Hi all! In the excitement before the culmination of this year’s WCS finals, we think it’s a good opportunity to revisit the proposals made earlier in the month with a fresh perspective. Special thanks to Wardi and his Balance Test Mod Invitational, which showcased these new changes in action. After further watching games and following feedback, below are a few changes we’d like to make to the testing queue:
ADJUSTMENTS TO OLD CHANGES:
• Reverted: Viking health increased from 135 to 150.
Based on feedback, we’d like to pull this change back for now due to concerns surrounding the Viking’s subsequent increased power in TvT as well as its increased strength in earlier parts of the game. If the Viking has any deficiencies, we believe they exist later on when end-game units and area-of-effect abilities start coming into play. Thus, if necessary, we’d like to instead tackle the Viking’s strength in late-game with alterations to end-game units from other races—such as Tempests—rather than to the Viking itself.
• Reverted: Battlecruiser Tactical Jump cooldown increased from 71 seconds to 86 seconds. • Reverted: Removed the Research Neural Parasite upgrade. Infestors now come with Neural Parasite by default. • Altered: Tactical Jump now stuns and puts the Battlecruiser into a 1 second vulnerability phase before it teleports.
Last update, we tested a variety of Battlecruiser-related changes aimed at broadening counterplay options against the unit. At the same time, we believe the ways in which Battlecruisers are currently used are overall pretty cool. After feedback, we’d like the prune and alter our changes such that we improve the feeling of fairness when fighting against Battlecruisers and, at the same time, preserve the core of current Battlecruiser play.
Thus, we’ll be removing changes to Tactical Jump cooldown and reinstating the Neural Parasite upgrade. We’ll also be keeping the vulnerability phase on Tactical Jump with one key alternation: “stun” effects such as Interference Matrix, Fungal Growth, and Abduct will no longer be able to cancel Tactical Jump and put it on cooldown. This change brings the behavior of Tactical Jump to be more similar to both Strategic Recall and Mass Recall.
• Reverted: New upgrade found on the Twilight Council: Sundering Impact-Grants Zealots the ability to deal +8 damage to enemies on Charge impact. • Reverted: Adept health increased from 70 to 80. • Reverted: Adept shields decreased from 70 to 60. • Reverted: New upgrade found on the Twilight Council: Amplified Shielding-Increases the Adept’s shields from 60 to 80.
We’d also like to put a pause on these changes for in favor of some alternate proposals. For Zealots, we hear concerns regarding Protoss’s resulting overall power level after this change. For Adepts, we hear feedback that this upgrade isn’t impactful enough, so if it were reintroduced, we would do so with slightly altered stats.
NEW CHANGES:
Creep • Active Creep Tumors may no longer be canceled.
Last year, we made some changes to creep spread in order to promote the gameplay surrounding creep denial. This year, we’d like to try to take it a step further with this change, aimed at the dance we typically see between Hellions and Queens. We believe the change will increase both the interaction between players and the skill cap for all parties involved.
Overlord • Pneumatized Carapace research cost increased from 75/75 to 100/100.
When we initially made the change to reduce the cost of this upgrade, we had been receiving feedback that the different variations of various PvZ Immortal all-ins were too difficult to differentiate and scout. Since then, we’ve received additional feedback that Zerg have gotten better at defending these all-ins and that the changes to the Warp Prism in the same patch were alone sufficient at dealing with this issue. Additionally, we believe the upgrade is currently too omnipresent in both ZvT and ZvP, leading to players feeling less able to surprise their Zerg opponents. Thus, we’d like to revert this previous change, which we believe will lead to more thoughtful decision making regarding when to research this upgrade.
Infestor • Removed the Infested Terran ability. • New Ability: Microbial Shroud • Creates a shroud that obscures ground units below, reducing the damage they take from air units by 50%. • Lasts 11 seconds. • Energy cost: 100. • Cast range: 9. • Radius: 3. • New upgrade found on the Infestation Pit: Evolve Microbial Shroud Requirement: Hive • Research cost: 150/150. • Research duration: 79 seconds.
While we’re not completely shelving the previously proposed changes to the Infested Terran, we’d like to try an alternate proposal. This new ability is designed to replace the anti-air role that the Infested Terran ability occupied. A key difference, however, is that Microbial Shroud acts as more of a force-multiplier rather than a standalone spell with lethal potential. This means that mass Infestors will be significantly less powerful than before and that other Zerg ground units would have to be mixed in for maximum effectiveness.
Our first iteration of this ability has it gated on Hive, as we believe having this ability unlocked on Lair tech restricts mid-game air play too much. In addition, as this is one of the most experimental and unique abilities we’ve ever introduced, we expect many alterations to its stats if it goes live.
As a point of clarification, the first iteration of this spell will not protect buildings nor Colossi. Nor will it protect against Oracles attacks, Colossus attacks, or Yamato Cannon. It can also not be cast while the Infestor is burrowed.
Nydus Network/Worm • Nydus Worm cost increased from 50/50 to 75/75.
We generally enjoy the increased usage of Nydus Worms this year, and we believe one of the keys to its increased usage is its decreased Worm cost of 50/50, compared to 100/100 last year. However, at the moment, we believe that Nydus Worms are slightly too cheap, specifically in the early and mid-game stages after a Nydus Network is built. At this fragile economic timing, a failed Nydus Worm might not be punishing enough, and just the threat of the Nydus could pin too much of an enemy army at home.
As we already have two proposed changes to the Nydus Network/Worm, we will be evaluating which of the changes should go through, including the possibility of having all three go live. At the same time, however, we want to ensure we preserve a certain percentage of the Nydus’ power, as we believe it is key to encouraging map-wide multipronged attack options for Zerg and pulling apart turtling enemies in the late-game.
Zealot • The Charge upgrade no longer provides Zealots with +8 damage on impact. Instead, it increases Zealot movement speed from 3.15 to 4.72, up from 4.13.
A concern we’ve had regarding the Zealot is its raw frontal power, especially when compared to its ease of use and the relative difficulty of defending against them. Thus, we’d like to try this change that aims to exchange its direct power in favor of increased mobility. This change would also restore the age-old relationship between weapon-upgraded Zealots and carapace-upgraded Zerglings. Because an exchange of damage for speed moves its power into a drastically different area, we categorize this change as very experimental. We’ll especially be looking at how the increased speed impacts their relationship against kiting Stimmed units.
Adept • Resonating Glaives reworked. Instead of increasing attack speed of the Adept by 45%, it will increase the attack speed of the Adept by 60% for 6 seconds after completing a Psionic Transfer.
We view Adepts as having two primary problems: its role overlaps that of the Zealot, and it’s viewed as having low utility in late-game, which we believe is due to the Zealot overshadowing it. Not only do Zealots and Adepts have similar matchups against enemy units, they both control and function similarly by being strong front-line attack-move units (Internally, we call these units “pushers”). This is especially exacerbated by the previous version of the Resonating Glaives upgrade, which highlights the raw frontal power of the Adept and draws away from its distinctiveness and coolness, which we believe comes from its Psionic Transfer ability.
Thus, the new direction we’d like to take with the Adept is to rework the Resonating Glaives upgrade into one that moves it away from the direction of being a strong pusher and towards one that highlights the Adept’s defining characteristic: Psionic Transfer. With this newly designed upgrade, Adepts will achieve only 92% of its previous upgraded damage when used optimally in a frontal fight in the long term. However, it will become much more effective at burst damage, for example, after a shade in for surprise worker harassment or when you need to break a Marine/Tank push. At the same time, it will still have obvious counterplay, such as Banelings, Widow Mines, building walls, or running away until the attack speed bonus runs out. In addition, this new upgrade could add a back-and-forth dance where both players attempt to engage during their preferred Adept state. Hopefully, after this change, Adepts will be more pointed and overlap less with the Zealot, especially in mid and late-game. As with other experimental changes, the stats of this ability are subject to change.
Mothership • Added Heroic tag. • Neural Parasite can no longer target Heroic units.
Due to the increased power of the newly improved Time Warp, we have concerns that the power swing gained from Abducting and then Neuraling a Mothership might be too high. With this change that heavily leans into its gameplay fantasy, a Mothership will always be able to contribute to the fight in favor of the Protoss player.
BUG FIXES
• The Thor’s High Impact Payload will now receive proper upgrade values. • Oracle, Void Ray, and Sentry weapons updated to prevent weapons from firing slower than intended. These units are NOT intended to fire slower when switching targets compared to the live game. • Void Ray, Sentry weapon icons and upgrade levels now show properly in the info panel. • Fixed a bug where the Lurker had less range than intended.
These changes will be published to the Testing Matchmaking Queue shortly. As always, we’d like to reiterate that these changes are not final, and we’ll be actively looking at your feedback. Finally, below is our full list of changes for your convenience.
Each year, we take a step back to evaluate what improvements we could make to the game for a post-BlizzCon design patch. As we come closer and closer to stability with each passing year, for 2019, we’ll be focusing more on tweaks and refinements to existing units. Some themes in this year’s patch include:
Introducing new upgrades designed to gate the full power of certain units and improve late-game usage for others.
Strategically reducing ranges of key units and abilities to encourage greater interaction in late game.
Before we start, please bear in mind that this update contains many experimental changes that we’d like to try and test, and we’ll do our best at highlighting which ones we’re especially wary of.
Terran
HELLION/HELLBAT
Infernal Pre-Igniter research cost decreased from 150/150 to 100/100.
In the summer of 2011, the legendary SlayerS Terrans unleashed a revolutionary “Blue Flame Hellion” build upon hapless Zerg players around the world, and the balance team had no choice but to act, cutting the bonus provided by the Infernal Pre-Igniter upgrade in half. Since then, the upgrade has acted more as a time-gate to the Hellion/Hellbat’s mid-game combat power rather than a core upgrade for matchup-defining openers. As such, we’d like to reduce the cost of this upgrade to encourage earlier and more meaningful Hellion/Hellbat power spikes.
THOR
High Impact Payload damage decreased from 40 (+15 vs Massive) to 25 (+10 vs Massive).
High Impact Payload weapon cooldown decreased from 1.7 to 0.9.
A common complaint we’ve heard regarding the Thor is its ability to be controlled in late-game fights. Because the Thor’s anti-ground and anti-air attacks have such drastically different cooldowns, it can often feel unresponsive in these engagements. Thus, we’d like to try an experimental change that brings the High Impact Payload’s cooldown to the same as that of its anti-ground weapon, Thor’s Hammer. The primary purpose of this change is neither to increase nor decrease the Thor’s power, but rather to improve the responsiveness without hurting its fantasy. Of course, there are tradeoffs to this change; while this new Thor has lower burst damage, it will tend to overkill its targets less frequently. Because we view the lower burst damage to be slightly more impactful than the lower overkill potential, we’ll also be slightly raising the DPS of this weapon to start off.
VIKING
Health increased from 135 to 150.
We’d like for the Viking to be a stronger counter to the units it’s intended to fight. After this change, Vikings will generally take additional shots to kill from Corruptors, Stalkers, and Tempests. Perhaps more importantly, it’ll be more resilient against area effects such as Fungal Growth, Parasitic Bomb, and Psionic Storm.
Some concerns we have for this change include the strength of individual Viking in the early game, the potency of timing pushes against Colossi in TvP, and its general power level in TvT. We’ll also be careful to evaluate how impactful this change will be considering other changes proposed, especially those involving the Infestor and Tempest.
MEDIVAC
Moved the Rapid Re-Ignition System upgrade from the Starport Tech Lab to the Fusion Core.
In addition to reducing the Medivac's Ignite Afterburners cooldown by 5 seconds, this upgrade will also increase the Medivac's base movement speed from 3.5 to 4.13. However, this upgrade will not affect Medivac’s movement speed during the Ignite Afterburners effect. In the past, our goals with various Medivac upgrades has always been two-fold: first, to introduce an upgrade that improves mid- or late-game multipronged Medivac harassment. And secondly, to ensure this upgrade does not greatly improve potentially game-ending doom drops.
Previous Medivac upgrades have seen little use as they were viewed as unimpactful and at an awkward position on the Terran tech tree. We’d like to start off by introducing this new, more visibly impactful upgrade on the Fusion Core, a building that often finds itself idling. We believe this could be a potentially powerful upgrade either researched in the late game or from Battlecruiser openers.
LIBERATOR
Advanced Ballistics upgrade moved from the Starport Tech Lab to the Fusion Core.
Likewise, the transition to ranged Liberators can also be awkward and, in more than one matchup, lead to a period of inactivity on the Terran’s part. We’d like to try to smooth this transition by transplanting the upgrade to the Fusion Core, and we feel confident we can safely do so with the following change:
Advanced Ballistics upgrade now increases the range of Liberators in Defender Mode by 3, down from 4.
We’d like to reduce the range of a few key units and abilities, including fully upgraded Liberators, in order to promote more unit interaction in the late game. This range reduction is meant to be viewed as a package with the changes to Neural Parasite and the Tempest as they are two units/abilities that often interact with the Liberator.
RAVEN
Interference Matrix energy cost increased from 50 energy to 75 energy.
Interference Matrix duration increased from 8 seconds to 11 seconds.
We believe the Raven is slightly too powerful in early-game TvT, leading to a low level of diversity in this matchup’s openers. As Interference Matrix is key to the Raven’s strength in TvT, we’d like to make some adjustments to divert its power from disabling Siege Tanks. As early-game TvT engagements are characterized by quick exchanges of Tank volleys, we believe an energy cost increase in favor of increased duration would constitute a bigger change in TvT than the other matchups.
Raven movement speed increased from 3.85 to 4.13.
We’d also like to place more of the Raven’s power into the unit's body. When the Raven was potentially lethal with previous iterations of Hunter-seeker missile and Anti-armor missile, the slower movement speed was a necessary counterbalance. Now that the Raven occupies more of a support role, we believe it’s no longer necessary to exercise such restraint, and a higher movement speed could allow it to be more useful at harassment and creep-clearing.
Our goals with these set of changes is to decrease the Raven’s early-game power in TvT while either maintaining or increasing its power in other matchups. If this set of changes fails to achieve either of these goals, we’ll be ready to make tweaks.
BATTLECRUISER
Tactical Jump now stuns and puts the Battlecruiser into a 1 second vulnerability phase before it teleports.
While we enjoy the increased Battlecruiser usage over the last year, we think it’s a bit too easy for them to escape unfavorable situations, so we’d like to make this change to encourage Battlecruiser players to think twice before committing their fleets into risky predicaments. After this change, Interference Matrix, Fungal Growth, and Abduct will be able to cancel Tactical Jump and put it on cooldown during the Battlecruiser’s vulnerability phase.
Tactical Jump cooldown increased from 71 seconds to 86 seconds.
An alternate potential change we’d like to try is simply to increase Tactical Jump’s cooldown, which would temper its ability to constantly harass and perform hit-and-run tactics on enemies, especially in the late game. When considering options to tweak the Battlecruiser, we’re interested in some combination of the above two changes, but perhaps not both.
Yamato Cannon will no longer cancel itself if a target enters a transport or becomes cloaked/burrowed. Instead, the Yamato Cannon will miss, and the ability will go on cooldown.
In addition, we’d like to introduce some counter-play options against Yamato Cannon.
MULE
Duration decreased from 64 seconds to 63 seconds.
After this change, Mules will still mine the same number of Minerals if left undisturbed. However, they will no longer expire while holding minerals from certain patches.
Mules now always attempt to spawn on the side of minerals closest to a town hall.
This general quality of life change also helps ensure undisturbed Mules always mine their maximum potential.
Zerg
INFESTOR
Infested Terran energy cost increased from 25 to 50.
Infested Terran health increased from 50 to 75.
Infested Swarm Egg health increased from 70 to 75.
The Infested Terran’s Gauss Rifle damage increased from 6 to 12.
The Infested Terran’s Infested Rockets damage increased from 14 to 24.
Infested Rockets now gain +2 per ranged weapon upgrade, up from +1.
Infested Rockets attack period decreased from 1.14 to 0.95.
We’d like to redesign the Infested Terran ability with the following goals in mind: First, to make each Infested Terran feel like more of a commitment. Secondly, we want to provide players with more clear counters-play options against Infested Terrans.
Our proposal is a more expensive and powerful Infested Terran that is still vulnerable to key Terran and Protoss units and abilities. With this redesign, while Infested Terrans will have higher damage density, they’ll be more vulnerable to Psionic Storm, Disruptors, and Liberators.
Neural Parasite range decreased from 9 to 8.
On the theme of reducing the ranges of key late game-oriented units and abilities, we’d like to reduce the range of Neural Parasite in order to ensure that the Infestor must put itself in greater danger when casting this potentially game-ending ability.
Removed the Research Neural Parasite upgrade. Infestors now come with Neural Parasite by default.
One piece of feedback we’ve heard regarding Battlecruiser openers in TvZ is that while they’re not necessarily too powerful, they often result in a few minutes of inaction on the part of the Zerg player due to the heavy investment required to punch through an army involving any number of Battlecruisers. On the Terran side, we’ve heard feedback that Battlecruiser openers are used so often because they are the best and most stable opener that can be used to transition into mech. This feedback is a bit concerning since we like that Battlecruiser openings are viable, but we nonetheless feel they might be crowding out other cool Terran openers.
This very experimental change could theoretically provide Zerg a more direct option to be aggressive against Battlecruiser openings and open them up to a potential weakness. For now, we believe this change is safe to try given both the Neural Parasite range decrease and the relative low importance of the upgrade’s research duration and time when considering late-game situations. We will also take care to note how the other proposed Battlecruiser changes, designed at changing Battlecruiser interactions in the mid-to-late game, interact with this change, designed at influencing early-game interactions.
LURKER
Lurker Den build time decreased from 86 seconds to 57 seconds.
Lurker range decreased from 9 to 8.
New Upgrade found on the Lurker Den: Seismic Spines
Increases the Lurker’s range from 8 to 10.
Requirement: Hive
Research cost: 150/150.
Research duration: 57 seconds.
Increased research duration of Adaptive Talons from 54 seconds to 57 seconds.
We’d like to provide Zerg a strong, dynamic counter against Immortal/Templar-based armies that isn’t Brood Lords. We believe that unit should be the Lurker as it is already close to fulfilling that role. Our first try will attempt to do so in two ways. First, we’d like to smooth out the transition to Lurkers, while at the same time lowering their initial strength to smooth out their power curve as a concern for Lurker-based timings. We’d also like to add a late-game upgrade geared towards fighting Immortal/Templar-based Protoss ground armies.
Finally, increasing the research duration of Adaptive Talons brings it more in line with other upgrades in the game.
BROOD LORD
Broodling leash range decreased from 12 to 9.
Without getting too deep in the weeds, the Broodling’s current 12 leash range allows the Broodlord to attack from 13 range with an attack-click order. By reducing leash range to 9, the Broodlord will always be limited to 10 range regardless of command.
NYDUS NETWORK
Nydus Network and Nydus Worm initial unload delay increased from 0.18 to 0.36.
Nydus Network and Nydus Worm load period increased from 0.09 to 0.18.
Nydus Network and Nydus Worm unload period increased from 0.18 to 0.36.
New upgrade found on the Evolution Chamber: Secreted Coating
Reduces the Nydus Network and Nydus Worm’s initial unload delay from 0.36 to 0.18.
Reduces the Nydus Network and Nydus Worm’s load period from 0.18 to 0.09.
Reduces the Nydus Network and Nydus Worm’s unload period from 0.36 to 0.18.
Requirement: Hive.
Research cost: 100/100.
Research duration: 57 seconds.
While we love the experimentation with Nydus Networks and Worms over this past year, we think there are opportunities to temper its power in key situations. For one, we believe the early-game all-in potential is a bit too strong, so we’d like to take the opportunity to delay some of the Nydus’ early- and mid-game power to reapply it at the Hive level. In addition to reducing all-in strength, we’d also like to provide greater opportunity for players to punish Zergs who overcommit their units—for instance, in the case of retreating Swarm Hosts.
Summon Nydus Worm ability cooldown increased from 0 to 14.
Currently, Nydus Networks are able to queue up Nydus Worms one after the other; if a Nydus Worm is destroyed during constructing, its corresponding Nydus Network can then immediately build a new Worm at another location on the map. This has led to situations where players defending against an early Nydus all-in would be hastily ping-ponged between bases. It also created strange instances where it was actually optimal to kill a building Nydus Worm at the very last second in order to delay the subsequent Nydus worm.
Therefore, we’d like to add a cooldown on the Summon Nydus Worm ability equal to the build time of the Nydus Worm. If your Worms finish construction, there’ll be virtually no difference in Network uptime. But if a Worm is killed in the middle of construction, its Network will go on cooldown equal to the remaining build time of the destroyed Worm. Another result of this change is that players will no longer be able to queue Worms back-to-back, meaning the onus of attention will shift more in favor of the defender.
Protoss
ORACLE, SENTRY, VOID RAY
Fixed an issue where beam attacks could deal more damage than intended.
With this change, players will no longer be able to micro these units to deal unintended extra damage to a single target. However, these units will still retain their previous behavior in all other situations.
ZEALOT
The Charge upgrade no longer provides Zealots with +8 damage on impact.
New upgrade found on the Twilight Council: Sundering Impact
Grants Zealots the ability to deal +8 damage to enemies on Charge impact.
Requirement: Charge researched.
Research cost: 100/100.
Research duration: 100 seconds.
We believe the power spike gained from researching the Charge upgrade could be a bit too high for its cost and comes a bit too early in the game, therefore crowding out other gateway options. With this change, we’d like to smooth out that power curve. After this change, we believe Protoss will have a more difficult time defending early third bases against Terran, as well as pursuing all-in strategies against Zerg and Terran mech with Chargelots.
ADEPT
Adept health increased from 70 to 80.
Adept shields decreased from 70 to 60.
New upgrade found on the Twilight Council: Amplified Shielding
Increases the Adept’s shields from 60 to 80.
Research cost: 100/100.
Research duration: 100 seconds.
In the recent past, we’ve been very careful at managing the strength of the Adept due to its historical potential when paired with Phoenixes in TvP. But now that Terrans have a clear and powerful counter to Adepts in the form of EMP, we feel more confident that we can safely scale this unit a little better into the mid-to-late game.
With the previous two changes, our goal is to bring the Zealot and Adept together as more comparable options for a core mid-game unit.
OBSERVER
Observer movement speed decreased from 3.01 to 2.63.
Gravitic Boosters upgrade now increases movement speed by 1.31, down from 1.51.
We’d like to revert this change we made earlier in the year, as we feel the frustration caused by barely not catching Observers did not make up for the benefits of the speed increase.
VOID RAY
New upgrade found on the Fleet Beacon: Flux Vanes
Increases the Void Ray’s movement speed from 3.5 to 4.65.
Increases the Void Ray’s acceleration from 2.8 to 3.76.
After the upgrade, the Prismatic Alignment ability will still reduce the Void Ray’s movement speed to 2.625.
Research cost: 100/100.
Research duration: 57 seconds.
Early in Wings of Liberty, Flux Vanes was removed because it led to some undesirable game states, allowing Void Ray to easily maneuver into the opponents’ base where it could charge up and potentially camp indefinitely. The Void Ray was also disproportionately powerful at lower skill levels, and Flux Vanes compounded this issue.
Now that the Void Ray has an active Prismatic Alignment ability instead of the passive Prismatic Beams ability, we feel more comfortable reintroducing Flux Vanes in order to push the unit into a potentially new role.
TEMPEST
Kinetic Overload (anti-air) range decreased from 15 to 14.
This is another change designed to rein in the ranges of key late-game units. In combination with the Liberator change, we believe this set of changes will retain the relationship between Liberators and Tempests while allowing lower tier units such as Stalkers and Vikings to interact more easily.
Health increased from 150 to 200.
Shields decreased from 125 to 100.
We’d like to tweak the Tempest’s life stats, both to compensate for the range decrease and to be more resilient against EMP Round, which we believe is currently too effective against this capital ship due to its relatively low health-to-shields ratio.
MOTHERSHIP
Time Warp now affects air units in addition to ground units and buildings.
Time Warp delay reduces from 3.57 seconds to 1.79 seconds.
Even after last year’s changes, we still believe that Time Warp’s current power level is not suitable for such an imposing and awe-inspiring unit. We’d like to try some tweaks, but are especially wary that the delay reduction could be too oppressive.
Once again, this is our first pass of changes for our post-BlizzCon update coming in late November. As with previous design updates, these changes are balanced towards being more noticeable; expect new changes to be added or some being removed as we progress through the testing period. Starting on Tuesday, you’ll be able to hop into the Testing Matchmaking queue and try out the changes. Be sure to let us know what you think. Good luck and have fun!
Some of these changes sound really weird. Bad even. We'll see how it plays out because surely there's gonna be iterations here. But for now it looks like they're just about removing Protoss from the game (at the highest level).
This game has become way too upgrade bloated. There's a design problem ? make a new upgrade ? Something too strong, too weak, upgrades there, upgrades everywhere.
Just compare how clean most of the Broodwar upgrades are compared to this.
Usually we get big and refreshing changes after Blizzcon since we should be making up for new datadiscs... but these seem so "meh". A nerf here, a buff there and then a bunch of new upgrades.
That is so frustrating to read because especially now the meta is figured out and soooo stale.
Well, talking about the changes themselves - infestor should be redesigned, not tweaked over and over so it jumps from being OP to being horrible. Nydus changes were necessary and so many Twilight Council upgrades will be very confusing. But we'll need to see all of this in action of course...
Overall nice changes IMHO, but it's something I'd expect in a mid-year patch rather than after-Blizzcon patch. Every TvZ will still go into late game super early, Protoss will try to kill Zerg before lategame and while it seems Terran will have more chances in PvT, the games are going to look very similar anyway. Nothing exciting.
"We believe the Raven is slightly too powerful in early-game TvT"
"Interference Matrix duration increased from 8 seconds to 11 seconds."
Bruh.. Wut?
Also..
ZEALOT The Charge upgrade no longer provides Zealots with +8 damage on impact. New upgrade found on the Twilight Council: Sundering Impact Grants Zealots the ability to deal +8 damage to enemies on Charge impact. Requirement: Charge researched. Research cost: 100/100. Research duration: 100 seconds.
Thats just reverting the damn buff in the first place. Now it's back to how it was.. 200/200 with more time researched. WHAT?
So many Protoss Nerf's, yet so much Buffs on the other races. I rarely say stuff like this, but this really sucks.
The most important changes (Nydus, BL, Battlecruiser) seem a step in the right direction at the very least (or intended to step in the right direction), but a bunch of the rest seem very odd. Who ever asked for that observer change? Why do we need so many upgrades? Hasn't Blizzard realized after all these years that speeding everything up (in this case Medivacs, Ravens, Void Rays) doesn't make things better?
If we're going full nostalgia why not bring back vortex lol. I'm not smart enough to know how this will affect everything but I do like that Blizzard is trying to make units that are not heavily used (VR, Lurker, Mothership, Hellbat etc) more viable. It will take time to see how everything works itself out.
I do believe the zealot upgrade time is huge especially bc it already takes charge so long to upgrade. If they want to add another upgrade then I think the new charge research time should be reduced to around 60 seconds ish and then the damage upgrade can then take another 100 seconds afterward.
On October 04 2019 05:30 Jimmon wrote: "We believe the Raven is slightly too powerful in early-game TvT"
"Interference Matrix duration increased from 8 seconds to 11 seconds."
Bruh.. Wut?
Also..
ZEALOT The Charge upgrade no longer provides Zealots with +8 damage on impact. New upgrade found on the Twilight Council: Sundering Impact Grants Zealots the ability to deal +8 damage to enemies on Charge impact. Requirement: Charge researched. Research cost: 100/100. Research duration: 100 seconds.
Thats just reverting the damn buff in the first place. Now it's back to how it was.. 200/200 with more time researched. WHAT?
So many Protoss Nerf's, yet so much Buffs on the other races. I rarely say stuff like this, but this really sucks.
In what way did Zerg get buffed, all I’m seeing are nerfs across the board.
Well that was a surprising set of changes. Feels like these combined will make zerg late game much more powerful, while making abusive adept builds in the mid-game stronger as well. Terran just feels much weaker after these changes.
I feel like they did exactly the opposite of what I was expecting in most cases.
I'm not so sure about those infestor changes. I don't think 1 range is going to solve the issues with neural parasite. The infested Terran changes also are pretty crazy. Now each infestor can only cast 4 infested Terrans max, but each of those units does twice as much damage roughly and attacks about 20% faster. Given that often when ITs get spammed, some of them can't attack because they get blocked by other ITs, this might actually have the effect of making ITs even better since there will be less "overkill" on the number of ITs cast while still doing a huge amount of damage. It will also harassment with ITs even better because they will kill workers or targeted buildings faster with far fewer ITs needed.
edit: I also disagree with reverting the observer speed stuff. Given how big the maps have been the last few seasons, the increased speed seemed quite appropriate.
I do think the Nydus changes are good. This prevents the horrible abusive builds while still letting them be used lategame effectively.
I don't really like the extra 8 damage from Zealots, especially when you see that clip where Zealots hit units that they aren't even slashing. Also we haven't seen an Upgrade that needs another Upgrade as a requirement, so that is a bit weird. Instead maybe give Zealots back it's 60 Shield points? Overall it's still a nerf, but at least Zealots won't be a total joke in the early game. 100 seconds is also a lot, especially when there now is 5 upgrades on the Twilight Council.
Love the Flux Vanes. Love the Adept change. Tempest change is one of those that will be retracted because people realise Tempest have 2 armour and this Health change will really change it's survivability a whole lot. I hope instead of retracting this change when that time comes that they instead decrease the anti air range to 10, equal to that of it's other attack. Give it 40 dmg equal to that of it's other attack, so the anti air essentially becomes it's anti ground attack, but with the +vs massive. Tempest playstyle has always been a bit dull and I think this suits the unit better, also maybe then we don't have to have 150 hp Vikings, lol.
Also I wasn't sold on the cooldown on Nydus when it was mentioned by the community, but this post really made a good case for it, it's kinda stupid that if you kill the merging worm that the successive one comes even quicker.
Why the heck is the liberator change being suggested? the idea of it is nice but to lose 1 range for the grand total of not having to also buy a second starport and a tech lab is really really not worth it - this is such a bad way to implement such an amazing idea - cause this actually makes the fusion core also function as a science facility/academy from BW which is super cool. The thor change is not good because we don't have thors fighting heavy units in the air for sustained fights we want them to burst the opposing army as quickly as we can so stuff like tank friendly fire doesn't smash our thors too greatly from brood lords or so that a B.C can get its extra few seconds in for a TP away. The charge change while nice is basically reverting it back to 200/200 from before 2017 only making it take longer for no reason, and the raven change is the worst of all just remove interference matrix and give us something like PDD or seeker missile back (Not both though) and the movement speed for lower league Terran plays I guarantee you their ravens will just go even further forward ahead of the rest of the army and just die - It already happens in some games. And finally the worst change of all - The Viking change why in God's name would you want to give it another +15 hp... TvT is already mass Viking and the hp of the Viking is not the reason it loses to units like the corruptor or carrier. The Viking losses those fights because those options are either Tankier, Faster or outright do significantly more damage. Reducing the speed of corruptors while allowing Vikings to focus carriers instead of all shooting the same interceptor would be a better way to go about improving the Viking. But giving it more HP just makes TvT way more cancer than it already is - Especially when you realize that we don't have a great answer to Viking vs Viking like we did when it was raven Viking vs raven Viking (Sometimes the smaller army would win if they got the right missiles off) But static fights of har har I had 1 more Viking shooting I win now! Are really boring not to mention early game if all this goes through what's to stop people from skipping raven and just going marine tank Viking across the map and landing their Vikings on your stuff. The balance team I can tell is trying and all the other suggestions they did put forth (On the fence about the Infestor) are genuinely good ideas and cool add-ons but they are still not addressing issues of variety in gameplay, creating more fair lategame situations and allowing players to win the game outside of methods of coinflipping every game (Like Terrans did when they proxied every TvP in 2018)
I would really like to know what metrics the balance team uses in order to decide what they change. Some of these decisions really boggle my mind...
In my opinion there is barely no game design reflection here, mostly minor patching with the aim of seeing if said changes will somehow balance things out, using upgrades as bandaids that just temporarily stop the slow bleeding this game suffers from.
When are these people going to come up with actually thoughtful ways of addressing the game state and whether the mechanics they allow or implement are going to be healthy for the competitive scene?
I like the proposed changes to nydus, BC, and infestors. I miiiight like the voidray change, as VR is pretty underutilized past early game, though I would prefer the upgrade to give +1 range rather than the proposed speed buff. Not sure about the other proposed changes.
I like the shifting of where some upgrades are researched. That's pretty much the limit of nice things I can say about these changes. I have no problem with adding additional upgrades, but they should apply to units that don't have many or any upgrades and shouldn't just be something removed from the unit or an upgrade.
I guess they've given up on the post-Blizzcon patches being redesigns rather than just balance changes. Sadly, the race that has been a consistent design problem is the one that never really had significant design changes.
On October 04 2019 06:59 spectreusmc wrote: I don't see how they think they've weakened the infestor at all...
If the Zerg is on the defensive, Protoss can engage, force the Zerg to pop infested terrans, then retreat. The problem is you'd have to do that half a dozen times and if you're on the defensive, you're even more screwed because Storm is even less effective against them than previously.
I like that the suggested changes are not too ground-shaking. Don't even feel like a typical end-of-year patch. This means, SC2's gameplay future could be rather stable. Instead of stirring things up once a year, I would prefer an overall fixed balance, with patches only when necessary.
Zerg seems to be a little too powerful in the lategame, what is the move? Buff infestors....... Really? Terran uses BCs and zerg cant kill them for free with neural early enough, remove the upgrade. Buff the infested terrans so they are fewer but does double damage, this is pretty much a buff since their huge numbers often makes it so only a few of them can attack at a time. This is done to make them more susceptivble to splash but you buff their hp at the same time? That makes them less weak to aoe since they are tankier.....
The tradeoff between one less range on neural for not needing to research it can be either a buff or a nerf depending on the situation. This is not what was needed, neural needs a much more clear nerf.
I like the terran changes and the protoss changes seems... a mess? Zealots need double upgrades, that is just a bit too messy and convoluted (but maybe good for overall balance), adepts are fine because of EMP? Wtf, what does that even mean, are they saying that if protoss adepts all in the terran its fine because terran should obviously already have built ghosts AND finished upgrading enhanced shockwaves? How about buffing marines because zerg has chitinous plated ultras now...... That how crazy that line of thinking is.... Absolutely insane
On October 04 2019 06:59 spectreusmc wrote: I don't see how they think they've weakened the infestor at all...
The problem is you'd have to do that half a dozen times and if you're on the defensive, you're even more screwed because Storm is even less effective against them than previously.
They have overall less HP per energy spent. This allows you to much more easily wipe them out before they inflict their previous damage. It doesn't have to be just by storms, either.
I think zerg is strong right now, but I wonder how much of this issue could be ameliorated by mixing more small maps into the pool with more exposed expands. Players reach late game so fast these days, making it less safe to quickly expand/drone and having tighter defenses in general might help balance without adding a million upgrades.
They forgot that they wanted the power of offensive warp ins with the warp prism. I thought that would have been a good decision design wise (defender's advantage etc) but as a toss player I should be happy.
On October 04 2019 07:17 Shuffleblade wrote: adepts are fine because of EMP? Wtf, what does that even mean, are they saying that if protoss adepts all in the terran its fine because terran should obviously already have built ghosts AND finished upgrading enhanced shockwaves? How about buffing marines because zerg has chitinous plated ultras now...... That how crazy that line of thinking is.... Absolutely insane
It's not about allins but maxing out on pure adept phoenix like in the good old days. Which emp definitely does very well against.
Very bold suggestions, it seems they are wanting to speed up parts of the game a little more. I imagine these changes will go through intense testing before going live.
Honestly, decent changes, I don't understand why people are complaining. Apart from the infestor, which will definitely help Protoss but Terran doesn't have the AoE to benefit from the change. I think the infestor changes on a whole are a bit misguided.
I think all the fusion core changes are really good and a long time coming. Observer speed buff should've never gone through so it's a minor, but good revert. With hallucination being as good as it is now, Protoss doesn't need that fast observer so much.
A lot of gating through upgrades is kinda weird and clunky, but it's actually not a terrible idea if it works.
Anyone complaining about the adept upgrade is dumb, who the hell is going to get both upgrades for an adept all-in, and pre-new upgrade they basically function the exact same. If you're losing to double upgraded adept all ins, something is wrong with your play. Likewise, the charge change seems decent as long as it doesn't completely ruin Protoss against timings. Chargelots gain so much defensive and offensive power in the midgame, it'd be nice if their power spike is smoother, allowing Terran a bit more freedom.
In their totality they’re relatively radical changes though, if nothing else it does seem the dev team are still actively involved in such matters, which is probably a good sign if nothing else.
On October 04 2019 07:42 travis wrote: I feel like this patch "nerfs" zerg in small irrelevant ways, and then "rebalances" protoss in ways that will drastically nerf them.
Also those lurker changes look hilariously extreme to me. And do lurkers really need to be able to get 1 more range?
lurkers are useless in live apart from zvz, they need to be changed.
On October 04 2019 07:42 travis wrote: I feel like this patch "nerfs" zerg in small irrelevant ways, and then "rebalances" protoss in ways that will drastically nerf them.
Also those lurker changes look hilariously extreme to me. And do lurkers really need to be able to get 1 more range?
lurkers are useless in live apart from zvz, they need to be changed.
They're quite strong against Protoss. You just don't see them as often recently since hydras aren't as popular as before and going straight to Broodlord/Infestor is even better.
On October 04 2019 06:59 spectreusmc wrote: I don't see how they think they've weakened the infestor at all...
If the Zerg is on the defensive, Protoss can engage, force the Zerg to pop infested terrans, then retreat. The problem is you'd have to do that half a dozen times and if you're on the defensive, you're even more screwed because Storm is even less effective against them than previously.
How is storm less effective? Infested terrans are so slow that they'll eat the whole storm and die like before, but now killing the same area's worth of infested terran is worth twice as much infestor energy.
I like the idea of the changes that they're going for this time. It's cool to see them try to improve that sort of super late game dynamic with more late game upgrades.
The second adept upgrade looks a bit weak though, 20 shield doesn't really seem like a lot especially when adept upgrades are mostly used for timings.
It would be cool to see the stalker get an upgrade, maybe even something like Phase Reactor in the co-op where the ability would restore some shields after they blink, to increase their late game anti-air viability (not the cloaking part though cause that would OP)
Apparantly people dont really like some of these changes but I am loving it. I think I agreed with like every change they suggested. I kept expecting there to be some weird misplaced changes near the end but the good stuff just kept coming.
Love the terran changes. Helion change makes sense, would be lovely if there are possibly blue flame openers. Thor changes sounds great - they do seem a little unresponsive. Viking buff is nice and I think its something terran lategame needs. Liberator range changes are fine, especially combined with brood/infestor/tempest changes. I like nerfing battlecruisers, the bc style just felt boring to me.
Zerg changes are a bit mixed. The infestor changes seem really risky and I'd prefer the unit being used as little as possible. But its hard to tell how it will work out. Love the lurker buff, I think lurkers are a cool and fun unit. Love the broodlord nerf, the broodlord range made it impossible to ever take a fight with the zerg deathball which led to boring games. Nydus changes seem necessary. Personally I think it'd be more fun if zerg lategame focussed on ultras and lurkers instead of broodlord infestor, so I mostly like these changes. I'd prefer buffing the ultras and turning the broodlords into more of a siege unit that you get to secure a win rather than a core deathball unit. But hey, these are steps in the right direction.
For protoss I think a midgame nerf to zealots is reasonable. The adept upgrade is fine to me, although lategame adepts shading around is definitely going to be annoying as hell. It seems good to buff a unit's lategame strength when it is basically only used in all ins otherwise. Tempest range nerf is good given the broodlord, infestor and liberator nerfs. The air vs air fights should stay the same, but now maybe ground armies have some sort of chance. Other small changes are fine with me too.
Overall I like the direction of this patch. New infestors could be scary but it might also be weaker, we'll have to wait and see. Otherwise Im loving it.
I think these are mostly quite smart and well reasoned changes.
A couple of things seem a bit off and the protoss changes overall are a bit underwhelming. I agree with people voicing amazement on the weird speed changes, and the viking change seems a bit crazy too but the infested terran changes and the adept and tempest changes make senses.
I wonder a bit about the voidrays... but since protoss is generally lacking in mobility and speed this might make sense somehow.
But what I really think should be done in addition: - the first charge upgrade needs to be cheaper and faster, so that zealots can be become semi useful sooner - zerg cocoons should take additional damage (similar to warping in units) instead of having extra armor. Cocoons from larvae might be exempt, but if you find broodlords, banes or ravagers morphing you should be awarded by easily killing them instaed of almost killing them and having full HP units jump out and laugh in your face.
Lastly I think that the proposed warpin change from the previous patch is still a good idea (slow warpprism warpin), but only if balanced by stronger gateway units, especially a higher dps/lower hp stalker, and/or greater dps sentry.
On October 04 2019 07:42 travis wrote: I feel like this patch "nerfs" zerg in small irrelevant ways, and then "rebalances" protoss in ways that will drastically nerf them.
Also those lurker changes look hilariously extreme to me. And do lurkers really need to be able to get 1 more range?
lurkers are useless in live apart from zvz, they need to be changed.
Unless things have changed significantly, Lurkers hard counter their Protoss counter in Immortals if there are enough Lurkers (and there pretty much always are unless the Protoss is massively ahead). Giving them more range makes it even harder to Storm them or to engage without Tempests.
On October 04 2019 06:59 spectreusmc wrote: I don't see how they think they've weakened the infestor at all...
If the Zerg is on the defensive, Protoss can engage, force the Zerg to pop infested terrans, then retreat. The problem is you'd have to do that half a dozen times and if you're on the defensive, you're even more screwed because Storm is even less effective against them than previously.
How is storm less effective? Infested terrans are so slow that they'll eat the whole storm and die like before, but now killing the same area's worth of infested terran is worth twice as much infestor energy.
Seems like a pretty huge buff for protoss to me.
Storm is less effective because it takes longer to kill them. Storming and retreating only works if you can run from a fight. It does you no good if an important Nexus is under attack.
Most changes at least make sense. Nerf queens please and I will be happy. Banshees/Libs can do close to nothing now against zerg, with BC nerf it's a problem.
Love the lurker buff, love the BC nerf also a fan of the Viking buff. Would like to see bigger infestor and bl nerfs.
Would like to see toss get more changes especially targeted at pvz.
I think it would be fine for nydus upgrade to require lair not hive tech. Would like to see that tried. I would have liked to see supply changes to the tempest instead if range, I think if tempests were a bigger supply investment it would be fine for them to have the same range they now have since they would be weeker in direct engagements as a result.
On October 04 2019 08:44 washikie wrote: I would have liked to see supply changes to the tempest instead if range, I think if tempests were a bigger supply investment it would be fine for them to have the same range they now have since they would be weeker in direct engagements as a result.
Tempests are really bad in direct engagements currently...
On October 04 2019 08:49 serendipitous wrote: Protoss is gonna be really bad after this imo, maybe a bit better vs Zerg, but they'll have a hard time vs early terran pushes.
I like the changes, they add more dept to tech desicions of both terran and protoss and I like that they seem to encourage using ground mech vs protoss.
I do agree that 2 base bio pushes would be strong but hopefully that means they revert the stim buff, wich IMO was a bad change that only streamlined terran even more.
On October 04 2019 08:44 washikie wrote: I would have liked to see supply changes to the tempest instead if range, I think if tempests were a bigger supply investment it would be fine for them to have the same range they now have since they would be weeker in direct engagements as a result.
Tempests are really bad in direct engagements currently...
well kind of, Outside of the BC telipporting on top of them strat, I dont think they are restricted enough. It would be nice if we can reach a happy medium with The tempest were it performs its role of dealing with siege units and massive air units, while not being good enough that you want to make a whole lot of them. I think a supply nerf serves this better than a range reduction, keeps the utility of the unit but lets your opponent pounce on your army if you built more of them than you needed to counter what your opponent is up to.
Although I think the direction bliz is going to decrease the range of all ranged siege units is an alright approach, better than what we have now.
Zerg changes are a bit mixed. The infestor changes seem really risky and I'd prefer the unit being used as little as possible. But its hard to tell how it will work out. Love the lurker buff, I think lurkers are a cool and fun unit. Love the broodlord nerf, the broodlord range made it impossible to ever take a fight with the zerg deathball which led to boring games. Nydus changes seem necessary. Personally I think it'd be more fun if zerg lategame focussed on ultras and lurkers instead of broodlord infestor, so I mostly like these changes. I'd prefer buffing the ultras and turning the broodlords into more of a siege unit that you get to secure a win rather than a core deathball unit. But hey, these are steps in the right direction.
Overall I like the direction of this patch. New infestors could be scary but it might also be weaker, we'll have to wait and see. Otherwise Im loving it.
I agree I would love it if bliz would keep zerg late game strong (becuase with zergs design it needs to be) but make it less about the bl infestor death ball and more about leveraging your bank, nydus network and powerful ground based options to crush your opponent.
I agree with others who have said too many abilities are becoming upgrades. Like, really, an upgrade to give adepts 20 more shields? It's almost self-parody.
I was hoping for some radical re-designs, maybe to the immortal, infestor, etc.
Some of this stuff seems good but a lot of it doesn't seem to hit the core problems. Feels more like over-complicating and cluttering up the game. We'll see, though.
Dissapointed, this is meant to be the biggest patch of the year (what I was waiting for to help the game get out of its current bad game state). Zerg are currently dominant and Protoss don't look like they are set up to compete. Protoss don't get anything that would help. Zerg look like they will be able to keep winning with the same stuff. Terran get some nice buffs and QOL stuff.
INFESTOR Infested Terran energy cost increased from 25 to 50. Infested Terran health increased from 50 to 75. Infested Swarm Egg health increased from 70 to 75. The Infested Terran’s Gauss Rifle damage increased from 6 to 12. The Infested Terran’s Infested Rockets damage increased from 14 to 24. Infested Rockets now gain +2 per ranged weapon upgrade, up from +1. Infested Rockets attack period decreased from 1.14 to 0.95.
We’d like to redesign the Infested Terran ability with the following goals in mind: First, to make each Infested Terran feel like more of a commitment. Secondly, we want to provide players with more clear counters-play options against Infested Terrans.
Our proposal is a more expensive and powerful Infested Terran that is still vulnerable to key Terran and Protoss units and abilities. With this redesign, while Infested Terrans will have higher damage density, they’ll be more vulnerable to Psionic Storm, Disruptors, and Liberators.
I don't see how this addresses the IT problem at all. they claim this will make each IT more of a commitment, but nothing will change. they will be spammed from 100 % to 0 energy the same way they are now; now they are just fewer and stronger. i am very disappointed to see them make this arbitrary change rather than changing the design of the infestor.
On October 04 2019 08:44 washikie wrote: I would have liked to see supply changes to the tempest instead if range, I think if tempests were a bigger supply investment it would be fine for them to have the same range they now have since they would be weeker in direct engagements as a result.
Tempests are really bad in direct engagements currently...
well kind of, Outside of the BC telipporting on top of them strat, I dont think they are restricted enough. It would be nice if we can reach a happy medium with The tempest were it performs its role of dealing with siege units and massive air units, while not being good enough that you want to make a whole lot of them. I think a supply nerf serves this better than a range reduction, keeps the utility of the unit but lets your opponent pounce on your army if you built more of them than you needed to counter what your opponent is up to.
Although I think the direction bliz is going to decrease the range of all ranged siege units is an alright approach, better than what we have now.
Nobody wants to make a lot of Tempests. People make a lot of Tempests because you need 600 of them to do anything.
That infestor change is a buff btw not a nerf I hope you realize that, I don't think zergs care if it costs 50 energy when they have mass infestor in the late game already and since you compensate the energy cost increase with better infested terrans hardly anything is gonna change in super later game and you might actually make infested terran spam even stronger then before as a result of the insane stats on infested terrans. I have to say I find it quite shocking to see this even posted as a suggestion.
The infestor is just to strong and Zergs should be forced to use their big banks in long games not fight with free units making it near impossible to trade well even with better engagements.
You have Protoss players in the complete opposite side of the spectrum where every unit is as precious as gold and Zerg are throwing around free units that are really strong. Terrans are also in similar situation altough not as bad as protoss.
On October 04 2019 10:11 StasisField wrote: There are so many upgrades on the twilight council that it might actually be worth it to open double twilight council. What universe am I in?
At this rate they could remove the forge, add the forge upgrades to twilight council and make cannons require twilight to appease the haters of cannon rush.
On October 04 2019 07:42 travis wrote: I feel like this patch "nerfs" zerg in small irrelevant ways, and then "rebalances" protoss in ways that will drastically nerf them.
Also those lurker changes look hilariously extreme to me. And do lurkers really need to be able to get 1 more range?
lurkers are useless in live apart from zvz, they need to be changed.
Unless things have changed significantly, Lurkers hard counter their Protoss counter in Immortals if there are enough Lurkers (and there pretty much always are unless the Protoss is massively ahead). Giving them more range makes it even harder to Storm them or to engage without Tempests.
On October 04 2019 06:59 spectreusmc wrote: I don't see how they think they've weakened the infestor at all...
If the Zerg is on the defensive, Protoss can engage, force the Zerg to pop infested terrans, then retreat. The problem is you'd have to do that half a dozen times and if you're on the defensive, you're even more screwed because Storm is even less effective against them than previously.
How is storm less effective? Infested terrans are so slow that they'll eat the whole storm and die like before, but now killing the same area's worth of infested terran is worth twice as much infestor energy.
Seems like a pretty huge buff for protoss to me.
Storm is less effective because it takes longer to kill them. Storming and retreating only works if you can run from a fight. It does you no good if an important Nexus is under attack.
Storm taking 1.79 seconds vs 2.68 seconds to kill an IT is not significant, and that goes double when it comes to storming eggs.
-If you want the mothership to feel less like a flying pile of trash, why not just make it immune to abduct/neural?
-I can't properly envision the nydus changes without trying it out... but the effect I'd like to see is not feeling like the nydus spam is costing us equally to attempt/defend until it costs me everything the one time I don't react perfectly. I don't know how balanced it is, but it's just not fun.
-I'd be down to try a more lurker centered matchup. I'm not very good against it, but maybe it's interesting at least?
So, the infested Terran damage is 24, the range is 12, and the attack period is 0.95. And the Thor damage is 25, the range is 11, and the attack period is 0.9. Why not change the "Infested Terran" to "Infested Thor"?
Disgusting and careless. Completely. I start hating balance team and it's my common sense. Infestor change... it's a one big mess. More upgrades. Welcome on board. You need to upgrade everything. Literally you need to upgrade everything. UpgradeCraft II. Just read the comment about the reason why "Infernal Pre-Igniter" research cost must be decreased from 150/150 to 100/100. It's not even related to the topic. It's not even related to current issues that we have today. And STILL, you need to research it from tech lab. They change thors every 6 months. Every 6 months. Cyclone was changed 9 times already. And now we need to change thor again. Thor is clumsy as hell. And he has only 1 armor. 6 supply unit has 1 armor. You have spending 300/200 to build a useless mech thing with 1 armor. And it's even more useless now with buffed infestors and nerfed liberators. Jesus, they have nerfed a protoss since early 2019. And they even can't figure out why they are doing it. Let's revert obs speed. Great. The reason: " the FRUSTRATION caused by barely not catching Observers did not make up for the benefits" Are you crazy? How about THE FRUSTRATION to play late game vs Zerg? or disruptors disco dance as a terran?
Guys, I'm very sorry but this is bullshit and you know it.
I like these changes a lot, I'm currently having fun with all the races and this proposal addresses few of the frustrating things I've encountered while not really breaking any of my playstile. The nerfs have corresponding buffs in different areas, plus we get few new fun options (speed voids, fast medivacs and 10 range lurkers ).
What I don't understand is: why doesn't Blizzard just hire and organize a committee consisting of English-speaking pro players to work on balancing the game, instead of relying on some TL randos who are more opinionated than experienced? I'd much rather have Serral, Neeb, and Bunny come together to brainstorm ideas in private, and submit them to Blizzard's balance team, than have the people in this thread influence the state of the game. Democracy means a bunch of idiots get to decide the direction of their community. Stop trying to democratize SC2. Let the most competent people handle the all-important task of balancing the game.
I just want to add that these changes are nothing. We will have the same problems in 2020. If we stomp around like this we only make it worse. We wander the maze. Liberator and disruptor, they don't fit the starcraft aesthetic. We need to delete them. And we need to make infestors like ravens. As a support unit. You just can't neuralize the whole fcking mothership or battlecruiser. It's dumb. You just can't kill the whole air protoss/terran army with free units. It's nonsense.
I don't think the game is imbalanced as people make it out to be and I like the direction they are going with things.
I don't want to see broodlord leash range reduced though, it's a fun micro trick. If it's OP that's fine, but I wish they wouldn't get rid of a neat micro ability.
Don't like the battlecruiser nerfs either. Cool unit abilities and micro tricks should stay in the game, they are fun. I don't mind the cooldown increase but not a fan of the 1 second vulnerability.
these threads are the same shit every single time, gold leaguers theorycrafting patches that aren't even past R&D and people repeating the same inaccurate claims like "blizzard doesn't talk to pro players about balance" lol what's the point
On October 04 2019 13:59 MockHamill wrote: Too many changes making the result almost impossible to predict. Bettter to just:
1. Increase Infestor supply to 3. 2. Fix Broodlord range bug. 3. Make Nydus load and unload slower.
They're trying to drastically change the game after each Blizzcon, probably to give newer players a chance to catch up with more experienced players. I don't personally like this approach, but it is what it is.
On October 04 2019 13:46 brickrd wrote: these threads are the same shit every single time, gold leaguers theorycrafting patches that aren't even past R&D and people repeating the same inaccurate claims like "blizzard doesn't talk to pro players about balance" lol what's the point
Talking to them isn't enough, since pros don't necessarily agree on many things. It needs to be more direct; Blizz needs to pay some high-level pros to come together in several (virtual) conferences to hammer out practical ideas. This is the most efficient approach.
God, i knew they are clueless, but this, this is beyond any reason. What these changes are? Some random stuff w/o any context and no connection to the meta. No, really, this is not funny. Fire them somebody.
So many little changes... I like the amount of changes but they are all so small that the meta might not change too much, except for late game. I'd ike to see more meta-shifting changes. At first glance, T is buffed, Z is nerfed, P is reckt'd. Nothing new...
On October 04 2019 11:32 WenHe wrote: So, the infested Terran damage is 24, the range is 12, and the attack period is 0.95. And the Thor damage is 25, the range is 11, and the attack period is 0.9. Why not change the "Infested Terran" to "Infested Thor"?
I mean, why the hell are they buffing infested terrans to begin with. It's not eeven needed.
it seems that blizzard don't know how to balance so they just do some random buff and debuff, then they will have ideas about how to adjust the new system between 3 races. It's really irresponsible and funny.
Actually I feel the changes is nice for every race. Only issue is why observer speed nerf? They buff the overlord speed because what then?
By I wish if they buff lurker range, Disruptor can be buffed too, because I like the interaction between lurkers and Disruptor. Now it favors lurker too much.
On October 04 2019 15:13 Xamo wrote: So many little changes... I like the amount of changes but they are all so small that the meta might not change too much, except for late game. I'd ike to see more meta-shifting changes. At first glance, T is buffed, Z is nerfed, P is reckt'd. Nothing new...
I only agree with the last sentence, although I think Z will be nerfed much harder than P, according to these proposals. I think this will change the meta plenty. Less frequency of BC opener, and nydus spammage. Higher frequency of blue flame harassment. Less BL/Inf lategame, and more lurker/Inf lategame.
The biggest bitching of this year by far has been zerg lategame, and these nerfs ARE definitely nerfs. -1 range on neural is very substantial, considering how vulnerable infestors were when they didn't have the 9 range. Neural was much less often used. This is 100% a lategame nerf. Allowing it to be used for midgame isn't such a big deal, considering: how vulnerable it now makes the infestor; the inf already is expensive; and it takes a little while to build up energy for a neural.
The IT nerf is in fact a goddamn nerf. With pathogen gland, inf could upon hatching cast 3 ITs. Now, only 1. Infestors that have already depleted most of their energy bank will now have to wait longer to be at all useful, and the few IT that they can spawn may quickly get killed, perhaps even before they spawn. A 90 energy inf currently can cast 3 ITs, but in the future only 1. The implication of this is that, on average, a group of infestors will not be able to use as high a proportion of their energy on ITs at a given time as they can currently; also, EMPs will hurt infestors' ability to cast ITs more than before. This is also a big deal when the zerg decides to spam them in a massive engagement. But for the sake of argument, let's say there are infestors with max (200) energy and can spam 4 ITs per inf; a storm/disruption/liberator may now potentially kill twice as much energy worth of spellcast unit. Anti-light/bio units like blue-flame hellions, ghosts, archons, colossus, and adept, and generally high-dps units like tanks and marines, can more quickly kill ITs, because the amount of HP per energy spent will have been reduced by effectively 25%. Not to mention: the IT cocoon's HP will be practically unchanged, which huuugely buffs (almost doubles) the value of killing them before they hatch.
All in all, if you combine these zerg nerfs with the viking buff, lategame Z will be significant weaker than it is now. If anything, it may completely obliterate the lategame advantage zerg now enjoys.
On October 04 2019 13:02 tigon_ridge wrote: What I don't understand is: why doesn't Blizzard just hire and organize a committee consisting of English-speaking pro players to work on balancing the game, instead of relying on some TL randos who are more opinionated than experienced? I'd much rather have Serral, Neeb, and Bunny come together to brainstorm ideas in private, and submit them to Blizzard's balance team, than have the people in this thread influence the state of the game. Democracy means a bunch of idiots get to decide the direction of their community. Stop trying to democratize SC2. Let the most competent people handle the all-important task of balancing the game.
Because pro's are just as prone to balance whining and bad game design as the rest of us. There are some form of meetings that Blizzard hosts where they gather a bunch of pros to discuss balance, though.
On October 04 2019 13:02 tigon_ridge wrote: What I don't understand is: why doesn't Blizzard just hire and organize a committee consisting of English-speaking pro players to work on balancing the game, instead of relying on some TL randos who are more opinionated than experienced? I'd much rather have Serral, Neeb, and Bunny come together to brainstorm ideas in private, and submit them to Blizzard's balance team, than have the people in this thread influence the state of the game. Democracy means a bunch of idiots get to decide the direction of their community. Stop trying to democratize SC2. Let the most competent people handle the all-important task of balancing the game.
Because pro's are just as prone to balance whining and bad game design as the rest of us.
That might only be if they get too creative, and start inventing new gameplay mechanics. When it comes to fine-tune adjustments, I'm sure they're far more equipped with experience to judge than the vast majority of us.
These are all great, smart changes. People complaining about infestor getting a buff just don't understand how it will actually play. Every infested terran you kill removes that much more power. single target power is more strong against them now. Libs will get tied up fighting IT's for less time. Protoss splash is much more efficient at clearing them. -1 range to neural. Fantastic changes for the infestor. The change to charge almost reverts it back to hots era 200/200, but lets you increment out the power, which should open up more early mid game options for other races. Love the change. Few of the changes aren't particularly sexy or exciting, and I'd really like to have way more done since this is an end of year patch. Shake it up, make big changes, then be hands off for a while and see how it works. It saddens me that blizzard will probably listen to a bunch of people who have a kneejerk reaction to this stuff and back off some of the better changes they have here. Blizzard, don't listen to gold league players, please.
On October 04 2019 13:02 tigon_ridge wrote: What I don't understand is: why doesn't Blizzard just hire and organize a committee consisting of English-speaking pro players to work on balancing the game, instead of relying on some TL randos who are more opinionated than experienced? I'd much rather have Serral, Neeb, and Bunny come together to brainstorm ideas in private, and submit them to Blizzard's balance team, than have the people in this thread influence the state of the game. Democracy means a bunch of idiots get to decide the direction of their community. Stop trying to democratize SC2. Let the most competent people handle the all-important task of balancing the game.
what makes you think they don't do that. They frequently ask pros for opinions, and I don't think what people write here matters much.
On October 04 2019 13:02 tigon_ridge wrote: What I don't understand is: why doesn't Blizzard just hire and organize a committee consisting of English-speaking pro players to work on balancing the game, instead of relying on some TL randos who are more opinionated than experienced? I'd much rather have Serral, Neeb, and Bunny come together to brainstorm ideas in private, and submit them to Blizzard's balance team, than have the people in this thread influence the state of the game. Democracy means a bunch of idiots get to decide the direction of their community. Stop trying to democratize SC2. Let the most competent people handle the all-important task of balancing the game.
what makes you think they don't do that. They frequently ask pros for opinions, and I don't think what people write here matters much.
It's possible they only publicize these potential changes, and ask the community for our opinion, as merely a PR move. If they are as competent as I hope they are, they would definitely ignore >90% of the posts in this thread.
Asking for opinions and doing a proper focus group are two different things. The latter has been known to be so extremely effective that companies have literally paid somewhat random people big cash to participate in a focus group. Replace "random people" with experts who are highly involved in the industry, and you get the gravity of it.
IMO all these changes make for bad design, adjusting small things when the big picture is broken and basically trying to shift attention to areas that are not so important so the discussion on hard issues stops. I stopped reading half-way through, this is really unfortunate.
On October 04 2019 05:08 TL.net ESPORTS wrote: Hey everyone,
Each year, we take a step back to evaluate what improvements we could make to the game for a post-BlizzCon design patch. As we come closer and closer to stability with each passing year
On October 04 2019 05:08 TL.net ESPORTS wrote: Hey everyone,
Each year, we take a step back to evaluate what improvements we could make to the game for a post-BlizzCon design patch. As we come closer and closer to stability with each passing year
On October 04 2019 05:08 TL.net ESPORTS wrote: Hey everyone,
Each year, we take a step back to evaluate what improvements we could make to the game for a post-BlizzCon design patch. As we come closer and closer to stability with each passing year
lmao
Well they got only 1 korean terran for blizzcon so far, they are almost there!
The changes are too numerous for me to process if it'll be good or not, but they seem quite subtile compared to previous post-blizzcon patches. It's probably for the best, hopefully they manage to get something good.
A lot of changes and at a time where I think all that needs to be done is change Infestor to 3 supply and Nydus unload speed and cooldown slightly nerfed.
I also am not a fan of the whole “make everything an upgrade” strategy. But we’ll see how this works out, glad it’s after Blizzcon
On October 04 2019 17:58 fLyiNgDroNe wrote: IMO all these changes make for bad design, adjusting small things when the big picture is broken and basically trying to shift attention to areas that are not so important so the discussion on hard issues stops. I stopped reading half-way through, this is really unfortunate.
It's been like this since the game's beta. Bandaids everywhere.
So the infestor has clearly been a problem, but I really don't get the feeling from reading this that it will actually fix the issues. The only real nerf is that the energy cost for ITs is doubled, but the for example the fact that infestors still take the same amount of supply make them very massable, especially since the IT itself was buffed so much. And now you don't even need to upgrade Neural.
Infestors with Neural Parasite by default it's a straight buff. DPS same or even higher vs air T/P with smaller number of infested terrans so it's a straight buff too. HP increased it's a buff. 'cause you can't storm them and with weaker thor/ nerfed liberators range it's a buff. Weird.
I’m not sure why people are so overwhelmingly negative given Blizz said this is effectively their ‘rough ideas’ stage.
I would say we’re potentially entering a weird spot where there are too many upgrades for some units, and not enough for other units.
With the caveat I don’t say BW > SC2, but in there basically everything is an upgrade and it’s consistent. Builds factor this in.
Protoss have to research storm, which gives them their only useful spell outside of morphing, and gives Protoss AoE if they haven’t gone Robo Bay options. This gives a period of vulnerability where the initial investment needs time to pay off.
Contrast with the Infestors which already pop with really useful abilities and now neural might potentially not require an upgrade?
What? Part of the problem with Infestor is they’re strong out the box so you can morph a bunch and transition to the lategame comps, this will only make this worse.
I like the base idea of giving later game upgrades to give stock units more utility to be honest, as a general practice.
It just seems very haphazard, Protoss gateway units basically need their Twilight upgrades to not suck outside of the early game, which is OK, but at the same time the catch-all Infestor is having upgrades removed? :S
these rough ideas don't make a good impression. Nothing in their ideas is innovative or even clever. Just tweaking small things here and there instead of looking for creative ways to improve game design and change the way matches are played. Seems lazy and uninspiring.
On October 05 2019 00:25 fLyiNgDroNe wrote: these rough ideas don't make a good impression. Nothing in their ideas is innovative or even clever. Just tweaking small things here and there instead of looking for creative ways to improve game design and change the way matches are played. Seems lazy and uninspiring.
Bigger changes would require more man-hours put into SC2. They just dont have that many people working on starcraft. Probably less than 3 I would guess.
I think that 99% of SC2 users just wants good game design rather than good balance. With all the new upgrades, the game is unnecessarily complicated, poorly designed, and therefore less enjoyable. That's definitetly not how you want to revitalize a declining game.
I think it is better to lower the life and movement speed of the crushers before bringing the Vikings to life. I also see that the speed of movement of the MEDIVAC is still bad because the landing of Marine delays the opponent a lot and that must have a risk. I don't think that the observer's movement speed should be lowered because of how big the maps are and that the proto depends a lot on echos
- Infernal Pre-Igniter research cost decreased from 150/150 to 100/100 OK. - High Impact Payload damage decreased from 40 (+15 vs Massive) to 25 (+10 vs Massive). - High Impact Payload weapon cooldown decreased from 1.7 to 0.9. Another massive buff to the amove thor ... With the brood lord nerf this will be really funny ... The real question is: why this thing has 2 types of anti air attack? Just remove the AoE anti air attack already. Mutas need to be usable again! - Health increased from 135 to 150. Funny. Another massive anti air buff to the terran ... What about corruptors? They are already trash compared to vikings! Noone cares ... - Moved the Rapid Re-Ignition System upgrade from the Starport Tech Lab to the Fusion Core. Ok, but this is an another reason to bring back mutas to TvZ. Advanced Ballistics upgrade moved from the Starport Tech Lab to the Fusion Core. OK. - Interference Matrix energy cost increased from 50 energy to 75 energy. - Interference Matrix duration increased from 8 seconds to 11 seconds. - Raven movement speed increased from 3.85 to 4.13. This unit needs redesign. - Tactical Jump now stuns and puts the Battlecruiser into a 1 second vulnerability phase before it teleports. - Tactical Jump cooldown increased from 71 seconds to 86 seconds. 1 second is not enough. Instead the cooldown nerf, you should merge the yamato and the jump cooldown together. So you can use 1 ability in every 71 sec. - Duration decreased from 64 seconds to 63 seconds. - Mules now always attempt to spawn on the side of minerals closest to a town hall. MULES need restrictions but you made them even easier to use, ROFL. - Infested Terran energy cost increased from 25 to 50. Infested Terran health increased from 50 to 75. Infested Swarm Egg health increased from 70 to 75. The Infested Terran’s Gauss Rifle damage increased from 6 to 12. The Infested Terran’s Infested Rockets damage increased from 14 to 24. Infested Rockets now gain +2 per ranged weapon upgrade, up from +1. Infested Rockets attack period decreased from 1.14 to 0.95. Neural Parasite range decreased from 9 to 8. Removed the Research Neural Parasite upgrade. Infestors now come with Neural Parasite by default. You just changed the infestor, instead of nerfing it. LOL Lurker Den build time decreased from 86 seconds to 57 seconds. Lurker range decreased from 9 to 8. New Upgrade found on the Lurker Den: Seismic Spines Increases the Lurker’s range from 8 to 10. Requirement: Hive Research cost: 150/150. Research duration: 57 seconds. Increased research duration of Adaptive Talons from 54 seconds to 57 seconds. LOL .Random lurker buff. Buff the trash brood lord instead. - Broodling leash range decreased from 12 to 9. Trash range, trash speed, no dps, no hp, high tech, high cost, no anti air. THX Nydus Network and Nydus Worm initial unload delay increased from 0.18 to 0.36. Nydus Network and Nydus Worm load period increased from 0.09 to 0.18. Nydus Network and Nydus Worm unload period increased from 0.18 to 0.36. New upgrade found on the Evolution Chamber: Secreted Coating Reduces the Nydus Network and Nydus Worm’s initial unload delay from 0.36 to 0.18. Reduces the Nydus Network and Nydus Worm’s load period from 0.18 to 0.09. Reduces the Nydus Network and Nydus Worm’s unload period from 0.36 to 0.18. Requirement: Hive. Research cost: 100/100. Research duration: 57 seconds. Summon Nydus Worm ability cooldown increased from 0 to 14. Nydus is the only zerg early game agressive option vs other races. Dont nerf it.
On October 05 2019 01:05 Spirit_HUN wrote: - Infernal Pre-Igniter research cost decreased from 150/150 to 100/100 OK. - High Impact Payload damage decreased from 40 (+15 vs Massive) to 25 (+10 vs Massive). - High Impact Payload weapon cooldown decreased from 1.7 to 0.9. Another massive buff to the amove thor ... With the brood lord nerf this will be really funny ... The real question is: why this thing has 2 types of anti air attack? Just remove the AoE anti air attack already. Mutas need to be usable again! - Health increased from 135 to 150. Funny. Another massive anti air buff to the terran ... What about corruptors? They are already trash compared to vikings! Noone cares ... - Moved the Rapid Re-Ignition System upgrade from the Starport Tech Lab to the Fusion Core. Ok, but this is an another reason to bring back mutas to TvZ. Advanced Ballistics upgrade moved from the Starport Tech Lab to the Fusion Core. OK. - Interference Matrix energy cost increased from 50 energy to 75 energy. - Interference Matrix duration increased from 8 seconds to 11 seconds. - Raven movement speed increased from 3.85 to 4.13. This unit needs redesign. - Tactical Jump now stuns and puts the Battlecruiser into a 1 second vulnerability phase before it teleports. - Tactical Jump cooldown increased from 71 seconds to 86 seconds. 1 second is not enough. Instead the cooldown nerf, you should merge the yamato and the jump cooldown together. So you can use 1 ability in every 71 sec. - Duration decreased from 64 seconds to 63 seconds. - Mules now always attempt to spawn on the side of minerals closest to a town hall. MULES need restrictions but you made them even easier to use, ROFL. - Infested Terran energy cost increased from 25 to 50. Infested Terran health increased from 50 to 75. Infested Swarm Egg health increased from 70 to 75. The Infested Terran’s Gauss Rifle damage increased from 6 to 12. The Infested Terran’s Infested Rockets damage increased from 14 to 24. Infested Rockets now gain +2 per ranged weapon upgrade, up from +1. Infested Rockets attack period decreased from 1.14 to 0.95. Neural Parasite range decreased from 9 to 8. Removed the Research Neural Parasite upgrade. Infestors now come with Neural Parasite by default. You just changed the infestor, instead of nerfing it. LOL Lurker Den build time decreased from 86 seconds to 57 seconds. Lurker range decreased from 9 to 8. New Upgrade found on the Lurker Den: Seismic Spines Increases the Lurker’s range from 8 to 10. Requirement: Hive Research cost: 150/150. Research duration: 57 seconds. Increased research duration of Adaptive Talons from 54 seconds to 57 seconds. LOL .Random lurker buff. Buff the trash brood lord instead. - Broodling leash range decreased from 12 to 9. Trash range, trash speed, no dps, no hp, high tech, high cost, no anti air. THX Nydus Network and Nydus Worm initial unload delay increased from 0.18 to 0.36. Nydus Network and Nydus Worm load period increased from 0.09 to 0.18. Nydus Network and Nydus Worm unload period increased from 0.18 to 0.36. New upgrade found on the Evolution Chamber: Secreted Coating Reduces the Nydus Network and Nydus Worm’s initial unload delay from 0.36 to 0.18. Reduces the Nydus Network and Nydus Worm’s load period from 0.18 to 0.09. Reduces the Nydus Network and Nydus Worm’s unload period from 0.36 to 0.18. Requirement: Hive. Research cost: 100/100. Research duration: 57 seconds. Summon Nydus Worm ability cooldown increased from 0 to 14. Nydus is the only zerg early game agressive option vs other races. Dont nerf it.
I gotta say splitting everything into upgrades just feels kinda shitty. Especially when they’re basically just being stripped from the unit to begin with. Would be more interested in seeing an effort made to scale back on infinity upgrades as a solution.
Especially for Protoss I’d rather see changing HP/Shield values over just moving a chunk of Shield onto an upgrade. Especially since there’s a discrepancy between how armor upgrades effect each Heath value that could impact the way the unit works at multiple phases of the game in a more fluid way.
It’d probably be trickier to do it this way but it’d feel a lot more elegant.
Ditto to just making the Infestor more supply inefficient, much simpler change.
On October 05 2019 00:25 fLyiNgDroNe wrote: these rough ideas don't make a good impression. Nothing in their ideas is innovative or even clever. Just tweaking small things here and there instead of looking for creative ways to improve game design and change the way matches are played. Seems lazy and uninspiring.
Why should they make bigger design changes if the game is great the way it is?
Right now, it looks like the Mothership serves a relatively weak role in PvZ matchups. A singular viper with a singular abduct can yoink that 400/400 massive unit over with ease and then shoot it down with 2-3 volleys using corruptors or even neural it with an infestor to cloak your own zerg army. The Mothership should be at the back end of the army to stay alive and cloak that army, but also it needs to go to the front to cast its spells, so the Mothership doesn't seem to have a place. The protoss is having its bank depleted that way and the zerg doesn't get punished for it too much.
I suggest a new change: abducting a Mothership only abducts it somewhere between 30-50% of the distance that a normal unit gets abducted (exact value yet to be determined). That way, the zerg needs a bit more micro and commitment if they really want to get the Mothership, and the protoss has more of a chance to save that unit and to also punish the zerg for that maneuver. That should even up the trades a bit and gives the Mothership more chance to shine.
On October 05 2019 02:56 Vazalemma wrote: Right now, it looks like the Mothership serves a relatively weak role in PvZ matchups. A singular viper with a singular abduct can yoink that 400/400 massive unit over with ease and then shoot it down with 2-3 volleys using corruptors or even neural it with an infestor to cloak your own zerg army. The Mothership should be at the back end of the army to stay alive and cloak that army, but also it needs to go to the front to cast its spells, so the Mothership doesn't seem to have a place. The protoss is having its bank depleted that way and the zerg doesn't get punished for it too much.
I suggest a new change: abducting a Mothership only abducts it somewhere between 30-50% of the distance that a normal unit gets abducted (exact value yet to be determined). That way, the zerg needs a bit more micro and commitment if they really want to get the Mothership, and the protoss has more of a chance to save that unit and to also punish the zerg for that maneuver. That should even up the trades a bit and gives the Mothership more chance to shine.
Thoughts?
Pretty good idea. I would just add it to the massive tag, since pulling any of those units out of position by 3-4.5 tiles, while not being a free kill, makes them a lot more vulnerable. Maybe slow the yoink speed by a certain amount as well, and have concurrent yoinks(unsure on current interaction) interrupt movement so you can't just stack 2 vipers and instantly pull 9 tiles.
Forces Zerg to stop going hatch first nine out of ten games and start moving to something like six out of ten games which significantly reduces their average midgame economic advantage and by extension delays transition to hive tech.
Allows P to take spread out expansions in the late game without being cold to ling run bys. You need to build the cannons and invest in defense, but if you do, that defense will do something.
Plus, the public wants to watch more cannon rushes.
This is awesome, good changes Blizzard I look forward to seeing it in action. I personally love the period immediately after big changes - lots of innovation
So if zealot is a core unit, why is it nerfed? Didn't Blizzard say they rarely change core units such as lings, marines, etc? Why is protoss an exception?
On October 05 2019 00:25 fLyiNgDroNe wrote: these rough ideas don't make a good impression. Nothing in their ideas is innovative or even clever. Just tweaking small things here and there instead of looking for creative ways to improve game design and change the way matches are played. Seems lazy and uninspiring.
Why should they make bigger design changes if the game is great the way it is?
On October 05 2019 04:32 pissinmyhand wrote: how about we just make it so mothership cant be pulled or neuraled
Or better yet just delete Abduct and Neural Parasite.
Deleting abduct would have... interesting effects on ZvZ.
Also is there anyone that's against the idea of increasing the supply cost of infestors?
Too big of a nerf - the proposed nerfs should be enough to make infestors reasonably strong.
What nerfs?
Ok I’ll concede in practice basically giving Infestors half the number of ITs who are individual 2x as strong is a functional nerf, in that opponents can kill them a bit easier.
Giving Infestors neural by default is a buff, and a pretty big one IMO. They are still way too good at way too many different things and the synergy with Brood Lords is still entirely intact.
A supply change is long overdue IMO. By all means make them potent, but to have 10+ or whatever negatively impacting the strength of your other army seems a no-brainer
Despite many other disagreements, if there’s one general common thread across Protoss, Terran and even Zerg it’s that BL/Infestor is too strong, and just boring.
These proposed patches do a lot of other things, some I find interesting but they don’t address that composition at all really.
Maybe we are underestimating the effect of the range changes of lategame units. This is almost as if all other ground units get a lategame +1 range upgrade. For example in TvZ in every fight you will take much less damage, your ghost snipes will go off more frequently, your thors get to shoot more and even stuff like sniping infestors with marauders will be better. Basically every move terran can do is going to be stronger. Even if it isnt much, this is going to add up if it affects basically every single lategame interaction.
