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Update - April 20
http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/17084688554?page=10#194
Thank you everyone for your feedback.
Due to your feedback, we decided to not go ahead with the faster Balance Test map, and we'll wait until we know if there is a balance issue before we make a move in this area.
However, we will be exploring tweaks to the Swarm Host in the Void beta, so depending on how that works out, bringing that over to HotS can also be a future option for us.
Thank you again, and we'll continue to keep a close eye on the state of the game.
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http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/17084688554
Analyzing the effects of the last Swarm Host patch is one of our top priorities for Heart of the Swarm right now, so we wanted to share some more thoughts in this area to get more input from you.
Currently we’re not seeing much new Swarm Host usage. We see two potential reasons for this: The Swarm Host isn’t effective enough in its current state or players haven’t figured out the best use cases with them yet. The answer is probably a mix of both factors, and we’re hoping to see more Zerg games in all matchups in order to drill down on the correct course of action here.
Our main focus point in the immediate future will be on the state of ZvP and ZvT after these changes. The main thing we’d like to watch out for first is that the two matchups are working well and are balanced. In order to get there, we have two options that we’d like to discuss with everyone.
Option 1
Take our normal approach of waiting until we can locate what the specific issues are and then act accordingly. The up side of this is that we can make the correct decisions and give players enough time to really drill down to the details of what the last patch has changed about the game. The down side is that it’ll take time.
Option 2
Act a bit quicker as an exception this time, because we made such drastic changes at a point when the balance was looking very solid. From the initial feedback and games that we’ve seen, Zerg seem slightly weaker than before. While we don’t have enough examples or the time to make this conclusion, we wonder if acting a bit sooner in this specific case might be better for the game. To be clear, this doesn’t mean we’ll just go in and patch right away. We’ll still go through the standard procedures of discussing potential changes, testing the changes on balance test maps, and iterating on them until we find good changes. The main difference is that we would be going into the first balance test map much sooner than we normally would have after a balance patch.
If we go with option 1, we’ll first need to figure out how the changes affected the matchups, so we don’t have any proposed potential changes yet. If we go with option 2, our main goal would be to work on a change that would help Zerg slightly vs. Protoss and vs. Mech play. Going more into the specifics:
Roach burrow move speed increase
We know Roaches serve a critical role in both vs. Protoss and Mech, so this might be a good area to buff. We’ve also tested a faster burrow-move speed version of the Roach in the past, and saw some good results. In terms of testing time, and being able to gauge the effectiveness of this change, it should be much quicker since it’ll be the second time testing this out. This could be a very simple change that will help Zerg out in the two main areas that we’re potentially looking to improve.
Swarm Host changes
We believe that the cost investment both in terms of gas and supply are quite high. And it’s like that for a reason: we don’t want mass Swarm Hosts to be viable. But we wonder if we can make some tweaks to make the harassment case less of a commitment while also making sure the mass Swarm Host case isn’t viable. While we don’t have specifics here, we’re initially thinking:
- Buff the Swarm Host effectiveness
- Reduce the supply cost/take another look at the cost of the unit itself
- Increase the cooldown of the Spawn Locust ability even more
These changes will support the small group harassment role of the unit much better, while nerfing the mass Swarm Host case even more.
To reiterate, we’re not saying that there’s a clear problem that we see right now. We don’t know with 100% certainty on the state of things since the last patch, but we’re mainly just wondering if there’s value in starting a balance test map sooner than later this time.
Thank you so much, and we’re looking forward to hearing your thoughts on this topic.
Poll: Act fast or wait longer?Wait longer! (392) 53% Act fast! (347) 47% 739 total votes Your vote: Act fast or wait longer? (Vote): Act fast!
(Vote): Wait longer!
Poll: Roach burrow move speed increaseBad. (351) 51% Good. (175) 25% Wrong direction! (101) 15% Not sure. (60) 9% 687 total votes Your vote: Roach burrow move speed increase (Vote): Good.
(Vote): Bad.
(Vote): Not sure.
(Vote): Wrong direction!
Poll: Swarm Host changesGood. (334) 51% Wrong direction! (104) 16% Not sure. (95) 15% Give old Swarmhost! (62) 10% Bad. (55) 8% 650 total votes Your vote: Swarm Host changes (Vote): Good.
(Vote): Bad.
(Vote): Not sure.
(Vote): Wrong direction!
(Vote): Give old Swarmhost!
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On April 18 2015 03:05 LemonyTang wrote:
That link doesn't work?
Thanks, should work now!
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Cool. Thanks. Hope they will be patient.
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Pffft... We tested a change for months, we still don't know what it does, and we don't know what to do with that ignorance.
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East Gorteau22261 Posts
In the beta, I am in favor of acting fast and acting crazy. It has very little impact and has a chance of accidentally creating something really good and entertaining. The exact opposite of the tournament-version game (HotS), where I advocate consideration and meticulous testing above all things. But as for the current state of SHs...
Go crazy, please.
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I like neither of those changes too much to be honest. I'm not sure if the Swram Host as an harassment tool can ever work out. Harass Units in general are made to suicide, because eventually you want to replace them for real army units. If it is such a huge investment that is designed to be reused a lot, the unit either has to be strong in combat or it won't be useful.
And the roach is a strong unit as it stands.
Just to reiterate a thought I had previously:
What can make lategame hard for zerg is that the opponents can build quite cheap or powerful walls consisting of buildings around their 4th and 5th bases to artificially choke the area up a lot. For example gateway walls, Planetary Fortresses, Orbital Command Centers, Pylons and of course static defenses like turrets and canons.
In particular in conjunction with siege tanks, vikings or tempests and longrange spellcasters like Templar or Ravens this is nearly impossible to engage into as a zerg, because zerg has few units that have sufficient range to take down those walls to make room for their lowrange armies.
I think an interesting change could be if the Ultralisk Ram Attack against buildings was brought back in a strong version, to give zerg a more efficient tool to deal with such walls in the later stages of the game. This wouldn't interact a lot with other strategies besides late- and endgame turtling of Terrans or Protoss players.
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I've always thought that SHs being 4 supply is quite overdone, current SHs with 3 supply might be good and need to be tested more, I would say that they need to give it some time. Also, an option about giving SHs ability to release ground Locusts instead of flying when they have the upgrade against Phoenixes/Thors would be great, other than that I am fine with current SHs and I definitely think that they need more exploring.
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Sometimes I wonder if it's possible to write better comedy than blizzard community releases
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Even if they decide to "act fast", by the time they go through the decision process, balance test maps and all the iterations and finally patch, it will likely have cost some players their WCS season.
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wtf, they just released the patch, what did they expect? Zergs to just figure out the entire new matchup within such a short period?
The Roach speed increase already has resulted in the worst ZvZ we've ever had, please just wait it out.
Stephano or Life will show the way 
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Did they realize now that internal tests are bad?!
They definitely dont do a good job at putting 2 balance patches within 1 WCS Season.
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On April 18 2015 03:18 sitromit wrote:
Even if they decide to "act fast", by the time they go through the decision process, balance test maps and all the iterations and finally patch, it will likely have cost some players their WCS season.
Meh, at this moment the players neither know exactly how to use the Swarm Hosts, nor do their opponents understand how to counter them.
I think the biggest factor right now is that players have to relearn how to play in certain scenarios, which probably hits zerg hardest, but also Protoss. Broodlords seem to be wrecking them a lot since the Tempest nerf.
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lol, roach buff, they are already tanky as shit and fast.
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On April 18 2015 03:13 Big J wrote:
I think an interesting change could be if the Ultralisk Ram Attack against buildings was brought back in a strong version, to give zerg a more efficient tool to deal with such walls in the later stages of the game. This wouldn't interact a lot with other strategies besides late- and endgame turtling of Terrans or Protoss players.
Ooh, that's a pretty neat idea. Maybe also give them a command button similar to Banelings in an "attack buildings" button to make sure they don't get too hung up on the wrong targets. It would definitely have to be a bit better than it was in the WoL beta though. You could maybe even allow it to use its ram attack against units, but have to select it specifically, in order to use ridiculously strong single-target damage.
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I think it is a mistake to take action right now. The swarm host could get a SLIGHT buff, but buffing other units will drastically increase zerg potential to win with allins in ZVP right now when protoss is playing defensively, since currently there are a lot of different allins and timings with/without nydus that is extremely difficult for protoss to defend.
I can mention a few very top european zerg players who basically use the new swarmhost every game, not as succesfully as the last patch (which arguably needed a patch/nerf), but they manage to win games with it. Still, the new swarmhost could use a slight buff, and 4 to 3 supply might be the best option.
ZVP at the moment is balanced, and I can not speak for ZVT.
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Buff to roaches? God please no!
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How about some effective late game? Ultras are terrible, Brood Lords are too situational. No? Too much to ask? Okay 
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burrow movement buff is something for lotv maybe.
just buff Z harrassment so Z can delay mech and P deathball more: ovidrops, SHs suggestions are nice, nydus is lotv i guess, burrowed infestorspeed.
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The swarm host needs to be changed to 150 / 175 gas and 3 supply, swarmhost HAS TO BE ABLE TO BE MASSED (to a certain extent) for Zerg to even contend in the Late game vs Protoss, AND vs Terran Mech, there IS NO OTHER WAY. If there is, then post it.
Don't buff roaches, they are a terrible unit design in the first place.
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On April 18 2015 03:46 GGzerG wrote:
The swarm host needs to be changed to 150 / 175 gas and 3 supply, swarmhost HAS TO BE ABLE TO BE MASSED (to a certain extent) for Zerg to even contend in the Late game vs Protoss, AND vs Terran Mech, there IS NO OTHER WAY. If there is, then post it.
Don't buff roaches, they are a terrible unit design in the first place.
"Don't buff these units because their design is terrible!"
What the, I don't even...
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Give the old swarmhost back, but maybe make each swarmhost have a limited duration of life similar to the locusts? Of course the swarmhosts will have a much longer life (8 minutes in real time) but this way, it would still make it harder for Zerg to mass out on them and make it useful
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On April 18 2015 03:13 Zealously wrote:
In the beta, I am in favor of acting fast and acting crazy. It has very little impact and has a chance of accidentally creating something really good and entertaining. The exact opposite of the tournament-version game (HotS), where I advocate consideration and meticulous testing above all things. But as for the current state of SHs...
Go crazy, please.
It's HotS
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My problem is not that i can´t use the swarmhost, my problem is that without them i just can´t deal with lategame toss and mech terran. Thats what makes the game for me horrible to play and imbalanced because there comes a certain point where you can´t beat the enemy race anymore.
Before the SH change it was already bullshit, and with the bullshit mechanic of the SH it was somehow possible to beat the other races in lategame (not in a beautiful way).
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Wow whining really works in sc2. I have lost all faith in blizzard. its been maybe 2 week and there already going to change things again SMH there has been no time to figure out the new swarmhost and the new meta. every zerg has thought it useless and havent tried them enough but lets just cry our eyes out till they fix something we havent tired yet.
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LOL buffing zerg without any statistics that suggest they are doing worse than before.
That is maybe the worst suggestion I have ever seen. plz david kim, don't do any changes because of low level zergs that are crying. Wait for high level matches. After the widow mine buff every zerg was crying imba and look where we are now. 2 terrans in SSL.
If you don't like the affect of the new patch; just revert it. The new SHs are completely broken. Just spawn locusts somewhere on the map and kill a base for free without anything the terran can do vs it. They just have no counterplay.
Wait until the koreans learn to properly abuse them and mech won't be played anymore before LotV.
The old SH was infinitely easier to deal with than the new one, the new one is the most broken unit I've ever seen.
I almost never lost games vs the old SH but once the zerg builds the new SH the game is over. mech has no answer to them.
That was your solution to long SH games. remove mech from the game so zerg doesn't build them anymore. brilliant.
Now we see bio all game every game again. so exciting.
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Glad they at least seem to care, but I don't have much of an opinion on SH yet. I don't really like the unit, probably never will, so I would like other units to be buffed if necessary.
Also, no way they revert that patch, old Swarm host is gone for good and that's for the best.
On April 18 2015 03:50 parkufarku wrote:
Give the old swarmhost back, but maybe make each swarmhost have a limited duration of life similar to the locusts? Of course the swarmhosts will have a much longer life (8 minutes in real time) but this way, it would still make it harder for Zerg to mass out on them and make it useful
Very good idea. And actually, make the swarmhosts being spawned by queens when they're burrowed.
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They should just revert the patch, I enjoyed long SH games so much. Not just an apm contest but a long drawn out game where positioning and strategy matters more than anything else. I understand that games lasted maybe to long for tournaments but long SH games were the best aspect of sc2-
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I support waiting longer. That should be a rule to act by when patching the main game. Betas are fine to change drastically over and over on short notice, but not the main game.
Also, no more speed for the roaches please. Fine as is, imo. I can't really say anything about SHs atm as I haven't seen any games since the patch.
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Just nerf the raven and see where the dust settles for tvz mech.
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On April 18 2015 03:52 Charoisaur wrote:
LOL buffing zerg without any statistics that suggest they are doing worse than before.
That is maybe the worst suggestion I have ever seen. plz david kim, don't do any changes because of low level zergs that are crying. Wait for high level matches. After the widow mine buff every zerg was crying imba and look where we are now. 2 terrans in SSL.
If you don't like the affect of the new patch; just revert it. The new SHs are completely broken. Just spawn locusts somewhere on the map and kill a base for free without anything the terran can do vs it. They just have no counterplay.
Wait until the koreans learn to properly abuse them and mech won't be played anymore before LotV.
The old SH was infinitely easier to deal with than the new one, the new one is the most broken unit I've ever seen.
I almost never lost games vs the old SH but once the zerg builds the new SH the game is over. mech has no answer to them.
That was your solution to long SH games. remove mech from the game so zerg doesn't build them anymore. brilliant.
Now we see bio all game every game again. so exciting.
Yes, good idea let's do that.
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On April 18 2015 03:48 Ramiz1989 wrote:Show nested quote +On April 18 2015 03:46 GGzerG wrote:
The swarm host needs to be changed to 150 / 175 gas and 3 supply, swarmhost HAS TO BE ABLE TO BE MASSED (to a certain extent) for Zerg to even contend in the Late game vs Protoss, AND vs Terran Mech, there IS NO OTHER WAY. If there is, then post it.
Don't buff roaches, they are a terrible unit design in the first place. "Don't buff these units because their design is terrible!" What the, I don't even...
He's totally right.
...although there was a time back in alpha where they had something going for them with active regen, but now they're just dumb gimmicks with bloated stats. If blizz won't ditch them, they might as well not make them even more prominent.
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Bring back Ultra building ram attack and give hydras their 10hp back.
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Wow. Way too early. Let's see what the changes mean first. Changing something, that might not even need changing would be stupid.
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Nerf Raven. Did I mention that I hate PDD? Nothing makes you rage more than your units doing zero damage.
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On April 18 2015 03:52 Charoisaur wrote:
LOL buffing zerg without any statistics that suggest they are doing worse than before.
That is maybe the worst suggestion I have ever seen. plz david kim, don't do any changes because of low level zergs that are crying. Wait for high level matches. After the widow mine buff every zerg was crying imba and look where we are now. 2 terrans in SSL.
If you don't like the affect of the new patch; just revert it. The new SHs are completely broken. Just spawn locusts somewhere on the map and kill a base for free without anything the terran can do vs it. They just have no counterplay.
Wait until the koreans learn to properly abuse them and mech won't be played anymore before LotV.
The old SH was infinitely easier to deal with than the new one, the new one is the most broken unit I've ever seen.
I almost never lost games vs the old SH but once the zerg builds the new SH the game is over. mech has no answer to them.
That was your solution to long SH games. remove mech from the game so zerg doesn't build them anymore. brilliant.
Now we see bio all game every game again. so exciting.
This must be one of the weirdest posts I have ever seen.
a) you are saying that you almost never lost to the old swarm host
b) you are saying that they shouldn't be buffing zerg without evidence
but you also say
contradiction to a): the swarm host was buffed and you are not ok with it, despite you saying that they weren't sufficient
contradiction to b): they buffed zerg, while admitting you don't have evidence because noone is using them
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Copying my post from r/starcraft:
I really don't get Blizzard sometimes.
