On November 20 2017 01:35 Fbaby wrote: Then what about changing swarmhost this way :
Swarmhost has to be burrowed (or simply immobile for example) during the whole duration of the locust spawn. The player controlling the SH can manually disable the spell to move again but it instantly destroys the locusts.
This would give another form of counterplay, as the zerg player would concede its SH mobility if he want to attack, or would have cancel the locusts / to escort them with other units to be sure that the opponent doesn't kill them during the locust wave.
Quite a nerf but if the opponent does not react correctly or is out of position, the SH will still do a lot of damage. The interaction between the zerg and its opponent could be more interesting.
Why should T even bother to fight the Locusts with this change? Locusts are really slow, if terran spots a Locust wave, he simply moves out and kill all the Swarm hosts and with them the Locusts or Zerg cancel the Locusts, deals no damage and probably lose some Swarm hosts while he's retreating. And no, guarding the Swarm hosts with the rest of his army isn't an option for Z because he will fight with an heavy army supply disadvantage against the T. (Swarm hosts would be dead supply in this fight)
I think the Swarm host is in a fine spot right now. He's still really powerfull vs turtel play but thanks to the movementspeed nerf the Z needs to be a little bit more carefull with them. There were some pretty ridiculous situations before 4.00 where Z run all his Swarm hosts into the enemy base or double Archon prism try to catch some Swarm hosts but got outrun by them.
On November 20 2017 01:55 xTJx wrote: SH is bad design? Tell me about sitting in your base with siege tanks and turrets, being unattackable while trading mineral only units for workers the whole game.
And what's good design? Zerg having to bet everything on vipers to counter siege tanks? Or maybe some late game units that are all hard countered by ghosts? Please.
Way to make it a balance shitstorm. Siege tanks and turrets have been in the game since brood war and are the same design principle as any other unit. You spend resources to make it and it does damage.
Swarm host on the other is bought for some initial cost and then keeps making new units that do damage for free for the whole game whereas if you lose a siege tank, you have to make a new one.
The fact that there would have to be a different unit to make up for the hole after swarm hosts to counter turtle styles has been stated already.
It is a bad design. You lose resources if you lose any other unit. Not with locusts.
On November 20 2017 03:36 eviltomahawk wrote: Why do players tend to not use a few speed Banshees against isolated, unsupported SHs?
Hydras murder banshees and can easily be used to escort the swarmhosts. (They already often are. When they aren't, it is usually the Zerg player being lazy)
On November 20 2017 03:36 eviltomahawk wrote: Why do players tend to not use a few speed Banshees against isolated, unsupported SHs?
Hydras murder banshees and can easily be used to escort the swarmhosts. (They already often are. When they aren't, it is usually the Zerg player being lazy)
Speed banshee are faster and have the same range than hydras, so well control banshee can't be catched by hydralisk even on creep, but mech player prefer to tell that it's a "balance issue" rather than admitting it was a bad control.
On November 20 2017 01:35 Fbaby wrote: Then what about changing swarmhost this way :
Swarmhost has to be burrowed (or simply immobile for example) during the whole duration of the locust spawn. The player controlling the SH can manually disable the spell to move again but it instantly destroys the locusts.
This would give another form of counterplay, as the zerg player would concede its SH mobility if he want to attack, or would have cancel the locusts / to escort them with other units to be sure that the opponent doesn't kill them during the locust wave.
Quite a nerf but if the opponent does not react correctly or is out of position, the SH will still do a lot of damage. The interaction between the zerg and its opponent could be more interesting.
Why should T even bother to fight the Locusts with this change? Locusts are really slow, if terran spots a Locust wave, he simply moves out and kill all the Swarm hosts and with them the Locusts or Zerg cancel the Locusts, deals no damage and probably lose some Swarm hosts while he's retreating. And no, guarding the Swarm hosts with the rest of his army isn't an option for Z because he will fight with an heavy army supply disadvantage against the T. (Swarm hosts would be dead supply in this fight)
I think the Swarm host is in a fine spot right now. He's still really powerfull vs turtel play but thanks to the movementspeed nerf the Z needs to be a little bit more carefull with them. There were some pretty ridiculous situations before 4.00 where Z run all his Swarm hosts into the enemy base or double Archon prism try to catch some Swarm hosts but got outrun by them.