Just report that I found a few bugs of the new balance patch:
1.Mothership’s Time Stop still does not decrease enemy beam-type weapon’s attack speed, including sentry, oracle, void ray and enemy mothership. They attack at exactly same speed inside the Time Stop bubble. Originally Time Stop only decrease enemy ground units and structures’ attack speed, so the bug only affect enemy sentry in verse mode. With new patch it will affect more units, though all of them are also Protoss units.
2.Raven’s AAM bug is still not fixed. It still does not decrease affected units’ armor at all, instead just add 3 damage taken from melee or range attack, but not splash damage.
3.Battlecruiser’s Tactical Jump adds 1 second of stun time with the new patch. The balance team believe “Interference Matrix, Fungal Growth, and Abduct will be able to cancel Tactical Jump and put it on cooldown during the Battlecruiser’s vulnerability phase.” Actually, only Fungal Growth will put it on cooldown. Though Interference Matrix and Abduct also stop Tactical Jump successfully, the BC may still use Tactical Jump immediately after Interference Matrix expire of abducted.
4.Thor’s High Impact Paylord damage bonus from weapon upgrade does not decrease according to its reduced damage. Right now Thor’s High Paylord does 40 + 15 Massive damage, and receives +5 damage per upgrade, and it would becomes 55 + 15 Massive if maxed. With new patch, the weapon upgrade still gives +5 damage per upgrade, which means 25 +10 Massive will become 40 +10 Massive at max upgrade, at a weapon cooldown of 0.9 second.
On October 04 2019 13:02 tigon_ridge wrote: What I don't understand is: why doesn't Blizzard just hire and organize a committee consisting of English-speaking pro players to work on balancing the game, instead of relying on some TL randos who are more opinionated than experienced? I'd much rather have Serral, Neeb, and Bunny come together to brainstorm ideas in private, and submit them to Blizzard's balance team, than have the people in this thread influence the state of the game. Democracy means a bunch of idiots get to decide the direction of their community. Stop trying to democratize SC2. Let the most competent people handle the all-important task of balancing the game.
Pros are interested in keeping the meta stale and predictable. As someone who wants to watch good Starcraft with an interesting meta, this is the last thing I want. There is more to balancing the game than satisfying the pros.
On October 05 2019 04:32 pissinmyhand wrote: how about we just make it so mothership cant be pulled or neuraled
Or better yet just delete Abduct and Neural Parasite.
Deleting abduct would have... interesting effects on ZvZ.
Also is there anyone that's against the idea of increasing the supply cost of infestors?
Too big of a nerf - the proposed nerfs should be enough to make infestors reasonably strong.
What nerfs?
Ok I’ll concede in practice basically giving Infestors half the number of ITs who are individual 2x as strong is a functional nerf, in that opponents can kill them a bit easier.
Giving Infestors neural by default is a buff, and a pretty big one IMO. They are still way too good at way too many different things and the synergy with Brood Lords is still entirely intact.
A supply change is long overdue IMO. By all means make them potent, but to have 10+ or whatever negatively impacting the strength of your other army seems a no-brainer
Despite many other disagreements, if there’s one general common thread across Protoss, Terran and even Zerg it’s that BL/Infestor is too strong, and just boring.
These proposed patches do a lot of other things, some I find interesting but they don’t address that composition at all really.
I think people are really underestimating the massive nerf a change to 3 supply would be.
Without a globe of Infestors, Zerg is virtually helpless against Terran and Protoss late game compositions. Only being able to build 67% of the infestors for the same supply is devastating. Infestors below a critical mass cannot contend with Skytoss + massive splash + warp ins, or the insane efficiency and firepower of a 200/200 Terran. Infestors are the equalizer for Zerg late game, as the rest of their units do not compete. BLs and Ultras are not strong enough. Herein lies the problem since there is a very fine line between Zerg's late game being helpless vs overpowered and it's all really based on the capabilities of infestor. 3 supply infestor would massively shift that balanced towards the helpless end of the spectrum.
Barring mass Infestors, Zerg AA simply does not hold up to maxed out capital ship-based armies. Hydras die to everything, Corruptors will get shredded by support units if they get into range of BCs/Carriers/Tempests, and vipers are too easy to kill/neutralize for them to be a reliable and cost effective AA
On October 05 2019 04:32 pissinmyhand wrote: how about we just make it so mothership cant be pulled or neuraled
Or better yet just delete Abduct and Neural Parasite.
Deleting abduct would have... interesting effects on ZvZ.
Also is there anyone that's against the idea of increasing the supply cost of infestors?
Too big of a nerf - the proposed nerfs should be enough to make infestors reasonably strong.
What nerfs?
Ok I’ll concede in practice basically giving Infestors half the number of ITs who are individual 2x as strong is a functional nerf, in that opponents can kill them a bit easier.
Giving Infestors neural by default is a buff, and a pretty big one IMO. They are still way too good at way too many different things and the synergy with Brood Lords is still entirely intact.
A supply change is long overdue IMO. By all means make them potent, but to have 10+ or whatever negatively impacting the strength of your other army seems a no-brainer
Despite many other disagreements, if there’s one general common thread across Protoss, Terran and even Zerg it’s that BL/Infestor is too strong, and just boring.
These proposed patches do a lot of other things, some I find interesting but they don’t address that composition at all really.
I think people are really underestimating the massive nerf a change to 3 supply would be.
Without a globe of Infestors, Zerg is virtually helpless against Terran and Protoss late game compositions. Only being able to build 67% of the infestors for the same supply is devastating. Infestors below a critical mass cannot contend with Skytoss + massive splash + warp ins, or the insane efficiency and firepower of a 200/200 Terran. Infestors are the equalizer for Zerg late game, as the rest of their units do not compete. BLs and Ultras are not strong enough. Herein lies the problem since there is a very fine line between Zerg's late game being helpless vs overpowered and it's all really based on the capabilities of infestor. 3 supply infestor would massively shift that balanced towards the helpless end of the spectrum.
Barring mass Infestors, Zerg AA simply does not hold up to maxed out capital ship-based armies. Hydras die to everything, Corruptors will get shredded by support units if they get into range of BCs/Carriers/Tempests, and vipers are too easy to kill/neutralize for them to be a reliable and cost effective AA
I think you underestimate how much people hate mass infestor. If increasing the supply cost makes mass infestor a thing of the past so much the better. Getting to nerf skytoss/skyterran armies afterwards for balance reasons sounds like a bonus to me.
On October 05 2019 04:32 pissinmyhand wrote: how about we just make it so mothership cant be pulled or neuraled
Or better yet just delete Abduct and Neural Parasite.
Deleting abduct would have... interesting effects on ZvZ.
Also is there anyone that's against the idea of increasing the supply cost of infestors?
Too big of a nerf - the proposed nerfs should be enough to make infestors reasonably strong.
What nerfs?
Ok I’ll concede in practice basically giving Infestors half the number of ITs who are individual 2x as strong is a functional nerf, in that opponents can kill them a bit easier.
Giving Infestors neural by default is a buff, and a pretty big one IMO. They are still way too good at way too many different things and the synergy with Brood Lords is still entirely intact.
A supply change is long overdue IMO. By all means make them potent, but to have 10+ or whatever negatively impacting the strength of your other army seems a no-brainer
Despite many other disagreements, if there’s one general common thread across Protoss, Terran and even Zerg it’s that BL/Infestor is too strong, and just boring.
These proposed patches do a lot of other things, some I find interesting but they don’t address that composition at all really.
I think people are really underestimating the massive nerf a change to 3 supply would be.
Without a globe of Infestors, Zerg is virtually helpless against Terran and Protoss late game compositions. Only being able to build 67% of the infestors for the same supply is devastating. Infestors below a critical mass cannot contend with Skytoss + massive splash + warp ins, or the insane efficiency and firepower of a 200/200 Terran. Infestors are the equalizer for Zerg late game, as the rest of their units do not compete. BLs and Ultras are not strong enough. Herein lies the problem since there is a very fine line between Zerg's late game being helpless vs overpowered and it's all really based on the capabilities of infestor. 3 supply infestor would massively shift that balanced towards the helpless end of the spectrum.
Barring mass Infestors, Zerg AA simply does not hold up to maxed out capital ship-based armies. Hydras die to everything, Corruptors will get shredded by support units if they get into range of BCs/Carriers/Tempests, and vipers are too easy to kill/neutralize for them to be a reliable and cost effective AA
I think you underestimate how much people hate mass infestor. If increasing the supply cost makes mass infestor a thing of the past so much the better. Getting to nerf skytoss/skyterran armies afterwards for balance reasons sounds like a bonus to me.
A 3 supply infestor is such a huge nerf that sky protoss and sky terran would have to be massively nerfed too. That sets everything out of whack, as Terran and Protoss ground units would need to be heavily changed to maintain balance. For example, if you heavily nerf the infestor and skytoss, then Zerg just wins by virtue of the fact that Protoss comps that are heavily ground based are straight up trash against zerg in the lategame. Protoss also heavily relies on skytoss for late game anti air. You significantly nerf skytoss and then you need to significantly buff Protoss ground to air capabilities and that screws with PvT.
There is literally no point in significantly nerfing an equalizer unit like the infestor. It just creates more balance problems than it solves. You saw what happened when the Protoss lategame backbone was heavily nerfed - you get a disaster of a PvZ where protoss desperately tries to end the game before Zerg lategame can kill maxed out armies several times over.
Zerg is designed around a powerful infestor. There's really nothing anyone can do about it at this point unless you want to redesign the game from scratch. Changing the supply to 3 is insane. It's like changing the battlecruiser's supply to 9...
It has become pointless. "Free units" must be restrained. It must be done. More or less energy. More or less HP. It's still free. You just waiting for a while and here we go again. Meanwhile, protoss/terran mineral/gas bank starts melt. Frustration.
On October 05 2019 04:32 pissinmyhand wrote: how about we just make it so mothership cant be pulled or neuraled
Or better yet just delete Abduct and Neural Parasite.
Deleting abduct would have... interesting effects on ZvZ.
Also is there anyone that's against the idea of increasing the supply cost of infestors?
Too big of a nerf - the proposed nerfs should be enough to make infestors reasonably strong.
What nerfs?
Ok I’ll concede in practice basically giving Infestors half the number of ITs who are individual 2x as strong is a functional nerf, in that opponents can kill them a bit easier.
Giving Infestors neural by default is a buff, and a pretty big one IMO. They are still way too good at way too many different things and the synergy with Brood Lords is still entirely intact.
A supply change is long overdue IMO. By all means make them potent, but to have 10+ or whatever negatively impacting the strength of your other army seems a no-brainer
Despite many other disagreements, if there’s one general common thread across Protoss, Terran and even Zerg it’s that BL/Infestor is too strong, and just boring.
These proposed patches do a lot of other things, some I find interesting but they don’t address that composition at all really.
I think people are really underestimating the massive nerf a change to 3 supply would be.
Without a globe of Infestors, Zerg is virtually helpless against Terran and Protoss late game compositions. Only being able to build 67% of the infestors for the same supply is devastating. Infestors below a critical mass cannot contend with Skytoss + massive splash + warp ins, or the insane efficiency and firepower of a 200/200 Terran. Infestors are the equalizer for Zerg late game, as the rest of their units do not compete. BLs and Ultras are not strong enough. Herein lies the problem since there is a very fine line between Zerg's late game being helpless vs overpowered and it's all really based on the capabilities of infestor. 3 supply infestor would massively shift that balanced towards the helpless end of the spectrum.
Barring mass Infestors, Zerg AA simply does not hold up to maxed out capital ship-based armies. Hydras die to everything, Corruptors will get shredded by support units if they get into range of BCs/Carriers/Tempests, and vipers are too easy to kill/neutralize for them to be a reliable and cost effective AA
I think you underestimate how much people hate mass infestor. If increasing the supply cost makes mass infestor a thing of the past so much the better. Getting to nerf skytoss/skyterran armies afterwards for balance reasons sounds like a bonus to me.
A 3 supply infestor is such a huge nerf that sky protoss and sky terran would have to be massively nerfed too. That sets everything out of whack, as Terran and Protoss ground units would need to be heavily changed to maintain balance. For example, if you heavily nerf the infestor and skytoss, then Zerg just wins by virtue of the fact that Protoss comps that are heavily ground based are straight up trash against zerg in the lategame. Protoss also heavily relies on skytoss for late game anti air. You significantly nerf skytoss and then you need to significantly buff Protoss ground to air capabilities and that screws with PvT.
There is literally no point in significantly nerfing an equalizer unit like the infestor. It just creates more balance problems than it solves. You saw what happened when the Protoss lategame backbone was heavily nerfed - you get a disaster of a PvZ where protoss desperately tries to end the game before Zerg lategame can kill maxed out armies several times over.
Zerg is designed around a powerful infestor. There's really nothing anyone can do about it at this point unless you want to redesign the game from scratch. Changing the supply to 3 is insane. It's like changing the battlecruiser's supply to 9...
Which is fine?
Late game Skytoss got nerfed til it largely sucked, even though IMO PvZ was in its best state ever, albeit still not perfect when Skytoss was good
Zerg has other advantages in that matchup and can win by other means. Can make a few tweaks if not the case.
Likewise Terran and mass BCs teleporting everywhere, which was cool for about 10 minutes for novelty’s sake and is just a bit silly.
Blizz don’t have to make every composition competitively viable, I think their mistake is trying to do so.
Most players and spectators don’t like big late game air balls, certainly don’t like BL/Infestor in its current state, and most think the Infestor is way too good, there’s few drawbacks in massing them etc.
It feels like this patch is just a whole bunch of changes meant to rebalance the game while keeping those two factors largely intact, instead of toning those things down and rebalancing to give other options to compensate.
On October 05 2019 04:32 pissinmyhand wrote: how about we just make it so mothership cant be pulled or neuraled
Or better yet just delete Abduct and Neural Parasite.
Deleting abduct would have... interesting effects on ZvZ.
Also is there anyone that's against the idea of increasing the supply cost of infestors?
Too big of a nerf - the proposed nerfs should be enough to make infestors reasonably strong.
What nerfs?
Ok I’ll concede in practice basically giving Infestors half the number of ITs who are individual 2x as strong is a functional nerf, in that opponents can kill them a bit easier.
Giving Infestors neural by default is a buff, and a pretty big one IMO. They are still way too good at way too many different things and the synergy with Brood Lords is still entirely intact.
A supply change is long overdue IMO. By all means make them potent, but to have 10+ or whatever negatively impacting the strength of your other army seems a no-brainer
Despite many other disagreements, if there’s one general common thread across Protoss, Terran and even Zerg it’s that BL/Infestor is too strong, and just boring.
These proposed patches do a lot of other things, some I find interesting but they don’t address that composition at all really.
I think people are really underestimating the massive nerf a change to 3 supply would be.
Without a globe of Infestors, Zerg is virtually helpless against Terran and Protoss late game compositions. Only being able to build 67% of the infestors for the same supply is devastating. Infestors below a critical mass cannot contend with Skytoss + massive splash + warp ins, or the insane efficiency and firepower of a 200/200 Terran. Infestors are the equalizer for Zerg late game, as the rest of their units do not compete. BLs and Ultras are not strong enough. Herein lies the problem since there is a very fine line between Zerg's late game being helpless vs overpowered and it's all really based on the capabilities of infestor. 3 supply infestor would massively shift that balanced towards the helpless end of the spectrum.
Barring mass Infestors, Zerg AA simply does not hold up to maxed out capital ship-based armies. Hydras die to everything, Corruptors will get shredded by support units if they get into range of BCs/Carriers/Tempests, and vipers are too easy to kill/neutralize for them to be a reliable and cost effective AA
On October 05 2019 12:19 BerserkSword wrote: A 3 supply infestor is such a huge nerf that sky protoss and sky terran would have to be massively nerfed too. That sets everything out of whack, as Terran and Protoss ground units would need to be heavily changed to maintain balance. For example, if you heavily nerf the infestor and skytoss, then Zerg just wins by virtue of the fact that Protoss comps that are heavily ground based are straight up trash against zerg in the lategame. Protoss also heavily relies on skytoss for late game anti air. You significantly nerf skytoss and then you need to significantly buff Protoss ground to air capabilities and that screws with PvT.
There is literally no point in significantly nerfing an equalizer unit like the infestor. It just creates more balance problems than it solves. You saw what happened when the Protoss lategame backbone was heavily nerfed - you get a disaster of a PvZ where protoss desperately tries to end the game before Zerg lategame can kill maxed out armies several times over.
Zerg is designed around a powerful infestor. There's really nothing anyone can do about it at this point unless you want to redesign the game from scratch. Changing the supply to 3 is insane. It's like changing the battlecruiser's supply to 9...
how tho ? this unit only goes out of control when zerg players make over 20 infestors while still be able to harrass P/T naturals and that secures them a very healthy eco for another instant 20-25 units remax 20 infestors for 60 supply will definately hold thier ground no problem like the current one but zerg players must work harder in drone count and thier hit squads.Late game was never just about all out direct engagement
On October 05 2019 04:32 pissinmyhand wrote: how about we just make it so mothership cant be pulled or neuraled
Or better yet just delete Abduct and Neural Parasite.
Deleting abduct would have... interesting effects on ZvZ.
Also is there anyone that's against the idea of increasing the supply cost of infestors?
Too big of a nerf - the proposed nerfs should be enough to make infestors reasonably strong.
What nerfs?
Ok I’ll concede in practice basically giving Infestors half the number of ITs who are individual 2x as strong is a functional nerf, in that opponents can kill them a bit easier.
Giving Infestors neural by default is a buff, and a pretty big one IMO. They are still way too good at way too many different things and the synergy with Brood Lords is still entirely intact.
A supply change is long overdue IMO. By all means make them potent, but to have 10+ or whatever negatively impacting the strength of your other army seems a no-brainer
Despite many other disagreements, if there’s one general common thread across Protoss, Terran and even Zerg it’s that BL/Infestor is too strong, and just boring.
These proposed patches do a lot of other things, some I find interesting but they don’t address that composition at all really.
I think people are really underestimating the massive nerf a change to 3 supply would be.
Without a globe of Infestors, Zerg is virtually helpless against Terran and Protoss late game compositions. Only being able to build 67% of the infestors for the same supply is devastating. Infestors below a critical mass cannot contend with Skytoss + massive splash + warp ins, or the insane efficiency and firepower of a 200/200 Terran. Infestors are the equalizer for Zerg late game, as the rest of their units do not compete. BLs and Ultras are not strong enough. Herein lies the problem since there is a very fine line between Zerg's late game being helpless vs overpowered and it's all really based on the capabilities of infestor. 3 supply infestor would massively shift that balanced towards the helpless end of the spectrum.
Barring mass Infestors, Zerg AA simply does not hold up to maxed out capital ship-based armies. Hydras die to everything, Corruptors will get shredded by support units if they get into range of BCs/Carriers/Tempests, and vipers are too easy to kill/neutralize for them to be a reliable and cost effective AA
I think you underestimate how much people hate mass infestor. If increasing the supply cost makes mass infestor a thing of the past so much the better. Getting to nerf skytoss/skyterran armies afterwards for balance reasons sounds like a bonus to me.
A 3 supply infestor is such a huge nerf that sky protoss and sky terran would have to be massively nerfed too. That sets everything out of whack, as Terran and Protoss ground units would need to be heavily changed to maintain balance. For example, if you heavily nerf the infestor and skytoss, then Zerg just wins by virtue of the fact that Protoss comps that are heavily ground based are straight up trash against zerg in the lategame. Protoss also heavily relies on skytoss for late game anti air. You significantly nerf skytoss and then you need to significantly buff Protoss ground to air capabilities and that screws with PvT.
There is literally no point in significantly nerfing an equalizer unit like the infestor. It just creates more balance problems than it solves. You saw what happened when the Protoss lategame backbone was heavily nerfed - you get a disaster of a PvZ where protoss desperately tries to end the game before Zerg lategame can kill maxed out armies several times over.
Zerg is designed around a powerful infestor. There's really nothing anyone can do about it at this point unless you want to redesign the game from scratch. Changing the supply to 3 is insane. It's like changing the battlecruiser's supply to 9...
Which is fine?
Late game Skytoss got nerfed til it largely sucked, even though IMO PvZ was in its best state ever, albeit still not perfect when Skytoss was good
Zerg has other advantages in that matchup and can win by other means. Can make a few tweaks if not the case.
Likewise Terran and mass BCs teleporting everywhere, which was cool for about 10 minutes for novelty’s sake and is just a bit silly.
Blizz don’t have to make every composition competitively viable, I think their mistake is trying to do so.
Most players and spectators don’t like big late game air balls, certainly don’t like BL/Infestor in its current state, and most think the Infestor is way too good, there’s few drawbacks in massing them etc.
It feels like this patch is just a whole bunch of changes meant to rebalance the game while keeping those two factors largely intact, instead of toning those things down and rebalancing to give other options to compensate.
uncle blizz wants every unit has a role ,not every army comp! post blizzcon patch is for shaking up the meta and give the balance team another reason to keep doing balance change. just like a MOBA game hell yeah moba philosophy is gud also,it fits the modern gaming moar
On October 05 2019 04:32 pissinmyhand wrote: how about we just make it so mothership cant be pulled or neuraled
Or better yet just delete Abduct and Neural Parasite.
Deleting abduct would have... interesting effects on ZvZ.
Also is there anyone that's against the idea of increasing the supply cost of infestors?
Too big of a nerf - the proposed nerfs should be enough to make infestors reasonably strong.
What nerfs?
Ok I’ll concede in practice basically giving Infestors half the number of ITs who are individual 2x as strong is a functional nerf, in that opponents can kill them a bit easier.
Giving Infestors neural by default is a buff, and a pretty big one IMO. They are still way too good at way too many different things and the synergy with Brood Lords is still entirely intact.
A supply change is long overdue IMO. By all means make them potent, but to have 10+ or whatever negatively impacting the strength of your other army seems a no-brainer
Despite many other disagreements, if there’s one general common thread across Protoss, Terran and even Zerg it’s that BL/Infestor is too strong, and just boring.
These proposed patches do a lot of other things, some I find interesting but they don’t address that composition at all really.
I think people are really underestimating the massive nerf a change to 3 supply would be.
Without a globe of Infestors, Zerg is virtually helpless against Terran and Protoss late game compositions. Only being able to build 67% of the infestors for the same supply is devastating. Infestors below a critical mass cannot contend with Skytoss + massive splash + warp ins, or the insane efficiency and firepower of a 200/200 Terran. Infestors are the equalizer for Zerg late game, as the rest of their units do not compete. BLs and Ultras are not strong enough. Herein lies the problem since there is a very fine line between Zerg's late game being helpless vs overpowered and it's all really based on the capabilities of infestor. 3 supply infestor would massively shift that balanced towards the helpless end of the spectrum.
Barring mass Infestors, Zerg AA simply does not hold up to maxed out capital ship-based armies. Hydras die to everything, Corruptors will get shredded by support units if they get into range of BCs/Carriers/Tempests, and vipers are too easy to kill/neutralize for them to be a reliable and cost effective AA
Full on Sky Terran and Sky Toss are extremely difficult to get to. If the Zerg player just sits back and lets it happen, they deserve to lose. Zerg cannot have overly aggressive early game options because their production makes those overpowered, but the design philosophy that Zerg just gets to defend defend defend and then auto win is absurd.
On October 05 2019 13:19 AssyrianKing wrote: I will start playing Starcraft on one condition, bring back 8 worker start or at least reduce to 10 worker start
yeah man i too wish the game were fucking 5 minutes slower for no reason
On October 05 2019 13:19 AssyrianKing wrote: I will start playing Starcraft on one condition, bring back 8 worker start or at least reduce to 10 worker start
yeah man i too wish the game were fucking 5 minutes slower for no reason
On October 05 2019 04:32 pissinmyhand wrote: how about we just make it so mothership cant be pulled or neuraled
Or better yet just delete Abduct and Neural Parasite.
Deleting abduct would have... interesting effects on ZvZ.
Also is there anyone that's against the idea of increasing the supply cost of infestors?
Too big of a nerf - the proposed nerfs should be enough to make infestors reasonably strong.
What nerfs?
Ok I’ll concede in practice basically giving Infestors half the number of ITs who are individual 2x as strong is a functional nerf, in that opponents can kill them a bit easier.
Giving Infestors neural by default is a buff, and a pretty big one IMO. They are still way too good at way too many different things and the synergy with Brood Lords is still entirely intact.
A supply change is long overdue IMO. By all means make them potent, but to have 10+ or whatever negatively impacting the strength of your other army seems a no-brainer
Despite many other disagreements, if there’s one general common thread across Protoss, Terran and even Zerg it’s that BL/Infestor is too strong, and just boring.
These proposed patches do a lot of other things, some I find interesting but they don’t address that composition at all really.
I think people are really underestimating the massive nerf a change to 3 supply would be.
Without a globe of Infestors, Zerg is virtually helpless against Terran and Protoss late game compositions. Only being able to build 67% of the infestors for the same supply is devastating. Infestors below a critical mass cannot contend with Skytoss + massive splash + warp ins, or the insane efficiency and firepower of a 200/200 Terran. Infestors are the equalizer for Zerg late game, as the rest of their units do not compete. BLs and Ultras are not strong enough. Herein lies the problem since there is a very fine line between Zerg's late game being helpless vs overpowered and it's all really based on the capabilities of infestor. 3 supply infestor would massively shift that balanced towards the helpless end of the spectrum.
Barring mass Infestors, Zerg AA simply does not hold up to maxed out capital ship-based armies. Hydras die to everything, Corruptors will get shredded by support units if they get into range of BCs/Carriers/Tempests, and vipers are too easy to kill/neutralize for them to be a reliable and cost effective AA
Your acting like an infestor nerf would happen in a vacuum. Obviously zerg needs something to give them not just an even playing field but an edge late game due to the way the game is balanced. We just want that edge to not come from the most static boring and grinding army in the game. I want to see more games like the one Ragnorok had vs Maru where he used nydus mobility and his bank to take the fight to the terran in the late game. That's a way more exciting premise for late game than zerg sitting on their unengageable static d+ infestor+ bl comp while trying to slowly bleed their opponent to death. Id be more ok with infestor bl if it was more like mech where it was counterable with clear weaknesses and strengths. and although efficient could be traded against and worn down over time due to its inability to hold far flung basses effectively. The problem with bl infestor is that its so efficient that its weaknesses are just not relevant enough. Who cares that its hard to hold far away basses if your army is so extremely strong that it takes 3 to 4 fights where your opponent losses everything to wear it down? Who cares that you cant mine as much as your opponent when you have a 3k 4k bank due to the design of your race and the efficiency of your late game.
Give zerg better tools to leverage a big bank into a win. But make them spend that bank, take risks and play aggressively to do so. Take away the tools to camp on their static d and wait for the map to run dry. This would lead to a way more interesting and engaging late game.
On October 05 2019 04:32 pissinmyhand wrote: how about we just make it so mothership cant be pulled or neuraled
Or better yet just delete Abduct and Neural Parasite.
Deleting abduct would have... interesting effects on ZvZ.
Also is there anyone that's against the idea of increasing the supply cost of infestors?
Too big of a nerf - the proposed nerfs should be enough to make infestors reasonably strong.
What nerfs?
Ok I’ll concede in practice basically giving Infestors half the number of ITs who are individual 2x as strong is a functional nerf, in that opponents can kill them a bit easier.
Giving Infestors neural by default is a buff, and a pretty big one IMO. They are still way too good at way too many different things and the synergy with Brood Lords is still entirely intact.
A supply change is long overdue IMO. By all means make them potent, but to have 10+ or whatever negatively impacting the strength of your other army seems a no-brainer
Despite many other disagreements, if there’s one general common thread across Protoss, Terran and even Zerg it’s that BL/Infestor is too strong, and just boring.
These proposed patches do a lot of other things, some I find interesting but they don’t address that composition at all really.
I think people are really underestimating the massive nerf a change to 3 supply would be.
Without a globe of Infestors, Zerg is virtually helpless against Terran and Protoss late game compositions. Only being able to build 67% of the infestors for the same supply is devastating. Infestors below a critical mass cannot contend with Skytoss + massive splash + warp ins, or the insane efficiency and firepower of a 200/200 Terran. Infestors are the equalizer for Zerg late game, as the rest of their units do not compete. BLs and Ultras are not strong enough. Herein lies the problem since there is a very fine line between Zerg's late game being helpless vs overpowered and it's all really based on the capabilities of infestor. 3 supply infestor would massively shift that balanced towards the helpless end of the spectrum.
Barring mass Infestors, Zerg AA simply does not hold up to maxed out capital ship-based armies. Hydras die to everything, Corruptors will get shredded by support units if they get into range of BCs/Carriers/Tempests, and vipers are too easy to kill/neutralize for them to be a reliable and cost effective AA
I think you underestimate how much people hate mass infestor. If increasing the supply cost makes mass infestor a thing of the past so much the better. Getting to nerf skytoss/skyterran armies afterwards for balance reasons sounds like a bonus to me.
A 3 supply infestor is such a huge nerf that sky protoss and sky terran would have to be massively nerfed too. That sets everything out of whack, as Terran and Protoss ground units would need to be heavily changed to maintain balance. For example, if you heavily nerf the infestor and skytoss, then Zerg just wins by virtue of the fact that Protoss comps that are heavily ground based are straight up trash against zerg in the lategame. Protoss also heavily relies on skytoss for late game anti air. You significantly nerf skytoss and then you need to significantly buff Protoss ground to air capabilities and that screws with PvT.
There is literally no point in significantly nerfing an equalizer unit like the infestor. It just creates more balance problems than it solves. You saw what happened when the Protoss lategame backbone was heavily nerfed - you get a disaster of a PvZ where protoss desperately tries to end the game before Zerg lategame can kill maxed out armies several times over.
Zerg is designed around a powerful infestor. There's really nothing anyone can do about it at this point unless you want to redesign the game from scratch. Changing the supply to 3 is insane. It's like changing the battlecruiser's supply to 9...
Which is fine?
Late game Skytoss got nerfed til it largely sucked, even though IMO PvZ was in its best state ever, albeit still not perfect when Skytoss was good
Zerg has other advantages in that matchup and can win by other means. Can make a few tweaks if not the case.
Likewise Terran and mass BCs teleporting everywhere, which was cool for about 10 minutes for novelty’s sake and is just a bit silly.
Blizz don’t have to make every composition competitively viable, I think their mistake is trying to do so.
Most players and spectators don’t like big late game air balls, certainly don’t like BL/Infestor in its current state, and most think the Infestor is way too good, there’s few drawbacks in massing them etc.
It feels like this patch is just a whole bunch of changes meant to rebalance the game while keeping those two factors largely intact, instead of toning those things down and rebalancing to give other options to compensate.
I agree with you. Would like to see more fundamental change to the late game air deathball problem. I think bliz is trying with the range changes, but I think until you address the core problems that lead to air deathball we will have late game issues.
On October 05 2019 13:19 AssyrianKing wrote: I will start playing Starcraft on one condition, bring back 8 worker start or at least reduce to 10 worker start
No, the game is fine as it is with worker start. There are bigger problems which make the game annoying such as swarm hosts, nydus worms, broodlord/infestor, protoss air (team games only), etc.
On October 05 2019 04:32 pissinmyhand wrote: how about we just make it so mothership cant be pulled or neuraled
Or better yet just delete Abduct and Neural Parasite.
Deleting abduct would have... interesting effects on ZvZ.
Also is there anyone that's against the idea of increasing the supply cost of infestors?
Too big of a nerf - the proposed nerfs should be enough to make infestors reasonably strong.
What nerfs?
Ok I’ll concede in practice basically giving Infestors half the number of ITs who are individual 2x as strong is a functional nerf, in that opponents can kill them a bit easier.
Giving Infestors neural by default is a buff, and a pretty big one IMO. They are still way too good at way too many different things and the synergy with Brood Lords is still entirely intact.
A supply change is long overdue IMO. By all means make them potent, but to have 10+ or whatever negatively impacting the strength of your other army seems a no-brainer
Despite many other disagreements, if there’s one general common thread across Protoss, Terran and even Zerg it’s that BL/Infestor is too strong, and just boring.
These proposed patches do a lot of other things, some I find interesting but they don’t address that composition at all really.
I think people are really underestimating the massive nerf a change to 3 supply would be.
Without a globe of Infestors, Zerg is virtually helpless against Terran and Protoss late game compositions. Only being able to build 67% of the infestors for the same supply is devastating. Infestors below a critical mass cannot contend with Skytoss + massive splash + warp ins, or the insane efficiency and firepower of a 200/200 Terran. Infestors are the equalizer for Zerg late game, as the rest of their units do not compete. BLs and Ultras are not strong enough. Herein lies the problem since there is a very fine line between Zerg's late game being helpless vs overpowered and it's all really based on the capabilities of infestor. 3 supply infestor would massively shift that balanced towards the helpless end of the spectrum.
Barring mass Infestors, Zerg AA simply does not hold up to maxed out capital ship-based armies. Hydras die to everything, Corruptors will get shredded by support units if they get into range of BCs/Carriers/Tempests, and vipers are too easy to kill/neutralize for them to be a reliable and cost effective AA
Full on Sky Terran and Sky Toss are extremely difficult to get to. If the Zerg player just sits back and lets it happen, they deserve to lose. Zerg cannot have overly aggressive early game options because their production makes those overpowered, but the design philosophy that Zerg just gets to defend defend defend and then auto win is absurd.
sounds like the current state of PvZ from the Protoss side. So you just want to reverse it?
On October 05 2019 04:32 pissinmyhand wrote: how about we just make it so mothership cant be pulled or neuraled
Or better yet just delete Abduct and Neural Parasite.
Deleting abduct would have... interesting effects on ZvZ.
Also is there anyone that's against the idea of increasing the supply cost of infestors?
Too big of a nerf - the proposed nerfs should be enough to make infestors reasonably strong.
What nerfs?
Ok I’ll concede in practice basically giving Infestors half the number of ITs who are individual 2x as strong is a functional nerf, in that opponents can kill them a bit easier.
Giving Infestors neural by default is a buff, and a pretty big one IMO. They are still way too good at way too many different things and the synergy with Brood Lords is still entirely intact.
A supply change is long overdue IMO. By all means make them potent, but to have 10+ or whatever negatively impacting the strength of your other army seems a no-brainer
Despite many other disagreements, if there’s one general common thread across Protoss, Terran and even Zerg it’s that BL/Infestor is too strong, and just boring.
These proposed patches do a lot of other things, some I find interesting but they don’t address that composition at all really.
I think people are really underestimating the massive nerf a change to 3 supply would be.
Without a globe of Infestors, Zerg is virtually helpless against Terran and Protoss late game compositions. Only being able to build 67% of the infestors for the same supply is devastating. Infestors below a critical mass cannot contend with Skytoss + massive splash + warp ins, or the insane efficiency and firepower of a 200/200 Terran. Infestors are the equalizer for Zerg late game, as the rest of their units do not compete. BLs and Ultras are not strong enough. Herein lies the problem since there is a very fine line between Zerg's late game being helpless vs overpowered and it's all really based on the capabilities of infestor. 3 supply infestor would massively shift that balanced towards the helpless end of the spectrum.
Barring mass Infestors, Zerg AA simply does not hold up to maxed out capital ship-based armies. Hydras die to everything, Corruptors will get shredded by support units if they get into range of BCs/Carriers/Tempests, and vipers are too easy to kill/neutralize for them to be a reliable and cost effective AA
Full on Sky Terran and Sky Toss are extremely difficult to get to. If the Zerg player just sits back and lets it happen, they deserve to lose. Zerg cannot have overly aggressive early game options because their production makes those overpowered, but the design philosophy that Zerg just gets to defend defend defend and then auto win is absurd.
sounds like the current state of PvZ from the Protoss side. So you just want to reverse it?
Except with Pvx it's defend defend defend auto lose.
Mind you in PvX it's also attack attack attack auto lose
Or Defend Attack Defend Auto lose
Basically what I'm saying is the only way to win as Protoss is never play.
On October 05 2019 04:32 pissinmyhand wrote: how about we just make it so mothership cant be pulled or neuraled
Or better yet just delete Abduct and Neural Parasite.
Deleting abduct would have... interesting effects on ZvZ.
Also is there anyone that's against the idea of increasing the supply cost of infestors?
Too big of a nerf - the proposed nerfs should be enough to make infestors reasonably strong.
What nerfs?
Ok I’ll concede in practice basically giving Infestors half the number of ITs who are individual 2x as strong is a functional nerf, in that opponents can kill them a bit easier.
Giving Infestors neural by default is a buff, and a pretty big one IMO. They are still way too good at way too many different things and the synergy with Brood Lords is still entirely intact.
A supply change is long overdue IMO. By all means make them potent, but to have 10+ or whatever negatively impacting the strength of your other army seems a no-brainer
Despite many other disagreements, if there’s one general common thread across Protoss, Terran and even Zerg it’s that BL/Infestor is too strong, and just boring.
These proposed patches do a lot of other things, some I find interesting but they don’t address that composition at all really.
I think people are really underestimating the massive nerf a change to 3 supply would be.
Without a globe of Infestors, Zerg is virtually helpless against Terran and Protoss late game compositions. Only being able to build 67% of the infestors for the same supply is devastating. Infestors below a critical mass cannot contend with Skytoss + massive splash + warp ins, or the insane efficiency and firepower of a 200/200 Terran. Infestors are the equalizer for Zerg late game, as the rest of their units do not compete. BLs and Ultras are not strong enough. Herein lies the problem since there is a very fine line between Zerg's late game being helpless vs overpowered and it's all really based on the capabilities of infestor. 3 supply infestor would massively shift that balanced towards the helpless end of the spectrum.
Barring mass Infestors, Zerg AA simply does not hold up to maxed out capital ship-based armies. Hydras die to everything, Corruptors will get shredded by support units if they get into range of BCs/Carriers/Tempests, and vipers are too easy to kill/neutralize for them to be a reliable and cost effective AA
I think you underestimate how much people hate mass infestor. If increasing the supply cost makes mass infestor a thing of the past so much the better. Getting to nerf skytoss/skyterran armies afterwards for balance reasons sounds like a bonus to me.
Agreed but then it's need to be quiet an impactful nerf, not the bs we have in compensation for sh nerf in late hots.
On October 05 2019 13:19 AssyrianKing wrote: I will start playing Starcraft on one condition, bring back 8 worker start or at least reduce to 10 worker start
yeah man i too wish the game were fucking 5 minutes slower for no reason
Yeah I mean why go back to the times when early cheeses were actually scoutable and did not hit 20 secs after you realized what was going on, you could tell what build order the opponent was doing by the absence of certain information and was not forced to always probe scout in the case of protoss. I mean that era when tech and upgrade choices were actually a meaningful strategical commitment and you actually had more varied game compositions, timings and strategies was definitely the worst starcraft has ever had to offer...
There is an article on this very site called A Eulogy for the Six Pool, maybe you and the rest of those that have this basic and unrefined way of discussing the sc2 economy should read it.
LoTV had less players at release than the last season of HoTS, a lot of people left (including some pros) because they believed that the new economy was badly designed and would make the game into a more streamlined, weaker version of what had come before. The only reason this game now has more players than it did at release was because of going free to play, quite a few times on ladder I find people that are dragged back into playing because of the nostalgia but they leave soon after because they enjoyed the slower worker start more, some of them find the fact that you are forced to expand during the first minute and a half of the game an aberration, there is barely no early game anymore.
The game would benefit from an overall slowing of pace, so dont go and say that there is "no reason" for making sc2 a little bit slower, this is the same unprofessional way of thinking that David Kim provided and was by available metrics proven wrong. I love this game, it had and still has a lot of potential, but it was bleeding back in HoTS and it still bleeds in LOTV because Blizzard employees are either too lazy, too slow or too unprepared to fix their mistakes and actually make sc2 the best version of what it could possibly be.
On October 05 2019 13:19 AssyrianKing wrote: I will start playing Starcraft on one condition, bring back 8 worker start or at least reduce to 10 worker start
yeah man i too wish the game were fucking 5 minutes slower for no reason
Yeah I mean why go back to the times when early cheeses were actually scoutable and did not hit 20 secs after you realized what was going on, you could tell what build order the opponent was doing by the absence of certain information and was not forced to always probe scout in the case of protoss. I mean that era when tech and upgrade choices were actually a meaningful strategical commitment and you actually had more varied game compositions, timings and strategies was definitely the worst starcraft has ever had to offer...
There is an article on this very site called A Eulogy for the Six Pool, maybe you and the rest of those that have this basic and unrefined way of discussing the sc2 economy should read it.
LoTV had less players at release than the last season of HoTS, a lot of people left (including some pros) because they believed that the new economy was badly designed and would make the game into a more streamlined, weaker version of what had come before. The only reason this game now has more players than it did at release was because of going free to play, quite a few times on ladder I find people that are dragged back into playing because of the nostalgia but they leave soon after because they enjoyed the slower worker start more, some of them find the fact that you are forced to expand during the first minute and a half of the game an aberration, there is barely no early game anymore.
The game would benefit from an overall slowing of pace, so dont go and say that there is "no reason" for making sc2 a little bit slower, this is the same unprofessional way of thinking that David Kim provided and was by available metrics proven wrong. I love this game, it had and still has a lot of potential, but it was bleeding back in HoTS and it still bleeds in LOTV because Blizzard employees are either too lazy, too slow or too unprepared to fix their mistakes and actually make sc2 the best version of what it could possibly be.
Ok, let's see what others think about less workers.
Poll: Should there be less workers at start?
(Vote): Yes (Vote): No (Vote): Fine with either option
On October 05 2019 13:19 AssyrianKing wrote: I will start playing Starcraft on one condition, bring back 8 worker start or at least reduce to 10 worker start
yeah man i too wish the game were fucking 5 minutes slower for no reason
Yeah I mean why go back to the times when early cheeses were actually scoutable and did not hit 20 secs after you realized what was going on, you could tell what build order the opponent was doing by the absence of certain information and was not forced to always probe scout in the case of protoss. I mean that era when tech and upgrade choices were actually a meaningful strategical commitment and you actually had more varied game compositions, timings and strategies was definitely the worst starcraft has ever had to offer...
There is an article on this very site called A Eulogy for the Six Pool, maybe you and the rest of those that have this basic and unrefined way of discussing the sc2 economy should read it.
LoTV had less players at release than the last season of HoTS, a lot of people left (including some pros) because they believed that the new economy was badly designed and would make the game into a more streamlined, weaker version of what had come before. The only reason this game now has more players than it did at release was because of going free to play, quite a few times on ladder I find people that are dragged back into playing because of the nostalgia but they leave soon after because they enjoyed the slower worker start more, some of them find the fact that you are forced to expand during the first minute and a half of the game an aberration, there is barely no early game anymore.
The game would benefit from an overall slowing of pace, so dont go and say that there is "no reason" for making sc2 a little bit slower, this is the same unprofessional way of thinking that David Kim provided and was by available metrics proven wrong. I love this game, it had and still has a lot of potential, but it was bleeding back in HoTS and it still bleeds in LOTV because Blizzard employees are either too lazy, too slow or too unprepared to fix their mistakes and actually make sc2 the best version of what it could possibly be.
Ok, let's see what others think about less workers.
Poll: Should there be less workers at start?
(Vote): Yes (Vote): No (Vote): Fine with either option
I don´t think this is a good system of polling, consider that the sample you will take from here will be heavily influenced by the fact that those that don´t like the 12 worker start might have already left the game and the discussion boards on tl, so the results you will have regarding the LOTV economy side will be overrepresented. Some of us that hate the LOTV economy still stay mainly due to inertia or just to keep an interest to where the balance discussion goes. Still, if you would like to settle such a decision through voting there are more ways you could discriminate in order to reach a better conclusion.
First you should probably allow only high diamond players + to participate since it usually is at this point where balance and technical game knowledge start to somewhat matter, then actually see what players from each race and skill differential vote (zerg players might prefer 12 worker start more than members of the other two races). Also maybe you should allow for a middle ground choice of 9 workers (not as slow as HoTS nor as fast as LOTV)
However, this is entirely hypothetical since I heavily doubt that at this point Blizzard is willing to do anything other than try to patch the current iteration of the game, redesigning seems like a big no to them even when blatantly obvious problems run amok.
On October 05 2019 04:32 pissinmyhand wrote: how about we just make it so mothership cant be pulled or neuraled
Or better yet just delete Abduct and Neural Parasite.
Deleting abduct would have... interesting effects on ZvZ.
Also is there anyone that's against the idea of increasing the supply cost of infestors?
Too big of a nerf - the proposed nerfs should be enough to make infestors reasonably strong.
What nerfs?
Ok I’ll concede in practice basically giving Infestors half the number of ITs who are individual 2x as strong is a functional nerf, in that opponents can kill them a bit easier.
Giving Infestors neural by default is a buff, and a pretty big one IMO. They are still way too good at way too many different things and the synergy with Brood Lords is still entirely intact.
A supply change is long overdue IMO. By all means make them potent, but to have 10+ or whatever negatively impacting the strength of your other army seems a no-brainer
Despite many other disagreements, if there’s one general common thread across Protoss, Terran and even Zerg it’s that BL/Infestor is too strong, and just boring.
These proposed patches do a lot of other things, some I find interesting but they don’t address that composition at all really.
I think people are really underestimating the massive nerf a change to 3 supply would be.
Without a globe of Infestors, Zerg is virtually helpless against Terran and Protoss late game compositions. Only being able to build 67% of the infestors for the same supply is devastating. Infestors below a critical mass cannot contend with Skytoss + massive splash + warp ins, or the insane efficiency and firepower of a 200/200 Terran. Infestors are the equalizer for Zerg late game, as the rest of their units do not compete. BLs and Ultras are not strong enough. Herein lies the problem since there is a very fine line between Zerg's late game being helpless vs overpowered and it's all really based on the capabilities of infestor. 3 supply infestor would massively shift that balanced towards the helpless end of the spectrum.
Barring mass Infestors, Zerg AA simply does not hold up to maxed out capital ship-based armies. Hydras die to everything, Corruptors will get shredded by support units if they get into range of BCs/Carriers/Tempests, and vipers are too easy to kill/neutralize for them to be a reliable and cost effective AA
Full on Sky Terran and Sky Toss are extremely difficult to get to. If the Zerg player just sits back and lets it happen, they deserve to lose. Zerg cannot have overly aggressive early game options because their production makes those overpowered, but the design philosophy that Zerg just gets to defend defend defend and then auto win is absurd.
sounds like the current state of PvZ from the Protoss side. So you just want to reverse it?
I want them to bring back March 2018 TvZ which from a design perspective was the pinnacle of how an RTS should work. The onus on aggression shifted as the game went on. Both players were constantly teching as the game went on rather than hitting a mid game composition then sticking on it until they won or lost.
Some ppl should really try to play all races, nerfing something to the ground just because it makes you lose sometimes is not a great idea. Infestor is essential when Z has to deal with big unit centric army. It can be certainly beaten by terran, it can be beaten by toss on lower lvls, so logical fix high level balance should be a new protos high tech micro intensive unit.
Late game toss is pretty easy to control in battle and I have pretty high win rate against late game zerg armies, while with Z, I often lose, cos I misread the P army and my composition is out of balance or because I just mess up the micro. Blizz has the low lvl data, they know the exact win rate of PvZ late game in dia and lower and I'm pretty sure it is P favored, they can't just nerf Z and call it good, because pros are balanced.
Z have Viper and Infestor, units that are both super strong and nobody below 5k MMR can use them at the same time. And not even semi-pro can add BL positioning, queen support, creep re-spread, static D repositioning and corruptor zoning to that. Toss needs something that is as difficult as that. It will even make for a great watching experience.
On October 05 2019 23:24 MrFreeman wrote: Some ppl should really try to play all races, nerfing something to the ground just because it makes you lose sometimes is not a great idea. Infestor is essential when Z has to deal with big unit centric army. It can be certainly beaten by terran, it can be beaten by toss on lower lvls, so logical fix high level balance should be a new protos high tech micro intensive unit.
Late game toss is pretty easy to control in battle and I have pretty high win rate against late game zerg armies, while with Z, I often lose, cos I misread the P army and my composition is out of balance or because I just mess up the micro. Blizz has the low lvl data, they know the exact win rate of PvZ late game in dia and lower and I'm pretty sure it is P favored, they can't just nerf Z and call it good, because pros are balanced.
Z have Viper and Infestor, units that are both super strong and nobody below 5k MMR can use them at the same time. And not even semi-pro can add BL positioning, queen support, creep re-spread, static D repositioning and corruptor zoning to that. Toss needs something that is as difficult as that. It will even make for a great watching experience.
What late game Toss composition in PvZ is easy to control?
Zerg lategame is extremely difficult to control to the level of a Dark or Serral too, I do agree that observers aren’t aware of that when they’re complaining.
I don’t think there’s 100% consensus, most people concede that in the current state of the game that Zerg need really potent Infestors, but would prefer the game change to alter this in some way.
On October 05 2019 16:30 Mun_Su wrote: soo infested terran are too strong so they buff them?
yes a "buff but double energy per infested terran. So we will see half as much infested terrans. I don't think this is a buff in general but this change is great for fps (especially for lategame).
On October 05 2019 16:30 Mun_Su wrote: soo infested terran are too strong so they buff them?
yes a "buff but double energy per infested terran. So we will see half as much infested terrans. I don't think this is a buff in general but this change is great for fps (especially for lategame).
If I was to guess I think it’s a buff for Infestor harassment squads potentially, ITs will hit harder initially so might do more damage before you can pull workers etc.
I think it’s a slight nerf for lategame engagements, there are fewer ITs so they’re more vulnerable to being taken out quickly by AoE, there are fewer ITs for your units to auto-attack etc
On October 05 2019 23:24 MrFreeman wrote: Some ppl should really try to play all races, nerfing something to the ground just because it makes you lose sometimes is not a great idea. Infestor is essential when Z has to deal with big unit centric army. It can be certainly beaten by terran, it can be beaten by toss on lower lvls, so logical fix high level balance should be a new protos high tech micro intensive unit.
Late game toss is pretty easy to control in battle and I have pretty high win rate against late game zerg armies, while with Z, I often lose, cos I misread the P army and my composition is out of balance or because I just mess up the micro. Blizz has the low lvl data, they know the exact win rate of PvZ late game in dia and lower and I'm pretty sure it is P favored, they can't just nerf Z and call it good, because pros are balanced.
Z have Viper and Infestor, units that are both super strong and nobody below 5k MMR can use them at the same time. And not even semi-pro can add BL positioning, queen support, creep re-spread, static D repositioning and corruptor zoning to that. Toss needs something that is as difficult as that. It will even make for a great watching experience.
PvZ on a ladder is sitting around 50 %. Do you know why? Because match making! That makes the ladder bellow high master 50 %. So, uh, Blizz has nothing out of ladder because their own system is placing the players together so both have equal chanca to win...
I wish Blizzard would do something extremely radical like adding some broodwar units or something to really stir up the meta... am I alone in that? It wouldn't hurt to at least test.. just buffing the infestor over and over is getting boring xD
On October 05 2019 04:32 pissinmyhand wrote: how about we just make it so mothership cant be pulled or neuraled
Or better yet just delete Abduct and Neural Parasite.
Deleting abduct would have... interesting effects on ZvZ.
Also is there anyone that's against the idea of increasing the supply cost of infestors?
Too big of a nerf - the proposed nerfs should be enough to make infestors reasonably strong.
What nerfs?
Ok I’ll concede in practice basically giving Infestors half the number of ITs who are individual 2x as strong is a functional nerf, in that opponents can kill them a bit easier.
Giving Infestors neural by default is a buff, and a pretty big one IMO. They are still way too good at way too many different things and the synergy with Brood Lords is still entirely intact.
A supply change is long overdue IMO. By all means make them potent, but to have 10+ or whatever negatively impacting the strength of your other army seems a no-brainer
Despite many other disagreements, if there’s one general common thread across Protoss, Terran and even Zerg it’s that BL/Infestor is too strong, and just boring.
These proposed patches do a lot of other things, some I find interesting but they don’t address that composition at all really.
I think people are really underestimating the massive nerf a change to 3 supply would be.
Without a globe of Infestors, Zerg is virtually helpless against Terran and Protoss late game compositions. Only being able to build 67% of the infestors for the same supply is devastating. Infestors below a critical mass cannot contend with Skytoss + massive splash + warp ins, or the insane efficiency and firepower of a 200/200 Terran. Infestors are the equalizer for Zerg late game, as the rest of their units do not compete. BLs and Ultras are not strong enough. Herein lies the problem since there is a very fine line between Zerg's late game being helpless vs overpowered and it's all really based on the capabilities of infestor. 3 supply infestor would massively shift that balanced towards the helpless end of the spectrum.
Barring mass Infestors, Zerg AA simply does not hold up to maxed out capital ship-based armies. Hydras die to everything, Corruptors will get shredded by support units if they get into range of BCs/Carriers/Tempests, and vipers are too easy to kill/neutralize for them to be a reliable and cost effective AA
I think you underestimate how much people hate mass infestor. If increasing the supply cost makes mass infestor a thing of the past so much the better. Getting to nerf skytoss/skyterran armies afterwards for balance reasons sounds like a bonus to me.
A 3 supply infestor is such a huge nerf that sky protoss and sky terran would have to be massively nerfed too. That sets everything out of whack, as Terran and Protoss ground units would need to be heavily changed to maintain balance. For example, if you heavily nerf the infestor and skytoss, then Zerg just wins by virtue of the fact that Protoss comps that are heavily ground based are straight up trash against zerg in the lategame. Protoss also heavily relies on skytoss for late game anti air. You significantly nerf skytoss and then you need to significantly buff Protoss ground to air capabilities and that screws with PvT.
There is literally no point in significantly nerfing an equalizer unit like the infestor. It just creates more balance problems than it solves. You saw what happened when the Protoss lategame backbone was heavily nerfed - you get a disaster of a PvZ where protoss desperately tries to end the game before Zerg lategame can kill maxed out armies several times over.
Zerg is designed around a powerful infestor. There's really nothing anyone can do about it at this point unless you want to redesign the game from scratch. Changing the supply to 3 is insane. It's like changing the battlecruiser's supply to 9...
Which is fine?
Late game Skytoss got nerfed til it largely sucked, even though IMO PvZ was in its best state ever, albeit still not perfect when Skytoss was good
Zerg has other advantages in that matchup and can win by other means. Can make a few tweaks if not the case.
Likewise Terran and mass BCs teleporting everywhere, which was cool for about 10 minutes for novelty’s sake and is just a bit silly.
Blizz don’t have to make every composition competitively viable, I think their mistake is trying to do so.
Most players and spectators don’t like big late game air balls, certainly don’t like BL/Infestor in its current state, and most think the Infestor is way too good, there’s few drawbacks in massing them etc.
It feels like this patch is just a whole bunch of changes meant to rebalance the game while keeping those two factors largely intact, instead of toning those things down and rebalancing to give other options to compensate.
Completely changing the game, essentially from scratch, will kill SC2, which is why I don't think it's fine. Despite the fact that I do think that ideally, heavy redesigns everywhere are ideal.
The elephant in the room is that Protoss ground is severely outclassed in the lategame. Which is why Skytoss deathball has to be viable. Protoss ground simply doesnt scale well, has poverty AA capabilities, and gets eviscerated in the lategame.
A 3 supply infestor would make lategame balance HEAVILY in favor of protoss (and Terran, but I'm one of the few who believe that terran lategame actually beats zerg lategame). To balance this skytoss would require further nerfs, essentially turning it from the garbage it is now to a pile of crap. Because of these nerfs Protoss ground to air capabilities would have to be buffed, and they'd probably turn the immortal into a mini thor, since buffing stalkers would make them broken - whatever the case protoss ground would become broken as they now are capable of handling air units.
I can go on and on, but the point is that drastic changes in units lead to drastic metagame changes, and that is a death knell for an already dying game. It should not happen for a variety of reasons.
On October 05 2019 04:32 pissinmyhand wrote: how about we just make it so mothership cant be pulled or neuraled
Or better yet just delete Abduct and Neural Parasite.
Deleting abduct would have... interesting effects on ZvZ.
Also is there anyone that's against the idea of increasing the supply cost of infestors?
Too big of a nerf - the proposed nerfs should be enough to make infestors reasonably strong.
What nerfs?
Ok I’ll concede in practice basically giving Infestors half the number of ITs who are individual 2x as strong is a functional nerf, in that opponents can kill them a bit easier.
Giving Infestors neural by default is a buff, and a pretty big one IMO. They are still way too good at way too many different things and the synergy with Brood Lords is still entirely intact.
A supply change is long overdue IMO. By all means make them potent, but to have 10+ or whatever negatively impacting the strength of your other army seems a no-brainer
Despite many other disagreements, if there’s one general common thread across Protoss, Terran and even Zerg it’s that BL/Infestor is too strong, and just boring.
These proposed patches do a lot of other things, some I find interesting but they don’t address that composition at all really.
I think people are really underestimating the massive nerf a change to 3 supply would be.
Without a globe of Infestors, Zerg is virtually helpless against Terran and Protoss late game compositions. Only being able to build 67% of the infestors for the same supply is devastating. Infestors below a critical mass cannot contend with Skytoss + massive splash + warp ins, or the insane efficiency and firepower of a 200/200 Terran. Infestors are the equalizer for Zerg late game, as the rest of their units do not compete. BLs and Ultras are not strong enough. Herein lies the problem since there is a very fine line between Zerg's late game being helpless vs overpowered and it's all really based on the capabilities of infestor. 3 supply infestor would massively shift that balanced towards the helpless end of the spectrum.
Barring mass Infestors, Zerg AA simply does not hold up to maxed out capital ship-based armies. Hydras die to everything, Corruptors will get shredded by support units if they get into range of BCs/Carriers/Tempests, and vipers are too easy to kill/neutralize for them to be a reliable and cost effective AA
On October 05 2019 12:19 BerserkSword wrote: A 3 supply infestor is such a huge nerf that sky protoss and sky terran would have to be massively nerfed too. That sets everything out of whack, as Terran and Protoss ground units would need to be heavily changed to maintain balance. For example, if you heavily nerf the infestor and skytoss, then Zerg just wins by virtue of the fact that Protoss comps that are heavily ground based are straight up trash against zerg in the lategame. Protoss also heavily relies on skytoss for late game anti air. You significantly nerf skytoss and then you need to significantly buff Protoss ground to air capabilities and that screws with PvT.
There is literally no point in significantly nerfing an equalizer unit like the infestor. It just creates more balance problems than it solves. You saw what happened when the Protoss lategame backbone was heavily nerfed - you get a disaster of a PvZ where protoss desperately tries to end the game before Zerg lategame can kill maxed out armies several times over.
Zerg is designed around a powerful infestor. There's really nothing anyone can do about it at this point unless you want to redesign the game from scratch. Changing the supply to 3 is insane. It's like changing the battlecruiser's supply to 9...
how tho ? this unit only goes out of control when zerg players make over 20 infestors while still be able to harrass P/T naturals and that secures them a very healthy eco for another instant 20-25 units remax 20 infestors for 60 supply will definately hold thier ground no problem like the current one but zerg players must work harder in drone count and thier hit squads.Late game was never just about all out direct engagement
I agree that infestors can be out of control.
I'm not saying this unit should NOT be nerfed
I'm saying that making them 3 supply is too drastic. Zerg needs a strong infestor to contend.
I dont see why Blizzard doesnt look into buffing protoss lategame. I agree with wombat in that 2018 lategame pvz was very close to balanced, at least ocmpared to 2019 after carriers lost graviton catapult, tempests got nerfed, and feedback got nerfed.
On October 05 2019 04:32 pissinmyhand wrote: how about we just make it so mothership cant be pulled or neuraled
Or better yet just delete Abduct and Neural Parasite.
Deleting abduct would have... interesting effects on ZvZ.
Also is there anyone that's against the idea of increasing the supply cost of infestors?
Too big of a nerf - the proposed nerfs should be enough to make infestors reasonably strong.
What nerfs?
Ok I’ll concede in practice basically giving Infestors half the number of ITs who are individual 2x as strong is a functional nerf, in that opponents can kill them a bit easier.
Giving Infestors neural by default is a buff, and a pretty big one IMO. They are still way too good at way too many different things and the synergy with Brood Lords is still entirely intact.
A supply change is long overdue IMO. By all means make them potent, but to have 10+ or whatever negatively impacting the strength of your other army seems a no-brainer
Despite many other disagreements, if there’s one general common thread across Protoss, Terran and even Zerg it’s that BL/Infestor is too strong, and just boring.
These proposed patches do a lot of other things, some I find interesting but they don’t address that composition at all really.
I think people are really underestimating the massive nerf a change to 3 supply would be.
Without a globe of Infestors, Zerg is virtually helpless against Terran and Protoss late game compositions. Only being able to build 67% of the infestors for the same supply is devastating. Infestors below a critical mass cannot contend with Skytoss + massive splash + warp ins, or the insane efficiency and firepower of a 200/200 Terran. Infestors are the equalizer for Zerg late game, as the rest of their units do not compete. BLs and Ultras are not strong enough. Herein lies the problem since there is a very fine line between Zerg's late game being helpless vs overpowered and it's all really based on the capabilities of infestor. 3 supply infestor would massively shift that balanced towards the helpless end of the spectrum.
Barring mass Infestors, Zerg AA simply does not hold up to maxed out capital ship-based armies. Hydras die to everything, Corruptors will get shredded by support units if they get into range of BCs/Carriers/Tempests, and vipers are too easy to kill/neutralize for them to be a reliable and cost effective AA
Your acting like an infestor nerf would happen in a vacuum. Obviously zerg needs something to give them not just an even playing field but an edge late game due to the way the game is balanced. We just want that edge to not come from the most static boring and grinding army in the game. I want to see more games like the one Ragnorok had vs Maru where he used nydus mobility and his bank to take the fight to the terran in the late game. That's a way more exciting premise for late game than zerg sitting on their unengageable static d+ infestor+ bl comp while trying to slowly bleed their opponent to death. Id be more ok with infestor bl if it was more like mech where it was counterable with clear weaknesses and strengths. and although efficient could be traded against and worn down over time due to its inability to hold far flung basses effectively. The problem with bl infestor is that its so efficient that its weaknesses are just not relevant enough. Who cares that its hard to hold far away basses if your army is so extremely strong that it takes 3 to 4 fights where your opponent losses everything to wear it down? Who cares that you cant mine as much as your opponent when you have a 3k 4k bank due to the design of your race and the efficiency of your late game.
Give zerg better tools to leverage a big bank into a win. But make them spend that bank, take risks and play aggressively to do so. Take away the tools to camp on their static d and wait for the map to run dry. This would lead to a way more interesting and engaging late game.
I dont think a drastic infestor nerf would happen in a vacuum
however, a drastic infestor nerf would lead to a drastic buff elsewhere, and that will destroy the dynamics of the game that is already almost 5 years old (LOTV).
Again - I am not saying that infestors shouldnt be nerfed
I am saying that 3 supply infestors would be too drastic of a nerf.
On October 05 2019 16:57 deacon.frost wrote: So no BL-infestor quick fixes before Blizzcon? Yeah, at least I know my lost hope wasn't wrong...
Theres no way they could just hot fix BL infestor b4 blizzcon. They will need to add compensation and that will take testing and iterations to get right its not realistic.
On October 05 2019 16:57 deacon.frost wrote: So no BL-infestor quick fixes before Blizzcon? Yeah, at least I know my lost hope wasn't wrong...
Theres no way they could just hot fix BL infestor b4 blizzcon. They will need to add compensation and that will take testing and iterations to get right its not realistic.
The God damned GSL champion said Zerg is OP and you think that Zerg would get "compensation" as if the change would be purely one of design. Stop huffing Terrazine.
On October 05 2019 04:32 pissinmyhand wrote: how about we just make it so mothership cant be pulled or neuraled
Or better yet just delete Abduct and Neural Parasite.
Deleting abduct would have... interesting effects on ZvZ.
Also is there anyone that's against the idea of increasing the supply cost of infestors?
Too big of a nerf - the proposed nerfs should be enough to make infestors reasonably strong.
What nerfs?
Ok I’ll concede in practice basically giving Infestors half the number of ITs who are individual 2x as strong is a functional nerf, in that opponents can kill them a bit easier.
Giving Infestors neural by default is a buff, and a pretty big one IMO. They are still way too good at way too many different things and the synergy with Brood Lords is still entirely intact.
A supply change is long overdue IMO. By all means make them potent, but to have 10+ or whatever negatively impacting the strength of your other army seems a no-brainer
Despite many other disagreements, if there’s one general common thread across Protoss, Terran and even Zerg it’s that BL/Infestor is too strong, and just boring.
These proposed patches do a lot of other things, some I find interesting but they don’t address that composition at all really.
I think people are really underestimating the massive nerf a change to 3 supply would be.
Without a globe of Infestors, Zerg is virtually helpless against Terran and Protoss late game compositions. Only being able to build 67% of the infestors for the same supply is devastating. Infestors below a critical mass cannot contend with Skytoss + massive splash + warp ins, or the insane efficiency and firepower of a 200/200 Terran. Infestors are the equalizer for Zerg late game, as the rest of their units do not compete. BLs and Ultras are not strong enough. Herein lies the problem since there is a very fine line between Zerg's late game being helpless vs overpowered and it's all really based on the capabilities of infestor. 3 supply infestor would massively shift that balanced towards the helpless end of the spectrum.
Barring mass Infestors, Zerg AA simply does not hold up to maxed out capital ship-based armies. Hydras die to everything, Corruptors will get shredded by support units if they get into range of BCs/Carriers/Tempests, and vipers are too easy to kill/neutralize for them to be a reliable and cost effective AA
I think you underestimate how much people hate mass infestor. If increasing the supply cost makes mass infestor a thing of the past so much the better. Getting to nerf skytoss/skyterran armies afterwards for balance reasons sounds like a bonus to me.
A 3 supply infestor is such a huge nerf that sky protoss and sky terran would have to be massively nerfed too. That sets everything out of whack, as Terran and Protoss ground units would need to be heavily changed to maintain balance. For example, if you heavily nerf the infestor and skytoss, then Zerg just wins by virtue of the fact that Protoss comps that are heavily ground based are straight up trash against zerg in the lategame. Protoss also heavily relies on skytoss for late game anti air. You significantly nerf skytoss and then you need to significantly buff Protoss ground to air capabilities and that screws with PvT.
There is literally no point in significantly nerfing an equalizer unit like the infestor. It just creates more balance problems than it solves. You saw what happened when the Protoss lategame backbone was heavily nerfed - you get a disaster of a PvZ where protoss desperately tries to end the game before Zerg lategame can kill maxed out armies several times over.
Zerg is designed around a powerful infestor. There's really nothing anyone can do about it at this point unless you want to redesign the game from scratch. Changing the supply to 3 is insane. It's like changing the battlecruiser's supply to 9...
Which is fine?
Late game Skytoss got nerfed til it largely sucked, even though IMO PvZ was in its best state ever, albeit still not perfect when Skytoss was good
Zerg has other advantages in that matchup and can win by other means. Can make a few tweaks if not the case.
Likewise Terran and mass BCs teleporting everywhere, which was cool for about 10 minutes for novelty’s sake and is just a bit silly.
Blizz don’t have to make every composition competitively viable, I think their mistake is trying to do so.
Most players and spectators don’t like big late game air balls, certainly don’t like BL/Infestor in its current state, and most think the Infestor is way too good, there’s few drawbacks in massing them etc.
It feels like this patch is just a whole bunch of changes meant to rebalance the game while keeping those two factors largely intact, instead of toning those things down and rebalancing to give other options to compensate.
Completely changing the game, essentially from scratch, will kill SC2, which is why I don't think it's fine. Despite the fact that I do think that ideally, heavy redesigns everywhere are ideal.
The elephant in the room is that Protoss ground is severely outclassed in the lategame. Which is why Skytoss deathball has to be viable. Protoss ground simply doesnt scale well, has poverty AA capabilities, and gets eviscerated in the lategame.
A 3 supply infestor would make lategame balance HEAVILY in favor of protoss (and Terran, but I'm one of the few who believe that terran lategame actually beats zerg lategame). To balance this skytoss would require further nerfs, essentially turning it from the garbage it is now to a pile of crap. Because of these nerfs Protoss ground to air capabilities would have to be buffed, and they'd probably turn the immortal into a mini thor, since buffing stalkers would make them broken - whatever the case protoss ground would become broken as they now are capable of handling air units.
I can go on and on, but the point is that drastic changes in units lead to drastic metagame changes, and that is a death knell for an already dying game. It should not happen for a variety of reasons.
If it’s for the better it will benefit the game, radical or not.
HoTS Protoss ‘needed’ the mothership core to be viable at certain times.
Instead of just accepting that, Blizzard removed it, gave Protoss shield batteries and the game improved. When Ravens were extremely strong and massable they got nerfed too.
Sure you have to change a lot potentially, change a lot. fine by me personally.
Blizzard want these mass air balls to be viable, Infestors must be strong so Zergs can deal with them. Why? Air balls are boring, they circumvent terrain and generally aren’t microable or interesting to watch.
Tone down air balls across the board, give units a niche to fulfill by all means but not be so potent when masses.
On October 06 2019 06:13 gulii wrote: I'm the only one that thinks BL range decrease will make a difference?
I mean wouldn't it be easier now to EMP them or feesback/storm them now? Or yeah, just kill them cuz brooding can't protect them as good anymore?
+spamming infested terran and not getting damge done can now hurt zerg even.
While the Broodlords are important, they are not what makes the composition work. That's the infestor. If Broodlords become too weak, Zergs will just pair the Infestor with something else like Lurkers or Swarmhosts.
On October 06 2019 06:13 gulii wrote: I'm the only one that thinks BL range decrease will make a difference?
I mean wouldn't it be easier now to EMP them or feesback/storm them now? Or yeah, just kill them cuz brooding can't protect them as good anymore?
+spamming infested terran and not getting damge done can now hurt zerg even.
While the Broodlords are important, they are not what makes the composition work. That's the infestor. If Broodlords become too weak, Zergs will just pair the Infestor with something else like Lurkers or Swarmhosts.
Wouldn't that mean that tempest would become a viable counter, maybe even carriers?
On October 06 2019 06:13 gulii wrote: I'm the only one that thinks BL range decrease will make a difference?
I mean wouldn't it be easier now to EMP them or feesback/storm them now? Or yeah, just kill them cuz brooding can't protect them as good anymore?
+spamming infested terran and not getting damge done can now hurt zerg even.
While the Broodlords are important, they are not what makes the composition work. That's the infestor. If Broodlords become too weak, Zergs will just pair the Infestor with something else like Lurkers or Swarmhosts.
Wouldn't that mean that tempest would become a viable counter, maybe even carriers?
I'm confused as to how not using Broodlords would make Tempests or Carriers better.
On October 05 2019 04:32 pissinmyhand wrote: how about we just make it so mothership cant be pulled or neuraled
Or better yet just delete Abduct and Neural Parasite.
Deleting abduct would have... interesting effects on ZvZ.
Also is there anyone that's against the idea of increasing the supply cost of infestors?
Too big of a nerf - the proposed nerfs should be enough to make infestors reasonably strong.
What nerfs?
Ok I’ll concede in practice basically giving Infestors half the number of ITs who are individual 2x as strong is a functional nerf, in that opponents can kill them a bit easier.
Giving Infestors neural by default is a buff, and a pretty big one IMO. They are still way too good at way too many different things and the synergy with Brood Lords is still entirely intact.
A supply change is long overdue IMO. By all means make them potent, but to have 10+ or whatever negatively impacting the strength of your other army seems a no-brainer
Despite many other disagreements, if there’s one general common thread across Protoss, Terran and even Zerg it’s that BL/Infestor is too strong, and just boring.
These proposed patches do a lot of other things, some I find interesting but they don’t address that composition at all really.
I think people are really underestimating the massive nerf a change to 3 supply would be.
Without a globe of Infestors, Zerg is virtually helpless against Terran and Protoss late game compositions. Only being able to build 67% of the infestors for the same supply is devastating. Infestors below a critical mass cannot contend with Skytoss + massive splash + warp ins, or the insane efficiency and firepower of a 200/200 Terran. Infestors are the equalizer for Zerg late game, as the rest of their units do not compete. BLs and Ultras are not strong enough. Herein lies the problem since there is a very fine line between Zerg's late game being helpless vs overpowered and it's all really based on the capabilities of infestor. 3 supply infestor would massively shift that balanced towards the helpless end of the spectrum.
Barring mass Infestors, Zerg AA simply does not hold up to maxed out capital ship-based armies. Hydras die to everything, Corruptors will get shredded by support units if they get into range of BCs/Carriers/Tempests, and vipers are too easy to kill/neutralize for them to be a reliable and cost effective AA
On October 05 2019 12:19 BerserkSword wrote: A 3 supply infestor is such a huge nerf that sky protoss and sky terran would have to be massively nerfed too. That sets everything out of whack, as Terran and Protoss ground units would need to be heavily changed to maintain balance. For example, if you heavily nerf the infestor and skytoss, then Zerg just wins by virtue of the fact that Protoss comps that are heavily ground based are straight up trash against zerg in the lategame. Protoss also heavily relies on skytoss for late game anti air. You significantly nerf skytoss and then you need to significantly buff Protoss ground to air capabilities and that screws with PvT.
There is literally no point in significantly nerfing an equalizer unit like the infestor. It just creates more balance problems than it solves. You saw what happened when the Protoss lategame backbone was heavily nerfed - you get a disaster of a PvZ where protoss desperately tries to end the game before Zerg lategame can kill maxed out armies several times over.
Zerg is designed around a powerful infestor. There's really nothing anyone can do about it at this point unless you want to redesign the game from scratch. Changing the supply to 3 is insane. It's like changing the battlecruiser's supply to 9...
how tho ? this unit only goes out of control when zerg players make over 20 infestors while still be able to harrass P/T naturals and that secures them a very healthy eco for another instant 20-25 units remax 20 infestors for 60 supply will definately hold thier ground no problem like the current one but zerg players must work harder in drone count and thier hit squads.Late game was never just about all out direct engagement
I agree that infestors can be out of control.
I'm not saying this unit should NOT be nerfed
I'm saying that making them 3 supply is too drastic. Zerg needs a strong infestor to contend.
I dont see why Blizzard doesnt look into buffing protoss lategame. I agree with wombat in that 2018 lategame pvz was very close to balanced, at least ocmpared to 2019 after carriers lost graviton catapult, tempests got nerfed, and feedback got nerfed.
3 supply is too drastic ? will it become a nail in da coffin ??? or you are just simply overthinking ? welp....you gotta elaborate to us instead of saying it many times tho.3 supply infestor isnt a must, its just our suggestion in case the current proposed changes dont go well and there should be better options while i find your opinion about 2018 skytoss is purely biased but nvm...buffing late game toss aint bad either,may be the balance team think its better to nerf every stuffs they ve done right now ?
On October 05 2019 07:49 Boggyb wrote: [quote] Or better yet just delete Abduct and Neural Parasite.
Deleting abduct would have... interesting effects on ZvZ.
Also is there anyone that's against the idea of increasing the supply cost of infestors?
Too big of a nerf - the proposed nerfs should be enough to make infestors reasonably strong.
What nerfs?
Ok I’ll concede in practice basically giving Infestors half the number of ITs who are individual 2x as strong is a functional nerf, in that opponents can kill them a bit easier.
Giving Infestors neural by default is a buff, and a pretty big one IMO. They are still way too good at way too many different things and the synergy with Brood Lords is still entirely intact.
A supply change is long overdue IMO. By all means make them potent, but to have 10+ or whatever negatively impacting the strength of your other army seems a no-brainer
Despite many other disagreements, if there’s one general common thread across Protoss, Terran and even Zerg it’s that BL/Infestor is too strong, and just boring.
These proposed patches do a lot of other things, some I find interesting but they don’t address that composition at all really.
I think people are really underestimating the massive nerf a change to 3 supply would be.
Without a globe of Infestors, Zerg is virtually helpless against Terran and Protoss late game compositions. Only being able to build 67% of the infestors for the same supply is devastating. Infestors below a critical mass cannot contend with Skytoss + massive splash + warp ins, or the insane efficiency and firepower of a 200/200 Terran. Infestors are the equalizer for Zerg late game, as the rest of their units do not compete. BLs and Ultras are not strong enough. Herein lies the problem since there is a very fine line between Zerg's late game being helpless vs overpowered and it's all really based on the capabilities of infestor. 3 supply infestor would massively shift that balanced towards the helpless end of the spectrum.
Barring mass Infestors, Zerg AA simply does not hold up to maxed out capital ship-based armies. Hydras die to everything, Corruptors will get shredded by support units if they get into range of BCs/Carriers/Tempests, and vipers are too easy to kill/neutralize for them to be a reliable and cost effective AA
I think you underestimate how much people hate mass infestor. If increasing the supply cost makes mass infestor a thing of the past so much the better. Getting to nerf skytoss/skyterran armies afterwards for balance reasons sounds like a bonus to me.
A 3 supply infestor is such a huge nerf that sky protoss and sky terran would have to be massively nerfed too. That sets everything out of whack, as Terran and Protoss ground units would need to be heavily changed to maintain balance. For example, if you heavily nerf the infestor and skytoss, then Zerg just wins by virtue of the fact that Protoss comps that are heavily ground based are straight up trash against zerg in the lategame. Protoss also heavily relies on skytoss for late game anti air. You significantly nerf skytoss and then you need to significantly buff Protoss ground to air capabilities and that screws with PvT.
There is literally no point in significantly nerfing an equalizer unit like the infestor. It just creates more balance problems than it solves. You saw what happened when the Protoss lategame backbone was heavily nerfed - you get a disaster of a PvZ where protoss desperately tries to end the game before Zerg lategame can kill maxed out armies several times over.