Concerning swarm hosts : This unit has been nerfed to death because Blizz don't want mass swarm hosts to be viable late game, which is a valid goal. But as of right now they are simply not worth their cost, and if they don't tweak the unit, swarm hosts will become what Ghosts became after their last nerf: a highly situational, niche, almost-never-seen unit. Swarm hosts need a change, right now they are the carriers of Zerg.
About the roach upgrade : Blizzard's approach here is baffling to me. We knew that nerfing swarm hosts would cause massive trouble for zergs in late game ZvP and ZvMech. So what do they offer zerg in return? A buff to the most supply-inefficient, useless-in-lategame unit in their arsenal, the roach. Roaches are almost empty-supply against a late game protoss comp, and while they're a central zerg unit against terran mech, buffing burrow movement when the terran probably have 10+ CC's worth of scans and most likely ravens too is pointless. The only thing this buff would achieve is give even more of an incentive to zergs to all-in in order to avoid late game.
How about reevaluating the infestor instead? You know, a spellcasting unit which actually offers decent micro opportunity for Zergs (which I think they lack compared to T and P) and used to be useful in both late game ZvP and ZvT in WoL? I would absolutely LOVE to see an increase in neural parasite's range (maybe 11?), I think it would allow the Zerg to engage a more cost-effectively and allow more even trades, hence resolving the issue where zergs can't attack a turtling mech/Protoss player and get stomped when they've mined out their side of the map.
Don't you miss those kind of moves?
IdrA's roach immortals vs MC, MLG Colombus 2011
Vintage Destiny b8ing the Good ol' CombatEX
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ZvP just got fun to watch again. I'd rather enjoy the game for a while before it gets broken again, please.
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Why does Blizzard hate unit caps so much?
I didn't play broodwar but heard that they had limits on total number for certain units.
Seems to me this would fix a lot of the issues they are trying to target (Raven / SH)..
Pick a cap and BAM no more "mass SH" or "mass raven" comps that make the game ridiculously boring to play /watch.
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On April 18 2015 04:47 DomeGetta wrote:
Why does Blizzard hate unit caps so much?
I didn't play broodwar but heard that they had limits on total number for certain units.
Seems to me this would fix a lot of the issues they are trying to target (Raven / SH)..
Pick a cap and BAM no more "mass SH" or "mass raven" comps that make the game ridiculously boring to play /watch.
There was a limit for how many units you can select. Specific unit cap was introduced for the first time in WoL with Mothership
edit: thanks Elentos for correction
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On April 18 2015 04:43 CakeSauc3 wrote:
ZvP just got fun to watch again. I'd rather enjoy the game for a while before it gets broken again, please.
Yes is fun to watch ZvP without Swarm Hosts. But not how Zerg is useless against Protoss and Terran Mech Lategame.
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On April 18 2015 04:47 DomeGetta wrote:
Why does Blizzard hate unit caps so much?
I didn't play broodwar but heard that they had limits on total number for certain units.
Seems to me this would fix a lot of the issues they are trying to target (Raven / SH)..
Pick a cap and BAM no more "mass SH" or "mass raven" comps that make the game ridiculously boring to play /watch.
No they didn't. You may be confusing this with the general selection limit of broodwar, which was 12. You could only select 12 units at a time, which made it so that certain units were rarely played in a greater number than 12, probably most famously mutalisks.
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On April 18 2015 04:54 Dingodile wrote:Show nested quote +On April 18 2015 04:43 CakeSauc3 wrote:
ZvP just got fun to watch again. I'd rather enjoy the game for a while before it gets broken again, please. Yes is fun to watch ZvP without Swarm Hosts. But not how Zerg is useless against Protoss and Terran Mech Lategame.
I'm really not so sure about ZvP lategame. The Tempest nerf was really very big.
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On April 18 2015 04:53 Tuczniak wrote:Show nested quote +On April 18 2015 04:47 DomeGetta wrote:
Why does Blizzard hate unit caps so much?
I didn't play broodwar but heard that they had limits on total number for certain units.
Seems to me this would fix a lot of the issues they are trying to target (Raven / SH)..
Pick a cap and BAM no more "mass SH" or "mass raven" comps that make the game ridiculously boring to play /watch.
There was a limit for how many units you can select. Specific unit cap was introduced for the first time in HotS with mothership core.
You could only have one mothership in WoL, no?
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On April 18 2015 05:00 Elentos wrote:Show nested quote +On April 18 2015 04:53 Tuczniak wrote:On April 18 2015 04:47 DomeGetta wrote:
Why does Blizzard hate unit caps so much?
I didn't play broodwar but heard that they had limits on total number for certain units.
Seems to me this would fix a lot of the issues they are trying to target (Raven / SH)..
Pick a cap and BAM no more "mass SH" or "mass raven" comps that make the game ridiculously boring to play /watch.
There was a limit for how many units you can select. Specific unit cap was introduced for the first time in HotS with mothership core. You could only have one mothership in WoL, no? Yeah, my bad. Corrected. I'm too used to MSC being before mothership.
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They don't want mass SH to be viable, so they nerf it. OK, but why then, do they want mass Raven to be viable? Why aren't they nerfing Ravens so people don't mass them anymore? What's the difference? Is mass Raven a better playstyle than mass SH? Is it more enjoyable to watch?
I dare say it's worse.
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On April 18 2015 05:13 sitromit wrote:
They don't want mass SH to be viable, so they nerf it. OK, but why then, do they want mass Raven to be viable? Why aren't they nerfing Ravens so people don't mass them anymore? What's the difference? Is mass Raven a better playstyle than mass SH? Is it more enjoyable to watch?
I dare say it's worse.
having one race autolose to certain compositions has never been a problem to them. Since the days of BL/Infestor against Protoss they have shown incredibly ignorance to the problem that is near unbeatable compositions, for as long as "they don't observe it". And they don't observe it, because noone is so stupid to repeatedly try to macro it out. Just watch TvP. The matchup is imbalanced as fuck in the lategame, but they don't give a fuck for as long as Terrans has brokenly strong SCV-pulls they will get around that problem and then we never "observe" Tempest/Colossus/Templar deathballs. I guess they are aiming for the same "balance" in TvZ now. The new swarm host is a prime example of this. The idea is to give zerg a unit that will absolutely wreck you if you let it go unpunished for longer, but using it will trigger an allinish counterattack. The alternative is that zerg tries to break the raven player. Thus the game should end fast either way and they are happy.
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On April 18 2015 05:25 Big J wrote:Show nested quote +On April 18 2015 05:13 sitromit wrote:
They don't want mass SH to be viable, so they nerf it. OK, but why then, do they want mass Raven to be viable? Why aren't they nerfing Ravens so people don't mass them anymore? What's the difference? Is mass Raven a better playstyle than mass SH? Is it more enjoyable to watch?
I dare say it's worse. having one race autolose to certain compositions has never been a problem to them. Since the days of BL/Infestor against Protoss they have shown incredibly ignorance to the problem that is near unbeatable compositions, for as long as "they don't observe it". And they don't observe it, because noone is so stupid to repeatedly try to macro it out. Just watch TvP. The matchup is imbalanced as fuck in the lategame, but they don't give a fuck for as long as Terrans has brokenly strong SCV-pulls they will get around that problem and then we never "observe" Tempest/Colossus/Templar deathballs. I guess they are aiming for the same "balance" in TvZ now. The new swarm host is a prime example of this. The idea is to give zerg a unit that will absolutely wreck you if you let it go unpunished for longer, but using it will trigger an allinish counterattack. Thus the game should end fast either way and they are happy.
That's a different topic. What I'm talking about is that this SH nerf/change was by their own admission not done for balance reasons. Even in these notes they say they may feel obliged to step in because the balance was good at the time of the patch and that may no longer be the case.
So they nerfed SHs because of gameplay reasons because they found mass SH to be a bad/problematic playstyle. Does this mean they like mass Ravens? Because I don't see the difference. In fact, when they nerfed Infestors back in the day, they said something similar, that they want it to be a support caster only and they don't want people massing them. Do Ravens have some kind of untouchable status, why aren't they being nerfed?
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On April 18 2015 05:34 sitromit wrote:
Do Ravens have some kind of untouchable status, why aren't they being nerfed?
IMO they aren't getting nerfed because they are needed early game TvT
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On April 18 2015 05:34 sitromit wrote:Show nested quote +On April 18 2015 05:25 Big J wrote:On April 18 2015 05:13 sitromit wrote:
They don't want mass SH to be viable, so they nerf it. OK, but why then, do they want mass Raven to be viable? Why aren't they nerfing Ravens so people don't mass them anymore? What's the difference? Is mass Raven a better playstyle than mass SH? Is it more enjoyable to watch?
I dare say it's worse. having one race autolose to certain compositions has never been a problem to them. Since the days of BL/Infestor against Protoss they have shown incredibly ignorance to the problem that is near unbeatable compositions, for as long as "they don't observe it". And they don't observe it, because noone is so stupid to repeatedly try to macro it out. Just watch TvP. The matchup is imbalanced as fuck in the lategame, but they don't give a fuck for as long as Terrans has brokenly strong SCV-pulls they will get around that problem and then we never "observe" Tempest/Colossus/Templar deathballs. I guess they are aiming for the same "balance" in TvZ now. The new swarm host is a prime example of this. The idea is to give zerg a unit that will absolutely wreck you if you let it go unpunished for longer, but using it will trigger an allinish counterattack. Thus the game should end fast either way and they are happy. That's a different topic. What I'm talking about is that this SH nerf/change was by their own admission not done for balance reasons. Even in these notes they say they may feel obliged to step in because the balance was good at the time of the patch and that may no longer be the case. So they nerfed SHs because of gameplay reasons because they found mass SH to be a bad/problematic playstyle. Does this mean they like mass Ravens? Because I don't see the difference. In fact, when they nerfed Infestors back in the day, they said something similar, that they want it to be a support caster only and they don't want people massing them. Do Ravens have some kind of untouchable status, why aren't they being nerfed?
Surely you're not realizing only now that they have completely arbitrary judgements about what needs to be maintained or not in the game?
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On April 18 2015 05:34 sitromit wrote:Show nested quote +On April 18 2015 05:25 Big J wrote:On April 18 2015 05:13 sitromit wrote:
They don't want mass SH to be viable, so they nerf it. OK, but why then, do they want mass Raven to be viable? Why aren't they nerfing Ravens so people don't mass them anymore? What's the difference? Is mass Raven a better playstyle than mass SH? Is it more enjoyable to watch?
I dare say it's worse. having one race autolose to certain compositions has never been a problem to them. Since the days of BL/Infestor against Protoss they have shown incredibly ignorance to the problem that is near unbeatable compositions, for as long as "they don't observe it". And they don't observe it, because noone is so stupid to repeatedly try to macro it out. Just watch TvP. The matchup is imbalanced as fuck in the lategame, but they don't give a fuck for as long as Terrans has brokenly strong SCV-pulls they will get around that problem and then we never "observe" Tempest/Colossus/Templar deathballs. I guess they are aiming for the same "balance" in TvZ now. The new swarm host is a prime example of this. The idea is to give zerg a unit that will absolutely wreck you if you let it go unpunished for longer, but using it will trigger an allinish counterattack. Thus the game should end fast either way and they are happy. That's a different topic. What I'm talking about is that this SH nerf/change was by their own admission not done for balance reasons. Even in these notes they say they may feel obliged to step in because the balance was good at the time of the patch and that may no longer be the case. So they nerfed SHs because of gameplay reasons because they found mass SH to be a bad/problematic playstyle. Does this mean they like mass Ravens? Because I don't see the difference. In fact, when they nerfed Infestors back in the day, they said something similar, that they want it to be a support caster only and they don't want people massing them. Do Ravens have some kind of untouchable status, why aren't they being nerfed?
No it is this exact topic. They have no problem with mass Ravens or any other unit being a pseudo-wincondition that gets achieved by just sitting back and massing the unit. They have a problem with both players having that option because they might use it and then the game becomes boring from their perspective.
Given that the swarm host has led to ultimate stalemate balance in all three matchups - they already patched it in ZvZ - it was the easy choice. If they did that to Ravens, not only would ZvP still sometimes stalemate, but Mech might have been not playable anymore against Zerg.
They are only interested in balancing what they observe. And by balancing I mean statistically. They are not interested in the underlying strategical implications that lead to that metagame and winrate/tournament-winrate.
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On April 18 2015 05:13 sitromit wrote:
They don't want mass SH to be viable, so they nerf it. OK, but why then, do they want mass Raven to be viable? Why aren't they nerfing Ravens so people don't mass them anymore? What's the difference? Is mass Raven a better playstyle than mass SH? Is it more enjoyable to watch?
I dare say it's worse.
Is the Raven the problem or just PDD, which is a dumb spell design?
I have the best solution for all these problematic units and spells. Shift + Del. In the meantime, HotS could use some bandaids if things get completely out of whack.
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I voted for act fast as in dont let this sit for months. I have used the new swarmhost in zvp quite a bit as a harassment tool and i have to say they are quite horrible. Their price is far too high for the damage you can do with them. Also voidrays chase them down (same speed but they catch up beeing air units).
Broodlords should get a movement speed increase to compensate for the large maps and to make them more microable in battle.
Roaches dont really need a buff rather they should look at nydus and overlord drops both of which can be usefull against mech and have been neglected forever.
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On April 18 2015 03:13 Zealously wrote:
In the beta, I am in favor of acting fast and acting crazy. It has very little impact and has a chance of accidentally creating something really good and entertaining. The exact opposite of the tournament-version game (HotS), where I advocate consideration and meticulous testing above all things. But as for the current state of SHs...
Go crazy, please.
100% agree, blizzard should be going nuts in the beta with changes so that players don't have to deal with massive changes when their futures depend on it.
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Fix the issue that flying locusts become a punching bag for air units, make them able to be landed before they're in a reach of a ground opponent unit, or make them able to fly and land on a certain CD - say 8 sec CD or sth, OR - at least make the swarmhosts themselves able to choose whether they launch flying or ground locusts
OR increaes the movement speed of locusts slightly while in air mode
Game is good, fresh, more dynamic, but there are some issues that I think are rather dealable with as long as that is fixed
Fix that issue, and when that's done - wait longer to see the effects (I think they'll be fine at the end eventually), but right now as it is - Flying locusts are a liability rather than improvement I think
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On April 18 2015 04:39 fastr wrote:a unit which actually offers decent micro opportunity for Zergs (which I think they lack compared to T and P) and used to be useful in both late game ZvP and ZvT in WoL? I would absolutely LOVE to see an increase in neural parasite's range (maybe 11?), I think it would allow the Zerg to engage a more cost-effectively and allow more even trades, hence resolving the issue where zergs can't attack a turtling mech/Protoss player and get stomped when they've mined out their side of the map. Don't you miss those kind of moves? IdrA's roach immortals vs MC, MLG Colombus 2011Vintage Destiny b8ing the Good ol' CombatEX
Agreed, I think a small infestor buff could be the way to go, as it would help zergs dreadful late game while making a well-designed unit more prominent.
As for the swarm host, I do think that the way they are now, they really have no niche. The supply cost makes it so that you can't really get them as you approach 200 supply, because then your army will be too small and you will just get killed. This leaves acquiring swarm hosts as a 3 base, 100-130 supply kind of move. at this point, It is a huge investment that hurts your economy, and I hardly see any situation where zergs wouldn't just rather go muta.
Either the supply needs to be reverted, or flying locusts need to be more useful. I would go with making swarm host 3 supply again, same cost, and increasing flying locust movement speed about 5 to 10 percent %, allowing them to be used as big unit snipers and long range harass
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I really think we need to wait longer. Swarm hosts in their current form of long range rather quick harassers have potential and I would like Blizzard to give people time to think about ways to use it in the various match-ups. If something has to be done quickly, make the swoop animation shorter so that flying locusts have more opportunity to deal their craaaazy damage.
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I actually think that the new swarm hosts are stronger than before in the midgame, against Protoss.