I disagree. Swarmhost generally don't stand right in front of your army before sending their locusts. They always like to take advantage of terrain, think about abyssal reef B2 / B4, or Aiur B1 among many examples.
Swarmhost have insane range, their locusts can ignore terrain, and they would still be able to take advantage of this to not be caught by an army chasing after them if this army does not react early enough.
Again, the whole point is, if T reacts well, has counter army in position to chase after swarmhost as soon as they see locust, the terran should at least deserve the cancellation of the locusts, and even to kill some SH if the zergs reacts slowly. And now there is interaction, and now there is counterplay.
If the terran wants to send only 1-2 medivac + thor drop or something, some hydra escorting should take care of that, forcing the terran to bring more army, forcing outpositioning etc.
Would be way more interesting that this one dimensional "T is ahead of the zerg because he did damage with early harass and will cross the map and win, or terran is behind and will have to suffer from SH damage all game long, until he can be 150-200 pop, while zerg has 6k bank and has switched composition and T is dead".
By the way this could be compensated by lowering the cooldown of the SH by 5-10 seconds, I don't know. It's just that there is room for improvement and saying that SH is fine against mech right now is not correct.
On November 20 2017 03:36 eviltomahawk wrote: Why do players tend to not use a few speed Banshees against isolated, unsupported SHs?
Hydras murder banshees and can easily be used to escort the swarmhosts. (They already often are. When they aren't, it is usually the Zerg player being lazy)
Speed banshee are faster and have the same range than hydras, so well control banshee can't be catched by hydralisk even on creep, but mech player prefer to tell that it's a "balance issue" rather than admitting it was a bad control.
What's your point? The hydras never have to actually kill the banshees to get their value. If they limit the banshees to killing 1 or 2 swarmhosts per engagement, the Zerg player still likely comes out ahead. Considering it takes 8 banshees to 1-shot a Swarmhost if neither side has upgrades, that's not super hard from the Zerg player.
I don't know if Swarmhosts are still problematic since I haven't seen any mech vs. Swarmhost series since the patch, but I know why people say that speed banshees aren't really the solution.
On November 20 2017 03:36 eviltomahawk wrote: Why do players tend to not use a few speed Banshees against isolated, unsupported SHs?
Hydras murder banshees and can easily be used to escort the swarmhosts. (They already often are. When they aren't, it is usually the Zerg player being lazy)
Speed banshee are faster and have the same range than hydras, so well control banshee can't be catched by hydralisk even on creep, but mech player prefer to tell that it's a "balance issue" rather than admitting it was a bad control.
Good joke! Thanks!
Suggesting a Terran has to make banshees + SPEED UPGRADE and pray he has better micro than the Zerg to stand a chance vs swarm-host armies. The hydralisks will be 2/2 at that point or close to 2/2 by the way.
Plus, making banshees is an enormous investment with very little payoff at that stage of the game. Not to mention the extra starports. Oh and the banshees will most likely be 0/0 or 0/1 at best at that point.
I don't even know how to begin to tell you how flawed this logic is.
Increase the locust HP by like 50% Slightly decrease the locust DPS (like 20%) Increase their supply to 4 Maybe give back autofire or reduce cooldown by like 5 seconds Possibly increase their size.
Make them a into more of a support role for the zerg. Where it will be actually be using the locusts as a meatshield to break defences rather than zerglings with lightsabers that obliterate nexuses and mech in seconds.
Or just remove the flying locusts and make them ground units!
On November 20 2017 03:36 eviltomahawk wrote: Why do players tend to not use a few speed Banshees against isolated, unsupported SHs?