Zerg is designed around a powerful infestor. There's really nothing anyone can do about it at this point unless you want to redesign the game from scratch. Changing the supply to 3 is insane. It's like changing the battlecruiser's supply to 9...
Which is fine?
Late game Skytoss got nerfed til it largely sucked, even though IMO PvZ was in its best state ever, albeit still not perfect when Skytoss was good
Zerg has other advantages in that matchup and can win by other means. Can make a few tweaks if not the case.
Likewise Terran and mass BCs teleporting everywhere, which was cool for about 10 minutes for novelty’s sake and is just a bit silly.
Blizz don’t have to make every composition competitively viable, I think their mistake is trying to do so.
Most players and spectators don’t like big late game air balls, certainly don’t like BL/Infestor in its current state, and most think the Infestor is way too good, there’s few drawbacks in massing them etc.
It feels like this patch is just a whole bunch of changes meant to rebalance the game while keeping those two factors largely intact, instead of toning those things down and rebalancing to give other options to compensate.
Completely changing the game, essentially from scratch, will kill SC2, which is why I don't think it's fine. Despite the fact that I do think that ideally, heavy redesigns everywhere are ideal.
The elephant in the room is that Protoss ground is severely outclassed in the lategame. Which is why Skytoss deathball has to be viable. Protoss ground simply doesnt scale well, has poverty AA capabilities, and gets eviscerated in the lategame.
A 3 supply infestor would make lategame balance HEAVILY in favor of protoss (and Terran, but I'm one of the few who believe that terran lategame actually beats zerg lategame). To balance this skytoss would require further nerfs, essentially turning it from the garbage it is now to a pile of crap. Because of these nerfs Protoss ground to air capabilities would have to be buffed, and they'd probably turn the immortal into a mini thor, since buffing stalkers would make them broken - whatever the case protoss ground would become broken as they now are capable of handling air units.
I can go on and on, but the point is that drastic changes in units lead to drastic metagame changes, and that is a death knell for an already dying game. It should not happen for a variety of reasons.
If it’s for the better it will benefit the game, radical or not.
HoTS Protoss ‘needed’ the mothership core to be viable at certain times.
Instead of just accepting that, Blizzard removed it, gave Protoss shield batteries and the game improved. When Ravens were extremely strong and massable they got nerfed too.
Sure you have to change a lot potentially, change a lot. fine by me personally.
Blizzard want these mass air balls to be viable, Infestors must be strong so Zergs can deal with them. Why? Air balls are boring, they circumvent terrain and generally aren’t microable or interesting to watch.
Tone down air balls across the board, give units a niche to fulfill by all means but not be so potent when masses.
mass air is fine.its all about mass air vs mass air... well me saying this doesnt mean ground units should be allowed to destroy the whole sky army for free tho
Some of the changes are kind of out there, but I like the weakening of end game air armies, ground units I feel like always create more dynamic and interactive play.
Stop with the upgrades though, this game is already so upgrade heavy.
Also replace Charge with Zealot speed like brood war, allow better Protoss players to differentiate themselves by having more control over their tier 1 bread and butter unit, much like great ling/marine control, I think it would be a good breath of fresh air. Would also allow more micro counterplay to banelings and widow mines. -
On October 06 2019 06:13 gulii wrote: I'm the only one that thinks BL range decrease will make a difference?
I mean wouldn't it be easier now to EMP them or feesback/storm them now? Or yeah, just kill them cuz brooding can't protect them as good anymore?
+spamming infested terran and not getting damge done can now hurt zerg even.
While the Broodlords are important, they are not what makes the composition work. That's the infestor. If Broodlords become too weak, Zergs will just pair the Infestor with something else like Lurkers or Swarmhosts.
True!
I do though feel optimistic about the changes. Even if it's kinda strange to buff the Infested Terran, after Rouge Trap game.
I guess we'll see.
Edit: + nerfing neural range must count for something?
On October 06 2019 14:51 Beelzebub1 wrote: Some of the changes are kind of out there, but I like the weakening of end game air armies, ground units I feel like always create more dynamic and interactive play.
Stop with the upgrades though, this game is already so upgrade heavy.
Also replace Charge with Zealot speed like brood war, allow better Protoss players to differentiate themselves by having more control over their tier 1 bread and butter unit, much like great ling/marine control, I think it would be a good breath of fresh air. Would also allow more micro counterplay to banelings and widow mines. -
And how do you suggest to counter play with speed zealots the marauders? Just saying THEY are the reason WHY the charge exists in the first place.
On October 05 2019 23:24 MrFreeman wrote: Some ppl should really try to play all races, nerfing something to the ground just because it makes you lose sometimes is not a great idea. Infestor is essential when Z has to deal with big unit centric army. It can be certainly beaten by terran, it can be beaten by toss on lower lvls, so logical fix high level balance should be a new protos high tech micro intensive unit.
Late game toss is pretty easy to control in battle and I have pretty high win rate against late game zerg armies, while with Z, I often lose, cos I misread the P army and my composition is out of balance or because I just mess up the micro. Blizz has the low lvl data, they know the exact win rate of PvZ late game in dia and lower and I'm pretty sure it is P favored, they can't just nerf Z and call it good, because pros are balanced.
Z have Viper and Infestor, units that are both super strong and nobody below 5k MMR can use them at the same time. And not even semi-pro can add BL positioning, queen support, creep re-spread, static D repositioning and corruptor zoning to that. Toss needs something that is as difficult as that. It will even make for a great watching experience.
PvZ on a ladder is sitting around 50 %. Do you know why? Because match making! That makes the ladder bellow high master 50 %. So, uh, Blizz has nothing out of ladder because their own system is placing the players together so both have equal chanca to win...
That is not how ladder works. Yes, we do have individual MMR for each race (though random players don't even have that), but is still the same MMR for each matchup and each gamestate. So when PvZ lategame is protoss favoured in dia and lower, blizz can very clearly see that.
On October 05 2019 23:24 MrFreeman wrote: Some ppl should really try to play all races, nerfing something to the ground just because it makes you lose sometimes is not a great idea. Infestor is essential when Z has to deal with big unit centric army. It can be certainly beaten by terran, it can be beaten by toss on lower lvls, so logical fix high level balance should be a new protos high tech micro intensive unit.
Late game toss is pretty easy to control in battle and I have pretty high win rate against late game zerg armies, while with Z, I often lose, cos I misread the P army and my composition is out of balance or because I just mess up the micro. Blizz has the low lvl data, they know the exact win rate of PvZ late game in dia and lower and I'm pretty sure it is P favored, they can't just nerf Z and call it good, because pros are balanced.
Z have Viper and Infestor, units that are both super strong and nobody below 5k MMR can use them at the same time. And not even semi-pro can add BL positioning, queen support, creep re-spread, static D repositioning and corruptor zoning to that. Toss needs something that is as difficult as that. It will even make for a great watching experience.
What late game Toss composition in PvZ is easy to control?
Zerg lategame is extremely difficult to control to the level of a Dark or Serral too, I do agree that observers aren’t aware of that when they’re complaining.
I don’t think there’s 100% consensus, most people concede that in the current state of the game that Zerg need really potent Infestors, but would prefer the game change to alter this in some way.
Well, most of them, as long as you don't mix in disruptors. I usually try to mix in carriers and mothership, because interceptors and invisibility really messes with auto targeting and my opponents even tend to set their detection forward in panic. Another gr8 thing about carriers is that when they get neuraled, the remaining units just insta kill their interceptors and leave them be, so I don't lose them and they don't cause havoc. To add to that, I have some pretty gr8 options that are easy to control, even a few HTs are gr8 against clumpy compositions like Vikings, Corruptors, Hydras, voids and Marines, storms are easy to cast with HTs on 1 control group, storm's range and instant cast and the small hit boxes HT's have, plus when I fail to control them properly, they turn to archons quickly and then I just a-move them for buffer. Immortals are good for cleaning the ground if they have mostly air, like infestor, tank, cyclone, disruptor, plus they don't take air targeting priority. When they have a lot of corruptors or vikings, I add a few voids, they work gr8 when A-moved and when they r on same control group as carriers, they show up first so I can prismatic align them easily. It sure is much easier than when I'm trying to juggle T or Z late game compositions :D .
On October 05 2019 23:24 MrFreeman wrote: Some ppl should really try to play all races, nerfing something to the ground just because it makes you lose sometimes is not a great idea. Infestor is essential when Z has to deal with big unit centric army. It can be certainly beaten by terran, it can be beaten by toss on lower lvls, so logical fix high level balance should be a new protos high tech micro intensive unit.
Late game toss is pretty easy to control in battle and I have pretty high win rate against late game zerg armies, while with Z, I often lose, cos I misread the P army and my composition is out of balance or because I just mess up the micro. Blizz has the low lvl data, they know the exact win rate of PvZ late game in dia and lower and I'm pretty sure it is P favored, they can't just nerf Z and call it good, because pros are balanced.
Z have Viper and Infestor, units that are both super strong and nobody below 5k MMR can use them at the same time. And not even semi-pro can add BL positioning, queen support, creep re-spread, static D repositioning and corruptor zoning to that. Toss needs something that is as difficult as that. It will even make for a great watching experience.
PvZ on a ladder is sitting around 50 %. Do you know why? Because match making! That makes the ladder bellow high master 50 %. So, uh, Blizz has nothing out of ladder because their own system is placing the players together so both have equal chanca to win...
That is not how ladder works. Yes, we do have individual MMR for each race (though random players don't even have that), but is still the same MMR for each matchup and each gamestate. So when PvZ lategame is protoss favoured in dia and lower, blizz can very clearly see that.
On October 05 2019 23:24 MrFreeman wrote: Some ppl should really try to play all races, nerfing something to the ground just because it makes you lose sometimes is not a great idea. Infestor is essential when Z has to deal with big unit centric army. It can be certainly beaten by terran, it can be beaten by toss on lower lvls, so logical fix high level balance should be a new protos high tech micro intensive unit.
Late game toss is pretty easy to control in battle and I have pretty high win rate against late game zerg armies, while with Z, I often lose, cos I misread the P army and my composition is out of balance or because I just mess up the micro. Blizz has the low lvl data, they know the exact win rate of PvZ late game in dia and lower and I'm pretty sure it is P favored, they can't just nerf Z and call it good, because pros are balanced.
Z have Viper and Infestor, units that are both super strong and nobody below 5k MMR can use them at the same time. And not even semi-pro can add BL positioning, queen support, creep re-spread, static D repositioning and corruptor zoning to that. Toss needs something that is as difficult as that. It will even make for a great watching experience.
What late game Toss composition in PvZ is easy to control?
Zerg lategame is extremely difficult to control to the level of a Dark or Serral too, I do agree that observers aren’t aware of that when they’re complaining.
I don’t think there’s 100% consensus, most people concede that in the current state of the game that Zerg need really potent Infestors, but would prefer the game change to alter this in some way.
Well, most of them, as long as you don't mix in disruptors. I usually try to mix in carriers and mothership, because interceptors and invisibility really messes with auto targeting and my opponents even tend to set their detection forward in panic. Another gr8 thing about carriers is that when they get neuraled, the remaining units just insta kill their interceptors and leave them be, so I don't lose them and they don't cause havoc. To add to that, I have some pretty gr8 options that are easy to control, even a few HTs are gr8 against clumpy compositions like Vikings, Corruptors, Hydras, voids and Marines, storms are easy to cast with HTs on 1 control group, storm's range and instant cast and the small hit boxes HT's have, plus when I fail to control them properly, they turn to archons quickly and then I just a-move them for buffer. Immortals are good for cleaning the ground if they have mostly air, like infestor, tank, cyclone, disruptor, plus they don't take air targeting priority. When they have a lot of corruptors or vikings, I add a few voids, they work gr8 when A-moved and when they r on same control group as carriers, they show up first so I can prismatic align them easily. It sure is much easier than when I'm trying to juggle T or Z late game compositions :D .
You have a separate ladder MMR for Protoss, not PvZ. Thus you (as a P player) play against Z/R/T/P with similar MMR. In a big enough numbers it will result in 50/50 PvZ on ladder bellow masters because you will play some ZvP masters and some ZvP losers. Because despite what people think(ZvP broken, Zerg OP) it doesn't hit until you're high enough so there will be some Zerg losers who will tank the ZvP w/r You can't go much out of the way. And on the top of that you have unranked players messing things even more up(and offracing players). Ladder can't show anything and will show 50/50, it's built this way to show this, the only exception is the top where people play each other all the time and we're out of the big sample
On October 05 2019 23:24 MrFreeman wrote: Some ppl should really try to play all races, nerfing something to the ground just because it makes you lose sometimes is not a great idea. Infestor is essential when Z has to deal with big unit centric army. It can be certainly beaten by terran, it can be beaten by toss on lower lvls, so logical fix high level balance should be a new protos high tech micro intensive unit.
Late game toss is pretty easy to control in battle and I have pretty high win rate against late game zerg armies, while with Z, I often lose, cos I misread the P army and my composition is out of balance or because I just mess up the micro. Blizz has the low lvl data, they know the exact win rate of PvZ late game in dia and lower and I'm pretty sure it is P favored, they can't just nerf Z and call it good, because pros are balanced.
Z have Viper and Infestor, units that are both super strong and nobody below 5k MMR can use them at the same time. And not even semi-pro can add BL positioning, queen support, creep re-spread, static D repositioning and corruptor zoning to that. Toss needs something that is as difficult as that. It will even make for a great watching experience.
PvZ on a ladder is sitting around 50 %. Do you know why? Because match making! That makes the ladder bellow high master 50 %. So, uh, Blizz has nothing out of ladder because their own system is placing the players together so both have equal chanca to win...
That is not how ladder works. Yes, we do have individual MMR for each race (though random players don't even have that), but is still the same MMR for each matchup and each gamestate. So when PvZ lategame is protoss favoured in dia and lower, blizz can very clearly see that.
On October 05 2019 23:54 Wombat_NI wrote:
On October 05 2019 23:24 MrFreeman wrote: Some ppl should really try to play all races, nerfing something to the ground just because it makes you lose sometimes is not a great idea. Infestor is essential when Z has to deal with big unit centric army. It can be certainly beaten by terran, it can be beaten by toss on lower lvls, so logical fix high level balance should be a new protos high tech micro intensive unit.
Late game toss is pretty easy to control in battle and I have pretty high win rate against late game zerg armies, while with Z, I often lose, cos I misread the P army and my composition is out of balance or because I just mess up the micro. Blizz has the low lvl data, they know the exact win rate of PvZ late game in dia and lower and I'm pretty sure it is P favored, they can't just nerf Z and call it good, because pros are balanced.
Z have Viper and Infestor, units that are both super strong and nobody below 5k MMR can use them at the same time. And not even semi-pro can add BL positioning, queen support, creep re-spread, static D repositioning and corruptor zoning to that. Toss needs something that is as difficult as that. It will even make for a great watching experience.
What late game Toss composition in PvZ is easy to control?
Zerg lategame is extremely difficult to control to the level of a Dark or Serral too, I do agree that observers aren’t aware of that when they’re complaining.
I don’t think there’s 100% consensus, most people concede that in the current state of the game that Zerg need really potent Infestors, but would prefer the game change to alter this in some way.
Well, most of them, as long as you don't mix in disruptors. I usually try to mix in carriers and mothership, because interceptors and invisibility really messes with auto targeting and my opponents even tend to set their detection forward in panic. Another gr8 thing about carriers is that when they get neuraled, the remaining units just insta kill their interceptors and leave them be, so I don't lose them and they don't cause havoc. To add to that, I have some pretty gr8 options that are easy to control, even a few HTs are gr8 against clumpy compositions like Vikings, Corruptors, Hydras, voids and Marines, storms are easy to cast with HTs on 1 control group, storm's range and instant cast and the small hit boxes HT's have, plus when I fail to control them properly, they turn to archons quickly and then I just a-move them for buffer. Immortals are good for cleaning the ground if they have mostly air, like infestor, tank, cyclone, disruptor, plus they don't take air targeting priority. When they have a lot of corruptors or vikings, I add a few voids, they work gr8 when A-moved and when they r on same control group as carriers, they show up first so I can prismatic align them easily. It sure is much easier than when I'm trying to juggle T or Z late game compositions :D .
You have a separate ladder MMR for Protoss, not PvZ. Thus you (as a P player) play against Z/R/T/P with similar MMR. In a big enough numbers it will result in 50/50 PvZ on ladder bellow masters because you will play some ZvP masters and some ZvP losers. Because despite what people think(ZvP broken, Zerg OP) it doesn't hit until you're high enough so there will be some Zerg losers who will tank the ZvP w/r You can't go much out of the way. And on the top of that you have unranked players messing things even more up(and offracing players). Ladder can't show anything and will show 50/50, it's built this way to show this, the only exception is the top where people play each other all the time and we're out of the big sample
Your overall w/l rate is 50/50, if PvZ is one sided, that percentage will be lower for the weaker race and higher for the other matchups. If lategame of one of the races in PvZ is favoured, again, the percentage of wins in longer games against that race, something blizz can easily view, will be out of balance as well. This is not even lack of understanding of statistics, since these numbers are in your profile and in your opponents profiles. All you have to do is look and see that even for people with thousands of games, the numbers are far from 50/50 for all matchups. The advantage that blizz has is the ability to take all the players and filter through them as they see fit.
On October 05 2019 23:24 MrFreeman wrote: Some ppl should really try to play all races, nerfing something to the ground just because it makes you lose sometimes is not a great idea. Infestor is essential when Z has to deal with big unit centric army. It can be certainly beaten by terran, it can be beaten by toss on lower lvls, so logical fix high level balance should be a new protos high tech micro intensive unit.
Late game toss is pretty easy to control in battle and I have pretty high win rate against late game zerg armies, while with Z, I often lose, cos I misread the P army and my composition is out of balance or because I just mess up the micro. Blizz has the low lvl data, they know the exact win rate of PvZ late game in dia and lower and I'm pretty sure it is P favored, they can't just nerf Z and call it good, because pros are balanced.
Z have Viper and Infestor, units that are both super strong and nobody below 5k MMR can use them at the same time. And not even semi-pro can add BL positioning, queen support, creep re-spread, static D repositioning and corruptor zoning to that. Toss needs something that is as difficult as that. It will even make for a great watching experience.
PvZ on a ladder is sitting around 50 %. Do you know why? Because match making! That makes the ladder bellow high master 50 %. So, uh, Blizz has nothing out of ladder because their own system is placing the players together so both have equal chanca to win...
That is not how ladder works. Yes, we do have individual MMR for each race (though random players don't even have that), but is still the same MMR for each matchup and each gamestate. So when PvZ lategame is protoss favoured in dia and lower, blizz can very clearly see that.
On October 05 2019 23:24 MrFreeman wrote: Some ppl should really try to play all races, nerfing something to the ground just because it makes you lose sometimes is not a great idea. Infestor is essential when Z has to deal with big unit centric army. It can be certainly beaten by terran, it can be beaten by toss on lower lvls, so logical fix high level balance should be a new protos high tech micro intensive unit.
Late game toss is pretty easy to control in battle and I have pretty high win rate against late game zerg armies, while with Z, I often lose, cos I misread the P army and my composition is out of balance or because I just mess up the micro. Blizz has the low lvl data, they know the exact win rate of PvZ late game in dia and lower and I'm pretty sure it is P favored, they can't just nerf Z and call it good, because pros are balanced.
Z have Viper and Infestor, units that are both super strong and nobody below 5k MMR can use them at the same time. And not even semi-pro can add BL positioning, queen support, creep re-spread, static D repositioning and corruptor zoning to that. Toss needs something that is as difficult as that. It will even make for a great watching experience.
What late game Toss composition in PvZ is easy to control?
Zerg lategame is extremely difficult to control to the level of a Dark or Serral too, I do agree that observers aren’t aware of that when they’re complaining.
I don’t think there’s 100% consensus, most people concede that in the current state of the game that Zerg need really potent Infestors, but would prefer the game change to alter this in some way.
Well, most of them, as long as you don't mix in disruptors. I usually try to mix in carriers and mothership, because interceptors and invisibility really messes with auto targeting and my opponents even tend to set their detection forward in panic. Another gr8 thing about carriers is that when they get neuraled, the remaining units just insta kill their interceptors and leave them be, so I don't lose them and they don't cause havoc. To add to that, I have some pretty gr8 options that are easy to control, even a few HTs are gr8 against clumpy compositions like Vikings, Corruptors, Hydras, voids and Marines, storms are easy to cast with HTs on 1 control group, storm's range and instant cast and the small hit boxes HT's have, plus when I fail to control them properly, they turn to archons quickly and then I just a-move them for buffer. Immortals are good for cleaning the ground if they have mostly air, like infestor, tank, cyclone, disruptor, plus they don't take air targeting priority. When they have a lot of corruptors or vikings, I add a few voids, they work gr8 when A-moved and when they r on same control group as carriers, they show up first so I can prismatic align them easily. It sure is much easier than when I'm trying to juggle T or Z late game compositions :D .
Can anybody tell me why does Zergs need Infested terrans? And if their supposed role is to beef Zerg anti air against late game airballs, why can't they make the unit to only be able to shoot only air units? That way they would still fullfill their role as anti air, but wouldnt be massable/spammable to massacre entire bases or late game ground armies. I'm a zerg fan, so i'm not trying to hate on zergs, i just can't get my head wrapped around this.
On October 05 2019 07:49 Boggyb wrote: [quote] Or better yet just delete Abduct and Neural Parasite.
Deleting abduct would have... interesting effects on ZvZ.
Also is there anyone that's against the idea of increasing the supply cost of infestors?
Too big of a nerf - the proposed nerfs should be enough to make infestors reasonably strong.
What nerfs?
Ok I’ll concede in practice basically giving Infestors half the number of ITs who are individual 2x as strong is a functional nerf, in that opponents can kill them a bit easier.
Giving Infestors neural by default is a buff, and a pretty big one IMO. They are still way too good at way too many different things and the synergy with Brood Lords is still entirely intact.
A supply change is long overdue IMO. By all means make them potent, but to have 10+ or whatever negatively impacting the strength of your other army seems a no-brainer
Despite many other disagreements, if there’s one general common thread across Protoss, Terran and even Zerg it’s that BL/Infestor is too strong, and just boring.
These proposed patches do a lot of other things, some I find interesting but they don’t address that composition at all really.
I think people are really underestimating the massive nerf a change to 3 supply would be.
Without a globe of Infestors, Zerg is virtually helpless against Terran and Protoss late game compositions. Only being able to build 67% of the infestors for the same supply is devastating. Infestors below a critical mass cannot contend with Skytoss + massive splash + warp ins, or the insane efficiency and firepower of a 200/200 Terran. Infestors are the equalizer for Zerg late game, as the rest of their units do not compete. BLs and Ultras are not strong enough. Herein lies the problem since there is a very fine line between Zerg's late game being helpless vs overpowered and it's all really based on the capabilities of infestor. 3 supply infestor would massively shift that balanced towards the helpless end of the spectrum.
Barring mass Infestors, Zerg AA simply does not hold up to maxed out capital ship-based armies. Hydras die to everything, Corruptors will get shredded by support units if they get into range of BCs/Carriers/Tempests, and vipers are too easy to kill/neutralize for them to be a reliable and cost effective AA
I think you underestimate how much people hate mass infestor. If increasing the supply cost makes mass infestor a thing of the past so much the better. Getting to nerf skytoss/skyterran armies afterwards for balance reasons sounds like a bonus to me.
A 3 supply infestor is such a huge nerf that sky protoss and sky terran would have to be massively nerfed too. That sets everything out of whack, as Terran and Protoss ground units would need to be heavily changed to maintain balance. For example, if you heavily nerf the infestor and skytoss, then Zerg just wins by virtue of the fact that Protoss comps that are heavily ground based are straight up trash against zerg in the lategame. Protoss also heavily relies on skytoss for late game anti air. You significantly nerf skytoss and then you need to significantly buff Protoss ground to air capabilities and that screws with PvT.
There is literally no point in significantly nerfing an equalizer unit like the infestor. It just creates more balance problems than it solves. You saw what happened when the Protoss lategame backbone was heavily nerfed - you get a disaster of a PvZ where protoss desperately tries to end the game before Zerg lategame can kill maxed out armies several times over.
Zerg is designed around a powerful infestor. There's really nothing anyone can do about it at this point unless you want to redesign the game from scratch. Changing the supply to 3 is insane. It's like changing the battlecruiser's supply to 9...
Which is fine?
Late game Skytoss got nerfed til it largely sucked, even though IMO PvZ was in its best state ever, albeit still not perfect when Skytoss was good
Zerg has other advantages in that matchup and can win by other means. Can make a few tweaks if not the case.
Likewise Terran and mass BCs teleporting everywhere, which was cool for about 10 minutes for novelty’s sake and is just a bit silly.
Blizz don’t have to make every composition competitively viable, I think their mistake is trying to do so.
Most players and spectators don’t like big late game air balls, certainly don’t like BL/Infestor in its current state, and most think the Infestor is way too good, there’s few drawbacks in massing them etc.
It feels like this patch is just a whole bunch of changes meant to rebalance the game while keeping those two factors largely intact, instead of toning those things down and rebalancing to give other options to compensate.
Completely changing the game, essentially from scratch, will kill SC2, which is why I don't think it's fine. Despite the fact that I do think that ideally, heavy redesigns everywhere are ideal.
The elephant in the room is that Protoss ground is severely outclassed in the lategame. Which is why Skytoss deathball has to be viable. Protoss ground simply doesnt scale well, has poverty AA capabilities, and gets eviscerated in the lategame.
A 3 supply infestor would make lategame balance HEAVILY in favor of protoss (and Terran, but I'm one of the few who believe that terran lategame actually beats zerg lategame). To balance this skytoss would require further nerfs, essentially turning it from the garbage it is now to a pile of crap. Because of these nerfs Protoss ground to air capabilities would have to be buffed, and they'd probably turn the immortal into a mini thor, since buffing stalkers would make them broken - whatever the case protoss ground would become broken as they now are capable of handling air units.
I can go on and on, but the point is that drastic changes in units lead to drastic metagame changes, and that is a death knell for an already dying game. It should not happen for a variety of reasons.
If it’s for the better it will benefit the game, radical or not.
HoTS Protoss ‘needed’ the mothership core to be viable at certain times.
Instead of just accepting that, Blizzard removed it, gave Protoss shield batteries and the game improved. When Ravens were extremely strong and massable they got nerfed too.
Sure you have to change a lot potentially, change a lot. fine by me personally.
Blizzard want these mass air balls to be viable, Infestors must be strong so Zergs can deal with them. Why? Air balls are boring, they circumvent terrain and generally aren’t microable or interesting to watch.
Tone down air balls across the board, give units a niche to fulfill by all means but not be so potent when masses.
The game is nowhere near as popular as it was during HoTS. At the end of HoTS, a complete new expansion was imminent. Right now, LoTV is the last of the trilogy and SC2 is struggling to stay afloat.
Whether or not the game improved from HoTS is debatable , as well. I, for one, do not think it has.
The difference between the Raven and the Infestor is that Terran does not need a powerful raven to contend in the lategame. Zerg needs a powerful infestor to contend.
I am not saying Infestors should not be toned down. 3 supply is insane though. It's like instead of nerfing BC's TJ, they just make BCs 9 supply.
On October 06 2019 22:32 kajtarp wrote: Can anybody tell me why does Zergs need Infested terrans? And if their supposed role is to beef Zerg anti air against late game airballs, why can't they make the unit to only be able to shoot only air units? That way they would still fullfill their role as anti air, but wouldnt be massable/spammable to massacre entire bases or late game ground armies. I'm a zerg fan, so i'm not trying to hate on zergs, i just can't get my head wrapped around this.
W/o IT 2 marauders/stalkers would just be able to massacre your out-positioned infestors. Honestly, I think it would make more sense to remove IT and give infestors an attack, it sure would make them easier to control.
On October 05 2019 04:32 pissinmyhand wrote: how about we just make it so mothership cant be pulled or neuraled
Or better yet just delete Abduct and Neural Parasite.
Deleting abduct would have... interesting effects on ZvZ.
Also is there anyone that's against the idea of increasing the supply cost of infestors?
Too big of a nerf - the proposed nerfs should be enough to make infestors reasonably strong.
What nerfs?
Ok I’ll concede in practice basically giving Infestors half the number of ITs who are individual 2x as strong is a functional nerf, in that opponents can kill them a bit easier.
Giving Infestors neural by default is a buff, and a pretty big one IMO. They are still way too good at way too many different things and the synergy with Brood Lords is still entirely intact.
A supply change is long overdue IMO. By all means make them potent, but to have 10+ or whatever negatively impacting the strength of your other army seems a no-brainer
Despite many other disagreements, if there’s one general common thread across Protoss, Terran and even Zerg it’s that BL/Infestor is too strong, and just boring.
These proposed patches do a lot of other things, some I find interesting but they don’t address that composition at all really.
I think people are really underestimating the massive nerf a change to 3 supply would be.
Without a globe of Infestors, Zerg is virtually helpless against Terran and Protoss late game compositions. Only being able to build 67% of the infestors for the same supply is devastating. Infestors below a critical mass cannot contend with Skytoss + massive splash + warp ins, or the insane efficiency and firepower of a 200/200 Terran. Infestors are the equalizer for Zerg late game, as the rest of their units do not compete. BLs and Ultras are not strong enough. Herein lies the problem since there is a very fine line between Zerg's late game being helpless vs overpowered and it's all really based on the capabilities of infestor. 3 supply infestor would massively shift that balanced towards the helpless end of the spectrum.
Barring mass Infestors, Zerg AA simply does not hold up to maxed out capital ship-based armies. Hydras die to everything, Corruptors will get shredded by support units if they get into range of BCs/Carriers/Tempests, and vipers are too easy to kill/neutralize for them to be a reliable and cost effective AA
On October 05 2019 12:19 BerserkSword wrote: A 3 supply infestor is such a huge nerf that sky protoss and sky terran would have to be massively nerfed too. That sets everything out of whack, as Terran and Protoss ground units would need to be heavily changed to maintain balance. For example, if you heavily nerf the infestor and skytoss, then Zerg just wins by virtue of the fact that Protoss comps that are heavily ground based are straight up trash against zerg in the lategame. Protoss also heavily relies on skytoss for late game anti air. You significantly nerf skytoss and then you need to significantly buff Protoss ground to air capabilities and that screws with PvT.
There is literally no point in significantly nerfing an equalizer unit like the infestor. It just creates more balance problems than it solves. You saw what happened when the Protoss lategame backbone was heavily nerfed - you get a disaster of a PvZ where protoss desperately tries to end the game before Zerg lategame can kill maxed out armies several times over.
Zerg is designed around a powerful infestor. There's really nothing anyone can do about it at this point unless you want to redesign the game from scratch. Changing the supply to 3 is insane. It's like changing the battlecruiser's supply to 9...
how tho ? this unit only goes out of control when zerg players make over 20 infestors while still be able to harrass P/T naturals and that secures them a very healthy eco for another instant 20-25 units remax 20 infestors for 60 supply will definately hold thier ground no problem like the current one but zerg players must work harder in drone count and thier hit squads.Late game was never just about all out direct engagement
I agree that infestors can be out of control.
I'm not saying this unit should NOT be nerfed
I'm saying that making them 3 supply is too drastic. Zerg needs a strong infestor to contend.
I dont see why Blizzard doesnt look into buffing protoss lategame. I agree with wombat in that 2018 lategame pvz was very close to balanced, at least ocmpared to 2019 after carriers lost graviton catapult, tempests got nerfed, and feedback got nerfed.
3 supply is too drastic ? will it become a nail in da coffin ??? or you are just simply overthinking ? welp....you gotta elaborate to us instead of saying it many times tho.3 supply infestor isnt a must, its just our suggestion in case the current proposed changes dont go well and there should be better options while i find your opinion about 2018 skytoss is purely biased but nvm...buffing late game toss aint bad either,may be the balance team think its better to nerf every stuffs they ve done right now ?
I am not overthinking.
It is simple math. Increasing the supply of a unit by 50% is a massive nerf when you consider the fact that the infestor is the one thing allowing Zerg to contend against air comps of Terran and Protoss.
My opinion about 2018 skytoss is biased in what way? The fact of the matter is that Skytoss was gutted, and Feedback was nerfed in half, and all of a sudden you see Protoss literally unable to do anything against Infestor BL. It's cause and effect.
the solution imo is to buff protoss lategame but i agree with you. that will never happen.
Until Blizzard realizes that it has made mistakes in the past, I don't have high hopes for this game.
By the way, this balance patch literally told us that they do NOT want Protoss ground to be able to contend with Zerg ground in the late game. The lurker got an insane late game buff against protoss ground units that forces Protoss to go air or die.
On October 06 2019 22:32 kajtarp wrote: Can anybody tell me why does Zergs need Infested terrans? And if their supposed role is to beef Zerg anti air against late game airballs, why can't they make the unit to only be able to shoot only air units? That way they would still fullfill their role as anti air, but wouldnt be massable/spammable to massacre entire bases or late game ground armies. I'm a zerg fan, so i'm not trying to hate on zergs, i just can't get my head wrapped around this.
W/o IT 2 marauders/stalkers would just be able to massacre your out-positioned infestors. Honestly, I think it would make more sense to remove IT and give infestors an attack, it sure would make them easier to control.
On October 06 2019 22:32 kajtarp wrote: Can anybody tell me why does Zergs need Infested terrans? And if their supposed role is to beef Zerg anti air against late game airballs, why can't they make the unit to only be able to shoot only air units? That way they would still fullfill their role as anti air, but wouldnt be massable/spammable to massacre entire bases or late game ground armies. I'm a zerg fan, so i'm not trying to hate on zergs, i just can't get my head wrapped around this.
W/o IT 2 marauders/stalkers would just be able to massacre your out-positioned infestors. Honestly, I think it would make more sense to remove IT and give infestors an attack, it sure would make them easier to control.
That seems quite a weak reasoning to me.
It's not really a reasoning (if you are referring to "why infestors have IT" part), just experiences I've had. Throwing IT, turrets or morphing to archons have saved my bacon so many times, because these units are really easy to move somewhere by accident. I hate viper for this reason, since all I can do is throw the unstackable bomb, so I can't even throw it in panic.
On October 05 2019 08:18 ZigguratOfUr wrote: [quote]
Deleting abduct would have... interesting effects on ZvZ.
Also is there anyone that's against the idea of increasing the supply cost of infestors?
Too big of a nerf - the proposed nerfs should be enough to make infestors reasonably strong.
What nerfs?
Ok I’ll concede in practice basically giving Infestors half the number of ITs who are individual 2x as strong is a functional nerf, in that opponents can kill them a bit easier.
Giving Infestors neural by default is a buff, and a pretty big one IMO. They are still way too good at way too many different things and the synergy with Brood Lords is still entirely intact.
A supply change is long overdue IMO. By all means make them potent, but to have 10+ or whatever negatively impacting the strength of your other army seems a no-brainer
Despite many other disagreements, if there’s one general common thread across Protoss, Terran and even Zerg it’s that BL/Infestor is too strong, and just boring.
These proposed patches do a lot of other things, some I find interesting but they don’t address that composition at all really.
I think people are really underestimating the massive nerf a change to 3 supply would be.
Without a globe of Infestors, Zerg is virtually helpless against Terran and Protoss late game compositions. Only being able to build 67% of the infestors for the same supply is devastating. Infestors below a critical mass cannot contend with Skytoss + massive splash + warp ins, or the insane efficiency and firepower of a 200/200 Terran. Infestors are the equalizer for Zerg late game, as the rest of their units do not compete. BLs and Ultras are not strong enough. Herein lies the problem since there is a very fine line between Zerg's late game being helpless vs overpowered and it's all really based on the capabilities of infestor. 3 supply infestor would massively shift that balanced towards the helpless end of the spectrum.
Barring mass Infestors, Zerg AA simply does not hold up to maxed out capital ship-based armies. Hydras die to everything, Corruptors will get shredded by support units if they get into range of BCs/Carriers/Tempests, and vipers are too easy to kill/neutralize for them to be a reliable and cost effective AA
I think you underestimate how much people hate mass infestor. If increasing the supply cost makes mass infestor a thing of the past so much the better. Getting to nerf skytoss/skyterran armies afterwards for balance reasons sounds like a bonus to me.
A 3 supply infestor is such a huge nerf that sky protoss and sky terran would have to be massively nerfed too. That sets everything out of whack, as Terran and Protoss ground units would need to be heavily changed to maintain balance. For example, if you heavily nerf the infestor and skytoss, then Zerg just wins by virtue of the fact that Protoss comps that are heavily ground based are straight up trash against zerg in the lategame. Protoss also heavily relies on skytoss for late game anti air. You significantly nerf skytoss and then you need to significantly buff Protoss ground to air capabilities and that screws with PvT.
There is literally no point in significantly nerfing an equalizer unit like the infestor. It just creates more balance problems than it solves. You saw what happened when the Protoss lategame backbone was heavily nerfed - you get a disaster of a PvZ where protoss desperately tries to end the game before Zerg lategame can kill maxed out armies several times over.
Zerg is designed around a powerful infestor. There's really nothing anyone can do about it at this point unless you want to redesign the game from scratch. Changing the supply to 3 is insane. It's like changing the battlecruiser's supply to 9...
Which is fine?
Late game Skytoss got nerfed til it largely sucked, even though IMO PvZ was in its best state ever, albeit still not perfect when Skytoss was good
Zerg has other advantages in that matchup and can win by other means. Can make a few tweaks if not the case.
Likewise Terran and mass BCs teleporting everywhere, which was cool for about 10 minutes for novelty’s sake and is just a bit silly.
Blizz don’t have to make every composition competitively viable, I think their mistake is trying to do so.
Most players and spectators don’t like big late game air balls, certainly don’t like BL/Infestor in its current state, and most think the Infestor is way too good, there’s few drawbacks in massing them etc.
It feels like this patch is just a whole bunch of changes meant to rebalance the game while keeping those two factors largely intact, instead of toning those things down and rebalancing to give other options to compensate.
Completely changing the game, essentially from scratch, will kill SC2, which is why I don't think it's fine. Despite the fact that I do think that ideally, heavy redesigns everywhere are ideal.
The elephant in the room is that Protoss ground is severely outclassed in the lategame. Which is why Skytoss deathball has to be viable. Protoss ground simply doesnt scale well, has poverty AA capabilities, and gets eviscerated in the lategame.
A 3 supply infestor would make lategame balance HEAVILY in favor of protoss (and Terran, but I'm one of the few who believe that terran lategame actually beats zerg lategame). To balance this skytoss would require further nerfs, essentially turning it from the garbage it is now to a pile of crap. Because of these nerfs Protoss ground to air capabilities would have to be buffed, and they'd probably turn the immortal into a mini thor, since buffing stalkers would make them broken - whatever the case protoss ground would become broken as they now are capable of handling air units.
I can go on and on, but the point is that drastic changes in units lead to drastic metagame changes, and that is a death knell for an already dying game. It should not happen for a variety of reasons.
If it’s for the better it will benefit the game, radical or not.
HoTS Protoss ‘needed’ the mothership core to be viable at certain times.
Instead of just accepting that, Blizzard removed it, gave Protoss shield batteries and the game improved. When Ravens were extremely strong and massable they got nerfed too.
Sure you have to change a lot potentially, change a lot. fine by me personally.
Blizzard want these mass air balls to be viable, Infestors must be strong so Zergs can deal with them. Why? Air balls are boring, they circumvent terrain and generally aren’t microable or interesting to watch.
Tone down air balls across the board, give units a niche to fulfill by all means but not be so potent when masses.
The game is nowhere near as popular as it was during HoTS. At the end of HoTS, a complete new expansion was imminent. Right now, LoTV is the last of the trilogy and SC2 is struggling to stay afloat.
Whether or not the game improved from HoTS is debatable , as well. I, for one, do not think it has.
The difference between the Raven and the Infestor is that Terran does not need a powerful raven to contend in the lategame. Zerg needs a powerful infestor to contend.
I am not saying Infestors should not be toned down. 3 supply is insane though. It's like instead of nerfing BC's TJ, they just make BCs 9 supply.
Perhaps, does that make it worse than WoL or HoTS?
Personally I prefer the current iterations of LoTV, but tastes do differ.
Looking at the market around, what other RTS is doing half decently? I presume a lot of people persevered with SC2 for quite a period, only to move on for whatever reason.
Myself I do like the game, but I only really stick around because it’s too hard to get good at BW nowadays, and there’s basically no other option for an RTS fix.
I’ve had a fair few big hiatuses from the game, personally I find myself burnt out and re-energised when I return, perhaps others don’t return though. My two main ones were towards the end of WoL and BL/Infestor, and HoTS when mass swarm host became prevalent even on ladder.
Personally I find the state of the game immeasurably better than those times, equally I think my frequent breaks from the game and even the scene entirely maybe give me a slightly different perspective.
I really, really disliked HoTS as a Protoss player who was a (relative) PvT sniper in WoL. My strengths were in splitting and positioning my army well, then boom Mothership core negated all my strengths in that matchup and was dumb. And my off-race T whose best matchup was TvP fucking sucked at it in HoTS.
On October 04 2019 05:16 Noocta wrote: This game has become way too upgrade bloated. There's a design problem ? make a new upgrade ? Something too strong, too weak, upgrades there, upgrades everywhere.
Just compare how clean most of the Broodwar upgrades are compared to this.
I can only second this. The game already has a lot of units and almost every unit has at least one upgrade altering its stats or abilities. This does not only make the game way too complicated for new players, but also puts way too much focus on getting these upgrades than making decisions for experienced players. I almost feel like removing most of these upgrades would keep the game pretty balanced, because you take upgrade-based power spikes from both parties in a match (I didn't really think about if it would actually be like that). It could also make the advantages of one player less drastic if he can get these upgrades earlier. I think a game should be won by getting multiple small wins and not because of one single clash which it looks like is the case today.
On October 07 2019 07:14 Wombat_NI wrote: I’ve had a fair few big hiatuses from the game, personally I find myself burnt out and re-energised when I return, perhaps others don’t return though. My two main ones were towards the end of WoL and BL/Infestor, and HoTS when mass swarm host became prevalent even on ladder.
This describes me too. I left at roughly the same points. When I came back I was surprised how much better the game is now and I've ended up playing rather frequently on and off the last couple years. Most of the changes made sense and nothing seemed completely broken in the way those two issues in WoL and HoTS were.
The current status of PvZ is the first thing I've played that has felt like those eras. Even a few months back, most PvZs I played were compositions like ling/bane/hydra against immortal/archon/HT or other compositions that make for fun, dynamic games. Now most PvZs that aren't nydus nonsense seem to be the zerg speedrunning for hive again like in WoL while spamming mass static defence at their bases rather than building an actual army then going straight to infestor/broodlord/corruptor. Combine this with maps that aren't particularly great for protoss all-ins due to the lack of chokes for forcefields/preventing surrounds and we're left with a matchup as bad or worse than WoL PvZ was. I'm not convinced this new patch in its' current state will fix this problem.
I quite literally just finished playing a game on Acropolis where the zerg had 24 infestors. The entire game was basically fighting against spammed infested terrans. That 48 supply of units was more or less fighting a 100+ supply air/HT army on its own at times. It was stupid.
edit: I agree with the sentiment of the posts about there being too many upgrades as well. It's getting silly.
On October 04 2019 05:16 Noocta wrote: This game has become way too upgrade bloated. There's a design problem ? make a new upgrade ? Something too strong, too weak, upgrades there, upgrades everywhere.
Just compare how clean most of the Broodwar upgrades are compared to this.
I can only second this. The game already has a lot of units and almost every unit has at least one upgrade altering its stats or abilities. This does not only make the game way too complicated for new players, but also puts way too much focus on getting these upgrades than making decisions for experienced players. I almost feel like removing most of these upgrades would keep the game pretty balanced, because you take upgrade-based power spikes from both parties in a match (I didn't really think about if it would actually be like that). It could also make the advantages of one player less drastic if he can get these upgrades earlier. I think a game should be won by getting multiple small wins and not because of one single clash which it looks like is the case today.
I have mixed feelings about this. I think upgrades add a nice layer of strategy to the game. Yes an rts can deffinity work without them, but im not sure one like starcraft can. Things are so asymmetric the upgrades really help gate the power of units so they are not to strong to early. Its just to fundamental to how the game works.
Does anyone think the reason Zerg is dominating so much besides the infestor/brood death ball is because of how many units they have that create "free units?"
The last time I remember Terran dominating zerg late game, terran had the splash anti-armor missiles which was essentially another "free" unit and Maru would dominate Serral late game.
It seems like between swarm hosts, brood lords and infestors Zerg can just be so efficient late game and eventually the other race just runs out of money. Case in point - if terran tries to counter by "zoning out" with nukes - terran will be bleeding money while zerg continues using free units cost effectively. If Terran tries to go Thors, and then loses them to neurals, terran is bleeding money while Zerg just used mana.
Just some food for thought. I'm not sure if the new patch quite fixes this..
On October 05 2019 23:24 MrFreeman wrote: Some ppl should really try to play all races, nerfing something to the ground just because it makes you lose sometimes is not a great idea. Infestor is essential when Z has to deal with big unit centric army. It can be certainly beaten by terran, it can be beaten by toss on lower lvls, so logical fix high level balance should be a new protos high tech micro intensive unit.
Late game toss is pretty easy to control in battle and I have pretty high win rate against late game zerg armies, while with Z, I often lose, cos I misread the P army and my composition is out of balance or because I just mess up the micro. Blizz has the low lvl data, they know the exact win rate of PvZ late game in dia and lower and I'm pretty sure it is P favored, they can't just nerf Z and call it good, because pros are balanced.
Z have Viper and Infestor, units that are both super strong and nobody below 5k MMR can use them at the same time. And not even semi-pro can add BL positioning, queen support, creep re-spread, static D repositioning and corruptor zoning to that. Toss needs something that is as difficult as that. It will even make for a great watching experience.
PvZ on a ladder is sitting around 50 %. Do you know why? Because match making! That makes the ladder bellow high master 50 %. So, uh, Blizz has nothing out of ladder because their own system is placing the players together so both have equal chanca to win...
That is not how ladder works. Yes, we do have individual MMR for each race (though random players don't even have that), but is still the same MMR for each matchup and each gamestate. So when PvZ lategame is protoss favoured in dia and lower, blizz can very clearly see that.
On October 05 2019 23:54 Wombat_NI wrote:
On October 05 2019 23:24 MrFreeman wrote: Some ppl should really try to play all races, nerfing something to the ground just because it makes you lose sometimes is not a great idea. Infestor is essential when Z has to deal with big unit centric army. It can be certainly beaten by terran, it can be beaten by toss on lower lvls, so logical fix high level balance should be a new protos high tech micro intensive unit.
Late game toss is pretty easy to control in battle and I have pretty high win rate against late game zerg armies, while with Z, I often lose, cos I misread the P army and my composition is out of balance or because I just mess up the micro. Blizz has the low lvl data, they know the exact win rate of PvZ late game in dia and lower and I'm pretty sure it is P favored, they can't just nerf Z and call it good, because pros are balanced.
Z have Viper and Infestor, units that are both super strong and nobody below 5k MMR can use them at the same time. And not even semi-pro can add BL positioning, queen support, creep re-spread, static D repositioning and corruptor zoning to that. Toss needs something that is as difficult as that. It will even make for a great watching experience.
What late game Toss composition in PvZ is easy to control?
Zerg lategame is extremely difficult to control to the level of a Dark or Serral too, I do agree that observers aren’t aware of that when they’re complaining.
I don’t think there’s 100% consensus, most people concede that in the current state of the game that Zerg need really potent Infestors, but would prefer the game change to alter this in some way.
Well, most of them, as long as you don't mix in disruptors. I usually try to mix in carriers and mothership, because interceptors and invisibility really messes with auto targeting and my opponents even tend to set their detection forward in panic. Another gr8 thing about carriers is that when they get neuraled, the remaining units just insta kill their interceptors and leave them be, so I don't lose them and they don't cause havoc. To add to that, I have some pretty gr8 options that are easy to control, even a few HTs are gr8 against clumpy compositions like Vikings, Corruptors, Hydras, voids and Marines, storms are easy to cast with HTs on 1 control group, storm's range and instant cast and the small hit boxes HT's have, plus when I fail to control them properly, they turn to archons quickly and then I just a-move them for buffer. Immortals are good for cleaning the ground if they have mostly air, like infestor, tank, cyclone, disruptor, plus they don't take air targeting priority. When they have a lot of corruptors or vikings, I add a few voids, they work gr8 when A-moved and when they r on same control group as carriers, they show up first so I can prismatic align them easily. It sure is much easier than when I'm trying to juggle T or Z late game compositions :D .
You have a separate ladder MMR for Protoss, not PvZ. Thus you (as a P player) play against Z/R/T/P with similar MMR. In a big enough numbers it will result in 50/50 PvZ on ladder bellow masters because you will play some ZvP masters and some ZvP losers. Because despite what people think(ZvP broken, Zerg OP) it doesn't hit until you're high enough so there will be some Zerg losers who will tank the ZvP w/r You can't go much out of the way. And on the top of that you have unranked players messing things even more up(and offracing players). Ladder can't show anything and will show 50/50, it's built this way to show this, the only exception is the top where people play each other all the time and we're out of the big sample
Your overall w/l rate is 50/50, if PvZ is one sided, that percentage will be lower for the weaker race and higher for the other matchups. If lategame of one of the races in PvZ is favoured, again, the percentage of wins in longer games against that race, something blizz can easily view, will be out of balance as well. This is not even lack of understanding of statistics, since these numbers are in your profile and in your opponents profiles. All you have to do is look and see that even for people with thousands of games, the numbers are far from 50/50 for all matchups. The advantage that blizz has is the ability to take all the players and filter through them as they see fit.
Uh, wrong, but doesn't matter. (BTW if you check my profile you will se 0 % wr in all matchups )
Why would Blizz balance anythign based on the lower leagues anyway? Like - I play mass speed banshee and have 50 % success rate (thanks ladder). If I start losing does this mean anything? It means total nonsense because I am not in the high masters and I can play - literally - anything I want and get 50 % w/r with it. If I start losing more does this mean anything for the overall balance? if so, it means speed banshees needs moar hp, moar damage and moar speed You can't balance the game around people who cannot build a pylon on time and are in frequent supply blocks. And I am still in the higher parts of the ladder with my troll builds... There's a reason why so many people will say that up until medium masters you can play anything and the balance doesn't matter to you...
Also you can't balance the game based on pure numbers as - e.g. what is PvZ lategame? Game which ended at 20th minute mark or after it? If so - what does it mean if I do a successful cannon rush and then prolong the game while playing with the Zerg who refuses to leave? Or vice versa - the Zerg makes successful push and is just unable to finish the game and I just prolong the inevitable. Such games say nothing about the lategame PvZ as the game was decided BEFORE the lategame even begun. (although considering my league everything's possible, especially when my Terran is tanking my Protoss MMR )
On October 07 2019 07:14 Wombat_NI wrote: I’ve had a fair few big hiatuses from the game, personally I find myself burnt out and re-energised when I return, perhaps others don’t return though. My two main ones were towards the end of WoL and BL/Infestor, and HoTS when mass swarm host became prevalent even on ladder.
This describes me too. I left at roughly the same points. When I came back I was surprised how much better the game is now and I've ended up playing rather frequently on and off the last couple years. Most of the changes made sense and nothing seemed completely broken in the way those two issues in WoL and HoTS were.
The current status of PvZ is the first thing I've played that has felt like those eras. Even a few months back, most PvZs I played were compositions like ling/bane/hydra against immortal/archon/HT or other compositions that make for fun, dynamic games. Now most PvZs that aren't nydus nonsense seem to be the zerg speedrunning for hive again like in WoL while spamming mass static defence at their bases rather than building an actual army then going straight to infestor/broodlord/corruptor. Combine this with maps that aren't particularly great for protoss all-ins due to the lack of chokes for forcefields/preventing surrounds and we're left with a matchup as bad or worse than WoL PvZ was. I'm not convinced this new patch in its' current state will fix this problem.
I quite literally just finished playing a game on Acropolis where the zerg had 24 infestors. The entire game was basically fighting against spammed infested terrans. That 48 supply of units was more or less fighting a 100+ supply air/HT army on its own at times. It was stupid.
edit: I agree with the sentiment of the posts about there being too many upgrades as well. It's getting silly.
I found it’s a combo of things for me, but I’ve always felt PvZ is by a distance the worst Protoss matchup to play, bar a few sadly short lived periods.
Not enjoying a matchup personally doesn’t make it bad necessarily, there are personal tastes at play.
PvT is pretty stable, there’s a bunch of valid styles and you can play a macro game where you’re active on the map constantly. PvP is weird and can be wonky, but micro really shines in the relatively low supply skirmishes and pushes you see, there’s a lot of comeback potential and strategic improvisation you can do.
PvZ of late feels fast expand into some kind of harassment tech, into some kind of allin that you hope your opponent misreads. There’s not really an active back and forth midgame generally where you can gain advantages through positioning and fighting over territory like in PvT, TvZ or TvT. Partly due to the maps really not having much terrain you can even use to push out.
Protoss can’t compete with the scale of Zerg forces in all these open areas, it’s stupidly risky to be sharking much in this pool.
Not mentioned enough either but really obvious, Zerg stuff is also way faster than that of Protoss. Combined with wide open spaces, creep, Protoss’ relatively low DPS and small forces are just waiting to get surrounded and wrecked. Protoss could really have done with something to fulfil the hellion role, something speedy and can be out on the map separate from main forces.
If Protoss had a consistently viable way of playing an aggressive midgame to keep Zerg honest, or could even vaguely go toe to toe in the real lategame the matchup would be a good deal better, we don’t really see either really being the case currently.
Hopefully these changes and future ones will gradually see an improvement to the matchup anyway. I feel PvT and PvP have much improved over the years, but Protoss and Zerg just don’t mesh all that well
I think LotV is in a much better state than WOL or HOTS.
Mech is viable in all matchups, you are not forced to use bio in TvP anymore. Apart from Broodlord range bug and infestors being too good, there are no blantant broken things that dominates matchups any more.
I would really like a range nerf on the Disruptor though. Now when Liberators lose 1 range Disruptors will outrange every single Terran unit which could, I suspect, move mech back into the unviable category again.
If Blizzard really want to improve interactions between units I think Disruptors should have the same range as tanks. That would also improve the PvP matchup.
On October 07 2019 19:34 MockHamill wrote: I think LotV is in a much better state than WOL or HOTS.
Mech is viable in all matchups, you are not forced to use bio in TvP anymore. Apart from Broodlord range bug and infestors being too good, there are no blantant broken things that dominates matchups any more.
I would really like a range nerf on the Disruptor though. Now when Liberators lose 1 range Disruptors will outrange every single Terran unit which could, I suspect, move mech back into the unviable category again.
If Blizzard really want to improve interactions between units I think Disruptors should have the same range as tanks. That would also improve the PvP matchup.
See, I think it's the exact opposite, with every iteration the WoL seems to me better and better and the new product worse and worse. But that's just me. (although I accept the issue WoL had and some balancing would have to be done I loved that there were less hardcounters, try responding to mass muta in PvZ with storm/blink nowadays. You could at WoL )
BTW Disruptors having the same range as tanks means that tanks sitting behind a terrain cover can freely shoot at them, IMO it should stay the way it is or give the balls ability to walk the cliffs (Edit> to be fair I hate disruptors but I believe they're now part of the game and cannot be esily ermoved)
On October 07 2019 19:34 MockHamill wrote: I think LotV is in a much better state than WOL or HOTS.
Mech is viable in all matchups, you are not forced to use bio in TvP anymore. Apart from Broodlord range bug and infestors being too good, there are no blantant broken things that dominates matchups any more.
I would really like a range nerf on the Disruptor though. Now when Liberators lose 1 range Disruptors will outrange every single Terran unit which could, I suspect, move mech back into the unviable category again.
If Blizzard really want to improve interactions between units I think Disruptors should have the same range as tanks. That would also improve the PvP matchup.
See, I think it's the exact opposite, with every iteration the WoL seems to me better and better and the new product worse and worse. But that's just me. (although I accept the issue WoL had and some balancing would have to be done I loved that there were less hardcounters, try responding to mass muta in PvZ with storm/blink nowadays. You could at WoL )
BTW Disruptors having the same range as tanks means that tanks sitting behind a terrain cover can freely shoot at them, IMO it should stay the way it is or give the balls ability to walk the cliffs (Edit> to be fair I hate disruptors but I believe they're now part of the game and cannot be esily ermoved)
Disruptors emerging from the fog from the same range as tank fire fills me with horror.
I don’t see how WoL was any less hard counter based than what we have now. Outside of a Khaydarin amulet augmented San/Man Zenith PvT was Stalker/Colossus vs bio/Viking for aeons until Parting came into prominence with Templar first. Stephano won tournaments building almost entirely roaches, then Protoss started going hardcore blind Immortal builds.
Plus units like Colossus were so much more potent so you saw a ton of stalker/collosus, or at least other units + collosus in all 3 Protoss matchups. Outside of its specific counters, the colossus was a soft counter to everything that existed on the ground.
Now it’s toned down you see more varied/balanced Protoss ground compositions
I feel like the game design is deeply flawed when stuff requires this much gimmicky upgrades and changes. An upgrade to give adepts 20 more shield...? The units have been changed so much now it's crazy. Stuff feels unnecessarily complex. To many units doing similar things with wacky abilities and upgrades. Disappointing.
Please nerf infestors! Nerf neural. Nerf FREE units. Infested terran DPS is almost as thor dps! what? YES new thor dps and new infested terran dps is almost same! But one is 300-200 and other one is energy. Thor - damage 25 (+10 vs Massive) cooldown 0.9. Inf terran - damage 24 cooldown 0.95.
So a full energy Infestor can just spawn 4 Thors vs air. Seems legit
I actually quite like a lot of these changes, at least in theory.
Bar the lack of a hefty Infestor nerf, which is probably the most in-demand one from many in the community.
Splitting charge I like for TvP. Zealots are so tanky plus have that punch that it’s really hard for Terran pushes to do appreciable damage to Protoss thirds. However Zealots are further upgradeable, which is good as they do have to be good at the same time.
Perhaps that will slightly slow Protoss powering in that phase of the game too.
I like shifting some HP and shield values around so the shield is less heavily weighted and EMP is less devastating. It does also alter interactions with shield batteries, make that slow lategame Tempest pushing a little harder to sustain without taking hull damage.
Please nerf infestors! Nerf neural. Nerf FREE units. Infested terran DPS is almost as thor dps! what? YES new thor dps and new infested terran dps is almost same! But one is 300-200 and other one is energy. Thor - damage 25 (+10 vs Massive) cooldown 0.9. Inf terran - damage 24 cooldown 0.95.
So a full energy Infestor can just spawn 4 Thors vs air. Seems legit
It's really hard to not write the obvious post when this is revelead...
On October 07 2019 19:34 MockHamill wrote: I think LotV is in a much better state than WOL or HOTS.
Mech is viable in all matchups, you are not forced to use bio in TvP anymore. Apart from Broodlord range bug and infestors being too good, there are no blantant broken things that dominates matchups any more.
I would really like a range nerf on the Disruptor though. Now when Liberators lose 1 range Disruptors will outrange every single Terran unit which could, I suspect, move mech back into the unviable category again.
If Blizzard really want to improve interactions between units I think Disruptors should have the same range as tanks. That would also improve the PvP matchup.
See, I think it's the exact opposite, with every iteration the WoL seems to me better and better and the new product worse and worse. But that's just me. (although I accept the issue WoL had and some balancing would have to be done I loved that there were less hardcounters, try responding to mass muta in PvZ with storm/blink nowadays. You could at WoL )
BTW Disruptors having the same range as tanks means that tanks sitting behind a terrain cover can freely shoot at them, IMO it should stay the way it is or give the balls ability to walk the cliffs (Edit> to be fair I hate disruptors but I believe they're now part of the game and cannot be esily ermoved)
Disruptors emerging from the fog from the same range as tank fire fills me with horror.
I don’t see how WoL was any less hard counter based than what we have now. Outside of a Khaydarin amulet augmented San/Man Zenith PvT was Stalker/Colossus vs bio/Viking for aeons until Parting came into prominence with Templar first. Stephano won tournaments building almost entirely roaches, then Protoss started going hardcore blind Immortal builds.
Plus units like Colossus were so much more potent so you saw a ton of stalker/collosus, or at least other units + collosus in all 3 Protoss matchups. Outside of its specific counters, the colossus was a soft counter to everything that existed on the ground.
Now it’s toned down you see more varied/balanced Protoss ground compositions
The variety of composition and hardcounters aren't the same. And I even gave the best example. Nowadays you either have phoenixes or you're dead to mutalisk. You can stall for phoenixes with archon micro. Or you go for the basetrade. Back in WoL you could go for phoenixes, or you could defend with blink and move into storm(viable defense used in pro matches!!). The only problem was that the transition from mutas was BL/infestor
In WoL you had less "you either have this unit or you're dead" issues. Sure, it needed tweaking but generally to me it seemed there was less hardcountering. At least on the Protoss side of things
But this is not the place for this, if you want to discuss this more create a nostalgy thread or pms
I think the Terran changes are the most interesting and hope they make it through (that said Blizzard's reasoning for the BC changes and neural parasite changes is months behind the pro meta). They could have done more for Zerg (e. g. reduce overlap between the role of the viper and the infestor).
They absolutely need to do more for Protoss. Protoss is already not performing all that well in tournaments. I'm sure cannon rush into Flux Vanes void rays will be a great build on ladder in some MMR region. But on the pro level, with the charge nerf Protoss loses some of its last remaining power. And that's not even considering the state of PvP, where every game is either players 1-basing for up to 15 minutes or playing a macro game where both use the exact same composition every time.
After watching Parting vs Ty and being such a huge BW fan I've been thinking about how to prop up Gateway-centric play with a big change to how gateways work. I would love to hear what ideas anyone might have. Here's one of mine.
1. Only zealot, sentry, adepts can utilize warpgates (still available in all gateway states) 2. You must use normal gateways to build all other gateway units
Take a page from campaign: * Buff health of stalkers to make them more like dragoons or make it so blink will replenish a portion of their shields. * Templar Amulate upgrade returns. Starting with storm available would clearly be weakened by travel distance. * Decrease recall time slightly
This maintains the early aggression and harassment options throughout the game and strengthens the core of the gateway army while giving it a spawn disadvantage.
On October 08 2019 02:08 BisuDagger wrote: After watching Parting vs Ty and being such a huge BW fan I've been thinking about how to prop up Gateway-centric play with a big change to how gateways work. I would love to hear what ideas anyone might have. Here's one of mine.
1. Only zealot, sentry, adepts can utilize warpgates (still available in all gateway states) 2. You must use normal gateways to build all other gateway units
Take a page from campaign: * Buff health of stalkers to make them more like dragoons or make it so blink will replenish a portion of their shields. * Templar Amulate upgrade returns. Starting with storm available would clearly be weakened by travel distance. * Decrease recall time slightly
This maintains the early aggression and harassment options throughout the game and strengthens the core of the gateway army while giving it a spawn disadvantage.
After watching IN DEPTH this week, I would love if Blizzard just looked at all the units in the game that use and rely on energy, consider re-working them entirely, and perhaps buff other units in the race's arsenal to compensate.
On October 08 2019 02:08 BisuDagger wrote: After watching Parting vs Ty and being such a huge BW fan I've been thinking about how to prop up Gateway-centric play with a big change to how gateways work. I would love to hear what ideas anyone might have. Here's one of mine.
1. Only zealot, sentry, adepts can utilize warpgates (still available in all gateway states) 2. You must use normal gateways to build all other gateway units
Take a page from campaign: * Buff health of stalkers to make them more like dragoons or make it so blink will replenish a portion of their shields. * Templar Amulate upgrade returns. Starting with storm available would clearly be weakened by travel distance. * Decrease recall time slightly
This maintains the early aggression and harassment options throughout the game and strengthens the core of the gateway army while giving it a spawn disadvantage.
On October 08 2019 02:08 BisuDagger wrote: After watching Parting vs Ty and being such a huge BW fan I've been thinking about how to prop up Gateway-centric play with a big change to how gateways work. I would love to hear what ideas anyone might have. Here's one of mine.
1. Only zealot, sentry, adepts can utilize warpgates (still available in all gateway states) 2. You must use normal gateways to build all other gateway units
Take a page from campaign: * Buff health of stalkers to make them more like dragoons or make it so blink will replenish a portion of their shields. * Templar Amulate upgrade returns. Starting with storm available would clearly be weakened by travel distance. * Decrease recall time slightly
This maintains the early aggression and harassment options throughout the game and strengthens the core of the gateway army while giving it a spawn disadvantage.
I would nerf warpgate production cycles considerably, buff gateways a bunch in terms of production output. Maybe change chrono a little so it’s akin to an inject cycle.
It’s a real bugbear of mine not that warp gate exists at all, but that it’s so much better than regular gateways.
It’d be nice to have a trade off, pure macro output vs the mobility and reinforcement options of warpgate.
Chrono thing is I just enjoy macro cycles and the Protoss one feels a bit, meh to execute.
On October 08 2019 02:08 BisuDagger wrote: After watching Parting vs Ty and being such a huge BW fan I've been thinking about how to prop up Gateway-centric play with a big change to how gateways work. I would love to hear what ideas anyone might have. Here's one of mine.
1. Only zealot, sentry, adepts can utilize warpgates (still available in all gateway states) 2. You must use normal gateways to build all other gateway units
Take a page from campaign: * Buff health of stalkers to make them more like dragoons or make it so blink will replenish a portion of their shields. * Templar Amulate upgrade returns. Starting with storm available would clearly be weakened by travel distance. * Decrease recall time slightly
This maintains the early aggression and harassment options throughout the game and strengthens the core of the gateway army while giving it a spawn disadvantage.
I would nerf warpgate production cycles considerably, buff gateways a bunch in terms of production output. Maybe change chrono a little so it’s akin to an inject cycle.
It’s a real bugbear of mine not that warp gate exists at all, but that it’s so much better than regular gateways.
It’d be nice to have a trade off, pure macro output vs the mobility and reinforcement options of warpgate.
Chrono thing is I just enjoy macro cycles and the Protoss one feels a bit, meh to execute.
100% agree. The design around warpgates and gateways bothers me in the same way. I would love for their to be a critical decision or tradeoff between the two building styles. The fact that Blizzard auto converts your gateways into warpgates is a clear sign that gateways are never necessary past that upgrade.
On October 08 2019 02:08 BisuDagger wrote: After watching Parting vs Ty and being such a huge BW fan I've been thinking about how to prop up Gateway-centric play with a big change to how gateways work. I would love to hear what ideas anyone might have. Here's one of mine.
1. Only zealot, sentry, adepts can utilize warpgates (still available in all gateway states) 2. You must use normal gateways to build all other gateway units
Take a page from campaign: * Buff health of stalkers to make them more like dragoons or make it so blink will replenish a portion of their shields. * Templar Amulate upgrade returns. Starting with storm available would clearly be weakened by travel distance. * Decrease recall time slightly
This maintains the early aggression and harassment options throughout the game and strengthens the core of the gateway army while giving it a spawn disadvantage.
I think it becomes awkward when some units can use warpgate and some can't, resulting in some gateways and some warpgates. i never liked warp gate but it was the huge mechanic introduced to sc2, so it'd be hard to imagine blizz's removing it in favor of BW-esque production.
I prefer the dragoon to the stalker, in general--as an idea--but I feel like once you go down that road you end up wanting to make sc2 more like BW across the board, which is something i feel blizzard doesn't want, for good reason.
On October 08 2019 02:08 BisuDagger wrote: After watching Parting vs Ty and being such a huge BW fan I've been thinking about how to prop up Gateway-centric play with a big change to how gateways work. I would love to hear what ideas anyone might have. Here's one of mine.
1. Only zealot, sentry, adepts can utilize warpgates (still available in all gateway states) 2. You must use normal gateways to build all other gateway units
Take a page from campaign: * Buff health of stalkers to make them more like dragoons or make it so blink will replenish a portion of their shields. * Templar Amulate upgrade returns. Starting with storm available would clearly be weakened by travel distance. * Decrease recall time slightly
This maintains the early aggression and harassment options throughout the game and strengthens the core of the gateway army while giving it a spawn disadvantage.
I would nerf warpgate production cycles considerably, buff gateways a bunch in terms of production output. Maybe change chrono a little so it’s akin to an inject cycle.
It’s a real bugbear of mine not that warp gate exists at all, but that it’s so much better than regular gateways.
It’d be nice to have a trade off, pure macro output vs the mobility and reinforcement options of warpgate.
Chrono thing is I just enjoy macro cycles and the Protoss one feels a bit, meh to execute.
100% agree. The design around warpgates and gateways bothers me in the same way. I would love for their to be a critical decision or tradeoff between the two building styles. The fact that Blizzard auto converts your gateways into warpgates is a clear sign that gateways are never necessary past that upgrade.
I make a point to make a post to that effect at least once a year!
I also think there would be potential to diversify Protoss players even more via their use of gateways/warp gates too which would be cool.
In truth I’m not at all suited for the ballsy, risk-taking swagger that Protoss requires, more of a mechanical robot, but godamnit I’ve played Protoss for the coolness factor since I was 7 years old
Would be cool if there could be a Protoss equivalent of Innovation parade pushing or something
On October 08 2019 02:08 BisuDagger wrote: After watching Parting vs Ty and being such a huge BW fan I've been thinking about how to prop up Gateway-centric play with a big change to how gateways work. I would love to hear what ideas anyone might have. Here's one of mine.
1. Only zealot, sentry, adepts can utilize warpgates (still available in all gateway states) 2. You must use normal gateways to build all other gateway units
Take a page from campaign: * Buff health of stalkers to make them more like dragoons or make it so blink will replenish a portion of their shields. * Templar Amulate upgrade returns. Starting with storm available would clearly be weakened by travel distance. * Decrease recall time slightly
This maintains the early aggression and harassment options throughout the game and strengthens the core of the gateway army while giving it a spawn disadvantage.
make warpgated units warp in without shields and mana (it uses it to "warp of location" bla bla bla")
On October 08 2019 02:08 BisuDagger wrote: After watching Parting vs Ty and being such a huge BW fan I've been thinking about how to prop up Gateway-centric play with a big change to how gateways work. I would love to hear what ideas anyone might have. Here's one of mine.
1. Only zealot, sentry, adepts can utilize warpgates (still available in all gateway states) 2. You must use normal gateways to build all other gateway units
Take a page from campaign: * Buff health of stalkers to make them more like dragoons or make it so blink will replenish a portion of their shields. * Templar Amulate upgrade returns. Starting with storm available would clearly be weakened by travel distance. * Decrease recall time slightly
This maintains the early aggression and harassment options throughout the game and strengthens the core of the gateway army while giving it a spawn disadvantage.
make warpgated units warp in without shields and mana (it uses it to "warp of location" bla bla bla")
problems solved!!!
That does not sound like clean game design. Pretty frustrating to play, hard to balance and probably making warpgates useless.
The old issue is that the DPS of gateway units has to be so low to balance the presence of forcefield and warpgate. It is far too late to change now, though, and I am ok with Protos being the time/space manipulating race.
I think the issues of warpgates are compensated by the intriguing midgame tech options.
Fungal growth Fungal growth no longer does damage over time.It only slows units. Change mana cost to 50 and allow infestors to cast this spell burrowed.
Infested terrans Add 1 second cooldown on infested terran to prevent abuse of rapid fire.
Adepts New upgrade would make shade invisible. You would need stealth detection to see where adepts are shading.
On October 08 2019 02:08 BisuDagger wrote: After watching Parting vs Ty and being such a huge BW fan I've been thinking about how to prop up Gateway-centric play with a big change to how gateways work. I would love to hear what ideas anyone might have. Here's one of mine.
1. Only zealot, sentry, adepts can utilize warpgates (still available in all gateway states) 2. You must use normal gateways to build all other gateway units
Take a page from campaign: * Buff health of stalkers to make them more like dragoons or make it so blink will replenish a portion of their shields. * Templar Amulate upgrade returns. Starting with storm available would clearly be weakened by travel distance. * Decrease recall time slightly
This maintains the early aggression and harassment options throughout the game and strengthens the core of the gateway army while giving it a spawn disadvantage.
Please no.
So constructive, thanks for the post...
You want something constructive?
This is not bw, go for bw to bw. Let's start with the obvious. (edit> this is not me hating on you for this, this is a very different game with different units and you won't get the BW in this)
Also, this would result in 4 pruduction buildings on 4 different hotkeys unless Blizzard in their infinite wisdom goes for warpgate + gateway can be on a same hotkey and units will be prioritized(same as barracks). I don't think this will work properly(considering you can build all those units from gateways). Current Protoss gateway design resulted in some big nerfs in the units - your buffs are not enough to operate around this if we're thinking about late game - e.g. anti-air of stalkers is weak because they can be warped any time you need them and anywhere, buffing them results in really heavy hitting combo with colossi. Leaving them be means they will still be laughed at by speed banshees.
Without the warp in mechanic you won't get what you saw in the Parting v TY game because without the warp in the units have to walk from the main(not even from the 4th, from the main). The last time they made Stalkers more dragoon like(same DPS, bigger CD on shots, bigger shot damage), they reverted it back quite fast because TvP got fucked up with proxy stalkers. Why do you think this time it won't be reverted right away? Also there's a reason why stalkers are not massed in the lategame, they're trash against everything and a slight buff of HP won't change this, they're trash because they're at best mediocre at dps and their model is so big they have bad scaling(you need a huge arch). It gets better with blink but not much.
Also they're quite easy to hardcounter with EMP. (even with the HP buff)
And now the fun part. Marauders? Tanks with smartfire?
This is not BW, if you want gateway compositions, we had that before. It was named archon/chargelot/templar. Now you can't go this because 1) Mines 2) Hellbats(if we talk about mech) 3) Liberators(and you need tempests if the game goes to this stage, this alone should tell you how garbage stalker is)
And we're at just the TvP.
Now to the ZvP. Lurkers? Mutalisks? Fungals?
Edit> TL, DR - we need much more changes in all 3 races to make this viable, not just Protoss. It is a big game redesign.
most of it pretty bad and mostly hitting on the Terran and their endgame is already pretty bad and saying it as a Protoss player. Late game protoss and zerg can trade so efficiently against terran thats its crazy like back in the day seeker missiles almost..
would be nice to see some new units from time to time to freshen the meta, like 2/race/year would be nice cuz most of terran units are pretty wacky and not supporting diversity for them
On October 08 2019 02:08 BisuDagger wrote: After watching Parting vs Ty and being such a huge BW fan I've been thinking about how to prop up Gateway-centric play with a big change to how gateways work. I would love to hear what ideas anyone might have. Here's one of mine.
1. Only zealot, sentry, adepts can utilize warpgates (still available in all gateway states) 2. You must use normal gateways to build all other gateway units
Take a page from campaign: * Buff health of stalkers to make them more like dragoons or make it so blink will replenish a portion of their shields. * Templar Amulate upgrade returns. Starting with storm available would clearly be weakened by travel distance. * Decrease recall time slightly
This maintains the early aggression and harassment options throughout the game and strengthens the core of the gateway army while giving it a spawn disadvantage.
Please no.
So constructive, thanks for the post...
You want something constructive?
This is not bw, go for bw to bw. Let's start with the obvious. (edit> this is not me hating on you for this, this is a very different game with different units and you won't get the BW in this)
Also, this would result in 4 pruduction buildings on 4 different hotkeys unless Blizzard in their infinite wisdom goes for warpgate + gateway can be on a same hotkey and units will be prioritized(same as barracks). I don't think this will work properly(considering you can build all those units from gateways). Current Protoss gateway design resulted in some big nerfs in the units - your buffs are not enough to operate around this if we're thinking about late game - e.g. anti-air of stalkers is weak because they can be warped any time you need them and anywhere, buffing them results in really heavy hitting combo with colossi. Leaving them be means they will still be laughed at by speed banshees.
Without the warp in mechanic you won't get what you saw in the Parting v TY game because without the warp in the units have to walk from the main(not even from the 4th, from the main). The last time they made Stalkers more dragoon like(same DPS, bigger CD on shots, bigger shot damage), they reverted it back quite fast because TvP got fucked up with proxy stalkers. Why do you think this time it won't be reverted right away? Also there's a reason why stalkers are not massed in the lategame, they're trash against everything and a slight buff of HP won't change this, they're trash because they're at best mediocre at dps and their model is so big they have bad scaling(you need a huge arch). It gets better with blink but not much.
Also they're quite easy to hardcounter with EMP. (even with the HP buff)
And now the fun part. Marauders? Tanks with smartfire?
This is not BW, if you want gateway compositions, we had that before. It was named archon/chargelot/templar. Now you can't go this because 1) Mines 2) Hellbats(if we talk about mech) 3) Liberators(and you need tempests if the game goes to this stage, this alone should tell you how garbage stalker is)
And we're at just the TvP.
Now to the ZvP. Lurkers? Mutalisks? Fungals?
Edit> TL, DR - we need much more changes in all 3 races to make this viable, not just Protoss. It is a big game redesign.
i know uncle blizz doesnt want to admit this but because of the warp in mechanic,protoss cant have strong gateway units while still being able to instantly warp them.putting thier power spike behind an upgrade looks bandaid and confusing at first but i am sure protoss players will thank the balance team later for not straight up trashing them so yeah i d think protoss can have strong stalkers just like last year
I find so many of these changes are incredibly late.
