I'm a little disappointed because I no longer have seen Infested Terrans in matches.
This is one of the most iconic units in starcraft and even if players seem to get along with it in ZvP, air combat is still a bit boring. The "Golden Armada" should not be a type of strategy, forcing play-style only with air units is evidence of the lack of high level strategy. Apart from the fact that the protoss army is long and expensive to create, it s even worse to watch units overlapping themselves until we wait it moves with an idiot A-click. I think Blizzard thought more less about solving the problem by getting rid of the Infested Terrans while simple adjustments could be considered.
The first idea that immediately comes to mind would be to create a small cooldown (like the ghost) to allow swarmy to create infested terran eggs. Their range would be long, much like siege weapons, infested Terrans emerging from them would be protected (like cocoons) by larger armor during cocooning, and their characteristics would be close to the last 'batch' created by Blizzard.
I am not an expert in the ZvP match up, moreover I have not played for a very long time but the cool down would allow carriers when the fight taken by swarmy is too late (or if there are too few) to be right on the infested Terrans thanks to the little-cooldowns. For their part, the Zergs could by throwing the eggs far, reach the big air units. I think I noticed that the queen could be handicapped if we increased her base slightly. It wouldn't make it worse early in the game, but little bit clumpsy and it would allow smaller swarmy to be called in for the rest of the game to fight the "Golden Armada". Of course a zerg could still try to counter by doing like in the past, infestators plus queens and corruptors... but he would have to manage an additional control group, and their speed production would be limited by a little-cooldown (like the ghost). The infested Terrans would of course still be a little faster, more resistant but would cost double the energy (Blizzard idea)
I see this modification as an advantage for the Zergs in order to have an in-between units solution if they don t create queens or hydras, getting temporarily an anti air units able to snip the carriers (cause the Queen Problem seems to be redundant - too good everywhere). At the moment we are reviewing the composition of infestors and queens which remains a disavowal regarding the patch concerning the infested Terran. This would allow Zerg players to put some movement into this match (ZvP) – and I m thinking it would be good to keep this idea back. Just my opinion as a viewer.
Mass air armies in ZvP have long since been a problem, in my opinion it stems from a viable late game ground army on the Protoss end. Colossus deathballs are kind of a thing of the past now that the Viper exists with the ability to pull in your key units to an instant death, and Blizzard's insane fascination with Warp Gate has always hobbled the ability to make Gateway units scale into the late late game. The rise of the Lurker has further cemented this, as they absolutely chew through Gateway units, once Lurkers hit the field, they are all but obsolete.
Fixing this I think goes way beyond adding Infested Terrans again which also, were a problem themselves. It's difficult to balance free damage for energy, alot of the times it's either OP or UP so I think Blizzard just said ah to hell with it. Starcraft 2 has needed minor balance patches for a long time in my opinion, but this current balance team (if there even is one) has shown zero interest in upsetting this balance of mediocrity in ZvP.
ZvT I think still reigns far and away supreme because of the intense micro and macro that goes into the match up, as well as air armies not being the default go to. Ground armies are always more interesting, I guess it's just something we'll have to live with.
I really liked the original trailer version of infested terrans. I think it would be great if you could infest buildings with an infestor and then infested terrans spawn periodically from the building until the goop on the building has been shot off.
On August 28 2021 00:04 BisuDagger wrote: I really liked the original trailer version of infested terrans. I think it would be great if you could infest buildings with an infestor and then infested terrans spawn periodically from the building until the goop on the building has been shot off.
That would be pretty useless though, and in certain nydus situations completely imbalanced.
To be honest, I think the only way to fix ZvP without reworking the matchup completely is removing the Lurker Upgrades so it's not completely imba vs Protoss Ground, and removing the Infestors energy upgrade so they start with it from the get-go. That would help agaisnt VR and Air when Zergs realize how useful the Infestor is and it coming into play earlier.
On August 28 2021 03:14 InfCereal wrote: The solution to protoss air is to nerf lurkers?
I mean, Protoss goes air because otherwise everything they have dies to lurkers. So it's a relevant point.
I'm not sure why going air is considered such a problem though. The actual problem is that attacking is strongly discouraged for both sides in late game PvZ, leading to tedious games of chicken—Protoss happening to go air is mostly unrelated to that.
Getting back on topic, infested Terrans of some sort might be a solution as free units makes sitting back and defending is less appealing in theory, but I have my doubts. Previously, they led to Protoss having to play hyper defensive and not really being able to push out due to getting wrecked by suddenly-appearing DPS dispensers. I'm not seeing any suggestions that would mitigate that problem without making the infested Terrans useless.
On August 28 2021 03:14 InfCereal wrote: The solution to protoss air is to nerf lurkers?