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Norway839 Posts
it took ages for players to adapt to the old host and people couldn't even use that one properly after the longest time. i think waiting for a bit is completely sensible.
it's also funny how the swarm host as a harassment unit is getting so much attention when overlord drop has been overlooked for ages  maybe zerg drop would be more usable if 5 overlords could actually make it inside a base without getting roasted by 1 voidray. reduce the cost of ventral sacs to 100/100 and buff the pneumatized caparace speed by 10-20% or something like that, or give overlords a turbo boost unlocked on ventral sacs (lol). i'm completely against buffing burrowed claw roaches, they are pretty strong as they are, focus on the high tech units instead, like the Ultralisk imo.
also if Zerg starts underperforming there's a lot of minor fixes available that could benefit Zerg and the host:
- more intelligent locust AI, reduce the time of the landing lag and reduce their scan radius (?) so they're more likely to attack buildings instead of pointlessly chasing units and forcing a hold position command all the time, or the best fix: buff their ground speed
- one button to cast ground locust, one to cast flying locust (so that you don't have to land them all the time after upg, i suggested this to psione but it didn't make it) ... we're talking 60 seconds in between every cast here, so it's not a mechanics button press problem.
other possibilities to increase zerg utility would be ...
- slightly faster fungal projectile
- slight speed buff to brood lords
- higher acceleration on corruptors
- increase infested terran cast range by 0.5-1
- let ITs benefit from upgrades again
supply wise and cd wise i think the swarmhost is just fine ... going above 60 seconds cooldown would just be pretty dull ...
i think most zergs know that the current problems lie in the 66drone vs 66probe mid to early lategame, not the super lategame, so you probably wanna focus on stuff like infestor, corruptor, swarm host and ultralisk.
i don't have enough experiences with zvt super late game yet but from my own testing it doesn't seem impossible just yet, i think some of the initial whining is premature
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On April 18 2015 04:24 Big J wrote:Show nested quote +On April 18 2015 03:52 Charoisaur wrote:
LOL buffing zerg without any statistics that suggest they are doing worse than before.
That is maybe the worst suggestion I have ever seen. plz david kim, don't do any changes because of low level zergs that are crying. Wait for high level matches. After the widow mine buff every zerg was crying imba and look where we are now. 2 terrans in SSL.
If you don't like the affect of the new patch; just revert it. The new SHs are completely broken. Just spawn locusts somewhere on the map and kill a base for free without anything the terran can do vs it. They just have no counterplay.
Wait until the koreans learn to properly abuse them and mech won't be played anymore before LotV.
The old SH was infinitely easier to deal with than the new one, the new one is the most broken unit I've ever seen.
I almost never lost games vs the old SH but once the zerg builds the new SH the game is over. mech has no answer to them.
That was your solution to long SH games. remove mech from the game so zerg doesn't build them anymore. brilliant.
Now we see bio all game every game again. so exciting. This must be one of the weirdest posts I have ever seen. a) you are saying that you almost never lost to the old swarm host b) you are saying that they shouldn't be buffing zerg without evidence but you also say contradiction to a): the swarm host was buffed and you are not ok with it, despite you saying that they weren't sufficient contradiction to b): they buffed zerg, while admitting you don't have evidence because noone is using them
mech was rarely played at the pro level. I almost never lost to the old SHs because of my outstanding skill not because SHs were to weak.
Now that swarmhosts have been buffed not even I can do something vs them.
There is just no counterplay to them. If I leave units there to deal with the locusts he trades with them for free and if I don't leave units there he kills a base for free. I can't chase the new imbahosts because mech is to slow.
User was warned for this post
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On April 18 2015 07:11 Liquid`Snute wrote:
it took ages for players to adapt to the old host and people couldn't even use that one properly after the longest time. i think waiting for a bit is completely sensible.
A very sensible post overall. I agree with all your points except the buffs proposed for ovie drops that seem a bit crazy ^^
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Snute is a hero!
I really hope blizzard will read your comment! Hopefully teamliquid can for once stop whining!
I'm looking forward to see the new tvz and tvp match-up :D
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On April 18 2015 07:53 BartCraft wrote:
Snute is a hero!
I really hope blizzard will read your comment! Hopefully teamliquid can for once stop whining!
I'm looking forward to see the new tvz and tvp match-up :D
new tvz? there is nothing new, just bio mine vs ling bane muta.
nobody will mech anymore after this brilliant patch
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I'd say patience is the way to go in this case. 've seen a lot of inventive play from Zergs recently in terms of the late game, and I think the solution is out there.
On a side note: Roach Burrow movement is the Bunker build time of Zerg. I've seen so many goddamn Roach Burrow balance suggestions from Blizzard in HotS.
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I think that the main issue, at least what I face with swarm host, are simply they are not cost effective. If you think of the investment they take in minerals and gas, and then the supply on top, you can just build a bunch of mutas to harass. The one advantage of going sh is you are closer to hive tech, but the viper and/or ultra is not a fair trade off to the past swarm host design .
I do like to use them for harassment with the flying locust upgrade, but the mutalisk offer more mobility, and as far as engagements go, neither are able to directly engage. For approaching late game mech armies, or protoss death balls, zerg is really left to go roach hydra viper, maybe mix in some ultras or broodloords with corruptors. There is not really any other option then this, and swarmhost just become useless supply that are dead supply a great deal of time. The truth is, I feel that swarmhost have lost their role in the game, which would be fine if other options were introduced. There is the option of going into broodlords, but vs terran they cannot outrun seeker missiles, and 20s pdd is enough to get off the seeker missiles. I think the best thing in regards to the swarmhost maybe, change their tech path, maybe require hive or something to push it more to a late game timing, change a bit of the unit cost/supply even leave it to what it is currently at now as this change alone is enough to discourage mass swarmhost. Swarmhost games can be boring, we all agree, but swarmhost are used as really the only option for zerg to engage late game mech or protoss. You go in with the waves, back off and go in again. Zerg would much rather just swarm in.I know someone also said, get 8+vipers. Yes 8 is better then the 3 or 4 you would normally have, but the reality is, proper tank spread is enough to deal with this, as the tanks are to far back and spread out to get efficient blinding clouds, and your vipers must expose themselves to cast spells. Vs toss, high templar can easily feedback vipers. Even if you land blinding clouds, the army can move, and if you do abduct, you no longer have locust waves to contend the army, and toss can just a move forward. The roach burrow speed increase, would be nice irregardless but a slight speed buff doesn't replace the sh. swarmhost have assumed a role of providing buffer so zerg units can close the distance to attack and or cast spells. It was hard enough with free units to win late game, I think that either new units or spells will need to be introduced, or, nerf the units that cause swarmhost games in the first place. Did the chicken come before the egg? Did the swarmhost come before the terran mech lol? I support the direction that is wanting to be taken, but if you were to take one of the most effective units out of the other two armies and render them useless, there would be alot of heart ache
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anyone see curious vs bravo? bravo tried to mech 2-3 times and lost all three. Curious has some masterful late game and knows how to deal with a meching player. I think its probably too early, people have always learned to adapt. only a select few are whining anyway
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On April 18 2015 08:42 iMrising wrote:
anyone see curious vs bravo? bravo tried to mech 2-3 times and lost all three. Curious has some masterful late game and knows how to deal with a meching player. I think its probably too early, people have always learned to adapt. only a select few are whining anyway
You just gave me a reason to catch up the series. I find strange that BravO tried to go mech since he showed quite solid bio play vs Life on MGR, maybe he thought like a lot of people here that mech was broken now. I need to see Curious' stance on lategame ZvMech.
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On April 18 2015 08:46 [PkF] Wire wrote:Show nested quote +On April 18 2015 08:42 iMrising wrote:
anyone see curious vs bravo? bravo tried to mech 2-3 times and lost all three. Curious has some masterful late game and knows how to deal with a meching player. I think its probably too early, people have always learned to adapt. only a select few are whining anyway You just gave me a reason to catch up the series. I find strange that BravO tried to go mech since he showed quite solid bio play vs Life on MGR, maybe he thought like a lot of people here that mech was broken now. I need to see Curious' stance on lategame ZvMech.
The thing is, Curios's ZvT is much much better than Bravo's TvZ. Bravo went for Bio in game 1, and did Mech in game 2 and 3.
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Have people had any success with nydus worm swarm host attacks, or does it just seem better to run them around taking advantage of the flying locusts upgrade?
Considering that they can deploy locusts without having to burrow, that would make them really quick to deploy locusts after popping out of the nydus without too much of an investment for the attack. It'd be somewhat similar to nuclear strikes but not really (speaking of which, I practically forgot that even exists in SC2 considering how little it's used).
On April 18 2015 08:03 lunareaping wrote:
I think that the main issue, at least what I face with swarm host, are simply they are not cost effective. If you think of the investment they take in minerals and gas, and then the supply on top, you can just build a bunch of mutas to harass. The one advantage of going sh is you are closer to hive tech, but the viper and/or ultra is not a fair trade off to the past swarm host design .
I do like to use them for harassment with the flying locust upgrade, but the mutalisk offer more mobility, and as far as engagements go, neither are able to directly engage. For approaching late game mech armies, or protoss death balls, zerg is really left to go roach hydra viper, maybe mix in some ultras or broodloords with corruptors. There is not really any other option then this, and swarmhost just become useless supply that are dead supply a great deal of time. The truth is, I feel that swarmhost have lost their role in the game, which would be fine if other options were introduced. There is the option of going into broodlords, but vs terran they cannot outrun seeker missiles, and 20s pdd is enough to get off the seeker missiles. I think the best thing in regards to the swarmhost maybe, change their tech path, maybe require hive or something to push it more to a late game timing, change a bit of the unit cost/supply even leave it to what it is currently at now as this change alone is enough to discourage mass swarmhost. Swarmhost games can be boring, we all agree, but swarmhost are used as really the only option for zerg to engage late game mech or protoss. You go in with the waves, back off and go in again. Zerg would much rather just swarm in.I know someone also said, get 8+vipers. Yes 8 is better then the 3 or 4 you would normally have, but the reality is, proper tank spread is enough to deal with this, as the tanks are to far back and spread out to get efficient blinding clouds, and your vipers must expose themselves to cast spells. Vs toss, high templar can easily feedback vipers. Even if you land blinding clouds, the army can move, and if you do abduct, you no longer have locust waves to contend the army, and toss can just a move forward. The roach burrow speed increase, would be nice irregardless but a slight speed buff doesn't replace the sh. swarmhost have assumed a role of providing buffer so zerg units can close the distance to attack and or cast spells. It was hard enough with free units to win late game, I think that either new units or spells will need to be introduced, or, nerf the units that cause swarmhost games in the first place. Did the chicken come before the egg? Did the swarmhost come before the terran mech lol? I support the direction that is wanting to be taken, but if you were to take one of the most effective units out of the other two armies and render them useless, there would be alot of heart ache
I don't know which part of your post t quite so I'll just quote all of it.
Regarding mutas, I somewhat agree, but am mixed. Mutalisks are more vulnerable to turrets and other AA (THORS) in SC2 which are much stronger. If locusts could jump like reapers without being hit by AA, it could be useful, otherwise it seems like missile turrets from terran might make them only particularly useful vs protoss at which point they'd have to potentially deal with phoenixes which could counter both the locusts AND the swarm hosts very well.
What I'd really love is the return of one of the flying queen mechanics from SC1, spawn broodling. The queen could Spawn 2 locusts from an enemy unit. It would be a great siege breaker, as well as a great economic harass. I've never been a fan of the guardians in SC2, then again I've never been a fan of the swarm host either, but by having some unit cast a spell on an enemy to spawn locusts I would like.
For a longer time, I've actually been a fan of having corruptors cast a spell that deals a DoT to the enemy, Even an instant heal with DoT after-effect (or the opposite) would be good.
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On April 18 2015 03:13 Big J wrote:
I think an interesting change could be if the Ultralisk Ram Attack against buildings was brought back in a strong version, to give zerg a more efficient tool to deal with such walls in the later stages of the game. This wouldn't interact a lot with other strategies besides late- and endgame turtling of Terrans or Protoss players.
You know the Ram attack was doing overall less damage against building than a normal attack do ?
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On April 18 2015 03:41 SetGuitarsToKill wrote:How about some effective late game? Ultras are terrible, Brood Lords are too situational. No? Too much to ask? Okay
I know right?
On April 18 2015 03:12 TheDwf wrote:
Pffft... We tested a change for months, we still don't know what it does, and we don't know what to do with that ignorance.
Blizzard pls read this article, what you are doing has clearly not been working, for a long time.
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/legacy-of-the-void/482697-razzia-of-the-blizzsters
The "nerf" this, "buff" that strategy has basically failed imo.
TheDwf, you make great arguments against "hard counters" as solution. It's time to look for some other options, the eco change was a good start imo.
I love how people always make it seem like zerg players LOVED to go mass SH. I play zerg, and let me tell you... I played SH not because I LOVED to, but because there was really no other legitimate late game option in hots...
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Dadid Kim hold your breath because Zerg must be given a chance to adopt and then after a month or two you might consider a nerf to the point defense drone or some Zerg buff.
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On April 18 2015 08:58 Noocta wrote:Show nested quote +On April 18 2015 03:13 Big J wrote:
I think an interesting change could be if the Ultralisk Ram Attack against buildings was brought back in a strong version, to give zerg a more efficient tool to deal with such walls in the later stages of the game. This wouldn't interact a lot with other strategies besides late- and endgame turtling of Terrans or Protoss players. You know the Ram attack was doing overall less damage against building than a normal attack do ?
"in a strong version" 
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On April 18 2015 09:21 Big J wrote:Show nested quote +On April 18 2015 08:58 Noocta wrote:On April 18 2015 03:13 Big J wrote:
I think an interesting change could be if the Ultralisk Ram Attack against buildings was brought back in a strong version, to give zerg a more efficient tool to deal with such walls in the later stages of the game. This wouldn't interact a lot with other strategies besides late- and endgame turtling of Terrans or Protoss players. You know the Ram attack was doing overall less damage against building than a normal attack do ? "in a strong version"
Still doesn't matter, because Ram didn't cleave like the normal attack does, and the cleave is way stronger to kill walls.
If you tune Ram to do more damage than that, Ram would one shot supply depots.
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I have to say, I saw it coming from a mile back:
SH were changed not because they were OP and needed to ne nerfed,
but because they produces boring and un-eventfull games.
We need to remember that originally the SH changes were supposed to only take place in LotV,
along with a whole bunch of other changes, mainly the introduction of new siege options for the zerg:
the lurker, and to a lesser degree the ravager.
By taking this single change from Lotv and implementing it in HotS blizz created a gap in the zerg arsenal,
who found themselves with no real alternative to the old SH role as the core unit against protoss and meching terran alike,
from the mid game and onwards.
Acknowledging this issue leads us to the conclusion that buffing roaches,
a unit that loses it's value very quickly in the mid game, will solve nothing,
and can only cause balance issues in the early and mid game, further prompting zerg players to go for all-in builds.
As for a SH buff, it's completely irrelevent to the issue at hand, since blizz clearly stated that they want to preserve the SH new role as a harassment unit, so while reducing it's supply or gas cost may or may not be needed,
it still won't change the zerg problem of dealing with late game mech and protoss.
So what CAN be done? well, if the zerg problem is mainly with late game scenarios why not buff zerg's late game units,
such as brood lords and ultralisks?
While potentialy can serve as a solution, buffing either of this units will create many shifts in the game balance,
resulting in a long proccess of examinating the changes, trying out several options thorugh test maps etc...
But this might take a couple of months, and while addressing issues through this proccess is good in general,
with LotV, which will completely renovate the balance system, looming over the horizon this is a waste of efforts.
Blizz is focused on testing LotV, as they should, and for the time being we just need a quick, undrastic solution,
just enough to carry us the (reletively) short way to LotV.
So, if the problem was created by carrying a change from LotV to HotS, why not carry more changes to fix it?
As said before, lurker and ravager takes the SH role is siege units in LotV, but introducing them to HotS
poses the same problems with buffing ultras or brood lords.
Moving down the list, roaches and corrupters changes doesn't address the zerg's late game problem,
as is the case with the viper new ability.
And this brings us to the new Nydus Worm, which in LotV will become invulnerable while constructing.
First, let's test it's relevance to dealing with mech and protoss:
While not filling in the gap of a siege unit like SH, it can force the immobile mech or protoss player
to split it's army to deal swiftly with this new threat, which in turn might allow for the less cost effective zerg army
to trade more evenly with the now smaller, but still superior, main force of the terran/protoss army.