The problems with this game are not going to be fixed by requiring upgrades as a form of nerfing units, Game design problems have existed for so long and were just never addressed. Late game death ball armies, or units that produce units for free are the problem.
The rational side of me is curious to see how the meta evolves around these new changes - could be interesting.
The irrational side of me has a deep-seated hatred of infestors dating back to 2012 and wants to see the unit removed entirely from the game. Make Zergs rely more on mutas and lurkers, which are more interesting and balanced units anyways
On October 08 2019 05:11 fds wrote: I would like to propose following ideas:
Fungal growth Fungal growth no longer does damage over time.It only slows units. Change mana cost to 50 and allow infestors to cast this spell burrowed.
Infested terrans Add 1 second cooldown on infested terran to prevent abuse of rapid fire.
Adepts New upgrade would make shade invisible. You would need stealth detection to see where adepts are shading.
All three actually sound pretty cool! These are the kinds of ideas I wanna see from Blizz.
Honestly, I think the proposed changes from Blizz are not good overall. I really like the Nydus change and lower brood lord range but that's about it. Infestors starting with Neural is pure madness. That's still a kind of spell I would completely remove from the game. It can turn the tide nearly as fast as the old motherships' vortex ... and that one is gone for good.
I guess with my mmr this is good changes but I want to watch good finals again. I don't care about balance in diamond. I want the pros to be able to play good games.
Please just try out Arbiters rather than the silly mothership. It doesn't make sense to have a unit that you can only produce one of in a game like Starcraft, especially when there are abilities like abduct, neural, and interference matrix. This is not a balance problem, its a design problem.
On October 08 2019 02:08 BisuDagger wrote: After watching Parting vs Ty and being such a huge BW fan I've been thinking about how to prop up Gateway-centric play with a big change to how gateways work. I would love to hear what ideas anyone might have. Here's one of mine.
1. Only zealot, sentry, adepts can utilize warpgates (still available in all gateway states) 2. You must use normal gateways to build all other gateway units
Take a page from campaign: * Buff health of stalkers to make them more like dragoons or make it so blink will replenish a portion of their shields. * Templar Amulate upgrade returns. Starting with storm available would clearly be weakened by travel distance. * Decrease recall time slightly
This maintains the early aggression and harassment options throughout the game and strengthens the core of the gateway army while giving it a spawn disadvantage.
Please no.
So constructive, thanks for the post...
You want something constructive?
This is not bw, go for bw to bw. Let's start with the obvious. (edit> this is not me hating on you for this, this is a very different game with different units and you won't get the BW in this)
Also, this would result in 4 pruduction buildings on 4 different hotkeys unless Blizzard in their infinite wisdom goes for warpgate + gateway can be on a same hotkey and units will be prioritized(same as barracks). I don't think this will work properly(considering you can build all those units from gateways). Current Protoss gateway design resulted in some big nerfs in the units - your buffs are not enough to operate around this if we're thinking about late game - e.g. anti-air of stalkers is weak because they can be warped any time you need them and anywhere, buffing them results in really heavy hitting combo with colossi. Leaving them be means they will still be laughed at by speed banshees.
Without the warp in mechanic you won't get what you saw in the Parting v TY game because without the warp in the units have to walk from the main(not even from the 4th, from the main). The last time they made Stalkers more dragoon like(same DPS, bigger CD on shots, bigger shot damage), they reverted it back quite fast because TvP got fucked up with proxy stalkers. Why do you think this time it won't be reverted right away? Also there's a reason why stalkers are not massed in the lategame, they're trash against everything and a slight buff of HP won't change this, they're trash because they're at best mediocre at dps and their model is so big they have bad scaling(you need a huge arch). It gets better with blink but not much.
Also they're quite easy to hardcounter with EMP. (even with the HP buff)
And now the fun part. Marauders? Tanks with smartfire?
This is not BW, if you want gateway compositions, we had that before. It was named archon/chargelot/templar. Now you can't go this because 1) Mines 2) Hellbats(if we talk about mech) 3) Liberators(and you need tempests if the game goes to this stage, this alone should tell you how garbage stalker is)
And we're at just the TvP.
Now to the ZvP. Lurkers? Mutalisks? Fungals?
Edit> TL, DR - we need much more changes in all 3 races to make this viable, not just Protoss. It is a big game redesign.
i know uncle blizz doesnt want to admit this but because of the warp in mechanic,protoss cant have strong gateway units while still being able to instantly warp them.putting thier power spike behind an upgrade looks bandaid and confusing at first but i am sure protoss players will thank the balance team later for not straight up trashing them so yeah i d think protoss can have strong stalkers just like last year
Why would we thank the balance team for not straight up trashing us when they ARE straight up trashing us?
On October 08 2019 02:08 BisuDagger wrote: After watching Parting vs Ty and being such a huge BW fan I've been thinking about how to prop up Gateway-centric play with a big change to how gateways work. I would love to hear what ideas anyone might have. Here's one of mine.
1. Only zealot, sentry, adepts can utilize warpgates (still available in all gateway states) 2. You must use normal gateways to build all other gateway units
Take a page from campaign: * Buff health of stalkers to make them more like dragoons or make it so blink will replenish a portion of their shields. * Templar Amulate upgrade returns. Starting with storm available would clearly be weakened by travel distance. * Decrease recall time slightly
This maintains the early aggression and harassment options throughout the game and strengthens the core of the gateway army while giving it a spawn disadvantage.
Please no.
So constructive, thanks for the post...
You want something constructive?
This is not bw, go for bw to bw. Let's start with the obvious. (edit> this is not me hating on you for this, this is a very different game with different units and you won't get the BW in this)
Also, this would result in 4 pruduction buildings on 4 different hotkeys unless Blizzard in their infinite wisdom goes for warpgate + gateway can be on a same hotkey and units will be prioritized(same as barracks). I don't think this will work properly(considering you can build all those units from gateways). Current Protoss gateway design resulted in some big nerfs in the units - your buffs are not enough to operate around this if we're thinking about late game - e.g. anti-air of stalkers is weak because they can be warped any time you need them and anywhere, buffing them results in really heavy hitting combo with colossi. Leaving them be means they will still be laughed at by speed banshees.
Without the warp in mechanic you won't get what you saw in the Parting v TY game because without the warp in the units have to walk from the main(not even from the 4th, from the main). The last time they made Stalkers more dragoon like(same DPS, bigger CD on shots, bigger shot damage), they reverted it back quite fast because TvP got fucked up with proxy stalkers. Why do you think this time it won't be reverted right away? Also there's a reason why stalkers are not massed in the lategame, they're trash against everything and a slight buff of HP won't change this, they're trash because they're at best mediocre at dps and their model is so big they have bad scaling(you need a huge arch). It gets better with blink but not much.
Also they're quite easy to hardcounter with EMP. (even with the HP buff)
And now the fun part. Marauders? Tanks with smartfire?
This is not BW, if you want gateway compositions, we had that before. It was named archon/chargelot/templar. Now you can't go this because 1) Mines 2) Hellbats(if we talk about mech) 3) Liberators(and you need tempests if the game goes to this stage, this alone should tell you how garbage stalker is)
And we're at just the TvP.
Now to the ZvP. Lurkers? Mutalisks? Fungals?
Edit> TL, DR - we need much more changes in all 3 races to make this viable, not just Protoss. It is a big game redesign.
i know uncle blizz doesnt want to admit this but because of the warp in mechanic,protoss cant have strong gateway units while still being able to instantly warp them.putting thier power spike behind an upgrade looks bandaid and confusing at first but i am sure protoss players will thank the balance team later for not straight up trashing them so yeah i d think protoss can have strong stalkers just like last year
Stalkers are trash. Even with blink. Why do you think you need tempests in the lategame TvP? Why do you think you need immortals/tempests in the lategame ZvP? Stalkers are trashy early to mid game unit. There's nothing wrong about it. Similarly reaper is an early game scout and cheesy option, that's it. Blink doesn't change that, blink just changes their value for midgame otherwise they would be just like reapers, trashy early game unit That's their role, many Protoss are fine with that, but saying power spike behind upgrade and write stalkers in the same sentence Have you seen how powerful they are against strong liberator position with some siege tanks and emp?
The real problem is that these changes still don't fix foundational problems. Balancing the game is made much harder by having absurdly broken stuff in it, and making small tweaks to hp etc doesn't get to the heart of the problem. Once the issues are solved, that is when numbers should be played about with. I'd start with this kind of stuff;
Abduct and neural should not work against massive units. It's neither fun nor reasonable to pick off big units like that. There's no counterplay.
Air units need a collision radius to limit clumping or a fast, forced splitting that overrides fungal slow. Fungal and parasitic bomb counter light air units way too hard as it is. I think a collision radius would be best, so the power of clumped air units is also nerfed, because balancing mass voids has been impossible because of it.
Mothership should not be a hero unit. It should be cheaper, weaker and massable so it doesn't contribute to the deathball issue. Smaller msss recalls around the map would make the zerg spine forest less ridiculous to deal with without having to be all or nothing assaults. Non massive, cheaper arbiters could also be abducted or neuraled without making toss want to uninstall.
Warp gate should be more expensive to research and have longer unit build time compared to gateways. This would give a defenders advantage back in PvP and allow small buffs to gateway units to be possible to keep them viable into the late game (since toss would have to make more gateways for the same reinforcement capabilities, which means smaller armies / slower maxs).
Sure, some numbers would need to be tweaked after. Maybe fungal would need more dps against air units if they didn't clump. But the point is is that even with an e.g. 50% DPS increase, it would never lead to that ridiculous scenario where you lose 10 expensive air units to a single spell because you clumped, got hit and couldn't retreat. It would still suck, but it wouldn't feel completely unfair.
On October 09 2019 00:26 totalpigeon wrote: Air units need a collision radius to limit clumping or a fast, forced splitting that overrides fungal slow. Fungal and parasitic bomb counter light air units way too hard as it is. I think a collision radius would be best, so the power of clumped air units is also nerfed, because balancing mass voids has been impossible because of it.
I was thinking about a similar solution, but my problem was that i would like to have clumped mutas, corruptors, phoenixes, oracles, banshees, vikings in the game. Maybe make that it is a bit harder to make these air units group up, and increase other air units collision radius greatly, so that we will never see clumped up broods/voids/carriers/tempests/bcs again. This would nerf these heavily.
On October 09 2019 00:26 totalpigeon wrote: Air units need a collision radius to limit clumping or a fast, forced splitting that overrides fungal slow. Fungal and parasitic bomb counter light air units way too hard as it is. I think a collision radius would be best, so the power of clumped air units is also nerfed, because balancing mass voids has been impossible because of it.
I was thinking about a similar solution, but my problem was that i would like to have clumped mutas, corruptors, phoenixes, oracles, banshees, vikings in the game. Maybe make that it is a bit harder to make these air units group up, and increase other air units collision radius greatly, so that we will never see clumped up broods/voids/carriers/tempests/bcs again. This would nerf these heavily.
It's a broken part of the game. The interaction between aoe spells on ground units and aoe spells on clumped air units is just so different that it is impossible to balance in a manner that feels fair to everyone, especially when there is no realistic way for the owner of the air units to keep their units from clumping. It worked in BW because you could only have 12 units on a hotkey, so things could never be too densely packed in. It's a problem for SC2 because you can have 200 supply on a hotkey, so the dps of the army can be absurdly dense. Overkill from using all of these units to attack the same target is a thing, which helps a little to keep things in check, but the fact that everything can be on the front line means that the dps / area is still extremely high - something like mass muta or voids can be very strong in a straight up fight if you have no aoe to deal with it, and utterly useless if you do. If units didn't clump then the dps would be lower and aoe would be both less effective and less necessary.
I think it would be a sensible direction to go, anyway. It's not a change that will balance things in and of itself, but removing the ridiculous possibility of ultra stacked air units will make the game easier to balance in the long run, since the range of potential interactions that aoe damage can have reduces dramatically.
I like the direction of some changes but some of the changes are weird and don't seem that well geared towards the intended goal that was stated.
Just some brief thoughts on a few things:
1) Infested Terran Change
Infested Terrans being 25 energy were nice and unique. They were weak individually but massed together it could do something. This being buffed reminds me of the Autoturret change to being a more high damage density unit. Everything in the game keeps being buffed to move faster or do more damage faster, which is something we've wanted to avoid (and go in the other direction when possible) throughout SC2.
One thing about ITs being 25 energy is that it was difficult to get a ton of them to actually shoot the intended target, like sniping a base from a cliff. Now that they can be clumped more easily, it will be more volatile and harder to deal with in a way as well.
While it's true that you could now kill a group of clumped ITs with splash easier, did the balance team not realize and think that the Zerg could simply spam click the ITs in a slightly more spread out area, taking up about the same amount of space as when they were 25 energy?? It would basically nullify the intended purpose of buffing splash's effectiveness vs ITs, and is a near straight up buff for most situations as long as the Zerg spam summons ITs in a slightly spread out area instead of clicking 1 point.
Also, it was harder to spawn a hundred ITs to snipe a base, because it took longer to click. This was also a natural balancing mechanic that will now be reduced.
You could say that if you were to try to spread out the new 50 energy ITs, that it would also be a natural balancing mechanic and require the Zerg more time to setup a large amount of ITs, similar to how spawning a ton of 25 energy ITs takes a ton of clicks. If these roughly equal out, then the new IT changes basically is a straight slight DPS buff. AND, in situations where the other player does not yet have much splash, will allow the ITs' higher damage density (and higher dps) to be able to snipe bases even more effectively than now.
At best, the IT changes are not clean enough for what the intended goals are. At worst, the IT change could buff them overall and make things even more volatile than they already are.
2) Battle Cruiser Warp Jump 1 Second Delay
Finally, I'm a Terran but that should have been obvious and there from the start.
3) Nydus Changes
Hurray again that the starting load/unload time is slightly nerfed. In pro games it seems as if an entire army can just go through it almost instantly, like teleporting around the map, which is obviously not what it should be (both lore wise and gamplay wise, as it makes it less unique compared to simply teleporting).
So, I do like that it takes longer to unload/load. What I don't like though, is that for only a 100/100 upgrade you can boost it back to the current speed for the rest of the game. You shouldn't be able to transfer your army between huge points nearly instantly, it should take some time for your army to move through. You should be able to reinforce a position with an army coming through, but there should be more of a hidden cost to it (it should take a bit longer for the rest of your army to go through to fight, instead of your maxed out army being there almost instantly). If you bring a big enough army and are in position already, you should be able to have a strong advantage vs the army that is trying to come out, enough to discourage the player to go through the Nydus with the rest of their army unless they have a much bigger army.
I believe it would be much better and more unique for them to simply tweak the Nydus in a way that involve the load/unload time increase, and force players to spawn MULTIPLE Nydus for each position later in the game if they want to move a huge army quicker. Nydus is not very expensive as it is, I think an upgrade is unnecessary. A Nydus Network is 150/150 that you can use throughout the whole game, and spawning a Nydus Worm is a measly 50/50.
If you want to move your 130 supply army through to the opponent's base, then you should just be encouraged to spawn 2 Nydus for that one position to get it through faster as a commitment. It would be very Zerg-like and more interesting than Zergs only using 1 Nydus for 99% of situations like it is now.
It would also be much less volatile. Right now it's like, if you don't finish off the Nydus, then their whole army comes through suddenly and it's over. But if the slower unload/load changes are passed, and there is no upgrade to buff it back to the current speed, it would mean Zergs would need to spawn 2 Nydus Worms to get their army through for a slightly higher price. It would also indeed mean you would need to kill both Worms as opposed to 1 to stop their army from coming through, but it would be more interesting this way, as if you killed only 1 of the 2 Worms, if the Zerg wanted to still come through the remaining Worm, it would be much more expensive to do so anyway as much more of their army would be killed due to the slower unloading. So it's an option for the Zerg but much much less cost efficient. If needed, the Worm durability could be reduced to to help balance this out.
Basically I think they should nerf the unload/load time for Nydus Worm a little to make it less scary early and mid game. And late game, it would be better for the design and gameplay if Zerg needed to spawn more than 1 Worm to get a big army through quickly. It's weird to me that in almost all situations, 1 Worm is enough whether you want to move a small force through or your maxed out army. It's wrong when you see pro matches where a defending player already has their whole army in their main base, failing to kill the Worm but is fighting the units spewing out, but yet the attacking player is able to commit and just send the rest of their army through it with little disadvantage. There needs to be a little more of a defender's advantage here, lest the attacking Zerg wants to spend a little more to spawn more Worms.
Props to them for the 14 second thing, that was well thought out.
4) Mech
It's great that they haven't forgotten about TvP mech, which was very weak last I tried (way weaker than Mech in HOTS which is very sad as it actually was pretty solid in HOTS). Nerfing the Chargelot by removing the +8 damage will help Mech take their third which is really crucial with how many bases Protoss can take in LOTV, and had been incredibly difficult to defend with the LOTV Warp Prism and other buffs (Charge +8 damage, existence of Adepts, Immortal Shield change "nerf" which only actually made it harder to counter in mid-game it made EMP much less useful, etc).
And the Cyclone revert made it even harder to tech to Mech while getting a 3rd because they no longer had a jack-of-all-trades solid unit they could open with to scout, harass, and defend, while working up to other Mech units. I don't know how significant the +8 damage initially even was, but if it means getting a near extra full volley of tank shots off during the fight, that would be quite helpful.
Also it was cool to see them remind us and give props to SlayerS for that BFH drop build. That was an amazing time and it was so cool to see all their Terrans coordinate together and dominate a tournament like that with a new build.
I have an interesting idea: give the battlecruiser cargo capacity like a medivac, maybe 16 slots. Lore wise, it makes sense that a capital ship can carry troops inside it. This would allow the rest of the Terran army to come along when a battlecruiser tactical jumps to a new location and opens up for some exciting tactics.
On October 09 2019 04:20 Yoshi Kirishima wrote: I like the direction of some changes but some of the changes are weird and don't seem that well geared towards the intended goal that was stated.
Just some brief thoughts on a few things:
1) Infested Terran Change
Infested Terrans being 25 energy were nice and unique. They were weak individually but massed together it could do something. This being buffed reminds me of the Autoturret change to being a more high damage density unit. Everything in the game keeps being buffed to move faster or do more damage faster, which is something we've wanted to avoid (and go in the other direction when possible) throughout SC2.
One thing about ITs being 25 energy is that it was difficult to get a ton of them to actually shoot the intended target, like sniping a base from a cliff. Now that they can be clumped more easily, it will be more volatile and harder to deal with in a way as well.
While it's true that you could now kill a group of clumped ITs with splash easier, did the balance team not realize and think that the Zerg could simply spam click the ITs in a slightly more spread out area, taking up about the same amount of space as when they were 25 energy?? It would basically nullify the intended purpose of buffing splash's effectiveness vs ITs, and is a near straight up buff for most situations as long as the Zerg spam summons ITs in a slightly spread out area instead of clicking 1 point.
Also, it was harder to spawn a hundred ITs to snipe a base, because it took longer to click. This was also a natural balancing mechanic that will now be reduced.
You could say that if you were to try to spread out the new 50 energy ITs, that it would also be a natural balancing mechanic and require the Zerg more time to setup a large amount of ITs, similar to how spawning a ton of 25 energy ITs takes a ton of clicks. If these roughly equal out, then the new IT changes basically is a straight slight DPS buff. AND, in situations where the other player does not yet have much splash, will allow the ITs' higher damage density (and higher dps) to be able to snipe bases even more effectively than now.
At best, the IT changes are not clean enough for what the intended goals are. At worst, the IT change could buff them overall and make things even more volatile than they already are.
2) Battle Cruiser Warp Jump 1 Second Delay
Finally, I'm a Terran but that should have been obvious and there from the start.
3) Nydus Changes
Hurray again that the starting load/unload time is slightly nerfed. In pro games it seems as if an entire army can just go through it almost instantly, like teleporting around the map, which is obviously not what it should be (both lore wise and gamplay wise, as it makes it less unique compared to simply teleporting).
So, I do like that it takes longer to unload/load. What I don't like though, is that for only a 100/100 upgrade you can boost it back to the current speed for the rest of the game. You shouldn't be able to transfer your army between huge points nearly instantly, it should take some time for your army to move through. You should be able to reinforce a position with an army coming through, but there should be more of a hidden cost to it (it should take a bit longer for the rest of your army to go through to fight, instead of your maxed out army being there almost instantly). If you bring a big enough army and are in position already, you should be able to have a strong advantage vs the army that is trying to come out, enough to discourage the player to go through the Nydus with the rest of their army unless they have a much bigger army.
I believe it would be much better and more unique for them to simply tweak the Nydus in a way that involve the load/unload time increase, and force players to spawn MULTIPLE Nydus for each position later in the game if they want to move a huge army quicker. Nydus is not very expensive as it is, I think an upgrade is unnecessary. A Nydus Network is 150/150 that you can use throughout the whole game, and spawning a Nydus Worm is a measly 50/50.
If you want to move your 130 supply army through to the opponent's base, then you should just be encouraged to spawn 2 Nydus for that one position to get it through faster as a commitment. It would be very Zerg-like and more interesting than Zergs only using 1 Nydus for 99% of situations like it is now.
It would also be much less volatile. Right now it's like, if you don't finish off the Nydus, then their whole army comes through suddenly and it's over. But if the slower unload/load changes are passed, and there is no upgrade to buff it back to the current speed, it would mean Zergs would need to spawn 2 Nydus Worms to get their army through for a slightly higher price. It would also indeed mean you would need to kill both Worms as opposed to 1 to stop their army from coming through, but it would be more interesting this way, as if you killed only 1 of the 2 Worms, if the Zerg wanted to still come through the remaining Worm, it would be much more expensive to do so anyway as much more of their army would be killed due to the slower unloading. So it's an option for the Zerg but much much less cost efficient. If needed, the Worm durability could be reduced to to help balance this out.
Basically I think they should nerf the unload/load time for Nydus Worm a little to make it less scary early and mid game. And late game, it would be better for the design and gameplay if Zerg needed to spawn more than 1 Worm to get a big army through quickly. It's weird to me that in almost all situations, 1 Worm is enough whether you want to move a small force through or your maxed out army. It's wrong when you see pro matches where a defending player already has their whole army in their main base, failing to kill the Worm but is fighting the units spewing out, but yet the attacking player is able to commit and just send the rest of their army through it with little disadvantage. There needs to be a little more of a defender's advantage here, lest the attacking Zerg wants to spend a little more to spawn more Worms.
Props to them for the 14 second thing, that was well thought out.
4) Mech
It's great that they haven't forgotten about TvP mech, which was very weak last I tried (way weaker than Mech in HOTS which is very sad as it actually was pretty solid in HOTS). Nerfing the Chargelot by removing the +8 damage will help Mech take their third which is really crucial with how many bases Protoss can take in LOTV, and had been incredibly difficult to defend with the LOTV Warp Prism and other buffs (Charge +8 damage, existence of Adepts, Immortal Shield change "nerf" which only actually made it harder to counter in mid-game it made EMP much less useful, etc).
And the Cyclone revert made it even harder to tech to Mech while getting a 3rd because they no longer had a jack-of-all-trades solid unit they could open with to scout, harass, and defend, while working up to other Mech units. I don't know how significant the +8 damage initially even was, but if it means getting a near extra full volley of tank shots off during the fight, that would be quite helpful.
Also it was cool to see them remind us and give props to SlayerS for that BFH drop build. That was an amazing time and it was so cool to see all their Terrans coordinate together and dominate a tournament like that with a new build.
I really like the nydus discussion here.
A slightly different take on what you said, it would be interesting if spawning a nydus worm cost 10 supply. That would make it really hard to mass multiple worms and a great counter to nydus worms would be to snipe overlords. I'm the late game there would be a big trade off on being maxed versus saving supply to spawn worms.
On October 09 2019 04:20 Yoshi Kirishima wrote: I like the direction of some changes but some of the changes are weird and don't seem that well geared towards the intended goal that was stated.
Just some brief thoughts on a few things:
1) Infested Terran Change
Infested Terrans being 25 energy were nice and unique. They were weak individually but massed together it could do something. This being buffed reminds me of the Autoturret change to being a more high damage density unit. Everything in the game keeps being buffed to move faster or do more damage faster, which is something we've wanted to avoid (and go in the other direction when possible) throughout SC2.
One thing about ITs being 25 energy is that it was difficult to get a ton of them to actually shoot the intended target, like sniping a base from a cliff. Now that they can be clumped more easily, it will be more volatile and harder to deal with in a way as well.
While it's true that you could now kill a group of clumped ITs with splash easier, did the balance team not realize and think that the Zerg could simply spam click the ITs in a slightly more spread out area, taking up about the same amount of space as when they were 25 energy?? It would basically nullify the intended purpose of buffing splash's effectiveness vs ITs, and is a near straight up buff for most situations as long as the Zerg spam summons ITs in a slightly spread out area instead of clicking 1 point.
Also, it was harder to spawn a hundred ITs to snipe a base, because it took longer to click. This was also a natural balancing mechanic that will now be reduced.
You could say that if you were to try to spread out the new 50 energy ITs, that it would also be a natural balancing mechanic and require the Zerg more time to setup a large amount of ITs, similar to how spawning a ton of 25 energy ITs takes a ton of clicks. If these roughly equal out, then the new IT changes basically is a straight slight DPS buff. AND, in situations where the other player does not yet have much splash, will allow the ITs' higher damage density (and higher dps) to be able to snipe bases even more effectively than now.
At best, the IT changes are not clean enough for what the intended goals are. At worst, the IT change could buff them overall and make things even more volatile than they already are.
2) Battle Cruiser Warp Jump 1 Second Delay
Finally, I'm a Terran but that should have been obvious and there from the start.
3) Nydus Changes
Hurray again that the starting load/unload time is slightly nerfed. In pro games it seems as if an entire army can just go through it almost instantly, like teleporting around the map, which is obviously not what it should be (both lore wise and gamplay wise, as it makes it less unique compared to simply teleporting).
So, I do like that it takes longer to unload/load. What I don't like though, is that for only a 100/100 upgrade you can boost it back to the current speed for the rest of the game. You shouldn't be able to transfer your army between huge points nearly instantly, it should take some time for your army to move through. You should be able to reinforce a position with an army coming through, but there should be more of a hidden cost to it (it should take a bit longer for the rest of your army to go through to fight, instead of your maxed out army being there almost instantly). If you bring a big enough army and are in position already, you should be able to have a strong advantage vs the army that is trying to come out, enough to discourage the player to go through the Nydus with the rest of their army unless they have a much bigger army.
I believe it would be much better and more unique for them to simply tweak the Nydus in a way that involve the load/unload time increase, and force players to spawn MULTIPLE Nydus for each position later in the game if they want to move a huge army quicker. Nydus is not very expensive as it is, I think an upgrade is unnecessary. A Nydus Network is 150/150 that you can use throughout the whole game, and spawning a Nydus Worm is a measly 50/50.
If you want to move your 130 supply army through to the opponent's base, then you should just be encouraged to spawn 2 Nydus for that one position to get it through faster as a commitment. It would be very Zerg-like and more interesting than Zergs only using 1 Nydus for 99% of situations like it is now.
It would also be much less volatile. Right now it's like, if you don't finish off the Nydus, then their whole army comes through suddenly and it's over. But if the slower unload/load changes are passed, and there is no upgrade to buff it back to the current speed, it would mean Zergs would need to spawn 2 Nydus Worms to get their army through for a slightly higher price. It would also indeed mean you would need to kill both Worms as opposed to 1 to stop their army from coming through, but it would be more interesting this way, as if you killed only 1 of the 2 Worms, if the Zerg wanted to still come through the remaining Worm, it would be much more expensive to do so anyway as much more of their army would be killed due to the slower unloading. So it's an option for the Zerg but much much less cost efficient. If needed, the Worm durability could be reduced to to help balance this out.
Basically I think they should nerf the unload/load time for Nydus Worm a little to make it less scary early and mid game. And late game, it would be better for the design and gameplay if Zerg needed to spawn more than 1 Worm to get a big army through quickly. It's weird to me that in almost all situations, 1 Worm is enough whether you want to move a small force through or your maxed out army. It's wrong when you see pro matches where a defending player already has their whole army in their main base, failing to kill the Worm but is fighting the units spewing out, but yet the attacking player is able to commit and just send the rest of their army through it with little disadvantage. There needs to be a little more of a defender's advantage here, lest the attacking Zerg wants to spend a little more to spawn more Worms.
Props to them for the 14 second thing, that was well thought out.
4) Mech
It's great that they haven't forgotten about TvP mech, which was very weak last I tried (way weaker than Mech in HOTS which is very sad as it actually was pretty solid in HOTS). Nerfing the Chargelot by removing the +8 damage will help Mech take their third which is really crucial with how many bases Protoss can take in LOTV, and had been incredibly difficult to defend with the LOTV Warp Prism and other buffs (Charge +8 damage, existence of Adepts, Immortal Shield change "nerf" which only actually made it harder to counter in mid-game it made EMP much less useful, etc).
And the Cyclone revert made it even harder to tech to Mech while getting a 3rd because they no longer had a jack-of-all-trades solid unit they could open with to scout, harass, and defend, while working up to other Mech units. I don't know how significant the +8 damage initially even was, but if it means getting a near extra full volley of tank shots off during the fight, that would be quite helpful.
Also it was cool to see them remind us and give props to SlayerS for that BFH drop build. That was an amazing time and it was so cool to see all their Terrans coordinate together and dominate a tournament like that with a new build.
I really like the nydus discussion here.
A slightly different take on what you said, it would be interesting if spawning a nydus worm cost 10 supply. That would make it really hard to mass multiple worms and a great counter to nydus worms would be to snipe overlords. I'm the late game there would be a big trade off on being maxed versus saving supply to spawn worms.
Pretty good post there Yoshi, hadn’t actually considered that IT DPS would be more locally concentrated.
Specifics aside, just introducing more trade-offs as a general principle is definitely a direction I wish Blizzard would explore.
As per previous discussions on the warpgate mechanic, I’m ok with potent things being in the game but, introduce more risk or difficulty of execution, or a strategic dimension to it.
Introducing a supply cost I quite like actually, have a more mobile but slightly smaller army than you could otherwise have. Would also make the allins hit slightly less hard.
I’m just sick of nydus play because the balance feels so far off in the lategame. When Rogue threw down 25 or something in one game against Dark, just silly.
If they entered the mass nuke zone where you could still keep pumping them out, but lose because of it, cool. I can recall offhand plenty of games where a Terran has bled himself out with inefficient overnuking and you can point to it as a contributory factor.
I really can’t think of a game that goes late where I’ve ever felt, ‘oh he made too many nyduses that game, that was bad strategically and cost him the game.’
I really cannot think of a mechanic in a game that is easy to execute, difficult to defend in a stretched lategame and has legitimate game winning potential if it comes off once, that you can just keep repeating over and over again with little cost.
Or at least a mechanic in a good game anyway. Silver lining I guess is for once by theorycrafting of many moons ago that lategame Nydus was mystifyingly underused has been validated of late if nothing else :p
I feel that in late game nydus is a nice tool to break a defensive opponent.
One other way to stop or tone down mid game nydus to require creep for exit (as someone already mentioned) before the hive time upgrade. So the Z would have to fly a (slow) overlord over the base, quite visible, drop creep, then plant the nydus exit. The hive upgrade would revert to the vision is enough behavior, as it is currently.
On October 09 2019 04:20 Yoshi Kirishima wrote: I like the direction of some changes but some of the changes are weird and don't seem that well geared towards the intended goal that was stated.
Just some brief thoughts on a few things:
1) Infested Terran Change
Infested Terrans being 25 energy were nice and unique. They were weak individually but massed together it could do something. This being buffed reminds me of the Autoturret change to being a more high damage density unit. Everything in the game keeps being buffed to move faster or do more damage faster, which is something we've wanted to avoid (and go in the other direction when possible) throughout SC2.
One thing about ITs being 25 energy is that it was difficult to get a ton of them to actually shoot the intended target, like sniping a base from a cliff. Now that they can be clumped more easily, it will be more volatile and harder to deal with in a way as well.
While it's true that you could now kill a group of clumped ITs with splash easier, did the balance team not realize and think that the Zerg could simply spam click the ITs in a slightly more spread out area, taking up about the same amount of space as when they were 25 energy?? It would basically nullify the intended purpose of buffing splash's effectiveness vs ITs, and is a near straight up buff for most situations as long as the Zerg spam summons ITs in a slightly spread out area instead of clicking 1 point.
Also, it was harder to spawn a hundred ITs to snipe a base, because it took longer to click. This was also a natural balancing mechanic that will now be reduced.
You could say that if you were to try to spread out the new 50 energy ITs, that it would also be a natural balancing mechanic and require the Zerg more time to setup a large amount of ITs, similar to how spawning a ton of 25 energy ITs takes a ton of clicks. If these roughly equal out, then the new IT changes basically is a straight slight DPS buff. AND, in situations where the other player does not yet have much splash, will allow the ITs' higher damage density (and higher dps) to be able to snipe bases even more effectively than now.
At best, the IT changes are not clean enough for what the intended goals are. At worst, the IT change could buff them overall and make things even more volatile than they already are.
The IT change is nowhere near a buff in direct engagements. It's a straight up nerf.
First of all, despite costing double the energy, it only gets a 50% buff in HP. This is huge, especially considering the fact that 75 HP is enough to be OHKO'd by liberators, psionic storm, and disruptors. This means that Infested Terrans now take half as many liberator shots and half (maybe more, since, like you said, they can be spread out) as many disruptor and psionic storms to kill. Overall less firepower is needed to contend with a full spawn of ITs.
On the other hand, ITs got a slight DPS buff, taking the double energy into consideration. However, it must be noted that ITs are now more susceptible to overkill.
Finally, the amount of space 25 energy ITs take up cannot be understated. With 50 energy ITs, a Zerg player cannot just flood the space beneath Protoss and Terran air units with ITs and zone their ground units out to the same extent they did before. ITs will take up less space and will be surrounded by Protoss and Terran ground units easier as well.
Overall ITs were massively nerfed in direct engagements. It will be significantly harder to employ the same tactics to break a Terran position or dive on a Skytoss death ball.
You are right that the new IT is a buff in indirect engagements/harassment like sniping a base from a cliff like you mentioned. But that is not where mass infestors are insanely powerful. Their insane strength occurs when they are massed in death balls and participate in direct engagements.
Amount of clicks needed to deploy infestors is basically a nonfactor at the highest levels of play.
+ Reduce workers at start to ~8-10 Nerf WGate and move it to TC + buff GW units Replace MShip by MSC as a normal unit with all MS abilities Bring back Ultralisk speed upgrade Add some new upgrades
Also, it was harder to spawn a hundred ITs to snipe a base, because it took longer to click. This was also a natural balancing mechanic that will now be reduced.
AFAIK progamers do this with the mousewheel, therefore no clicks needed. You spin the wheel which basically accounts for 100s of clicks in a sec
On October 09 2019 12:18 bela.mervado wrote: I feel that in late game nydus is a nice tool to break a defensive opponent.
One other way to stop or tone down mid game nydus to require creep for exit (as someone already mentioned) before the hive time upgrade. So the Z would have to fly a (slow) overlord over the base, quite visible, drop creep, then plant the nydus exit. The hive upgrade would revert to the vision is enough behavior, as it is currently.
Honestly, I've always wondered whether a nydus worm just shouldn't spread creep, taking the creep buffs away, the ability to spread tumors, and possibly take up important space even after it's gone. Being able to fight 'on creep' from an effective nydus seems like an unfair offender's advantage taking into account how important creep is, and I've never really seen that discussed before.
Also, it was harder to spawn a hundred ITs to snipe a base, because it took longer to click. This was also a natural balancing mechanic that will now be reduced.
AFAIK progamers do this with the mousewheel, therefore no clicks needed. You spin the wheel which basically accounts for 100s of clicks in a sec
Either that or you can also bind left click to an unused key in the hotkey settings (I have it set to space). With that, you can hit the IT spell cast key, hold down shift, then hold down the key you set to be left click and it will cast the spell far faster than you could ever click. Even worse, you don't even need to move your mouse since it will automatically spread out the ITs in an increasing radius around where your mouse pointer is for you. You can technically use this method for any spell, but the IT spell is the only spell it's actually good for other than maybe creep spreading. Protoss players also use it for warping in units fast (I learned it from Parting's stream).
I would love for games to require more midrange units for longer peiords of time. There are a lot of ways to go about this, but just as an example, this is what I would change to zerg
Zerg: move upgrades for units to be completed at the Hatchery / Lair / Hive.
This would make the following changes. Lingspeed: the upgrade can be completed at a hatchery. Roach movement speed/burrow movement. upgrades moved to lair. Hydra den: Require Hatchery. Hydra upgrades can be completed at Lair. (Hydras attack range = 4, range upgrade now gives +2)
Spire: Requires Lair. attack / armor upgrades still at spire. Infestation Pit: upgrades for infestor are done at the Hive. Infestor Changes: Reduce unit size by 0.25 Fungal Growth: able to cast while burrowed. Units take damage and slow movement speed, but the fungal should cover the ground, and allow units to move out of it / blink etc. Area of fungal growth increased by .25 Neural parasite removed. Neural Inhibition added: Requires upgrade at hive. Costs 100 energy. Sends microspores at an enemy unit that is capable of disrupting it's neural / electrical network and disables the units similar to that of the raven's interference matrix. The only difference is that the unit will be unable to be given a new command. for example, if a mothership is moved forward slightly and during this time period before it stops moving, it is hit with neural inhibition, it will continue moving forward until it wears off. If the mother ship is stationary when hit with the spell, the MS will be unable to perform any new commands. If the mothership is attacked moved forward towards another specific building/creature it will continue to move towards that unit until it reaches that unit at which time it will stop moving until the spell wears off. (personally I think this is one of the better changes of all of these that should be considered, it will allow good counterplay on both parts and won't completely punish a retreating player nearly as bad as neural parasite would, but can be used to punish an aggressive player who moves to far forward.
Hive: Require Infestation pit Lurker Den: Requires Hive. Lurker upgrades to be done at the hive Greater Spire: Requires Hive. * make broodlords initially have attack similar to guardian. Upgrade at hive attack changes to broodling. Ultralisk Cavern: Requires Hive. Ultra Upgrades are done at Hive.
This should drastically add to the amount of time it will take a zerg player to move all the way up the tech tree and extend the mid-game. At the same time, it would allow for strategic decisions such as making more than 1 lair to hit certain upgrades, and will create more strategic choices in determining how many queens to build, when in the build order to build them since the lair / hatchery / Hive will need to also be performing upgrades. With the queens you do build, you will have to decide if they should do larvae injections or creep spreading. At the same time, Hydras can come out sooner to help defend. Some of the units would need the base stats altered to be balanced to account for the change in pace that will happen to the zerg economically. I think this would help the zerg brood feel more similar to it's BW counterpart where it slowly builds up and then overwhelms an opponent and is capable of playing on a level playing field with a smaller army supply until the end game when it overruns an opponent.
Obviously such a drastic change would need to be balanced in a similar fashion for terran / protoss as well. one of the ways this can be done is by increasing the costs and timings of certain upgrades for units, and by adding in some late game upgrades for the Tier 1 units. This would allow all 3 races to have late game low tier armies that can be supplemented by higher tier units instead of a large mass of high tier units that completely dominate the lower tier compositions.
Just as a few quick examples. Increase build time for Twighlight council, Robo Bay, and Fleet Beacon
Add a stalker upgrade that gives small amounts of splash damage to it. at the same time reduce the strength of storm. this upgrade would require DT tech Give immortal / disruptors a useful upgrade. This would cause Protoss to commit more to a specific robounit. Disruptors + 0.25 nova range explosion Immortals + 1 range attack
For Terran. Move Bio Upgrades to the Ghost Academy. (Stim, Combat shields, concussive shell). Ghost Academy Costs reduced to 150 minerals / 0 gas Give Bio an antisplash upgrade such that if a marine is hit with splash damage, it reduces it's life to 1 instead of killing it if it's currently being healed by a unit. (requires an upgrade at the ghost academy) Give medivacs the ability to heal 2 units at the same time - upgrade at the fusion core. Ghost Cloak upgrades / Nuke now require a fusion core.
Siege Tanks: Siege ability now requires an upgrade. Fast Siege: Siege tanks now siege faster, requires an upgrade, requires armory Widow Mines: By default do not do splash damage Can get splash damage by an upgrade
Terran mech upgrades should require an armory but are completed with a tech lab addon
Similar to zerg tech tree being slowed down, this will also slow down the advancement of the Terran and protoss tech trees by requiring more of a commitment to certain units. The examples of Protoss and Terran changes are not all the changes I would make, but it is more of a theme of slowing down the progression of the game and making the late early game and midgame last longer and require more commitment to tech choices while also allowing flexibility to respond to what you are scouting your opponent doing.
On October 09 2019 12:18 bela.mervado wrote: I feel that in late game nydus is a nice tool to break a defensive opponent.
One other way to stop or tone down mid game nydus to require creep for exit (as someone already mentioned) before the hive time upgrade. So the Z would have to fly a (slow) overlord over the base, quite visible, drop creep, then plant the nydus exit. The hive upgrade would revert to the vision is enough behavior, as it is currently.
Honestly, I've always wondered whether a nydus worm just shouldn't spread creep, taking the creep buffs away, the ability to spread tumors, and possibly take up important space even after it's gone. Being able to fight 'on creep' from an effective nydus seems like an unfair offender's advantage taking into account how important creep is, and I've never really seen that discussed before.
Even if i think you re probably right in terms of game design, Zerg race has always been favoured from creep tumours advantages.. That s why i think it s not mandatory for Blizz team. Further, to me the problem remains from spreading creep since Beta of SC2, the creep tumors isn t like a "building" cause it s invisible, and it s a huge advantage cause Zerg can handle fight behind and near his border creep line and other races has to pay attention, standing far from the creep. Of course, if Blizz (or me) could do a test map, some other buff will be required to help start of the Zerg game
I decided to play a few games as zerg and one thing that immediately stood out to me (especially ZvT, mid-game and onwards) is how much vision a Z player has throughout the game.
Creep tumors seem downright stupid, especially with how much access to cheap and reliable scouting a Z has (in the forms of lings and overlords).
This got me to think - how big of a deal would it be if a creep tumor had 0 vision (that is it wouldn't be able to see itself) and wouldn't give alerts when attacked? Spreading creep wouldn't be that much harder than it is now (because of speedlings and overlords), but it would be a tad harder to do it perfectly, especially when pressured. Zergs would have to be slighty more mindful of unit placement throughout the game, akin to other races, since creep alone would no longer be enough to notice incoming attacks / unit positioning (which I feel is a big deal in the mid game; it seems like it's impossible to catch the zerg unprepared anywhere on his side of the map because of the vision creep tumors give).
On October 11 2019 06:05 True_Spike wrote: I decided to play a few games as zerg and one thing that immediately stood out to me (especially ZvT, mid-game and onwards) is how much vision a Z player has throughout the game.
Creep tumors seem downright stupid, especially with how much access to cheap and reliable scouting a Z has (in the forms of lings and overlords).
This got me to think - how big of a deal would it be if a creep tumor had 0 vision (that is it wouldn't be able to see itself) and wouldn't give alerts when attacked? Spreading creep wouldn't be that much harder than it is now (because of speedlings and overlords), but it would be a tad harder to do it perfectly, especially when pressured. Zergs would have to be slighty more mindful of unit placement throughout the game, akin to other races, since creep alone would no longer be enough to notice incoming attacks / unit positioning (which I feel is a big deal in the mid game; it seems like it's impossible to catch the zerg unprepared anywhere on his side of the map because of the vision creep tumors give).
This has been a complaint of pro terran and protoss players for years now, even back in the old days. Once a Zerg gets enough creep spread on a map, they can't really be surprised by attacks anymore and the combination of the vision and speed boost from creep makes it so getting a positional advantage against lategame zerg is quite difficult. I've always thought even a reduction in vision for the creep tumours would be more than enough. Make it equivalent to a burrowed unit or something along those lines.
On October 11 2019 06:05 True_Spike wrote: I decided to play a few games as zerg and one thing that immediately stood out to me (especially ZvT, mid-game and onwards) is how much vision a Z player has throughout the game.
Creep tumors seem downright stupid, especially with how much access to cheap and reliable scouting a Z has (in the forms of lings and overlords).
This got me to think - how big of a deal would it be if a creep tumor had 0 vision (that is it wouldn't be able to see itself) and wouldn't give alerts when attacked? Spreading creep wouldn't be that much harder than it is now (because of speedlings and overlords), but it would be a tad harder to do it perfectly, especially when pressured. Zergs would have to be slighty more mindful of unit placement throughout the game, akin to other races, since creep alone would no longer be enough to notice incoming attacks / unit positioning (which I feel is a big deal in the mid game; it seems like it's impossible to catch the zerg unprepared anywhere on his side of the map because of the vision creep tumors give).
Don't forget ovies on the sides of the maps. That's why I love to play as Zerg. I don't have to build 6 or so observers I don't know, I find it neat, but at the same time it's stupid, IMO only the active creep tumors should give vision, dead ones should just keep the creap there and that's it.
Neural Parasite upgrade removed... RIP Thors and Mothership. The Infested Terran patch is more interesting though, making it more like Raven's turrents rather than BL's lings.
On October 11 2019 06:05 True_Spike wrote: I decided to play a few games as zerg and one thing that immediately stood out to me (especially ZvT, mid-game and onwards) is how much vision a Z player has throughout the game.
Creep tumors seem downright stupid, especially with how much access to cheap and reliable scouting a Z has (in the forms of lings and overlords).
This got me to think - how big of a deal would it be if a creep tumor had 0 vision (that is it wouldn't be able to see itself) and wouldn't give alerts when attacked? Spreading creep wouldn't be that much harder than it is now (because of speedlings and overlords), but it would be a tad harder to do it perfectly, especially when pressured. Zergs would have to be slighty more mindful of unit placement throughout the game, akin to other races, since creep alone would no longer be enough to notice incoming attacks / unit positioning (which I feel is a big deal in the mid game; it seems like it's impossible to catch the zerg unprepared anywhere on his side of the map because of the vision creep tumors give).
Agree and don't agree.
That would make scans quite OP in late game?
Better to make tumors cost more energy imo and/or make the range of expanding tumors shorter. Or remove that cheap overlord speed.
Not sure. I like that you don't have to die with your supply as much as you could in BW just for scouting.
I guess I like the design of creep. It's a cool feature and I would happily see other nerfs as listed above.
If you open 1-1-1 with an expansion can a infestor be out when you teleport your BC to their base (or very shortly after)? If yes that means that BC openings are dead since if you lose your first BC you lose the game.
On October 11 2019 17:53 MockHamill wrote: If you open 1-1-1 with an expansion can a infestor be out when you teleport your BC to their base (or very shortly after)? If yes that means that BC openings are dead since if you lose your first BC you lose the game.
If zerg got an infestor out for that time, you wouldn't lose because the zerg would have literally no economy or units. They'd just have an infestor.
On October 11 2019 06:05 True_Spike wrote: I decided to play a few games as zerg and one thing that immediately stood out to me (especially ZvT, mid-game and onwards) is how much vision a Z player has throughout the game.
Creep tumors seem downright stupid, especially with how much access to cheap and reliable scouting a Z has (in the forms of lings and overlords).
This got me to think - how big of a deal would it be if a creep tumor had 0 vision (that is it wouldn't be able to see itself) and wouldn't give alerts when attacked? Spreading creep wouldn't be that much harder than it is now (because of speedlings and overlords), but it would be a tad harder to do it perfectly, especially when pressured. Zergs would have to be slighty more mindful of unit placement throughout the game, akin to other races, since creep alone would no longer be enough to notice incoming attacks / unit positioning (which I feel is a big deal in the mid game; it seems like it's impossible to catch the zerg unprepared anywhere on his side of the map because of the vision creep tumors give).
Don't forget ovies on the sides of the maps. That's why I love to play as Zerg. I don't have to build 6 or so observers I don't know, I find it neat, but at the same time it's stupid, IMO only the active creep tumors should give vision, dead ones should just keep the creap there and that's it.
I’m not sure what nerfs would hit a sweet spot where Zerg isn’t terrible and creep isn’t so potent. Zerg is really reliant on that early warning system to morph units plus set up flanks.
Increase the cool down a little on tumours maybe so the spread isn’t quite so insane? Or some kind of vision nerf, etc.
It’s a big change to start messing with but is really overdue in being something to look at.
The way Legacy flows with its eco and tech Zerg can push it out really aggressively and quickly, and Terran and Protoss don’t have an equivalent boost in windows to push the creep back or delay it.
On October 11 2019 06:05 True_Spike wrote: I decided to play a few games as zerg and one thing that immediately stood out to me (especially ZvT, mid-game and onwards) is how much vision a Z player has throughout the game.
Creep tumors seem downright stupid, especially with how much access to cheap and reliable scouting a Z has (in the forms of lings and overlords).
This got me to think - how big of a deal would it be if a creep tumor had 0 vision (that is it wouldn't be able to see itself) and wouldn't give alerts when attacked? Spreading creep wouldn't be that much harder than it is now (because of speedlings and overlords), but it would be a tad harder to do it perfectly, especially when pressured. Zergs would have to be slighty more mindful of unit placement throughout the game, akin to other races, since creep alone would no longer be enough to notice incoming attacks / unit positioning (which I feel is a big deal in the mid game; it seems like it's impossible to catch the zerg unprepared anywhere on his side of the map because of the vision creep tumors give).
Don't forget ovies on the sides of the maps. That's why I love to play as Zerg. I don't have to build 6 or so observers I don't know, I find it neat, but at the same time it's stupid, IMO only the active creep tumors should give vision, dead ones should just keep the creap there and that's it.
I’m not sure what nerfs would hit a sweet spot where Zerg isn’t terrible and creep isn’t so potent. Zerg is really reliant on that early warning system to morph units plus set up flanks.
Increase the cool down a little on tumours maybe so the spread isn’t quite so insane? Or some kind of vision nerf, etc.
It’s a big change to start messing with but is really overdue in being something to look at.
The way Legacy flows with its eco and tech Zerg can push it out really aggressively and quickly, and Terran and Protoss don’t have an equivalent boost in windows to push the creep back or delay it.
Zerg has a unit for 0.5 supply. It's not like they have to sacrifice so much for an early warning system once you know they're coming(because the edge of the creep would keep the vision). It would need some testing, but the current - I can see the whole map - system is wrong(IMO)
On October 11 2019 06:05 True_Spike wrote: I decided to play a few games as zerg and one thing that immediately stood out to me (especially ZvT, mid-game and onwards) is how much vision a Z player has throughout the game.
Creep tumors seem downright stupid, especially with how much access to cheap and reliable scouting a Z has (in the forms of lings and overlords).
This got me to think - how big of a deal would it be if a creep tumor had 0 vision (that is it wouldn't be able to see itself) and wouldn't give alerts when attacked? Spreading creep wouldn't be that much harder than it is now (because of speedlings and overlords), but it would be a tad harder to do it perfectly, especially when pressured. Zergs would have to be slighty more mindful of unit placement throughout the game, akin to other races, since creep alone would no longer be enough to notice incoming attacks / unit positioning (which I feel is a big deal in the mid game; it seems like it's impossible to catch the zerg unprepared anywhere on his side of the map because of the vision creep tumors give).
Don't forget ovies on the sides of the maps. That's why I love to play as Zerg. I don't have to build 6 or so observers I don't know, I find it neat, but at the same time it's stupid, IMO only the active creep tumors should give vision, dead ones should just keep the creap there and that's it.
I’m not sure what nerfs would hit a sweet spot where Zerg isn’t terrible and creep isn’t so potent. Zerg is really reliant on that early warning system to morph units plus set up flanks.
Increase the cool down a little on tumours maybe so the spread isn’t quite so insane? Or some kind of vision nerf, etc.
It’s a big change to start messing with but is really overdue in being something to look at.
The way Legacy flows with its eco and tech Zerg can push it out really aggressively and quickly, and Terran and Protoss don’t have an equivalent boost in windows to push the creep back or delay it.
Zerg has a unit for 0.5 supply. It's not like they have to sacrifice so much for an early warning system once you know they're coming(because the edge of the creep would keep the vision). It would need some testing, but the current - I can see the whole map - system is wrong(IMO)
No I totally agree with the system feeling wrong to me, much like my dislike of Warp gates in their current form.
With borderline maphack across large portions of the map it feels super constricting, for Protoss especially. It’s super risky to be out on the map outside of actually pushes/fake pushes, Zerg get time to ascertain your strength and can pounce on you, if you shave off a bunch of Zealots to hit outlying bases they can see you coming a mile off.
There’s also the small/large factor of not knowing what your opponent has actually seen too. A Terran scan is a rather big giveaway, or if I catch and obs. With creep you have to assume the possibility that everything you’re doing is seen, which forces cautious play even if your opponent hasn’t seen you, or the tumours are positioned so they didn’t grant vision to a location.
There’s plenty to experiment with, you and others have mentioned some other ideas too. Even if the spawned tumours spread creep at a bigger radius, but were on a higher cool down period might do something. You get the same equivalent spread of creep but with fewer tumours, so they give less of a vision bonus, plus fewer tumours are easier to clear so pushing the creep back is more viable.
It’s such a large part of the game that I’m struggling to instinctively get a fell of how much changes would affect it and to what degree, but I absolutely feel it’s an area worth looking at.
On October 11 2019 06:05 True_Spike wrote: I decided to play a few games as zerg and one thing that immediately stood out to me (especially ZvT, mid-game and onwards) is how much vision a Z player has throughout the game.
Creep tumors seem downright stupid, especially with how much access to cheap and reliable scouting a Z has (in the forms of lings and overlords).
This got me to think - how big of a deal would it be if a creep tumor had 0 vision (that is it wouldn't be able to see itself) and wouldn't give alerts when attacked? Spreading creep wouldn't be that much harder than it is now (because of speedlings and overlords), but it would be a tad harder to do it perfectly, especially when pressured. Zergs would have to be slighty more mindful of unit placement throughout the game, akin to other races, since creep alone would no longer be enough to notice incoming attacks / unit positioning (which I feel is a big deal in the mid game; it seems like it's impossible to catch the zerg unprepared anywhere on his side of the map because of the vision creep tumors give).
Don't forget ovies on the sides of the maps. That's why I love to play as Zerg. I don't have to build 6 or so observers I don't know, I find it neat, but at the same time it's stupid, IMO only the active creep tumors should give vision, dead ones should just keep the creap there and that's it.
I’m not sure what nerfs would hit a sweet spot where Zerg isn’t terrible and creep isn’t so potent. Zerg is really reliant on that early warning system to morph units plus set up flanks.
Increase the cool down a little on tumours maybe so the spread isn’t quite so insane? Or some kind of vision nerf, etc.
It’s a big change to start messing with but is really overdue in being something to look at.
The way Legacy flows with its eco and tech Zerg can push it out really aggressively and quickly, and Terran and Protoss don’t have an equivalent boost in windows to push the creep back or delay it.
Zerg has a unit for 0.5 supply. It's not like they have to sacrifice so much for an early warning system once you know they're coming(because the edge of the creep would keep the vision). It would need some testing, but the current - I can see the whole map - system is wrong(IMO)
Which is exactly why I think creep tumors should not give vision at all. The edge of the creep is the problem here, since this is what gives you ample time to prepare (and mid-game you always have tons of active creep tumors due to queens pretty much re-spreading creep after every engagement).
Even without creep it seems like Zerg has the best scouting potential out of all the races (in terms of investment cost vs efficiency). Scouting would require more thought than just spamming creep tumors whichever direction you want, even if it's just as simple as sending a ling somewhere on a map (and re-sending it every time it dies; the same way the other 2 races have to scout, losing resources in the process, too).
Injects aren't exactly hard or tedious now with rapid casting prevalent in the game either, so forcing zergs to slightly focus on something else every now and then doesn't seem like a huge deal.
I already thought to remove vision of creep tumours but i think it s better, in term of game design, to let the vision and remove invisibility --- Like that, ennemies of Zerg will continue to struggle against the borderline of creep (T often get caught, P can struggle a little bit imo)
Then add hit points and armor, buildings priority, plus some welcome upgrade/buff to help defence against among others hellions,
On October 11 2019 21:24 Vision_ wrote: Of course it s THE problem since the Beta...
I already thought to remove vision of creep tumours but i think it s better, in term of game design, to let the vision and remove invisibility --- Like that, ennemies of Zerg will continue to struggle against the borderline of creep (T often get caught, P can struggle a little bit imo)
Then add hit points and armor, buildings priority, plus some welcome upgrade/buff to help defence against among others hellions,
I don't think that's the way to go, because it would be downright impossible to spread any creep in the early game (and having *some* creep is essential, especially vs terran).
On October 11 2019 21:24 Vision_ wrote: Of course it s THE problem since the Beta...
I already thought to remove vision of creep tumours but i think it s better, in term of game design, to let the vision and remove invisibility --- Like that, ennemies of Zerg will continue to struggle against the borderline of creep (T often get caught, P can struggle a little bit imo)
Then add hit points and armor, buildings priority, plus some welcome upgrade/buff to help defence against among others hellions,
I don't think that's the way to go, because it would be downright impossible to spread any creep in the early game (and having *some* creep is essential, especially vs terran).
I agree that it is not the way to go, but creep is way too powerful for defensive purposes, it feels like having a maphack. Additionally, it is an anti-comeback mechanism.
An intermediate alternative would be that creep tumors do not grant complete vision, but only reveal opponent units like the sensor tower does.
On October 11 2019 02:55 Riner1212 wrote: would merging hellbats upgrade with bio upgrade be viable? i mean medivacs do heal hellbats so the are technically bio units is it not?
I've always think that the change that makes most sense about hellbats is to remove the bio tag and add a passive ability that allows them to be healed by medivacs.
It will make no impact in anything but the interaction betwen them and archons, wich would help terran do more conservative mech styles vs protoss without really changing much of anything.
On October 11 2019 02:55 Riner1212 wrote: would merging hellbats upgrade with bio upgrade be viable? i mean medivacs do heal hellbats so the are technically bio units is it not?
I've always think that the change that makes most sense about hellbats is to remove the bio tag and add a passive ability that allows them to be healed by medivacs.
It will make no impact in anything but the interaction betwen them and archons, wich would help terran do more conservative mech styles vs protoss without really changing much of anything.
Glad to see blue flame finally get buffed. I think it was a long time coming. I think they could have made this change all the way back since the queen range buff in 2012 and the game would be fine.
People want creep tumor vision to be gone now....make it stop
We already know what happens when you remove a defensive foundation from a race - look no further than Protoss losing its mothership core at the end of 2017. Protoss hasn't been a real trophy viable race since.
Creep was literally just nerfed after last Blizzcon. For the first time in SC2's history, creep recedes faster than it spreads (it used to be equal). Transfuse was nerfed too. Zerg will become dead in the water to timing attacks if these are nerfed any further without massive buffs (like making hydra a T1 unit) since garbage roaches dont cut it otherwise
What is the deal with trying to blow up a race with a barrage of nerfs? Look what happened to Protoss. The results of "balancing OP Protoss" were disastrous. The race is a complete and utter joke now and will become even more of a joke when Stats and Classic are gone.
This whole thing is really upsetting. No one is blind to the current state of the game, everyone agrees on the late game balance issues, and it feels like they didn't really address them. Protoss are getting screwed again, Zerg get more buffs... it feels like the primary focus was the TvZ matchup this time
On October 11 2019 21:19 Harris1st wrote: I would not change the vision itself but CD of Creep Tumors as well as energy cost of the initial tumors.
How many games have you seen where T/ P kills 4-6 tumors just for the zerg to plant 15 new ones
Your solution doesn't solve your problem. An increased CD doesn't matter at all when you have 8 queens.
This right here.
So, increase the supply cost of queens. Maybe now Zergs can’t just mindlessly spam them without reducing the quality of their army.
This will be a subtle change that won’t completely create new mechanics for the players, but will softly adjust the power of queens.
With cheaper overlord speed and warp-prism range nerfed, there’s no rationale for keeping queens this strong for defensive purposes. Zergs will have to actually respond with varying units and techs as needed.
idk if its been suggested in here yet, but if the adept shield upgrade was available on cyber core it would actually make the 2 upgrades really interesting. it would give the toss the ability to choose between faster WG, or a stronger adept timing from normal gateway production. it has pros and cons, the timing would be stronger, but it would be relatively easy to identify if the toss doesnt have WG by a certain timing, would pretty much require a certain amount of damage for any continuation or transition from the toss, would allow both upgs for adepts to be used relatively early game etc.
not sure if it is a perfect resolution, but +20 shields for the upg time and cost being on twilight will make the upgrade go unused because it is literally always better to get glaives first, and then by the time you need a 2nd upg zealots are better.
On October 13 2019 10:56 DanceSC wrote: This whole thing is really upsetting. No one is blind to the current state of the game, everyone agrees on the late game balance issues, and it feels like they didn't really address them. Protoss are getting screwed again, Zerg get more buffs... it feels like the primary focus was the TvZ matchup this time
What Blizzard is doing to protoss is disgusting. Protoss is not allowed to have strong units it seems. Not even a core unit like the zealot is untouchable.
Blizzard's idea of Protoss lategame buffs are a 2 second faster interceptor build time (lol) and a random upgrade that gives useless adepts 20 shield bonus....all of the juicy buffs like are saved for Terran and to a lesser extent Zerg.
I have a feeling the same thing is about to happen to zerg. The same thing I saw happening to Protoss over the last two years (PROTOSSED memes spammed on twitch and reddit + Blizzard burying the race in nerfs) seems to be happening to Zerg....all I see on twitch, reddit, and youtube is anti-zerg trolling followed by ham fisted nerfs. A few months ago everyone was talking about how protoss was OP just because of some over representation in a single ST Ro8....after Protoss was crushed it's Zerg's turn? Is Blizzard even taking this seriously?
The game is in the worse state Ive ever seen it. Legendary Protoss players like Zest, sOs, Parting, and hero are written off as jokes/cheesers. Macro gods like Zest, Stats, and Classic are cannon rushing on the brink of elimination in the GSL. Classic and Stats are practically gone thanks to Military. None of the elite young talents are choosing protoss. Who is the reynor, clem, time of Protoss? All that's left is trap, who cannot seem to win a trophy, and neeb who just farms his NA region. The race was completely defanged.
On October 13 2019 04:57 BerserkSword wrote: People want creep tumor vision to be gone now....make it stop
We already know what happens when you remove a defensive foundation from a race - look no further than Protoss losing its mothership core at the end of 2017. Protoss hasn't been a real trophy viable race since.
Don't do the same thing to Zerg.
Zerg needs to be nerfed, and nerfed hard. Protoss is already weak, as you say (mainly against Zerg) and Terran is hardly winning much lately (particularly weak in TvP and late game vs Zerg). You seem to be ignoring the fact that balance is based on the relative strength of each race. A nerf to one is effectively a buff to the others. Nerfing Zerg will help bring Protoss back to viability in PvZ (which is absolutely needed) and will help Terran in late game scenarios. Bringing Zerg down to Protoss' level is absolutely needed. Protoss buffs are not the answer as TvP is already too hard for Terran.
The current proposed changes are completely inadequate. The evidence of Zerg's strength against both other races is clear and major nerfs are needed, especially to the Infestor and I wouldn't at all mind further nerfs to creep - it's insanely powerful and suffocates the opponent. The existing nerf barely affected the real in-game speed of creep spread - look at any pro game and the map with be mostly covered by 10 minutes (and that's with the opponent constantly clearing it).
On October 13 2019 04:57 BerserkSword wrote: People want creep tumor vision to be gone now....make it stop
We already know what happens when you remove a defensive foundation from a race - look no further than Protoss losing its mothership core at the end of 2017. Protoss hasn't been a real trophy viable race since.
Don't do the same thing to Zerg.
Zerg needs to be nerfed, and nerfed hard. Protoss is already weak, as you say (mainly against Zerg) and Terran is hardly winning much lately (particularly weak in TvP and late game vs Zerg). You seem to be ignoring the fact that balance is based on the relative strength of each race. A nerf to one is effectively a buff to the others. Nerfing Zerg will help bring Protoss back to viability in PvZ (which is absolutely needed) and will help Terran in late game scenarios. Bringing Zerg down to Protoss' level is absolutely needed. Protoss buffs are not the answer as TvP is already too hard for Terran.
The current proposed changes are completely inadequate. The evidence of Zerg's strength against both other races is clear and major nerfs are needed, especially to the Infestor and I wouldn't at all mind further nerfs to creep - it's insanely powerful and suffocates the opponent. The existing nerf barely affected the real in-game speed of creep spread - look at any pro game and the map with be mostly covered by 10 minutes (and that's with the opponent constantly clearing it).
Agree 100%. I still don't get why Blizzard seems to not want to admit the imbalance of Z vs T/P, this needs to be adressed. Unfortunately the proposed changes nerf toss even more while Z looks quite the same. It's pretty strange to me how this could be the case.
Also, why do they plan to have 100 updates in one building? This is stupid imo
On October 13 2019 04:57 BerserkSword wrote: People want creep tumor vision to be gone now....make it stop
We already know what happens when you remove a defensive foundation from a race - look no further than Protoss losing its mothership core at the end of 2017. Protoss hasn't been a real trophy viable race since.
Don't do the same thing to Zerg.
As as Protoss player the MSC was the worst thing that ever happened. Photon Overcharge took no skill. It is why I stopped playing.
The bigger issue is that Protoss lost the MSC, but the other races didn't lose their defensive crutches. So Protoss was forced to build more units early just to survive, slowing down builds.
I think Protoss early units should be buffed to force the other races to build units early if Blizzard doesn't want to equalize the defensive potential of the races.
I still think that WOL always had the early game right (save the 1-1-1 and Soul Train) and it was the late game that was the problem. You had to earn an expansion in WOL with skilled defensive play, now they are basically free. Might as well start every game with two bases. Blizzard ruined the early game in an attempt to make the late game better, and failed.
On October 13 2019 04:57 BerserkSword wrote: People want creep tumor vision to be gone now....make it stop
We already know what happens when you remove a defensive foundation from a race - look no further than Protoss losing its mothership core at the end of 2017. Protoss hasn't been a real trophy viable race since.
Don't do the same thing to Zerg.
As as Protoss player the MSC was the worst thing that ever happened. Photon Overcharge took no skill. It is why I stopped playing.
The bigger issue is that Protoss lost the MSC, but the other races didn't lose their defensive crutches. So Protoss was forced to build more units early just to survive, slowing down builds.
I think Protoss early units should be buffed to force the other races to build units early if Blizzard doesn't want to equalize the defensive potential of the races.
I still think that WOL always had the early game right (save the 1-1-1 and Soul Train) and it was the late game that was the problem. You had to earn an expansion in WOL with skilled defensive play, now they are basically free. Might as well start every game with two bases. Blizzard ruined the early game in an attempt to make the late game better, and failed.
THey have to be free when you start with 12 workers
On October 13 2019 04:57 BerserkSword wrote: People want creep tumor vision to be gone now....make it stop
We already know what happens when you remove a defensive foundation from a race - look no further than Protoss losing its mothership core at the end of 2017. Protoss hasn't been a real trophy viable race since.
Don't do the same thing to Zerg.
Zerg needs to be nerfed, and nerfed hard. Protoss is already weak, as you say (mainly against Zerg) and Terran is hardly winning much lately (particularly weak in TvP and late game vs Zerg). You seem to be ignoring the fact that balance is based on the relative strength of each race. A nerf to one is effectively a buff to the others. Nerfing Zerg will help bring Protoss back to viability in PvZ (which is absolutely needed) and will help Terran in late game scenarios. Bringing Zerg down to Protoss' level is absolutely needed. Protoss buffs are not the answer as TvP is already too hard for Terran.
The current proposed changes are completely inadequate. The evidence of Zerg's strength against both other races is clear and major nerfs are needed, especially to the Infestor and I wouldn't at all mind further nerfs to creep - it's insanely powerful and suffocates the opponent. The existing nerf barely affected the real in-game speed of creep spread - look at any pro game and the map with be mostly covered by 10 minutes (and that's with the opponent constantly clearing it).
Agree 100%. I still don't get why Blizzard seems to not want to admit the imbalance of Z vs T/P, this needs to be adressed. Unfortunately the proposed changes nerf toss even more while Z looks quite the same. It's pretty strange to me how this could be the case.
Also, why do they plan to have 100 updates in one building? This is stupid imo
I'll repeat my question from another thread - when was the last time this year Blizzard reacted fast in SC2? SC2 isn't exactly a priority for Blizzard it seems. (at least based on their reaction, e.g. BL range fix and how long it took them)
Starcraft players love their hyperbole and the whole doom and gloom thing.
The infestor change is quite significant for PvZ. If anyone has actually played it (but lol does anyone here even play the game), you can actually feel the gravity of this change. Now that we often go both storm and disruptor, you can still destroy the infested terrans but now it actually feels like it's doing something. Blah blah blah energy units are free units blah blah, yes, but energy is still a resource that zerg needs to win a fight, so any extra drain on this actually does make a difference. Couple that with some Drogo feedback drops and you might actually get somewhere. As always, get caught out in a bad spot and it's gonna go downhill very quickly, but I learnt from Harstem the importance of having both mothership and nexus recalls available at all times.
If they rethink the charge change and the neural research removal, I think we have a very good patch on our hands. But they really do need to revisit the charge change. Changing a core unit that has such significant play in every single matchup is gonna mess with the balance way more than all of the other proposed changes combined.
While I can get behind complaints that Z seems too strong this P has been removed from the game bullshit is just not true. Sure ZvP seems to be in an especially bad place and has been for a lot of this year but what about PvT? That matchup isn't so bad. Since the problems is in one matchup, specifically against Z maybe the problem is Z and not P, seems like a reasonable conclusion.
In general any time protoss late game isn't stronger than T and Z late game P whines, when P has the strongest late game its called just stop us from getting there but when its reversed then their race got deleted?
Also Blizz would notice if protoss would get deleted, because winrates would not be even. lol
On October 18 2019 07:56 Shuffleblade wrote: While I can get behind complaints that Z seems too strong this P has been removed from the game bullshit is just not true. Sure ZvP seems to be in an especially bad place and has been for a lot of this year but what about PvT? That matchup isn't so bad. Since the problems is in one matchup, specifically against Z maybe the problem is Z and not P, seems like a reasonable conclusion.
In general any time protoss late game isn't stronger than T and Z late game P whines, when P has the strongest late game its called just stop us from getting there but when its reversed then their race got deleted?
Also Blizz would notice if protoss would get deleted, because winrates would not be even. lol
What protoss players seem to take issue with, is that when they do find effective ways to actually stop them from getting there, they are drowned in public outrage and their units get nerfed. The most recent example being the 2019 gsl supertournament.
On October 18 2019 07:56 Shuffleblade wrote: While I can get behind complaints that Z seems too strong this P has been removed from the game bullshit is just not true. Sure ZvP seems to be in an especially bad place and has been for a lot of this year but what about PvT? That matchup isn't so bad. Since the problems is in one matchup, specifically against Z maybe the problem is Z and not P, seems like a reasonable conclusion.
In general any time protoss late game isn't stronger than T and Z late game P whines, when P has the strongest late game its called just stop us from getting there but when its reversed then their race got deleted?
Also Blizz would notice if protoss would get deleted, because winrates would not be even. lol
No, they can't just watch winrates, they need to observe the games. Winrates are not reflected in how people win, If winning lategame is nearly impossible, then you try rushes or hard timing attacks. A lot of balance will be hidden behind statistcs this way. Also statistics can hide balance at different levels. I much rather sacrifice a little balance in the lower leagues to have it balanced at the top, sadly I'm not so sure Blizzard thinks the same way. I for one don't wan't a balance where races are identified by different times during the game. all races should be as close to equal during the different timesegments of a game. Having unbalance in WHEN races are strong or week also makes games much less intresting to watch and over time the "lategame race" will learn to scout and identify different rushes/timings cause they only have to survive until a certain point to get a overwhelming advantage, this is especially true at the top I believe. The reality of the game right now, if Zerg survive to lategame they win most of the time, this is simply not fair. The game don't fully allow for macro-protoss or macro-terrans. Also, for a long time I've wondered how the game would look if you have the "macro-race" also the strongest lategame-race, now I know, not fun to either play or watch.
Sadly Blizzard is not famous to act fast or hard, the "wait and see" -approach seems to the most common, and "small tweaks to get there" is the usual remedy. So sad that "the world championship" this year will be stained by Blizzards hesitance when they should have acted a long time ago, I don't understand what they have to loose the game is unfair and unbalanced in so many ways at the moment that it can hardly be worse...
Imagine a Hockey game were one team have to score first and the other team automaticly wins if they reach the third period even score or in the lead... That's the current ZvP/T.
On October 18 2019 07:56 Shuffleblade wrote: While I can get behind complaints that Z seems too strong this P has been removed from the game bullshit is just not true. Sure ZvP seems to be in an especially bad place and has been for a lot of this year but what about PvT? That matchup isn't so bad. Since the problems is in one matchup, specifically against Z maybe the problem is Z and not P, seems like a reasonable conclusion.
In general any time protoss late game isn't stronger than T and Z late game P whines, when P has the strongest late game its called just stop us from getting there but when its reversed then their race got deleted?
Also Blizz would notice if protoss would get deleted, because winrates would not be even. lol
No, they can't just watch winrates, they need to observe the games. Winrates are not reflected in how people win, If winning lategame is nearly impossible, then you try rushes or hard timing attacks. A lot of balance will be hidden behind statistcs this way. Also statistics can hide balance at different levels. I much rather sacrifice a little balance in the lower leagues to have it balanced at the top, sadly I'm not so sure Blizzard thinks the same way. I for one don't wan't a balance where races are identified by different times during the game. all races should be as close to equal during the different timesegments of a game. Having unbalance in WHEN races are strong or week also makes games much less intresting to watch and over time the "lategame race" will learn to scout and identify different rushes/timings cause they only have to survive until a certain point to get a overwhelming advantage, this is especially true at the top I believe. The reality of the game right now, if Zerg survive to lategame they win most of the time, this is simply not fair. The game don't fully allow for macro-protoss or macro-terrans. Also, for a long time I've wondered how the game would look if you have the "macro-race" also the strongest lategame-race, now I know, not fun to either play or watch.
Sadly Blizzard is not famous to act fast or hard, the "wait and see" -approach seems to the most common, and "small tweaks to get there" is the usual remedy. So sad that "the world championship" this year will be stained by Blizzards hesitance when they should have acted a long time ago, I don't understand what they have to loose the game is unfair and unbalanced in so many ways at the moment that it can hardly be worse...
Imagine a Hockey game were one team have to score first and the other team automaticly wins if they reach the third period even score or in the lead... That's the current PvZ.
Didn't know it was a GM-reqirement to be allowed to post an opinion. I don't even play atm. I have never been higher then Masters if that should matter. I have been a persistent watcher of both pro BW and SC2. Starcraft has not been so uninteresting to watch as it is now, even the BL/infestor era during WoL was more interesting cause then there were at least "hail mary" options like the archon-toilet who made the games at least a bit tense.
On October 18 2019 07:56 Shuffleblade wrote: While I can get behind complaints that Z seems too strong this P has been removed from the game bullshit is just not true. Sure ZvP seems to be in an especially bad place and has been for a lot of this year but what about PvT? That matchup isn't so bad. Since the problems is in one matchup, specifically against Z maybe the problem is Z and not P, seems like a reasonable conclusion.
In general any time protoss late game isn't stronger than T and Z late game P whines, when P has the strongest late game its called just stop us from getting there but when its reversed then their race got deleted?
Also Blizz would notice if protoss would get deleted, because winrates would not be even. lol
No, they can't just watch winrates, they need to observe the games. Winrates are not reflected in how people win, If winning lategame is nearly impossible, then you try rushes or hard timing attacks. A lot of balance will be hidden behind statistcs this way. Also statistics can hide balance at different levels. I much rather sacrifice a little balance in the lower leagues to have it balanced at the top, sadly I'm not so sure Blizzard thinks the same way. I for one don't wan't a balance where races are identified by different times during the game. all races should be as close to equal during the different timesegments of a game. Having unbalance in WHEN races are strong or week also makes games much less intresting to watch and over time the "lategame race" will learn to scout and identify different rushes/timings cause they only have to survive until a certain point to get a overwhelming advantage, this is especially true at the top I believe. The reality of the game right now, if Zerg survive to lategame they win most of the time, this is simply not fair. The game don't fully allow for macro-protoss or macro-terrans. Also, for a long time I've wondered how the game would look if you have the "macro-race" also the strongest lategame-race, now I know, not fun to either play or watch.
Sadly Blizzard is not famous to act fast or hard, the "wait and see" -approach seems to the most common, and "small tweaks to get there" is the usual remedy. So sad that "the world championship" this year will be stained by Blizzards hesitance when they should have acted a long time ago, I don't understand what they have to loose the game is unfair and unbalanced in so many ways at the moment that it can hardly be worse...
Imagine a Hockey game were one team have to score first and the other team automaticly wins if they reach the third period even score or in the lead... That's the current ZvP/T.
I agree with your discussion on assymatrical balance design when it comes to different phases of the game. I believe the differences in strengths depending on the phase of the game in non mirror matchup is way to big, there can be differences but they need to be closer than they are now.
However most posters underestimate the complexity of assymatrical balance design, if you want races that are different but yet balanced what dimensions of the game should be absolutely balanced and which should be assymetrical? It is isn't so easy as to just balance the game at all phases, then the game either becomes stale or it needs to be more differences between the races in some other way. The standard example is counters, the other clear option besides different power spikes based on the phases is that there are clear cut counter units. It turns into a rock papper scissors game, I don't like that either and then there isn't many options left. The game turns into different races that play the same but look different, what we would call a flat strategy game lacking depth.