Hydras murder banshees and can easily be used to escort the swarmhosts. (They already often are. When they aren't, it is usually the Zerg player being lazy)
Speed banshee are faster and have the same range than hydras, so well control banshee can't be catched by hydralisk even on creep, but mech player prefer to tell that it's a "balance issue" rather than admitting it was a bad control.
true but when you escort the hosts, the hydras are not there to chase down the banshees they are there to deter the banshees from messing with your hosts. hydras in decent numbers wreck banshess since they have the same range.sure you wont kill the banshees unless terran charges them in but thats not the point, the point is that he cant engage the swarmhosts with the banshees.
at least in my experience the best answer to swarm hosts as Terran is to not play mech or to switch to protoss, both of which I have done.
On November 20 2017 03:36 eviltomahawk wrote: Why do players tend to not use a few speed Banshees against isolated, unsupported SHs?
Hydras murder banshees and can easily be used to escort the swarmhosts. (They already often are. When they aren't, it is usually the Zerg player being lazy)
Speed banshee are faster and have the same range than hydras, so well control banshee can't be catched by hydralisk even on creep, but mech player prefer to tell that it's a "balance issue" rather than admitting it was a bad control.
true but when you escort the hosts, the hydras are not there to chase down the banshees they are there to deter the banshees from messing with your hosts. hydras in decent numbers wreck banshess since they have the same range.sure you wont kill the banshees unless terran charges them in but thats not the point, the point is that he cant engage the swarmhosts with the banshees.
at least in my experience the best answer to swarm hosts as Terran is to not play mech or to switch to protoss, both of which I have done.
The point isn't to suicide banshee to kill the SH, the point is avoid SH to be active on the map.
But as you're last sentence said you're not here to discuss, you are just here to whine.
I disagree. Swarmhost generally don't stand right in front of your army before sending their locusts. They always like to take advantage of terrain, think about abyssal reef B2 / B4, or Aiur B1 among many examples.
Swarmhost have insane range, their locusts can ignore terrain, and they would still be able to take advantage of this to not be caught by an army chasing after them if this army does not react early enough.
Again, the whole point is, if T reacts well, has counter army in position to chase after swarmhost as soon as they see locust, the terran should at least deserve the cancellation of the locusts, and even to kill some SH if the zergs reacts slowly. And now there is interaction, and now there is counterplay.
there is already counterplay: be agressive, force defensive Locust waves, make shure you have always enougth blueflame hellions/hellbats with your army and at home to roast Locusts.
If the terran wants to send only 1-2 medivac + thor drop or something, some hydra escorting should take care of that, forcing the terran to bring more army, forcing outpositioning etc.
Would be way more interesting that this one dimensional "T is ahead of the zerg because he did damage with early harass and will cross the map and win, or terran is behind and will have to suffer from SH damage all game long, until he can be 150-200 pop, while zerg has 6k bank and has switched composition and T is dead".
you're right, if you site in your base all game long, zerg will crush you. You need to keep the Swarm host weaknesses in mind to win the game.
By the way this could be compensated by lowering the cooldown of the SH by 5-10 seconds, I don't know. It's just that there is room for improvement and saying that SH is fine against mech right now is not correct.
Why is the SH not fine against mech? nearly every pro played mech before 4.0 and the TvZ win rate wasn't abysmal.
On November 20 2017 08:07 MrWayne wrote: why are we discussing about Swarm Hosts btw? They wasn't even mentioned in the community update.
Some people don't like it and wanted to chime in. I do think Swarm host balancing issues are done.
Too early to call whether any balance issues are done, SH included. We saw from 3.8 that balance issues can and will continue to appear after big design changes. The proposed fixes are a a start but they only address the obvious issues with 4.0 that appeared immediately (mostly Terran being underpowered). It's entirely possible that imbalance swings the other way, that blink allins reappear, etc etc. Or maybe another completely different issue that nobody yet realizes.
Big design changes by their very nature introduce a lot of volatility and the effect on balance will continue to ripple out for quite some time. Some problems (like proxy Oracles) are obvious from the start. Others take a while to materialize. Only time will tell.
At a guess, the meta will have more or less stabilized by Chrismastime.
EPT