I mean, Protoss goes air because otherwise everything they have dies to lurkers. So it's a relevant point.
Protoss go air is because it's a winning endgame comp. It has nothing to do with lurkers, because the strength of lurkers is not a factor in airtoss being the ultimate PvZ army comp that has no counters if played correctly.
Rather, lurkers are a tool to prevent Protoss from going air without resistance. For that to work, lurkers + viper must be better than *any* ground army comp Protoss can field. Because if otherwise, Protoss can simply match Zerg on the ground and transition to air at the same time.
This is just the balance principle that if one race is better late game, then the other race must be better early or mid game, because otherwise there's no reason to play the weaker race.
So, unlike what you suggest, nerfing lurkers wouldn't incentivize Protoss to build more ground army. Instead it would just allow Protoss to skip ground units when transitioning to air.
I think the point is that a significant nerf to skytoss would also need to include rebalancing of ZvP ground armies to a degree. As you said, Lurker/Viper basically just wrecks any Protoss ground army.
The original suggestion was not only to nerf Lurkers, btw. It was to pair a Lurker nerf with an Infestor buff.
On August 28 2021 03:14 InfCereal wrote: The solution to protoss air is to nerf lurkers?
I mean, Protoss goes air because otherwise everything they have dies to lurkers. So it's a relevant point.
Protoss go air is because it's a winning endgame comp. It has nothing to do with lurkers, because the strength of lurkers is not a factor in airtoss being the ultimate PvZ army comp that has no counters if played correctly.
Rather, lurkers are a tool to prevent Protoss from going air without resistance. For that to work, lurkers + viper must be better than *any* ground army comp Protoss can field. Because if otherwise, Protoss can simply match Zerg on the ground and transition to air at the same time.
This is just the balance principle that if one race is better late game, then the other race must be better early or mid game, because otherwise there's no reason to play the weaker race.
So, unlike what you suggest, nerfing lurkers wouldn't incentivize Protoss to build more ground army. Instead it would just allow Protoss to skip ground units when transitioning to air.
I didn't suggest actually nerfing lurkers, I just said that it was relevant to complaints about Protoss air. Specifically, I was responding to this statement:
On August 28 2021 03:14 InfCereal wrote: The solution to protoss air is to nerf lurkers?
I don't actually think that Protoss air needs "a solution."* I was trying to clarify what a prior poster had said, namely that if an attempt to "solve" this problem was, then it would need to address lurkers in some way. Maybe I should have said "Protoss has to go air because" rather than "Protoss goes air because," but either way I'm not sure why I'm getting the Balance 101 Lecture when we both agree that lurker+viper counters ground. I guess if you really want to disagree, I'll say that, no, a unit that counters ground units does not in fact mean that Protoss has to build more ground units.
*(It's the standard strategy in 1/3 Protoss matches, and while I think Protoss has an edge in PvZ lategame it's not as large an edge as people seem to think.)
For my point of view, pure Protoss airships alone were not strong, for Corruptors can counter Carriers and Tempests easily, and Void rays are fragile against fungal and parasite, and two corruptors can trade better against uncharged void rays. The real strength of golden armada is the archons and high templars below.
On August 28 2021 03:14 InfCereal wrote: The solution to protoss air is to nerf lurkers?
I mean, Protoss goes air because otherwise everything they have dies to lurkers. So it's a relevant point.
Protoss go air is because it's a winning endgame comp. It has nothing to do with lurkers, because the strength of lurkers is not a factor in airtoss being the ultimate PvZ army comp that has no counters if played correctly.
Rather, lurkers are a tool to prevent Protoss from going air without resistance. For that to work, lurkers + viper must be better than *any* ground army comp Protoss can field. Because if otherwise, Protoss can simply match Zerg on the ground and transition to air at the same time.
This is just the balance principle that if one race is better late game, then the other race must be better early or mid game, because otherwise there's no reason to play the weaker race.
So, unlike what you suggest, nerfing lurkers wouldn't incentivize Protoss to build more ground army. Instead it would just allow Protoss to skip ground units when transitioning to air.
Strength of lurker has everything to do with why protoss goes air. Protoss players were presented by blizzard a lurker with increased range that will totally destroy any protoss ground army if you get enough of them ( and the critical amount is not even that much. Now flip this around, if protoss could just make one single ground unit and kill any Zerg ground army the cries for a nerf would be heard on mars, lets be honest here. Protoss players have always been pushed into playing a certain way by Blizzard. The reason the best Zergs are so dominant ZVP is because they know how to abuse the design flaw of protoss, protoss must either win by all inn or be greedy and cut corners to get to a late game where they can turtle safely until they have the right army. Let me explain it like this, if you did eco damage to your opponent you know is is up to him to make a play or you will be to far ahead and you can close the game easily with a later push. Now this feeling of its up to your opponent to make plays is what its like to play ZvP, Zerg starts with all the advantages and its up 2 protoss to make something happen so they can get ahead. Zerg has all the tools to manipulate the tempo of the matchup and this is why you see some of the best Zergs in the world be so dominant in ZVP.