One example would be terran bio, they are so different from what zerg has (upgrades and units) making stim+combat shield+medivacs into a very strong phase in the game for a terran player in most situations. If you dont want terran to have a power spike there you either need to give zerg similar options or remove some of the terran units strengths, which means you are ironing out the defining differences between the races and making them more similar to each other. That is the option you need to choose if you want absolute balance in different phases of the game.
My argument was that if protoss would be deleted, in other words so unplayable no one chooses the race then it would show in the winrates. Blizz looks at winrates across the board but also each league individually, of course there can still be imbalance but no races is bloody deleted. Maybe they have 0.5% lower winrate, oh noes my life is over.
Well imagine if hockey was assymatrical and thus played in the way that the teams were so different from each other that one team for example had 8 legged 1 armed players that used ping pong rackets instead of clubs. How would that look
On October 18 2019 13:26 Majk wrote: Didn't know it was a GM-reqirement to be allowed to post an opinion. I don't even play atm. I have never been higher then Masters if that should matter. I have been a persistent watcher of both pro BW and SC2. Starcraft has not been so uninteresting to watch as it is now, even the BL/infestor era during WoL was more interesting cause then there were at least "hail mary" options like the archon-toilet who made the games at least a bit tense.
And yet when Rogue said Zerg OP people are ignoring it. It appears you can be only GM who's not good enough to win any big tournament to write here
On October 18 2019 13:26 Majk wrote: Didn't know it was a GM-reqirement to be allowed to post an opinion. I don't even play atm. I have never been higher then Masters if that should matter. I have been a persistent watcher of both pro BW and SC2. Starcraft has not been so uninteresting to watch as it is now, even the BL/infestor era during WoL was more interesting cause then there were at least "hail mary" options like the archon-toilet who made the games at least a bit tense.
And yet when Rogue said Zerg OP people are ignoring it. It appears you can be only GM who's not good enough to win any big tournament to write here
He said Zerg was too strong against Protoss which is what the statistics reflect, and what other pros seem to agree on.
On October 18 2019 13:26 Majk wrote: Didn't know it was a GM-reqirement to be allowed to post an opinion. I don't even play atm. I have never been higher then Masters if that should matter. I have been a persistent watcher of both pro BW and SC2. Starcraft has not been so uninteresting to watch as it is now, even the BL/infestor era during WoL was more interesting cause then there were at least "hail mary" options like the archon-toilet who made the games at least a bit tense.
And yet when Rogue said Zerg OP people are ignoring it. It appears you can be only GM who's not good enough to win any big tournament to write here
He said Zerg was too strong against Protoss which is what the statistics reflect, and what other pros seem to agree on.
Considering the original post it was about PvZ, wasn't it?
@Shuffleblade You are correct, there need to be diffrences, I agree on that. But giving Z the strongest lategame should at least now be proven (twice) the worst design. My main concern is whats fun to watch. The current state of the ZvX is horrendous. The only storyline atm is if Z will reach lategame, thats it. Look at NationWars, the teams strengths are decided by how many strong Z they have. And the BlizzCon will either be a ZvZ madness or a ZvX stomping in the end...
I ve just watched the TvT match up stream by wardi, and these patch is pretty exciting (only for mirror match for now)
For TvT
- +25 cost for interference matrix is what we need to go out of this mess - thor changes are awesome and synergize with reduce range of liberators - medivacs changes was needed since a long time imo - i think they were afraid of strenght of vikings against thors (and BC) but the results seems good - liberators upgrades in fusion core is a good design decision - blue flame is ok even if i think it was already strong
Finally only the battlecruisers teleport seems a bit boring (like nydus, obviously not fair in diamond league), and the timing cast looks too short (maybe 1,5 sec)
For TvZ
- I always find neural parasite interesting and strong and for now the timing of the spell doesn t seem to break Terrans - Infested terrans will be more used but they seems to lack something (maybe they can pop faster or walk a little bit faster to chase their prey. - Nydus summons timing is ofc needed
For P - Good to see the zealots charge coming back, even if the timing research seems deadly for a thrird base.. - I hope to see more voyd rays, hope the new design works
Only the upgrade of adept seems weird, it doesn t seems a good design - and the research is not so powerfull.. But i m not against new upgrades cause Protoss doesn t have so many SPELLS Upgrades. This upgrade could be stronger with research time a bit longer OR this kind of upgrades could required glaives
In definitive, it s a good adaptation patch it remains to my mind : - creeps tumors number must really depends of Queens number and the strategy from zerg players opening - New design of bunker has never been used.. Terrans can always spam planetary forteress and it s not worth it to invest in bunker near the creep or near a siege front line.. - Battlecruiser teleport could make an alert when an ennemy unit teleports into your base...
Something I just realized about this many changes this late in a games life span..
I'm not trying to be hateful against blizzard but how are they making changes to some of these units that have been around since WOL and they still cant get it right? I find this to be the most frustrating part because the community has always been vocal about the issues with the game, they just refuse to budge on (invincible nydus worm). They acknowledge the strength of it and still refuse to remove invulnerability? It just doesn't make sense. It literally advertises the fact that they have no clue what theyre doing.
They try to balance terran by giving or removing strength to upgrades...really? This is really lazy and shows that they have no vision.
Protoss changes? Some of them seem like they were thrown in as filler...an observer speed nerf? Still cant get the zealot right???
For the amount of time they take to put these changes out you would think there would be more thought put into it. I have read interesting ideas from people in the community before and the balance team wont give them a 2nd thought.
On October 19 2019 08:50 RandomPlayer416 wrote: Something I just realized about this many changes this late in a games life span..
I'm not trying to be hateful against blizzard but how are they making changes to some of these units that have been around since WOL and they still cant get it right? I find this to be the most frustrating part because the community has always been vocal about the issues with the game, they just refuse to budge on (invincible nydus worm). They acknowledge the strength of it and still refuse to remove invulnerability? It just doesn't make sense. It literally advertises the fact that they have no clue what theyre doing.
They try to balance terran by giving or removing strength to upgrades...really? This is really lazy and shows that they have no vision.
Protoss changes? Some of them seem like they were thrown in as filler...an observer speed nerf? Still cant get the zealot right???
For the amount of time they take to put these changes out you would think there would be more thought put into it. I have read interesting ideas from people in the community before and the balance team wont give them a 2nd thought.
Part of what one does have to understand is that WoL and LotV have had significant changes in between them. Some strategies that worked well in WoL don't work at all in LotV. In addition, the way creators make maps has changed significantly as well. Map design has a massive impact on balance, and for instance, the relatively easy second and third that we see more often now did not exist in WoL. Or take the reaper. It was used early in 2010 and 2011, but until its redesign, the unit was not as common in most matchups. Now, it's a mainstay in every matchup.
Second, oftentimes, it's just tweaks and minor map changes that are needed to change balance. Look at the Blink era in 2014. A large part of the imbalance was caused by maps having an exposed natural that blink stalkers could abuse. Blizzard overcorrected and swung the winrates in the opposite direction until we had the same number of TvT finals as we did PvP finals.
Also, I would like to add that the vocal SC2 community is very often wrong about balance. Or at least they're not getting the whole picture. Again, back in WoL, people complained that the colossi were imbalanced....and they were not. I remember quite clearly how people thought colossi/voidray was an unstoppable composition.
This isn't to say that the balance team hasn't made mistakes (and pretty massive ones at that). The Broodlord/infestor days, although not quite as imbalanced as people make it out to be, should have been changed earlier. The Swarmhost meta in HotS was extremely cancerous and should have been fixed.
TL;DR: WoL and LotV have some significant differences that make equating balance illogical, and the map pool has always affected balance, and sometimes minor tweaks are needed more than major design swings.
i honestly think zerg needs a heavy nerf. with terran they overdid it by making ravens useless, that was more than a nerf, it would be the same as if they removed neutral, and removed the dmg from fungal. . lastest patch did nothing towards zerg late game. i dont think this will fix zergs OPness in late game. with guys like rogue and serral being super honest about zerg being overpowered in late game its even more reason to do something with it.
4 zerg champs compeared to 1 T+1 P is horrible, that means Zerg is op, if it was just 1 guy being above everyone else like maru was it was ok. if serral was winning everything while we had 2 zergs in ro 16 and 1 in ro8, it would be fine, but with zergs overperforming like this they shouldnt nerf zergs with their gloves on. just remove the gloves, like they did with terran and ravens. for some reason they are super careful when nerfing zerg, and i do not know why. i honestly cant figure it out.
also a race being overpowered in late game is way worse than being overpowered in early or mid game, because you can turtle while being slightly behind in economy, and still get to late game.
I think all these forum discussion about Zergs comes from a misunderstanding in the lecture. While viewers are writing what they would like to see instead of OP late game Zergs, they didn t get the whole picture as it was said..
The main problem is deep but everybody can clearly understand it, it s just a question of phrasing between Blizzard and casual players. For now, it seems taboo to discuss about End game Zergs unless it was done separetly from queens, creep spreading mechanics and the OP army composition, .. I don t remmenber Blizzard talking about this synergy in just one of his patch. So of course, you understand Bliz fear to change "the heart of the swarm", losing a big part of his viewers and players.
All these things was done slowly and it s great.. Now i would be happy to hear Serral or Dark explaining what could be done like changes, which parts of the mechanics has to be study between in every features of the game.
To me, the only "change issue" is to force Zerg to make a gamble on their number of queens which will give a creep spread more or less faster. Actually, it should be like that but also in diamond league, generally Grand Masters players know every timing of push so they are always aware of an attack.. And they can spend time to create tumors.
If i was in charge of balance i would study this part of the game untill the mid-game (then see consequences on the End game) :
- the first idea could be to deal with visible tumors - the second idea is to calculate a cooldown and a new energy cost between injections/tumors.
On October 27 2019 13:01 greenturtle23 wrote: Ugh ZvP is so gross right now. Watching Elazer vs Trap right now, lategame zerg just roflstomps +3 air upgraded protoss.
I agree. I play Terran and think ZvP seems kind of unfair late game.
On October 19 2019 08:50 RandomPlayer416 wrote: Something I just realized about this many changes this late in a games life span..
I'm not trying to be hateful against blizzard but how are they making changes to some of these units that have been around since WOL and they still cant get it right? I find this to be the most frustrating part because the community has always been vocal about the issues with the game, they just refuse to budge on (invincible nydus worm). They acknowledge the strength of it and still refuse to remove invulnerability? It just doesn't make sense. It literally advertises the fact that they have no clue what theyre doing.
They try to balance terran by giving or removing strength to upgrades...really? This is really lazy and shows that they have no vision.
Protoss changes? Some of them seem like they were thrown in as filler...an observer speed nerf? Still cant get the zealot right???
For the amount of time they take to put these changes out you would think there would be more thought put into it. I have read interesting ideas from people in the community before and the balance team wont give them a 2nd thought.
Second, oftentimes, it's just tweaks and minor map changes that are needed to change balance. Look at the Blink era in 2014. A large part of the imbalance was caused by maps having an exposed natural that blink stalkers could abuse. Blizzard overcorrected and swung the winrates in the opposite direction until we had the same number of TvT finals as we did PvP finals.
This is one thing I still have regret in my mind over. I really wish they reverted some of the changes that were almost exclusively due to map issues in the past. For example, small maps made stim scv timings too strong. Or, the blink issue you mentioned. Well finally terran saw a revert in some way to the stim timing, but blink is something that hasn't even been looked at for YEARS due to the above issue mentioned.
I really wish we saw blink at least considered in the changes for reduced research time. It doesn't have to be anything huge, but the time it takes now feels like forever in comparison to things like charge or normal upgrades.
On October 27 2019 17:21 Parcelleus wrote: If you keep adding and taking away from a mess, then you still have a mess (bad foundations of design).
Just start again, fresh , and do it properly this time.
They don't have the resources as it looks like. At least that's what i think based on how long they "analyze" the issues before doing something about them.
Yeah this set of changes isn't going to cut it I don't think. I've been surprised before but ZvP needs a lot more than this infestor change, especially if they're nerfing some protoss stuff as well.
On October 27 2019 20:36 FBTsingLoong wrote: Do we know who is the chief developer in balance team?
Maybe someone from them: Rob Bridenbecker, Michael Scipione, Kevin "Mong" Dong? I believe there is no sc2 balance team. They are all working on different projects like W3:R but occasionally doing something in starcraft 2 too.
I just don't understand why they've decided to nerf Protoss when PvT seems to getting to a decent place now and PvZ is utterly imbalanced. If you look at the statistics for the global finals PvT is at 53% in favour of Protoss while PvZ is 61% in favour of Zerg.
I think I am going to stop following sc2 after blizzcon. The game isn't balanced and it hasn't been for a long time, but the imbalance has widened because good zergs have learned to abuse the broken strategies better.
I don't enjoy watching most of these games, they are unfair and it leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
Yeah, yeah, I know. "don't let the door hit you on the way out". Well I actually care and this is really disappointing to me. Hopefully they'll fix this shit but I don't think it will happen remotely fast enough, in fact between balance problems and age and potentially waning interest in esports from the business side of sc2 - I'm not sure this game will last much more than 1 more year.
i've unfortunately stopped watching as well. the state of the game is shameful and kind of embarrassing. I want a complete overhaul at this point. Can't stand to watch the game i've loved for nearly a decade turn into this.
I agree that the global finals has been pretty rough to watch in terms of the zerg matchups. I do think think this map pool is making issues seem a lot worse in some cases. Thunderbird in particular seems to have produced a lot of bad games. It's just too difficult for protoss and terran to take 4ths and 5ths on it versus zerg. In several games so far the zerg has essentially starved out their opponent on 3 bases while expanding by targeting down the 4th, and there isn't much the opponent can do once they are at a bit of a disadvantage. Likewise with Triton, which is far too open and makes engaging zerg quite difficult. It was fine in the last map pool to have Acropolis because there were other maps that offered different advantages, but this pool is essentially 4-5 Acropolis-like maps that are huge with wide open expansions.
That last Reynor vs. Hero game showed why the 10 range lurker upgrade is a bad idea. Even with the current range, once enough lurkers are out they essentially begin to be like mass seige tanks and end up countering their counters. With 10 range you wouldn't really ever be able to storm them without having to sacrifice high templars, and groups of immortals would die before they would ever have the chance to actually kill more than one or two lurkers. It would force protoss to go air the same way broodlords and mech do.
I agree with the above posts that there needs to be substantially bigger changes than they've proposed if they want to solve the current issues the game has. Even with the infested terran changes, protoss still doesn't have the means of countering infestor/broodlord/corruptor/viper with static defence since fungal/neural + abduct can essentially whittle down an entire 3/3 protoss air army. Tempests are the theoretical solution but they attack too slow to ever be effective.
They need to revert the feedback nerf. Either that or make infestors have half the health they currently do so feedbacking a full energy infestor kills it or so other units have hopes of picking them off. There is still no protoss counter play to mass infestor other than hoping the zerg makes a mistake with micro.
I think the problem exists even before BL/Infester at this time at least in terms of PvZ. The timing for Protoss to even have a shot is to disrupt the economy enough before the Zerg can go into Nydus, because once Nydus is in place you cannot leave your base ever because the zerg literally reinforce faster than you as the defender, and this is completely ignoring Queen and Swarm Host abuses. Protoss simply has too low single target DPS per supply that you can't really split up your army and still finish off building Nydus reliably, and if you split up your forces to try to spot for Nydus and fail to kill them, you'll get snowballed by the huge army supply that can be instantly unloaded. Once you are pinned in your base, the Zerg just need to trade evenly or even slightly disfavored because they can expand all they want and slowly tech up into that BL/Infestor comp.
As others have said, large maps with big open areas also favored zerg's mechanics with numerous speedy but fragile zerglings and scouting information with creep tumor granting vision, but as far as the biggest issue I still think Nydus is the culprit.
On October 27 2019 23:00 travis wrote: I think I am going to stop following sc2 after blizzcon. The game isn't balanced and it hasn't been for a long time, but the imbalance has widened because good zergs have learned to abuse the broken strategies better.
I don't enjoy watching most of these games, they are unfair and it leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
Yeah, yeah, I know. "don't let the door hit you on the way out". Well I actually care and this is really disappointing to me. Hopefully they'll fix this shit but I don't think it will happen remotely fast enough, in fact between balance problems and age and potentially waning interest in esports from the business side of sc2 - I'm not sure this game will last much more than 1 more year.
As a Protoss, 2019 has been really brutal. Like, really unreasonably brutal. PvZ was always a hard matchup, with the onus on the P to make things happen, but nowadays PvZ is just plain garbage. PvT was pretty bad too, but they made some headway with the EMP change...
Personally, I remember you being around this forum for a long time, and it would sadden me to see you peace out completely before the new patch can take effect. I actually think the new patch will have a great and positive impact on gameplay.
Overall it looks good, I'm definitely liking the style of this patch, units are nerfed but can be buffed back to their normal state.Hopefully this will slow the game down a bunch because in its current state early game is pretty much non-existent and mid game consists of one battle before late game units start coming out. Another 3-4 minutes onto the mid game would be good, adding a couple minutes to the early game might be good as well. I've always hated the huge speed increase that came with lotv.
I'm a bit sceptical on some of the changes. I'm not a big fan of the battlecruiser and raven nerf. They get limited exposure in pro games, nerfing them more could potentially make them even less used. Nydus could be overnerfed, but I guess a 50/50 mineral nydus on layer tech was kinda silly. Other changes seem reasonable, but I would've liked more terran buffs, then nerfing the other 2 races, but I guess it's easier to balance it that way...
The biggest problem seems to be around balancing protoss, I can't tell what it is, but watching the other match-ups even if you make smaller mistakes you could potentially bounce back with a defensive posture, when I watch protoss play PvZ you either attack the zerg and kill him or get rolled and die. Maybe it's because protoss units are slightly overpowered, but extremely slow and you either roll the opponent or pray to the recall to save your units, if you try to retreat slower expensive units die outright. I don't mind a slight speed increase of the HT and or something. Also I don't know why but protoss are not depending on cannons + tech units to protect their bases for some reason instead they make batteries and die or get harrassed by relatively small amout of units...
And yeah zerg which I can't even tell how it should be balanced, but at least watching top terrans struggle to outplay zergs is entertaining to watch. ZvP if it gets to late game is also entertaining, but Protoss just eventually dies in the end, which I think is do to zerg having vastly superior versatility and movement speed benefits that protoss can't match. Zerg on creep and with nydus just moves units around the map at 1-2 seconds time, while Protoss and Terran are forced to invest more in static defences in all their bases, when they skip on it they normally lose the economy and die.
I wonder if one of the ways to make Protoss viable in the late game would be by giving gateway units late-game upgrades. The Blizzard team seem to want to move towards this as evidenced by the adept changes but maybe if they gave a similar upgrade to the stalker which could be locked to say, the dark shrine, which would make it a viable unit in the late game could actually cause some really interesting changes design wise.
I think it's important to note that some changes are considered as more "experimental" than others.
Specifically, I noticed such wording on the Viking health buff, the battlecruiser nerf specifics, and the neural upgrade requirement change. I hope that neural without researching it doesn't make it through.
On October 27 2019 23:00 travis wrote: I think I am going to stop following sc2 after blizzcon. The game isn't balanced and it hasn't been for a long time, but the imbalance has widened because good zergs have learned to abuse the broken strategies better.
I don't enjoy watching most of these games, they are unfair and it leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
Yeah, yeah, I know. "don't let the door hit you on the way out". Well I actually care and this is really disappointing to me. Hopefully they'll fix this shit but I don't think it will happen remotely fast enough, in fact between balance problems and age and potentially waning interest in esports from the business side of sc2 - I'm not sure this game will last much more than 1 more year.
thank you for saying this out loud. that someone of your reputation is comfortable with saying it how it is.
i have the same sentiment, watching these games and thinking to myself, this is'nt balanced.
Team liquid readers and posters have been thoroughly conditioned to grab the pitchforks when someone says 'Imbalance' and dismiss you as a wood league balance whiner, so thanks, again.
On October 27 2019 23:00 travis wrote: I think I am going to stop following sc2 after blizzcon. The game isn't balanced and it hasn't been for a long time, but the imbalance has widened because good zergs have learned to abuse the broken strategies better.
I don't enjoy watching most of these games, they are unfair and it leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
Yeah, yeah, I know. "don't let the door hit you on the way out". Well I actually care and this is really disappointing to me. Hopefully they'll fix this shit but I don't think it will happen remotely fast enough, in fact between balance problems and age and potentially waning interest in esports from the business side of sc2 - I'm not sure this game will last much more than 1 more year.
It sounds a bit silly, these are all top players of course. It’s felt that Protoss are really pushing the absolute limits of their race just to keep vague parity for a while, while Zergs hadn’t been.
The nydus, has been a potent tool but only abused relatively recently to its full potential in this arms race, and it feels Protoss has kind of exhausted its arsenal.
On October 27 2019 23:00 travis wrote: I think I am going to stop following sc2 after blizzcon. The game isn't balanced and it hasn't been for a long time, but the imbalance has widened because good zergs have learned to abuse the broken strategies better.
I don't enjoy watching most of these games, they are unfair and it leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
Yeah, yeah, I know. "don't let the door hit you on the way out". Well I actually care and this is really disappointing to me. Hopefully they'll fix this shit but I don't think it will happen remotely fast enough, in fact between balance problems and age and potentially waning interest in esports from the business side of sc2 - I'm not sure this game will last much more than 1 more year.
It sounds a bit silly, these are all top players of course. It’s felt that Protoss are really pushing the absolute limits of their race just to keep vague parity for a while, while Zergs hadn’t been.
The nydus, has been a potent tool but only abused relatively recently to its full potential in this arms race, and it feels Protoss has kind of exhausted its arsenal.
Nice post that kinda sums up how I feel on the matter wow, I think protoss and terran keep coming up with a new trick and new build and new playstyle and it just get nerfed, idk is it just me or is it any time zerg gets bodied by a strat they nerf it so it can get to late game, then they dont balance the game for late game because "each race should have advantages at different times" omega yikes
You know, I remember a time when Lategame PvZ was unplayable for the Z!
The oft-mentioned Fist of Neeb was literally unstoppable. We had carriers that made all other units in the game obsolete.
Let's not forget that there was a very long period of time in which Zerg had to Hydra bust on the 4th every game.
I'm a Protoss player, and yes it has been a miserable year... but things are gonna be improved with the next patch. Literally every patch has been an improvement to get us to the point where we are now: An ever improving RTS game.
Some people are vastly underestimating the nerf that is -1 range on neural parasite. The IT nerf is also a big one, while some argue that'll only be a small one, due to the extra theoretical DPS on naturally armored units. I don't think it'll be much of a threat any longer in the future. If anything, I think it might be too much of a nerf, for the reasons I've already stated.
On October 27 2019 21:57 Z3nith wrote: I just don't understand why they've decided to nerf Protoss when PvT seems to getting to a decent place now and PvZ is utterly imbalanced. If you look at the statistics for the global finals PvT is at 53% in favour of Protoss while PvZ is 61% in favour of Zerg.
For low level players Terran vs Protoss feels very frustrating to play, perhaps even as bad as PvZ is for Protoss. Pros feel the same way as far as I can tell (Maru being the possible exception). Personally as a Terran player I find TvP a lot harder than TvZ, so I'm hoping the nerfs to Zerg are actually targeted to help Protoss (not Terran), so that Protoss can safely be nerfed in PvT without further reducing Protoss viability vs Zerg.
I am surprised that people are losing interest in the game because of balance, as it's obvious that Zerg will be nerfed significantly after Blizzcon. A consensus has emerged and there's no way the balance team will ignore that. It's just a shame that the players had to compete at Blizzcon on this patch/map pool.
On October 27 2019 21:57 Z3nith wrote: I just don't understand why they've decided to nerf Protoss when PvT seems to getting to a decent place now and PvZ is utterly imbalanced. If you look at the statistics for the global finals PvT is at 53% in favour of Protoss while PvZ is 61% in favour of Zerg.
For low level players Terran vs Protoss feels very frustrating to play, perhaps even as bad as PvZ is for Protoss. Pros feel the same way as far as I can tell (Maru being the possible exception). Personally as a Terran player I find TvP a lot harder than TvZ, so I'm hoping the nerfs to Zerg are actually targeted to help Protoss (not Terran), so that Protoss can safely be nerfed in PvT without further reducing Protoss viability vs Zerg.
I am surprised that people are losing interest in the game because of balance, as it's obvious that Zerg will be nerfed significantly after Blizzcon. A consensus has emerged and there's no way the balance team will ignore that. It's just a shame that the players had to compete at Blizzcon on this patch/map pool.
Seems like you got what you want coming though. Vikings that go up to 150 HP will be very very useful. Colossi will be way less easy to defend. And the higher HP means that battles will last longer, which is what the Terran generally wants anyways. Plus, observer movement speed is being drastically reduced, so more Terran sorcery can emerge that we'll need to be able to scout out some other way.
On October 27 2019 21:57 Z3nith wrote: I just don't understand why they've decided to nerf Protoss when PvT seems to getting to a decent place now and PvZ is utterly imbalanced. If you look at the statistics for the global finals PvT is at 53% in favour of Protoss while PvZ is 61% in favour of Zerg.
For low level players Terran vs Protoss feels very frustrating to play, perhaps even as bad as PvZ is for Protoss. Pros feel the same way as far as I can tell (Maru being the possible exception). Personally as a Terran player I find TvP a lot harder than TvZ, so I'm hoping the nerfs to Zerg are actually targeted to help Protoss (not Terran), so that Protoss can safely be nerfed in PvT without further reducing Protoss viability vs Zerg.
I am surprised that people are losing interest in the game because of balance, as it's obvious that Zerg will be nerfed significantly after Blizzcon. A consensus has emerged and there's no way the balance team will ignore that. It's just a shame that the players had to compete at Blizzcon on this patch/map pool.
Seems like you got what you want coming though. Vikings that go up to 150 HP will be very very useful. Colossi will be way less easy to defend. And the higher HP means that battles will last longer, which is what the Terran generally wants anyways. Plus, observer movement speed is being drastically reduced, so more Terran sorcery can emerge that we'll need to be able to scout out some other way.
Yea, this is a really bad change for TvP, any way you look at it. I don't think they should try to mess with TvP at all for the time being.
On October 28 2019 06:37 Z3nith wrote: I wonder if one of the ways to make Protoss viable in the late game would be by giving gateway units late-game upgrades. The Blizzard team seem to want to move towards this as evidenced by the adept changes but maybe if they gave a similar upgrade to the stalker which could be locked to say, the dark shrine, which would make it a viable unit in the late game could actually cause some really interesting changes design wise.
This is actually something several of us brought up in a previous thread. I'd like to see upgrades that make gateway units themselves more useful in the lategame. For terran and zerg, the core units tend to keep being used throughout the game and remain useful, but that's not really the case with protoss. Zealots are essentially the only unit of the four core gateway units that actively gets used, and only really for suiciding into bases, or being used to absorb damage with the main army. There is stalker use against terran but not so much for sentries or adepts. Against zerg, stalkers, sentries, and adepts aren't all that useful outside of very specific compositions like recent blink/disruptor style. Prior to that stalkers were basically used as panic defense against brood lords, and neither sentries or adepts get made past 8-10 minutes.
I think some of the ideas people threw around in the last thread like a lategame upgrades for zealot movement speed so they can flank, stalker damage, or something to make adepts more useful like a damage boost upgrade would all be cool. Anything to move protoss away from essentially being forced to go for slow deathballs or mass air. Right now lategame protoss harass only really consists of throwing a bunch of zealots at bases either by walking them across the map or via a warp prism. Stalkers are too expensive to use as sacrificial harass units, and unless you have like 16 adepts with glaives, you aren't really ever going to do substantial damage with adepts unless the person messed up badly.
On October 27 2019 21:57 Z3nith wrote: I just don't understand why they've decided to nerf Protoss when PvT seems to getting to a decent place now and PvZ is utterly imbalanced. If you look at the statistics for the global finals PvT is at 53% in favour of Protoss while PvZ is 61% in favour of Zerg.
For low level players Terran vs Protoss feels very frustrating to play, perhaps even as bad as PvZ is for Protoss. Pros feel the same way as far as I can tell (Maru being the possible exception). Personally as a Terran player I find TvP a lot harder than TvZ, so I'm hoping the nerfs to Zerg are actually targeted to help Protoss (not Terran), so that Protoss can safely be nerfed in PvT without further reducing Protoss viability vs Zerg.
I am surprised that people are losing interest in the game because of balance, as it's obvious that Zerg will be nerfed significantly after Blizzcon. A consensus has emerged and there's no way the balance team will ignore that. It's just a shame that the players had to compete at Blizzcon on this patch/map pool.
Seems like you got what you want coming though. Vikings that go up to 150 HP will be very very useful. Colossi will be way less easy to defend. And the higher HP means that battles will last longer, which is what the Terran generally wants anyways. Plus, observer movement speed is being drastically reduced, so more Terran sorcery can emerge that we'll need to be able to scout out some other way.
I like the observer speed change a lot, as the speed is too forgiving currently in my opinion. They already give permanent, cloaked, F2-friendly vision of a large area, so they should not be so fast. I lose games to them all the time, even when I am looking for them.
I am also glad that Blizzard are looking at helping vs Colossi, but the Viking is problematic in TvT so I am not sure how I feel about that change.
Of course some of our current problems are due to the map pool rather than balance. The current maps are too big. Then in TvP there's the fact that map makers have embraced the blockable reaper jump gimmick which denies Terran scouting information. I'm not sure why these are a thing as there's no skill or interaction involved on either side - once any half-decent player knows where the buildings need to go, they are guaranteed to deny the reaper scout. Meanwhile it's considered obligatory to give Zergs a spot to park an overlord for free vision of the natural on every map.
On October 27 2019 21:57 Z3nith wrote: I just don't understand why they've decided to nerf Protoss when PvT seems to getting to a decent place now and PvZ is utterly imbalanced. If you look at the statistics for the global finals PvT is at 53% in favour of Protoss while PvZ is 61% in favour of Zerg.
For low level players Terran vs Protoss feels very frustrating to play, perhaps even as bad as PvZ is for Protoss. Pros feel the same way as far as I can tell (Maru being the possible exception). Personally as a Terran player I find TvP a lot harder than TvZ, so I'm hoping the nerfs to Zerg are actually targeted to help Protoss (not Terran), so that Protoss can safely be nerfed in PvT without further reducing Protoss viability vs Zerg.
I am surprised that people are losing interest in the game because of balance, as it's obvious that Zerg will be nerfed significantly after Blizzcon. A consensus has emerged and there's no way the balance team will ignore that. It's just a shame that the players had to compete at Blizzcon on this patch/map pool.
Seems like you got what you want coming though. Vikings that go up to 150 HP will be very very useful. Colossi will be way less easy to defend. And the higher HP means that battles will last longer, which is what the Terran generally wants anyways. Plus, observer movement speed is being drastically reduced, so more Terran sorcery can emerge that we'll need to be able to scout out some other way.
I like the observer speed change a lot, as the speed is too forgiving currently in my opinion. They already give permanent, cloaked, F2-friendly vision of a large area, so they should not be so fast. I lose games to them all the time, even when I am looking for them.
I am also glad that Blizzard are looking at helping vs Colossi, but the Viking is problematic in TvT so I am not sure how I feel about that change.
Of course some of our current problems are due to the map pool rather than balance. The current maps are too big. Then in TvP there's the fact that map makers have embraced the blockable reaper jump gimmick which denies Terran scouting information. I'm not sure why these are a thing as there's no skill or interaction involved on either side - once any half-decent player knows where the buildings need to go, they are guaranteed to deny the reaper scout. Meanwhile it's considered obligatory to give Zergs a spot to park an overlord for free vision of the natural on every map.
Yes. I say bring back Metalopolis, Desert Oasis, and other cool maps from history. It's a shame that balance has been forced on such large maps all the time. Let's get more strategic variation in the map pool please.
I checked the TvZ, ZvP and PvT winrates using liquipedia for WCS Global finals, GSL, IEM WC, ASUS ROG, GSL vs the World and Super tournaments (felt like WCS and WESG would've taken me too much time so I omitted those). I probably made some mistakes here and there because I added everything up in my head and it is probably possible that I got the races mixed up every now then when recording the matchup (most likely my most common error). Also, I guess just to make my process more transparent, I used the matchup statistics given in the GSL Code S and the rest I manually counted. Anyway, I hope i didn't make too many mistakes and that someone who has good grasp of technology could check if the numbers are okay. All said, the records I found were as follows:
By Matchup TvZ: 109-126 ZvP: 163-151 PvT: 150-115
By Race Z: 289-260 T: 224-276 P: 301-278
I don't really know when people started saying zerg was imba but if we just look at GSL Season 2 and 3, Super Tournament 2, ASUS ROG and WCS Global finals so far then the records are:
By Matchup TvZ: 60-79 ZvP: 103-94 PvT: 90-65
By Race Z: 182-154 T: 125-169 P: 184-168
Hope this post contributes to balance discussion.
Edit: lol realized I messed up and counted Dark vs TY as a 4-0 for Terran so I fixed the numbers for now.
Edit 2: Since the data is not exactly accurate, I would only take away that it does look like Zerg and Protoss have been strong this year while Terran has been weakest.
On October 28 2019 10:46 Anc13nt wrote: I checked the TvZ, ZvP and PvT winrates using liquipedia for WCS Global finals, GSL, IEM WC, ASUS ROG, GSL vs the World and Super tournaments (felt like WCS and WESG would've taken me too much time so I omitted those). I probably made some mistakes here and there because I added everything up in my head but the records I found were as follows:
I don't really know when people started saying zerg was imba but if we just look at GSL Season 2 and 3, Super Tournament 2, ASUS ROG and WCS Global finals so far then the records are:
On October 28 2019 10:46 Anc13nt wrote: I checked the TvZ, ZvP and PvT winrates using liquipedia for WCS Global finals, GSL, IEM WC, ASUS ROG, GSL vs the World and Super tournaments (felt like WCS and WESG would've taken me too much time so I omitted those). I probably made some mistakes here and there because I added everything up in my head but the records I found were as follows:
I don't really know when people started saying zerg was imba but if we just look at GSL Season 2 and 3, Super Tournament 2, ASUS ROG and WCS Global finals so far then the records are:
how about the data of present patch? prism nerfed and overlord buffed
good idea. I checked and the patch was August 16-17 but I don't know when it was implemented in tournaments. If someone could let me know that'd be great. Certainly, I'd have to omit GSL Season 2 and ASUS ROG but I'm not sure about GSL Season 3 as the patch happened in the middle of the tournament.
If we just look at WCS Global finals and Super Tournament 2 then
On October 28 2019 08:32 ThunderJunk wrote: You know, I remember a time when Lategame PvZ was unplayable for the Z!
The oft-mentioned Fist of Neeb was literally unstoppable. We had carriers that made all other units in the game obsolete.
Let's not forget that there was a very long period of time in which Zerg had to Hydra bust on the 4th every game.
I'm a Protoss player, and yes it has been a miserable year... but things are gonna be improved with the next patch. Literally every patch has been an improvement to get us to the point where we are now: An ever improving RTS game.
If by "improved" you mean "Protoss are dead" then yes I agree.
Blizzard really need to stop buffing units to make them get used and look at where gaps are in race’s options and fill them that way.
Lurkers are good units, at least in ZvZ and ZvP, they don’t get made because Infestors and Broods are just way better.
Now they’re contemplating giving Zerg 10 range lurkers via an upgrade, cutting research times etc. Which is fine if you’re significantly nerfing other things, which they’re not really doing, so Zerg get a buffed unit (ok unupgraded range is less), because it’s ‘not used enough’, which is because the other stuff they already had that isn’t hugely being nerfed is OP to begin with.
Ok they’re not ‘OP’ or anything now but teleporting BCs in an attempt to force them to be viable just makes for a silly gimmicky unit, you don’t have to have every single unit be frequently used for the game to be rich and vibrant.
18 pages on this topic (here) and millions of posts on reddit.. this is why SC2 has never been a balanced game. Blizzard caters too much to the public's opinion. Balance the game around the highest level of play and get feedback from the most knowledgeable (keyword here) progamers.
On October 28 2019 09:51 Justinian wrote: I like the observer speed change a lot, as the speed is too forgiving currently in my opinion. They already give permanent, cloaked, F2-friendly vision of a large area, so they should not be so fast. I lose games to them all the time, even when I am looking for them.
No offense, but the game isn't and shouldn't be balanced around you (or me) unless youre GM or something.
On October 28 2019 11:57 Wombat_NI wrote: Blizzard really need to stop buffing units to make them get used and look at where gaps are in race’s options and fill them that way.
Lurkers are good units, at least in ZvZ and ZvP, they don’t get made because Infestors and Broods are just way better.
Now they’re contemplating giving Zerg 10 range lurkers via an upgrade, cutting research times etc. Which is fine if you’re significantly nerfing other things, which they’re not really doing, so Zerg get a buffed unit (ok unupgraded range is less), because it’s ‘not used enough’, which is because the other stuff they already had that isn’t hugely being nerfed is OP to begin with.
Ok they’re not ‘OP’ or anything now but teleporting BCs in an attempt to force them to be viable just makes for a silly gimmicky unit, you don’t have to have every single unit be frequently used for the game to be rich and vibrant.
Regarding the Lurker buff - they are actually heavily nerfing the Infestor and BL.
I was watching Wardi's balance patch tournament in which it was all Pros taking part. In the games I saw, the traditional Zerg lategame (BL, infestor, corruptor) was getting absolutely stomped by the Protoss lategame. at like 30 minutes in, the units lost tab showed 40 infestors dead vs 4 carriers dead....insane.
The infested Terran nerf is huge. They are far less potent in direct engagement since they do not flood the ground space anymore and, despite having more dps per energy, still die to a single storm/liberator hit. It is FAR easier to control them now. The BL and Neural range nerfs are massive too. lower range neural makes the infestors insanely exposed. Brood lords can no longer zone HTs out/pick them off easy meaning storm is spammed non stop. Time Warp on Brood Lords is insane as now it basically means they are instakilled, since protoss army has greater range and can just move backwards and kill the already slow brood lords. I even saw mana's flux vane void rays, which were roaming around the golden armada deathball and zoning out any corruptors trying to get a good angle on carriers.
I think 10 range lurkers might be able to help in a lot of this, especially zoning out high templar.
After watching that balance patch tournament I think the infested terran nerf might be way too much. IDK how they are supposed to stand up to mass Terran range/Protoss AOE
On October 28 2019 14:28 TT1 wrote: 18 pages on this topic (here) and millions of posts on reddit.. this is why SC2 has never been a balanced game. Blizzard caters too much to the public's opinion. Balance the game around the highest level of play and get feedback from the most knowledgeable (keyword here) progamers.
The game can't be balance becausethe game is built on bad base(again forgot what's the right term). Queen is the biggest bandaind in history of SC2 and it's still in the game. Macro-vision-speed_boost-anti_air-anti_ground_healer OMG uber unit that has to do it all. And on top of that it doesn't cost larvae. How can you build a solid balanced game when every Zerg related issue was - just change the queen?
OK, I'm taking it slightly too far, but seriously?
Also progamers? Progamers has their interest for their race to be the most OP as then they can focus on 1 MU and win it all. Progamers are biased the same way viewers are or bronze league players are. Also the funny thing is that being progamers doesn't mean they have the knowledge. Almost all the bugs have been reported by SOMEBODY ELSE THAN A PROGAMER. One would think they out of all the people would notice units behaving wrong way, but nope. Artosis is seen as one of the most knowledgable person in the public sphere... and he didn't either (I'm not bashing on progamers, just saying being good at something doesn't mean they have the best knowledge in the game, in the end the game is balanced by team who is not progaming )
On October 28 2019 11:57 Wombat_NI wrote: Blizzard really need to stop buffing units to make them get used and look at where gaps are in race’s options and fill them that way.
Lurkers are good units, at least in ZvZ and ZvP, they don’t get made because Infestors and Broods are just way better.
Now they’re contemplating giving Zerg 10 range lurkers via an upgrade, cutting research times etc. Which is fine if you’re significantly nerfing other things, which they’re not really doing, so Zerg get a buffed unit (ok unupgraded range is less), because it’s ‘not used enough’, which is because the other stuff they already had that isn’t hugely being nerfed is OP to begin with.
Ok they’re not ‘OP’ or anything now but teleporting BCs in an attempt to force them to be viable just makes for a silly gimmicky unit, you don’t have to have every single unit be frequently used for the game to be rich and vibrant.
Regarding the Lurker buff - they are actually heavily nerfing the Infestor and BL.
I was watching Wardi's balance patch tournament in which it was all Pros taking part. In the games I saw, the traditional Zerg lategame (BL, infestor, corruptor) was getting absolutely stomped by the Protoss lategame. at like 30 minutes in, the units lost tab showed 40 infestors dead vs 4 carriers dead....insane.
The infested Terran nerf is huge. They are far less potent in direct engagement since they do not flood the ground space anymore and, despite having more dps per energy, still die to a single storm/liberator hit. It is FAR easier to control them now. The BL and Neural range nerfs are massive too. lower range neural makes the infestors insanely exposed. Brood lords can no longer zone HTs out/pick them off easy meaning storm is spammed non stop. Time Warp on Brood Lords is insane as now it basically means they are instakilled, since protoss army has greater range and can just move backwards and kill the already slow brood lords. I even saw mana's flux vane void rays, which were roaming around the golden armada deathball and zoning out any corruptors trying to get a good angle on carriers.
I think 10 range lurkers might be able to help in a lot of this, especially zoning out high templar.
After watching that balance patch tournament I think the infested terran nerf might be way too much. IDK how they are supposed to stand up to mass Terran range/Protoss AOE
HAHAHA Looks like my predictions were correct. Zerg indeed do take the nerf bat in the face, while dumbasses on TL arrogantly scoffed that zerg is getting buffed again. Look back on a couple of my posts in this thread, and you see how every one of my predictions were proven correct. -1 range on neural is big. BL range reduction/correction is big. The IT nerf is the biggest of all. Meanwhile, beefed up vikings and speed VRs laugh at zerg.
It seems Blizzard's balance team can't help themselves from swinging the pendulum too far in any one direction.
On October 28 2019 11:57 Wombat_NI wrote: Blizzard really need to stop buffing units to make them get used and look at where gaps are in race’s options and fill them that way.
Lurkers are good units, at least in ZvZ and ZvP, they don’t get made because Infestors and Broods are just way better.
Now they’re contemplating giving Zerg 10 range lurkers via an upgrade, cutting research times etc. Which is fine if you’re significantly nerfing other things, which they’re not really doing, so Zerg get a buffed unit (ok unupgraded range is less), because it’s ‘not used enough’, which is because the other stuff they already had that isn’t hugely being nerfed is OP to begin with.
Ok they’re not ‘OP’ or anything now but teleporting BCs in an attempt to force them to be viable just makes for a silly gimmicky unit, you don’t have to have every single unit be frequently used for the game to be rich and vibrant.
Regarding the Lurker buff - they are actually heavily nerfing the Infestor and BL.
I was watching Wardi's balance patch tournament in which it was all Pros taking part. In the games I saw, the traditional Zerg lategame (BL, infestor, corruptor) was getting absolutely stomped by the Protoss lategame. at like 30 minutes in, the units lost tab showed 40 infestors dead vs 4 carriers dead....insane.
The infested Terran nerf is huge. They are far less potent in direct engagement since they do not flood the ground space anymore and, despite having more dps per energy, still die to a single storm/liberator hit. It is FAR easier to control them now. The BL and Neural range nerfs are massive too. lower range neural makes the infestors insanely exposed. Brood lords can no longer zone HTs out/pick them off easy meaning storm is spammed non stop. Time Warp on Brood Lords is insane as now it basically means they are instakilled, since protoss army has greater range and can just move backwards and kill the already slow brood lords. I even saw mana's flux vane void rays, which were roaming around the golden armada deathball and zoning out any corruptors trying to get a good angle on carriers.
I think 10 range lurkers might be able to help in a lot of this, especially zoning out high templar.
After watching that balance patch tournament I think the infested terran nerf might be way too much. IDK how they are supposed to stand up to mass Terran range/Protoss AOE
Interesting, I really hope we don’t just swap one difficult to kill lategame comp for another one.
Were the Zergs trying new things on the patch build or were they just playing their usual styles with the changes anyway?
It’ll take a while to settle, there are so many moving parts in terms of unit interactions, especially with a few ranges being changed recently. As things stand Zerg are happy to sit back if they see Protoss going for their fleet because they know they can kill it relatively easily. If they can no longer have that guarantee it may see them approach the game differently in that phase, plus force a response to their response from the Protoss.
Does sound promising anyway I’ll have to check the VoDs. Instinctively feel that the Brood range bug fix is probably the biggest factor of individual changes, if you look at how far top players get them from harms way on the current patch.
On October 28 2019 14:28 TT1 wrote: 18 pages on this topic (here) and millions of posts on reddit.. this is why SC2 has never been a balanced game. Blizzard caters too much to the public's opinion. Balance the game around the highest level of play and get feedback from the most knowledgeable (keyword here) progamers.
Never been a balanced game huh? Sc2 for the most part was always pretty balanced, way more so than other games in the rts genre with a comparable amount of playable factions
On October 28 2019 14:28 TT1 wrote: 18 pages on this topic (here) and millions of posts on reddit.. this is why SC2 has never been a balanced game. Blizzard caters too much to the public's opinion. Balance the game around the highest level of play and get feedback from the most knowledgeable (keyword here) progamers.
Never been a balanced game huh? Sc2 for the most part was always pretty balanced, way more so than other games in the rts genre with a comparable amount of playable factions
Also the imbalances are small and only affects the top 50 or so players. For 99.9% of the playerbase the game is balanced or very close to balanced.
Basically if you are below high GM just playing just a few percent better will have a larger impact than any imbalance.
On October 28 2019 14:28 TT1 wrote: 18 pages on this topic (here) and millions of posts on reddit.. this is why SC2 has never been a balanced game. Blizzard caters too much to the public's opinion. Balance the game around the highest level of play and get feedback from the most knowledgeable (keyword here) progamers.
Never been a balanced game huh? Sc2 for the most part was always pretty balanced, way more so than other games in the rts genre with a comparable amount of playable factions
Also the imbalances are small and only affects the top 50 or so players. For 99.9% of the playerbase the game is balanced or very close to balanced.
Basically if you are below high GM just playing just a few percent better will have a larger impact than any imbalance.
What motivation is there to get better when you know whether you are GM or platinum league, you're going to be playing against infestors, broodlords, and mass static for 40 minutes in many of your games? It's not fun to play against no matter what level you are. I just watched Harstem lose a PvZ on Thunderbird where he mined an entire extra base of resources, and killed nearly all of the zerg's bases, but couldn't end the game because the zerg camped out one base with mass infestors, broodlords, corruptors, vipers and static defense. It took over a half hour to finish the game off and ended with him losing despite having an economic advantage for 10 minutes and harassing his opponent's bases nonstop. Seeing games like that certainly does not make me want to push to get better at the game.
If a game isn't fun to play, then whether it is balanced or not becomes entirely secondary. It'd be no different if it were turtle mech or mass protoss air that were too strong. In all three cases it'd be not fun to play against. This last four or five months of the state of the zerg is the first thing since I've come back two years ago that has actually reminded me of WoL infestor/broodlord or HOTS swarmhost turtling. If these issues aren't dealt with completely and in a thorough way, it could materially harm the prospects of a game that is already in a weakened state. That's why so many people, including longtime community members as we've seen above, are voicing their concerns. Highly passive styles becoming dominant seem to coincide with drops in popularity of the game, and that's the trajectory we are on unless things are corrected quickly.
In HOTS during the swarmhost era, there was a lot of "just play better" sentiment put out at first to people complaining about how horrible swarmhosts were to play against. That sentiment, combined with slow moves from Blizzard to deal with the issue, caused people to opt to look elsewhere and do other things than play SC2. We want to avoid that type of thing happening again.
On October 28 2019 11:57 Wombat_NI wrote: Blizzard really need to stop buffing units to make them get used and look at where gaps are in race’s options and fill them that way.
Lurkers are good units, at least in ZvZ and ZvP, they don’t get made because Infestors and Broods are just way better.
Now they’re contemplating giving Zerg 10 range lurkers via an upgrade, cutting research times etc. Which is fine if you’re significantly nerfing other things, which they’re not really doing, so Zerg get a buffed unit (ok unupgraded range is less), because it’s ‘not used enough’, which is because the other stuff they already had that isn’t hugely being nerfed is OP to begin with.
Ok they’re not ‘OP’ or anything now but teleporting BCs in an attempt to force them to be viable just makes for a silly gimmicky unit, you don’t have to have every single unit be frequently used for the game to be rich and vibrant.
Regarding the Lurker buff - they are actually heavily nerfing the Infestor and BL.
I was watching Wardi's balance patch tournament in which it was all Pros taking part. In the games I saw, the traditional Zerg lategame (BL, infestor, corruptor) was getting absolutely stomped by the Protoss lategame. at like 30 minutes in, the units lost tab showed 40 infestors dead vs 4 carriers dead....insane.
The infested Terran nerf is huge. They are far less potent in direct engagement since they do not flood the ground space anymore and, despite having more dps per energy, still die to a single storm/liberator hit. It is FAR easier to control them now. The BL and Neural range nerfs are massive too. lower range neural makes the infestors insanely exposed. Brood lords can no longer zone HTs out/pick them off easy meaning storm is spammed non stop. Time Warp on Brood Lords is insane as now it basically means they are instakilled, since protoss army has greater range and can just move backwards and kill the already slow brood lords. I even saw mana's flux vane void rays, which were roaming around the golden armada deathball and zoning out any corruptors trying to get a good angle on carriers.
I think 10 range lurkers might be able to help in a lot of this, especially zoning out high templar.
After watching that balance patch tournament I think the infested terran nerf might be way too much. IDK how they are supposed to stand up to mass Terran range/Protoss AOE
Interesting, I really hope we don’t just swap one difficult to kill lategame comp for another one.
Were the Zergs trying new things on the patch build or were they just playing their usual styles with the changes anyway?
It’ll take a while to settle, there are so many moving parts in terms of unit interactions, especially with a few ranges being changed recently. As things stand Zerg are happy to sit back if they see Protoss going for their fleet because they know they can kill it relatively easily. If they can no longer have that guarantee it may see them approach the game differently in that phase, plus force a response to their response from the Protoss.
Does sound promising anyway I’ll have to check the VoDs. Instinctively feel that the Brood range bug fix is probably the biggest factor of individual changes, if you look at how far top players get them from harms way on the current patch.
It was both.
I do remember one game where one of the Zerg players went hydra + seismic spine lurkers before Protoss could get capital ships. Long story short, groundtoss got completely EVISCERATED by 10 range lurkers + hydra support
i really hope the nydus change goes through. i would have liked to see it implemented before this tournament, really. i haven't played an sc2 game in a very long time so i'd like to think i am not biased. it seems very clear to me z>p>t>nothing in this meta and not many answers have shown up at the highest levels and it's just the same old song and dance each game. it might be maps but i think above and beyond maps the mentioned formula holds true.
On October 28 2019 14:28 TT1 wrote: 18 pages on this topic (here) and millions of posts on reddit.. this is why SC2 has never been a balanced game. Blizzard caters too much to the public's opinion. Balance the game around the highest level of play and get feedback from the most knowledgeable (keyword here) progamers.
Never been a balanced game huh? Sc2 for the most part was always pretty balanced, way more so than other games in the rts genre with a comparable amount of playable factions
Also the imbalances are small and only affects the top 50 or so players. For 99.9% of the playerbase the game is balanced or very close to balanced.
Basically if you are below high GM just playing just a few percent better will have a larger impact than any imbalance.
What motivation is there to get better when you know whether you are GM or platinum league, you're going to be playing against infestors, broodlords, and mass static for 40 minutes in many of your games? It's not fun to play against no matter what level you are. I just watched Harstem lose a PvZ on Thunderbird where he mined an entire extra base of resources, and killed nearly all of the zerg's bases, but couldn't end the game because the zerg camped out one base with mass infestors, broodlords, corruptors, vipers and static defense. It took over a half hour to finish the game off and ended with him losing despite having an economic advantage for 10 minutes and harassing his opponent's bases nonstop. Seeing games like that certainly does not make me want to push to get better at the game.
If a game isn't fun to play, then whether it is balanced or not becomes entirely secondary. It'd be no different if it were turtle mech or mass protoss air that were too strong. In all three cases it'd be not fun to play against. This last four or five months of the state of the zerg is the first thing since I've come back two years ago that has actually reminded me of WoL infestor/broodlord or HOTS swarmhost turtling. If these issues aren't dealt with completely and in a thorough way, it could materially harm the prospects of a game that is already in a weakened state. That's why so many people, including longtime community members as we've seen above, are voicing their concerns. Highly passive styles becoming dominant seem to coincide with drops in popularity of the game, and that's the trajectory we are on unless things are corrected quickly.
In HOTS during the swarmhost era, there was a lot of "just play better" sentiment put out at first to people complaining about how horrible swarmhosts were to play against. That sentiment, combined with slow moves from Blizzard to deal with the issue, caused people to opt to look elsewhere and do other things than play SC2. We want to avoid that type of thing happening again.
You just proved his point. Balance only applies to skillful players such as Harsterm.
You will never see any mass infestor BL plays in ANY Diamond/platinum games because most players are just trashes. Also most games don't even get to that point
I'm a mid master Protoss and only 5% of my games will I ever encounter infestor/Bl composition. And yet I can still have at least 60% chance of winning because my opponent is not skillful enough to use the infestor correctly
All this crying/whining about imbalance zerg from most of the TL posters are just laughable because most probably have never really played against a real infestor/BL composition game in their SC2 life. (I am currently one of them as well)
On October 28 2019 14:28 TT1 wrote: 18 pages on this topic (here) and millions of posts on reddit.. this is why SC2 has never been a balanced game. Blizzard caters too much to the public's opinion. Balance the game around the highest level of play and get feedback from the most knowledgeable (keyword here) progamers.
Never been a balanced game huh? Sc2 for the most part was always pretty balanced, way more so than other games in the rts genre with a comparable amount of playable factions
Also the imbalances are small and only affects the top 50 or so players. For 99.9% of the playerbase the game is balanced or very close to balanced.
Basically if you are below high GM just playing just a few percent better will have a larger impact than any imbalance.
What motivation is there to get better when you know whether you are GM or platinum league, you're going to be playing against infestors, broodlords, and mass static for 40 minutes in many of your games? It's not fun to play against no matter what level you are. I just watched Harstem lose a PvZ on Thunderbird where he mined an entire extra base of resources, and killed nearly all of the zerg's bases, but couldn't end the game because the zerg camped out one base with mass infestors, broodlords, corruptors, vipers and static defense. It took over a half hour to finish the game off and ended with him losing despite having an economic advantage for 10 minutes and harassing his opponent's bases nonstop. Seeing games like that certainly does not make me want to push to get better at the game.
If a game isn't fun to play, then whether it is balanced or not becomes entirely secondary. It'd be no different if it were turtle mech or mass protoss air that were too strong. In all three cases it'd be not fun to play against. This last four or five months of the state of the zerg is the first thing since I've come back two years ago that has actually reminded me of WoL infestor/broodlord or HOTS swarmhost turtling. If these issues aren't dealt with completely and in a thorough way, it could materially harm the prospects of a game that is already in a weakened state. That's why so many people, including longtime community members as we've seen above, are voicing their concerns. Highly passive styles becoming dominant seem to coincide with drops in popularity of the game, and that's the trajectory we are on unless things are corrected quickly.
In HOTS during the swarmhost era, there was a lot of "just play better" sentiment put out at first to people complaining about how horrible swarmhosts were to play against. That sentiment, combined with slow moves from Blizzard to deal with the issue, caused people to opt to look elsewhere and do other things than play SC2. We want to avoid that type of thing happening again.
You just proved his point. Balance only applies to skillful players such as Harsterm.
You will never see any mass infestor BL plays in ANY Diamond/platinum games because most players are just trashes. Also most games don't even get to that point
I'm a mid master Protoss and only 5% of my games will I ever encounter infestor/Bl composition. And yet I can still have at least 60% chance of winning because my opponent is not skillful enough to use the infestor correctly
All this crying/whining about imbalance zerg from most of the TL posters are just laughable because most probably have never really played against a real infestor/BL composition game in their SC2 life. (I am currently one of them as well)
I don't think you need to have the technical skill to recognise when something looks broken at the highest level. Stop gatekeeping.
On October 28 2019 14:28 TT1 wrote: 18 pages on this topic (here) and millions of posts on reddit.. this is why SC2 has never been a balanced game. Blizzard caters too much to the public's opinion. Balance the game around the highest level of play and get feedback from the most knowledgeable (keyword here) progamers.
Never been a balanced game huh? Sc2 for the most part was always pretty balanced, way more so than other games in the rts genre with a comparable amount of playable factions
Also the imbalances are small and only affects the top 50 or so players. For 99.9% of the playerbase the game is balanced or very close to balanced.
Basically if you are below high GM just playing just a few percent better will have a larger impact than any imbalance.
What motivation is there to get better when you know whether you are GM or platinum league, you're going to be playing against infestors, broodlords, and mass static for 40 minutes in many of your games? It's not fun to play against no matter what level you are. I just watched Harstem lose a PvZ on Thunderbird where he mined an entire extra base of resources, and killed nearly all of the zerg's bases, but couldn't end the game because the zerg camped out one base with mass infestors, broodlords, corruptors, vipers and static defense. It took over a half hour to finish the game off and ended with him losing despite having an economic advantage for 10 minutes and harassing his opponent's bases nonstop. Seeing games like that certainly does not make me want to push to get better at the game.
If a game isn't fun to play, then whether it is balanced or not becomes entirely secondary. It'd be no different if it were turtle mech or mass protoss air that were too strong. In all three cases it'd be not fun to play against. This last four or five months of the state of the zerg is the first thing since I've come back two years ago that has actually reminded me of WoL infestor/broodlord or HOTS swarmhost turtling. If these issues aren't dealt with completely and in a thorough way, it could materially harm the prospects of a game that is already in a weakened state. That's why so many people, including longtime community members as we've seen above, are voicing their concerns. Highly passive styles becoming dominant seem to coincide with drops in popularity of the game, and that's the trajectory we are on unless things are corrected quickly.
In HOTS during the swarmhost era, there was a lot of "just play better" sentiment put out at first to people complaining about how horrible swarmhosts were to play against. That sentiment, combined with slow moves from Blizzard to deal with the issue, caused people to opt to look elsewhere and do other things than play SC2. We want to avoid that type of thing happening again.
You just proved his point. Balance only applies to skillful players such as Harsterm.
You will never see any mass infestor BL plays in ANY Diamond/platinum games because most players are just trashes. Also most games don't even get to that point
I'm a mid master Protoss and only 5% of my games will I ever encounter infestor/Bl composition. And yet I can still have at least 60% chance of winning because my opponent is not skillful enough to use the infestor correctly
All this crying/whining about imbalance zerg from most of the TL posters are just laughable because most probably have never really played against a real infestor/BL composition game in their SC2 life. (I am currently one of them as well)
Sure thing 5 post account made today that definitely isn't a throwaway account. I'll definitely believe your take on this.
Even the pros are complaining and being blunt about the situation. What more do they need to say or do? The guy who won the last GSL said outright it partly was because zerg is favoured right now. If the current issues aren't dealt with correctly, things could go downhill quickly with the scene. This exact thing has happened in the past. Some of the issues pros have pointed out are being dealt with well like nydus, but some of the other issues aren't at all, so it's reasonable to be concerned.
On October 28 2019 14:28 TT1 wrote: 18 pages on this topic (here) and millions of posts on reddit.. this is why SC2 has never been a balanced game. Blizzard caters too much to the public's opinion. Balance the game around the highest level of play and get feedback from the most knowledgeable (keyword here) progamers.
Never been a balanced game huh? Sc2 for the most part was always pretty balanced, way more so than other games in the rts genre with a comparable amount of playable factions
Also the imbalances are small and only affects the top 50 or so players. For 99.9% of the playerbase the game is balanced or very close to balanced.
Basically if you are below high GM just playing just a few percent better will have a larger impact than any imbalance.
What motivation is there to get better when you know whether you are GM or platinum league, you're going to be playing against infestors, broodlords, and mass static for 40 minutes in many of your games? It's not fun to play against no matter what level you are. I just watched Harstem lose a PvZ on Thunderbird where he mined an entire extra base of resources, and killed nearly all of the zerg's bases, but couldn't end the game because the zerg camped out one base with mass infestors, broodlords, corruptors, vipers and static defense. It took over a half hour to finish the game off and ended with him losing despite having an economic advantage for 10 minutes and harassing his opponent's bases nonstop. Seeing games like that certainly does not make me want to push to get better at the game.
If a game isn't fun to play, then whether it is balanced or not becomes entirely secondary. It'd be no different if it were turtle mech or mass protoss air that were too strong. In all three cases it'd be not fun to play against. This last four or five months of the state of the zerg is the first thing since I've come back two years ago that has actually reminded me of WoL infestor/broodlord or HOTS swarmhost turtling. If these issues aren't dealt with completely and in a thorough way, it could materially harm the prospects of a game that is already in a weakened state. That's why so many people, including longtime community members as we've seen above, are voicing their concerns. Highly passive styles becoming dominant seem to coincide with drops in popularity of the game, and that's the trajectory we are on unless things are corrected quickly.
In HOTS during the swarmhost era, there was a lot of "just play better" sentiment put out at first to people complaining about how horrible swarmhosts were to play against. That sentiment, combined with slow moves from Blizzard to deal with the issue, caused people to opt to look elsewhere and do other things than play SC2. We want to avoid that type of thing happening again.
You just proved his point. Balance only applies to skillful players such as Harsterm.
You will never see any mass infestor BL plays in ANY Diamond/platinum games because most players are just trashes. Also most games don't even get to that point
I'm a mid master Protoss and only 5% of my games will I ever encounter infestor/Bl composition. And yet I can still have at least 60% chance of winning because my opponent is not skillful enough to use the infestor correctly
All this crying/whining about imbalance zerg from most of the TL posters are just laughable because most probably have never really played against a real infestor/BL composition game in their SC2 life. (I am currently one of them as well)
I don't think you need to have the technical skill to recognise when something looks broken at the highest level. Stop gatekeeping.
Exactly. Many of us have watched pro SC2 for upwards of 9 years now. We've seen eras where there have been substantial issues with the game so we can learn to tell when something is not right. Many of us have been through 2012-2013 where pro PvZ every game was either a protoss win with immortal/sentry or a zerg win with infestor/broodlord. Same deal with multi-hour swarmhost games in 2014 or mass raven. Individual games of SC2 start to look a certain way when there are big issues where one side just seems unable to ever close out the game if the game progresses past a certain point. That's how it is right now for both terran and especially protoss against zerg, and even more so on the bigger maps.
On October 28 2019 14:28 TT1 wrote: 18 pages on this topic (here) and millions of posts on reddit.. this is why SC2 has never been a balanced game. Blizzard caters too much to the public's opinion. Balance the game around the highest level of play and get feedback from the most knowledgeable (keyword here) progamers.
Never been a balanced game huh? Sc2 for the most part was always pretty balanced, way more so than other games in the rts genre with a comparable amount of playable factions
Also the imbalances are small and only affects the top 50 or so players. For 99.9% of the playerbase the game is balanced or very close to balanced.
Basically if you are below high GM just playing just a few percent better will have a larger impact than any imbalance.
What motivation is there to get better when you know whether you are GM or platinum league, you're going to be playing against infestors, broodlords, and mass static for 40 minutes in many of your games? It's not fun to play against no matter what level you are. I just watched Harstem lose a PvZ on Thunderbird where he mined an entire extra base of resources, and killed nearly all of the zerg's bases, but couldn't end the game because the zerg camped out one base with mass infestors, broodlords, corruptors, vipers and static defense. It took over a half hour to finish the game off and ended with him losing despite having an economic advantage for 10 minutes and harassing his opponent's bases nonstop. Seeing games like that certainly does not make me want to push to get better at the game.
If a game isn't fun to play, then whether it is balanced or not becomes entirely secondary. It'd be no different if it were turtle mech or mass protoss air that were too strong. In all three cases it'd be not fun to play against. This last four or five months of the state of the zerg is the first thing since I've come back two years ago that has actually reminded me of WoL infestor/broodlord or HOTS swarmhost turtling. If these issues aren't dealt with completely and in a thorough way, it could materially harm the prospects of a game that is already in a weakened state. That's why so many people, including longtime community members as we've seen above, are voicing their concerns. Highly passive styles becoming dominant seem to coincide with drops in popularity of the game, and that's the trajectory we are on unless things are corrected quickly.
In HOTS during the swarmhost era, there was a lot of "just play better" sentiment put out at first to people complaining about how horrible swarmhosts were to play against. That sentiment, combined with slow moves from Blizzard to deal with the issue, caused people to opt to look elsewhere and do other things than play SC2. We want to avoid that type of thing happening again.
You just proved his point. Balance only applies to skillful players such as Harsterm.
You will never see any mass infestor BL plays in ANY Diamond/platinum games because most players are just trashes. Also most games don't even get to that point
I'm a mid master Protoss and only 5% of my games will I ever encounter infestor/Bl composition. And yet I can still have at least 60% chance of winning because my opponent is not skillful enough to use the infestor correctly
All this crying/whining about imbalance zerg from most of the TL posters are just laughable because most probably have never really played against a real infestor/BL composition game in their SC2 life. (I am currently one of them as well)
Sure thing 5 post account made today that definitely isn't a throwaway account. I'll definitely believe your take on this.
Even the pros are complaining and being blunt about the situation. What more do they need to say or do? The guy who won the last GSL said outright it partly was because zerg is favoured right now. If the current issues aren't dealt with correctly, things could go downhill quickly with the scene. This exact thing has happened in the past. Some of the issues pros have pointed out are being dealt with well like nydus, but some of the other issues aren't at all, so it's reasonable to be concerned.
I remember being immensely frustrated in WoL playing BL/Infestor all the time, maybe it isn’t common now on ladder now I’m inactive but I dunno.
Balance and fun are reasonably linked but not entirely, I’ve just never liked PvZ even when it’s balanced because it’s never felt balanced in terms of its flow.
The two races intersect horribly and there’s rarely been a time where the matchup has a dynamic, skirmish-filled midgame. From gateway allins thru +2 blink, the Soul Train, the Stephano Roach max, BL Infestor, what we’re seeing now. There’s periods where one race’s power spikes massively over the opponent and it’s suicide to be out skirmishing on the map.
On the plus point for me I think every other matchup in the game is pretty decent these days, to varying degrees.
On October 28 2019 14:28 TT1 wrote: 18 pages on this topic (here) and millions of posts on reddit.. this is why SC2 has never been a balanced game. Blizzard caters too much to the public's opinion. Balance the game around the highest level of play and get feedback from the most knowledgeable (keyword here) progamers.
Never been a balanced game huh? Sc2 for the most part was always pretty balanced, way more so than other games in the rts genre with a comparable amount of playable factions
Also the imbalances are small and only affects the top 50 or so players. For 99.9% of the playerbase the game is balanced or very close to balanced.
Basically if you are below high GM just playing just a few percent better will have a larger impact than any imbalance.
What motivation is there to get better when you know whether you are GM or platinum league, you're going to be playing against infestors, broodlords, and mass static for 40 minutes in many of your games? It's not fun to play against no matter what level you are. I just watched Harstem lose a PvZ on Thunderbird where he mined an entire extra base of resources, and killed nearly all of the zerg's bases, but couldn't end the game because the zerg camped out one base with mass infestors, broodlords, corruptors, vipers and static defense. It took over a half hour to finish the game off and ended with him losing despite having an economic advantage for 10 minutes and harassing his opponent's bases nonstop. Seeing games like that certainly does not make me want to push to get better at the game.
If a game isn't fun to play, then whether it is balanced or not becomes entirely secondary. It'd be no different if it were turtle mech or mass protoss air that were too strong. In all three cases it'd be not fun to play against. This last four or five months of the state of the zerg is the first thing since I've come back two years ago that has actually reminded me of WoL infestor/broodlord or HOTS swarmhost turtling. If these issues aren't dealt with completely and in a thorough way, it could materially harm the prospects of a game that is already in a weakened state. That's why so many people, including longtime community members as we've seen above, are voicing their concerns. Highly passive styles becoming dominant seem to coincide with drops in popularity of the game, and that's the trajectory we are on unless things are corrected quickly.
In HOTS during the swarmhost era, there was a lot of "just play better" sentiment put out at first to people complaining about how horrible swarmhosts were to play against. That sentiment, combined with slow moves from Blizzard to deal with the issue, caused people to opt to look elsewhere and do other things than play SC2. We want to avoid that type of thing happening again.
You just proved his point. Balance only applies to skillful players such as Harsterm.
You will never see any mass infestor BL plays in ANY Diamond/platinum games because most players are just trashes. Also most games don't even get to that point
I'm a mid master Protoss and only 5% of my games will I ever encounter infestor/Bl composition. And yet I can still have at least 60% chance of winning because my opponent is not skillful enough to use the infestor correctly
All this crying/whining about imbalance zerg from most of the TL posters are just laughable because most probably have never really played against a real infestor/BL composition game in their SC2 life. (I am currently one of them as well)
After watching streams, high GMs will generally dominate low GMs no matter the matchup.
However, there is a major difference between balance whining as a VIEWER and as a PLAYER. It is not fun to watch a tournament if your race has matchups which seem like a constant uphill battle which is only won if there is a major skill difference.
Balance in lower levels is a different matter all together, but I think aiming at fair balance at pro level is the best approach for the game.
On October 28 2019 14:28 TT1 wrote: 18 pages on this topic (here) and millions of posts on reddit.. this is why SC2 has never been a balanced game. Blizzard caters too much to the public's opinion. Balance the game around the highest level of play and get feedback from the most knowledgeable (keyword here) progamers.
Never been a balanced game huh? Sc2 for the most part was always pretty balanced, way more so than other games in the rts genre with a comparable amount of playable factions
Also the imbalances are small and only affects the top 50 or so players. For 99.9% of the playerbase the game is balanced or very close to balanced.
Basically if you are below high GM just playing just a few percent better will have a larger impact than any imbalance.
What motivation is there to get better when you know whether you are GM or platinum league, you're going to be playing against infestors, broodlords, and mass static for 40 minutes in many of your games? It's not fun to play against no matter what level you are. I just watched Harstem lose a PvZ on Thunderbird where he mined an entire extra base of resources, and killed nearly all of the zerg's bases, but couldn't end the game because the zerg camped out one base with mass infestors, broodlords, corruptors, vipers and static defense. It took over a half hour to finish the game off and ended with him losing despite having an economic advantage for 10 minutes and harassing his opponent's bases nonstop. Seeing games like that certainly does not make me want to push to get better at the game.
If a game isn't fun to play, then whether it is balanced or not becomes entirely secondary. It'd be no different if it were turtle mech or mass protoss air that were too strong. In all three cases it'd be not fun to play against. This last four or five months of the state of the zerg is the first thing since I've come back two years ago that has actually reminded me of WoL infestor/broodlord or HOTS swarmhost turtling. If these issues aren't dealt with completely and in a thorough way, it could materially harm the prospects of a game that is already in a weakened state. That's why so many people, including longtime community members as we've seen above, are voicing their concerns. Highly passive styles becoming dominant seem to coincide with drops in popularity of the game, and that's the trajectory we are on unless things are corrected quickly.
In HOTS during the swarmhost era, there was a lot of "just play better" sentiment put out at first to people complaining about how horrible swarmhosts were to play against. That sentiment, combined with slow moves from Blizzard to deal with the issue, caused people to opt to look elsewhere and do other things than play SC2. We want to avoid that type of thing happening again.
You just proved his point. Balance only applies to skillful players such as Harsterm.
You will never see any mass infestor BL plays in ANY Diamond/platinum games because most players are just trashes. Also most games don't even get to that point
I'm a mid master Protoss and only 5% of my games will I ever encounter infestor/Bl composition. And yet I can still have at least 60% chance of winning because my opponent is not skillful enough to use the infestor correctly
All this crying/whining about imbalance zerg from most of the TL posters are just laughable because most probably have never really played against a real infestor/BL composition game in their SC2 life. (I am currently one of them as well)
After watching streams, high GMs will generally dominate low GMs no matter the matchup.
However, there is a major difference between balance whining as a VIEWER and as a PLAYER. It is not fun to watch a tournament if your race has matchups which seem like a constant uphill battle which is only won if there is a major skill difference.
Balance in lower levels is a different matter all together, but I think aiming at fair balance at pro level is the best approach for the game.
I agree with this statement.
As a viewer, the zerg meta whether SH/nydus and BL/Infestor suck ass to watch as a viewer. But as a player, these balance will never affect 99% of the player base.
What I have a problem is with all the whiners acting like they "play" this game and that they are losing to this meta/composition when they never faced it once in their life.
Hence demanding nerfs here and there to the other races.
I wonder if the liberator range nerf will change anything in TvT? Liberators will still have 3 more range than thors so I suspect that thors will still not work as a liberator counter?
I am really not liking the current TvT - air dominance is too importantant. The stronger viking will be useful in TvP and TvZ but it may not be good for the meta in TvT.
I think the game as a whole would be improved if you always can use ground anti-air to counter air instead of being forced to win the air war. Air wars are the most boring part of the game since terrain does not matter much and there is not much you can do if he has more air units compared to you.
This has nothing to do with balance per se, it is just less fun to play and watch air vs air.
To me it looks like nydus is the most out of place. The instant transportation of zerg army ruins the push and pull we've seen for years. Feels like the changes they are making will help slow that down. I would like to see a nydus that worked well on creep, but was slow / costly off of creep. Make overlord pooping creep individual like dropperlord.
As for infestors... feels like they have counter play, (feedback / emp) but brood lords broodlings shut that down. Not sure that infestor is the problem, but maybe the broodlings... they always have been the problem due to pathing I think. I would like to see BL turn into guardian style unit with slight splash / small speed upgrade.
On October 30 2019 00:52 loft wrote: To me it looks like nydus is the most out of place. The instant transportation of zerg army ruins the push and pull we've seen for years. Feels like the changes they are making will help slow that down. I would like to see a nydus that worked well on creep, but was slow / costly off of creep. Make overlord pooping creep individual like dropperlord.
As for infestors... feels like they have counter play, (feedback / emp) but brood lords broodlings shut that down. Not sure that infestor is the problem, but maybe the broodlings... they always have been the problem due to pathing I think. I would like to see BL turn into guardian style unit with slight splash / small speed upgrade.
Feedback nerf means it no longer counters infestors.
As i'm currently not a progamer I am no longer invested into any of these changes so I am trying to not be biased towards Zerg here but I have to say that I really think they went way overboard based on current sentiment.
Zerg is too strong right now, but I'm convinced it's almost entirely a combination of the maps being very Zerg favored as well the nydus worm being insanely overpowered. The changes adressing the nydus worm are good but :
Changing creep mechanics by not allowing a cancel will not do anything to increase skill cap (I have no idea what this is based on?), infact cancelling tumors takes quick reaction time and not being able to do that anymore will really mess Zerg up a lot more vs terran than they probably can imagine.
Then removing infested terrans entirely, replacing it with a dark swarm like feature which has your units take 50% less damage vs air, combined with 9 range broodlord leash. this makes me feel that disruptors and templars will just blanket everything that is under these 'shrouds' and I don't see how zerg is meant to fight back vs air+storm+disruptors.
I'm worried for sc2 because if you compare all these changes compared to their last changes, you see them taking a 360 change on a lot of previous ideas and thoughts they had about the game, and all of it seems based on reddit comments/whining on social media about how zerg is OP...... instead of doing their own testing, and having a vision behind what they are doing. Do they not realise how big of an impact the map pool has? The changes they made in august haven't been really been able to shine through because they came with imbalanced maps at the same time as making changes.
Ugh. Not a fan of those changes. Infested terrans are a really cool ability and +8 impact charge damage promoted micro more than just amoving ferrari Zealots across the map
The protoss changes are really interesting. The mothership change is a long needed one and the zealot change may actually provide a higher element of skill to the use of zealots (who knows we may even get zealot micro?). The adept change adds another layer of strategy to the adept which is also really cool and could turn it into a really worthwhile harassment unit.
First, I will say that the initial proposed changes were pretty bad. The changes addressed nydus worms, but the changes also introduced a lot of mind-boggling changes. I like a number of these new changes a lot more. Mothership finally being heroic is very, very long overdue.
That being said, straight up removing infested Terrans is a pretty big nerf. It's not just their AA, but they also provided buffer on the ground. Now, it's not one I think they'll keep, but I would rather have a bit of toning down on units the Zerg already has rather than removing a unit entirely.
On October 30 2019 03:47 Liquid`Ret wrote: Then removing infested terrans entirely, replacing it with a dark swarm like feature which has your units take 50% less damage vs air, combined with 9 range broodlord leash. this makes me feel that disruptors and templars will just blanket everything that is under these 'shrouds' and I don't see how zerg is meant to fight back vs air+storm+disruptors.
While I disagree with the IT change, it's not like fungal, corruptors, broodlords, or vipers have ceased to exist. In watching the recent PvZ games, it was never the ITs that prevented HT or disruptors from using their AOE to blanket the Zerg ground army. Yes, the broodlords have a lot lower range, but infestors still zone with fungal, and vipers can abduct.