This can also help the zerg get a surround on it's enemy, again helping it negate it's lower cost-efficiency.
Next is balance issues: well, nydus worm isn't really a unit, so there should be no "unit to unit" balance effects.
Of course, this does not mean that the new nydus worm won't pose a threat-
players will have to pay extra attention to the nydus emergence sound and quickly mobilize units to it's location.
But no other buffs/nerfs to other units are needed in order maintain the delicate balance between unit compositions.
Nydus worms require lair, and are not cheap, both factors preventing the zerg from freely using it in the early game.
In short, the new nydus worm is potentially a powerfull tool that might help zerg players overcome the loss of a no less powerfull unit, without any need to additional balance tweaks.
Covering several options to compensate the zerg for the switch of the SH from core unit to harass one,
i think this is a relatively simple solution, and well worth examining.
Now, where's the test map?
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OH, so they noticed zerg is weaker than the other races after the swarm host nerf? News Flash, Blizzard, YEAH, you nerfed it into the ground. The solution is NERF widow mines which have been responsible for way more terran wins against zerg than swarmhosts have been against P or T, but no Blizzard can't see that staring them in the face any more than you can see a burrowed "25 gas air attack splash damage auto attack not even a suicide unit even counters the zerg counter to it" unit hiding in the middle of the map.... and nerf terran mech also, and nerf protoss lategame composition. but NO, there's no way you would nerf either of those races against zerg regardless of how OP their endgame unit compositions are against zerg. zerg just have to figure out how to play against it... terran doesn't even need an endgame composition with bio mine because they just win it in the midgame. and I thought Blizzard was only going to wreck LoTV.. but they decided to go and wreck HOTS even more than it already is with this. I could have told them zerg would be weaker than the other races after this, no testing needed, no embarassing "oh, we obviously have nerfed it way too much and now we have to backtrack meanwhile we screwed zergs over in the meantime, but hey, we have done that so many times before no one's going to bat an eye" situations. sigh.. I'm so glad I hardly ever play HOTS and never use swarmhosts anyway. exactly what new additions to HOTS has zerg been able to use against terran new-reaper new-bio mine new-hellbat? pretty much nada. oh, yeah mutas heal a bit faster. yeah that's an even buff. anyone at blizzard ever notice this chasm of discrepancy and do something..? nope.
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Norway839 Posts
On April 18 2015 08:56 Xapti wrote:
Have people had any success with nydus worm swarm host attacks, or does it just seem better to run them around taking advantage of the flying locusts upgrade?
nydus worm into the protoss base simultaneously with a locust wave is very gimmicky and hardly ever works, void rays shut it down easily, if you don't bring overseer DTs obviously shut it down, it's great when it does work but on average you'll just be walking the hosts over to the most decent chasm and do fly them over for a moderate infrastructure snipe.
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I'd definitely like to see more overlord drops, it's already been used a little as a nice all-in against mech from time to time so I don't think it would take much buffing to bring it to a more viable option. Obvious buff would be to reduce research time/cost, but they could also try something else more quirky, like having overlords move faster when they have units in them, or roll extra hp and/or armor into the overlord drop upgrade.
Overlord drops have especially nice synergy with the anti mech gameplay, ie. terran goes mech -> zerg goes for roaches -> terran scouts no spire -> no turrets, no thors, no (or few) vikings -> boom, nothing to stop the overlords from floating on in.
As for zerg lategame against protoss and mech, that's trickier for sure. Ultras are an obvious candidate to buff but I'd be wary of anything too major. Again just something small and offbeat might be all zerg needs, like longer duration or more hp broodlings, or faster hatching infested terrans.
In any case, I don't see a problem with moving quickly to a balance test map, though they should certainly hold off any major changes to the full game until it's clear whether there's an issue.
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Have flying locusts attack air, no landing ability and give option to spawn flying or ground. Air-attacking locusts will help vs colossi and air armies, plus help zerg air deal with mass pdd by wasting pdd shots and tanking air damage.
Also, give hosts deep burrow. Remember that one from campaign? Hosts could borrow and surface anywhere there was creep on the map, given a longer than normal delay, iirc. Maybe make this one a hive upgrade. Tweak stats to accommodate these new powers.
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Really weird comment from blizzard, I guess they didn't expect a complete disappearance?
And maybe it's not just tournament level, players are giving up the unit in practise too?
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On April 18 2015 12:45 ElMeanYo wrote:
Tweak stats to accommodate these new powers.
i love when people say this. it basically means "i dont actually think this is a good balance suggestion, i just think it would be cool. do it and then someone else can figure out the actual balance"
On April 18 2015 12:13 jubil wrote:
Overlord drops have especially nice synergy with the anti mech gameplay, ie. terran goes mech -> zerg goes for roaches -> terran scouts no spire -> no turrets, no thors, no (or few) vikings -> boom, nothing to stop the overlords from floating on in. the most modern forms of mech in my experience (gumiho etc) pretty effectively incorporate viking production as a buffer to account for the roach/muta guessing game. if no mutas ever come they're able to snipe overlords, harass mineral lines, and ultimately congeal with the mass air switch
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I think zergs doesnt use current SH for all the reasons that blizzard said, but mainly is the long spawn time i guess, its so much invest to a unit that doesnt give any equivalent retribution and having a dead supply for a long time, like invest in 8 SH, to destroy a comand center, but with some torrets and a thor + widow mine in the base exposed, the locust was nulified, and even the SH destroy the CC, invest all that min/gas to destroy just a CC, is pffffffff, its prefer invest all that min/gas/supply space in mutas or more vipers, ultras, that zergs can use when they need or want to use, not like SH that after sent the locust, zerg have for long time a null unit literally, and not only a null unit a bother unit occupying supply.
The roach buff maybe is a good thing for the midgame zerg against the protoss 2 bases all ins and could delay a little the protoss deathball, but the main complain is the late game, i think blizzard don have to insist with the SH, just make an upgrade to make hydras and roaches more stronger to replace the role of SHs, that upgrade could be in the infestation pit, or make the ventral sacs more cheap, it could help to split the mech army and deathball protoss, and gona take the purpose of the current SH, that is split the enemy army.
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On April 18 2015 13:56 FaiFai wrote:
I think zergs doesnt use current SH for all the reasons that blizzard said, but mainly is the long spawn time i guess, its so much invest to a unit that doesnt give any equivalent retribution and having a dead supply for a long time, like invest in 8 SH, to destroy a comand center, but with some torrets and a thor + widow mine in the base exposed, the locust was nulified, and even the SH destroy the CC, invest all that min/gas to destroy just a CC, is pffffffff, its prefer invest all that min/gas/supply space in mutas or more vipers, ultras, that zergs can use when they need or want to use, not like SH that after sent the locust, zerg have for long time a null unit literally, and not only a null unit a bother unit occupying supply.
The roach buff maybe is a good thing for the midgame zerg against the protoss 2 bases all ins and could delay a little the protoss deathball, but the main complain is the late game, i think blizzard don have to insist with the SH, just make an upgrade to make hydras and roaches more stronger to replace the role of SHs, that upgrade could be in the infestation pit, or make the ventral sacs more cheap, it could help to split the mech army and deathball protoss, and gona take the purpose of the current SH, that is split the enemy army.
yep. it's not that the unit is ineffective, it's the downtime and risk of not doing damage that makes them unattractive.
oracle for example is still a fast flying unit that can run around and scout while it has no energy. widow mine is 99% guaranteed damage, at least in the form of probe pulls, unless protoss pulls off an insane defense. mutas can retreat, regen and then keep attacking in different locations.
but just like infestors with new fungal (if you don't hit fungals and chain them the first time you use energy they're useless), new swarm hosts need to do something with their locust wave or else you've literally just spent money and supply on nothing. the long cooldown interval is just bad design, and i say this as someone who HAS used them and HAS won games with them.
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Solution remove swarm host & widom mines. replace both with i dunno sience vessel & some other weird zerg unit^^
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Just give the Old Infester or the Old Swarmhost back. I dont think u can find a solution untill Legacy of the Void starts . At this moment zerg really got nothing else then( allin ) strategies vs Protoss . And this Change of SH came right before all Important Qualifiers started it seemed like a late April Joke but it looks like they mean it real^^
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Much to early to be even discussing this.
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^ Are you this Lux guy who makes this horrible balance suggestions on US bnet forums? If yes please stop making these biased suggestions.
They should wait how it turns out. Its just a few days this has been out. Haven´t played after this but I think a lot of people either just dont play SH anymore or play them like the old ones.
The only thing I dislike is the roach burrow. Not the burrow itself but the speed they suggest. Making everything faster is not balancing.
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On April 18 2015 15:47 bosshdt wrote:
Solution remove swarm host & widom mines. replace both with i dunno sience vessel & some other weird zerg unit^^
Scourges?
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On April 18 2015 22:11 Tresher wrote:
^ Are you this Lux guy who makes this horrible balance suggestions on US bnet forums? If yes please stop making these biased suggestions.
No, but maybe you should tell that to the guy directly and in the appropriate forum.
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On April 18 2015 10:05 baabaa101 wrote:
OH, so they noticed zerg is weaker than the other races after the swarm host nerf? News Flash, Blizzard, YEAH, you nerfed it into the ground. The solution is NERF widow mines which have been responsible for way more terran wins against zerg than swarmhosts have been against P or T, but no Blizzard can't see that staring them in the face any more than you can see a burrowed "25 gas air attack splash damage auto attack not even a suicide unit even counters the zerg counter to it" unit hiding in the middle of the map.... and nerf terran mech also, and nerf protoss lategame composition. but NO, there's no way you would nerf either of those races against zerg regardless of how OP their endgame unit compositions are against zerg. zerg just have to figure out how to play against it... terran doesn't even need an endgame composition with bio mine because they just win it in the midgame. and I thought Blizzard was only going to wreck LoTV.. but they decided to go and wreck HOTS even more than it already is with this. I could have told them zerg would be weaker than the other races after this, no testing needed, no embarassing "oh, we obviously have nerfed it way too much and now we have to backtrack meanwhile we screwed zergs over in the meantime, but hey, we have done that so many times before no one's going to bat an eye" situations. sigh.. I'm so glad I hardly ever play HOTS and never use swarmhosts anyway. exactly what new additions to HOTS has zerg been able to use against terran new-reaper new-bio mine new-hellbat? pretty much nada. oh, yeah mutas heal a bit faster. yeah that's an even buff. anyone at blizzard ever notice this chasm of discrepancy and do something..? nope.
As frustrating as your post sounds, there's a lot of truth in it. New reaper, new mine new hellbat is just too much.
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On April 18 2015 07:11 Liquid`Snute wrote:it took ages for players to adapt to the old host and people couldn't even use that one properly after the longest time. i think waiting for a bit is completely sensible. it's also funny how the swarm host as a harassment unit is getting so much attention when overlord drop has been overlooked for ages maybe zerg drop would be more usable if 5 overlords could actually make it inside a base without getting roasted by 1 voidray. reduce the cost of ventral sacs to 100/100 and buff the pneumatized caparace speed by 10-20% or something like that, or give overlords a turbo boost unlocked on ventral sacs (lol). i'm completely against buffing burrowed claw roaches, they are pretty strong as they are, focus on the high tech units instead, like the Ultralisk imo. also if Zerg starts underperforming there's a lot of minor fixes available that could benefit Zerg and the host: - more intelligent locust AI, reduce the time of the landing lag and reduce their scan radius (?) so they're more likely to attack buildings instead of pointlessly chasing units and forcing a hold position command all the time, or the best fix: buff their ground speed - one button to cast ground locust, one to cast flying locust (so that you don't have to land them all the time after upg, i suggested this to psione but it didn't make it) ... we're talking 60 seconds in between every cast here, so it's not a mechanics button press problem. other possibilities to increase zerg utility would be ... - slightly faster fungal projectile - slight speed buff to brood lords - higher acceleration on corruptors - increase infested terran cast range by 0.5-1 - let ITs benefit from upgrades again supply wise and cd wise i think the swarmhost is just fine ... going above 60 seconds cooldown would just be pretty dull ... i think most zergs know that the current problems lie in the 66drone vs 66probe mid to early lategame, not the super lategame, so you probably wanna focus on stuff like infestor, corruptor, swarm host and ultralisk. i don't have enough experiences with zvt super late game yet but from my own testing it doesn't seem impossible just yet, i think some of the initial whining is premature
I like all of these suggestions, but I would probably wait buffing overlord drops untill they for sure only benefit lategame drops and harass possibilities. As of now I think a lot of zerg allins are strong versus defensive plays, but I absolutely think it can help for TVZ to buff overlord drops a bit if the general assumption is the swarmhost is too weak in that matchup - however, a ground/air locust ability will not buff zerg at all for PVZ really, and versus terran it will help a lot versus thors and really increase the micro potential. I think ground/air cast on SH is the best possible option right now.
I think it will be very dangerous to let infested terrans benefit from upgrades, as is they already are very strong in various circumstances versus protoss instead of fungal, so as long as that is the case I really believe this is the last possible option if the scenario becomes that protoss is too hard to beat before lategame or if there are no remaxing potential or economical advantages for zerg.
All other suggestions are fine I think, and most of them could be implemented without too much issue, but I think a lot could be said for protoss and terran as well. Carriers could use a buff, to name one that is extremely obvious. Even if this is even more lategame related for protoss, and personally I would see protoss having a stronger midgame if any midgame related buffs goes through to zerg. If changes to zerg only affects the lategame slightly I think its fine.
Buffing locusts at this point is dangerous. If the consensus is that swarmhosts are too weak, their supply/cost/SH stats should be changed. Right now 5-6 swarmhosts can snipe a nexus even with a relatively fast reaction and I do not like to see this become too strong while zerg still can survive on other units.
So my guideline for further changes is to avoid making zerg midgame stronger and find ways to make lategame stronger, preferebly when protoss (or terran) is maxed.
My weakest matchup is ZvP despite the changes from the patch should have been extremely good for me, but I have actually been very surprised how certian plays and compositions from zerg actually makes the new swarmhost very strong, and since I have played with snute several games already post-patch I think he knows this as well. My intention is just to let people know that for PvZ, the new swarmhost might still be a decently useful/strong unit.
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On April 18 2015 23:16 Sapphire.lux wrote:Show nested quote +On April 18 2015 22:11 Tresher wrote:
^ Are you this Lux guy who makes this horrible balance suggestions on US bnet forums? If yes please stop making these biased suggestions.
No, but maybe you should tell that to the guy directly and in the appropriate forum.
nvm then. And why should I make an account on US just for that if Im on EU? Not to mention US bnet forums are terrible.
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"- Increase the cooldown of the Spawn Locust ability even more"
Genius idea from Dayvie, lets make it a unit who shoot/use his ability every 2 minutes.
Sure this unit is going to be very fun and a core unit whit ideas like this....
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Anyone think things might change if SH locusts could attack air while they are flying? or just attack air in general when they are on the ground and or flying?
And still I wonder why nobody ever puts out the argument that without SH, zerg doesn't really have a viable late game option... As a zerg player ... I don't play SH because its fun, but because WTF else do I do against mech (in the late game)... and WTF else do I do against a protoss death ball (in the late game).
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On April 19 2015 03:35 ShambhalaWar wrote:
I don't play SH because its fun, but because WTF else do I do against mech (in the late game).
From watching Mario's and Avilo's streams for a long time, I think Hydra Roach Viper is very playable against mech. Don't go light on the Vipers, have 10-20 and abduct gas units where you can. Mix in Nydus Worms as well.
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On April 19 2015 03:33 polpot wrote:
"- Increase the cooldown of the Spawn Locust ability even more"
Genius idea from Dayvie, lets make it a unit who shoot/use his ability every 2 minutes.
Sure this unit is going to be very fun and a core unit whit ideas like this....
"How to get more action into the game you ask? Let's make a unit that at best does something every 60seconds and then make it so supply heavy that the player cannot even make anything else besides that unit."
On April 19 2015 06:19 dust7 wrote:Show nested quote +On April 19 2015 03:35 ShambhalaWar wrote:
I don't play SH because its fun, but because WTF else do I do against mech (in the late game). From watching Mario's and Avilo's streams for a long time, I think Hydra Roach Viper is very playable against mech. Don't go light on the Vipers, have 10-20 and abduct gas units where you can. Mix in Nydus Worms as well.