The best protosses still try to do fake pressure builds to make zergs over react but good zergs scout and will react only from information and not fear, a protoss who is going for a pressure build not even an all inn and gets scouted instantly feels like he lost the game.
Honestly from my Zerg point of you, Lurkers could be toned down a bit, maybe even Adaptive Talons removed from the game entirely. Once they hit the field in all match ups they completely flip the way the game is played, if they come out and Terran doesn't have Ghosts they lose, if the Protoss slips up one time against Lurkers they lose, even in ZvZ once Lurkers hit the field they are very dominant.
I don't see why we shouldn't at least get a tiny little balance patch to fix things like that, ZvP has always been a hobbled match up.
On August 28 2021 22:40 jpg06051992 wrote: Honestly from my Zerg point of you, Lurkers could be toned down a bit, maybe even Adaptive Talons removed from the game entirely. Once they hit the field in all match ups they completely flip the way the game is played, if they come out and Terran doesn't have Ghosts they lose, if the Protoss slips up one time against Lurkers they lose, even in ZvZ once Lurkers hit the field they are very dominant.
I don't see why we shouldn't at least get a tiny little balance patch to fix things like that, ZvP has always been a hobbled match up.
In a way, every Zergs units have a "big" weakness, and from what you re saying, it seems that you think it s not the case for Lurkers units ? I mostly agree with you and community seems also to approve it !
In fact the question is who isn t complaining against combo viper + lurker ?
Honestly, overpowered air units is a massive game design flaw in Starcraft.
The best air unit interaction in the game was in WOL between Mutalisks and their Terran counter, Marines and Thors (at that time Terran had nothing in the skies that could counter Mutalisks). The Mutalisks were far more mobile, but lost badly in a straight up fight (and lacked the ridiculous regeneration they have now). It created a real cat and mouse positional game that was dynamic, engaging and micro intensive. It was the reason TvZ was the flagship match of Starcraft.
Today most air units are countered best with other air units. Phoenixes smash Mutalisks, while Corrupters and Vikings counter armored air units ect.... You can't really use Blink Stalkers to counter mass Void Rays... or Hydras to beat Battlecruisers.
But the large capital ships are anything except mobile and micro intensive (perhaps except the Battlecruiser to an extent now).They are boring A-move units that skip over terrain and are often the best units in the game in a straight up fight. They make the game predictable, stale and unengaging.
It is just such a bad dynamic. Air units across the board need to be rebalanced so they are all hard countered by ground units, and the air to air hard counters are removed from the game (nothing is more boring than an air unit countering an air unit, all the positioning, ect that happens with terrain is lost, what made Marines/Thors versus Muta so engaging is lost). The slow massive air units need a speed boost too.
The above will never happen of course.
But today, Zerg is so strong with their ground armies that the Viper should honestly be overhauled. They don't need Blinding Cloud or Abduct anymore when facing Protoss or Terran ground armies. Could take some of the spells used by the Infestor to replace Abduct and Blinding Cloud on Vipers, and give the Infestor back the old Infested Terrans to help versus the sky armies. This might help restore some sanity to the air versus ground dynamic.
So long story short, I love the idea. But balance it with a change to Vipers.
Are infested Terrans really one of the most iconic units in Starcraft?
Air balls kind of suck, regardless of which race is doing it. Not going to get much if any disagreement from me on that.
Lurkers killing everything on the ground past a critical mass is a big part of that though. If they lacked say a near-instant burrow then you can at least win a battle of positioning and re-positioning and punish errors there.
Why lurkers are now basically siege tanks without any of the friendly fire/redeployment slowness disadvantages those units have is somewhat baffling to me.
On August 30 2021 00:12 WombaT wrote: Are infested Terrans really one of the most iconic units in Starcraft?
Air balls kind of suck, regardless of which race is doing it. Not going to get much if any disagreement from me on that.
Lurkers killing everything on the ground past a critical mass is a big part of that though. If they lacked say a near-instant burrow then you can at least win a battle of positioning and re-positioning and punish errors there.
Why lurkers are now basically siege tanks without any of the friendly fire/redeployment slowness disadvantages those units have is somewhat baffling to me.
Honestly I agree with all of this, and I play Zerg and still think Lurkers are way OP, the balance team (if one even exists anymore) should be looking into these things.