Take that TL mods, balanced whine isn't toxic, it's the way of progress!
But seriously I'm quite happy with the Shroud idea they have, I think it's a neat way to have a low number of infestor to play a role. I would just advise the team to make sure the texture is nice.
Not sure it's need to be behind hive either, but it will need a while to balanced in any cases. I really like the idea, I honestly think it has the potential to fix the infestor the way they somehow made the raven into a cool unit.
The adept change are also interesting, gonna have to wait to see how it plays out.
On October 30 2019 05:21 MrFreeman wrote: I like the changes, but infestors should get some auto attack to be able to defend themselves at least a little.
That new patch is great sounding! Every opportunity to get away from free or energy-based units is a good one. The shroud ability seems like it could be cool for positional play, especially when combined with lurkers. The boost to zealot speed so they can be microed more is something several of us had mentioned in the past, and changing how they deliver damage makes sense since right now it's so front-loaded. The glaives change is interesting as it isn't necessarily a buff, but it gives the adepts an actual role since they will definitely better for harass.
Making it so the mothership can't be neuralled is a change that should have been done long ago. Now the mothership will actually be useful as a unit.
If they end up needing to buff zerg further or nerf terran/protoss lategame a bit to make up for infestor/broodlord not really existing then so be it. I think most people would much rather that than having a patch that just tinkers with infestor/broodlord but leaves the composition in place.
edit: This is kind of what I was hoping for when I wrote my previous post. They have definitively made moves to fix the problematic elements of the game in a way that isn't a half-measure. Had it been another half-measure like the first patch proposal, it would have been much less likely to quell the fear people have about the state of the game. This new patch makes me much more optimistic because it shows they are willing to test bigger changes than it previously looked like. It's likely some tweaking will need to be done, but this is a good start.
These changes seem much better design-wise. Getting rid of IT is a drastic step, but IMO this has potential to be a really good patch. Sometimes you just have to rip off the band-aid. Anything to pull us away from air + spellcaster armies is a good thing. I'd be completely OK with some nerfs to skytoss and BCs as well if needed to compensate. Making the mid-game longer and having mid-game armies trade better against late game armies would do a world of good as well.
On October 30 2019 06:09 MockHamill wrote: I am still worried about how the Disruptor now will outrange everything Terran has now when Liberators lost one range.
What is the Terran counter to Disruptor/Tempest/HT?
Decreasing the range on Liberators, Tempest and Neural is a good idea but it should be accompanied with the same range nerf on Disruptors.
I’m ok with Disruptors having the current range they do, but perhaps it may need re-evaluating.
Liberators start shredding as soon as anything enters their zones, Disruptors are a rather finnicky unit that can be devastating but there are micro counter-measures too. They only hit their max range if the path of the ball doesn’t deviate.
TvP seems in a decent spot, I felt even before the EMP buff it wasn’t too bad at the top top level but EMP has made a difference since that was changed.
I’m worried about the impact the charge change will make more than anything else. I can’t see Protoss getting away with how greedy they are currently (which was listed as a reason for the patch after all), but equally I’m worried at how the matchup looks if Protoss can’t power and tech hard.
So I guess they want Hydras to be the new anti-air unit for Lategame zerg, without them dying like flies to storms (which will ignore that Microbial swarm). I don't think getting rid of infested terrans will be the solution, but to tone them down or something... Also like someone said this big maps pool favours Zerg a lot. So big nerfs + more fair map pool might be too much of a nerf for zergs... we will see.
The morthership immunity to abduct/neural is a no brainer, it was just stupid to kill/lose a 400/400 unit to a 75 energy spell.
On October 30 2019 08:00 Elmonti wrote: So I guess they want Hydras to be the new anti-air unit for Lategame zerg, without them dying like flies to storms (which will ignore that Microbial swarm). I don't think getting rid of infested terrans will be the solution, but to tone them down or something... Also like someone said this big maps pool favours Zerg a lot. So big nerfs + more fair map pool might be too much of a nerf for zergs... we will see.
The morthership immunity to abduct/neural is a no brainer, it was just stupid to kill/lose a 400/400 unit to a 75 energy spell.
Also, those fastas* zealots... jesus...
It's a good thing to have balance on larger maps as well as smaller maps. It's a titanic challenge with such a diverse pool of units, abilities, upgrades, and players. I'm really proud of Blizzard's continued support of this most spectacular esport.
Holy shit true speedy Manlots! I’ve been beating this drum for a while as something I’d like to see experimented with. Having something that is legitimately passively fast on the ground is something I think Protoss lack, specifically in PvZ I suppose. Retreat potential and speed across the map might incentivise army splitting and a more dynamic midgame
On October 30 2019 08:40 travis wrote: All these changes at once may put P in too strong of a spot, but I do like what is being suggested much more now.
I don’t really care who is strong or weak post patch, that can be tweaked a bit it just seems to be moving in the right direction in terms of potential compositions and unit interactions.
Of course things may not end up meshing and delivering the desired results of course.
BL Infestor is nerfed, but the new Zerg ability sounds promising to give Zerg the potential to counter airtoss with ground units and ‘not dark swarm’
Regardless of which race is atop any given meta, I’m pretty sure most players and observers don’t like overpowered air balls that can’t be defeated by anything other than other air balls
On October 30 2019 08:40 travis wrote: All these changes at once may put P in too strong of a spot, but I do like what is being suggested much more now.
I don’t really care who is strong or weak post patch, that can be tweaked a bit it just seems to be moving in the right direction in terms of potential compositions and unit interactions.
Of course things may not end up meshing and delivering the desired results of course.
BL Infestor is nerfed, but the new Zerg ability sounds promising to give Zerg the potential to counter airtoss with ground units and ‘not dark swarm’
Regardless of which race is atop any given meta, I’m pretty sure most players and observers don’t like overpowered air balls that can’t be defeated by anything other than other air balls
As long as BLs, and now the new 10 range lurker exist, Protoss is pretty much forced to go skytoss
Thank you GOD. I have literally been posting about how bad sc2 charge is compared to broodwar for so long. It makes no sense why they made one of the most microed P units an A move borefest from this iteration of the game. I really, really hope they keep this.
As for the other changes... I'm actually optimistic. The infestor sounds like an altered defilier, and adepts will be incredible for 2 hit squad harassment give protoss much better counterplay rather than full defense/wp counter only.
On October 30 2019 08:00 Elmonti wrote: So I guess they want Hydras to be the new anti-air unit for Lategame zerg, without them dying like flies to storms (which will ignore that Microbial swarm). I don't think getting rid of infested terrans will be the solution, but to tone them down or something... Also like someone said this big maps pool favours Zerg a lot. So big nerfs + more fair map pool might be too much of a nerf for zergs... we will see.
The morthership immunity to abduct/neural is a no brainer, it was just stupid to kill/lose a 400/400 unit to a 75 energy spell.
Also, those fastas* zealots... jesus...
I wonder if you can go ultra-hydra-infestor or roach-hydra-infestor. You sens the ultra/roach foward under the cloud to push back the HT and the zealots, then swoop in with the hydra. Maybe they would last long enough with the -50% from air. You could even sprincle one or two Blinding cloud for the immos in there...
On October 30 2019 08:40 travis wrote: All these changes at once may put P in too strong of a spot, but I do like what is being suggested much more now.
I don’t really care who is strong or weak post patch, that can be tweaked a bit it just seems to be moving in the right direction in terms of potential compositions and unit interactions.
Of course things may not end up meshing and delivering the desired results of course.
BL Infestor is nerfed, but the new Zerg ability sounds promising to give Zerg the potential to counter airtoss with ground units and ‘not dark swarm’
Regardless of which race is atop any given meta, I’m pretty sure most players and observers don’t like overpowered air balls that can’t be defeated by anything other than other air balls
As long as BLs, and now the new 10 range lurker exist, Protoss is pretty much forced to go skytoss
It really depends on how the game flows and how compositional transitions will all work.
If the Infestor is less of a catch-all unit and works in more of a support capacity seems like you’d go something/hydra into lurker with infestor support, seems difficult to fit a bunch of Broods into that.
On October 30 2019 09:35 LTCM wrote: Don't understand the fear of the new zealots. Same speed as stimmed marines and still way slower than speed lings.
On October 30 2019 08:40 travis wrote: All these changes at once may put P in too strong of a spot, but I do like what is being suggested much more now.
I don’t really care who is strong or weak post patch, that can be tweaked a bit it just seems to be moving in the right direction in terms of potential compositions and unit interactions.
Of course things may not end up meshing and delivering the desired results of course.
BL Infestor is nerfed, but the new Zerg ability sounds promising to give Zerg the potential to counter airtoss with ground units and ‘not dark swarm’
Regardless of which race is atop any given meta, I’m pretty sure most players and observers don’t like overpowered air balls that can’t be defeated by anything other than other air balls
As long as BLs, and now the new 10 range lurker exist, Protoss is pretty much forced to go skytoss
It really depends on how the game flows and how compositional transitions will all work.
If the Infestor is less of a catch-all unit and works in more of a support capacity seems like you’d go something/hydra into lurker with infestor support, seems difficult to fit a bunch of Broods into that.
I meant that because things like BL and 10 range lurker exist, Protoss is forced to go into skytoss eventually. Regardless of whether BLs are a big part of hydra lurker comps
On October 30 2019 09:13 -Kyo- wrote: Thank you GOD. I have literally been posting about how bad sc2 charge is compared to broodwar for so long. It makes no sense why they made one of the most microed P units an A move borefest from this iteration of the game. I really, really hope they keep this.
As for the other changes... I'm actually optimistic. The infestor sounds like an altered defilier, and adepts will be incredible for 2 hit squad harassment give protoss much better counterplay rather than full defense/wp counter only.
Actually hoping to play a lot on this patch!
Chargelots are not a-move
Charge still exists. It just doesnt do 8 damage on impact anymore
On October 30 2019 08:40 travis wrote: All these changes at once may put P in too strong of a spot, but I do like what is being suggested much more now.
I don’t really care who is strong or weak post patch, that can be tweaked a bit it just seems to be moving in the right direction in terms of potential compositions and unit interactions.
Of course things may not end up meshing and delivering the desired results of course.
BL Infestor is nerfed, but the new Zerg ability sounds promising to give Zerg the potential to counter airtoss with ground units and ‘not dark swarm’
Regardless of which race is atop any given meta, I’m pretty sure most players and observers don’t like overpowered air balls that can’t be defeated by anything other than other air balls
As long as BLs, and now the new 10 range lurker exist, Protoss is pretty much forced to go skytoss
It really depends on how the game flows and how compositional transitions will all work.
If the Infestor is less of a catch-all unit and works in more of a support capacity seems like you’d go something/hydra into lurker with infestor support, seems difficult to fit a bunch of Broods into that.
I meant that because things like BL and 10 range lurker exist, Protoss is forced to go into skytoss eventually. Regardless of whether BLs are a big part of hydra lurker comps
Hum idk with -1 range on BL I think stalker will do surprisingly well against them. Blink play against them already isn't that terrible if you can hit a timing. As for lurker we'll see, I think as they have been pretty much out of the meta in a while it will take time to figure out if protoss has a decent counter against them with the new patch.
On October 30 2019 10:11 dalecooper wrote: Much better. But why are they trying to speed things up. Faster, faster. Speed up. Just curious.
For the most part I agree that speeding things up for the sake of speeding things up is bad, but I think this is the one case where it's good. Protoss ground units are all very slow, including the units that absorb damage like zealots, which makes doing things like flanks quite tricky because they can't be done reactively. Making it so zealots can move faster and get into position easier will allow more of this type of play style.
With the current numbers listed, zealots with charge will be about ~14.3% faster than they currently are with charge, and the speed is the same as bio that is stimmed. That's a big jump but with the trade-off of no damage on first hit with charge, it balances out nicely because it means that even though that 8 damage is gone on contact, because the zealots can now more easily chase down units, they are far more likely to land more hits. This change is a big deal because it stops the huge damage spike that happens currently when a bunch of charge zealots initially hit a target, but will instead allow them to be more consistent with dealing damage. For example, against a bio army, zealots can now keep up with charge. Previously, if a group of zealots attacked a bio ball, the bio army would take their initial damage from charge but then essentially be able to stim and kite the zealots on cooldown to death because they could never catch up. Now they can catch up, but instead the protoss won't be guaranteed to kill several units every time their zealots charge. The charge will now get the zealots close, and the speed will allow them to chase the rest of the way so it will come down to the terran microing their bio versus the protoss microing their zealots and keeping the zealots slowed by marauders from blocking the others chasing the bio down.
Against zerg, charge zealots are now comfortably faster than both roaches and hydras with speed off creep (both of those units have an off-creep speed of around 4ish, with roaches slightly faster). This will enable protoss to finally be able to more easily chase down zerg armies that try and fail to do busts for example. They can also now chase down upgraded lurkers as they are now faster than them too off creep.
On October 30 2019 08:40 travis wrote: All these changes at once may put P in too strong of a spot, but I do like what is being suggested much more now.
I don’t really care who is strong or weak post patch, that can be tweaked a bit it just seems to be moving in the right direction in terms of potential compositions and unit interactions.
Of course things may not end up meshing and delivering the desired results of course.
BL Infestor is nerfed, but the new Zerg ability sounds promising to give Zerg the potential to counter airtoss with ground units and ‘not dark swarm’
Regardless of which race is atop any given meta, I’m pretty sure most players and observers don’t like overpowered air balls that can’t be defeated by anything other than other air balls
As long as BLs, and now the new 10 range lurker exist, Protoss is pretty much forced to go skytoss
It really depends on how the game flows and how compositional transitions will all work.
If the Infestor is less of a catch-all unit and works in more of a support capacity seems like you’d go something/hydra into lurker with infestor support, seems difficult to fit a bunch of Broods into that.
I meant that because things like BL and 10 range lurker exist, Protoss is forced to go into skytoss eventually. Regardless of whether BLs are a big part of hydra lurker comps
Hum idk with -1 range on BL I think stalker will do surprisingly well against them. Blink play against them already isn't that terrible if you can hit a timing. As for lurker we'll see, I think as they have been pretty much out of the meta in a while it will take time to figure out if protoss has a decent counter against them with the new patch.
Even the current lurker strongly invites the Protoss to transition to air. When lurkers were meta, archon/immortal could occasionally find a win against mass lurker, but even then skytoss was the more solid option. And as we've seen from Dark, Reynor and a few others lurkers do pretty well when you go for them nowadays even when they're out of meta. With an even better lurker I don't see why that would change.
Just report that the damage reduction of Microbial Shroud works before armor. For example, a 3/3 carrier will do (8/2-3)*2 = 1*2 damage per interceptor attack against 3/3 hydralisk, equivalent as 80% damage reduction. 28 hydralisks can kill all interceptors of 10 carriers with 20 hydra left. So it may worth a try. 9-range psi storm and colossus can be prevented by 10-range lurkers.
On October 30 2019 10:11 dalecooper wrote: Much better. But why are they trying to speed things up. Faster, faster. Speed up. Just curious.
For the most part I agree that speeding things up for the sake of speeding things up is bad, but I think this is the one case where it's good. Protoss ground units are all very slow, including the units that absorb damage like zealots, which makes doing things like flanks quite tricky because they can't be done reactively. Making it so zealots can move faster and get into position easier will allow more of this type of play style.
With the current numbers listed, zealots with charge will be about ~14.3% faster than they currently are with charge, and the speed is the same as bio that is stimmed. That's a big jump but with the trade-off of no damage on first hit with charge, it balances out nicely because it means that even though that 8 damage is gone on contact, because the zealots can now more easily chase down units, they are far more likely to land more hits. This change is a big deal because it stops the huge damage spike that happens currently when a bunch of charge zealots initially hit a target, but will instead allow them to be more consistent with dealing damage. For example, against a bio army, zealots can now keep up with charge. Previously, if a group of zealots attacked a bio ball, the bio army would take their initial damage from charge but then essentially be able to stim and kite the zealots on cooldown to death because they could never catch up. Now they can catch up, but instead the protoss won't be guaranteed to kill several units every time their zealots charge. The charge will now get the zealots close, and the speed will allow them to chase the rest of the way so it will come down to the terran microing their bio versus the protoss microing their zealots and keeping the zealots slowed by marauders from blocking the others chasing the bio down.
Against zerg, charge zealots are now comfortably faster than both roaches and hydras with speed off creep (both of those units have an off-creep speed of around 4ish, with roaches slightly faster). This will enable protoss to finally be able to more easily chase down zerg armies that try and fail to do busts for example. They can also now chase down upgraded lurkers as they are now faster than them too off creep.
It's a pretty cool change.
Everything else but especially this. Engagements aside and chasing down units, which is nice I think the biggest potential benefit is being able to run Zealots around the map and have presence.
Currently Protoss doesn’t have a ground unit that can shark around and actually retreat at all. I think the possibility of changing a 10 zealot suicide squad vs a 10 zealot sharking squad that can posture, retreat and potentially be retained is pretty exciting for sure.
On October 30 2019 08:40 travis wrote: All these changes at once may put P in too strong of a spot, but I do like what is being suggested much more now.
I don’t really care who is strong or weak post patch, that can be tweaked a bit it just seems to be moving in the right direction in terms of potential compositions and unit interactions.
Of course things may not end up meshing and delivering the desired results of course.
BL Infestor is nerfed, but the new Zerg ability sounds promising to give Zerg the potential to counter airtoss with ground units and ‘not dark swarm’
Regardless of which race is atop any given meta, I’m pretty sure most players and observers don’t like overpowered air balls that can’t be defeated by anything other than other air balls
As long as BLs, and now the new 10 range lurker exist, Protoss is pretty much forced to go skytoss
It really depends on how the game flows and how compositional transitions will all work.
If the Infestor is less of a catch-all unit and works in more of a support capacity seems like you’d go something/hydra into lurker with infestor support, seems difficult to fit a bunch of Broods into that.
I meant that because things like BL and 10 range lurker exist, Protoss is forced to go into skytoss eventually. Regardless of whether BLs are a big part of hydra lurker comps
Hum idk with -1 range on BL I think stalker will do surprisingly well against them. Blink play against them already isn't that terrible if you can hit a timing. As for lurker we'll see, I think as they have been pretty much out of the meta in a while it will take time to figure out if protoss has a decent counter against them with the new patch.
Oh yea I agree that there is a window to punish BLs when there is little support for them. Same could be said about infestor though. I remember neeb beating serral with that timing.
In a late game scenario, though, Protoss cannot afford to stick to ground-based comps because BLs w/ support and/or critical mass of lurkers just dominates groundtoss.
I do think Protoss can beat lurkers....but with skytoss. The 10 range lurkers are insane vs groundtoss (as per wardi's pro tournament on the balance patch). But I am of the opinion that even the current lurker at critical mass beats ground toss.
On October 30 2019 11:02 pzlama333 wrote: Just report that the damage reduction of Microbial Shroud works before armor. For example, a 3/3 carrier will do (8/2-3)*2 = 1*2 damage per interceptor attack against 3/3 hydralisk, equivalent as 80% damage reduction. 28 hydralisks can kill all interceptors of 10 carriers with 20 hydra left. So it may worth a try. 9-range psi storm and colossus can be prevented by 10-range lurkers.
Protoss incorporates some Tempests in the deathball, and they get free damage regardless of 10 range lurkers.
If Zerg tries to jump on deathball, it gets blanketed by storm/distruptor nova/time warp.
Zerg losing free infested terran to flood the ground space is huge.
The updated patch notes look really really good. The idea of moving away anti air from the infestor and giving it a more defensive and even sieging mechanic with microbial shroud is really cool to me. This would give situations like letting you stay alive with hydras vs bc's/carriers or letting ultralisks fight an snipe a p.f defended by a few libs. The creep tumor change is also amazing and the mothership change has been a long time coming. I do think though like most people I am concerned with the zealot change. Giving random units more mobility doesn't seem like a great thing to me. Like - buffing medivac overall speed, buffing voidray speed, buffing obs speed (was reverted), raven speed and now zealot speed just seems odd.
I echo Ret's opinion that this is going to evolve into a disruptor/storm fest, and zerg will be clearly disadvantaged in almost every 200 vs 200 lategame big engagement. Zerg will have to rely on multi-prong engagements in lategame to win. Just about everything on the Zerg's side is getting nerfed, while Zerg will have to deal with a lot more drops and VR harassment/hatchery snipes. If this patch goes through, I'm predicting that Zerg will be lagging by roughly 5-8% in the future, which I guess at least isn't as bad as how much protoss is currently lagging by (15%). I'd be glad to be proven wrong, though.
The previous update was ridden with stat tweaks, unnecessary upgrades, or changes to existing upgrades, and not a lot of substantial change.
This is certainly a bold step, and I'd argue a step in the right direction - protoss has more micro potential with speedy zealots, zerg ground to air is at least in theory more viable, and the worst composition for spectating (infestor/BL) has been nerfed. Also, good on them for keeping the BC cheese/nydus nerfs.
I don't really think the adept change will improve protoss compositions - rather it will strengthen allins. I frankly don't think the adept needed to be changed to begin with. It's fine for some units to taper off in the late game.
I also am severely skeptical that the new half-of-a-dark swarm will provide enough sustain compared to the loss of ITs. Zerg currently uses ITs as both buffer unit and DPS. In broodwar, dark swarm provides 100% dps reduction and lasts a staggering 38 seconds, compared to 11 for the new spell iirc -- and there, there's an interesting and slightly zerg-favored interaction with storm being used to clear out dark swarms. With this mere 50% damage reduction, I just don't see it having much of an impact.
I really hope blizzard will strengthen the microbial swarm or w/e prior to releasing the patch. In its current incarnation I think it will get ignored completely by zerg players, and for good reason. Better to release a somewhat overpowered spell and then scale it back as players learn how to maximize its efficacy.
I like the changes much more now. I think the new role for the infestor as a true support unit is so much better than its previous role. Zealot change and Adepts change are much more interesting now. Although adept change is dangerous as well I will wait and see how strong adept all ins are before complaining about it though. Overlord speed nerf was badly needed giving zerg such a large informational advantage is one of the biggest contributors to the current state of balance. In early game gas is pretty hard for zerg to squeeze out so even 25 more gas cost is pretty significant when it comes to the scout timing that they are able to achieve. I have mixed feelings about the bc interaction now that zerg cant cancel it. On one hand boy am I happy that terran has this viable late game option that amounts to more than just turtle with mah ghost liberator while i drop nukes and hope to win strat. on the other hand, BCS feel extremely strong for terran and with the bl infestor deathball nerfs it may be hard for zerg to deal with a turtling mech terran abusing bcs, Still its hard for me to foresee how all these changes will interact so I look forward to seeing how the meta develops.
One thing I can say for sure is that whatever the meta is on this upcoming patch it will be very different from the meta we have now and that's a good thing.
On October 30 2019 08:40 travis wrote: All these changes at once may put P in too strong of a spot, but I do like what is being suggested much more now.
I don’t really care who is strong or weak post patch, that can be tweaked a bit it just seems to be moving in the right direction in terms of potential compositions and unit interactions.
Of course things may not end up meshing and delivering the desired results of course.
BL Infestor is nerfed, but the new Zerg ability sounds promising to give Zerg the potential to counter airtoss with ground units and ‘not dark swarm’
Regardless of which race is atop any given meta, I’m pretty sure most players and observers don’t like overpowered air balls that can’t be defeated by anything other than other air balls
As long as BLs, and now the new 10 range lurker exist, Protoss is pretty much forced to go skytoss
It really depends on how the game flows and how compositional transitions will all work.
If the Infestor is less of a catch-all unit and works in more of a support capacity seems like you’d go something/hydra into lurker with infestor support, seems difficult to fit a bunch of Broods into that.
I meant that because things like BL and 10 range lurker exist, Protoss is forced to go into skytoss eventually. Regardless of whether BLs are a big part of hydra lurker comps
Hum idk with -1 range on BL I think stalker will do surprisingly well against them. Blink play against them already isn't that terrible if you can hit a timing. As for lurker we'll see, I think as they have been pretty much out of the meta in a while it will take time to figure out if protoss has a decent counter against them with the new patch.
Oh yea I agree that there is a window to punish BLs when there is little support for them. Same could be said about infestor though. I remember neeb beating serral with that timing.
In a late game scenario, though, Protoss cannot afford to stick to ground-based comps because BLs w/ support and/or critical mass of lurkers just dominates groundtoss.
I do think Protoss can beat lurkers....but with skytoss. The 10 range lurkers are insane vs groundtoss (as per wardi's pro tournament on the balance patch). But I am of the opinion that even the current lurker at critical mass beats ground toss.
I'm thinking we might see disruptors out of toss to deal with lurkers rather than skytoss or maybe disruptor tempest. Their might be a cool dance between vipers trying to abduct disruptors and protoss trying to get value shots on lurkers. Disrutpors range is larger than 10 so It could definitely be a strat.
Is Nydus still no CD？Man 25/25 to a middle or late game Zerg is really not a big deal. A 4-5 time nydus can make a Protoss or Terran Player even audiences feel tired, and these will only cost 125/125 more ？
On October 30 2019 08:40 travis wrote: All these changes at once may put P in too strong of a spot, but I do like what is being suggested much more now.
I don’t really care who is strong or weak post patch, that can be tweaked a bit it just seems to be moving in the right direction in terms of potential compositions and unit interactions.
Of course things may not end up meshing and delivering the desired results of course.
BL Infestor is nerfed, but the new Zerg ability sounds promising to give Zerg the potential to counter airtoss with ground units and ‘not dark swarm’
Regardless of which race is atop any given meta, I’m pretty sure most players and observers don’t like overpowered air balls that can’t be defeated by anything other than other air balls
As long as BLs, and now the new 10 range lurker exist, Protoss is pretty much forced to go skytoss
It really depends on how the game flows and how compositional transitions will all work.
If the Infestor is less of a catch-all unit and works in more of a support capacity seems like you’d go something/hydra into lurker with infestor support, seems difficult to fit a bunch of Broods into that.
I meant that because things like BL and 10 range lurker exist, Protoss is forced to go into skytoss eventually. Regardless of whether BLs are a big part of hydra lurker comps
Hum idk with -1 range on BL I think stalker will do surprisingly well against them. Blink play against them already isn't that terrible if you can hit a timing. As for lurker we'll see, I think as they have been pretty much out of the meta in a while it will take time to figure out if protoss has a decent counter against them with the new patch.
Oh yea I agree that there is a window to punish BLs when there is little support for them. Same could be said about infestor though. I remember neeb beating serral with that timing.
In a late game scenario, though, Protoss cannot afford to stick to ground-based comps because BLs w/ support and/or critical mass of lurkers just dominates groundtoss.
I do think Protoss can beat lurkers....but with skytoss. The 10 range lurkers are insane vs groundtoss (as per wardi's pro tournament on the balance patch). But I am of the opinion that even the current lurker at critical mass beats ground toss.
I'm thinking we might see disruptors out of toss to deal with lurkers rather than skytoss or maybe disruptor tempest. Their might be a cool dance between vipers trying to abduct disruptors and protoss trying to get value shots on lurkers. Disrutpors range is larger than 10 so It could definitely be a strat.
Disruptors don't stand a chance.
Tunneling claws allows Lurkers to easily dodge the disruptor balls. Vipers = free kills on disruptors like you said as well.
In wardi's balance patch pro tournament, lurker hydra just slaughtered the ground toss
On October 30 2019 12:07 tigon_ridge wrote: I echo Ret's opinion that this is going to evolve into a disruptor/storm fest, and zerg will be clearly disadvantaged in almost every 200 vs 200 lategame big engagement. Zerg will have to rely on multi-prong engagements in lategame to win. Just about everything on the Zerg's side is getting nerfed, while Zerg will have to deal with a lot more drops and VR harassment/hatchery snipes. If this patch goes through, I'm predicting that Zerg will be lagging by roughly 5-8% in the future, which I guess at least isn't as bad as how much protoss is currently lagging by (15%). I'd be glad to be proven wrong, though.
On October 30 2019 11:49 Ryu3600 wrote: The updated patch notes look really really good. The idea of moving away anti air from the infestor and giving it a more defensive and even sieging mechanic with microbial shroud is really cool to me.
It's an hive upgrade. It cost 150/150, it takes 79s to complete... It costs 100 energy.
You should stay on a 3 area for 11s... in front of storm/chargelots...
It's not a cool change, IT was buffed for a reason = zerg can't compete in lategame vs protoss deathball due to weak anti-air. This ability is not only overpriced, come super late, it's also not credible to be used vs protoss deathball (who got a void buff + MSC buffs + tempest buff). It's just a huge nerf to say all zerg = you can't win if Protoss gets a deathball.
I'd be interested to hear Rotti's take on the Mothership if it can't get neuraled. My understanding is that it can still get abducted though, right?
The Infested Terran removal is a pretty wild idea too. Neural + Infested Terrans has been an iconic duo since the game's release. While I agree they needed to nerf ITs, slapping them with the banhammer just seems wrong. Ah well, at the end of the day I'm still glad the Infestor nerfs happened.
Balance wise I have no idea. I suspect it is almost impossible to know what the balance will be when you make so many changes at the same time.
The only thing that bothers me is that Protoss will still have the ultimate Deathball and the best anti-deatball unit (the disruptor) at the same time.
I wonder if mech will be extinct again in TvP again? No real counter to disruptors since they now outrange liberators, Tempest with 25 more health. 14 range instead of 15 does not matter much when you kite with storm support.
Time warp now also affecting air units will make time/warmp HT really strong. Then again vikings are already quite useless vs Protoss if the go air/ht so maybe this will not change much in practice.
I am glad they reverted everything they reverted. Those changes looked terrible. I still think neural parasite existing is bad for the game. I don't like hero unit approach.
I like the Terran changes. I still don't like EMP (removes skill expression rather than adding it, no mana no choice of ability, no shields, run away, can't be moved out of to conserve shields and obs vs cloak miniigame isn't fun or complex imo). I still don't like the BC abilities as they are also theoretically uninteractive, especially with yamato doing the amount of damage it does. Mass BC is cost effective vs ~everything (everything protoss has for sure) due to yamato and can just jump away. This patch doesn't cleanly fix all this.
Zerg I would have been fine with seeing big changes to Zerg, Zerg is by far the race I find least fun to play or watch and seems least fair to play against. I am glad infestors and nydus were nerfed. I don't like that neural still exists. Queens still seem way too good. I would like to see zerg get a new ground unit that has good anti air or make hydras more of an anti air unit so Zerg could have more compositions.
Protoss Zealot- Nerf/change Adept- Nerf/change Observer- Nerf Void- New speed upgrade Tempest- Loses 1 range, gains 25 hp Mothership- Shouldn't be in the game w/e
Where is a protoss buff? Its the weakest race both now and overall historically, its about time Protoss had something to be hyped about and this is meant to be the biggest change of the year.
Terran get easier accsess upgrades & better thors. Zerg get 10 range lurkers
I don't like how they talk as if Protoss players make zealots/adepts because they are a move friendly rather than addressing that they are a mineral dump so protoss can make the high gas cost units they need (some of which are really not a move friendly, Disruptors, High templar).
On October 30 2019 20:19 paddyz wrote: I am glad they reverted everything they reverted. Those changes looked terrible. I still think neural parasite existing is bad for the game. I don't like hero unit approach.
I like the Terran changes. I still don't like EMP (removes skill expression rather than adding it, no mana no choice of ability, no shields, run away, can't be moved out of to conserve shields and obs vs cloak miniigame isn't fun or complex imo). I still don't like the BC abilities as they are also theoretically uninteractive, especially with yamato doing the amount of damage it does. Mass BC is cost effective vs ~everything (everything protoss has for sure) due to yamato and can just jump away. This patch doesn't cleanly fix all this.
Zerg I would have been fine with seeing big changes to Zerg, Zerg is by far the race I find least fun to play or watch and seems least fair to play against. I am glad infestors and nydus were nerfed. I don't like that neural still exists. Queens still seem way too good. I would like to see zerg get a new ground unit that has good anti air or make hydras more of an anti air unit so Zerg could have more compositions.
Protoss Zealot- Nerf/change Adept- Nerf/change Observer- Nerf Void- New speed upgrade Tempest- Loses 1 range, gains 25 hp Mothership- Shouldn't be in the game w/e
Where is a protoss buff? Its the weakest race both now and overall historically, its about time Protoss had something to be hyped about and this is meant to be the biggest change of the year.
Terran get easier accsess upgrades & better thors. Zerg get 10 range lurkers
I don't like how they talk as if Protoss players make zealots/adepts because they are a move friendly rather than addressing that they are a mineral dump so protoss can make the high gas cost units they need (some of which are really not a move friendly, Disruptors, High templar).
Dude these Protoss changes are fine especially in tandem with the others. We now have zealot stim.
I wanted bigger changes to the game, I really dislike the current game state at the highest level, especially in PvZ. I think they nerfed the right units, not in optimal ways. I think this will make the game better but I also think this missed an opportunity to make it much better.
Much better set of changes now. Zealots might even be microable! I would have liked to see a more fundamental rethink on Zerg to get rid of/significantly change the Queen (right now a nonsense mashup of all kinds of abilities/roles), but this should at least weaken Infestor/BL. Too bad it'll come too late for Classic and HerO.
The first proposal was probably just a ploy to make us more open to the second set ... works for me. Pretty sure they gonna revert the Zealot change around march, without readding the dmg, typical blizzard way of nerfing toss.
For a brief moment I thought they would remove Fungal, but sadly it was IT. Why is Fungal still a thing in 2019?? Make it at least only anti ground or only effecting biological units... Parasitic Bomb + Fungal is too much! And a big YEAH for the Mothership buff :D Mass queens is also a problem imo, one queen per hatch might be a solution?
Fundamental questionable desings are still the issue I see.
Several things are either too strong or useless at all, such as Nydus and to some part as well Infestors.
The Queen: It is too strong but Zerg doesn't have any option to get anti air as Hydras come too late and too few.
I would still like to consider changing the Roach and Hydralisk position in the zerg setup. Put the Hydralisk where the Roach is now with Lurker Den available at Lair. Put the Roach where the Hydralisk is now with Ravager upgrade at Lair.
With this change you get a lot of things right: Queens can be nerfed, Banelings can be nerfed, Hydra/Lurker can be nerfed & decreased in cost and Roach/Ravager can be buffed and increased in cost.
That will allow a more natural way of playing the game instead of relying on Baneling + Queens against Terran the early game. Midgame Roach/Ravagers might be much more fun to play and watch and less cheesy than they are now. This will bring terran mech play to the table in TvZ. The banshee & liberator will benefit from less strong hydralisks & queens. And many more positive effects will come from this e. g. in PvZ ground unit interaction. Next to Disruptor/Colossi interaction changes, with lessened Hydralisk protoss air and corruptors could be nerved a bit more.
I suggested this already like ~4-6 years ago in a different context. I still feel like that would make a lot of sense to create a more natural progression through units like in Broodwar.
On October 30 2019 21:54 LSN wrote: Fundamental questionable desings are still the issue I see.
Several things are either too strong or useless at all, such as Nydus and to some part as well Infestors.
The Queen: It is too strong but Zerg doesn't have any option to get anti air as Hydras come too late and too few.
I would still like to consider changing the Roach and Hydralisk position in the zerg setup. Put the Hydralisk where the Roach is now with Lurker Den available at Lair. Put the Roach where the Hydralisk is now with Ravager upgrade at Lair.
With this change you get a lot of things right: Queens can be nerfed, Banelings can be nerfed, Hydra/Lurker can be nerfed & decreased in cost and Roach/Ravager can be buffed and increased in cost.
That will allow a more natural way of playing the game instead of relying on Baneling + Queens against Terran the early game. Midgame Roach/Ravagers might be much more fun to play and watch and less cheesy than they are now. This will bring terran mech play to the table in TvZ. The banshee & liberator will benefit from less strong hydralisks & queens. And many more positive effects will come from this e. g. in PvZ ground unit interaction. Next to Disruptor/Colossi interaction changes, with lessened Hydralisk protoss air and corruptors could be nerved a bit more.
I suggested this already like ~4-6 years ago in a different context. I still feel like that would make a lot of sense to create a more natural progression through units like in Broodwar.
These suggestions are so terrible, it's not even funny. Where to even begin...
On October 30 2019 21:54 LSN wrote: Fundamental questionable desings are still the issue I see.
Several things are either too strong or useless at all, such as Nydus and to some part as well Infestors.
The Queen: It is too strong but Zerg doesn't have any option to get anti air as Hydras come too late and too few.
I would still like to consider changing the Roach and Hydralisk position in the zerg setup. Put the Hydralisk where the Roach is now with Lurker Den available at Lair. Put the Roach where the Hydralisk is now with Ravager upgrade at Lair.
With this change you get a lot of things right: Queens can be nerfed, Banelings can be nerfed, Hydra/Lurker can be nerfed & decreased in cost and Roach/Ravager can be buffed and increased in cost.
That will allow a more natural way of playing the game instead of relying on Baneling + Queens against Terran the early game. Midgame Roach/Ravagers might be much more fun to play and watch and less cheesy than they are now. This will bring terran mech play to the table in TvZ. The banshee & liberator will benefit from less strong hydralisks & queens. And many more positive effects will come from this e. g. in PvZ ground unit interaction. Next to Disruptor/Colossi interaction changes, with lessened Hydralisk protoss air and corruptors could be nerved a bit more.
I suggested this already like ~4-6 years ago in a different context. I still feel like that would make a lot of sense to create a more natural progression through units like in Broodwar.
These suggestions are so terrible, it's not even funny. Where to even begin...
I don't think they are terrible, I like it. I would really like if zerg had acsess to ground anti air that isn't queen earlier and then nerfed elsewhere, mainly nerfing queen. This seems like a decent solution. At least faster hydras (that can't become better at anti air with upgrade perhaps) + nerfs elsewhere.
On October 30 2019 21:54 LSN wrote: Fundamental questionable desings are still the issue I see.
Several things are either too strong or useless at all, such as Nydus and to some part as well Infestors.
The Queen: It is too strong but Zerg doesn't have any option to get anti air as Hydras come too late and too few.
I would still like to consider changing the Roach and Hydralisk position in the zerg setup. Put the Hydralisk where the Roach is now with Lurker Den available at Lair. Put the Roach where the Hydralisk is now with Ravager upgrade at Lair.
With this change you get a lot of things right: Queens can be nerfed, Banelings can be nerfed, Hydra/Lurker can be nerfed & decreased in cost and Roach/Ravager can be buffed and increased in cost.
That will allow a more natural way of playing the game instead of relying on Baneling + Queens against Terran the early game. Midgame Roach/Ravagers might be much more fun to play and watch and less cheesy than they are now. This will bring terran mech play to the table in TvZ. The banshee & liberator will benefit from less strong hydralisks & queens. And many more positive effects will come from this e. g. in PvZ ground unit interaction. Next to Disruptor/Colossi interaction changes, with lessened Hydralisk protoss air and corruptors could be nerved a bit more.
I suggested this already like ~4-6 years ago in a different context. I still feel like that would make a lot of sense to create a more natural progression through units like in Broodwar.
These suggestions are so terrible, it's not even funny. Where to even begin...
The trick is to check the username before you begin to read so you know what might come and can ignore it.
On October 30 2019 21:54 LSN wrote: Fundamental questionable desings are still the issue I see.
Several things are either too strong or useless at all, such as Nydus and to some part as well Infestors.
The Queen: It is too strong but Zerg doesn't have any option to get anti air as Hydras come too late and too few.
I would still like to consider changing the Roach and Hydralisk position in the zerg setup. Put the Hydralisk where the Roach is now with Lurker Den available at Lair. Put the Roach where the Hydralisk is now with Ravager upgrade at Lair.
With this change you get a lot of things right: Queens can be nerfed, Banelings can be nerfed, Hydra/Lurker can be nerfed & decreased in cost and Roach/Ravager can be buffed and increased in cost.
That will allow a more natural way of playing the game instead of relying on Baneling + Queens against Terran the early game. Midgame Roach/Ravagers might be much more fun to play and watch and less cheesy than they are now. This will bring terran mech play to the table in TvZ. The banshee & liberator will benefit from less strong hydralisks & queens. And many more positive effects will come from this e. g. in PvZ ground unit interaction. Next to Disruptor/Colossi interaction changes, with lessened Hydralisk protoss air and corruptors could be nerved a bit more.
I suggested this already like ~4-6 years ago in a different context. I still feel like that would make a lot of sense to create a more natural progression through units like in Broodwar.
These suggestions are so terrible, it's not even funny. Where to even begin...
They’re quite radical yes, but that aside I don’t get how they’re so terrible.
Just like reworking warpgate, if you can rework Zerg so there’s more of a unit/droning element in the early game instead of having Queens be OP to offset their lack of early AA, the game is going to be better and less frustrating for many people.
Both have been the case for a long while and so much is balanced around them so of course that’s not an easy task, but from a more fundamental standpoint is balancing around teleporting production and an almost hero-level defensive unit really a good foundation on which to build?
On October 30 2019 21:11 Schelim wrote: so basically now if you make Infestors at lair tech you can only cast fungal
just like the HT can only use feedback without storm upgrade. seems fair to me
And fungal is a hell of a lot better than feedback.
right but HTs can be turned into Archons and Storm only needs Templar Archives to be upgraded. for the other 2 Infestor abilities, you will also need a Hive. i'm not necessarily opposed to this change, i just think it's interesting they would go about it that way
I like that they want to combat creep spread, but i don't think this change will do anything meaningful. I guess the very first creep tumor is under more danger now. I still think that the real problem about queens and creep spread is the energy usage being as onesided as it is. Your extra queens simply will use all their energy for creep basically, or close to it. If we want to make it harder for zerg to get to the state where the whole map is in creep and toss/terran denying any creep doesn't have any real effect, then we have to do something about either a) making it so zerg cannot build as many queens or b) make it so these queens have to use more energy on other things or c) make it so you have to use more energy for the same effect.
a) is more about the economy and thus probably not something we really wanna change, b) is the more realistic approach one could make work through a multitude of changes. For example remove the queen autoattack and give it something simlar to the oracle where attacking costs energy. Or making them less tanky so they need to use the healing ability more often, etc. c) would be any change to the numbers basically, radius change, needing more energy per tumor, whatever.
I think i personally would go with a change in category b, simply because it would lead to more depth of queen usage.
On October 30 2019 16:27 MockHamill wrote: Design wise the new changes seems great.
Balance wise I have no idea. I suspect it is almost impossible to know what the balance will be when you make so many changes at the same time.
The only thing that bothers me is that Protoss will still have the ultimate Deathball and the best anti-deatball unit (the disruptor) at the same time.
I wonder if mech will be extinct again in TvP again? No real counter to disruptors since they now outrange liberators, Tempest with 25 more health. 14 range instead of 15 does not matter much when you kite with storm support.
Time warp now also affecting air units will make time/warmp HT really strong. Then again vikings are already quite useless vs Protoss if the go air/ht so maybe this will not change much in practice.
The changes to Blue Flame and Charge means that mid game hellbat/tank pushes are going to be less weak to ICA since zealots will be a bit weaker to Hellbats.
That being said I suspect nothing much will change and mech will be cyclone based stuff that you do to catch an opponent off guard and not a stable viable comp much like it is now.
I'd like to see hydras turn into a dedicated anti air unit. Maybe split their ground/air attack and buff them vs air. The removal of IT is a huge blow to zergs anti-air.
On October 30 2019 20:37 QOGQOG wrote: Much better set of changes now. Zealots might even be microable! I would have liked to see a more fundamental rethink on Zerg to get rid of/significantly change the Queen (right now a nonsense mashup of all kinds of abilities/roles), but this should at least weaken Infestor/BL. Too bad it'll come too late for Classic and HerO.
Aesthetic-wise i find the proposed Speedlot very wrong.
The Swarmhost looks strange how speedy they waddle arround , they are so big ,with lots of loads on their back , like an aircraftcarrier .. they should be slower. -But okay. The Ultralisk with Anabolic Synthesis (increase speed off Creep) looks way to fast for how Big and Massive the Unit is designed. When bum wiggling-turning he almost looks like about to fall over. -But okay.
BroodLord hovers slow and elegant, like a Manta Ray in Water -very aesthetic Look at the Thor -hes Biiiig ,and slow, and clunky ..as things should be when so Big! -Good Tempest looked way to fast with the Movement speed increased from 2.6 to 3.5! -reverted to 3.15 its better but still a bit to agile for such a big and powerful vessel.
All the other Units are are pretty on Point on how they look and how they move..maybe the Ghost? hes not really running he just makes sleek wide steps and wears a spandex suit?Okay, but then why he takes up two slots in a bunker? So much for the present Units
Now ..the speedy Zealot? Have you seen this? How fast they are? The animation of the zealots legs at this crazy speed looks flat out wrong. Very funny .. but also super unnatural -thats why them look so funny. -Please, No!
The Void Ray is perfect in his normal state, but with Flux Vanes? This looks like an arcade game! -Please, No!
Whats next? Hydralisk with Muscular Augments can Jump? Like cute little worms in WORMS.? -Please, No!
I really like the overall aestethics in Starcraft2! Its such a cool universe! But these speedupgrades look very odd. The Herc was added and looked wonky and then removed -good! Also the Warhound! -good!
On October 31 2019 03:45 hangfive wrote: Aesthetic-wise i find the proposed Speedlot very wrong.
The Swarmhost looks strange how speedy they waddle arround , they are so big ,with lots of loads on their back , like an aircraftcarrier .. they should be slower. -But okay. The Ultralisk with Anabolic Synthesis (increase speed off Creep) looks way to fast for how Big and Massive the Unit is designed. When bum wiggling-turning he almost looks like about to fall over. -But okay.
BroodLord hovers slow and elegant, like a Manta Ray in Water -very aesthetic Look at the Thor -hes Biiiig ,and slow, and clunky ..as things should be when so Big! -Good Tempest looked way to fast with the Movement speed increased from 2.6 to 3.5! -reverted to 3.15 its better but still a bit to agile for such a big and powerful vessel.
All the other Units are are pretty on Point on how they look and how they move..maybe the Ghost? hes not really running he just makes sleek wide steps and wears a spandex suit?Okay, but then why he takes up two slots in a bunker? So much for the present Units
Now ..the speedy Zealot? Have you seen this? How fast they are? The animation of the zealots legs at this crazy speed looks flat out wrong. Very funny .. but also super unnatural -thats why them look so funny. -Please, No!
The Void Ray is perfect in his normal state, but with Flux Vanes? This looks like an arcade game! -Please, No!
Whats next? Hydralisk with Muscular Augments can Jump? Like cute little worms in WORMS.? -Please, No!
I really like the overall aestethics in Starcraft2! Its such a cool universe! But these speedupgrades look very odd. The Herc was added and looked wonky and then removed -good! Also the Warhound! -good!
TL:DR SpeedZealots and Flux Vanes looks strange
This may actually be the best shitpost I've seen all year.
These changes are awesome. It looks really promising. I'd say we need even more. It can refresh openings and lategame scenario. Kudos to a balance guy (not to a town hall one) for the first time.
Regarding October 29 changes These changes are interesting and a step in the right direction compared to the previous proposals. Though I think many of them still need tweaking. Viking: Good change, 150 health was too much for TvT. Battlecruiser: Good that they reverted the previous changes though the stun is not necessary as BC openings have been figured out and Terran is still struggling in early game vs Zerg. Zealot: This is a nice change as it will make the Zealot more microable while and usable for harass in enemy worker lines while still nerfing it in PvT. However, I think this nerf is a bit too severe and I'm proposing +4 damage for Charge instead of 0 damage. The Charge ability is overall to easy to use, so it should require to be manually activated like any other ability. This would make the Chargelot + Immortal + Archon more of a challenge to use which would be very good. Adept: THANK GOD! The previous changes to Adepts were some of the worst I have ever seen from Blizzard. The new change to Resonating Glaives could be interesting as it provides more microability to Adepts, especially in timing attacks against Zerg before Roaches and against Terran before Stim but I'm not completely sure. Creep Tumour: Interesting change. I see what they are going for, more reason to try to attack Active Creep Tumours as that is unseen at the moment both in amateur and pro play. I would however suggest a further change: Make Active Creep Tumours take longer to burrow, as this will nerf creep spread which is a problem at all levels of play and make it easier to deny it in the early game. Pneumatized Carapace: This is a not insignificant nerf to Zerg that is very welcome. It will make hiding tech and production easier for both Terran and Protoss. Removed Infested Terran: I very much disliked the Infested Terran ability, since it seemed like a superfluous ability for Zerg, which already has free units with Swarm Hosts, Brood Lords and Changelings + Zerglings which fill a similar role to free units. Infested Terran made the Infestor a one-man army that could deal with all types of threats. Microbial Shroud Microbial Shroud is an interesting ability that could see a few use cases, some of which are: - Protect Infestors from Liberators, Battlecruisers, Tempests and Carriers. This is going to be the primary use case. - Protect any other unit: I guess Hydras and Queens or maybe Lurkers but since abilities like Psionic Storm and Colossus attacks are unaffected by this ability it serves a better purpose as a marker for where to focus splash attacks.
In general I would like an overhaul to the Infestor: Fungal Growth should not require an upgrade but be severely nerfed and/or changed and have an upgrade at Hive that changes/buffs it somehow. Microbial Shroud should not require an upgrade and should have bigger radius and cost 50 energy. Remove the Pathogen Glands upgrade as a general nerf to Infestors in the late game.
Nydus Network/Worm: Good change. This might however not be enough to balance Nydus + Swarm Host in ZvP and Queen/Ling + Nydus-all-in in both ZvT and ZvP. Mothership: I guess kind of a cool thing: Overall: These changes feel careless and rushed IMHO and they don't introduce many new interesting mechanics. Their purpose have been to "fix" the game in a very noncreative way which is never fun for the players.
On October 31 2019 03:45 hangfive wrote: Aesthetic-wise i find the proposed Speedlot very wrong.
The Swarmhost looks strange how speedy they waddle arround , they are so big ,with lots of loads on their back , like an aircraftcarrier .. they should be slower. -But okay. The Ultralisk with Anabolic Synthesis (increase speed off Creep) looks way to fast for how Big and Massive the Unit is designed. When bum wiggling-turning he almost looks like about to fall over. -But okay.
BroodLord hovers slow and elegant, like a Manta Ray in Water -very aesthetic Look at the Thor -hes Biiiig ,and slow, and clunky ..as things should be when so Big! -Good Tempest looked way to fast with the Movement speed increased from 2.6 to 3.5! -reverted to 3.15 its better but still a bit to agile for such a big and powerful vessel.
All the other Units are are pretty on Point on how they look and how they move..maybe the Ghost? hes not really running he just makes sleek wide steps and wears a spandex suit?Okay, but then why he takes up two slots in a bunker? So much for the present Units
Now ..the speedy Zealot? Have you seen this? How fast they are? The animation of the zealots legs at this crazy speed looks flat out wrong. Very funny .. but also super unnatural -thats why them look so funny. -Please, No!
The Void Ray is perfect in his normal state, but with Flux Vanes? This looks like an arcade game! -Please, No!
Whats next? Hydralisk with Muscular Augments can Jump? Like cute little worms in WORMS.? -Please, No!
I really like the overall aestethics in Starcraft2! Its such a cool universe! But these speedupgrades look very odd. The Herc was added and looked wonky and then removed -good! Also the Warhound! -good!
TL:DR SpeedZealots and Flux Vanes looks strange
This is hilarious! Really like the comparison between Hydras and Worms! Pure gold!
Also more shitting on the warhound is always a good idea
They're trying to give the zerg a chance to fight air without free units, too bad the best ground AA units we have is the hydras x)
Seriously, skytoss will dominate so hard now and as Serral pointed out, what is the supposed counter to libe/thors now? Roach/ravagers/sh ?
Edit : the zelote change is the most hardcore shit I ever heard since 2010 for god sake, it cuts every retreat option for the zerg and generate a super strong and safe harass, just wow.
Not as drastic as I'd like, but a good start nonetheless. Wish something was done about queens, too, if that nerf to creep is all it's going to be.
Overall this looks fantastic.
I do not like the protoss changes only:
1. I would remove charge altogether from the game and just turn it into a BW-style leg speed upgrade (maybe increase attack rate slighty, too, after the upgrade is completed).
2. The adept change is just way too gimmicky. If they want to see more mid/late game usage of the adept than perhaps an upgrade that *removes* shade ability in favour of a major buff to the unit or giving it a different ability altogether is the way to go.
On October 31 2019 18:54 stilt wrote: They're trying to give the zerg a chance to fight air without free units, too bad the best ground AA units we have is the hydras x)
Seriously, skytoss will dominate so hard now and as Serral pointed out, what is the supposed counter to libe/thors now? Roach/ravagers/sh ?
Edit : the zelote change is the most hardcore shit I ever heard since 2010 for god sake, it cuts every retreat option for the zerg and generate a super strong and safe harass, just wow.
Fungal, Vipers, Queens, Hydras, Spores. I think Zerg will be fine.
Remember that liberators have lower range now.
I do believe the new spell should be slightly more powerful (i.e .75% instead of 50%), since it's counterable.
On October 31 2019 18:54 stilt wrote: They're trying to give the zerg a chance to fight air without free units, too bad the best ground AA units we have is the hydras x)
Seriously, skytoss will dominate so hard now and as Serral pointed out, what is the supposed counter to libe/thors now? Roach/ravagers/sh ?
Edit : the zelote change is the most hardcore shit I ever heard since 2010 for god sake, it cuts every retreat option for the zerg and generate a super strong and safe harass, just wow.
Fungal, Vipers, Queens, Hydras, Spores. I think Zerg will be fine.
Remember that liberators have lower range now.
I do believe the new spell should be slightly more powerful (i.e .75% instead of 50%), since it's counterable.
You're selling me that you're countering skytoss+ storm with these units ? X) Dunno if it's a troll or if you have no experience at all but it doesn't work, they are not beefy enough to endure protoss aoe while standing still, as Serral pointed out, corrupters/vipers will still be the way to go.
On October 31 2019 18:54 stilt wrote: what is the supposed counter to libe/thors now? Roach/ravagers/sh ?
Fungal, Vipers, Queens, Hydras, Spores. I think Zerg will be fine.
Remember that liberators have lower range now.
I do believe the new spell should be slightly more powerful (i.e .75% instead of 50%), since it's counterable.
You're selling me that you're countering skytoss+ storm with these units ? X) Dunno if it's a troll or if you have no experience at all but it doesn't work, they are not beefy enough to endure protoss aoe while standing still, as Serral pointed out, corrupters/vipers will still be the way to go.
True spike answered your question. There is no protoss in that question. What you intended might have been generally for zerg vs air, but that wasn't the question.
I like the changes overall just two things they need to tweak:
- zealotspeed is way too much - too little risk involved anymore with runbys etc. - IT where the by far best AA zerg had - the new spell will probably help vs T but vs P there will be no answer vs skytoss + high templar or skytoss + colossus or skytoss + disruptors....and they even buff skytoss pretty hard with neural nerf, MS buff and voidray buff
Guess we will see on how they plan to give zerg a reliable lategame AA option vs skytoss + AoE ground dmg
On October 31 2019 18:54 stilt wrote: They're trying to give the zerg a chance to fight air without free units, too bad the best ground AA units we have is the hydras x)
Seriously, skytoss will dominate so hard now and as Serral pointed out, what is the supposed counter to libe/thors now? Roach/ravagers/sh ?
Edit : the zelote change is the most hardcore shit I ever heard since 2010 for god sake, it cuts every retreat option for the zerg and generate a super strong and safe harass, just wow.
Fungal, Vipers, Queens, Hydras, Spores. I think Zerg will be fine.
Remember that liberators have lower range now.
I do believe the new spell should be slightly more powerful (i.e .75% instead of 50%), since it's counterable.
You're selling me that you're countering skytoss+ storm with these units ? X) Dunno if it's a troll or if you have no experience at all but it doesn't work, they are not beefy enough to endure protoss aoe while standing still, as Serral pointed out, corrupters/vipers will still be the way to go.
Not beefy enough? Well how about a new spell that reduces damage taken from air units?
Also, welcome to the Terran experience of dealing with storms: Micro.
New zerg spell might be tough to balance. Seems like it will always be in a position of being too strong vs liberator comps and too weak vs everything else.
On October 31 2019 18:54 stilt wrote: They're trying to give the zerg a chance to fight air without free units, too bad the best ground AA units we have is the hydras x)
Seriously, skytoss will dominate so hard now and as Serral pointed out, what is the supposed counter to libe/thors now? Roach/ravagers/sh ?
Edit : the zelote change is the most hardcore shit I ever heard since 2010 for god sake, it cuts every retreat option for the zerg and generate a super strong and safe harass, just wow.
Fungal, Vipers, Queens, Hydras, Spores. I think Zerg will be fine.
Remember that liberators have lower range now.
I do believe the new spell should be slightly more powerful (i.e .75% instead of 50%), since it's counterable.
You're selling me that you're countering skytoss+ storm with these units ? X) Dunno if it's a troll or if you have no experience at all but it doesn't work, they are not beefy enough to endure protoss aoe while standing still, as Serral pointed out, corrupters/vipers will still be the way to go.
. Not beefy enough? Well how about a new spell that reduces damage taken from air units?
Also, welcome to the Terran experience of dealing with storms: Micro.
Why are you ignoring all the Protoss firepower that comes from disruptor storm colossus immortal etc
Tempests and carriers will still be able to pick away at Zerg thanks to range. But no longer can Zerg advance on a Protoss death ball.
Also lol@ thinking only Terran micros vs storm. Zerg microing vs storm is 10x harder since their units are flimsier and there is not godly medivac to retreat to and heal everything up
On October 31 2019 18:54 stilt wrote: They're trying to give the zerg a chance to fight air without free units, too bad the best ground AA units we have is the hydras x)
Seriously, skytoss will dominate so hard now and as Serral pointed out, what is the supposed counter to libe/thors now? Roach/ravagers/sh ?
Edit : the zelote change is the most hardcore shit I ever heard since 2010 for god sake, it cuts every retreat option for the zerg and generate a super strong and safe harass, just wow.
Fungal, Vipers, Queens, Hydras, Spores. I think Zerg will be fine.
It's like forgetting 7 years of starcraft where Zerg has always some trouble to fight skytoss (if not saying it was impossible for some area). Even in LOTV, and that was the reason they introduce IT buffs.
And of course they won't withdraw the buffs received to compensate IT buffs (BC buffs, vikings buffs, carriers buffs). Ah yeah, they even buff void ray in the meantime...
And again a new upgrade for zerg... So 3 more upgrades for zerg ? It's hilarious, BC arrive in your base at 6 min, a ghost academy is done faster than a spine crawler but you need hive to research multiple upgrades for ultras/lurkers/crackling/infestor/nyndus.
On October 31 2019 18:54 stilt wrote: They're trying to give the zerg a chance to fight air without free units, too bad the best ground AA units we have is the hydras x)
Seriously, skytoss will dominate so hard now and as Serral pointed out, what is the supposed counter to libe/thors now? Roach/ravagers/sh ?
Edit : the zelote change is the most hardcore shit I ever heard since 2010 for god sake, it cuts every retreat option for the zerg and generate a super strong and safe harass, just wow.
Fungal, Vipers, Queens, Hydras, Spores. I think Zerg will be fine.
Remember that liberators have lower range now.
I do believe the new spell should be slightly more powerful (i.e .75% instead of 50%), since it's counterable.
You're selling me that you're countering skytoss+ storm with these units ? X) Dunno if it's a troll or if you have no experience at all but it doesn't work, they are not beefy enough to endure protoss aoe while standing still, as Serral pointed out, corrupters/vipers will still be the way to go.
. Not beefy enough? Well how about a new spell that reduces damage taken from air units?
Also, welcome to the Terran experience of dealing with storms: Micro.
Why are you ignoring all the Protoss firepower that comes from disruptor storm colossus immortal etc
Tempests and carriers will still be able to pick away at Zerg thanks to range. But no longer can Zerg advance on a Protoss death ball.
Also lol@ thinking only Terran micros vs storm. Zerg microing vs storm is 10x harder since their units are flimsier and there is not godly medivac to retreat to and heal everything up
Man are you complaining about Zerg being harder to play in THIS meta?
On October 31 2019 18:54 stilt wrote: They're trying to give the zerg a chance to fight air without free units, too bad the best ground AA units we have is the hydras x)
Seriously, skytoss will dominate so hard now and as Serral pointed out, what is the supposed counter to libe/thors now? Roach/ravagers/sh ?
Edit : the zelote change is the most hardcore shit I ever heard since 2010 for god sake, it cuts every retreat option for the zerg and generate a super strong and safe harass, just wow.
Fungal, Vipers, Queens, Hydras, Spores. I think Zerg will be fine.
Remember that liberators have lower range now.
I do believe the new spell should be slightly more powerful (i.e .75% instead of 50%), since it's counterable.
You're selling me that you're countering skytoss+ storm with these units ? X) Dunno if it's a troll or if you have no experience at all but it doesn't work, they are not beefy enough to endure protoss aoe while standing still, as Serral pointed out, corrupters/vipers will still be the way to go.
. Not beefy enough? Well how about a new spell that reduces damage taken from air units?
Also, welcome to the Terran experience of dealing with storms: Micro.
Why are you ignoring all the Protoss firepower that comes from disruptor storm colossus immortal etc
Tempests and carriers will still be able to pick away at Zerg thanks to range. But no longer can Zerg advance on a Protoss death ball.
Also lol@ thinking only Terran micros vs storm. Zerg microing vs storm is 10x harder since their units are flimsier and there is not godly medivac to retreat to and heal everything up
Man are you complaining about Zerg being harder to play in THIS meta?
I'm not complaining about anything.
Youre acting like Zerg doesnt have to micro like Terran.
On the contrary Terran has the easiest micro out of the 3 races
On October 31 2019 18:54 stilt wrote: They're trying to give the zerg a chance to fight air without free units, too bad the best ground AA units we have is the hydras x)
Seriously, skytoss will dominate so hard now and as Serral pointed out, what is the supposed counter to libe/thors now? Roach/ravagers/sh ?
Edit : the zelote change is the most hardcore shit I ever heard since 2010 for god sake, it cuts every retreat option for the zerg and generate a super strong and safe harass, just wow.
Fungal, Vipers, Queens, Hydras, Spores. I think Zerg will be fine.
Remember that liberators have lower range now.
I do believe the new spell should be slightly more powerful (i.e .75% instead of 50%), since it's counterable.
You're selling me that you're countering skytoss+ storm with these units ? X) Dunno if it's a troll or if you have no experience at all but it doesn't work, they are not beefy enough to endure protoss aoe while standing still, as Serral pointed out, corrupters/vipers will still be the way to go.
. Not beefy enough? Well how about a new spell that reduces damage taken from air units?
Also, welcome to the Terran experience of dealing with storms: Micro.
Why are you ignoring all the Protoss firepower that comes from disruptor storm colossus immortal etc
Tempests and carriers will still be able to pick away at Zerg thanks to range. But no longer can Zerg advance on a Protoss death ball.
Also lol@ thinking only Terran micros vs storm. Zerg microing vs storm is 10x harder since their units are flimsier and there is not godly medivac to retreat to and heal everything up
Man are you complaining about Zerg being harder to play in THIS meta?
I'm not complaining about anything.
Youre acting like Zerg doesnt have to micro like Terran.
On the contrary Terran has the easiest micro out of the 3 races
Yeah, quickfire spamming IT is really hard micro. Such good skill toi have.
Shocked to see how many people think the removal of IT will make Carrier/storm OP again... Carriers are so much worse than they were when Carrier/templar was actually powerful. Zerg deal with that comp without IT all the time.
On November 01 2019 13:32 JJH777 wrote: Shocked to see how many people think the removal of IT will make Carrier/storm OP again... Carriers are so much worse than they were when Carrier/templar was actually powerful. Zerg deal with that comp without IT all the time.
On November 01 2019 13:32 JJH777 wrote: Shocked to see how many people think the removal of IT will make Carrier/storm OP again... Carriers are so much worse than they were when Carrier/templar was actually powerful. Zerg deal with that comp without IT all the time.
All the time is quite hyperbolic but there are examples yes... Except in these examples you have a neural at 9 ranges or a BL who can target the ht from a larger range too which protects the vipers. Every tools zerg use has been nerfed. Maybe only the neural or bl range nerf getting removed will be enough but for now, it seems tough even if corrupteurs vipers will still be the way to go. Well, I mentionned protoss but thors/liberators seem insane and probably stronger as it should be easier for T to reach this compo (while the P would have to work for it, zvp doesn't bother me that much, I was mainly reacting at the totally useless infestor spell) and such a skill it is to handle a compo with 2 units !
Not beefy enough? Well how about a new spell that reduces damage taken from air units?
Also, welcome to the Terran experience of dealing with storms: Micro
Each time I see such a post I am like "forgive them, they are in bronze league, they don't know what they are saying" x) Especially when a random T begins to brag about his micro, wtf dude, you really think top Z have bad micro ? Ok, let's say your point is full of bs and they actually know how to micro cuz there are too much examples of them doing so to refute it : What about all the protoss aoe I mentionned before, they suddenly don't exist anymore?
Oh, you wanna micro hydras vs storm/skytoss, good luck with that haha what a funny idea, hydras are way more clumsy than marines and don't shoot as fast, therefore, they lose more dps, lastly, they'll just leave the zones by doing so and get schred which is fine, that's the dynamic of the mu. And trying to balance Hydras to make them viables vs skytoss would be a terrible idea, design and balance wise.
Overall there are probably some ways to make lategame zvp/pvz better but that's surely not by making hydras/queens viable against skytoss, the core idea of the new spell is shitty. Everyone especially toss and terran are like "this is a step in the good direction" and I don't disagree overall, ITs removal is great but wait a bit when it will be buff to the point which hydras would deal with skytoss
The truth is, Zerg has been dominating the pro scene at the highest level for a long time, and it is time for a change. Every time there is a zerg-less final it is considered an upset.
Protoss players were afraid the emp upgrade would ruin the matchup, it turned out quite ok. The best Zergs will adapt, I am sure they are up to the task!
The impossibility to neural the mothership is a very good change. Other than that, I don't think the Zerg nerfs will significantly alter its dominance. Sure it's a step in the right direction, but the actual ratio of Zerg tournaments win that really relied on 25 gaz or mass IT abuse is very low.
If no other nerfs get introduced, Zerg will most likely keep dominating, mark my words.
On November 01 2019 21:28 gulii wrote: So they gave zerg dark swarm again. Pretty nice.
Those ling bane on creep gonna melt stuff with that new spell.
Liberation zone bye bye.
Why do people keep saying this is dark swarm?
Dark Swarm reduced 100% damage from ALL ranged attacks.
Microbial Shroud is only 50% damage reduction from air attacks.
Dark Swarm Lasted for like 40 seconds
This lasts for 11 seconds
Dark Swarm blows this out of the water. I'm not saying that they should turn this into Dark Swarm, but this is nothing like Dark Swarm.
Liberators will still OHKO lings and banes with proper upgrade and everything else on the ground will still fight ling bane the same.
The only difference now is that without infested terran, Zerg lost its ability to move into a protoss lategame deathball and, to a lesser extent, a Terran lategame position.
On November 01 2019 21:28 gulii wrote: So they gave zerg dark swarm again. Pretty nice.
Those ling bane on creep gonna melt stuff with that new spell.
Liberation zone bye bye.
The only difference now is that without infested terran, Zerg lost its ability to move into a protoss lategame deathball and, to a lesser extent, a Terran lategame position.
Hopefully this change doesnt go through.
The definition of a deathball is a very strong unit composition that can not lose a straight engagement and therefore has to be outmanoeuvered. Therefore, this notion loses all its meaning if it can get wrecked by infested terrans spam.
Same logic applies to a fortified late game Terran position. If it can get wrecked by a simple frontal attack, the notion loses all its meaning.
By the way, I think abduct, parasiting bombs, locusts, mass moving spores, queens heal, will still dominate late-game by being more cost-effective than any T/P composition. Hope to be wrong, time will tell.
To me, there's nothing wrong with Zerg being unable to defeat the endgame airtoss army. To me, that's as intended. Zerg's supposed to be about outmanouvering the opponent and using their superior mobility to force advantageous engagements. Another advantage of Zerg is the instant remaxing.The fact that in its current state Zerg can defeat Protoss in a late game army battle straight up is a massive issue and I honestly can't believe so many people think that it's anything even close to fine. If Protoss after these changes is actually going to be able to build a nearly unbeatable army, the matchup will become much better.
I've always been a Zerg player in both SCBW and SC2, by the way.
On November 01 2019 21:28 gulii wrote: So they gave zerg dark swarm again. Pretty nice.
Those ling bane on creep gonna melt stuff with that new spell.
Liberation zone bye bye.
The only difference now is that without infested terran, Zerg lost its ability to move into a protoss lategame deathball and, to a lesser extent, a Terran lategame position.
Hopefully this change doesnt go through.
The definition of a deathball is a very strong unit composition that can not lose a straight engagement and therefore has to be outmanoeuvered. Therefore, this notion loses all its meaning if it can get wrecked by infested terrans spam.
Same logic applies to a fortified late game Terran position. If it can get wrecked by a simple frontal attack, the notion loses all its meaning.
By the way, I think abduct, parasiting bombs, locusts, mass moving spores, queens heal, will still dominate late-game by being more cost-effective than any T/P composition. Hope to be wrong, time will tell.
You are just arguing semantics here.
I wouldnt even say a Deathball has to be invincible in a straight up engagement. Nor a fortified terran position unbreakable. BTW BL infestor was a deathball too.
What do you want Zerg to do?
If you think all of those things you listed will help Zerg against lategame skytoss deathballs and Terran positions with ghost thor lib idk what to tell you. They are nowhere near as cost effective as the Terran and Protoss lategame comps. That's why IT existed in the first place.
Infested Terrans were in the game for a reason. I absolutely agree that there were points throughout the game's history in which they were broken. I have been incessantly posting over the past several months that protoss is completely helpless against Zerg in the lategame. But, design wise, they were the Zerg's feature that allowed them to at least compete with Protoss and Terran lategame comps.
You can argue that the design is so bad that they have to be removed from the game, but the compensation has to be proportional so that Zerg does not become completely outgunned in the lategame. In this balance proposal, a huge dynamic is being completely turned on its head. The equalizers - infestors and brood lords - are getting very heavy nerfs. Meanwhile Void rays and mothership are getting buffs, thors are getting buffed, and the ghost just got buffed. A 10 range lurker and a relatively weak spell like Microbial Shroud is not enough compensation. The numbers simply don't add up. Protoss is now trading energy (storm) for expensive hydralisks instead of energy costing infested terrans. There is nothing to defend brood lords thanks to time warp....etc
I really like the thinking behind the revision to the adept - a killer ambush attack, instead of a frontline warrior muscling in on the zealot.
I have no idea if the numbers will work out in the wider scheme of balance, but I hope it will. Even if this means we see it used less in the later phases of the game, I'd still be okay with it.
On November 01 2019 21:28 gulii wrote: So they gave zerg dark swarm again. Pretty nice.
Those ling bane on creep gonna melt stuff with that new spell.
Liberation zone bye bye.
The only difference now is that without infested terran, Zerg lost its ability to move into a protoss lategame deathball and, to a lesser extent, a Terran lategame position.
Hopefully this change doesnt go through.
The definition of a deathball is a very strong unit composition that can not lose a straight engagement and therefore has to be outmanoeuvered. Therefore, this notion loses all its meaning if it can get wrecked by infested terrans spam.
Same logic applies to a fortified late game Terran position. If it can get wrecked by a simple frontal attack, the notion loses all its meaning.
By the way, I think abduct, parasiting bombs, locusts, mass moving spores, queens heal, will still dominate late-game by being more cost-effective than any T/P composition. Hope to be wrong, time will tell.
You are just arguing semantics here.
I wouldnt even say a Deathball has to be invincible in a straight up engagement. Nor a fortified terran position unbreakable. BTW BL infestor was a deathball too.
What do you want Zerg to do?
If you think all of those things you listed will help Zerg against lategame skytoss deathballs and Terran positions with ghost thor lib idk what to tell you. They are nowhere near as cost effective as the Terran and Protoss lategame comps. That's why IT existed in the first place.
Infested Terrans were in the game for a reason. I absolutely agree that there were points throughout the game's history in which they were broken. I have been incessantly posting over the past several months that protoss is completely helpless against Zerg in the lategame. But, design wise, they were the Zerg's feature that allowed them to at least compete with Protoss and Terran lategame comps.
You can argue that the design is so bad that they have to be removed from the game, but the compensation has to be proportional so that Zerg does not become completely outgunned in the lategame. In this balance proposal, a huge dynamic is being completely turned on its head. The equalizers - infestors and brood lords - are getting very heavy nerfs. Meanwhile Void rays and mothership are getting buffs, thors are getting buffed, and the ghost just got buffed. A 10 range lurker and a relatively weak spell like Microbial Shroud is not enough compensation. The numbers simply don't add up. Protoss is now trading energy (storm) for expensive hydralisks instead of energy costing infested terrans. There is nothing to defend brood lords thanks to time warp....etc
and yes. time will tell
Something I think a lot of people are overlooking is that Z are going be making many more Hydras in the MU. Hydras trade very well against P air in lower numbers. With microbial swarm, they'll trade really well against P air in medium numbers too.
Since there will just be more hydras in the matchup in general, the transition to air for P won't be as easy, so it'll take longer to get the number of air units needed to get the armada.
In Broodwar, if the P got to the super late game on even economy, it was really really difficult for the Z to win. Their spells didn't do anything against archons, dark archons, or reavers. But it was still a really excellent matchup.
Personally, I still wouldn't mind seeing higher collision on air units in general though. I don't want air to be my only lategame option as P.
I’d like air units to have higher collision too, can be a bit ridiculous how the air balls clump.
Ground units have to circumvent the terrain in ways air units obviously don’t have to, so maybe ground to air would be made better by having air balls and their firepower less concentrated.
On November 01 2019 21:28 gulii wrote: So they gave zerg dark swarm again. Pretty nice.
Those ling bane on creep gonna melt stuff with that new spell.
Liberation zone bye bye.
The only difference now is that without infested terran, Zerg lost its ability to move into a protoss lategame deathball and, to a lesser extent, a Terran lategame position.
Hopefully this change doesnt go through.
The definition of a deathball is a very strong unit composition that can not lose a straight engagement and therefore has to be outmanoeuvered. Therefore, this notion loses all its meaning if it can get wrecked by infested terrans spam.
Same logic applies to a fortified late game Terran position. If it can get wrecked by a simple frontal attack, the notion loses all its meaning.
By the way, I think abduct, parasiting bombs, locusts, mass moving spores, queens heal, will still dominate late-game by being more cost-effective than any T/P composition. Hope to be wrong, time will tell.
You are just arguing semantics here.
I wouldnt even say a Deathball has to be invincible in a straight up engagement. Nor a fortified terran position unbreakable. BTW BL infestor was a deathball too.
What do you want Zerg to do?
If you think all of those things you listed will help Zerg against lategame skytoss deathballs and Terran positions with ghost thor lib idk what to tell you. They are nowhere near as cost effective as the Terran and Protoss lategame comps. That's why IT existed in the first place.
Infested Terrans were in the game for a reason. I absolutely agree that there were points throughout the game's history in which they were broken. I have been incessantly posting over the past several months that protoss is completely helpless against Zerg in the lategame. But, design wise, they were the Zerg's feature that allowed them to at least compete with Protoss and Terran lategame comps.
You can argue that the design is so bad that they have to be removed from the game, but the compensation has to be proportional so that Zerg does not become completely outgunned in the lategame. In this balance proposal, a huge dynamic is being completely turned on its head. The equalizers - infestors and brood lords - are getting very heavy nerfs. Meanwhile Void rays and mothership are getting buffs, thors are getting buffed, and the ghost just got buffed. A 10 range lurker and a relatively weak spell like Microbial Shroud is not enough compensation. The numbers simply don't add up. Protoss is now trading energy (storm) for expensive hydralisks instead of energy costing infested terrans. There is nothing to defend brood lords thanks to time warp....etc
and yes. time will tell
Something I think a lot of people are overlooking is that Z are going be making many more Hydras in the MU. Hydras trade very well against P air in lower numbers. With microbial swarm, they'll trade really well against P air in medium numbers too.
Since there will just be more hydras in the matchup in general, the transition to air for P won't be as easy, so it'll take longer to get the number of air units needed to get the armada.
In Broodwar, if the P got to the super late game on even economy, it was really really difficult for the Z to win. Their spells didn't do anything against archons, dark archons, or reavers. But it was still a really excellent matchup.
Personally, I still wouldn't mind seeing higher collision on air units in general though. I don't want air to be my only lategame option as P.
Hydras would be fine if the game were played in monobattles, where hydras just had to stand and fight protoss air units. The game doesnt work that way though. Hydras have to attempt to combat protoss air units under fire from Protoss' unmatched AOE and hydras are outranged by basically everything. This is the reason infested terran, as a concept, existed. Without IT zerg units would just melt and the Zerg would go broke trying to touch the protoss death fleet.
Microbial Shroud does not solve any of these problems, as the danger to hydras doesnt come from the low dps tempest or the carrier interceptor. It comes from storm, disruptor, etc , all of which do not care about microbial shroud.
Brood War is irrelevant to this game. Different games and all.
Air is the only lategame option for P as long as lurkers and broodlords have siege range. Only way for ground toss to be viable vs zerg is to do something absurdly broken like give immortals an air attack and siege range.
Air is the only lategame option for P as long as lurkers and broodlords have siege range. Only way for ground toss to be viable vs zerg is to do something absurdly broken like give immortals an air attack and siege range.
