On December 19 2019 20:48 Haukinger wrote: They could make the cloud radius span the whole map and still noone would use it. If it would prevent damage-from-air completely, including stuff like storm or anti-armour-missile, then perhaps, it might be useful.
On December 19 2019 02:10 Nakajin wrote: But on a serious note, does shroud affect colosus fire? Maybe that's the way?
This would make it useful, and probably even a bit OP
If you listened to Zerg players you would think they have 0 good units.
Adept change being reverted is good. As far as shroud I think just removing the hive requirement is enough but a little apprehensive about the radius being increased. Think this gives zerg another good option vs airtoss but we will see how it plays out.
On December 19 2019 21:43 Nars_ wrote: Ahh the classic Zerg buff with 44% TvZ and 46% PvZ at the top of the pack.
Ahh the classic whine about a patch while completely ignoring it's context. No one uses microbial shrowd, and honestly i don't see it changing even with the latest buffs. The very idea behind it is flawed, a spell to protect the limited zerg ground to air units (=hydra and queen), which negates half the damage and only from aerial attacks. Rather conditional, don't you think?
I like how most of you think the zerg change is because they wanna *buff zerg*.
Its one of the change noone asked for that they came up themselves with in the last patch, a new spell designed by them that noone uses.
They just reverted another random change they made in the adept, they want to try to at least save face by proving this spell idea was good. I dont think it has much use outside niche hydra vs carriers mid game stuff.
Honestly, without meaning to lack respect for individual, im not a fan of most of these changes and design ideas they came up with..The battle cruiser teleport, then shoot while moving.. We even had burrow fungal for a while. There was the random stalker change they quickly reverted, the adept change thats also reverted... The super OP nydus...
They also had no idea about broodlord leashe range which led to many annoying thor and broodlords range changes.
I think the changes keep focusing on the wrong aspects of the game..
Players should be encouraged to mass up and trade low and mid tier units all game long, by fighting army units with army units, similar to old school bio ZvT, the best matchup of all starcraft history imo, even broodwar. They even discourage that kind of play by making mech the best TvZ style, with Battlecruisers. Leading to deathball defense play.
Starcraft2 currently is all about Unit versus worker interaction. Can you stop opponent units from killing too many workers before they die or run away? Why cant army units want to fight other army units?
Has the game really been impoving because of patches in the last 3 years? I dont think so...more and more things get broken and make for very uninteresting games at the ladder level. Most games are decided before the 5minutes mark nowadays to then end in only one battle.
If Microbial Shroud is buffed enough, that it becomes good and is not used as much mostly because Fungal Growth, Neural Parasite, Abduct, Blinding Cloud or Parasitic Bomb are just better in most cases, then they can start looking to ways to nerf the other options that are used. This is something that many would probably want to see.
On December 20 2019 00:21 dbRic1203 wrote: Kung fu Cup 2: finally a balanced tournament with the strongest Players on Top, wich are obviously all terrans
well tbh the top tier zerg players (dark, rouge, soO) didn't participate.
On December 18 2019 12:25 Nakajin wrote: Jesus I can't beleive they are buffing shroud, I have literaly never seen a single zerg lose a game once they start using it.
they have managed to fuck up mule fix, and instead of trying different approach just reverted it 'nuff said about balance team lol.
On December 18 2019 12:25 Nakajin wrote: Jesus I can't beleive they are buffing shroud, I have literaly never seen a single zerg lose a game once they start using it.
Can't tell if you are serious or not ^^ I have never seen shroud used in a pro game, ever
It doesn't matter. The shroud is a replacement for the Infestors against POTENTIAL Heavy Air. The reason you might not see it in a pro game is maybe that you don't see heavy air that much in general... or something else is stronger at that point, like a ground flood, etc. IMO it doesn't say anything about the potential of this spell.
For instance just its existance in the zerg arsenal can prevent the enemy from not doing a certain strategy... Just like a good wall prevents the enemy from zerg run byes all the time - you will simply usually not see it alot. You can think yourself about a lot of unit strength's that prevent certain plays or have proven to counter certain things very well... And since those counter plays exist... end the sentence yourself.
Back to the heavy air perspective: I have recently seen a Zerg guide from a GM late game vs Protoss Heavy AIr (pre patch). It involved Mass Infestors with Spore Crawlers (and Broodlords). (again GM level). He used Infested Marines once something could get fungaled. This is extreme late game scenario against a special protoss play - but this protoss play you actually don't see much - I think... That's why you also don't see the counter much - I think...
