attack with the locust but you cannot do that at all.
Some change I think may help. Lower Cd to 45-50~ ,10 seconds makes a difference, 60 is just to long when they are at your front door you basically only have 1 volly before you die. Increase Flying locust movement speed (not alot, but make it atleast fly faster than a queen offcreep with the locust being this slow it doesnt even feel like a zerg unit.) . Maybe something to compensate like, Flying locust uses up dbl the Time of the life of a locust in flight but make the movement speed as fast as slow lings? so that way you are forced to micro land asap. Last change would be Ground air Toggle. or just 2 completly different hotkey. Flying locust are horrible against protoss deathballs and ground locust are much more viable because you can create concaves with it. I think having 2 different hotkey can make you utilize the harrassment style or the defend style. I like everything you said, especially the flight speed and 2 hotkeys. It looks and feels really weird how slow they fly and you should definitely still be able to spawn ground locusts. I was really surprised when I was not able to do that after the upgrade finished. But against mech that is doing a Timing or just a Protoss deathball, (basically any big army moveout) the SH seems completly useless.
Yep, I think it is. It's really just for harrassement or sniping a tank from turtle mech. So it makes you wonder if you'd rather just have mutas instead and how zerg will stop big endgame armies now. I still want them to go through with it and balance the game from there, like an anti air buff for zerg and making the Broodlord viable again.
But it will be months before we can really say how it will work out.
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PPD energy cost should be reduced with this change to 50 or 75.
Since this patch also benefits Protoss lategame in both matchups, Tempests should be nerfed too, maybe a range reduction.
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On January 31 2015 04:19 Musicus wrote:Show nested quote +On January 31 2015 04:13 CrayonSc2 wrote:On January 31 2015 04:08 Musicus wrote:On January 31 2015 04:02 CrayonSc2 wrote:
Against turtle mech it is good for harrassing and causing friendly fire. Midgame pushes are a bit strong for Terran cause the SH is to expensive and not cost effective enough to stop it.
As for protoss it is complete shit. The flying locust are to slow to catch even a protoss deathball. And when they do, they dissappear the minute they land. Usually you want to attack with the locust but you cannot do that at all.
Some change I think may help. Lower Cd to 45-50~ ,10 seconds makes a difference, 60 is just to long when they are at your front door you basically only have 1 volly before you die. Increase Flying locust movement speed (not alot, but make it atleast fly faster than a queen offcreep with the locust being this slow it doesnt even feel like a zerg unit.) . Maybe something to compensate like, Flying locust uses up dbl the Time of the life of a locust in flight but make the movement speed as fast as slow lings? so that way you are forced to micro land asap. Last change would be Ground air Toggle. or just 2 completly different hotkey. Flying locust are horrible against protoss deathballs and ground locust are much more viable because you can create concaves with it. I think having 2 different hotkey can make you utilize the harrassment style or the defend style. I like everything you said, especially the flight speed and 2 hotkeys. It looks and feels really weird how slow they fly and you should definitely still be able to spawn ground locusts. I was really surprised when I was not able to do that after the upgrade finished. But against mech that is doing a Timing or just a Protoss deathball, (basically any big army moveout) the SH seems completly useless. Yep, I think it is. It's really just for harrassement or sniping a tank from turtle mech. So it makes you wonder if you'd rather just have mutas instead and how zerg will stop big endgame armies now. I still want them to go through with it and balance the game from there, like an anti air buff for zerg and making the Broodlord viable again. But it will be months before we can really say how it will work out.
what anti air buff? flying locust don't attack air.
edit: oops sorry misread.
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On January 31 2015 04:20 CrayonSc2 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 31 2015 04:19 Musicus wrote:On January 31 2015 04:13 CrayonSc2 wrote:On January 31 2015 04:08 Musicus wrote:On January 31 2015 04:02 CrayonSc2 wrote:
Against turtle mech it is good for harrassing and causing friendly fire. Midgame pushes are a bit strong for Terran cause the SH is to expensive and not cost effective enough to stop it.
As for protoss it is complete shit. The flying locust are to slow to catch even a protoss deathball. And when they do, they dissappear the minute they land. Usually you want to attack with the locust but you cannot do that at all.
Some change I think may help. Lower Cd to 45-50~ ,10 seconds makes a difference, 60 is just to long when they are at your front door you basically only have 1 volly before you die. Increase Flying locust movement speed (not alot, but make it atleast fly faster than a queen offcreep with the locust being this slow it doesnt even feel like a zerg unit.) . Maybe something to compensate like, Flying locust uses up dbl the Time of the life of a locust in flight but make the movement speed as fast as slow lings? so that way you are forced to micro land asap. Last change would be Ground air Toggle. or just 2 completly different hotkey. Flying locust are horrible against protoss deathballs and ground locust are much more viable because you can create concaves with it. I think having 2 different hotkey can make you utilize the harrassment style or the defend style. I like everything you said, especially the flight speed and 2 hotkeys. It looks and feels really weird how slow they fly and you should definitely still be able to spawn ground locusts. I was really surprised when I was not able to do that after the upgrade finished. But against mech that is doing a Timing or just a Protoss deathball, (basically any big army moveout) the SH seems completly useless. Yep, I think it is. It's really just for harrassement or sniping a tank from turtle mech. So it makes you wonder if you'd rather just have mutas instead and how zerg will stop big endgame armies now. I still want them to go through with it and balance the game from there, like an anti air buff for zerg and making the Broodlord viable again. But it will be months before we can really say how it will work out. what anti air buff? flying locust don't attack air.