Let blink DTs blink straight up and hit air units. Huge flavor win.
I second the user that said Neural Parasite should be removed. I think its too problematic. Also, I still think Vipers should yeet instead of yoink. As it stands, both of those spells give too much power to energy usage for a race that is supposed to win with production.
I like the microbial swarm idea alot, even if it means the infestor is now officially an sc2 defiler. I hope they either strengthen it or move it to lair tech. Removing Infested Terran should have been done when Swarm Hosts were introduced. I'm glad they are finally getting around to it and are giving the infestor a better niche. It would be cool to see another obscure trick up thr infestor's sleeve.. something like the BW queen's ability to infest command centers. Maybe they could finish off severely damaged buildings or spread creep around themselves or something creative like that.
Anyway, three cheers to Blizzard for continuing to invest in this game like this in order to keep things fresh. So hype for more Starcraft in 2020!!
It’s a pity they didn’t nerf SH/Nydus a bit before Blizzcon, it’s ok as an option but it’s way too low risk high reward as it is and too tough to defend while doing pressure yourself.
Perhaps the swarm’s players have it right in not fully abusing some of their race’s strongest styles until it’s too close to Blizzcon for Blizz to nerf, us Protoss could learn something from that!
On November 02 2019 21:17 Wombat_NI wrote: It’s a pity they didn’t nerf SH/Nydus a bit before Blizzcon, it’s ok as an option but it’s way too low risk high reward as it is and too tough to defend while doing pressure yourself.
Perhaps the swarm’s players have it right in not fully abusing some of their race’s strongest styles until it’s too close to Blizzcon for Blizz to nerf, us Protoss could learn something from that!
I swear it was almost like "oh I might be losing the series... time to unleash the strat " especially Reynor vs Trap g5. Same for Elazer but with bl/infestor instead of swarmhost/nydus.
A revert to the baneling hp buff might be a good idea as well. There are so many things that seem / are strong atm that it's a bit hard to know what to tweak though (other than the obvious nydus and infestor tweaks that are already being looked at)
I have hope in blizzard though, I think they'll manage to do a good job for 2020 season, because people have been very vocal and it showed in the games.
I remember the first time when they introduced Swarm Host, the locusts were supposed to be ground units traveling on ground. I was thinking maybe they should really start that way, and flying locust could be a Hive upgrade? Im really sick of watching all those nexus snipes with the locusts, it basically requires really a very small effort from the zerg side. Combined with nydus CD increase that should be enough imho.
On November 02 2019 21:36 kajtarp wrote: I remember the first time when they introduced Swarm Host, the locusts were supposed to be ground units traveling on ground. I was thinking maybe they should really start that way, and flying locust could be a Hive upgrade? Im really sick of watching all those nexus snipes with the locusts, it basically requires really a very small effort from the zerg side. Combined with nydus CD increase that should be enough imho.
Plus the load/unload speed. There are plenty of games where a Protoss catches the swarm hosts before they retreat down the worm. With even a slight increase to the load/unload rate a Protoss player could catch a few swarmhosts and whittle down their numbers if they’re being vigilant, which would definitely make a difference.
Generally the Zerg player currently builds the initial Swarmhost batch and that’s them for the game because they rarely lose any of the initial batch. Making them retreat a little slower and maybe lose a few here and there and the locust waves are either weakened, or Zerg’s transitions are weakened if they choose to rebuild swarmhosts.
The swarm host and the nydus should have been removed with LotV. Instead they have been trying to make bad concepts integral parts of Zerg play. Offensive warp in and recall have been bad concepts all along and they nydus is the same. Now that it is useable it shows.
On November 02 2019 23:45 Big J wrote: The swarm host and the nydus should have been removed with LotV. Instead they have been trying to make bad concepts integral parts of Zerg play. Offensive warp in and recall have been bad concepts all along and they nydus is the same. Now that it is useable it shows.
Nydus has the potential to not be problematic, but the way it is implemented in SC2 makes it far too easy to be abused. If it was like how it is in BW, it would be a much different scenario, or even if it was slowed down a bunch.
As Snute said in that tweet, if they deal with the load/unload speed it would go a long way to solve the nydus issue. The current nydus load speed is 0.09, which means that a zerg can load 11 units per second into the nydus and with an unload speed of 0.18 they can unload 5-6 units per second. In these swarmhost/nydus scenarios, the zerg seldom seems to have more than about 20 swarmhosts, meaning once the locusts are launched, the opponent has at most about 2 seconds to pick off some of the swarmhosts before they have all safely retreated back into the worm. Because of this, the risk for the zerg is essentially eliminated. At worst, they might lose 1-2 swarmhosts if their opponent has units right nearby. The only other option is to snipe the worm itself while everything is unloaded, but there's only a window of a few seconds to do this between the swarmhosts starting to pop out, launching locusts, and retreating back in.
I remember when they first did these unload/load speed changes I was watching Zerg streamers like Vibe and a few others, and pretty much all of them said "this'll probably get nerfed, it's too good" but then it never did because it wasn't really abused in tournaments. Undoing these unload/load speed changes has seemed like a long time coming now.
On November 02 2019 23:45 Big J wrote: The swarm host and the nydus should have been removed with LotV. Instead they have been trying to make bad concepts integral parts of Zerg play. Offensive warp in and recall have been bad concepts all along and they nydus is the same. Now that it is useable it shows.
As Snute said in that tweet, if they deal with the load/unload speed it would go a long way to solve the nydus issue. The current nydus load speed is 0.09, which means that a zerg can load 11 units per second into the nydus and with an unload speed of 0.18 they can unload 5-6 units per second. In these swarmhost/nydus scenarios, the zerg seldom seems to have more than about 20 swarmhosts, meaning once the locusts are launched, the opponent has at most about 2 seconds to pick off some of the swarmhosts before they have all safely retreated back into the worm. Because of this, the risk for the zerg is essentially eliminated. At worst, they might lose 1-2 swarmhosts if their opponent has units right nearby. The only other option is to snipe the worm itself while everything is unloaded, but there's only a window of a few seconds to do this between the swarmhosts starting to pop out, launching locusts, and retreating back in.
I remember when they first did these unload/load speed changes I was watching Zerg streamers like Vibe and a few others, and pretty much all of them said "this'll probably get nerfed, it's too good" but then it never did because it wasn't really abused in tournaments. Undoing these unload/load speed changes has seemed like a long time coming now.
The most unbelievable thing about it is that they actually nerfed SH movement speed off creep because they were to difficult to catch for the opponent and the locust waves were thus too low-risk for the zerg compared to how much damage a wave of locusts do. And then they introduce this version of Nydus where there is virtually no risk at all in using SH. What the hell?!
On November 02 2019 23:45 Big J wrote: The swarm host and the nydus should have been removed with LotV. Instead they have been trying to make bad concepts integral parts of Zerg play. Offensive warp in and recall have been bad concepts all along and they nydus is the same. Now that it is useable it shows.
As Snute said in that tweet, if they deal with the load/unload speed it would go a long way to solve the nydus issue. The current nydus load speed is 0.09, which means that a zerg can load 11 units per second into the nydus and with an unload speed of 0.18 they can unload 5-6 units per second. In these swarmhost/nydus scenarios, the zerg seldom seems to have more than about 20 swarmhosts, meaning once the locusts are launched, the opponent has at most about 2 seconds to pick off some of the swarmhosts before they have all safely retreated back into the worm. Because of this, the risk for the zerg is essentially eliminated. At worst, they might lose 1-2 swarmhosts if their opponent has units right nearby. The only other option is to snipe the worm itself while everything is unloaded, but there's only a window of a few seconds to do this between the swarmhosts starting to pop out, launching locusts, and retreating back in.
I remember when they first did these unload/load speed changes I was watching Zerg streamers like Vibe and a few others, and pretty much all of them said "this'll probably get nerfed, it's too good" but then it never did because it wasn't really abused in tournaments. Undoing these unload/load speed changes has seemed like a long time coming now.
The most unbelievable thing about it is that they actually nerfed SH movement speed off creep because they were to difficult to catch for the opponent and the locust waves were thus too low-risk for the zerg compared to how much damage a wave of locusts do. And then they introduce this version of Nydus where there is virtually no risk at all in using SH. What the hell?!
There were a lot of changes done in the last big big patch, and the couple patches following, that didn't seem fully thought through. Nydus was just one of them. The changes to the infestor are probably the most obvious (they made them smaller, and buffed the anti-air of infested terrans substantially). The feedback nerf was done with good intent but had a much bigger impact than they seemed to think it would, especially when paired with the infestor changes. The tempest speed/health change was, like the nydus changes, obviously too much, but they ended up trying to split the difference in a later patch and we were left with a tempest wasn't crazy fast, but still had much less health. Same with the carrier changes. It made sense to change the carrier because it was too strong but nerfing it heavily while also buffing zerg anti-air with infested terrans was never going to end well.
The terran changes were mostly the only good changes. The BC became a much more consistent unit to use in terms of damage, the thor changes seemed smart, and the changes to cyclones opened up an entire new playstyle. The recall change was the other good change that comes to mind.
On November 03 2019 03:08 GreasedUpDeafGuy wrote: People pretending just making the nydus head cost more isn't the easiest and best change.
Zerg can easily afford that, at least in how they’re using them in ZvP. It would definitely help in ZvZ though where they really are spammed out a lot.
- remove the ability of creep tumors to spam one other tumors - decrease the cost of spawm creep tumors from queen from 25 to 15
AND LITTLE BIT MORE SURVIVAL / BEEFY
- increase a little bit queen speed on creep (3.5 to 3.8) - increase heallth relatively to decrease damage
This change is drastic change but not so drastic afterall. Of course it ask to Zerg players to adapt and have a more deep gameplay (as terran difficulty, it could be very very interessant game in lower league).. the mechanics of spread creep tumors is too machine-like. With this change the zerg has to care about protect his queens and expand creep with limited options.
tbh this is not my idea, but i think it s better than my first two ideas : - remove invisibility - add cooldowns
On November 03 2019 05:02 Vision_ wrote: As simple idea i was thinking about :
- remove the ability of creep tumors to spam one other tumors - decrease the cost of spawm creep tumors from queen from 25 to 15
AND LITTLE BIT MORE SURVIVAL / BEEFY
- increase a little bit queen speed on creep (3.5 to 3.8) - increase heallth relatively to decrease damage
This change is drastic change but not so drastic afterall. Of course it ask to Zerg players to adapt and have a more deep gameplay (as terran difficulty, it could be very very interessant game in lower league).. the mechanics of spread creep tumors is too machine-like. With this change the zerg has to care about protect his queens and expand creep with limited options.
tbh this is not my idea, but i think it s better than my first two ideas : - remove invisibility - add cooldowns
What do you think about it ?
Increased queen speed would heavily affect harass defense. Medivacs are coming? No problem, just run over. They are leaving? Just chase and shoot down! Oracles dancing around? Go there and take it down! Hellions are racing around? Easy. Warp prism jumping between bases? Reapers? Shading adepts? Queens to the rescue. It is good that you also suggested nerfing their DPS. That might balance out the speed boost.
Since the game is balanced with a vast creep spread, a removal of creep tumors' replication is a heavy blow. Players would need way more queens to effectively spread their creep. Additionally, creep spreading would become way ore taxing. Not only do you need the creep spread out, you need a queen present. That queen will either risk her life on the edge or be delayed by running from a safe zone. Either way, the zerg will need a lot more APM to spread (move queen back and forth/defend edge harass from opponent).
Tumors need the invisibility to survive. A few stalkers/marines at the edge would kill all tumors if they were visible. They just have to stay by the edge of creep.
What do you mean by "add cooldowns"? Active crep tumors have got a cooldown already. Queens are restricted by energy for their 3 abilities, and can therefore not do everything at the same time. Balance team has made a stance against cooldown on larvae in the roundabout way of making spawn larvae stackable/queuable. A cooldown on the hatchery was removed, that was - in most cases - comparable to a cooldown on a single queens spawn larvae. It would not be consistent with other units should the queen have 2 energy abilities and 1 cooldown ability. Either everything is energy, or nothing is energy.
Personally, I think a vision nerf for inactive tumors would be interesting. The creep spread by a hatchery in farther out than its vision. I think that could be worth testing for inactive tumors.
On November 03 2019 03:08 GreasedUpDeafGuy wrote: People pretending just making the nydus head cost more isn't the easiest and best change.
That's not the best change at all:
1.) One of the most dangerous periods for nydus is in the extreme late game. When zerg often has thousands of minerals and gas.
2.) This does little to reduce the constant nydus threat. It makes it slightly more risky, but it still has the same problem of: you have to somehow have vision of every single location within swarmhost range of your base, all at the same time, with the ability to have units gets there in time regardless of where it is placed.
On November 03 2019 05:02 Vision_ wrote: As simple idea i was thinking about :
- remove the ability of creep tumors to spam one other tumors - decrease the cost of spawm creep tumors from queen from 25 to 15
AND LITTLE BIT MORE SURVIVAL / BEEFY
- increase a little bit queen speed on creep (3.5 to 3.8) - increase heallth relatively to decrease damage
This change is drastic change but not so drastic afterall. Of course it ask to Zerg players to adapt and have a more deep gameplay (as terran difficulty, it could be very very interessant game in lower league).. the mechanics of spread creep tumors is too machine-like. With this change the zerg has to care about protect his queens and expand creep with limited options.
tbh this is not my idea, but i think it s better than my first two ideas : - remove invisibility - add cooldowns
What do you think about it ?
Increased queen speed would heavily affect harass defense. Medivacs are coming? No problem, just run over. They are leaving? Just chase and shoot down! Oracles dancing around? Go there and take it down! Hellions are racing around? Easy. Warp prism jumping between bases? Reapers? Shading adepts? Queens to the rescue. It is good that you also suggested nerfing their DPS. That might balance out the speed boost.
Of course, i know Queens are probably the best Zerg units.
On November 03 2019 05:35 Drfilip wrote: Since the game is balanced with a vast creep spread, a removal of creep tumors' replication is a heavy blow. Players would need way more queens to effectively spread their creep. Additionally, creep spreading would become way ore taxing. Not only do you need the creep spread out, you need a queen present. That queen will either risk her life on the edge or be delayed by running from a safe zone. Either way, the zerg will need a lot more APM to spread (move queen back and forth/defend edge harass from opponent).
That s the point, For now Zergs can spread their creep without take any risk, especially unfair when you know their creep tumors are invisible !!! I think your analysis is great cause the queen have now to go near the front lline and back, what s a part of gain territory or not. In other terms, creep doesn t expand automatically (i.E with machine-like APM).. It s not probably a problm of APM, pros have a lots of APM...
I ve just done a test with editor and it looks great, i put the queen speed (from 1.5 to 1.7 without calculate modifier creep), i ve decrease enregy from 25 to 15 and remove tumors replication. For now, 1.7 seems too fast maybe 1.6 or 1.57 looks OK. For the energy, i know you love as me round number, maybe decrease to 18 or something like that.
One thing has to be changed more, it s the build construction time : it s actually 15 seconds, then you can decrease this parameter to 10 at least.
On November 03 2019 05:35 Drfilip wrote: Tumors need the invisibility to survive. A few stalkers/marines at the edge would kill all tumors if they were visible. They just have to stay by the edge of creep.
What do you mean by "add cooldowns"? Active crep tumors have got a cooldown already. Queens are restricted by energy for their 3 abilities, and can therefore not do everything at the same time. Balance team has made a stance against cooldown on larvae in the roundabout way of making spawn larvae stackable/queuable. A cooldown on the hatchery was removed, that was - in most cases - comparable to a cooldown on a single queens spawn larvae. It would not be consistent with other units should the queen have 2 energy abilities and 1 cooldown ability. Either everything is energy, or nothing is energy.
Personally, I think a vision nerf for inactive tumors would be interesting. The creep spread by a hatchery in farther out than its vision. I think that could be worth testing for inactive tumors.
It was my old ideas, and i think they are too drastic. Invisibillity tumors is a part inside the combat strategy against Zerg
Your idea is interesting, but i m not sure of this design gameplay..
I disagree first :
- on the part of the ergonomy and ease of minimap (holes appearring) - the game isn t balance at all in very late game (We can consider Zerg already won if he controls more than half of the mines +1),
that s why i feel exciting with the last idea of my friend, cause Zerg don t take risk for now, and it s maybe what is killing the game. If you re adding a difficulty to the progression of creep in term of gameplay (without changing cost, cooldowns, ability power etc..), you ren t removing something, you re truely adding a new feature to the game.
I do not see logic to the change in the obserber and the evamed. I do not understand why they want to insult the terrra to the dropping game by reducing the risk of it, also I do not see a logger so slow observer, the protos depend a lot on this unit, and now you have to build the roboty bay and speed up from obserber to make it feasible, it is too much expense and time
Blizzard was doing really well, removing the MSC, making the game better, but the last few patch notes directly address none of the problems in the game and do odd things.
Why are we nerfing Zealots and Adepts? Adepts were one of the the only things working versus Zerg in PvZ. Do Observers need to be slower?
Do we really believe that 25 minerals and 25 gas is going to change the equation for Zerg players when deciding to go for Nydus or Overlord Speed? I think the answer is rhetorical, how many games did we see the Zerg winning by a few pairs of Zerglings in the Global Finals... And now take away a few of Zerglings and do any of the results change? Zerg is crushing Protoss right now, this would be like increasing the cost of Siege mode by 25/25 as a solution to the 1-1-1 when it was rampant in WOL. It would do nothing. 25/25 is nothing for a player on three bases, these guys were floating money while kill Protoss. Nydus Worms needs to go back to 100/100.
And the Swarm Host... Locusts shouldn't fly. It is that simple. If they can't fly, then they become far easier to manage and then the Nydus isn't nearly as terrible. Maybe then, you don't even need to change the Nydus.
I find ... the decision to remove a core concept and idea, and stuff that exists since WoL namely the (Infested Terran)... ugly.
So many tweaks and changes to the unit, removing a core spell doesn't make sense to me.
Similar to completely removing damage from the raven's aamissile. (I know from 15 to 0, instead of 5 or a DoT of 10, or Damage in the end fix) ... This spell was a replacer for Seeker Missile, if you remember! So changing the missile was okay, but it allways was supposed to deal some damage. (not a game breaking damage indeed). Because there exist enough spell casters that do damage on top of the support - NAMELY the infestor OR feedback.
My feedback, give the Terran a reason to build more than 1 raven if not for the matrix.
- Also make it easier to target stuff with it, because reactionary targeting is much much worse in power and result, for instance vs burrowed infestors among other units.... Aswell easier to place turrets... in the middle of a huddled fight... with lots of quick units blocking the planned turret placement before the raven is in position...
- I do not agree with making Matrix too "strong" at the cost of more energy. Who needs 11 seconds for SINGLE UNITS!??!!. AGAIN worse in power overall because starcraft is a game of numbers, not single powerful units. Don't need a longer more powerful debuff... That matrix was kind of fine! (A bit like the ghost in brood war!) Other changes were needed (somehow).
- My third feebdack: Bring back Anti Missile Drone. Bring it as fourth spell. Make it weaker, make it the short version (but not too short,,, it's a reactive defensive thing afterall). I think it's nice strategic tool for Terran - perhaps rescuing that one unit that one medivac escaping tower shots, etc etc. Despite I never understood nerfing their duration, it's like the only spell where duration makes sense, because it's very reactive and defensive, but I see longer durations don't fit to LotV. However Give the raven some more options.Hey the Viper has 4 spells, too! And don't tell me getting full mana isn't a spell. The old raven served quite some options, while having a decent (actually very high) cost for a detector - but that's okay for having Scan.
~I only write this based on my in-game experience of how little ravens are used nowadays despite their big intentions..., except for the TvT "abuse".~
And the Swarm Host... Locusts shouldn't fly. It is that simple. If they can't fly, then they become far easier to manage and then the Nydus isn't nearly as terrible. Maybe then, you don't even need to change the Nydus.
I think you didn't understands blizzard's core concept in Lotv of making the game "faster". If that didn't why did Jumping Battle Cruisers not convince you? You can't change their idea for a faster game (namely very overwhelming free units...at the cost of cooldown and "dead" supply. Yea I agree that concept sucks - I think everyone lost their expansion to a bunch of locusts at some point and thought "wtf", but apparently they were brave enough to put that into the live game, so that gives pretty clear idea of them), you CAN however give feedback of what doesn't work so well, or give ideas of how to improve it a bit. (aka balancing)
On November 04 2019 10:08 Kertorak wrote: I find ... the decision to remove a core concept and idea, and stuff that exists since WoL namely the (Infested Terran)... ugly.
So many tweaks and changes to the unit, removing a core spell doesn't make sense to me.
Similar to removing seeker missile, or completely removing damage from the raven's aamissile. (I know from 15 to 0, instead of 5 or a DoT of 10, or Damage in the end fix) ... because there exist enough spell casters that do damage on top of the support - NAMELY the infestor OR feedback.
My feedback, give the Terran a reason to build more than 1 raven if not for the matrix.
Also make it easier to target stuff with it, because reactionary targeting is much much worse in power and result, for instance vs burrowed infestors among other units....
I do not agree with making Matrix too "strong" at the cost of more energy. AGAIN worse in power overall because starcraft is a game of numbers, not single powerful units. Don't need a longer more powerful debuff... That matrix was kind of fine! Other changes were needed (somehow).
My third feebdack: Bring back Anti Missile Drone. Bring it as fourth spell. Make it weaker, make it the short version (but not too short,,, it's a reactive defensive thing afterall). BUT give it back. Give the raven some more options.Hey the Viper has 4 spells, too! And don't tell me getting full mana isn't a spell. The old raven served quite some options, while having a decent (actually very high) cost for a detector - but that's okay for having Scan.
Who cares if it’s core or not, if it’s a good change, or a bad one let’s judge on what we see. The mothership core was core to Protoss for ages and its removal was a great change.
I’d rather the Raven exist as it is, where one or two male your army better in a support capacity, than have incentive for spamming Ravens be there. I like spellcasters being support units that don’t scale well in big numbers, which has been one of the issues with the Infestor forever
lol what "who cares" is that supposed to be a serious comment? I think a lot do care... It's also a very unique part of the game.. making the game better. There is no need to remove anything in the midst of an expansion game, it almost doesn't make sense. Balancing does though - as well as nerfing, so some people can still use it for niche strategies or rare play to counter other niche strategies etc etc. People don't want Blizzard's "And then we doubled it" Rambo Nambo Style.
The seeker missile into eventual aa missile changes were always kind of fine, because that spell never did its job.
On November 04 2019 06:32 BronzeKnee wrote: What the hell is going on?
Blizzard was doing really well, removing the MSC, making the game better, but the last few patch notes directly address none of the problems in the game and do odd things.
Why are we nerfing Zealots and Adepts? Adepts were one of the the only things working versus Zerg in PvZ. Do Observers need to be slower?
Do we really believe that 25 minerals and 25 gas is going to change the equation for Zerg players when deciding to go for Nydus or Overlord Speed? I think the answer is rhetorical, how many games did we see the Zerg winning by a few pairs of Zerglings in the Global Finals... And now take away a few of Zerglings and do any of the results change? Zerg is crushing Protoss right now, this would be like increasing the cost of Siege mode by 25/25 as a solution to the 1-1-1 when it was rampant in WOL. It would do nothing. 25/25 is nothing for a player on three bases, these guys were floating money while kill Protoss. Nydus Worms needs to go back to 100/100.
And the Swarm Host... Locusts shouldn't fly. It is that simple. If they can't fly, then they become far easier to manage and then the Nydus isn't nearly as terrible. Maybe then, you don't even need to change the Nydus.
This is sad.
If all 3 nydus nerfs go through (which they should), then yes 75/75 is most likely fine. I'm a protoss player and even I can see how much of an impact the other nydus nerfs will make. Not to mention, if the current iteration of the patch notes go through, Protoss will be stronger than Zerg in the late game lol so it's kinda stupid to cherrypick random patch changes and put them in with the current game. Shows your obvious bias and inability to actually look at the game properly, if you even play it in the first place.
As for Overlord speed, 25/25 is a big deal in the early game. Yes, it literally changes the equation for zerg players when deciding to go overlord speed. Your hypothethical zergling crap is so useless, overlord speed costs gas (+hatchery time) at a time of the game where zerg doesn't want to be mining gas and it has/always will have genuine impact on the zerg economy. It's not a big enough change on its own to change PvZ, but coupled with other changes, it is significant (again with your random cherry picking of patch notes when they're proposing that infestors will literally not have infested terrans anymore). Btw, saying 25/25 is nothing for a player on three bases is incredibly misleading. If you're getting overlord speed on an actual 3 base economy, then that has never been an issue in any matchup. We are talking about overlord speed OPENING, which obviously doesn't even have the natural fully saturated by the time it starts, let alone saturation on a third base. Again, obvious bias that ruins any merit of anything you have to say.
In my opinion, these Nydus changes won't be enough. The problem is Swarm Hosts, or more specifically Locusts. The biggest issue is that these units can snipe a Nexus or a set of production for free, and defending against that is almost impossible. The Locusts also are so destructive and powerful that even the Swarm Hosts' supposed weakness of downtime doesn't really come into play - the first wave will win the fight for you.
There are some possible fixes for the Swarm Host abuse:
1. Significantly increase the rate the timer runs out while flying. This makes them nearly unaffected for proper fights, but will significantly decrease their effectiveness from sniping buildings.
2. Lower their armor by a massive amount(-30 or something) while flying. This would allow Protoss to have some possible counterplay with Phoenix for instance.
3. 2 seconds after landing, lower their attack rate by 50%. This would allow them to still be a powerful initial force against a full army, but would significantly decrease their capabilities for destroying buildings over an extended duration. It also would better enable a large army to fight back without losing everything to Locusts.
All in all, Blizzard's changes won't be nearly enough and they also mostly miss the mark. As usual.
On November 04 2019 19:08 Shikyo wrote: In my opinion, these Nydus changes won't be enough. The problem is Swarm Hosts, or more specifically Locusts. The biggest issue is that these units can snipe a Nexus or a set of production for free, and defending against that is almost impossible. The Locusts also are so destructive and powerful that even the Swarm Hosts' supposed weakness of downtime doesn't really come into play - the first wave will win the fight for you.
There are some possible fixes for the Swarm Host abuse:
1. Significantly increase the rate the timer runs out while flying. This makes them nearly unaffected for proper fights, but will significantly decrease their effectiveness from sniping buildings.
2. Lower their armor by a massive amount(-30 or something) while flying. This would allow Protoss to have some possible counterplay with Phoenix for instance.
3. 2 seconds after landing, lower their attack rate by 50%. This would allow them to still be a powerful initial force against a full army, but would significantly decrease their capabilities for destroying buildings over an extended duration. It also would better enable a large army to fight back without losing everything to Locusts.
All in all, Blizzard's changes won't be nearly enough and they also mostly miss the mark. As usual.
Swarm host/ravager was a common way to play against mech and protoss before but it wasnt' nearly as oppressive as it is with the nydus.
Can't they change the boost medivac upgrade with a new one ? Like +2 supply cargo, and authorize the tankivac ? I mean with biles, disruptors, storms, etc, tanks bio have no mobility against.
And nerfing a bit the queen, less HP, less damages, less range, no more injection stack, something to add difficulties to zerg in the early game, and reducing the potential macro advantages they got atm?
Maybe those ideas are dumb, I don't know, I like the actual changes, but it misses something in my opinion.
On November 04 2019 19:08 Shikyo wrote: In my opinion, these Nydus changes won't be enough. The problem is Swarm Hosts, or more specifically Locusts. The biggest issue is that these units can snipe a Nexus or a set of production for free, and defending against that is almost impossible. The Locusts also are so destructive and powerful that even the Swarm Hosts' supposed weakness of downtime doesn't really come into play - the first wave will win the fight for you.
There are some possible fixes for the Swarm Host abuse:
1. Significantly increase the rate the timer runs out while flying. This makes them nearly unaffected for proper fights, but will significantly decrease their effectiveness from sniping buildings.
2. Lower their armor by a massive amount(-30 or something) while flying. This would allow Protoss to have some possible counterplay with Phoenix for instance.
3. 2 seconds after landing, lower their attack rate by 50%. This would allow them to still be a powerful initial force against a full army, but would significantly decrease their capabilities for destroying buildings over an extended duration. It also would better enable a large army to fight back without losing everything to Locusts.
All in all, Blizzard's changes won't be nearly enough and they also mostly miss the mark. As usual.
I like these ideas in how they pertain to SH and the Nydus in combination, especially the second one. Phoenixes or even stalkers could snipe a few locusts and make defending more doable.
I do think that in combination they would make the Swarmhost a little too useless to be used in any other scenario other than popping out of nyduses though.
On November 04 2019 21:47 SparrowSC wrote: Can't they change the boost medivac upgrade with a new one ? Like +2 supply cargo, and authorize the tankivac ? I mean with biles, disruptors, storms, etc, tanks bio have no mobility against.
And nerfing a bit the queen, less HP, less damages, less range, no more injection stack, something to add difficulties to zerg in the early game, and reducing the potential macro advantages they got atm?
Maybe those ideas are dumb, I don't know, I like the actual changes, but it misses something in my opinion.
Inject stacking was added because top zergs were injecting and a-moving more than anything else and whenever somebody got the great idea to switch to the players view it was a shit show. Most noticable it was during the great age of soO where he many times skipped in the middle of the fight to inject because having larvae was more important than the battle itself.
The ideal situation is to remove the queen, or at least remove some of her role, but that would require redesign of Zerg and I don't think this is happening, ever.
On November 04 2019 19:08 Shikyo wrote: In my opinion, these Nydus changes won't be enough. The problem is Swarm Hosts, or more specifically Locusts. The biggest issue is that these units can snipe a Nexus or a set of production for free, and defending against that is almost impossible. The Locusts also are so destructive and powerful that even the Swarm Hosts' supposed weakness of downtime doesn't really come into play - the first wave will win the fight for you.
There are some possible fixes for the Swarm Host abuse:
1. Significantly increase the rate the timer runs out while flying. This makes them nearly unaffected for proper fights, but will significantly decrease their effectiveness from sniping buildings.
2. Lower their armor by a massive amount(-30 or something) while flying. This would allow Protoss to have some possible counterplay with Phoenix for instance.
3. 2 seconds after landing, lower their attack rate by 50%. This would allow them to still be a powerful initial force against a full army, but would significantly decrease their capabilities for destroying buildings over an extended duration. It also would better enable a large army to fight back without losing everything to Locusts.
All in all, Blizzard's changes won't be nearly enough and they also mostly miss the mark. As usual.
Approaching it from a more theoretical perspective, I would say that SH/Nydus plays are medium risk, high reward. So I think most would agree that we need to either increase the risk or lower the reward. Or a little bit of both.
We shouldn't forget that Swarm Hosts are quite an investment (100/75 and 3 supply) already and are totally useless and defenseless for 43s as soon as they spawned the locusts. Plus you may not get the locusts off everytime it comes off cooldown when you are out of position or you need to save it for an upcoming battle. And enemy Units can just run away. At the same time, locusts are slow and have short range, but have huge dps output. So without a Nydus, the swarm hosts are high risk, high reward already.
It is the combination with Nydus that the risk is lowered to medium, so as long as you get a Nydus up you are basically 100% certain to get out, spawn locusts and pop back in. So increasing the risk of losing the SH during retreat or while popping out would be a good way, which is in the patch notes already (longer delays, and not more Queueing).
Your proposals lower the reward portion, which would be viable of course, but is less appealing from a player/spectator viewpoint. But again that may just be my personal preference. Also the Nydus change also affects roach/queen/nydus plays which is a nice side effect.
So after 9 years they finally find out, they never could balance the IT spell, so they just remove this iconic spell from the game AFTER 9 YEARS. Congratz!
I think I’m done with this game, such an incompetent balance team.
On November 05 2019 18:25 661 wrote: So after 9 years they finally find out, they never could balance the IT spell, so they just remove this iconic spell from the game AFTER 9 YEARS. Congratz!
I think I’m done with this game, such an incompetent balance team.
On November 05 2019 18:25 661 wrote: So after 9 years they finally find out, they never could balance the IT spell, so they just remove this iconic spell from the game AFTER 9 YEARS. Congratz!
I think I’m done with this game, such an incompetent balance team.
On November 05 2019 18:25 661 wrote: So after 9 years they finally find out, they never could balance the IT spell, so they just remove this iconic spell from the game AFTER 9 YEARS. Congratz!
I think I’m done with this game, such an incompetent balance team.
Come to BoodWar - we got balance
Trade mild imbalance for complete and total unresponsiveness
On November 05 2019 18:25 661 wrote: So after 9 years they finally find out, they never could balance the IT spell, so they just remove this iconic spell from the game AFTER 9 YEARS. Congratz!
I think I’m done with this game, such an incompetent balance team.
Come to BoodWar - we got balance
Trade mild imbalance for complete and total unresponsiveness
Nah, you just need to learn how to use each unit. And that can be challenging for sure. - definitely more than F2, attack move.
Just don't want to continue with any nosense - I traded SC2 for BW about two years ago and it is one of my best decisions in my 'virtual life'. Nobody said 'change is easy'. This is the purpose of the changes - to improve, not to be easy. Sometimes downgrading is an improvement.
On November 05 2019 18:25 661 wrote: So after 9 years they finally find out, they never could balance the IT spell, so they just remove this iconic spell from the game AFTER 9 YEARS. Congratz!
I think I’m done with this game, such an incompetent balance team.
On November 05 2019 18:25 661 wrote: So after 9 years they finally find out, they never could balance the IT spell, so they just remove this iconic spell from the game AFTER 9 YEARS. Congratz!
I think I’m done with this game, such an incompetent balance team.
On November 05 2019 18:25 661 wrote: So after 9 years they finally find out, they never could balance the IT spell, so they just remove this iconic spell from the game AFTER 9 YEARS. Congratz!
I think I’m done with this game, such an incompetent balance team.
Come to BoodWar - we got balance
All Protoss KSL S3 Ro4 disagrees
Quite a lot of things disagree tbh
And by quite a lot of things he means the entire history of BW.
On November 05 2019 18:25 661 wrote: So after 9 years they finally find out, they never could balance the IT spell, so they just remove this iconic spell from the game AFTER 9 YEARS. Congratz!
I think I’m done with this game, such an incompetent balance team.
On November 05 2019 18:25 661 wrote: So after 9 years they finally find out, they never could balance the IT spell, so they just remove this iconic spell from the game AFTER 9 YEARS. Congratz!
I think I’m done with this game, such an incompetent balance team.
Iconic spell? From when?
It's iconic for 2 of the most imbalanced eras of SC2 esports, that has to count for something.
I am Zerg and I am very happy with the removal of IT. I would be even happier if Swarm Hosts were removed as well. I don't really care about balance at my level of play but free units and powerful spellcasters are generally the worst and least exciting thing to watch, use, and play against imo. I would also love it if spellcasters were just supporting units that you only ever build a few of. There should be no point in massing them.
On November 05 2019 18:25 661 wrote: So after 9 years they finally find out, they never could balance the IT spell, so they just remove this iconic spell from the game AFTER 9 YEARS. Congratz!
I think I’m done with this game, such an incompetent balance team.
Iconic spell? From when?
It's iconic for 2 of the most imbalanced eras of SC2 esports, that has to count for something.
Wasn't WOL BL infestor mostly about casting fungals beautiful fungals?
On November 05 2019 18:25 661 wrote: So after 9 years they finally find out, they never could balance the IT spell, so they just remove this iconic spell from the game AFTER 9 YEARS. Congratz!
I think I’m done with this game, such an incompetent balance team.
Iconic spell? From when?
It's iconic for 2 of the most imbalanced eras of SC2 esports, that has to count for something.
Wasn't WOL BL infestor mostly about casting fungals beautiful fungals?
I'm a bit concerned about lategame ZvZ. Hive Lurkers are going to be even more the ultimate comp than they already are.
Also, Flux Vanes might make PvP stupid. I say just let the Void Ray be a niche option that's almost never the right thing to make. I like having it in that role.
PvZ going to get better. TvP going to get better. ZvT... Not sure yet.
On November 05 2019 18:25 661 wrote: So after 9 years they finally find out, they never could balance the IT spell, so they just remove this iconic spell from the game AFTER 9 YEARS. Congratz!
I think I’m done with this game, such an incompetent balance team.
Iconic spell? From when?
It's iconic for 2 of the most imbalanced eras of SC2 esports, that has to count for something.
Wasn't WOL BL infestor mostly about casting fungals beautiful fungals?
Fungals enable it but the core of the shitshow was the infested Terran, you don't need to make 20 infestors to cast fungals on tight air deathballs.
On November 06 2019 05:00 ThunderJunk wrote: I'm a bit concerned about lategame ZvZ. Hive Lurkers are going to be even more the ultimate comp than they already are.
Also, Flux Vanes might make PvP stupid. I say just let the Void Ray be a niche option that's almost never the right thing to make. I like having it in that role.
PvZ going to get better. TvP going to get better. ZvT... Not sure yet.
Yeah I don't know what is the problem with some units being niche options. I think it actually makes the game more interesting in those rare occasions those units make an appearance. It seems like Blizz is obsessed with the statistics of how often every thing in the game is being used. This is also one of the reasons we ended up with overpowered spellcasters etc... Fortunately blink DTs were overlooked in that regard so we got this unforgettable game Classic served us at Blizzcon.
On November 06 2019 05:00 ThunderJunk wrote: I'm a bit concerned about lategame ZvZ. Hive Lurkers are going to be even more the ultimate comp than they already are.
Also, Flux Vanes might make PvP stupid. I say just let the Void Ray be a niche option that's almost never the right thing to make. I like having it in that role.
PvZ going to get better. TvP going to get better. ZvT... Not sure yet.
Yeah I don't know what is the problem with some units being niche options. I think it actually makes the game more interesting in those rare occasions those units make an appearance. It seems like Blizz is obsessed with the statistics of how often every thing in the game is being used. This is also one of the reasons we ended up with overpowered spellcasters etc... Fortunately blink DTs were overlooked in that regard so we got this unforgettable game Classic served us at Blizzcon.
Blink DT is one of the few good examples of a situational upgrade that's not used every game but that's also not trash.
On November 06 2019 05:00 ThunderJunk wrote: I'm a bit concerned about lategame ZvZ. Hive Lurkers are going to be even more the ultimate comp than they already are.
Also, Flux Vanes might make PvP stupid. I say just let the Void Ray be a niche option that's almost never the right thing to make. I like having it in that role.
PvZ going to get better. TvP going to get better. ZvT... Not sure yet.
Yeah I don't know what is the problem with some units being niche options. I think it actually makes the game more interesting in those rare occasions those units make an appearance. It seems like Blizz is obsessed with the statistics of how often every thing in the game is being used. This is also one of the reasons we ended up with overpowered spellcasters etc... Fortunately blink DTs were overlooked in that regard so we got this unforgettable game Classic served us at Blizzcon.
Blink DT is one of the few good examples of a situational upgrade that's not used every game but that's also not trash.
It's funny how it was the 1 change which was laughed at by everyone as completely ridiculous (they introduced it as a way to utilize DTs lategame when they were already a strong lategame unit), but ended up being one of the best suited upgrades in the game.
On November 06 2019 05:00 ThunderJunk wrote: I'm a bit concerned about lategame ZvZ. Hive Lurkers are going to be even more the ultimate comp than they already are.
Also, Flux Vanes might make PvP stupid. I say just let the Void Ray be a niche option that's almost never the right thing to make. I like having it in that role.
PvZ going to get better. TvP going to get better. ZvT... Not sure yet.
what makes you say that about zvz, and what exactly is the problem with hydra viper lurker as an endgame comp?
On November 06 2019 05:00 ThunderJunk wrote: I'm a bit concerned about lategame ZvZ. Hive Lurkers are going to be even more the ultimate comp than they already are.
Also, Flux Vanes might make PvP stupid. I say just let the Void Ray be a niche option that's almost never the right thing to make. I like having it in that role.
PvZ going to get better. TvP going to get better. ZvT... Not sure yet.
Yeah I don't know what is the problem with some units being niche options. I think it actually makes the game more interesting in those rare occasions those units make an appearance. It seems like Blizz is obsessed with the statistics of how often every thing in the game is being used. This is also one of the reasons we ended up with overpowered spellcasters etc... Fortunately blink DTs were overlooked in that regard so we got this unforgettable game Classic served us at Blizzcon.
Blink DT is one of the few good examples of a situational upgrade that's not used every game but that's also not trash.
It's funny how it was the 1 change which was laughed at by everyone as completely ridiculous (they introduced it as a way to utilize DTs lategame when they were already a strong lategame unit), but ended up being one of the best suited upgrades in the game.
Or maybe we just haven't found the way to run the game into the ground by abusing it in a particular way. I'm sure we'll get there
I always thought fungal+parasitic bomb was the issue withinvestors, not infested Terrans. Fungal bombing instantly eliminates any air army which seems too absurd to me. Can someone please explain to me why ITs are the issue and not what I mentioned above?
On November 06 2019 05:00 ThunderJunk wrote: I'm a bit concerned about lategame ZvZ. Hive Lurkers are going to be even more the ultimate comp than they already are.
Also, Flux Vanes might make PvP stupid. I say just let the Void Ray be a niche option that's almost never the right thing to make. I like having it in that role.
PvZ going to get better. TvP going to get better. ZvT... Not sure yet.
what makes you say that about zvz, and what exactly is the problem with hydra viper lurker as an endgame comp?
Well, hydra lurker is already the strongest endgame comp in ZvZ. Nothing Z has counters lurkers on the ground, and now Lurkers are getting an additional +1 range.. So they'll be stronger.
I don't have a "problem" with that comp being really good in ZvZ. It's more that I don't want it to be the one comp that crowds out any utility from building other units. Like, if one player gets into fully upgraded lurkers, that'll definitely put a clock on any player that doesn't also go for that comp. Maybe that's fine. I don't really know yet.
I did very much enjoy the state of ZvZ at Blizzcon, so I'd be sad to see the matchup change a whole lot. It might not, except Broodlords might become situationally useful in the lategame without infested terrans there to ruin them, in which case pop out the champagne!
On November 06 2019 08:49 BisuDagger wrote: I always thought fungal+parasitic bomb was the issue withinvestors, not infested Terrans. Fungal bombing instantly eliminates any air army which seems too absurd to me. Can someone please explain to me why ITs are the issue and not what I mentioned above?
Much easier to use ITs. Fungals to slow down the air unit, then IT mops them up; all using 1 group of units. You're right about the "fungal bombs" being strong, but its harder to use for the same results.
On November 06 2019 08:49 BisuDagger wrote: I always thought fungal+parasitic bomb was the issue withinvestors, not infested Terrans. Fungal bombing instantly eliminates any air army which seems too absurd to me. Can someone please explain to me why ITs are the issue and not what I mentioned above?
Much easier to use ITs. Fungals to slow down the air unit, then IT mops them up; all using 1 group of units. You're right about the "fungal bombs" being strong, but its harder to use for the same results.
ITs especially shred Carriers because interceptors get wiped out so quickly too.
Plus ITs tank damage, force retargetting etc etc.
But yeah the fungal/bomb combo is super powerful as well, more difficult to control as you say, plus requires two separate casters as you say.
On November 06 2019 08:49 BisuDagger wrote: I always thought fungal+parasitic bomb was the issue withinvestors, not infested Terrans. Fungal bombing instantly eliminates any air army which seems too absurd to me. Can someone please explain to me why ITs are the issue and not what I mentioned above?
people will comment with rubbish, but you are right. fungal + PB does an obscene amount of damage for a relatively small cost while being very easy to execute and very difficult to micro against. (Reynor's hilariously bad splits against PB in game 4 vs Serral are a good example.)
On November 06 2019 08:49 BisuDagger wrote: I always thought fungal+parasitic bomb was the issue withinvestors, not infested Terrans. Fungal bombing instantly eliminates any air army which seems too absurd to me. Can someone please explain to me why ITs are the issue and not what I mentioned above?
Vs terran that's true but vs Protoss fungal + parasitic bomb alone isn't even that good because Protoss uses mostly high HP capital ships in lategame. Current ITs absolutely hardcounter carriers though.
On November 06 2019 08:49 BisuDagger wrote: I always thought fungal+parasitic bomb was the issue withinvestors, not infested Terrans. Fungal bombing instantly eliminates any air army which seems too absurd to me. Can someone please explain to me why ITs are the issue and not what I mentioned above?
Vs terran that's true but vs Protoss fungal + parasitic bomb alone isn't even that good because Protoss uses mostly high HP capital ships in lategame. Current ITs absolutely hardcounter carriers though.
Honestly I’m fine with zerg having extremely good anti air as long as the zerg air units are counterable by what’s on the ground. The problem with the current meta is that the zerg air units can’t be contested in the air due to zergs anti air capability but also can’t be contested on the ground due to bls countering all ground units save ghosts and thors (poor toss has nothing to contest bls from the ground =( ). Which struggle vs the supporting ground units zerg has with thier army.
I do wonder if fixing bl infestor will Fix the overall ballance though. Nydus midgame is extremely strong but perhaps part of that is how hard other races have to lean into a kill them before they get thier strat and how predictable that makes them. Still I much prefer to see active games with lots of nydus aggression then the slow and agonizing bl infestor games.
On November 06 2019 08:49 BisuDagger wrote: I always thought fungal+parasitic bomb was the issue withinvestors, not infested Terrans. Fungal bombing instantly eliminates any air army which seems too absurd to me. Can someone please explain to me why ITs are the issue and not what I mentioned above?
Vs terran that's true but vs Protoss fungal + parasitic bomb alone isn't even that good because Protoss uses mostly high HP capital ships in lategame. Current ITs absolutely hardcounter carriers though.
Honestly I’m fine with zerg having extremely good anti air as long as the zerg air units are counterable by what’s on the ground. The problem with the current meta is that the zerg air units can’t be contested in the air due to zergs anti air capability but also can’t be contested on the ground due to bls countering all ground units save ghosts and thors (poor toss has nothing to contest bls from the ground =( ). Which struggle vs the supporting ground units zerg has with thier army.
I do wonder if fixing bl infestor will Fix the overall ballance though. Nydus midgame is extremely strong but perhaps part of that is how hard other races have to lean into a kill them before they get thier strat and how predictable that makes them. Still I much prefer to see active games with lots of nydus aggression then the slow and agonizing bl infestor games.
That was/is the main issue people have. BLs in higher numbers can't be countered by Protoss ground. Fix this and then you can leave the rest
On November 06 2019 18:25 Harris1st wrote: Really curious how this patch plays out in HSC 20!
Yea really curious to see if Terrans stop whining if they still lose on the new patch, but probably not. The last Zerg Buff was 23.1.2019, and since then terrans and protoss have been able to keep up quite good. Remember GSL S2 with 5 Protoss in Ro8, only two Zerg. Of course Dark won that season (because of imbalance, amiright?)
GSL S3 had 3 Terrans, 3 Zerg and 2 Protoss in Ro8 IEM 4 Zerg / 4 Protoss At Assembly Stats won vs Serral and Solar GSL ST2 had only 2 Zerg in Ro8 (4 Protoss, 2 Terran)
The only Zerg Maru lost to in last six months is Dark (winning agains Solar, Ragnarok, Reynor) (http://aligulac.com/players/49/results/?after=2019-01-23&before=&event=&race=z&country=all&bestof=all&offline=offline&game=all&wcs_season=&wcs_tier=&op=)
The only Zerg TY lost to in last six months is Dark and Serral (winning against Rogue and Ragnarok) (http://aligulac.com/players/63/results/?after=2019-01-23&before=&event=&race=z&country=all&bestof=all&offline=offline&game=all&wcs_season=&wcs_tier=&op=)
The WCS Circuit was dominated by Serral long before the Nydus patch.
Not denying that the Map Pool is good for Zerg atm, and that Nydus needs to be toned down, but the patch gonna address that. But Dark and Serral will continue to dominate because they are just beast.
On November 06 2019 18:25 Harris1st wrote: Really curious how this patch plays out in HSC 20!
Yea really curious to see if Terrans stop whining if they still lose on the new patch, but probably not. The last Zerg Buff was 23.1.2019, and since then terrans and protoss have been able to keep up quite good. Remember GSL S2 with 5 Protoss in Ro8, only two Zerg. Of course Dark won that season (because of imbalance, amiright?)
GSL S3 had 3 Terrans, 3 Zerg and 2 Protoss in Ro8 IEM 4 Zerg / 4 Protoss At Assembly Stats won vs Serral and Solar GSL ST2 had only 2 Zerg in Ro8 (4 Protoss, 2 Terran)
The only Zerg Maru lost to in last six months is Dark (winning agains Solar, Ragnarok, Reynor) (http://aligulac.com/players/49/results/?after=2019-01-23&before=&event=&race=z&country=all&bestof=all&offline=offline&game=all&wcs_season=&wcs_tier=&op=)
The only Zerg TY lost to in last six months is Dark and Serral (winning against Rogue and Ragnarok) (http://aligulac.com/players/63/results/?after=2019-01-23&before=&event=&race=z&country=all&bestof=all&offline=offline&game=all&wcs_season=&wcs_tier=&op=)
The WCS Circuit was dominated by Serral long before the Nydus patch.
Not denying that the Map Pool is good for Zerg atm, and that Nydus needs to be toned down, but the patch gonna address that. But Dark and Serral will continue to dominate because they are just beast.
We also didn't get a final without a zerg since ST1 and did get 14/16 events with a zerg finalist including 4 zvz. We also had 7 different zerg finalists, (Solar, soO, Scarlett, Serral, Reynor, Rogue, Dark) they can't all be beast.
On November 06 2019 18:25 Harris1st wrote: Really curious how this patch plays out in HSC 20!
Yea really curious to see if Terrans stop whining if they still lose on the new patch, but probably not. The last Zerg Buff was 23.1.2019, and since then terrans and protoss have been able to keep up quite good. Remember GSL S2 with 5 Protoss in Ro8, only two Zerg. Of course Dark won that season (because of imbalance, amiright?)
GSL S3 had 3 Terrans, 3 Zerg and 2 Protoss in Ro8 IEM 4 Zerg / 4 Protoss At Assembly Stats won vs Serral and Solar GSL ST2 had only 2 Zerg in Ro8 (4 Protoss, 2 Terran)
The only Zerg Maru lost to in last six months is Dark (winning agains Solar, Ragnarok, Reynor) (http://aligulac.com/players/49/results/?after=2019-01-23&before=&event=&race=z&country=all&bestof=all&offline=offline&game=all&wcs_season=&wcs_tier=&op=)
The only Zerg TY lost to in last six months is Dark and Serral (winning against Rogue and Ragnarok) (http://aligulac.com/players/63/results/?after=2019-01-23&before=&event=&race=z&country=all&bestof=all&offline=offline&game=all&wcs_season=&wcs_tier=&op=)
The WCS Circuit was dominated by Serral long before the Nydus patch.
Not denying that the Map Pool is good for Zerg atm, and that Nydus needs to be toned down, but the patch gonna address that. But Dark and Serral will continue to dominate because they are just beast.
It is very unlikely that all these Zergs just happen to be the best versions of themselves at the same time by coincidence.
Stephano pioneered Zerg imbalance strategies during late WoL. It toke some time before Korean Zerg reproduced his strategies well enough, and in the end even surpassed him. Still, broodlords infestors spores queens was an imbalance strategy from day 1. I think history repeats itself today with Serral.
On November 06 2019 08:49 BisuDagger wrote: I always thought fungal+parasitic bomb was the issue withinvestors, not infested Terrans. Fungal bombing instantly eliminates any air army which seems too absurd to me. Can someone please explain to me why ITs are the issue and not what I mentioned above?
Vs terran that's true but vs Protoss fungal + parasitic bomb alone isn't even that good because Protoss uses mostly high HP capital ships in lategame. Current ITs absolutely hardcounter carriers though.
Honestly I’m fine with zerg having extremely good anti air as long as the zerg air units are counterable by what’s on the ground. The problem with the current meta is that the zerg air units can’t be contested in the air due to zergs anti air capability but also can’t be contested on the ground due to bls countering all ground units save ghosts and thors (poor toss has nothing to contest bls from the ground =( ). Which struggle vs the supporting ground units zerg has with thier army.
I do wonder if fixing bl infestor will Fix the overall ballance though. Nydus midgame is extremely strong but perhaps part of that is how hard other races have to lean into a kill them before they get thier strat and how predictable that makes them. Still I much prefer to see active games with lots of nydus aggression then the slow and agonizing bl infestor games.
BLs in higher numbers can't be countered by Protoss ground.
Maybe they could, but infestors also invalidate Protoss ground to air options on top of shutting down their air options.
On November 06 2019 18:25 Harris1st wrote: Really curious how this patch plays out in HSC 20!
On November 06 2019 23:35 Elentos wrote: Maybe they could, but infestors also invalidate Protoss ground to air options on top of shutting down their air options.
i have to disagree. Protoss can win blood-infestor with ground. this combo is too slow. Protoss takes many bases 90 probs 20+ gates and destroy zerg bases avoiding head-on battle. Main problem with ground are lurkers. Main problem with air are infestors in current patch and vipers in the next one.
BUT... zerg imbalance (at least in pvz) is not just 1 late game combo but whole meta (including hosts). Zerg has too many different options to play.
On November 06 2019 08:49 BisuDagger wrote: I always thought fungal+parasitic bomb was the issue withinvestors, not infested Terrans. Fungal bombing instantly eliminates any air army which seems too absurd to me. Can someone please explain to me why ITs are the issue and not what I mentioned above?
Vs terran that's true but vs Protoss fungal + parasitic bomb alone isn't even that good because Protoss uses mostly high HP capital ships in lategame. Current ITs absolutely hardcounter carriers though.
Honestly I’m fine with zerg having extremely good anti air as long as the zerg air units are counterable by what’s on the ground. The problem with the current meta is that the zerg air units can’t be contested in the air due to zergs anti air capability but also can’t be contested on the ground due to bls countering all ground units save ghosts and thors (poor toss has nothing to contest bls from the ground =( ). Which struggle vs the supporting ground units zerg has with thier army.
I do wonder if fixing bl infestor will Fix the overall ballance though. Nydus midgame is extremely strong but perhaps part of that is how hard other races have to lean into a kill them before they get thier strat and how predictable that makes them. Still I much prefer to see active games with lots of nydus aggression then the slow and agonizing bl infestor games.
That was/is the main issue people have. BLs in higher numbers can't be countered by Protoss ground. Fix this and then you can leave the rest
Stalkers and even Storm can counter unsupported Broodlords. The problem is when supported by pretty much anything (Zerglings, Banelings, Infestors, etc.), they can't. This could maybe possibly but probably not be acceptable if those Zerg units required any skill to use, but outside of ZvZ, neither Zerglings or Banelings require any and Infestors can receive the entirety of the Zerg player's focus because everything else is mindless.
That actually sums up pretty much all Zerg issues for years. The Zerg player can focus all of their attention on a single unit that murders the Terran or Protoss army while the Terran or Protoss player needs to split their attention between 2-4 different things and close to auto lose if they screw up even one of them.
On November 06 2019 08:49 BisuDagger wrote: I always thought fungal+parasitic bomb was the issue withinvestors, not infested Terrans. Fungal bombing instantly eliminates any air army which seems too absurd to me. Can someone please explain to me why ITs are the issue and not what I mentioned above?
Vs terran that's true but vs Protoss fungal + parasitic bomb alone isn't even that good because Protoss uses mostly high HP capital ships in lategame. Current ITs absolutely hardcounter carriers though.
Honestly I’m fine with zerg having extremely good anti air as long as the zerg air units are counterable by what’s on the ground. The problem with the current meta is that the zerg air units can’t be contested in the air due to zergs anti air capability but also can’t be contested on the ground due to bls countering all ground units save ghosts and thors (poor toss has nothing to contest bls from the ground =( ). Which struggle vs the supporting ground units zerg has with thier army.
I do wonder if fixing bl infestor will Fix the overall ballance though. Nydus midgame is extremely strong but perhaps part of that is how hard other races have to lean into a kill them before they get thier strat and how predictable that makes them. Still I much prefer to see active games with lots of nydus aggression then the slow and agonizing bl infestor games.
That was/is the main issue people have. BLs in higher numbers can't be countered by Protoss ground. Fix this and then you can leave the rest
My biggest issue is that broodlings lock the units in place not only preventing the units from advancing, but also from retreating. It removes the ability to kite and be mobile with your units. I'd be totally down for units that could either crush or walk through broodlings (Colossus doesn't count because it can't hit air and is countered by corrupters). It's is really painful to watch a full army of Thors die because they can't run away or engage.
On November 06 2019 08:49 BisuDagger wrote: I always thought fungal+parasitic bomb was the issue withinvestors, not infested Terrans. Fungal bombing instantly eliminates any air army which seems too absurd to me. Can someone please explain to me why ITs are the issue and not what I mentioned above?
Vs terran that's true but vs Protoss fungal + parasitic bomb alone isn't even that good because Protoss uses mostly high HP capital ships in lategame. Current ITs absolutely hardcounter carriers though.
Honestly I’m fine with zerg having extremely good anti air as long as the zerg air units are counterable by what’s on the ground. The problem with the current meta is that the zerg air units can’t be contested in the air due to zergs anti air capability but also can’t be contested on the ground due to bls countering all ground units save ghosts and thors (poor toss has nothing to contest bls from the ground =( ). Which struggle vs the supporting ground units zerg has with thier army.
I do wonder if fixing bl infestor will Fix the overall ballance though. Nydus midgame is extremely strong but perhaps part of that is how hard other races have to lean into a kill them before they get thier strat and how predictable that makes them. Still I much prefer to see active games with lots of nydus aggression then the slow and agonizing bl infestor games.
That was/is the main issue people have. BLs in higher numbers can't be countered by Protoss ground. Fix this and then you can leave the rest
My biggest issue is that broodlings lock the units in place not only preventing the units from advancing, but also from retreating. It removes the ability to kite and be mobile with your units. I'd be totally down for units that could either crush or walk through broodlings (Colossus doesn't count because it can't hit air and is countered by corrupters). It's is really painful to watch a full army of Thors die because they can't run away or engage.
On November 06 2019 08:49 BisuDagger wrote: I always thought fungal+parasitic bomb was the issue withinvestors, not infested Terrans. Fungal bombing instantly eliminates any air army which seems too absurd to me. Can someone please explain to me why ITs are the issue and not what I mentioned above?
Vs terran that's true but vs Protoss fungal + parasitic bomb alone isn't even that good because Protoss uses mostly high HP capital ships in lategame. Current ITs absolutely hardcounter carriers though.
Honestly I’m fine with zerg having extremely good anti air as long as the zerg air units are counterable by what’s on the ground. The problem with the current meta is that the zerg air units can’t be contested in the air due to zergs anti air capability but also can’t be contested on the ground due to bls countering all ground units save ghosts and thors (poor toss has nothing to contest bls from the ground =( ). Which struggle vs the supporting ground units zerg has with thier army.
I do wonder if fixing bl infestor will Fix the overall ballance though. Nydus midgame is extremely strong but perhaps part of that is how hard other races have to lean into a kill them before they get thier strat and how predictable that makes them. Still I much prefer to see active games with lots of nydus aggression then the slow and agonizing bl infestor games.
That was/is the main issue people have. BLs in higher numbers can't be countered by Protoss ground. Fix this and then you can leave the rest
My biggest issue is that broodlings lock the units in place not only preventing the units from advancing, but also from retreating. It removes the ability to kite and be mobile with your units. I'd be totally down for units that could either crush or walk through broodlings (Colossus doesn't count because it can't hit air and is countered by corrupters). It's is really painful to watch a full army of Thors die because they can't run away or engage.
Thors need a stomp attack that one shots anything with a transport size of 1 that is within melee range. It could be an upgrade so that proxy Thor rushes weren't auto win in TvZ. Tanks should also be able to run over/crush units that a transport size of 1.
Immortals should be able to walk over things though probably no crushing.
A trample attack which eliminated broodlings and locusts would be really cool. I'd probably prefer to see it work just on the freebie/energy-generated units, but I could be persuaded.
Just to riff off of that, maybe it only works if you put the attacking unit on move command, adding a bit of a micro requirement and forcing you to choose between trampling and firing, but not both.
A tank angling itself to roll over a line of locusts would be pretty cinematic.
On November 06 2019 08:49 BisuDagger wrote: I always thought fungal+parasitic bomb was the issue withinvestors, not infested Terrans. Fungal bombing instantly eliminates any air army which seems too absurd to me. Can someone please explain to me why ITs are the issue and not what I mentioned above?
Vs terran that's true but vs Protoss fungal + parasitic bomb alone isn't even that good because Protoss uses mostly high HP capital ships in lategame. Current ITs absolutely hardcounter carriers though.
Honestly I’m fine with zerg having extremely good anti air as long as the zerg air units are counterable by what’s on the ground. The problem with the current meta is that the zerg air units can’t be contested in the air due to zergs anti air capability but also can’t be contested on the ground due to bls countering all ground units save ghosts and thors (poor toss has nothing to contest bls from the ground =( ). Which struggle vs the supporting ground units zerg has with thier army.
I do wonder if fixing bl infestor will Fix the overall ballance though. Nydus midgame is extremely strong but perhaps part of that is how hard other races have to lean into a kill them before they get thier strat and how predictable that makes them. Still I much prefer to see active games with lots of nydus aggression then the slow and agonizing bl infestor games.
That was/is the main issue people have. BLs in higher numbers can't be countered by Protoss ground. Fix this and then you can leave the rest
My biggest issue is that broodlings lock the units in place not only preventing the units from advancing, but also from retreating. It removes the ability to kite and be mobile with your units. I'd be totally down for units that could either crush or walk through broodlings (Colossus doesn't count because it can't hit air and is countered by corrupters). It's is really painful to watch a full army of Thors die because they can't run away or engage.
I'd go further and just removing broodlings entirely but just buff the damage of the initial attack instead. It's pretty obvious Broodlings are basically Guardians from original Starcraft with a free unit schtick. I do think free units that zerg owns do have to go and have something as a replacement. Swarm Hosts too while very effective thanks to Nydus should probably have some form of cost even if minor (like Carrier Interceptors, potentially cheaper like 10 minerals and 5 gas per locust). It's good they removed Infested Terrans for now at least but replaced it with something different entirely.
I'm gonna say what needs to be said I really dont care if I get banned or not at this point because there is nothing left to say about this game anymore.
The game is so broken its not even funny. Its borderline unplayable to the point where they might as well just give up on the game and focus on a new game. Seriously how is it possible that someone can mass mutalisk and have their way with someone defending with mines turrets and THORS ? Oh thats right because the map design is as bad as the game design.
Admittedly I havent played the game in months but every game I lost has been due to pathing, units taking the worst possible route, armies splitting themselves and getting picked off because zerg can instantly move anywhere on the map. . . I can't comprehend blizzards obsession with bases that are winding routes , impossible to defend mutalisk harass. Like actually impossible.
Honestly playing Terran in this state of the game, it feels like your units are papermache that don't even pack a punch. I mean for christs sake thors with mines cannot beat mutalisk because they just fly away and INSTANTLY HEAL WHILE THEY FLY OVER TO YOUR OTHER BASES. Its a never ending circle of shit.
On November 07 2019 11:37 RandomPlayer416 wrote: I'm gonna say what needs to be said I really dont care if I get banned or not at this point because there is nothing left to say about this game anymore.
The game is so broken its not even funny. Its borderline unplayable to the point where they might as well just give up on the game and focus on a new game. Seriously how is it possible that someone can mass mutalisk and have their way with someone defending with mines turrets and THORS ? Oh thats right because the map design is as bad as the game design.
Admittedly I havent played the game in months but every game I lost has been due to pathing, units taking the worst possible route, armies splitting themselves and getting picked off because zerg can instantly move anywhere on the map. . . I can't comprehend blizzards obsession with bases that are winding routes , impossible to defend mutalisk harass. Like actually impossible.
Honestly playing Terran in this state of the game, it feels like your units are papermache that don't even pack a punch. I mean for christs sake thors with mines cannot beat mutalisk because they just fly away and INSTANTLY HEAL WHILE THEY FLY OVER TO YOUR OTHER BASES. Its a never ending circle of shit.
Other stuff I’ll not comment on but no clue what you’re talking about regarding pathing, SC2 has extremely good pathing, by a distance the best in any RTS I’ve ever played.
The only times units take the worse route regarding what you’d like them to is because it’s a shorter path, there’s nothing unpredictable or unmanageable to this.
On November 06 2019 18:25 Harris1st wrote: Really curious how this patch plays out in HSC 20!
Yea really curious to see if Terrans stop whining if they still lose on the new patch, but probably not. The last Zerg Buff was 23.1.2019, and since then terrans and protoss have been able to keep up quite good. Remember GSL S2 with 5 Protoss in Ro8, only two Zerg. Of course Dark won that season (because of imbalance, amiright?)
GSL S3 had 3 Terrans, 3 Zerg and 2 Protoss in Ro8 IEM 4 Zerg / 4 Protoss At Assembly Stats won vs Serral and Solar GSL ST2 had only 2 Zerg in Ro8 (4 Protoss, 2 Terran)
The only Zerg Maru lost to in last six months is Dark (winning agains Solar, Ragnarok, Reynor) (http://aligulac.com/players/49/results/?after=2019-01-23&before=&event=&race=z&country=all&bestof=all&offline=offline&game=all&wcs_season=&wcs_tier=&op=)
The only Zerg TY lost to in last six months is Dark and Serral (winning against Rogue and Ragnarok) (http://aligulac.com/players/63/results/?after=2019-01-23&before=&event=&race=z&country=all&bestof=all&offline=offline&game=all&wcs_season=&wcs_tier=&op=)
The WCS Circuit was dominated by Serral long before the Nydus patch.
Not denying that the Map Pool is good for Zerg atm, and that Nydus needs to be toned down, but the patch gonna address that. But Dark and Serral will continue to dominate because they are just beast.
serral said if zerg's trash next patch he'll switch to terran, doesn't matter joke or not, he has a patch player mentality lol.
On November 07 2019 11:37 RandomPlayer416 wrote: I'm gonna say what needs to be said I really dont care if I get banned or not at this point because there is nothing left to say about this game anymore.
The game is so broken its not even funny. Its borderline unplayable to the point where they might as well just give up on the game and focus on a new game. Seriously how is it possible that someone can mass mutalisk and have their way with someone defending with mines turrets and THORS ? Oh thats right because the map design is as bad as the game design.
Admittedly I havent played the game in months but every game I lost has been due to pathing, units taking the worst possible route, armies splitting themselves and getting picked off because zerg can instantly move anywhere on the map. . . I can't comprehend blizzards obsession with bases that are winding routes , impossible to defend mutalisk harass. Like actually impossible.
Honestly playing Terran in this state of the game, it feels like your units are papermache that don't even pack a punch. I mean for christs sake thors with mines cannot beat mutalisk because they just fly away and INSTANTLY HEAL WHILE THEY FLY OVER TO YOUR OTHER BASES. Its a never ending circle of shit.
In my experience the only way to lose against mass muta is either to a) Be suprised (you did not scout his muta transition in time) b) Try to play defense or c) Your opponnent is much better than you.
Mass Mutalisk is the easiest Zerg threat to beat. Just get lots of thors with support units, grab 10 workers for thor repair and a-move to his main. I think my winrate against this is above 90%. Never try to defend against mass muta, just go for the kill.
Your opponent will either fly his mutas home and try to defend, which means that you won since your army massacre his in a straight up battle. Or he willl try to go for a base trade which you can typically win by killing his main first, then all of his expansions while mass turrets at your bases eventually will kill off all his mutas.
On November 06 2019 08:49 BisuDagger wrote: I always thought fungal+parasitic bomb was the issue withinvestors, not infested Terrans. Fungal bombing instantly eliminates any air army which seems too absurd to me. Can someone please explain to me why ITs are the issue and not what I mentioned above?
Vs terran that's true but vs Protoss fungal + parasitic bomb alone isn't even that good because Protoss uses mostly high HP capital ships in lategame. Current ITs absolutely hardcounter carriers though.
Honestly I’m fine with zerg having extremely good anti air as long as the zerg air units are counterable by what’s on the ground. The problem with the current meta is that the zerg air units can’t be contested in the air due to zergs anti air capability but also can’t be contested on the ground due to bls countering all ground units save ghosts and thors (poor toss has nothing to contest bls from the ground =( ). Which struggle vs the supporting ground units zerg has with thier army.
I do wonder if fixing bl infestor will Fix the overall ballance though. Nydus midgame is extremely strong but perhaps part of that is how hard other races have to lean into a kill them before they get thier strat and how predictable that makes them. Still I much prefer to see active games with lots of nydus aggression then the slow and agonizing bl infestor games.
That was/is the main issue people have. BLs in higher numbers can't be countered by Protoss ground. Fix this and then you can leave the rest
My biggest issue is that broodlings lock the units in place not only preventing the units from advancing, but also from retreating. It removes the ability to kite and be mobile with your units. I'd be totally down for units that could either crush or walk through broodlings (Colossus doesn't count because it can't hit air and is countered by corrupters). It's is really painful to watch a full army of Thors die because they can't run away or engage.
Thors need a stomp attack that one shots anything with a transport size of 1 that is within melee range. It could be an upgrade so that proxy Thor rushes weren't auto win in TvZ. Tanks should also be able to run over/crush units that a transport size of 1.
Immortals should be able to walk over things though probably no crushing.
To get this straight, thor rush, upgrade, mineral drop, where's your workers, mate? Cool
On November 06 2019 08:49 BisuDagger wrote: I always thought fungal+parasitic bomb was the issue withinvestors, not infested Terrans. Fungal bombing instantly eliminates any air army which seems too absurd to me. Can someone please explain to me why ITs are the issue and not what I mentioned above?
Vs terran that's true but vs Protoss fungal + parasitic bomb alone isn't even that good because Protoss uses mostly high HP capital ships in lategame. Current ITs absolutely hardcounter carriers though.
Honestly I’m fine with zerg having extremely good anti air as long as the zerg air units are counterable by what’s on the ground. The problem with the current meta is that the zerg air units can’t be contested in the air due to zergs anti air capability but also can’t be contested on the ground due to bls countering all ground units save ghosts and thors (poor toss has nothing to contest bls from the ground =( ). Which struggle vs the supporting ground units zerg has with thier army.
I do wonder if fixing bl infestor will Fix the overall ballance though. Nydus midgame is extremely strong but perhaps part of that is how hard other races have to lean into a kill them before they get thier strat and how predictable that makes them. Still I much prefer to see active games with lots of nydus aggression then the slow and agonizing bl infestor games.
That was/is the main issue people have. BLs in higher numbers can't be countered by Protoss ground. Fix this and then you can leave the rest
My biggest issue is that broodlings lock the units in place not only preventing the units from advancing, but also from retreating. It removes the ability to kite and be mobile with your units. I'd be totally down for units that could either crush or walk through broodlings (Colossus doesn't count because it can't hit air and is countered by corrupters). It's is really painful to watch a full army of Thors die because they can't run away or engage.
We also didn't get a final without a zerg since ST1 and did get 14/16 events with a zerg finalist including 4 zvz. We also had 7 different zerg finalists, (Solar, soO, Scarlett, Serral, Reynor, Rogue, Dark) they can't all be beast.
soO never used any of the things that people list as imbalanced, no Nydus/SH or Infestor or BL Scarlett was finalist in tournaments without heavy competition and lost to Neeb / Inno
Solar i am unsure, i guess he was peaking in the summer, but i consider him 2nd Tier
And yes, i consider Dark, Serral, Rogue and Reynor top tier players.
My point was that while there is a slight imbalance, and on top of that a bad map pool esp. for terran, it is a much smaller one than the balance whiners are trying to convey.
I think the patch proposals for Nydus are really good and will fix the SH/Nydus play, the leash fix on Blood Lords and the removal of Infested Terrans are good as well. Those combined nerfs are pretty strong together, especially seeing that Mothership and Zealots get buffed for Toss and Thors will be more manageable vs BL for Terran.
On November 07 2019 21:22 LHK wrote: Any news on when this patch will drop? Thought it'd be this week as they have traditionally done (tuesday post blizzcon)
Once again, this is our first pass of changes for our post-BlizzCon update coming in late November. As with previous design updates, these changes are balanced towards being more noticeable; expect new changes to be added or some being removed as we progress through the testing period. Starting on Tuesday, you’ll be able to hop into the Testing Matchmaking queue and try out the changes. Be sure to let us know what you think. Good luck and have fun!
On October 04 2019 05:16 Noocta wrote: This game has become way too upgrade bloated. There's a design problem ? make a new upgrade ? Something too strong, too weak, upgrades there, upgrades everywhere.
Just compare how clean most of the Broodwar upgrades are compared to this.
Yes, +1 sight range for ghosts is very clearly a clean upgrade.
On October 04 2019 05:16 Noocta wrote: This game has become way too upgrade bloated. There's a design problem ? make a new upgrade ? Something too strong, too weak, upgrades there, upgrades everywhere.
Just compare how clean most of the Broodwar upgrades are compared to this.
Yes, +1 sight range for ghosts is very clearly a clean upgrade.
lol, didn't even remember that one.
But then I haven't followed BW in a long time. Are the Queen upgrades ever used? xD
Is it still worth it to stutter step stim bio vs chargelots now? Chargelots move the same speed as stim bio so wondering if it's counterintuitive and wasting APM to try to micro it.
On November 08 2019 03:42 Brutaxilos wrote: Is it still worth it to stutter step stim bio vs chargelots now? Chargelots move the same speed as stim bio so wondering if it's counterintuitive and wasting APM to try to micro it.
Zerglings are faster than marines and you still stutter step vs them.
On November 08 2019 03:42 Brutaxilos wrote: Is it still worth it to stutter step stim bio vs chargelots now? Chargelots move the same speed as stim bio so wondering if it's counterintuitive and wasting APM to try to micro it.
Zerglings are faster than marines and you still stutter step vs them.
Isn't this more to not get surrounded/retreat to mines or tanks tho? I feel like if there are enough chargelots to surround the bio army then it's already probably a lost battle?
On November 08 2019 03:42 Brutaxilos wrote: Is it still worth it to stutter step stim bio vs chargelots now? Chargelots move the same speed as stim bio so wondering if it's counterintuitive and wasting APM to try to micro it.
Zerglings are faster than marines and you still stutter step vs them.
Isn't this more to not get surrounded/retreat to mines or tanks tho? I feel like if there are enough chargelots to surround the bio army then it's already probably a lost battle?
I think this is where the role of marauders fits in. You can slow and kite a handful of zealots with concussive shell far more effectively then zerglings.
For swarmhosts I heard this idea awhile back and I thought it had potential: - Remove Locusts - Give SH a Dark Swarm that hovers over their position when burrowed. - Adjust cost, supply to balance.
This gives Zerg a defensive unit vs mass air that they need instead of that rather lame new infestor spell, plus removes the free units problem.
On November 08 2019 03:42 Brutaxilos wrote: Is it still worth it to stutter step stim bio vs chargelots now? Chargelots move the same speed as stim bio so wondering if it's counterintuitive and wasting APM to try to micro it.
Zerglings are faster than marines and you still stutter step vs them.
Isn't this more to not get surrounded/retreat to mines or tanks tho? I feel like if there are enough chargelots to surround the bio army then it's already probably a lost battle?
Although that’s a benefit theirs a lot of other benefits to stutter stepping vs melee or low range units even if they move fast. Even though they will inevitably close the gap on you, by kiting you are still buying more time where your ranged units are dealing damage and thier units aren’t. In addition stutter stepping will limit the surface area that the melee units have until they can get a surround. Their is a lot of value added by stutter stepping and even more can be gained by knowing when to clump up and stutter and when to spread out and reduce aoe dmg.
On November 07 2019 21:22 LHK wrote: Any news on when this patch will drop? Thought it'd be this week as they have traditionally done (tuesday post blizzcon)
Once again, this is our first pass of changes for our post-BlizzCon update coming in late November. As with previous design updates, these changes are balanced towards being more noticeable; expect new changes to be added or some being removed as we progress through the testing period. Starting on Tuesday, you’ll be able to hop into the Testing Matchmaking queue and try out the changes. Be sure to let us know what you think. Good luck and have fun!
Does this mean we won't get the new patch landing before Homestory Cup?
On November 07 2019 21:22 LHK wrote: Any news on when this patch will drop? Thought it'd be this week as they have traditionally done (tuesday post blizzcon)
Once again, this is our first pass of changes for our post-BlizzCon update coming in late November. As with previous design updates, these changes are balanced towards being more noticeable; expect new changes to be added or some being removed as we progress through the testing period. Starting on Tuesday, you’ll be able to hop into the Testing Matchmaking queue and try out the changes. Be sure to let us know what you think. Good luck and have fun!
Does this mean we won't get the new patch landing before Homestory Cup?
Homestory Cup will on the test-mod if the update hasn't landed by then.
On November 08 2019 09:16 Moonerz wrote: Don't know if maybe I'm going crazy but it seems like in the past year or so, a lot of units have had their speed increased.
More things are getting faster than slower in this game over the time.
So basically with that changes Zerg has no counter to mass air from Protoss? Ahaha this new spell instead of Infested Terrans is soooo useless. How is this possible to lack imagination so much to not see that Zerg is dead vs Mass Carriers instant? OMG they are so clueless...Zerg struggling with antiair- lets take them away lategama antiair.
I bet u will say, that u can spam this spell and clumb ip some Hudras under it. Well hello Psi Storm...Ahaha it is so funny...