I personally tested the shroud myself, when an enemy was playing carriers. Having Hydras or Queens bathing in the shroud made them recieve almost no damage, and Interceptors melted. So how do some people think this buff was unnecessary? Keep in mind it got 3x buffed: T3->T2, radius 3->3.5, energy 100->75... Only addressing T3->T2: - You use this spell (as a high specialization...) to counter heavy air, heavy air is Tier3. Hence Shroud kinda belongs to Tier3 aswell (to counter Tier3 masses), putting it to T2 is unnecessary and cheap vs the cost investment of the enemy... (heavy air tech). By the way Liberator's with Range is not that high tech, but also T3... - You can't tell me that for instance laying possibly 2 shrouds with a 2 supply unit in addition to your attack vs liberator defense isn't efficient... please. - Hence I agree with the first post that buffing this spell to being available in T2 is a really big buff and we will see it being too good - I can't say that of course, I am only saying I watched some guides about rare late game scenarios and I did some games myself, and also I know from experience that it takes time to learn to apply a new mechanic appropriately. so I am understanding the feedback the other people wrote.
On December 19 2019 22:35 batatm wrote:
a spell to protect the limited zerg ground to air units (=hydra and queen), which negates half the damage and only from aerial attacks. Rather conditional, don't you think?
See above, conditionality doesn't remove it's Potential in that condition... So buffing it for that condition in the first place doesn't make sense in some people's eyes as it doesn't increase the condition's propability, but puts the Rock-Paper-Scissor-Mechanic even higher: A much Sharper Scissors = A much buffed Shroud.
On December 20 2019 04:17 GGzerG wrote: Wow I haven't played SC2 in a long time...they gave Infestors dark swarm? This is insane
not quite, actually not even close: Creates a shroud that obscures ground units underneath, reducing damage taken from air units by 50%. Lasts 11 seconds.
On December 19 2019 21:43 Nars_ wrote: Ahh the classic Zerg buff with 44% TvZ and 46% PvZ at the top of the pack.
Ahh the classic whine about a patch while completely ignoring it's context. No one uses microbial shrowd, and honestly i don't see it changing even with the latest buffs. The very idea behind it is flawed, a spell to protect the limited zerg ground to air units (=hydra and queen), which negates half the damage and only from aerial attacks. Rather conditional, don't you think?
Now list the wide range of protoss ground to air units.
On December 20 2019 01:51 Legan wrote: If Microbial Shroud is buffed enough, that it becomes good and is not used as much mostly because Fungal Growth, Neural Parasite, Abduct, Blinding Cloud or Parasitic Bomb are just better in most cases, then they can start looking to ways to nerf the other options that are used. This is something that many would probably want to see.
Yes please! Namely Neural needs to be nerfed again. Fungal seems fine I'd say something like capital ships can't be neuraled but that might tip the balance in TvZ too much. Probably better if they give the Carrier the heroic tag too since this seems the unit Shroud is best suited against. Or make neural really expensive mana wise, like 150
On December 19 2019 21:43 Nars_ wrote: Ahh the classic Zerg buff with 44% TvZ and 46% PvZ at the top of the pack.
Ahh the classic whine about a patch while completely ignoring it's context. No one uses microbial shrowd, and honestly i don't see it changing even with the latest buffs. The very idea behind it is flawed, a spell to protect the limited zerg ground to air units (=hydra and queen), which negates half the damage and only from aerial attacks. Rather conditional, don't you think?
Now list the wide range of protoss ground to air units.
Everyone's focusing on ZvP, but Microbial shroud is definitely going to be a huge factor for breaking liberator lines in ZvT. That's the primary use case.
On December 21 2019 07:18 ThunderJunk wrote: Everyone's focusing on ZvP, but Microbial shroud is definitely going to be a huge factor for breaking liberator lines in ZvT. That's the primary use case.
That may be the intention, but half of "hell of a lot of damage" is still "a lot more damage than you want to take"... Zerg cannot move into liberators with anything but zerglings unless the game is decided already, shroud doesn't make any difference. On a side note, I thought abduct was meant to be the anti-liberator spell. Side note 2: shroud "replaces" infested terrans which never had any use against liberators but were rather the only counter to protoss mass air.
On December 21 2019 07:18 ThunderJunk wrote: Everyone's focusing on ZvP, but Microbial shroud is definitely going to be a huge factor for breaking liberator lines in ZvT. That's the primary use case.
That may be the intention, but half of "hell of a lot of damage" is still "a lot more damage than you want to take"... Zerg cannot move into liberators with anything but zerglings unless the game is decided already, shroud doesn't make any difference. On a side note, I thought abduct was meant to be the anti-liberator spell. Side note 2: shroud "replaces" infested terrans which never had any use against liberators but were rather the only counter to protoss mass air.
Mass infested Terran was the cheapest and fastest way to get rid of liberators on the old patch because the libs couldn't ever get all the eggs and ITs tore through air units.
I feel like the biggest miss on the shroud vs liberator interaction is that the shroud is stationary. Terrans don't stand and fight under the libs, they kite through the zones. And sure one could say "throw down shrouds and kill the libs with hydras". But to me that sounds like a lot more effort than just making corruptors and vipers. And it's only 50% damage reduction so it's also far less cost efficient. And the libs could still get away.
To me it seems like the shroud is meant to be used against capital ships. Probably mostly Protoss ones as well. But I reckon making enough hydras to make shroud worth it against Sky Toss either means you're already winning really hard or you're already losing.
EPT