No a general anti air buff, like changing the corruptor or something. You can now longer zone out Hts with the swarmhosts so Protoss air becomes kinda unbeatable.
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In the meta actual, the SwH have'nt a role if you want to harrash is better mutas for cost and mobility, new SWH cost 200/200 4 supply and spawn a 2 locust in 60 seconds??!! are you kidding me,,totally uselesss.
1.- Air locust too slow
2.- Time spawn of the locust when the SWH burrow too slow
3.- Cost too high
4.- They come too late in the game,, when you have 5 SWH the protoss have 3-4 bases and a bunch of army
5.- Time betwen locust ridiculous high
6.- No. of locust spawned 2?! Really
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On January 31 2015 04:19 Aquila- wrote:
PPD energy cost should be reduced with this change to 50 or 75.
Since this patch also benefits Protoss lategame in both matchups, Tempests should be nerfed too, maybe a range reduction.
It's pdd, not ppd. someone's been watching dota2 
Totally agree on the consequential tempest nerf along with the raven change
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Why is Blizzard considering adding a LotV Change to HotS?
Feels like Phoenix range all over again.
Edit:
And well, remove raven completley then, or Add "irradiate" instead of PDD
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On January 31 2015 04:02 CrayonSc2 wrote:
Against turtle mech it is good for harrassing and causing friendly fire. Midgame pushes are a bit strong for Terran cause the SH is to expensive and not cost effective enough to stop it.
As for protoss it is complete shit. The flying locust are to slow to catch even a protoss deathball. And when they do, they dissappear the minute they land. Usually you want to attack with the locust but you cannot do that at all.
Some change I think may help. Lower Cd to 45-50~ ,10 seconds makes a difference, 60 is just to long when they are at your front door you basically only have 1 volly before you die. Increase Flying locust movement speed (not alot, but make it atleast fly faster than a queen offcreep with the locust being this slow it doesnt even feel like a zerg unit.) . Maybe something to compensate like, Flying locust uses up dbl the Time of the life of a locust in flight but make the movement speed as fast as slow lings? so that way you are forced to micro land asap. Last change would be Ground air Toggle. or just 2 completly different hotkey. Flying locust are horrible against protoss deathballs and ground locust are much more viable because you can create concaves with it. I think having 2 different hotkey can make you utilize the harrassment style or the defend style.
Edit: also the unit is to damn expensive for a Tier 2 unit. maybe something like 150-150. because 200-100 allowed players to make like 20 SH. and 100-200 you cant even afford 8 at times. 150-150 might be the number we're looking for, and we can treat it as a more expensive muta instead of an expensive infestor.
4 Supply might also be a bit extreme, When I had about 10 SH, my main army was so tiny when I was testing against turtle mech.
Fiirst relevant post on the actual balance test map, thank you sir I agree 100% with your point.
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Well I'm just going to quote myself here and see what do you guys think
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 much 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
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I don't play to often anymore but what I don't understand is the why? Why change these units to begin with? is it just cause of the stalemates?
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"free units" is not a useful category, using it as the basis of discourse is what's the problem
For instance, locusts are free units, but they're a lot like tempests in that they can attack from high range and you need a certain concentration of units to stop the damage.
Infestors can spawn free units, but it's not functionally dissimilar from the ghost's snipe ability in that it can deal a certain amount of damage for its energy cost which is hard to prevent.
Brood lords spawn free units, but the effect is more like various artillery units that are strong in critical mass like colossi.
If "free units" was the only issue then nothing would have changed for the swarm host and we could all stop talking about it.
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On January 31 2015 05:55 Ottoman042 wrote:
I don't play to often anymore but what I don't understand is the why? Why change these units to begin with? is it just cause of the stalemates?
One of the main reasons, it just prolongs games so much and is not fun to watch or play.
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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.
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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.
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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.
Although this is true, you have to get dangerously close in order to achieve it. Since the test map is deadwing. You would have to have the 4 sh stand on the natural wall, the 4th base, or the that little corner of the 5th. Also assuming nothing interferes with the flying locust. Sniping the 3rd base is much more easier. In conclusion if the opponent is turtling then the SH harass is effective, but once they move out, the value and cost effectivness isnt worth the value of SH. The change turned it into a very slow strong harass unit.
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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.
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.
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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.
"The entire lifespan of locusts"
So unless you have them right next to the base, no 4 SH won't destoy it.
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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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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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China6327 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