On November 08 2019 21:23 hiroshOne wrote: So basically with that changes Zerg has no counter to mass air from Protoss? Ahaha this new spell instead of Infested Terrans is soooo useless. How is this possible to lack imagination so much to not see that Zerg is dead vs Mass Carriers instant? OMG they are so clueless...Zerg struggling with antiair- lets take them away lategama antiair.
I bet u will say, that u can spam this spell and clumb ip some Hudras under it. Well hello Psi Storm...Ahaha it is so funny...
On November 08 2019 21:23 hiroshOne wrote: So basically with that changes Zerg has no counter to mass air from Protoss? Ahaha this new spell instead of Infested Terrans is soooo useless. How is this possible to lack imagination so much to not see that Zerg is dead vs Mass Carriers instant? OMG they are so clueless...Zerg struggling with antiair- lets take them away lategama antiair.
I bet u will say, that u can spam this spell and clumb ip some Hudras under it. Well hello Psi Storm...Ahaha it is so funny...
10 range lurkers vs 9 range storm
Indeed. It still might work out that Zerg struggle in this domain but I still am excited to see an attempt to shift things away from airball vs airball like we have in the lategame now.
Thinking on the adept and how it might be kept useful in its role for longer in the game. Keep glaives, but also add a new upgrade which reduces enemy unit attack speed when it is hit by the adept (say 25%?)
It effectively effectively buffs their existing role by making them more effective in small engagements. This keeps them relevant for longer when harassing or defending fringe bases. It synergises with their ability to shade onto an army or key units (to apply the debuff as the fight breaks out). As a unit that could be warped in en-masse, this also avoids giving them extra dps that could become abusive (especially vs workers) and retains their weaknesses to aoe units, longer ranged units and air units. Massed, due to their low range and the way that front line units absorb shots (i.e. the debuff is only distributed across the enemy front line) they don't gain a significant buff, keeping them from become significantly better than the zealot as a front line unit.
On November 08 2019 21:23 hiroshOne wrote: So basically with that changes Zerg has no counter to mass air from Protoss? Ahaha this new spell instead of Infested Terrans is soooo useless. How is this possible to lack imagination so much to not see that Zerg is dead vs Mass Carriers instant? OMG they are so clueless...Zerg struggling with antiair- lets take them away lategama antiair.
I bet u will say, that u can spam this spell and clumb ip some Hudras under it. Well hello Psi Storm...Ahaha it is so funny...
Abduct+spores/hydras, fungal and corruptors?
If that is not enough, don't let them get there or attack where the carriers are not;-p
If zerg anti air needs a buff without IT I am sure one will come. But useful free units get abused and make a mess of the macro style of trading resources and trying to be more efficient than your opponent. Hence why professional Protoss has been forced to play kill move style gameplay all the past year and macro toss has basically gone extinct. It's ridiculously samey 99% of the time and awful both to play and watch, so I'm very behind killing ITs and fix hydras/corruptors to be late game viable instead. I suspect 10 range lurker will be enough already to zone storm anyway.
On November 08 2019 22:52 totalpigeon wrote: Thinking on the adept and how it might be kept useful in its role for longer in the game. Keep glaives, but also add a new upgrade which reduces enemy unit attack speed when it is hit by the adept (say 25%?)
It effectively effectively buffs their existing role by making them more effective in small engagements. This keeps them relevant for longer when harassing or defending fringe bases. It synergises with their ability to shade onto an army or key units (to apply the debuff as the fight breaks out). As a unit that could be warped in en-masse, this also avoids giving them extra dps that could become abusive (especially vs workers) and retains their weaknesses to aoe units, longer ranged units and air units. Massed, due to their low range and the way that front line units absorb shots (i.e. the debuff is only distributed across the enemy front line) they don't gain a significant buff, keeping them from become significantly better than the zealot as a front line unit.
Thoughts?
My brain is fried with flu at the minute but I quite like it. Would give small Adept squadrons more roaming/retreat potential without making them much better in full army engagements
On November 08 2019 03:42 Brutaxilos wrote: Is it still worth it to stutter step stim bio vs chargelots now? Chargelots move the same speed as stim bio so wondering if it's counterintuitive and wasting APM to try to micro it.
Zerglings are faster than marines and you still stutter step vs them.
Isn't this more to not get surrounded/retreat to mines or tanks tho? I feel like if there are enough chargelots to surround the bio army then it's already probably a lost battle?
I think this is where the role of marauders fits in. You can slow and kite a handful of zealots with concussive shell far more effectively then zerglings.
Ahh yea that's a great point. I've forgotten that Marauders can slow the new speedlots when out of charge.
On November 08 2019 23:21 totalpigeon wrote: If zerg anti air needs a buff without IT I am sure one will come. But useful free units get abused and make a mess of the macro style of trading resources and trying to be more efficient than your opponent. Hence why professional Protoss has been forced to play kill move style gameplay all the past year and macro toss has basically gone extinct. It's ridiculously samey 99% of the time and awful both to play and watch, so I'm very behind killing ITs and fix hydras/corruptors to be late game viable instead. I suspect 10 range lurker will be enough already to zone storm anyway.
Oh they should buff more than one thing as for years everything was balanced around idea that Zerg units don't has to be efficient. That's why we got those "free units" to balance that out as Zerg units are either thrash or glass cannons likenhydras because they are massable. If u take free units u will have to substancially buff not free units. You see Terran and Protoss units are just better in stats than Zerg's.
But hey- i don't any buffs for Zerg whatsoever. The only one is Lurker but it will takenso long to get there, that you are already dead.
On November 08 2019 03:42 Brutaxilos wrote: Is it still worth it to stutter step stim bio vs chargelots now? Chargelots move the same speed as stim bio so wondering if it's counterintuitive and wasting APM to try to micro it.
Zerglings are faster than marines and you still stutter step vs them.
Isn't this more to not get surrounded/retreat to mines or tanks tho? I feel like if there are enough chargelots to surround the bio army then it's already probably a lost battle?
I think this is where the role of marauders fits in. You can slow and kite a handful of zealots with concussive shell far more effectively then zerglings.
Ahh yea that's a great point. I've forgotten that Marauders can slow the new speedlots when out of charge.
It's even more effective now cause they took away the +8 damage on charge impact. Here's the sequence:
* Charge to unit * Bio fires concussive shell during charge * Bio stutters back * Zealots were in mid swing animation as bio moved away therefore increasing the chance of missing
Disregarding speed it may require them to charge AND move to catch up to the unit before getting an effective swipe in. The micro in this battle would actually be insanely high level on both sides.
On November 08 2019 03:42 Brutaxilos wrote: Is it still worth it to stutter step stim bio vs chargelots now? Chargelots move the same speed as stim bio so wondering if it's counterintuitive and wasting APM to try to micro it.
Zerglings are faster than marines and you still stutter step vs them.
Isn't this more to not get surrounded/retreat to mines or tanks tho? I feel like if there are enough chargelots to surround the bio army then it's already probably a lost battle?
I think this is where the role of marauders fits in. You can slow and kite a handful of zealots with concussive shell far more effectively then zerglings.
Ahh yea that's a great point. I've forgotten that Marauders can slow the new speedlots when out of charge.
It's even more effective now cause they took away the +8 damage on charge impact. Here's the sequence:
* Charge to unit * Bio fires concussive shell during charge * Bio stutters back * Zealots were in mid swing animation as bio moved away therefore increasing the chance of missing
Disregarding speed it may require them to charge AND move to catch up to the unit before getting an effective swipe in. The micro in this battle would actually be insanely high level on both sides.
Yes, of the GM level games I've seen on streams using the balance patch mod, this type of thing happens a lot and it's pretty cool. The protoss has to micro their zealots for them to be effective. Just attack moving them works a bit, but against good micro from the terran, the zealots become much less effective. Flanks are also way more important now.
The 8 damage thing is a much bigger deal than a lot of people who haven't seen the patch in use think. With it gone, the protoss is no longer guaranteed to kill units when zealots charge, but it is now on both the opponent to micro against the zealots, and on the protoss to micro their zealots to actually do damage. Attack moving against the new zealots is not going to work unless you have a large army. I watched a game where a zerg didn't micro their roaches against these zealots very much, and the roaches got destroyed easily. On creep, roaches with speed are faster than these zealots, so if the zerg micros, they can easily minimize the damage these zealots do. Charge all-ins will be much more down to micro now than it usually being a case of the protoss winning if zerg doesn't have enough roaches, and zerg wins if they have more than a few roaches and a few queens.
On November 08 2019 03:42 Brutaxilos wrote: Is it still worth it to stutter step stim bio vs chargelots now? Chargelots move the same speed as stim bio so wondering if it's counterintuitive and wasting APM to try to micro it.
Zerglings are faster than marines and you still stutter step vs them.
Isn't this more to not get surrounded/retreat to mines or tanks tho? I feel like if there are enough chargelots to surround the bio army then it's already probably a lost battle?
I think this is where the role of marauders fits in. You can slow and kite a handful of zealots with concussive shell far more effectively then zerglings.
Ahh yea that's a great point. I've forgotten that Marauders can slow the new speedlots when out of charge.
It's even more effective now cause they took away the +8 damage on charge impact. Here's the sequence:
* Charge to unit * Bio fires concussive shell during charge * Bio stutters back * Zealots were in mid swing animation as bio moved away therefore increasing the chance of missing
Disregarding speed it may require them to charge AND move to catch up to the unit before getting an effective swipe in. The micro in this battle would actually be insanely high level on both sides.
Wasn't the hit on charge guaranteed? That was one of the reasons the +8 damage was so good, it was on top of the hit.
On November 08 2019 03:42 Brutaxilos wrote: Is it still worth it to stutter step stim bio vs chargelots now? Chargelots move the same speed as stim bio so wondering if it's counterintuitive and wasting APM to try to micro it.
Zerglings are faster than marines and you still stutter step vs them.
Isn't this more to not get surrounded/retreat to mines or tanks tho? I feel like if there are enough chargelots to surround the bio army then it's already probably a lost battle?
I think this is where the role of marauders fits in. You can slow and kite a handful of zealots with concussive shell far more effectively then zerglings.
Ahh yea that's a great point. I've forgotten that Marauders can slow the new speedlots when out of charge.
It's even more effective now cause they took away the +8 damage on charge impact. Here's the sequence:
* Charge to unit * Bio fires concussive shell during charge * Bio stutters back * Zealots were in mid swing animation as bio moved away therefore increasing the chance of missing
Disregarding speed it may require them to charge AND move to catch up to the unit before getting an effective swipe in. The micro in this battle would actually be insanely high level on both sides.
Wasn't the hit on charge guaranteed? That was one of the reasons the +8 damage was so good, it was on top of the hit.
Yes, I believe you are right. And concussive is movement speed only, not attack speed right? So i guess that first hit is assured unless there was a spell that affected attack speed was cast.
On November 08 2019 22:52 totalpigeon wrote: Thinking on the adept and how it might be kept useful in its role for longer in the game. Keep glaives, but also add a new upgrade which reduces enemy unit attack speed when it is hit by the adept (say 25%?)
It effectively effectively buffs their existing role by making them more effective in small engagements. This keeps them relevant for longer when harassing or defending fringe bases. It synergises with their ability to shade onto an army or key units (to apply the debuff as the fight breaks out). As a unit that could be warped in en-masse, this also avoids giving them extra dps that could become abusive (especially vs workers) and retains their weaknesses to aoe units, longer ranged units and air units. Massed, due to their low range and the way that front line units absorb shots (i.e. the debuff is only distributed across the enemy front line) they don't gain a significant buff, keeping them from become significantly better than the zealot as a front line unit.
Thoughts?
Terran would never win against adepts then. Adepts are my favourite toss unit but I can't imagine a way to make them good in actual fights without them being broken against terran. I like the direction they're going that emphasises harass and burst damage though.
On November 08 2019 22:52 totalpigeon wrote: Thinking on the adept and how it might be kept useful in its role for longer in the game. Keep glaives, but also add a new upgrade which reduces enemy unit attack speed when it is hit by the adept (say 25%?)
It effectively effectively buffs their existing role by making them more effective in small engagements. This keeps them relevant for longer when harassing or defending fringe bases. It synergises with their ability to shade onto an army or key units (to apply the debuff as the fight breaks out). As a unit that could be warped in en-masse, this also avoids giving them extra dps that could become abusive (especially vs workers) and retains their weaknesses to aoe units, longer ranged units and air units. Massed, due to their low range and the way that front line units absorb shots (i.e. the debuff is only distributed across the enemy front line) they don't gain a significant buff, keeping them from become significantly better than the zealot as a front line unit.
Thoughts?
Terran would never win against adepts then. Adepts are my favourite toss unit but I can't imagine a way to make them good in actual fights without them being broken against terran. I like the direction they're going that emphasises harass and burst damage though.
Oh? I actually thought an attack slow debuff would be most underwhelming in TvP. Gated as a separate upgrade to glaives it would be kind of late, so it won't buff early game adepts or any glaives allin (except perhaps as a transition), and adepts aren't generally used after that point normally because they just don't have enough dps or hp for their cost and supply. The upgrade indirectly makes them a bit tankier in a big fight, so I suppose they may compare a bit better to zealots, but I don't see it being a particularly big deal against a ranged terran army which can abuse its speed, range and dps advantage.
On November 05 2019 18:25 661 wrote: So after 9 years they finally find out, they never could balance the IT spell, so they just remove this iconic spell from the game AFTER 9 YEARS. Congratz!
I think I’m done with this game, such an incompetent balance team.
They should have fixed infesters 8 years ago so.....
On November 05 2019 18:25 661 wrote: So after 9 years they finally find out, they never could balance the IT spell, so they just remove this iconic spell from the game AFTER 9 YEARS. Congratz!
They should have fixed infesters 8 years ago so.....
IT was never a problem in the past 9 years. It was never a spell that someone used or abuse to won a tournament. The only reason why IT is a problem right now is it is powerful with fungal and other units to counter Protoss air units.
There are so many ways they can approach this. I feel sad they are removing it (not because I abuse it) but because it was such a cool spell. They can use many diff approach to make IT more viable. For example, revert IT such that they are weaker where upgrade armor/weapon won't apply to them, makes them more expensive, last shorter....
On November 05 2019 18:25 661 wrote: So after 9 years they finally find out, they never could balance the IT spell, so they just remove this iconic spell from the game AFTER 9 YEARS. Congratz!
They should have fixed infesters 8 years ago so.....
IT was never a problem in the past 9 years. It was never a spell that someone used or abuse to won a tournament. The only reason why IT is a problem right now is it is powerful with fungal and other units to counter Protoss air units.
There are so many ways they can approach this. I feel sad they are removing it (not because I abuse it) but because it was such a cool spell. They can use many diff approach to make IT more viable. For example, revert IT such that they are weaker where upgrade armor/weapon won't apply to them, makes them more expensive, last shorter....
right such a cool spell never a problem, only vs air btw.
On November 08 2019 03:42 Brutaxilos wrote: Is it still worth it to stutter step stim bio vs chargelots now? Chargelots move the same speed as stim bio so wondering if it's counterintuitive and wasting APM to try to micro it.
Zerglings are faster than marines and you still stutter step vs them.
Isn't this more to not get surrounded/retreat to mines or tanks tho? I feel like if there are enough chargelots to surround the bio army then it's already probably a lost battle?
Stuttering is to reduce surface area so that lings/lots are stuck trying to attack the closest unit in the army. It messes with the pathing. That's why you'll see zergs (most obvious example) ignore a-move and choose to run past for a few seconds to either get a full surround or catch as much of the ball as they can.
On November 05 2019 18:25 661 wrote: So after 9 years they finally find out, they never could balance the IT spell, so they just remove this iconic spell from the game AFTER 9 YEARS. Congratz!
They should have fixed infesters 8 years ago so.....
IT was never a problem in the past 9 years. It was never a spell that someone used or abuse to won a tournament. The only reason why IT is a problem right now is it is powerful with fungal and other units to counter Protoss air units.
There are so many ways they can approach this. I feel sad they are removing it (not because I abuse it) but because it was such a cool spell. They can use many diff approach to make IT more viable. For example, revert IT such that they are weaker where upgrade armor/weapon won't apply to them, makes them more expensive, last shorter....
I disagree. Along with the remax ability, it is impossible to give zerg ways to have even more army supply in form of ITs. It will always either be OP or useless. I don't find it cool either, I still have horrible visions of 20 WOL infestors under broodlords spamming huge bio-balls with no resource cost and no supply.
On November 08 2019 22:52 totalpigeon wrote: Thinking on the adept and how it might be kept useful in its role for longer in the game. Keep glaives, but also add a new upgrade which reduces enemy unit attack speed when it is hit by the adept (say 25%?)
It effectively effectively buffs their existing role by making them more effective in small engagements. This keeps them relevant for longer when harassing or defending fringe bases. It synergises with their ability to shade onto an army or key units (to apply the debuff as the fight breaks out). As a unit that could be warped in en-masse, this also avoids giving them extra dps that could become abusive (especially vs workers) and retains their weaknesses to aoe units, longer ranged units and air units. Massed, due to their low range and the way that front line units absorb shots (i.e. the debuff is only distributed across the enemy front line) they don't gain a significant buff, keeping them from become significantly better than the zealot as a front line unit.
Thoughts?
Terran would never win against adepts then. Adepts are my favourite toss unit but I can't imagine a way to make them good in actual fights without them being broken against terran. I like the direction they're going that emphasises harass and burst damage though.
Oh? I actually thought an attack slow debuff would be most underwhelming in TvP. Gated as a separate upgrade to glaives it would be kind of late, so it won't buff early game adepts or any glaives allin (except perhaps as a transition), and adepts aren't generally used after that point normally because they just don't have enough dps or hp for their cost and supply. The upgrade indirectly makes them a bit tankier in a big fight, so I suppose they may compare a bit better to zealots, but I don't see it being a particularly big deal against a ranged terran army which can abuse its speed, range and dps advantage.
Considering a flat 25% damage reduction would work on top of stim, it will incredibly good in reducing the DPS of a bio army rendering incredibly weak.
On November 08 2019 22:52 totalpigeon wrote: Thinking on the adept and how it might be kept useful in its role for longer in the game. Keep glaives, but also add a new upgrade which reduces enemy unit attack speed when it is hit by the adept (say 25%?)
It effectively effectively buffs their existing role by making them more effective in small engagements. This keeps them relevant for longer when harassing or defending fringe bases. It synergises with their ability to shade onto an army or key units (to apply the debuff as the fight breaks out). As a unit that could be warped in en-masse, this also avoids giving them extra dps that could become abusive (especially vs workers) and retains their weaknesses to aoe units, longer ranged units and air units. Massed, due to their low range and the way that front line units absorb shots (i.e. the debuff is only distributed across the enemy front line) they don't gain a significant buff, keeping them from become significantly better than the zealot as a front line unit.
Thoughts?
Terran would never win against adepts then. Adepts are my favourite toss unit but I can't imagine a way to make them good in actual fights without them being broken against terran. I like the direction they're going that emphasises harass and burst damage though.
Oh? I actually thought an attack slow debuff would be most underwhelming in TvP. Gated as a separate upgrade to glaives it would be kind of late, so it won't buff early game adepts or any glaives allin (except perhaps as a transition), and adepts aren't generally used after that point normally because they just don't have enough dps or hp for their cost and supply. The upgrade indirectly makes them a bit tankier in a big fight, so I suppose they may compare a bit better to zealots, but I don't see it being a particularly big deal against a ranged terran army which can abuse its speed, range and dps advantage.
Considering a flat 25% damage reduction would work on top of stim, it will incredibly good in reducing the DPS of a bio army rendering incredibly weak.
Keep the debuff duration short and it should be fine. Then it would only affect units who are at that moment engaged with the adepts. It's also pretty unlikely that you manage to debuff everything in a large army, as the front row will soak most of the shots and the rest of the army will keep its full dps. You don't need to stutter step away from adepts like zealots, so you'll probably only lose 10-15% dps at most in a large engagement. That makes it similar to the 20 shield hp buff proposed before. A short duration of 0.5s or so also means if a a few units can break away from the adepts to hit a colossus or something, they'll be back up to full dps more or less immediately.
On November 08 2019 22:52 totalpigeon wrote: Thinking on the adept and how it might be kept useful in its role for longer in the game. Keep glaives, but also add a new upgrade which reduces enemy unit attack speed when it is hit by the adept (say 25%?)
It effectively effectively buffs their existing role by making them more effective in small engagements. This keeps them relevant for longer when harassing or defending fringe bases. It synergises with their ability to shade onto an army or key units (to apply the debuff as the fight breaks out). As a unit that could be warped in en-masse, this also avoids giving them extra dps that could become abusive (especially vs workers) and retains their weaknesses to aoe units, longer ranged units and air units. Massed, due to their low range and the way that front line units absorb shots (i.e. the debuff is only distributed across the enemy front line) they don't gain a significant buff, keeping them from become significantly better than the zealot as a front line unit.
Thoughts?
Terran would never win against adepts then. Adepts are my favourite toss unit but I can't imagine a way to make them good in actual fights without them being broken against terran. I like the direction they're going that emphasises harass and burst damage though.
Oh? I actually thought an attack slow debuff would be most underwhelming in TvP. Gated as a separate upgrade to glaives it would be kind of late, so it won't buff early game adepts or any glaives allin (except perhaps as a transition), and adepts aren't generally used after that point normally because they just don't have enough dps or hp for their cost and supply. The upgrade indirectly makes them a bit tankier in a big fight, so I suppose they may compare a bit better to zealots, but I don't see it being a particularly big deal against a ranged terran army which can abuse its speed, range and dps advantage.
Considering a flat 25% damage reduction would work on top of stim, it will incredibly good in reducing the DPS of a bio army rendering incredibly weak.
Keep the debuff duration short and it should be fine. Then it would only affect units who are at that moment engaged with the adepts. It's also pretty unlikely that you manage to debuff everything in a large army, as the front row will soak most of the shots and the rest of the army will keep its full dps. You don't need to stutter step away from adepts like zealots, so you'll probably only lose 10-15% dps at most in a large engagement. That makes it similar to the 20 shield hp buff proposed before. A short duration of 0.5s or so also means if a a few units can break away from the adepts to hit a colossus or something, they'll be back up to full dps more or less immediately.
If the adepts shade ontop of you nearly your whole army will get hit by them. Additionally if they have not shaded ontop of you stutter stepping is useful since adepts only have 4 range to the marines 5 and the marauders 6.
On November 08 2019 22:52 totalpigeon wrote: Thinking on the adept and how it might be kept useful in its role for longer in the game. Keep glaives, but also add a new upgrade which reduces enemy unit attack speed when it is hit by the adept (say 25%?)
It effectively effectively buffs their existing role by making them more effective in small engagements. This keeps them relevant for longer when harassing or defending fringe bases. It synergises with their ability to shade onto an army or key units (to apply the debuff as the fight breaks out). As a unit that could be warped in en-masse, this also avoids giving them extra dps that could become abusive (especially vs workers) and retains their weaknesses to aoe units, longer ranged units and air units. Massed, due to their low range and the way that front line units absorb shots (i.e. the debuff is only distributed across the enemy front line) they don't gain a significant buff, keeping them from become significantly better than the zealot as a front line unit.
Thoughts?
Terran would never win against adepts then. Adepts are my favourite toss unit but I can't imagine a way to make them good in actual fights without them being broken against terran. I like the direction they're going that emphasises harass and burst damage though.
Oh? I actually thought an attack slow debuff would be most underwhelming in TvP. Gated as a separate upgrade to glaives it would be kind of late, so it won't buff early game adepts or any glaives allin (except perhaps as a transition), and adepts aren't generally used after that point normally because they just don't have enough dps or hp for their cost and supply. The upgrade indirectly makes them a bit tankier in a big fight, so I suppose they may compare a bit better to zealots, but I don't see it being a particularly big deal against a ranged terran army which can abuse its speed, range and dps advantage.
Considering a flat 25% damage reduction would work on top of stim, it will incredibly good in reducing the DPS of a bio army rendering incredibly weak.
Keep the debuff duration short and it should be fine. Then it would only affect units who are at that moment engaged with the adepts. It's also pretty unlikely that you manage to debuff everything in a large army, as the front row will soak most of the shots and the rest of the army will keep its full dps. You don't need to stutter step away from adepts like zealots, so you'll probably only lose 10-15% dps at most in a large engagement. That makes it similar to the 20 shield hp buff proposed before. A short duration of 0.5s or so also means if a a few units can break away from the adepts to hit a colossus or something, they'll be back up to full dps more or less immediately.
If the adepts shade ontop of you nearly your whole army will get hit by them. Additionally if they have not shaded ontop of you stutter stepping is useful since adepts only have 4 range to the marines 5 and the marauders 6.
You mean if Terran isn't paying attention to his army, he might get punished? Well, yeah. That's how the game is supposed to work. You can still stim and move to split against the shade, or stim and pull your marines out of it while the marauders tank. Besides, stim bio wrecks adepts at the minute. A small buff isn't unreasonable - like I said, it would probably work out to a 10-15% dps decrease, which is similar to the shield buff the balance team were suggesting. This is just a more interesting way of doing it with some additional utility and micro potential.
On November 08 2019 22:52 totalpigeon wrote: Thinking on the adept and how it might be kept useful in its role for longer in the game. Keep glaives, but also add a new upgrade which reduces enemy unit attack speed when it is hit by the adept (say 25%?)
It effectively effectively buffs their existing role by making them more effective in small engagements. This keeps them relevant for longer when harassing or defending fringe bases. It synergises with their ability to shade onto an army or key units (to apply the debuff as the fight breaks out). As a unit that could be warped in en-masse, this also avoids giving them extra dps that could become abusive (especially vs workers) and retains their weaknesses to aoe units, longer ranged units and air units. Massed, due to their low range and the way that front line units absorb shots (i.e. the debuff is only distributed across the enemy front line) they don't gain a significant buff, keeping them from become significantly better than the zealot as a front line unit.
Thoughts?
Terran would never win against adepts then. Adepts are my favourite toss unit but I can't imagine a way to make them good in actual fights without them being broken against terran. I like the direction they're going that emphasises harass and burst damage though.
Oh? I actually thought an attack slow debuff would be most underwhelming in TvP. Gated as a separate upgrade to glaives it would be kind of late, so it won't buff early game adepts or any glaives allin (except perhaps as a transition), and adepts aren't generally used after that point normally because they just don't have enough dps or hp for their cost and supply. The upgrade indirectly makes them a bit tankier in a big fight, so I suppose they may compare a bit better to zealots, but I don't see it being a particularly big deal against a ranged terran army which can abuse its speed, range and dps advantage.
Considering a flat 25% damage reduction would work on top of stim, it will incredibly good in reducing the DPS of a bio army rendering incredibly weak.
Keep the debuff duration short and it should be fine. Then it would only affect units who are at that moment engaged with the adepts. It's also pretty unlikely that you manage to debuff everything in a large army, as the front row will soak most of the shots and the rest of the army will keep its full dps. You don't need to stutter step away from adepts like zealots, so you'll probably only lose 10-15% dps at most in a large engagement. That makes it similar to the 20 shield hp buff proposed before. A short duration of 0.5s or so also means if a a few units can break away from the adepts to hit a colossus or something, they'll be back up to full dps more or less immediately.
If the adepts shade ontop of you nearly your whole army will get hit by them. Additionally if they have not shaded ontop of you stutter stepping is useful since adepts only have 4 range to the marines 5 and the marauders 6.
You mean if Terran isn't paying attention to his army, he might get punished? Well, yeah. That's how the game is supposed to work. You can still stim and move to split against the shade, or stim and pull your marines out of it while the marauders tank. Besides, stim bio wrecks adepts at the minute. A small buff isn't unreasonable - like I said, it would probably work out to a 10-15% dps decrease, which is similar to the shield buff the balance team were suggesting. This is just a more interesting way of doing it with some additional utility and micro potential.
If you stim vs adept shade they can just cancel you have paid life on your units/ medivac energy for a cooldowns what a trade!
Also does Protoss realy need help vs Terran right now?
This is a bad idea glad it’s not in the patch notes.
There was an interesting suggestion that stalkers models should be made a little smaller, may unlock some more micro potential.
The other thing that sprung to mind is a range upgrade (+1 range) to stalkers on the cyber core.. Could make for some kiting
Carriers need to be a little bit tankier for their cost/time to make. +2 armour or something like that.
Don't really like the change to the void ray, it's interaction with stalkers means we might have a completely different PvP style if it were to go ahead. I'm not really sure of the role it's attempting to fill at the moment.
On November 11 2019 07:49 Z3nith wrote: Does anyone know when these changes are going live? It's got to be soon right?
There was a suggestion earlier that it could be when ladder season ends. Makes sense to me for that to be the case, I want it earlier though cause I'm not participating in ladder atm
On November 08 2019 22:52 totalpigeon wrote: Thinking on the adept and how it might be kept useful in its role for longer in the game. Keep glaives, but also add a new upgrade which reduces enemy unit attack speed when it is hit by the adept (say 25%?)
It effectively effectively buffs their existing role by making them more effective in small engagements. This keeps them relevant for longer when harassing or defending fringe bases. It synergises with their ability to shade onto an army or key units (to apply the debuff as the fight breaks out). As a unit that could be warped in en-masse, this also avoids giving them extra dps that could become abusive (especially vs workers) and retains their weaknesses to aoe units, longer ranged units and air units. Massed, due to their low range and the way that front line units absorb shots (i.e. the debuff is only distributed across the enemy front line) they don't gain a significant buff, keeping them from become significantly better than the zealot as a front line unit.
Thoughts?
Terran would never win against adepts then. Adepts are my favourite toss unit but I can't imagine a way to make them good in actual fights without them being broken against terran. I like the direction they're going that emphasises harass and burst damage though.
Oh? I actually thought an attack slow debuff would be most underwhelming in TvP. Gated as a separate upgrade to glaives it would be kind of late, so it won't buff early game adepts or any glaives allin (except perhaps as a transition), and adepts aren't generally used after that point normally because they just don't have enough dps or hp for their cost and supply. The upgrade indirectly makes them a bit tankier in a big fight, so I suppose they may compare a bit better to zealots, but I don't see it being a particularly big deal against a ranged terran army which can abuse its speed, range and dps advantage.
Considering a flat 25% damage reduction would work on top of stim, it will incredibly good in reducing the DPS of a bio army rendering incredibly weak.
Keep the debuff duration short and it should be fine. Then it would only affect units who are at that moment engaged with the adepts. It's also pretty unlikely that you manage to debuff everything in a large army, as the front row will soak most of the shots and the rest of the army will keep its full dps. You don't need to stutter step away from adepts like zealots, so you'll probably only lose 10-15% dps at most in a large engagement. That makes it similar to the 20 shield hp buff proposed before. A short duration of 0.5s or so also means if a a few units can break away from the adepts to hit a colossus or something, they'll be back up to full dps more or less immediately.
If the adepts shade ontop of you nearly your whole army will get hit by them. Additionally if they have not shaded ontop of you stutter stepping is useful since adepts only have 4 range to the marines 5 and the marauders 6.
You mean if Terran isn't paying attention to his army, he might get punished? Well, yeah. That's how the game is supposed to work. You can still stim and move to split against the shade, or stim and pull your marines out of it while the marauders tank. Besides, stim bio wrecks adepts at the minute. A small buff isn't unreasonable - like I said, it would probably work out to a 10-15% dps decrease, which is similar to the shield buff the balance team were suggesting. This is just a more interesting way of doing it with some additional utility and micro potential.
If you stim vs adept shade they can just cancel you have paid life on your units/ medivac energy for a cooldowns what a trade!
Also does Protoss realy need help vs Terran right now?
This is a bad idea glad it’s not in the patch notes.
Obviously you don't stim until they commit. I'm surprised I need to clarify that.
You point about about toss not needing help against terran is irrelevant, the adept as a unit is trash once midgame ends and needs some love. Anyway there's no need to get emotional over a suggestion, if you don't like it you don't like it, whatever. Why even bother replying? Just let it die.
On November 08 2019 22:52 totalpigeon wrote: Thinking on the adept and how it might be kept useful in its role for longer in the game. Keep glaives, but also add a new upgrade which reduces enemy unit attack speed when it is hit by the adept (say 25%?)
It effectively effectively buffs their existing role by making them more effective in small engagements. This keeps them relevant for longer when harassing or defending fringe bases. It synergises with their ability to shade onto an army or key units (to apply the debuff as the fight breaks out). As a unit that could be warped in en-masse, this also avoids giving them extra dps that could become abusive (especially vs workers) and retains their weaknesses to aoe units, longer ranged units and air units. Massed, due to their low range and the way that front line units absorb shots (i.e. the debuff is only distributed across the enemy front line) they don't gain a significant buff, keeping them from become significantly better than the zealot as a front line unit.
Thoughts?
Terran would never win against adepts then. Adepts are my favourite toss unit but I can't imagine a way to make them good in actual fights without them being broken against terran. I like the direction they're going that emphasises harass and burst damage though.
Oh? I actually thought an attack slow debuff would be most underwhelming in TvP. Gated as a separate upgrade to glaives it would be kind of late, so it won't buff early game adepts or any glaives allin (except perhaps as a transition), and adepts aren't generally used after that point normally because they just don't have enough dps or hp for their cost and supply. The upgrade indirectly makes them a bit tankier in a big fight, so I suppose they may compare a bit better to zealots, but I don't see it being a particularly big deal against a ranged terran army which can abuse its speed, range and dps advantage.
Considering a flat 25% damage reduction would work on top of stim, it will incredibly good in reducing the DPS of a bio army rendering incredibly weak.
Keep the debuff duration short and it should be fine. Then it would only affect units who are at that moment engaged with the adepts. It's also pretty unlikely that you manage to debuff everything in a large army, as the front row will soak most of the shots and the rest of the army will keep its full dps. You don't need to stutter step away from adepts like zealots, so you'll probably only lose 10-15% dps at most in a large engagement. That makes it similar to the 20 shield hp buff proposed before. A short duration of 0.5s or so also means if a a few units can break away from the adepts to hit a colossus or something, they'll be back up to full dps more or less immediately.
If the adepts shade ontop of you nearly your whole army will get hit by them. Additionally if they have not shaded ontop of you stutter stepping is useful since adepts only have 4 range to the marines 5 and the marauders 6.
You mean if Terran isn't paying attention to his army, he might get punished? Well, yeah. That's how the game is supposed to work. You can still stim and move to split against the shade, or stim and pull your marines out of it while the marauders tank. Besides, stim bio wrecks adepts at the minute. A small buff isn't unreasonable - like I said, it would probably work out to a 10-15% dps decrease, which is similar to the shield buff the balance team were suggesting. This is just a more interesting way of doing it with some additional utility and micro potential.
If you stim vs adept shade they can just cancel you have paid life on your units/ medivac energy for a cooldowns what a trade!
Also does Protoss realy need help vs Terran right now?
This is a bad idea glad it’s not in the patch notes.
Obviously you don't stim until they commit. I'm surprised I need to clarify that.
You point about about toss not needing help against terran is irrelevant, the adept as a unit is trash once midgame ends and needs some love. Anyway there's no need to get emotional over a suggestion, if you don't like it you don't like it, whatever. Why even bother replying? Just let it die.
You have contradicted yourself first you state:
"You mean if Terran isn't paying attention to his army, he might get punished"
now your telling me
"Obviously you don't stim until they commit. I'm surprised I need to clarify that."
The things is. if you dont stim then shades are faster then bio so they are ontop of you. that's not catching Terran off guard.... they knew you were going to do it and had to let you.
If they didn't then you just cancel the shade and you have traded a cooldown for limited medivac energy or raw hp if medivacs are not out.
LOTV beta and launch were plagued by this sort of thing until the adept nerf went through. I'm happy with the current state of the adept its a reaper like unit that is best used for scouting and has some utility in allins, but is not a main army unit and not oppressive. That's fine. Why would we ever want to bring back the old adept styles of them shading on teran's army with no counter play and instagibbing it? that does not sound fun to me.
Glad this is not a proposed change by the balance team.
On November 08 2019 22:52 totalpigeon wrote: Thinking on the adept and how it might be kept useful in its role for longer in the game. Keep glaives, but also add a new upgrade which reduces enemy unit attack speed when it is hit by the adept (say 25%?)
It effectively effectively buffs their existing role by making them more effective in small engagements. This keeps them relevant for longer when harassing or defending fringe bases. It synergises with their ability to shade onto an army or key units (to apply the debuff as the fight breaks out). As a unit that could be warped in en-masse, this also avoids giving them extra dps that could become abusive (especially vs workers) and retains their weaknesses to aoe units, longer ranged units and air units. Massed, due to their low range and the way that front line units absorb shots (i.e. the debuff is only distributed across the enemy front line) they don't gain a significant buff, keeping them from become significantly better than the zealot as a front line unit.
Thoughts?
Terran would never win against adepts then. Adepts are my favourite toss unit but I can't imagine a way to make them good in actual fights without them being broken against terran. I like the direction they're going that emphasises harass and burst damage though.
Oh? I actually thought an attack slow debuff would be most underwhelming in TvP. Gated as a separate upgrade to glaives it would be kind of late, so it won't buff early game adepts or any glaives allin (except perhaps as a transition), and adepts aren't generally used after that point normally because they just don't have enough dps or hp for their cost and supply. The upgrade indirectly makes them a bit tankier in a big fight, so I suppose they may compare a bit better to zealots, but I don't see it being a particularly big deal against a ranged terran army which can abuse its speed, range and dps advantage.
Considering a flat 25% damage reduction would work on top of stim, it will incredibly good in reducing the DPS of a bio army rendering incredibly weak.
Keep the debuff duration short and it should be fine. Then it would only affect units who are at that moment engaged with the adepts. It's also pretty unlikely that you manage to debuff everything in a large army, as the front row will soak most of the shots and the rest of the army will keep its full dps. You don't need to stutter step away from adepts like zealots, so you'll probably only lose 10-15% dps at most in a large engagement. That makes it similar to the 20 shield hp buff proposed before. A short duration of 0.5s or so also means if a a few units can break away from the adepts to hit a colossus or something, they'll be back up to full dps more or less immediately.
If the adepts shade ontop of you nearly your whole army will get hit by them. Additionally if they have not shaded ontop of you stutter stepping is useful since adepts only have 4 range to the marines 5 and the marauders 6.
You mean if Terran isn't paying attention to his army, he might get punished? Well, yeah. That's how the game is supposed to work. You can still stim and move to split against the shade, or stim and pull your marines out of it while the marauders tank. Besides, stim bio wrecks adepts at the minute. A small buff isn't unreasonable - like I said, it would probably work out to a 10-15% dps decrease, which is similar to the shield buff the balance team were suggesting. This is just a more interesting way of doing it with some additional utility and micro potential.
If you stim vs adept shade they can just cancel you have paid life on your units/ medivac energy for a cooldowns what a trade!
Also does Protoss realy need help vs Terran right now?
This is a bad idea glad it’s not in the patch notes.
Obviously you don't stim until they commit. I'm surprised I need to clarify that.
You point about about toss not needing help against terran is irrelevant, the adept as a unit is trash once midgame ends and needs some love. Anyway there's no need to get emotional over a suggestion, if you don't like it you don't like it, whatever. Why even bother replying? Just let it die.
You have contradicted yourself first you state:
"You mean if Terran isn't paying attention to his army, he might get punished"
now your telling me
"Obviously you don't stim until they commit. I'm surprised I need to clarify that."
The things is. if you dont stim then shades are faster then bio so they are ontop of you. that's not catching Terran off guard.... they knew you were going to do it and had to let you.
If they didn't then you just cancel the shade and you have traded a cooldown for limited medivac energy or raw hp if medivacs are not out.
LOTV beta and launch were plagued by this sort of thing until the adept nerf went through. I'm happy with the current state of the adept its a reaper like unit that is best used for scouting and has some utility in allins, but is not a main army unit and not oppressive. That's fine. Why would we ever want to bring back the old adept styles of them shading on teran's army with no counter play and instagibbing it? that does not sound fun to me.
Glad this is not a proposed change by the balance team.
You have new emp now too. Shading in mass adept onto clumped bio will be worthless against that. I don't really share your concerns about the playstyle coming back and being too strong after one such buff.
On November 08 2019 22:52 totalpigeon wrote: Thinking on the adept and how it might be kept useful in its role for longer in the game. Keep glaives, but also add a new upgrade which reduces enemy unit attack speed when it is hit by the adept (say 25%?)
It effectively effectively buffs their existing role by making them more effective in small engagements. This keeps them relevant for longer when harassing or defending fringe bases. It synergises with their ability to shade onto an army or key units (to apply the debuff as the fight breaks out). As a unit that could be warped in en-masse, this also avoids giving them extra dps that could become abusive (especially vs workers) and retains their weaknesses to aoe units, longer ranged units and air units. Massed, due to their low range and the way that front line units absorb shots (i.e. the debuff is only distributed across the enemy front line) they don't gain a significant buff, keeping them from become significantly better than the zealot as a front line unit.
Thoughts?
Terran would never win against adepts then. Adepts are my favourite toss unit but I can't imagine a way to make them good in actual fights without them being broken against terran. I like the direction they're going that emphasises harass and burst damage though.
Oh? I actually thought an attack slow debuff would be most underwhelming in TvP. Gated as a separate upgrade to glaives it would be kind of late, so it won't buff early game adepts or any glaives allin (except perhaps as a transition), and adepts aren't generally used after that point normally because they just don't have enough dps or hp for their cost and supply. The upgrade indirectly makes them a bit tankier in a big fight, so I suppose they may compare a bit better to zealots, but I don't see it being a particularly big deal against a ranged terran army which can abuse its speed, range and dps advantage.
Considering a flat 25% damage reduction would work on top of stim, it will incredibly good in reducing the DPS of a bio army rendering incredibly weak.
Keep the debuff duration short and it should be fine. Then it would only affect units who are at that moment engaged with the adepts. It's also pretty unlikely that you manage to debuff everything in a large army, as the front row will soak most of the shots and the rest of the army will keep its full dps. You don't need to stutter step away from adepts like zealots, so you'll probably only lose 10-15% dps at most in a large engagement. That makes it similar to the 20 shield hp buff proposed before. A short duration of 0.5s or so also means if a a few units can break away from the adepts to hit a colossus or something, they'll be back up to full dps more or less immediately.
If the adepts shade ontop of you nearly your whole army will get hit by them. Additionally if they have not shaded ontop of you stutter stepping is useful since adepts only have 4 range to the marines 5 and the marauders 6.
You mean if Terran isn't paying attention to his army, he might get punished? Well, yeah. That's how the game is supposed to work. You can still stim and move to split against the shade, or stim and pull your marines out of it while the marauders tank. Besides, stim bio wrecks adepts at the minute. A small buff isn't unreasonable - like I said, it would probably work out to a 10-15% dps decrease, which is similar to the shield buff the balance team were suggesting. This is just a more interesting way of doing it with some additional utility and micro potential.
If you stim vs adept shade they can just cancel you have paid life on your units/ medivac energy for a cooldowns what a trade!
Also does Protoss realy need help vs Terran right now?
This is a bad idea glad it’s not in the patch notes.
Obviously you don't stim until they commit. I'm surprised I need to clarify that.
You point about about toss not needing help against terran is irrelevant, the adept as a unit is trash once midgame ends and needs some love. Anyway there's no need to get emotional over a suggestion, if you don't like it you don't like it, whatever. Why even bother replying? Just let it die.
On November 08 2019 22:52 totalpigeon wrote: Thinking on the adept and how it might be kept useful in its role for longer in the game. Keep glaives, but also add a new upgrade which reduces enemy unit attack speed when it is hit by the adept (say 25%?)
It effectively effectively buffs their existing role by making them more effective in small engagements. This keeps them relevant for longer when harassing or defending fringe bases. It synergises with their ability to shade onto an army or key units (to apply the debuff as the fight breaks out). As a unit that could be warped in en-masse, this also avoids giving them extra dps that could become abusive (especially vs workers) and retains their weaknesses to aoe units, longer ranged units and air units. Massed, due to their low range and the way that front line units absorb shots (i.e. the debuff is only distributed across the enemy front line) they don't gain a significant buff, keeping them from become significantly better than the zealot as a front line unit.
Thoughts?
Terran would never win against adepts then. Adepts are my favourite toss unit but I can't imagine a way to make them good in actual fights without them being broken against terran. I like the direction they're going that emphasises harass and burst damage though.
Oh? I actually thought an attack slow debuff would be most underwhelming in TvP. Gated as a separate upgrade to glaives it would be kind of late, so it won't buff early game adepts or any glaives allin (except perhaps as a transition), and adepts aren't generally used after that point normally because they just don't have enough dps or hp for their cost and supply. The upgrade indirectly makes them a bit tankier in a big fight, so I suppose they may compare a bit better to zealots, but I don't see it being a particularly big deal against a ranged terran army which can abuse its speed, range and dps advantage.
Considering a flat 25% damage reduction would work on top of stim, it will incredibly good in reducing the DPS of a bio army rendering incredibly weak.
Keep the debuff duration short and it should be fine. Then it would only affect units who are at that moment engaged with the adepts. It's also pretty unlikely that you manage to debuff everything in a large army, as the front row will soak most of the shots and the rest of the army will keep its full dps. You don't need to stutter step away from adepts like zealots, so you'll probably only lose 10-15% dps at most in a large engagement. That makes it similar to the 20 shield hp buff proposed before. A short duration of 0.5s or so also means if a a few units can break away from the adepts to hit a colossus or something, they'll be back up to full dps more or less immediately.
If the adepts shade ontop of you nearly your whole army will get hit by them. Additionally if they have not shaded ontop of you stutter stepping is useful since adepts only have 4 range to the marines 5 and the marauders 6.
You mean if Terran isn't paying attention to his army, he might get punished? Well, yeah. That's how the game is supposed to work. You can still stim and move to split against the shade, or stim and pull your marines out of it while the marauders tank. Besides, stim bio wrecks adepts at the minute. A small buff isn't unreasonable - like I said, it would probably work out to a 10-15% dps decrease, which is similar to the shield buff the balance team were suggesting. This is just a more interesting way of doing it with some additional utility and micro potential.
If you stim vs adept shade they can just cancel you have paid life on your units/ medivac energy for a cooldowns what a trade!
Also does Protoss realy need help vs Terran right now?
This is a bad idea glad it’s not in the patch notes.
Obviously you don't stim until they commit. I'm surprised I need to clarify that.
You point about about toss not needing help against terran is irrelevant, the adept as a unit is trash once midgame ends and needs some love. Anyway there's no need to get emotional over a suggestion, if you don't like it you don't like it, whatever. Why even bother replying? Just let it die.
That's missing Harstem' point and misrepresenting what he said though. His point in that clip was that the matchup is currently (as in, on this current patch) harder for terran right now because the current map pool favours protoss, which even most protoss players would agree with. The literal quote is "most terrans can't last for very long in this matchup because, well, it's rather okay for protoss at the moment, espec--, mainly because it's on the current map pool. It's very difficult for terrans to get good results in this matchup". Big, open maps have always typically favoured protoss, while smaller maps with more chokes have favoured terran.
Harstem's point is something several of us having been trying to drive home in this thread for a while now. There are definitely issues right now with the game, but the current map pool has been exacerbating many of them to seem much worse than they are on maps of other sizes. Most map pools have had 1-2 large maps at the most, along with a few medium and small maps, and on occasion a gimmicky map. This map pool contains mostly larger than average maps, and many of the maps are much more open than maps from the past. The two maps in this pool that aren't large and open, Ephemeron and Winter's Gate, are instead gimmicky maps with weird layouts that make expansions difficult to take in some matchups. For Ephemeron, for example, the only options for a fourth are either expanding towards your opponent, or expanding quite far away from the only viable option for a third. Winter's Gate has similar issues.
As I said in a previous post, it was fine to have Acropolis and Thunderbird in the last map pool because there were other maps to balance them out since they were such a large, open maps that favoured one side in some matchups. Instead, now we have 5 maps roughly the size of Acropolis that all share similar traits to Acropolis, and we have ended up with a map pool where you can't really veto out all of the bad maps, so we end up with games where pros are forced to play on maps they know will not be favourable for them at all. For example, no protoss would willingly try to play a macro PvZ on Thunderbird since it's so easy for the zerg to pin protoss on 3 bases with one of several different styles that work well on that map. That's why most protoss wins on that map came from all-ins.
On November 09 2019 05:40 serendipitous wrote: [quote] Terran would never win against adepts then. Adepts are my favourite toss unit but I can't imagine a way to make them good in actual fights without them being broken against terran. I like the direction they're going that emphasises harass and burst damage though.
Oh? I actually thought an attack slow debuff would be most underwhelming in TvP. Gated as a separate upgrade to glaives it would be kind of late, so it won't buff early game adepts or any glaives allin (except perhaps as a transition), and adepts aren't generally used after that point normally because they just don't have enough dps or hp for their cost and supply. The upgrade indirectly makes them a bit tankier in a big fight, so I suppose they may compare a bit better to zealots, but I don't see it being a particularly big deal against a ranged terran army which can abuse its speed, range and dps advantage.
Considering a flat 25% damage reduction would work on top of stim, it will incredibly good in reducing the DPS of a bio army rendering incredibly weak.
Keep the debuff duration short and it should be fine. Then it would only affect units who are at that moment engaged with the adepts. It's also pretty unlikely that you manage to debuff everything in a large army, as the front row will soak most of the shots and the rest of the army will keep its full dps. You don't need to stutter step away from adepts like zealots, so you'll probably only lose 10-15% dps at most in a large engagement. That makes it similar to the 20 shield hp buff proposed before. A short duration of 0.5s or so also means if a a few units can break away from the adepts to hit a colossus or something, they'll be back up to full dps more or less immediately.
If the adepts shade ontop of you nearly your whole army will get hit by them. Additionally if they have not shaded ontop of you stutter stepping is useful since adepts only have 4 range to the marines 5 and the marauders 6.
You mean if Terran isn't paying attention to his army, he might get punished? Well, yeah. That's how the game is supposed to work. You can still stim and move to split against the shade, or stim and pull your marines out of it while the marauders tank. Besides, stim bio wrecks adepts at the minute. A small buff isn't unreasonable - like I said, it would probably work out to a 10-15% dps decrease, which is similar to the shield buff the balance team were suggesting. This is just a more interesting way of doing it with some additional utility and micro potential.
If you stim vs adept shade they can just cancel you have paid life on your units/ medivac energy for a cooldowns what a trade!
Also does Protoss realy need help vs Terran right now?
This is a bad idea glad it’s not in the patch notes.
Obviously you don't stim until they commit. I'm surprised I need to clarify that.
You point about about toss not needing help against terran is irrelevant, the adept as a unit is trash once midgame ends and needs some love. Anyway there's no need to get emotional over a suggestion, if you don't like it you don't like it, whatever. Why even bother replying? Just let it die.
That's missing Harstem' point and misrepresenting what he said though. His point in that clip was that the matchup is currently (as in, on this current patch) harder for terran right now because the current map pool favours protoss, which even most protoss players would agree with. The literal quote is "most terrans can't last for very long in this matchup because, well, it's rather okay for protoss at the moment, espec--, mainly because it's on the current map pool. It's very difficult for terrans to get good results in this matchup". Big, open maps have always typically favoured protoss, while smaller maps with more chokes have favoured terran.
Harstem's point is something several of us having been trying to drive home in this thread for a while now. There are definitely issues right now with the game, but the current map pool has been exacerbating many of them to seem much worse than they are on maps of other sizes. Most map pools have had 1-2 large maps at the most, along with a few medium and small maps, and on occasion a gimmicky map. This map pool contains mostly larger than average maps, and many of the maps are much more open than maps from the past. The two maps in this pool that aren't large and open, Ephemeron and Winter's Gate, are instead gimmicky maps with weird layouts that make expansions difficult to take in some matchups. For Ephemeron, for example, the only options for a fourth are either expanding towards your opponent, or expanding quite far away from the only viable option for a third. Winter's Gate has similar issues.
As I said in a previous post, it was fine to have Acropolis and Thunderbird in the last map pool because there were other maps to balance them out since they were such a large, open maps that favoured one side in some matchups. Instead, now we have 5 maps roughly the size of Acropolis that all share similar traits to Acropolis, and we have ended up with a map pool where you can't really veto out all of the bad maps, so we end up with games where pros are forced to play on maps they know will not be favourable for them at all. For example, no protoss would willingly try to play a macro PvZ on Thunderbird since it's so easy for the zerg to pin protoss on 3 bases with one of several different styles that work well on that map. That's why most protoss wins on that map came from all-ins.
I really hope next season features more weird maps, like Desert Oasis or Dasan Station. Even as a P, it's not fun to be shoehorned into standard play every game.
There was some debate about the Adept change on BeastyQT's stream today. He did not like the proposed change as it can be considered a nerf compared to how the unit works currently. However, I do understand why they want to focus more on the shade ability:
-It makes it feel more different from the Zealot, a unit it overlaps with a lot. -To have the most DPS out of your adepts, you will have to shade constantly, even in fights, which is cool imo, and it increases the skillcap of the unit. -Players will find ways to abuse the increased burst damage, obviusly for harassment, but also for flanking and sniping important units during fights.
I don't thing it is meant as a balance change but rather a way to make the unit more interresting. It reminds me of the "critical strike when leaving cloak" abilities we know from games like WC3 and mobas.
On November 12 2019 08:02 Slydie wrote: There was some debate about the Adept change on BeastyQT's stream today. He did not like the proposed change as it can be considered a nerf compared to how the unit works currently. However, I do understand why they want to focus more on the shade ability:
-It makes it feel more different from the Zealot, a unit it overlaps with a lot. -To have the most DPS out of your adepts, you will have to shade constantly, even in fights, which is cool imo, and it increases the skillcap of the unit. -Players will find ways to abuse the increased burst damage, obviusly for harassment, but also for flanking and sniping important units during fights.
I don't thing it is meant as a balance change but rather a way to make the unit more interresting. It reminds me of the "critical strike when leaving cloak" abilities we know from games like WC3 and mobas.
At the same time we're getting to 1) You need to more control speedlots 2) You need to more control adepts 3) Blink 4) FF 5) WP + immortal juggling 6) Storm (we can continue)
Do you see the trend and where am I going? This isn't very healthy IMO compared to the other armies. While the meme of the a-move to victory is funny one the longer the game goes the more control heavy Protoss is with constant addition of some micro helpers.
personally id give vikings and/or stalkers some sort of upgrade that changes their attack from projectile to instant damage or maybe automatically unlock it after 2/2 or 3/3 is finished. Theres so much overkill in these units in large scale late game fights. right now Smart zergs can just amove their overseers at the start of engagement and automatically soak up the first few volleys of shots. Meanwhile terran most likely has to control ghost lib + micro and splitting for fungals and parasitic bomb. It just feels like the effort required to win a fight is way less for the zerg and extremely unforgiving for the terran.
On November 12 2019 08:02 Slydie wrote: There was some debate about the Adept change on BeastyQT's stream today. He did not like the proposed change as it can be considered a nerf compared to how the unit works currently. However, I do understand why they want to focus more on the shade ability:
-It makes it feel more different from the Zealot, a unit it overlaps with a lot. -To have the most DPS out of your adepts, you will have to shade constantly, even in fights, which is cool imo, and it increases the skillcap of the unit. -Players will find ways to abuse the increased burst damage, obviusly for harassment, but also for flanking and sniping important units during fights.
I don't thing it is meant as a balance change but rather a way to make the unit more interresting. It reminds me of the "critical strike when leaving cloak" abilities we know from games like WC3 and mobas.
At the same time we're getting to 1) You need to more control speedlots 2) You need to more control adepts 3) Blink 4) FF 5) WP + immortal juggling 6) Storm (we can continue)
Do you see the trend and where am I going? This isn't very healthy IMO compared to the other armies. While the meme of the a-move to victory is funny one the longer the game goes the more control heavy Protoss is with constant addition of some micro helpers.
(Both #1 and #2 are added right now)
Did you ever try microing 2 drops while sieging forward with mines and liberators, emping with ghosts and stim/kiting bio? It is humanly impossible of course. Increasing the skill cap of Toss is completely fine imo. You will get used to it!
On November 12 2019 08:02 Slydie wrote: There was some debate about the Adept change on BeastyQT's stream today. He did not like the proposed change as it can be considered a nerf compared to how the unit works currently. However, I do understand why they want to focus more on the shade ability:
-It makes it feel more different from the Zealot, a unit it overlaps with a lot. -To have the most DPS out of your adepts, you will have to shade constantly, even in fights, which is cool imo, and it increases the skillcap of the unit. -Players will find ways to abuse the increased burst damage, obviusly for harassment, but also for flanking and sniping important units during fights.
I don't thing it is meant as a balance change but rather a way to make the unit more interresting. It reminds me of the "critical strike when leaving cloak" abilities we know from games like WC3 and mobas.
At the same time we're getting to 1) You need to more control speedlots 2) You need to more control adepts 3) Blink 4) FF 5) WP + immortal juggling 6) Storm (we can continue)
Do you see the trend and where am I going? This isn't very healthy IMO compared to the other armies. While the meme of the a-move to victory is funny one the longer the game goes the more control heavy Protoss is with constant addition of some micro helpers.
(Both #1 and #2 are added right now)
Did you ever try microing 2 drops while sieging forward with mines and liberators, emping with ghosts and stim/kiting bio? It is humanly impossible of course. Increasing the skill cap of Toss is completely fine imo. You will get used to it!
I personally find Toss micro gets exponentially harder for the reasons Deacon describes, but am totally down for the changes if they both raise the skill floor a bit in terms of effectiveness of A-moving, while raising the ceiling to make Protoss players with good basic unit micro some more room to make use of it.
By basic I mean just splitting, flanking, targeting with basic stock units, so a speedier passive Zealot speed could fit that bill.
I think by and large people tend to prefer matchups and metas when stock unit control is more obviously at play than when it’s more about whose casters and abilities land at the correct times against the correct things.
On November 12 2019 08:02 Slydie wrote: There was some debate about the Adept change on BeastyQT's stream today. He did not like the proposed change as it can be considered a nerf compared to how the unit works currently. However, I do understand why they want to focus more on the shade ability:
-It makes it feel more different from the Zealot, a unit it overlaps with a lot. -To have the most DPS out of your adepts, you will have to shade constantly, even in fights, which is cool imo, and it increases the skillcap of the unit. -Players will find ways to abuse the increased burst damage, obviusly for harassment, but also for flanking and sniping important units during fights.
I don't thing it is meant as a balance change but rather a way to make the unit more interresting. It reminds me of the "critical strike when leaving cloak" abilities we know from games like WC3 and mobas.
At the same time we're getting to 1) You need to more control speedlots 2) You need to more control adepts 3) Blink 4) FF 5) WP + immortal juggling 6) Storm (we can continue)
Do you see the trend and where am I going? This isn't very healthy IMO compared to the other armies. While the meme of the a-move to victory is funny one the longer the game goes the more control heavy Protoss is with constant addition of some micro helpers.
(Both #1 and #2 are added right now)
Did you ever try microing 2 drops while sieging forward with mines and liberators, emping with ghosts and stim/kiting bio? It is humanly impossible of course. Increasing the skill cap of Toss is completely fine imo. You will get used to it!
I personally find Toss micro gets exponentially harder for the reasons Deacon describes, but am totally down for the changes if they both raise the skill floor a bit in terms of effectiveness of A-moving, while raising the ceiling to make Protoss players with good basic unit micro some more room to make use of it.
By basic I mean just splitting, flanking, targeting with basic stock units, so a speedier passive Zealot speed could fit that bill.
I think by and large people tend to prefer matchups and metas when stock unit control is more obviously at play than when it’s more about whose casters and abilities land at the correct times against the correct things.
No one can do everything, which is good, because it gives players more room to differentiate themselves (e.g a player with good basic unit control vs one that's good at drop micro vs one that's good at managing late-game armies with spell-casters, etc).
You saw this a lot with Protoss players in Brood War and their favored compositions (e.g Bisu with Corsair/Reaver vs Jangbi's storms).
Greetings! Now that BlizzCon is behind us and the post-show patch looms, we’d like to take one final opportunity to examine some tweaks we could make to our initial proposals. As we’ve received generally positive feedback on the direction of the changes we’ve proposed, we intend to make these tweaks as small as possible while we wait for games to play out that will showcase these changes—for instance, at HomeStoryCup XX next week. Below is the list of final changes we’d like to make:
Lurker
Lurkers affected by Blinding Cloud will now only fire to melee range. Previously, Lurkers under Blinding Cloud could not target enemies outside of melee range, but their spines would still fire to maximum range if they attacked a unit at melee range. After this change, Lurkers will effectively only shoot out a single spine if an enemy is within melee range. As a result, we believe Ultralisks will become a more competitive option in late-game ZvZ.
Nydus Worm
Removed the Propulsive Peristalsis upgrade from the Evolution Chamber. We heard the feedback that the changes we proposed for the Propulsive Peristalsis upgrade, which reduced load and unload times on the Nydus Worm, would be unimpactful. As we’d like to avoid introducing upgrades that see little use and fail to encourage positive gameplay, we’d like to trim this upgrade from the upcoming patch.
Additional Changes/Bug Fixes
Splash damage will now properly be applied to units affected by Anti-Armor missile. Fixed an issue where Abduct and Interference Matrix could still interrupt a Tactical Jumping Battlecruiser in certain situations. Updated the Tactical Jump visual glaze. As there are relatively few changes in this update, we’d also like to take the time to highlight our primary points of focus when looking at future changes.
Terran’s relationship against Disruptors with reduced Liberator range. The resulting strength of Nydus Worms, especially when combined with Swarm Hosts. The strength and prevalence of Lurkers in ZvP and ZvZ. Numbers tweaks we could make to the new Microbial Shroud ability. The strength and role of Zealots, both in general and against kiting Terran Bio units. The strength use of the new Resonating Glaive ability. The end-game dynamics of each matchup. When this post goes live, the Balance Test Mod will have been updated with these changes. We also plan to push the balance changes to the live ladder at the start of next season on Tuesday, November 26th. Below is the full list of changes you’ll find in the upcoming patch:
TERRAN Hellion/Hellbat
Infernal Pre-Igniter research cost decreased from 150/150 to 100/100. Thor
High Impact Payload damage decreased from 40 (+15 vs Massive) to 25 (+10 vs Massive). High Impact Payload weapon cooldown decreased from 1.7 to 0.9. Medivac
Moved the Rapid Re-Ignition System upgrade from the Starport Tech Lab to the Fusion Core. In addition to reducing the Medivac's Ignite Afterburners cooldown by 5 seconds, this upgrade will also increase the Medivac's base movement speed from 3.5 to 4.13. However, this upgrade will not affect Medivac’s movement speed during the Ignite Afterburners effect. Liberator
Advanced Ballistics upgrade moved from the Starport Tech Lab to the Fusion Core. Advanced Ballistics upgrade now increases the range of Liberators in Defender Mode by 3, down from 4. Raven
Interference Matrix energy cost increased from 50 energy to 75 energy. Interference Matrix duration increased from 8 seconds to 11 seconds. Raven movement speed increased from 3.85 to 4.13. Fixed an issue where splash damage will not properly apply to units affected by Anti-Armor missile. Battlecruiser
Tactical Jump now stuns and puts the Battlecruiser into a 1 second vulnerability phase before it teleports. In this state, the Battlecruiser can be damaged, but Tactical Jump may not be canceled. Yamato Cannon will no longer cancel itself if a target enters a transport or becomes cloaked/burrowed. Instead, the Yamato Cannon will miss, and the ability will go on cooldown. M.U.L.E.
Duration decreased from 64 seconds to 63 seconds. M.U.L.E.'s now always attempt to spawn on the side of minerals closest to a town hall.
ZERG Creep
Active Creep Tumors may no longer be canceled. Overlord
Pneumatized Carapace research cost increased from 75/75 to 100/100. Infestor
Removed the Infested Terran ability. New Ability: Microbial Shroud Creates a shroud that obscures ground units below, reducing the damage they take from air units by 50%. Lasts 11 seconds. Energy cost: 100. Cast range: 9. Radius: 3. New upgrade found on the Infestation Pit: Evolve Microbial Shroud Requirement: Hive. Research cost: 150/150. Research duration: 79 seconds. Neural Parasite range decreased from 9 to 8. Neural Parasite can no longer target Heroic units. Lurker
Lurker Den build time decreased from 86 seconds to 57 seconds. Lurker range decreased from 9 to 8. New Upgrade found on the Lurker Den: Seismic Spines Increases the Lurker’s range from 8 to 10. Requirement: Hive. Research cost: 150/150. Research duration: 57 seconds. Increased research duration of Adaptive Talons from 54 seconds to 57 seconds. Lurkers affected by Blinding Cloud will now only fire to melee range. Brood Lord
Broodling leash range decreased from 12 to 9. NYDUS NETWORK
Nydus Worm cost increased from 50/50 to 75/75. Summon Nydus Worm ability cooldown increased from 0 to 14. Nydus Network and Nydus Worm initial unload delay increased from 0.18 to 0.36. Nydus Network and Nydus Worm load period increased from 0.09 to 0.18. Nydus Network and Nydus Worm unload period increased from 0.18 to 0.36.
PROTOSS Oracle, Sentry, and Void Ray
Fixed an issue where beam attacks could deal more damage than intended. Zealot
The Charge upgrade no longer provides Zealots with +8 damage on impact. Instead, it increases Zealot movement speed from 3.15 to 4.72, up from 4.13. Adept
Resonating Glaives reworked. Instead of increasing attack speed of the Adept by 45%, it will increase the attack speed of the Adept by 60% for 6 seconds after a completed Psionic Transfer. Observer
Observer movement speed decreased from 3.01 to 2.63. Gravitic Boosters upgrade now increases movement speed by 1.31, down from 1.51. Void Ray
New upgrade found on the Fleet Beacon: Flux Vanes Increases the Void Ray’s movement speed from 3.5 to 4.65. Increases the Void Ray’s acceleration from 2.8 to 3.76. After the upgrade, the Prismatic Alignment ability will still reduce the Void Ray’s movement speed to 2.625. Research cost: 100/100. Research duration: 57 seconds. Tempest
Kinetic Overload (anti-air) range decreased from 15 to 14. Health increased from 150 to 200. Shields decreased from 125 to 100. Mothership
Time Warp now affects air units in addition to ground units and buildings. Time Warp delay reduces from 3.57 seconds to 1.79 seconds. Gains the Heroic Tag. Neural Parasite can no longer target Heroic units.
I am slowly getting more positive about the upcoming changes. Most seam at least reasonable even if do not nail down the issues exactly. However I am also not keen on adding more upgrades to the game as there is already a bit too many of them - some "clean up" would be nice. Also I do not like Adept change, seems really circumstancial. Maybe instead of increasing attack speed add bouncing attack (similar to mutalisk) ? And if they want to differentiate Adept from zealot further they should make Adept more nimble: Increase movement speed, decrease attack delay, reduce health/shields etc.
On November 15 2019 07:59 egrimm wrote: However I am also not keen on adding more upgrades to the game as there is already a bit too many of them - some "clean up" would be nice.
I am of the opposite side. The upgrades will make playstyles even more impactful. You will mold your military according to your wishes and it will be stronger as the games go on, making early game more pronounced.
What do you think about an idea to change Nydus Network so it (main building) would take damage when Nydus Worm is destroyed? I think an appropriate amount is about 25%(maybe more) of network's HP per 1 worm. So zerg could create only 4 sequential Nydus Worms if every previous worm is destroyed by an enemy.
Logically it makes sence since Nydus Worm and Nydus Network is the same biological organism, so cutting off one head damages the main body.
What main essences stay behind this idea: - To make Nydus meta play less reckless for zerg player. So Zerg has to estimate risks of creating Nydus worm right infront of enemy army. I think it will make Nydus net more as a strategical tool. Aslo multiple worms become more risky in general. Zerg can great as many exits as he wants, but an opponent can destroy whole network after 4 worms have been found and killed - It will force Queen's Transfusion + Nydus Network interaction. In order to maintain Nydus Network beeing alive zerg has to use more transfusions behind the scene but not on the battlefield. Also it will make nydus strategy more APM consuming. 25% of nydus network HP = 212.5, so zerg has to make 2 transfusions (and plus some time) to cover the damage after 1 dead worm. - Potentially we (as viewers) could watch more breathtaking gameplay moments when zerg army gets trapped on enemy base and die (or not), or even when zerg-player lose his army because of whole Network get destroyed. - If enemy player sees 5th sequential Nydus worm after killing four previous in short time he will know that zerg is investing additional resources into Nydus strategy. Additional potential for mindgames. - If zerg waits enough he will be able to create more Nydus worms thanks to zerg's regeneration.
On November 12 2019 08:02 Slydie wrote: There was some debate about the Adept change on BeastyQT's stream today. He did not like the proposed change as it can be considered a nerf compared to how the unit works currently. However, I do understand why they want to focus more on the shade ability:
-It makes it feel more different from the Zealot, a unit it overlaps with a lot. -To have the most DPS out of your adepts, you will have to shade constantly, even in fights, which is cool imo, and it increases the skillcap of the unit. -Players will find ways to abuse the increased burst damage, obviusly for harassment, but also for flanking and sniping important units during fights.
I don't thing it is meant as a balance change but rather a way to make the unit more interresting. It reminds me of the "critical strike when leaving cloak" abilities we know from games like WC3 and mobas.
At the same time we're getting to 1) You need to more control speedlots 2) You need to more control adepts 3) Blink 4) FF 5) WP + immortal juggling 6) Storm (we can continue)
Do you see the trend and where am I going? This isn't very healthy IMO compared to the other armies. While the meme of the a-move to victory is funny one the longer the game goes the more control heavy Protoss is with constant addition of some micro helpers.
(Both #1 and #2 are added right now)
Did you ever try microing 2 drops while sieging forward with mines and liberators, emping with ghosts and stim/kiting bio? It is humanly impossible of course. Increasing the skill cap of Toss is completely fine imo. You will get used to it!
All of that is fine and all but it is not as difficult as Protoss micro as it stands right now.
One thing you are also not taking into account that micro doesn’t mean nearly as much when there is such pitiful dps. Protoss units have such pitiful DPS! Including the new zealot. So while you can micro to get that juicy flank the zealots will just bounce off an MMM ball. It’s absurd.
cant wait for blinding cloud and whatever that infestor cloud thing is called to stack so nothing dies from air or ground as ultras eat away at everything on the ground
On November 18 2019 01:45 Carminedust wrote: cant wait for blinding cloud and whatever that infestor cloud thing is called to stack so nothing dies from air or ground as ultras eat away at everything on the ground
Ultras will still be garbage. Disruptors, ghost snipe still work. Heavy hitters like Thors (which can already beat ultra 1v1), immortal, and archon still can do damage to ultras. good luck trying to catch stim marauders under a blinding cloud
On November 18 2019 01:45 Carminedust wrote: cant wait for blinding cloud and whatever that infestor cloud thing is called to stack so nothing dies from air or ground as ultras eat away at everything on the ground
Does the microbial shroud stack??
Edit: oh ok you mean stacking shroud and blinding cloud. Sorry.
On November 15 2019 07:59 egrimm wrote: I am slowly getting more positive about the upcoming changes. Most seam at least reasonable even if do not nail down the issues exactly. However I am also not keen on adding more upgrades to the game as there is already a bit too many of them - some "clean up" would be nice. Also I do not like Adept change, seems really circumstancial. Maybe instead of increasing attack speed add bouncing attack (similar to mutalisk) ? And if they want to differentiate Adept from zealot further they should make Adept more nimble: Increase movement speed, decrease attack delay, reduce health/shields etc.
As long as an upgrade is not unbalanced I’m totally fine with it being in the game. It doesn’t hurt anything and it allows cool niche strategies to be used from time to time like recently when classic went blink dts. Or when Gumiho goes speed banshees. Sometimes niche upgrades take a long time to find thier uses but eventually do like burrow roaches (which had to be nerfed for zvz) My only problem with upgrades is if they are to strong or force another race to play a very specific way. Take khadrian amulet,blink back in the hots blink meta, blue flame in its first iteration, 75/75 overlord speed ect.
On November 19 2019 09:01 Loccstana wrote: Colossus get a range upgrade, lurkers get a range upgrade, siege tanks should get a range upgrade too.
As some one who plays both Zerg and Terran in masters I think that could make tvt and zvt unpleasant
if it was only +1 range maybe. but it would need to cost a lot and be gated behind fusion core or something. I guess you could play with it to not make turtle mech insufferable. You just don’t want it to be so strong that nothing can contest tanks on the ground. No mandatory air game is preferable. I wouldnt mind tanks getting some love vs toss though to make them scale a bit better. The removal of charge dmg on hit does help here since it means that terran’s frontline won’t die quite as fast maybe you get 1 extra tank shot volley now.
On November 19 2019 09:01 Loccstana wrote: Colossus get a range upgrade, lurkers get a range upgrade, siege tanks should get a range upgrade too.
As some one who plays both Zerg and Terran in masters I think that could make tvt and zvt unpleasant
if it was only +1 range maybe. but it would need to cost a lot and be gated behind fusion core or something. I guess you could play with it to not make turtle mech insufferable. You just don’t want it to be so strong that nothing can contest tanks on the ground. No mandatory air game is preferable. I wouldnt mind tanks getting some love vs toss though to make them scale a bit better. The removal of charge dmg on hit does help here since it means that terran’s frontline won’t die quite as fast maybe you get 1 extra tank shot volley now.
Disagree - positional units should be strong. The upgrade should increase range by 5 (up to 18) and cost 50/50 on the techlab.
On November 19 2019 09:01 Loccstana wrote: Colossus get a range upgrade, lurkers get a range upgrade, siege tanks should get a range upgrade too.
As some one who plays both Zerg and Terran in masters I think that could make tvt and zvt unpleasant
if it was only +1 range maybe. but it would need to cost a lot and be gated behind fusion core or something. I guess you could play with it to not make turtle mech insufferable. You just don’t want it to be so strong that nothing can contest tanks on the ground. No mandatory air game is preferable. I wouldnt mind tanks getting some love vs toss though to make them scale a bit better. The removal of charge dmg on hit does help here since it means that terran’s frontline won’t die quite as fast maybe you get 1 extra tank shot volley now.
Disagree - positional units should be strong. The upgrade should increase range by 5 (up to 18) and cost 50/50 on the techlab.
*Shudders*
I think Blizz botched the tank, it was a perfect RTS unit. Long range with a deploy period that gives it a definable strength and weakness. Does splash and friendly fire so lots of soft countermeasures too.
Not only do units exist that can A-move into tank lines, spells exist that can yoink tanks, we now have a bunch of units that even out range tanks too, without the other drawbacks tanks have in mobility and positioning.
On October 04 2019 05:16 Noocta wrote: This game has become way too upgrade bloated. There's a design problem ? make a new upgrade ? Something too strong, too weak, upgrades there, upgrades everywhere.
Just compare how clean most of the Broodwar upgrades are compared to this.
Yes, +1 sight range for ghosts is very clearly a clean upgrade.
lol, didn't even remember that one.
But then I haven't followed BW in a long time. Are the Queen upgrades ever used? xD
Yes, queen is a solid pvt meta now, but even if it wasn't... unused units doesn't equal balance or imbalance.
On October 04 2019 05:16 Noocta wrote: This game has become way too upgrade bloated. There's a design problem ? make a new upgrade ? Something too strong, too weak, upgrades there, upgrades everywhere.
Just compare how clean most of the Broodwar upgrades are compared to this.
Yes, +1 sight range for ghosts is very clearly a clean upgrade.
lol, didn't even remember that one.
But then I haven't followed BW in a long time. Are the Queen upgrades ever used? xD
Yes, queen is a solid pvt meta now, but even if it wasn't... unused units doesn't equeal balance or imbalance.
Which wasn't the claim, but thank you for your valuable input.
On October 04 2019 05:16 Noocta wrote: This game has become way too upgrade bloated. There's a design problem ? make a new upgrade ? Something too strong, too weak, upgrades there, upgrades everywhere.
Just compare how clean most of the Broodwar upgrades are compared to this.
Yes, +1 sight range for ghosts is very clearly a clean upgrade.
lol, didn't even remember that one.
But then I haven't followed BW in a long time. Are the Queen upgrades ever used? xD
Yes, queen is a solid pvt meta now, but even if it wasn't... unused units doesn't equeal balance or imbalance.
Which wasn't the claim, but thank you for your valuable input.
It's more of a message to the scout, ghost, queen whiners that always talk about those units in terms of balance.
Hopefully someone can help me solve an issue here as this is the most active thread and I dont want to make a new one.
For some reason there is no sound on my bluetooth headset once I load SC2. Loading the game literally kills my headset. No starcraft sounds and no background music from itunes / youtube. If anyone has an idea of what makes this happen it would help me a lot.
And ya I tried to contact Blizzard to ask but of course I got no response.
On November 19 2019 09:01 Loccstana wrote: Colossus get a range upgrade, lurkers get a range upgrade, siege tanks should get a range upgrade too.
As some one who plays both Zerg and Terran in masters I think that could make tvt and zvt unpleasant
if it was only +1 range maybe. but it would need to cost a lot and be gated behind fusion core or something. I guess you could play with it to not make turtle mech insufferable. You just don’t want it to be so strong that nothing can contest tanks on the ground. No mandatory air game is preferable. I wouldnt mind tanks getting some love vs toss though to make them scale a bit better. The removal of charge dmg on hit does help here since it means that terran’s frontline won’t die quite as fast maybe you get 1 extra tank shot volley now.
Tanks dont make turtle mech a thing, you need something to tech into, ravens are no longer massable and while BCs are not bad they aren't an ultimate lategame army (specially after the nerf). Just the economy changes we got in LotV make turtle mech not a thing anymore.
EPT
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