How well does it hold up when the Terran reaches 20+ ravens?
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On April 19 2015 07:01 Big J wrote:Show nested quote +On April 19 2015 06:19 dust7 wrote:On April 19 2015 03:35 ShambhalaWar wrote:
I don't play SH because its fun, but because WTF else do I do against mech (in the late game). From watching Mario's and Avilo's streams for a long time, I think Hydra Roach Viper is very playable against mech. Don't go light on the Vipers, have 10-20 and abduct gas units where you can. Mix in Nydus Worms as well. How well does it hold up when the Terran reaches 20+ ravens?
I don't know, I'd guess versus the new Raven it should hold up (provided you have a Viper for every Raven).
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On April 19 2015 07:23 dust7 wrote:Show nested quote +On April 19 2015 07:01 Big J wrote:On April 19 2015 06:19 dust7 wrote:On April 19 2015 03:35 ShambhalaWar wrote:
I don't play SH because its fun, but because WTF else do I do against mech (in the late game). From watching Mario's and Avilo's streams for a long time, I think Hydra Roach Viper is very playable against mech. Don't go light on the Vipers, have 10-20 and abduct gas units where you can. Mix in Nydus Worms as well. How well does it hold up when the Terran reaches 20+ ravens? I don't know, I'd guess versus the new Raven it should hold up (provided you have a Viper for every Raven).
Oh well, I thought you could provide insight since you were watching their streams the last days. Nevermind, if you didn't see it or it didn't happen nothing to take from it.
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Honestly playing zvt at a diamond level is extremely frustrating as a zerg against mech. Before, swarm host was baiscially our only LATE GAME response to turtle mech, now it just seems like we either win with a roach hydra viper timing or the game just kinda is over.
Edit *
my point being that if its hard against diamond terrans, i can only imagine how hard it is against pros who are more durable against early roach hydra busts
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On April 19 2015 07:23 dust7 wrote:Show nested quote +On April 19 2015 07:01 Big J wrote:On April 19 2015 06:19 dust7 wrote:On April 19 2015 03:35 ShambhalaWar wrote:
I don't play SH because its fun, but because WTF else do I do against mech (in the late game). From watching Mario's and Avilo's streams for a long time, I think Hydra Roach Viper is very playable against mech. Don't go light on the Vipers, have 10-20 and abduct gas units where you can. Mix in Nydus Worms as well. How well does it hold up when the Terran reaches 20+ ravens? I don't know, I'd guess versus the new Raven it should hold up (provided you have a Viper for every Raven).
You don't even need a Viper for every Raven I think. From what I've seen just two or three Parasitic Bombs do so much damage to clumps of air units.
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On April 19 2015 07:48 Big J wrote:Show nested quote +On April 19 2015 07:23 dust7 wrote:On April 19 2015 07:01 Big J wrote:On April 19 2015 06:19 dust7 wrote:On April 19 2015 03:35 ShambhalaWar wrote:
I don't play SH because its fun, but because WTF else do I do against mech (in the late game). From watching Mario's and Avilo's streams for a long time, I think Hydra Roach Viper is very playable against mech. Don't go light on the Vipers, have 10-20 and abduct gas units where you can. Mix in Nydus Worms as well. How well does it hold up when the Terran reaches 20+ ravens? I don't know, I'd guess versus the new Raven it should hold up (provided you have a Viper for every Raven). Oh well, I thought you could provide insight since you were watching their streams the last days. Nevermind, if you didn't see it or it didn't happen nothing to take from it.
Infestor normally do the trick, its still a game of hitting a big fungal without dying in the process, but with PDD lasting so little the army will eventually find it self without PDD nor energy and then the ravens become dead weight
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I really like the direction they are taking the swarm host. Stalemate swarm host games are boring, and the concept of a fast hit and run unit that is EXTREMELY vulnerable and needs to be protected is excellent. The new locusts DEMOLISH expansions that are undefended.
However there is a MAJOR flaw in this plan for heart of the swarm (not LotV however).
Swarm host was the backbone of the zerg army against protoss and terran mech. It is next to impossible to trade cost effectively against a protoss deathball with cash units, and zerg needed the waves of locusts to screen for expensive and EXTREMELY fragile hydralisks or supply inefficient roaches that can tank a little bit but clump up a lot, are vulnerable to splash, and fall off in cost effectiveness dramatically by the time other races get a good bulk of units or higher tech units.
There needs to be some way to go toe to toe with the other races (bio excluded, ling bane muta vs bio is fairly balanced. Widow mines could use some tweaking so that they are less "burrow and pray you get a good shot", but that's another topic.)
So far, the only ways ive seen (pro play and my own games) to beat protoss/mech all involve timing attacks and a little bit of luck, hoping they miss forcefields, hoping they move a little too far from their cannons/gateways. You can destroy expansions extremely quickly with the new swarm host, but they contribute VERY little to army supply as they only fire once a minute then are 200 gas paperweights. They locusts do good damage, but clump so hard in the air that its silly to try to fight the army with swarm hosts generally unless they are on low tech, and you use the locusts just a buffer for other units - which is OKAY. That's fine. But now that the dynamic has changed like that, what does zerg have to fill the role of a cost effective anchor to the army?
Roach/hydra is good except that hydras have ZERO survivability, and literally evaporate. Vipers are good, but are extremely hard countered by feedback and vikings. Using vipers vs mech means getting in range of viking shots and hoping they hit your corrupters/overseers instead of the vipers. Vs protoss, blinding cloud and pulls are great but pressing the f key once makes them explode. Feedback is cheap, no upgrade, and is easy to target/use. Basically, once the other guy gets a certain number of vikings, gets any number of templar vipers lose their efficacy. They are still excellent units but very easily become a huge gas dump that gets very little reward. Even if you land blinding clouds, toss can blink out of it and later in the game decent mech players spread tanks and have vikings, so you lose the vipers to blind two tanks per viper tops, and half the time the other tanks with any ammount of hellbat support will still be as artosis says, the most cost effective unit composition in the game.
Huge muta switches (a coinflip, usually. Often ending in silly base trades vs toss), early roach ling attacks on the third, hoping to trade enough with roach hydra viper, or going for only counter attacks and never fighting head on seem to be the ways to win. What if you want to fight the army? Brood lords are both easy to kill, and so slow that even if you have zero vikings or zero void rays/tempests, you can usually just side step the brood lords and go for the base trade. Ultralisks are okay if you can surprise them with the ultras, but they are just too big, clunky, and expensive super super super easy to target fire They can be infinitely kited, and the ai derps out SO HARD on buildings, or auto turrets, or anything. There's a reason very few people get a hive in pro zvt. A: its expensive and takes a long time and leaves you vulnerable and B: because zerg tier 3 is terrible. Brood lords and ultras are just weak, and there seems to not be any army unit capable of effeciently trading straight up with the other races.
What unit can you use to actually fight an army? Nothing seems to work particularly well or regularly. You either overwhelm and catch them off guard and snowball out of control or lose. There doesn't seem to be much in between. None of this is extreme, i'm not saying zerg is terrible zerg is so weak its broken, etc. But if you take away the backbone of the zerg army, shouldn't you also give them something different to use instead so that it is possible to fight other armies straight up?
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On April 19 2015 08:12 Lexender wrote:Show nested quote +On April 19 2015 07:48 Big J wrote:On April 19 2015 07:23 dust7 wrote:On April 19 2015 07:01 Big J wrote:On April 19 2015 06:19 dust7 wrote:On April 19 2015 03:35 ShambhalaWar wrote:
I don't play SH because its fun, but because WTF else do I do against mech (in the late game). From watching Mario's and Avilo's streams for a long time, I think Hydra Roach Viper is very playable against mech. Don't go light on the Vipers, have 10-20 and abduct gas units where you can. Mix in Nydus Worms as well. How well does it hold up when the Terran reaches 20+ ravens? I don't know, I'd guess versus the new Raven it should hold up (provided you have a Viper for every Raven). Oh well, I thought you could provide insight since you were watching their streams the last days. Nevermind, if you didn't see it or it didn't happen nothing to take from it. Infestor normally do the trick, its still a game of hitting a big fungal without dying in the process, but with PDD lasting so little the army will eventually find it self without PDD nor energy and then the ravens become dead weight
That was not my question. My question was how roach/hydra/viper actually holds up against it, since dust7 said pretended he had evidence it was sufficient. Turns out it was all just theorycraft, while I'm winning with mass ravens on a daily basis and haven't yet encountered anything scary besides allins and mass, mass Swarm Host play. Given of course a map on which Mech can take a proper third and an eventual 4th base.
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On April 19 2015 10:05 Big J wrote:Show nested quote +On April 19 2015 08:12 Lexender wrote:On April 19 2015 07:48 Big J wrote:On April 19 2015 07:23 dust7 wrote:On April 19 2015 07:01 Big J wrote:On April 19 2015 06:19 dust7 wrote:On April 19 2015 03:35 ShambhalaWar wrote:
I don't play SH because its fun, but because WTF else do I do against mech (in the late game). From watching Mario's and Avilo's streams for a long time, I think Hydra Roach Viper is very playable against mech. Don't go light on the Vipers, have 10-20 and abduct gas units where you can. Mix in Nydus Worms as well. How well does it hold up when the Terran reaches 20+ ravens? I don't know, I'd guess versus the new Raven it should hold up (provided you have a Viper for every Raven). Oh well, I thought you could provide insight since you were watching their streams the last days. Nevermind, if you didn't see it or it didn't happen nothing to take from it. Infestor normally do the trick, its still a game of hitting a big fungal without dying in the process, but with PDD lasting so little the army will eventually find it self without PDD nor energy and then the ravens become dead weight That was not my question. My question was how roach/hydra/viper actually holds up against it, since dust7 said pretended he had evidence it was sufficient. Turns out it was all just theorycraft, while I'm winning with mass ravens on a daily basis and haven't yet encountered anything scary besides allins and mass, mass Swarm Host play. Given of course a map on which Mech can take a proper third and an eventual 4th base.
Well, Jon Snow vs Desrow showed that roach/hydra/viper holds well against Protoss. Perhaps the difference in the players' calibre is too pronounced.
Nevertheless, I do not see any evidence of your mass Raven play at the professional level. Perhaps in time, but your wins with mass ravens should not be a part of the discussion.
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On April 19 2015 10:37 Jinchu wrote:Show nested quote +On April 19 2015 10:05 Big J wrote:On April 19 2015 08:12 Lexender wrote:On April 19 2015 07:48 Big J wrote:On April 19 2015 07:23 dust7 wrote:On April 19 2015 07:01 Big J wrote:On April 19 2015 06:19 dust7 wrote:On April 19 2015 03:35 ShambhalaWar wrote:
I don't play SH because its fun, but because WTF else do I do against mech (in the late game). From watching Mario's and Avilo's streams for a long time, I think Hydra Roach Viper is very playable against mech. Don't go light on the Vipers, have 10-20 and abduct gas units where you can. Mix in Nydus Worms as well. How well does it hold up when the Terran reaches 20+ ravens? I don't know, I'd guess versus the new Raven it should hold up (provided you have a Viper for every Raven). Oh well, I thought you could provide insight since you were watching their streams the last days. Nevermind, if you didn't see it or it didn't happen nothing to take from it. Infestor normally do the trick, its still a game of hitting a big fungal without dying in the process, but with PDD lasting so little the army will eventually find it self without PDD nor energy and then the ravens become dead weight That was not my question. My question was how roach/hydra/viper actually holds up against it, since dust7 said pretended he had evidence it was sufficient. Turns out it was all just theorycraft, while I'm winning with mass ravens on a daily basis and haven't yet encountered anything scary besides allins and mass, mass Swarm Host play. Given of course a map on which Mech can take a proper third and an eventual 4th base. Well, Jon Snow vs Desrow showed that roach/hydra/viper holds well against Protoss. Perhaps the difference in the players' calibre is too pronounced. Nevertheless, I do not see any evidence of your mass Raven play at the professional level. Perhaps in time, but your wins with mass ravens should not be a part of the discussion.
PvZ and TvZ are two different topics.
I've basically stated from the get-go of this patch that I believe that broodlords will make a strong comback in PvZ, and look what every zerg is winning with right now in lategame PvZ.
I only brought my own gameplay into the discussion because it is still a much better base for discussion than:
I don't know how well roach/hydra/viper holds up when the Terran reaches 20+ ravens
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I don't see why Blizz is trying to put this to players. They're the ones who should be able to tell whether zerg is weak, not weak, or too early to tell, and the answer to that question makes the answer to the question of whether or not to make changes quite obvious.
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On April 19 2015 10:47 Big J wrote:Show nested quote +On April 19 2015 10:37 Jinchu wrote:On April 19 2015 10:05 Big J wrote:On April 19 2015 08:12 Lexender wrote:On April 19 2015 07:48 Big J wrote:On April 19 2015 07:23 dust7 wrote:On April 19 2015 07:01 Big J wrote:On April 19 2015 06:19 dust7 wrote:On April 19 2015 03:35 ShambhalaWar wrote:
I don't play SH because its fun, but because WTF else do I do against mech (in the late game). From watching Mario's and Avilo's streams for a long time, I think Hydra Roach Viper is very playable against mech. Don't go light on the Vipers, have 10-20 and abduct gas units where you can. Mix in Nydus Worms as well. How well does it hold up when the Terran reaches 20+ ravens? I don't know, I'd guess versus the new Raven it should hold up (provided you have a Viper for every Raven). Oh well, I thought you could provide insight since you were watching their streams the last days. Nevermind, if you didn't see it or it didn't happen nothing to take from it. Infestor normally do the trick, its still a game of hitting a big fungal without dying in the process, but with PDD lasting so little the army will eventually find it self without PDD nor energy and then the ravens become dead weight That was not my question. My question was how roach/hydra/viper actually holds up against it, since dust7 said pretended he had evidence it was sufficient. Turns out it was all just theorycraft, while I'm winning with mass ravens on a daily basis and haven't yet encountered anything scary besides allins and mass, mass Swarm Host play. Given of course a map on which Mech can take a proper third and an eventual 4th base. Well, Jon Snow vs Desrow showed that roach/hydra/viper holds well against Protoss. Perhaps the difference in the players' calibre is too pronounced. Nevertheless, I do not see any evidence of your mass Raven play at the professional level. Perhaps in time, but your wins with mass ravens should not be a part of the discussion. PvZ and TvZ are two different topics. I've basically stated from the get-go of this patch that I believe that broodlords will make a strong comback in PvZ, and look what every zerg is winning with right now in lategame PvZ. I only brought my own gameplay into the discussion because it is still a much better base for discussion than: I don't know how well roach/hydra/viper holds up when the Terran reaches 20+ ravens
AH, I misread the first part. Apologies.
However, It is generally accepted that the one making a claim has the burden of proof. If there is a claim mass raven is overpowered, it has to be backed up with more credible evidence.
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Wait, so they're thinking of increasing the cd of locust spawn even more? Isn't a minute already a really fucking long time? I mean, I don't think the minute is bad, but increasing it any more feels like a big mistake.
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On April 19 2015 11:18 RogerChillingworth wrote:
Wait, so they're thinking of increasing the cd of locust spawn even more? Isn't a minute already a really fucking long time? I mena, I don't think the minute is bad, but increasing it any more feels like a big mistake.
I admit, I was confused when I read that as well.
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On April 19 2015 08:08 starimk wrote:Show nested quote +On April 19 2015 07:23 dust7 wrote:On April 19 2015 07:01 Big J wrote:On April 19 2015 06:19 dust7 wrote:On April 19 2015 03:35 ShambhalaWar wrote:
I don't play SH because its fun, but because WTF else do I do against mech (in the late game). From watching Mario's and Avilo's streams for a long time, I think Hydra Roach Viper is very playable against mech. Don't go light on the Vipers, have 10-20 and abduct gas units where you can. Mix in Nydus Worms as well. How well does it hold up when the Terran reaches 20+ ravens? I don't know, I'd guess versus the new Raven it should hold up (provided you have a Viper for every Raven). You don't even need a Viper for every Raven I think. From what I've seen just two or three Parasitic Bombs do so much damage to clumps of air units.
Um, this is about HotS not LotV. Parasitic bomb doesn't exist.
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On April 19 2015 22:43 MstrJinbo wrote:Show nested quote +On April 19 2015 08:08 starimk wrote:On April 19 2015 07:23 dust7 wrote:On April 19 2015 07:01 Big J wrote:On April 19 2015 06:19 dust7 wrote:On April 19 2015 03:35 ShambhalaWar wrote:
I don't play SH because its fun, but because WTF else do I do against mech (in the late game). From watching Mario's and Avilo's streams for a long time, I think Hydra Roach Viper is very playable against mech. Don't go light on the Vipers, have 10-20 and abduct gas units where you can. Mix in Nydus Worms as well. How well does it hold up when the Terran reaches 20+ ravens? I don't know, I'd guess versus the new Raven it should hold up (provided you have a Viper for every Raven). You don't even need a Viper for every Raven I think. From what I've seen just two or three Parasitic Bombs do so much damage to clumps of air units. Um, this is about HotS not LotV. Parasitic bomb doesn't exist.
Lol, can use to, venom infection of hydras, adrenaline injection of ultras, or slow spittle of mutas, XD.
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Swarm Hosts, boring as they seem, fulfilled one critically important role for Zerg: match the cost efficiency of Protoss and Terran deathballs. Making it a harassment unit isn't happening. Zerg has way better harassment options than SH.
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Remove the SH completely and buff Ultras. Legacy has Lurkers and can manage without SHs and Hots should be fine as long as we have a viable lategame composition without SHs i.e. Ultras.
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I think the starcraft community needs to be careful cause now we are coming to a point where we are having constant changes to the game non stop just because we don't like them. We don't want to turn into LoL but that's what all these changes are doing, constant changes to units and meta because we don't like something or because we don't know how to use something. We need to be going more of a route like Broodwar which is less changes over a greater period of time.
If a unit is not "game breaking" then leave it in and let people figure out how to use it, even in broodwar their were units that didn't always get used but that's ok. Trying to force Zergs to use SwarmHosts should not be Blizzards stance, just because they "WANT" to see SwarmHosts shouldn't mean a change needs to happen. IDK its getting kind of ridiculous at this point.
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On April 18 2015 04:43 CakeSauc3 wrote:
ZvP just got fun to watch again. I'd rather enjoy the game for a while before it gets broken again, please.
what exactly do you find fun about the matchup?
Personally I definitely fail to see it.
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On April 20 2015 22:17 NEEDZMOAR wrote:Show nested quote +On April 18 2015 04:43 CakeSauc3 wrote:
ZvP just got fun to watch again. I'd rather enjoy the game for a while before it gets broken again, please. what exactly do you find fun about the matchup? Personally I definitely fail to see it.
It´s mainly mass blink-stalkers at the moment. It´s getting close to being like TvP with choo choo all day.
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On April 20 2015 22:12 KMART561 wrote:
I think the starcraft community needs to be careful cause now we are coming to a point where we are having constant changes to the game non stop just because we don't like them. We don't want to turn into LoL but that's what all these changes are doing, constant changes to units and meta because we don't like something or because we don't know how to use something. We need to be going more of a route like Broodwar which is less changes over a greater period of time.
If a unit is not "game breaking" then leave it in and let people figure out how to use it, even in broodwar their were units that didn't always get used but that's ok. Trying to force Zergs to use SwarmHosts should not be Blizzards stance, just because they "WANT" to see SwarmHosts shouldn't mean a change needs to happen. IDK its getting kind of ridiculous at this point.
I pretty much agree with this, I'm sad that i can't viably use BC's but well i'll just wait till LOTV. No reason to apply big patches every week.
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On April 20 2015 22:12 KMART561 wrote:
I think the starcraft community needs to be careful cause now we are coming to a point where we are having constant changes to the game non stop just because we don't like them. We don't want to turn into LoL but that's what all these changes are doing, constant changes to units and meta because we don't like something or because we don't know how to use something. We need to be going more of a route like Broodwar which is less changes over a greater period of time.
If a unit is not "game breaking" then leave it in and let people figure out how to use it, even in broodwar their were units that didn't always get used but that's ok. Trying to force Zergs to use SwarmHosts should not be Blizzards stance, just because they "WANT" to see SwarmHosts shouldn't mean a change needs to happen. IDK its getting kind of ridiculous at this point.
This patch was the first balance change in 8months...
In general, HotS had 9patches. And that is counting the two tiny speed adjustments to the warp prism, the overseer when upgraded.
That makes for 7meaningful patches, parts of them just reverts in some way (widow mine, hellbat), reinstating original ideas. Many others of them being small adjustments to rushes (like the MsC patches) or things like the spore crawler patch for ZvZ, the frenzy patch on broodlords for ZvZ.
If anything, HotS has been left on its own for too long, especially in 2013 when everybody and their mother already could see the disaster that was swarm hosts, the ZvZ madness and Terrans overreliance on bio-units. All of them getting a few bandaids later on when all the predictions came true, but hardly any ambiguous changes were made to really interfer with bad metagames.
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On April 20 2015 22:17 NEEDZMOAR wrote:Show nested quote +On April 18 2015 04:43 CakeSauc3 wrote:
ZvP just got fun to watch again. I'd rather enjoy the game for a while before it gets broken again, please. what exactly do you find fun about the matchup? Personally I definitely fail to see it.
I dont see anything fun in a protoss 2 base all in, and the zerg lossing or a F2 + A click deathball protoss, and i don want to be mean, but is just don see anything fun in ZvP, personally i think TvT is the most fun to watch.
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4713 Posts
This is one of those cases where the map pool might help.
We know for sure zerg doesn't have a viable late game vs toss or mech, but we do know TvP and Bio vs Ling, bling, muta is relatively balanced.
My proposition is make maps that still have even TvP and Bio vs Z, but that make it very hard to for mech and toss to get up to the late game deathballs that can annihilate zergs. I know its a very specific set of features that need to be used to achieve this, I know its hard and I know that it will lead to some predictable gameplay that will get old after a while, but if we still want to maintain balance and give zergs a fighting chance I think that's what we should be aiming towards until Blizzard realizes the mess they have made.
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Roach buff? Is the staff all Zerg now?
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So they will not act immediately and observe longer for now. Updated the OP.
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Norway839 Posts
man i wish at the very least we could have two buttons, one ground locust and one air locust .. t_t
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I appreciate that they decided to take a wait and see stance. For once in a long time, a sensible decision.
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On April 21 2015 04:02 Liquid`Snute wrote:
man i wish at the very least we could have two buttons, one ground locust and one air locust .. t_t
Yeah they could just hotfix that without any balance testing. Maybe they'll do it in LotV soon and then carry it over to HotS. Just keep requesting it!
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On April 21 2015 03:12 DemigodcelpH wrote:
Roach buff? Is the staff all Zerg now?
so you think when a core zerg unit becomes largely irrelevant they shouldn't explore the idea of buffs to another core unit??
man people flip out so quickly over ideas even being discussed. "the fact that blizzard even thinks this is worth discussing proves they're clueless" lol ok community, i seem to remember even pro zerg players thinking this swarm host change was going to be cool and help the matchup and now they're not made at all
also remember when the hydra buff happened and every single toss (including a known biased toss balance whiner who recently posted in this thread) thought hydra timings were going to break zvp? sure clearly the reasonable explanation is that whenever a race you suck against might potentially have a buff TESTED it means the blizz staff is conspiring against you
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On April 21 2015 04:04 [PkF] Wire wrote:
I appreciate that they decided to take a wait and see stance. For once in a long time, a sensible decision.
the sensible decision would been to get back the old SH until the wcs qualifiers ends,and reapplying the patch after the qualifiers ends per region, not staying with a controversial patch that give a low blow to the lategame zerg while qualifiers are being played.
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Could someone explain Snute's comment, how is the SH working now?
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On April 21 2015 04:46 cheekymonkey wrote:
Could someone explain Snute's comment, how is the SH working now?
So you have to manually spawn locusts now, they won't autospawn when burrowed. You are not even supposed to burrow Swarmhosts, since they are really fast now and should run around the map to harrass or snipe units. Anyway once you get the flying upgrade and you spawn locusts, the locusts are in the air and flying. Depending on the situation this can be really bad and you'd rather have your locusts on the ground. So Snute wants two buttons to spawn locusts, a "spawn ground locusts" and a "spawn flying locusts" button.
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On April 21 2015 05:07 Musicus wrote:Show nested quote +On April 21 2015 04:46 cheekymonkey wrote:
Could someone explain Snute's comment, how is the SH working now? So you have to manually spawn locusts now, they won't autospawn when burrowed. You are not even supposed to burrow Swarmhosts, since they are really fast now and should run around the map to harrass or snipe units. Anyway once you get the flying upgrade and you spawn locusts, the locusts are in the air and flying. Depending on the situation this can be really bad and you'd rather have your locusts on the ground. So Snute wants two buttons to spawn locusts, a "spawn ground locusts" and a "spawn flying locusts" button.
Ohh, thanks. It really surprises me that you do not have the option of utilizing ground locusts after the upgrade, hopefully just a mistake from blizzard. I've seen flying locusts and Thors wreck them badly.
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On April 19 2015 06:19 dust7 wrote:Show nested quote +On April 19 2015 03:35 ShambhalaWar wrote:
I don't play SH because its fun, but because WTF else do I do against mech (in the late game). From watching Mario's and Avilo's streams for a long time, I think Hydra Roach Viper is very playable against mech. Don't go light on the Vipers, have 10-20 and abduct gas units where you can. Mix in Nydus Worms as well.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but 10 vipers = 2,000 gas, 20 = 4,000... Thats insane. Even if you build that many, there is the terran unit called "Viking." In other words you have to get in range to abduct and vikings prevent that typically.
Even if you could mass abduct each one of the vikings, you need enough hydra to kill them all and you diminish your energy for blinding cloud. For each abduction you make I also don't see how at least one if not more vipers die. Say 5 vipers get abducted, terran throws down a couple pdd, run, and maybe snipe a vip or two at the same time. Also forget corruptors they are just wasted supply if they can even manage some how to kill the vikings.
There is 0% possibility for a roach hydra army to go toe to toe with a properly controlled maxed mech army. Tanks, pdd, hunter seekers, cloaked banshees with a couple vikings to snipe detection (they stay cloaked, kill hydra, then clean up roaches...) There are so many ways roach hydra dies to that. You have a chance as roach hydra it just exists before the mech player reaches 200/200. Maybe new pdd changes things, but I don't think it does. You can throw a 200/200 roach hydra against a 200/200 mech and the mech player will barely lose anything while your army with be completely eliminated. Remax, and expect the exact same thing to happen to the remax. Like throwing a watermelon against a brick wall.
While I am in no way a gm or even a current master player, Avilo and Mario aren't even close to the best mech players and I've seen Avilo beat roach hydra plenty of times. Even before these changes, I've see avilo take his third at something ridiculous like 18 min and then continue to push out and starve a zerg who took the entire rest of the map.
That is why I spoke to the "late game," early I think roach hydra has a chance if you can keep trading.
Pls someone correct me if I'm wrong in this. While I don't play sc2 much anymore, I would like to know if this is a viable response at the current meta?
My impression is that you pretty much need brood lords. At least some mix of them or a maxed brood lord corruptor army.
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Can anyone comment on what's been observed in any tournament play since the last patch? Is mech annihilating Z? Any hope of counter play against a well played mech build?
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On April 21 2015 09:35 ShambhalaWar wrote:Show nested quote +On April 19 2015 06:19 dust7 wrote:On April 19 2015 03:35 ShambhalaWar wrote:
I don't play SH because its fun, but because WTF else do I do against mech (in the late game). From watching Mario's and Avilo's streams for a long time, I think Hydra Roach Viper is very playable against mech. Don't go light on the Vipers, have 10-20 and abduct gas units where you can. Mix in Nydus Worms as well. Correct me if I'm wrong, but 10 vipers = 2,000 gas, 20 = 4,000... Thats insane. Even if you build that many, there is the terran unit called "Viking." In other words you have to get in range to abduct and vikings prevent that typically.
That's exactly what happened between PiG and avilo right now on their streams. Both players said at some point that making that many vipers isn't effective.
Pls someone correct me if I'm wrong in this. While I don't play sc2 much anymore, I would like to know if this is a viable response at the current meta?
You are pretty much spot on with this. Roach/Hydra/Viper is a timing based compositions. If you can keep the Terran in an eternal "midgame" scenario you can make a macro game off it. But you are pretty much allin with your first 1-2attacks and the counter to this is basically to go full avilo, since the only way to play these sorts of attacks is to cut into your own economy, because the supplyinefficiency of roach/hydra doesn't allow you to go much beyond 60drones.
My impression is that you pretty much need brood lords. At least some mix of them or a maxed brood lord corruptor army.
Broodlords are similar to roach/hydra based play, in that they are a timing. They can't dodge seeker missiles, so eventually the Terran can just kill them if he just defends well and/or lets his Ravens build up energy. Strategically speaking, by going Broodlords you are forcing the Terran into the composition that you don't want him to play, aka Ravens/Vikings. Once the Terran has this composition, you have a hard time getting your vipers to work and you cannot switch back into any sort of airplay anymore.
If you have an insanely strong economy, going broodlords and then doing a full ultraswitch is a possibility. This is actually a good way to counter an opponent going full avilo with late 3rds and 4ths and lots of turrets, because it allows you to make like 80-100workers+tech up and force the meching player to throw all his resources into antiair, while your goal is just to wipe as many tanks/thors as possible. Though I'm not really certain how viable this style is anymore. Previously, this was played of the back of like 10swarm hosts to make you safe and ensure that the Terran was taking the game rather slowly too.
I think the current core units for zerg lategame vs mech are ultras, infestors and vipers. + Show Spoiler +Or masses of the new swarm host, but that is basically speculation at this point. No clue how well it really fares against an opponent keeping track of their movements with banshees and hellions and using Thorbased Mech to kill the locust before they land.
You want to stay away from projectile attacks as much as possible in the lategame. Infested Terrans+blinding cloud+fungal is a sick combo to take out balls of ground mech and banshees, for as long as you have the supplyefficient tanking power of the ultralisk to cast those spells.
And mass ultralisks are your best friend against an opponent going into ravens very fast.
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On April 19 2015 08:03 tjtombo wrote:
Honestly playing zvt at a diamond level is extremely frustrating as a zerg against mech. Before, swarm host was baiscially our only LATE GAME response to turtle mech, now it just seems like we either win with a roach hydra viper timing or the game just kinda is over.
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my point being that if its hard against diamond terrans, i can only imagine how hard it is against pros who are more durable against early roach hydra busts
You think zvt vs mech is frustrating? LOL.
You should play mech vs zerg a few games, then you see what really frustrating is. You can completely outplay your opponent, kill over 100 drones with hellions, be ahead in economy and still lose if you let your tanks a little bit to clumped one time.
One blinding cloud on your tank line and your army gets completely annihilated while the zerg loses barely any supply. Bases economy, bank, nothing matters anymore, get blinding clouded one time and it's gg.
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On April 21 2015 11:18 Charoisaur wrote:Show nested quote +On April 19 2015 08:03 tjtombo wrote:
Honestly playing zvt at a diamond level is extremely frustrating as a zerg against mech. Before, swarm host was baiscially our only LATE GAME response to turtle mech, now it just seems like we either win with a roach hydra viper timing or the game just kinda is over.
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my point being that if its hard against diamond terrans, i can only imagine how hard it is against pros who are more durable against early roach hydra busts You think zvt vs mech is frustrating? LOL. You should play mech vs zerg a few games, then you see what really frustrating is. You can completely outplay your opponent, kill over 100 drones with hellions, be ahead in economy and still lose if you let your tanks a little bit to clumped one time. One blinding cloud on your tank line and your army gets completely annihilated while the zerg loses barely any supply. Bases economy, bank, nothing matters anymore, get blinding clouded one time and it's gg.
Then don't play it. You have a choice. Your opponent has not. If you are frustrated by your own chosen playstyle, then maybe this isn't the right playstyle or game for you.
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On April 21 2015 11:18 Charoisaur wrote:Show nested quote +On April 19 2015 08:03 tjtombo wrote:
Honestly playing zvt at a diamond level is extremely frustrating as a zerg against mech. Before, swarm host was baiscially our only LATE GAME response to turtle mech, now it just seems like we either win with a roach hydra viper timing or the game just kinda is over.
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my point being that if its hard against diamond terrans, i can only imagine how hard it is against pros who are more durable against early roach hydra busts You think zvt vs mech is frustrating? LOL. You should play mech vs zerg a few games, then you see what really frustrating is. You can completely outplay your opponent, kill over 100 drones with hellions, be ahead in economy and still lose if you let your tanks a little bit to clumped one time. One blinding cloud on your tank line and your army gets completely annihilated while the zerg loses barely any supply. Bases economy, bank, nothing matters anymore, get blinding clouded one time and it's gg.
i just gona say that if u killed 100 drones, and the zerg won you, the person who outplayed the other was not you, also try to be objective if you gona drop an hilarious thought like the zvmech is broken in favor of zerg, XD.
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To add to some of the comments already posted,
In my experience playing in masters, once the Terran is able to get on 4 bases with mech, they are able to replace whatever tanks/thors you pick off quickly and easily, and begin trading out supply/scvs for vikings and ravens. At this point, unless they make some large blunders it is very difficult for the zerg to win. With the current SH, tanks are fairly unnecessary after you have 6-8 ravens and a handful of vikings. Mass thor/viking/raven is a composition that will always trade effectively and has no reasonable counter composition on the part of the zerg, especially since no ground locusts are available as of now.
So the key becomes killing a meching Terran on 3 bases or less, which is difficult depending on the map. Roach Hydra Viper is effective, and I've found it works well enough if you can begin trading with the Terran by about 14 minutes. The new SH is marginally effective at harassment and dealing with tanks, but becomes useless supply after the Thor/viking/raven composition is reached.
As for late game ZvP, I think putting all of your eggs in the muta basket is the best way to go at the moment.
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So this recent Life vs. Maru game showed once more that ZvT mech is unbeatable after this 'hillarious' patch DK has made. No options for zerg to win this match-up right now. 2-base all-in or gg.
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On April 21 2015 21:12 Muxtar wrote:
So this recent Life vs. Maru game showed once more that ZvT mech is unbeatable after this 'hillarious' patch DK has made. No options for zerg to win this match-up right now. 2-base all-in or gg.
Nah, there are 3-base all-inns too. All-inning might be the best idea at the moment especially on certain maps were terran has easy access to safe third and fourth bases. I would say that combined mech upgrades are something that should be removed as it would possibly open some timings to zerg.
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On April 21 2015 21:15 RaFox17 wrote:
Nah, there are 3-base all-inns too. All-inning might be the best idea at the moment especially on certain maps were terran has easy access to safe third and fourth bases. I would say that combined mech upgrades are something that should be removed as it would possibly open some timings to zerg.
Yep, but even taking map such as Expedition Lost, where it is hard enough for terran to take and defend 3rd-4th map (especially gold in the middle) Maru could do this despite all counterattacks that Life (zerg №1 in the world, mind you) launched at him. And then he just F2+A+click win the match.
P.S. Upgrades dividing sounds as quite good idea but I could bet that nothing will be done in next 3-4 months, and then it will be all this 'LotV release hype', so RIP zerg until LotV
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It's really sad that we even have the current issue and have to find a way for zerg to deal with mech and protoss deathballs cost efficiently.
If we had a better economy model and no 3 base cap, this would not even be an issue and zerg could just try to outmine mech players or 3 base protosses and deal with the armies in a cost inefficient manner.
In the end it comes back to this http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/legacy-of-the-void/482775-a-treatise-on-the-economy-of-scii and any balance change is just a bandaid.
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So basically here we go again, just like the end of fuckin WoL except now its evolving in a direction where its gonna end up even worse
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/thread pretty much. perhaps protoss would need a redesign in order to be less clunky and immobile and more capable of taking fights and bases without deathballing, but for now I think a better economy model would be the way to go. The game would be so much more fun, both in terms of watching and playing.
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The best solution would have been to just kill mech : bio in TvZ is far from weak, SH is not very effective vs bio, and Bio vs mutas/bane is the MU viewers like the most.
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On April 21 2015 23:03 Tyrhanius wrote:
The best solution would have been to just kill mech : bio in TvZ is far from weak, SH is not very effective vs bio, and Bio vs mutas/bane is the MU viewers like the most.
They kept buffing Mech for no good reason. Terran is the only race that gets "flavor buffs", buffs that aren't really needed for balance, but are done just because there's always a group of people whining they want better Mech. Merging the upgrades was ridiculous, Ravens have been ridiculous since the beginning of HotS, Banshees unnecessarily got buffed to ridiculous levels.
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On April 21 2015 11:18 Charoisaur wrote:Show nested quote +On April 19 2015 08:03 tjtombo wrote:
Honestly playing zvt at a diamond level is extremely frustrating as a zerg against mech. Before, swarm host was baiscially our only LATE GAME response to turtle mech, now it just seems like we either win with a roach hydra viper timing or the game just kinda is over.
Edit *
my point being that if its hard against diamond terrans, i can only imagine how hard it is against pros who are more durable against early roach hydra busts You think zvt vs mech is frustrating? LOL. You should play mech vs zerg a few games, then you see what really frustrating is. You can completely outplay your opponent, kill over 100 drones with hellions, be ahead in economy and still lose if you let your tanks a little bit to clumped one time. One blinding cloud on your tank line and your army gets completely annihilated while the zerg loses barely any supply. Bases economy, bank, nothing matters anymore, get blinding clouded one time and it's gg.
Thats the nature of Terran, though. If you royally fuck up an engagement during the late game you're going to just get rolled over. It happens in TvT if you lose all your tanks (if you're either mech or rine+tank), it can happen in TvP if you lose track of your Vikings and they get blunk'd and it happens in TvZ.
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maybe mech and protoss would be less of an issue if we had maps where you can't safely rush to 4base
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On April 21 2015 23:21 Tenks wrote:Show nested quote +On April 21 2015 11:18 Charoisaur wrote:On April 19 2015 08:03 tjtombo wrote:
Honestly playing zvt at a diamond level is extremely frustrating as a zerg against mech. Before, swarm host was baiscially our only LATE GAME response to turtle mech, now it just seems like we either win with a roach hydra viper timing or the game just kinda is over.
Edit *
my point being that if its hard against diamond terrans, i can only imagine how hard it is against pros who are more durable against early roach hydra busts You think zvt vs mech is frustrating? LOL. You should play mech vs zerg a few games, then you see what really frustrating is. You can completely outplay your opponent, kill over 100 drones with hellions, be ahead in economy and still lose if you let your tanks a little bit to clumped one time. One blinding cloud on your tank line and your army gets completely annihilated while the zerg loses barely any supply. Bases economy, bank, nothing matters anymore, get blinding clouded one time and it's gg. Thats the nature of Terran, though. If you royally fuck up an engagement during the late game you're going to just get rolled over. It happens in TvT if you lose all your tanks (if you're either mech or rine+tank), it can happen in TvP if you lose track of your Vikings and they get blunk'd and it happens in TvZ.
Nature of terrans lel
One mine hit can lose you the game zvt
One bane hit can lose you a zvz Fucking
Poor position in zvp can get you force fielded to death
Missing a few force fields in pvz can end the game
Fucking up defending a single drop can lose you pvt
Anything you do in PvP can get you killed really.
It's the same for everyone lol the game is not very forgiving.
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On April 21 2015 23:23 Meavis wrote:
maybe mech and protoss would be less of an issue if we had maps where you can't safely rush to 4base
But how bad can you make 4th bases while keeping the game interesting?
How bad can you make 4th bases without hurting zerg more than the other races when it comes to midgame timingbased play?
Sure, there are bad Mech maps out there. But when you just make such playstyles bad on every played map, you may as well just balance patch and keep the maps more diverse.
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They could add upgrades to roaches/Hydras at hive tech (can't put them at lair tech) with a relatively short reseach time (60 seconds or so) to make them better in the late game.
Perhaps something like +20 hp for Hydras and Roaches for 150/150. This will make them a bit more resistant to splash damage, allowing them to fight longer against the Protoss army.
Alternatively, reduce the cost and time that it takes to reach hive tech and greater spire. This will allow Zerg to keep up a bit better on upgrades in ZvT, and in ZvP, they will be able to reach BLs a bit earlier, which should help them get past that early part of the late game.
I think this would be the easiest solution to give zerg a small bump in that early late game to help them reach the BL/Viper/Infestor/Corruptor/Queen stage.
Zerg is problematic in the early-mid game because they can build up so much faster than the other races, their bases are cheaper, and their units are more mobile. In Protoss's case, they can't even move out until they hit ~130 supply with a large number of sentries because Zerg units are so much more cost efficient, and if Protoss doesn't have excellent FFs in a fight, their entire army will die. This makes it incredibly hard to buff them on hatch/lair tech. Any buffs will need to be on Hive tech, to affect a point of the game where zerg is struggling, without buffing the point in the game where zerg are already dominant.
Zerg doesn't really have many options in the way of micro either, so engagements really just come down to location and how well the protoss player performs.
(IMO, FF should be given HP so the other player has an option to respond to it, or be replaced (IMO stasis ward on Sentries would be cool) for some buffs to gateway tech so Protoss can compete with Zerg in the early-mid game. Terran would need a buff to their bio units at base values; possibly make combat shields included on marines or reduce stim research time.)
At that point though, I think Zerg could actually use a nerf to their economic build up in comparison to the other races, so they don't auto-win if the other player doesn't do economic damage (or force large numbers of units) early in the game.
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On April 22 2015 03:24 Asamu2 wrote:
They could add upgrades to roaches/Hydras at hive tech (can't put them at lair tech) with a relatively short reseach time (60 seconds or so) to make them better in the late game.
Perhaps something like +20 hp for Hydras and Roaches for 150/150. This will make them a bit more resistant to splash damage, allowing them to fight longer against the Protoss army.
Alternatively, reduce the cost and time that it takes to reach hive tech and greater spire. This will allow Zerg to keep up a bit better on upgrades in ZvT, and in ZvP, they will be able to reach BLs a bit earlier, which should help them get past that early part of the late game.
I think this would be the easiest solution to give zerg a small bump in that early late game to help them reach the BL/Viper/Infestor/Corruptor/Queen stage.
Zerg is problematic in the early-mid game because they can build up so much faster than the other races, their bases are cheaper, and their units are more mobile. In Protoss's case, they can't even move out until they hit ~130 supply with a large number of sentries because Zerg units are so much more cost efficient, and if Protoss doesn't have excellent FFs in a fight, their entire army will die. This makes it incredibly hard to buff them on hatch/lair tech. Any buffs will need to be on Hive tech, to affect a point of the game where zerg is struggling, without buffing the point in the game where zerg are already dominant.
Zerg doesn't really have many options in the way of micro either, so engagements really just come down to location and how well the protoss player performs.
At that point though, I think Zerg could actually use a nerf to their economic build up in comparison to the other races, so they don't auto-win if the other player doesn't do economic damage (or force large numbers of units) early in the game.
Autowin? Lol. What a joke.
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On April 22 2015 01:24 HellHound wrote:Show nested quote +On April 21 2015 23:21 Tenks wrote:On April 21 2015 11:18 Charoisaur wrote:On April 19 2015 08:03 tjtombo wrote:
Honestly playing zvt at a diamond level is extremely frustrating as a zerg against mech. Before, swarm host was baiscially our only LATE GAME response to turtle mech, now it just seems like we either win with a roach hydra viper timing or the game just kinda is over.
Edit *
my point being that if its hard against diamond terrans, i can only imagine how hard it is against pros who are more durable against early roach hydra busts You think zvt vs mech is frustrating? LOL. You should play mech vs zerg a few games, then you see what really frustrating is. You can completely outplay your opponent, kill over 100 drones with hellions, be ahead in economy and still lose if you let your tanks a little bit to clumped one time. One blinding cloud on your tank line and your army gets completely annihilated while the zerg loses barely any supply. Bases economy, bank, nothing matters anymore, get blinding clouded one time and it's gg. Thats the nature of Terran, though. If you royally fuck up an engagement during the late game you're going to just get rolled over. It happens in TvT if you lose all your tanks (if you're either mech or rine+tank), it can happen in TvP if you lose track of your Vikings and they get blunk'd and it happens in TvZ. Nature of terrans lel One mine hit can lose you the game zvt One bane hit can lose you a zvz Fucking Poor position in zvp can get you force fielded to death Missing a few force fields in pvz can end the game Fucking up defending a single drop can lose you pvt Anything you do in PvP can get you killed really. It's the same for everyone lol the game is not very forgiving.
But only terran loses after fucking up an engagement even if they were far ahead up to that point because their production doesn't allow them to remax as fast as the other races.
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On April 22 2015 03:27 ohmylanta1003 wrote:
Autowin? Lol. What a joke.
Yes, please ignore the entire rest of the post to just look at the last point, which is near true for high level play. Zerg don't necessarily auto-win, but the chances for the other player to win are incredibly low.
If Zerg's economy is left untouched in the early game, and they don't make any huge mistakes, they are pretty much guaranteed the win (at least vs Protoss; Terran has a chance). They max out with double the other player's army supply, apply pressure with a gas-light composition, or a roach/baneling bust, then swap to something like Mutas and end the game because the other player CANNOT respond to them because their economy isn't good enough, unless they started with the tech that would respond to them, in which case, the Zerg player transitions to something else, or their opponent is already dead.
Zerg can use speedlings to deny/delay the 3rd for Protoss for a long time, and if their econ is untouched, the zerg will have 3 fully saturated bases at ~6:30 or so. Once they have 3 base saturation, they can just pump roach/ling or Hydra/ling, get nearly maxed out, and hit 2 locations at all times to deny the 3rd. Once the other player has a composition to deal with the roach/ling or Hydra/ling, (probably poor on AA because they don't have all that much gas), the Zerg player transitions to Mutas, kills the Protoss economy, and wins the game.
If the Protoss player was going for a 2 base all in from the start, they will be moving out at ~10 minutes. If the Zerg player is active with their army, sets up flanks, and can waste enough of the sentry energy before the Protoss reaches their base, they will easily deal with the all in.
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On April 22 2015 03:32 Charoisaur wrote:Show nested quote +On April 22 2015 01:24 HellHound wrote:On April 21 2015 23:21 Tenks wrote:On April 21 2015 11:18 Charoisaur wrote:On April 19 2015 08:03 tjtombo wrote:
Honestly playing zvt at a diamond level is extremely frustrating as a zerg against mech. Before, swarm host was baiscially our only LATE GAME response to turtle mech, now it just seems like we either win with a roach hydra viper timing or the game just kinda is over.
Edit *
my point being that if its hard against diamond terrans, i can only imagine how hard it is against pros who are more durable against early roach hydra busts You think zvt vs mech is frustrating? LOL. You should play mech vs zerg a few games, then you see what really frustrating is. You can completely outplay your opponent, kill over 100 drones with hellions, be ahead in economy and still lose if you let your tanks a little bit to clumped one time. One blinding cloud on your tank line and your army gets completely annihilated while the zerg loses barely any supply. Bases economy, bank, nothing matters anymore, get blinding clouded one time and it's gg. Thats the nature of Terran, though. If you royally fuck up an engagement during the late game you're going to just get rolled over. It happens in TvT if you lose all your tanks (if you're either mech or rine+tank), it can happen in TvP if you lose track of your Vikings and they get blunk'd and it happens in TvZ. Nature of terrans lel One mine hit can lose you the game zvt One bane hit can lose you a zvz Fucking Poor position in zvp can get you force fielded to death Missing a few force fields in pvz can end the game Fucking up defending a single drop can lose you pvt Anything you do in PvP can get you killed really. It's the same for everyone lol the game is not very forgiving. But only terran loses after fucking up an engagement even if they were far ahead up to that point because their production doesn't allow them to remax as fast as the other races.
Completely disagree. Any bad engagement by any race in any matchup can lose them the game. End. Of. Story.
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But only terran loses after fucking up an engagement even if they were far ahead up to that point because their production doesn't allow them to remax as fast as the other races.
i dont believe this is true, yes zerg remax faster but if uve been doing appropriate harass and kept the zerg base couunt in check, theres no larva, no money and every second a unit is built the eco race is being lost, meanwhile uve just put an extra 6 rax down ontop of the 5 you have, 22 rines at a time of uve tech labbed them all. providing the zerg is literally ontop of their injects it is comparable
BUT
if all the above was done as smooth as it should have gone, the terran outmacros the zerg with much better 1v1 units so hmm, i think a lot would be dont if zergs were allowed to store 5 larva at the base and scale so that 5 drop in the same time 3 would drop
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So honestly, my biggest problem with Swarm Hosts as they were in HotS was that it felt like you finished killing a Locust wave JUST in time for another one to show up and start doing more damage.
I think the changes they implemented to the unit were far too drastic for HotS. I would prefer to see them try the third option outlined, increase cooldown of Spawn Locust. I feel that if you can simply give the enemy player a decent window of time to make something happen between Locust waves, you can remove a LOT of this stalemate nonsense, while still giving Zerg players a powerful tool to deal with enemy army compositions, Terran mech/Raven especially.
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On April 22 2015 04:29 StatixEx wrote:Show nested quote +
But only terran loses after fucking up an engagement even if they were far ahead up to that point because their production doesn't allow them to remax as fast as the other races.
i dont believe this is true, yes zerg remax faster but if uve been doing appropriate harass and kept the zerg base couunt in check, theres no larva, no money and every second a unit is built the eco race is being lost, meanwhile uve just put an extra 6 rax down ontop of the 5 you have, 22 rines at a time of uve tech labbed them all. providing the zerg is literally ontop of their injects it is comparable BUT if all the above was done as smooth as it should have gone, the terran outmacros the zerg with much better 1v1 units so hmm, i think a lot would be dont if zergs were allowed to store 5 larva at the base and scale so that 5 drop in the same time 3 would drop
read: if they were far ahead up to that point
In an even game I agree, every race can lose the game after doing one mistake, but when zerg is far ahead he can instantly remax after fucking up one engagement and still be fine. If terran is far ahead and gets his army crushed, the other race can get on top of his production behore he is able to remax.and win the game.
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On April 18 2015 07:43 Charoisaur wrote:Show nested quote +On April 18 2015 04:24 Big J wrote:On April 18 2015 03:52 Charoisaur wrote:
LOL buffing zerg without any statistics that suggest they are doing worse than before.
That is maybe the worst suggestion I have ever seen. plz david kim, don't do any changes because of low level zergs that are crying. Wait for high level matches. After the widow mine buff every zerg was crying imba and look where we are now. 2 terrans in SSL.
If you don't like the affect of the new patch; just revert it. The new SHs are completely broken. Just spawn locusts somewhere on the map and kill a base for free without anything the terran can do vs it. They just have no counterplay.
Wait until the koreans learn to properly abuse them and mech won't be played anymore before LotV.
The old SH was infinitely easier to deal with than the new one, the new one is the most broken unit I've ever seen.
I almost never lost games vs the old SH but once the zerg builds the new SH the game is over. mech has no answer to them.
That was your solution to long SH games. remove mech from the game so zerg doesn't build them anymore. brilliant.
Now we see bio all game every game again. so exciting. This must be one of the weirdest posts I have ever seen. a) you are saying that you almost never lost to the old swarm host b) you are saying that they shouldn't be buffing zerg without evidence but you also say contradiction to a): the swarm host was buffed and you are not ok with it, despite you saying that they weren't sufficient contradiction to b): they buffed zerg, while admitting you don't have evidence because noone is using them mech was rarely played at the pro level. I almost never lost to the old SHs because of my outstanding skill not because SHs were to weak. Now that swarmhosts have been buffed not even I can do something vs them. There is just no counterplay to them. If I leave units there to deal with the locusts he trades with them for free and if I don't leave units there he kills a base for free. I can't chase the new imbahosts because mech is to slow. User was warned for this post
This post has more troll in it than avilo
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On April 22 2015 05:55 Hadronsbecrazy wrote:Show nested quote +On April 18 2015 07:43 Charoisaur wrote:On April 18 2015 04:24 Big J wrote:On April 18 2015 03:52 Charoisaur wrote:
LOL buffing zerg without any statistics that suggest they are doing worse than before.
That is maybe the worst suggestion I have ever seen. plz david kim, don't do any changes because of low level zergs that are crying. Wait for high level matches. After the widow mine buff every zerg was crying imba and look where we are now. 2 terrans in SSL.
If you don't like the affect of the new patch; just revert it. The new SHs are completely broken. Just spawn locusts somewhere on the map and kill a base for free without anything the terran can do vs it. They just have no counterplay.
Wait until the koreans learn to properly abuse them and mech won't be played anymore before LotV.
The old SH was infinitely easier to deal with than the new one, the new one is the most broken unit I've ever seen.
I almost never lost games vs the old SH but once the zerg builds the new SH the game is over. mech has no answer to them.
That was your solution to long SH games. remove mech from the game so zerg doesn't build them anymore. brilliant.
Now we see bio all game every game again. so exciting. This must be one of the weirdest posts I have ever seen. a) you are saying that you almost never lost to the old swarm host b) you are saying that they shouldn't be buffing zerg without evidence but you also say contradiction to a): the swarm host was buffed and you are not ok with it, despite you saying that they weren't sufficient contradiction to b): they buffed zerg, while admitting you don't have evidence because noone is using them mech was rarely played at the pro level. I almost never lost to the old SHs because of my outstanding skill not because SHs were to weak. Now that swarmhosts have been buffed not even I can do something vs them. There is just no counterplay to them. If I leave units there to deal with the locusts he trades with them for free and if I don't leave units there he kills a base for free. I can't chase the new imbahosts because mech is to slow. User was warned for this post This post has more troll in it than avilo
The thing is, neither avilo nor that guy are trolling...
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On April 22 2015 05:36 Charoisaur wrote:Show nested quote +On April 22 2015 04:29 StatixEx wrote:
But only terran loses after fucking up an engagement even if they were far ahead up to that point because their production doesn't allow them to remax as fast as the other races.
i dont believe this is true, yes zerg remax faster but if uve been doing appropriate harass and kept the zerg base couunt in check, theres no larva, no money and every second a unit is built the eco race is being lost, meanwhile uve just put an extra 6 rax down ontop of the 5 you have, 22 rines at a time of uve tech labbed them all. providing the zerg is literally ontop of their injects it is comparable BUT if all the above was done as smooth as it should have gone, the terran outmacros the zerg with much better 1v1 units so hmm, i think a lot would be dont if zergs were allowed to store 5 larva at the base and scale so that 5 drop in the same time 3 would drop read: if they were far ahead up to that pointIn an even game I agree, every race can lose the game after doing one mistake, but when zerg is far ahead he can instantly remax after fucking up one engagement and still be fine. If terran is far ahead and gets his army crushed, the other race can get on top of his production behore he is able to remax.and win the game.
OF COURSE HE CAN STILL BE FINE!!! According to your theoretical game, Zerg was far ahead. If he's far ahead and screws up once, do you expect him to just lose? Your logic is flawed.
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On April 22 2015 06:45 ohmylanta1003 wrote:Show nested quote +On April 22 2015 05:36 Charoisaur wrote:On April 22 2015 04:29 StatixEx wrote:
But only terran loses after fucking up an engagement even if they were far ahead up to that point because their production doesn't allow them to remax as fast as the other races.
i dont believe this is true, yes zerg remax faster but if uve been doing appropriate harass and kept the zerg base couunt in check, theres no larva, no money and every second a unit is built the eco race is being lost, meanwhile uve just put an extra 6 rax down ontop of the 5 you have, 22 rines at a time of uve tech labbed them all. providing the zerg is literally ontop of their injects it is comparable BUT if all the above was done as smooth as it should have gone, the terran outmacros the zerg with much better 1v1 units so hmm, i think a lot would be dont if zergs were allowed to store 5 larva at the base and scale so that 5 drop in the same time 3 would drop read: if they were far ahead up to that pointIn an even game I agree, every race can lose the game after doing one mistake, but when zerg is far ahead he can instantly remax after fucking up one engagement and still be fine. If terran is far ahead and gets his army crushed, the other race can get on top of his production behore he is able to remax.and win the game. OF COURSE HE CAN STILL BE FINE!!! According to your theoretical game, Zerg was far ahead. If he's far ahead and screws up once, do you expect him to just lose? Your logic is flawed.
Don't even get into that. Just today Maru got his whole 180 or so supply army wiped by ultralisks, fell to 117supply and still won the game against an opponent who at the same time was at 150. All of that of course with the irreplaceable Mech-playstyle.
It's haltless bullshit that gets thrown around and theorycrafted on, without considering the setups involved. Hint: it has a lot to do with ones personal macro skills and playstyle whether one can remax fast or not.
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My take on passiveness in the new patch is that zerg is now forced to attack protoss and mech players, while they do best defending these attacks. This makes sense when zerg is the superior mobile and economic race with faster production and more map control/vision in general. I think that approach seemingly is correct, and is how the zerg should seem to be played. If attacks from zerg fail, they will be at a worse position for the lategame.
Does this mean no changes should be made or no minor buffs to zerg? No of course not, but bringing back a unit that arguably is stronger for zerg both vs terran and especially protoss in the lategame while having mechanics that allows them to play an offensive midgame seem to be unwise to me. This includes buffing the new swarmhost or other units to an extend that allows for the same.
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On April 22 2015 07:03 Big J wrote:Show nested quote +On April 22 2015 06:45 ohmylanta1003 wrote:On April 22 2015 05:36 Charoisaur wrote:On April 22 2015 04:29 StatixEx wrote:
But only terran loses after fucking up an engagement even if they were far ahead up to that point because their production doesn't allow them to remax as fast as the other races.
i dont believe this is true, yes zerg remax faster but if uve been doing appropriate harass and kept the zerg base couunt in check, theres no larva, no money and every second a unit is built the eco race is being lost, meanwhile uve just put an extra 6 rax down ontop of the 5 you have, 22 rines at a time of uve tech labbed them all. providing the zerg is literally ontop of their injects it is comparable BUT if all the above was done as smooth as it should have gone, the terran outmacros the zerg with much better 1v1 units so hmm, i think a lot would be dont if zergs were allowed to store 5 larva at the base and scale so that 5 drop in the same time 3 would drop read: if they were far ahead up to that pointIn an even game I agree, every race can lose the game after doing one mistake, but when zerg is far ahead he can instantly remax after fucking up one engagement and still be fine. If terran is far ahead and gets his army crushed, the other race can get on top of his production behore he is able to remax.and win the game. OF COURSE HE CAN STILL BE FINE!!! According to your theoretical game, Zerg was far ahead. If he's far ahead and screws up once, do you expect him to just lose? Your logic is flawed. Don't even get into that. Just today Maru got his whole 180 or so supply army wiped by ultralisks, fell to 117supply and still won the game against an opponent who at the same time was at 150. All of that of course with the irreplaceable Mech-playstyle. It's haltless bullshit that gets thrown around and theorycrafted on, without considering the setups involved. Hint: it has a lot to do with ones personal macro skills and playstyle whether one can remax fast or not.
Wait. So you're agreeing with me right? I'm disagreeing with the original poster.
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On April 22 2015 07:51 TheoMikkelsen wrote:
My take on passiveness in the new patch is that zerg is now forced to attack protoss and mech players, while they do best defending these attacks. This makes sense when zerg is the superior mobile and economic race with faster production and more map control/vision in general. I think that approach seemingly is correct, and is how the zerg should seem to be played. If attacks from zerg fail, they will be at a worse position for the lategame.
Does this mean no changes should be made or no minor buffs to zerg? No of course not, but bringing back a unit that arguably is stronger for zerg both vs terran and especially protoss in the lategame while having mechanics that allows them to play an offensive midgame seem to be unwise to me. This includes buffing the new swarmhost or other units to an extend that allows for the same.
So, to understand you, the protoss and mech terran turtling the game, but for you to resolve that who has to be forced to attack is the zerg?, more logical is that who turtling the game is who has to be forced to attack.
Second you say that protoss and terran do best defending, so for you zergs with this patch should crush over and over against tanks and mines lossing 50% or more of army, or try to attack walls protoss and cant doing any damage for the forcfields, and even of that u said that shouldnt make buffs?, while zergs has the most weakest early and mid game of the 3 races, and the goal for a zerg was to get the lategame to get the power of remax, bcoz even with remax in terms of power of units, zerg is the most weak at late game to, and even more weakest with this patch on the SH.
The current situation of zerg players with this patch is if get lategame his chances to win are about 30%, but if zerg try to end the game at midgame his chances are about 35-40%, is something like could say zerg were good at lategame before the patch, but with this patch they should try to win at earlymidgame even they are the weakest at that stages of the game.
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I think protoss is still realy bad atm. they should be able to secure a third faster without giving them a more powerful deathball. The IMHO easiest way to achieve that would be:
remove range upgrade for collossi and make them start at 9 range
- This would make it easier for Protoss to get a much needed third and even to secure the natural.
- They wouldn't have to make huge investments into an upgrade and spend lots of time on it for a unit that they probably won't use throughout the game because of the decreased dps.
- It wouldn't change the strength of the collossi in the deathball, which is what made me hate the collossi.
- having decent defensive collossi faster, would also encourage collossi-drops, so you can do sth. with them, even if the opponent doesn't rush you with bio or whatever.
- I also don't think there would be tons of imba timing-attacks with collossi if the upgrade is free, since you don't atk with a too low number of them anyways, so the range-upgrade would've been finished by the time you atk.
- They've removed siege-mode upgrade long ago and now even the lurker range-upgrade: I think the collossi upgrade is fair.
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On April 23 2015 00:49 kickinhead wrote:
I think protoss is still realy bad atm. they should be able to secure a third faster without giving them a more powerful deathball. The IMHO easiest way to achieve that would be:
remove range upgrade for collossi and make them start at 9 range
- This would make it easier for Protoss to get a much needed third and even to secure the natural.
- They wouldn't have to make huge investments into an upgrade and spend lots of time on it for a unit that they probably won't use throughout the game because of the decreased dps.
- It wouldn't change the strength of the collossi in the deathball, which is what made me hate the collossi.
- having decent defensive collossi faster, would also encourage collossi-drops, so you can do sth. with them, even if the opponent doesn't rush you with bio or whatever.
- I also don't think there would be tons of imba timing-attacks with collossi if the upgrade is free, since you don't atk with a too low number of them anyways, so the range-upgrade would've been finished by the time you atk.
- They've removed siege-mode upgrade long ago and now even the lurker range-upgrade: I think the collossi upgrade is fair.
you're in the wrong thread, this is about HotS. No Lurkers in HotS...
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Seems like Zerg is the least populated on the highest level of play: http://nios.kr/sc2/kr/1v1/hots/grandmaster/ (only 22.5% of GM play Zerg)
NA GM has 42% Zerg, but there are also only 140 people in the GM-league atm.
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So today was a SSL match Leenock vs. Zest when Leenock had 200 supply to 125, and lost to crit mass of blink stalkers. Guess why he lost? Cuz there were no.... tadam! - SWARMHOSTS - to counter that many of them (~40 stalkers+ 7 immortals).
David Kim may sleep well.
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On April 23 2015 20:56 Muxtar wrote:
So today was a SSL match Leenock vs. Zest when Leenock had 200 supply to 125, and lost to crit mass of blink stalkers. Guess why he lost? Cuz there were no.... tadam! - SWARMHOSTS - to counter that many of them (~40 stalkers+ 7 immortals).
David Kim may sleep well.
Blah. Could have gone Vipers + upgrades too and had a good chance. He did an allin against a 2basing Protoss, for that alone he deserved to lose. You don't fucking attack as zerg, before the opponent has 3bases or he is Innovation. You just don't.
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If they see a problem after the SH patch, maybe they should thing about reverting to the state before said patch? But no, only forward, only forward we march!!
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On April 23 2015 21:02 Big J wrote:
Blah. Could have gone Vipers + upgrades too and had a good chance. He did an allin against a 2basing Protoss, for that alone he deserved to lose. You don't fucking attack as zerg, before the opponent has 3bases or he is Innovation. You just don't.
You don't attack before terran/protoss has 3 bases? LOL
And only idiot will spend money on hive tech when there is unbeaten protoss army on the map, and no 3rd base (and decent economics) for toss. It'd be guaranteed Zest's rush and insta-win.
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EPT