People still watch and play SC2, not sure why Blizzard just throws their hands up regarding balance patches with this game, HOTS get's monthly patches and for the most part they really improve the state of the game. Not every patch is a home run of course but *gasp* there can always just be another patch.
On August 30 2021 00:12 WombaT wrote: Are infested Terrans really one of the most iconic units in Starcraft?
Air balls kind of suck, regardless of which race is doing it. Not going to get much if any disagreement from me on that.
Lurkers killing everything on the ground past a critical mass is a big part of that though. If they lacked say a near-instant burrow then you can at least win a battle of positioning and re-positioning and punish errors there.
Why lurkers are now basically siege tanks without any of the friendly fire/redeployment slowness disadvantages those units have is somewhat baffling to me.
Possibly there s a problem because tanks and lurkers share the same supply cost but the Lurker position in the tree tech could be an answer from professionnal persepective (a disadvantage) to legitimate that. But for casual players, it changes nothing...
From what I see, looking at ZvT, Zergs have issues at a very high level (Clem) to contain unit production defended by medivacs and on the other hand, in ZvP lurkers seem to be a way to adress a global solution to all attacks and all-ins timings (opinions which matter in this topics). Also, lurker upgrades are controversial to community so I think it is enough to justify a tweak
From my point of view (if possibly..) we must therefore help the Zergs, for example, by giving them faster access to lurkers but by keeping the possibilities of evolutions for the hive. On the other hand as the unit is too strong (and as it is the design intended by Blizzard) at first, it would be possible to only change mainly its population cost (3 to 4).
In this way Zerg players are promoted against Terran, players can get the unit faster in the tech tree but we have to watch if the unit isn t too greedy for this technological level. As we know, the true hidden strength of lurkers and the reason why Blizzard designed them is to deal mainly with mechanical units although their characteristics may prove otherwise. It is then enough to increase their weakness against light units (marines, hydralisk, zealot .. Cf wiki / history of "strong against").
Afterwards, maybe it's not necessary, because you also have to take into account the feelings of professional players. But a simple example like "20 + 10 against armored" to "18 + 12 against armored" could be enought.
Patch 4.11.0
Lurker Den build time decreased from 86 seconds to 57 seconds. Lurker range decreased from 9 to 8. (....)
So why Blizzard drastically reduce the building time ?
Do the initial attack range of 8 a good one for lair-technology ?
I think comparing to Tanks to Lurkers is a fools errand. Terran lacks a lot of great counters to Lurkers, while Zerg can just Abduct and Blinding Cloud their way through fights, and Tanks are a joke in TvP... in both cases Tanks are often a liability.
The fact Lurkers can redeploy faster and lack friendly fire add further to the list of reasons why we see a lot of Lurkers and Tanks are pretty limited outside of TvT.
On August 30 2021 01:54 BronzeKnee wrote: The fact Lurkers can redeploy faster and lack friendly fire add further to the list of reasons why we see a lot of Lurkers and Tanks are pretty limited outside of TvT.
It s also reasonnable to think all units are equal in strenght proportionally to their supply cost. But also it s important to keep diversity i think. There s maybe a swarm-reason to not adress friendly fire ? and You forget to talk about the awesome range of 13 and the tons of damage deals to mechanical (+30 compare to +10 for lurkers) by tanks.
On August 30 2021 01:54 BronzeKnee wrote: I think comparing to Tanks to Lurkers is a fools errand. Terran lacks a lot of great counters to Lurkers, while Zerg can just Abduct and Blinding Cloud their way through fights, and Tanks are a joke in TvP... in both cases Tanks are often a liability.
I think a point of comparing lurkers and tanks as units is more that, traditionally, lurkers and tanks fill similar roles (space control, zoning, etc.) but with the current upgrades, lurkers suddenly retain strengths similar to those of tanks (dangerous to attack into when sieged/burrowed, good at controlling areas, very strong in larger numbers, each attack can potentially hit multiple units, long range) but have essentially none of the weaknesses of tanks (slow siege/unsiege, no short range attack when sieged, friendly fire, low mobility, mediocre health). With the upgrades, lurkers go from being a unit that is situationally strong like tanks to being universally strong in pretty much every situation against other ground armies other than against mass ghosts with scans.
But yes, with vipers, lurkers become even stronger than they already are. One of protoss's only actual ground-based counters to the lurkers, the disruptor, becomes useless once vipers are on the field since they can be yanked into the lurkers and killed instantly. With the lurker range upgrade, immortals no longer counter lurkers because they will usually be taking hull damage before they can ever attack and they're slow enough that they can either be chased down by lurkers when retreating or yanked by vipers. Blinding cloud allows lurker-based armies to run up on tanks and wipe them out with little ability to counter while every other mech unit can be yanked into lurker range and killed instantly. Once there's a double digit number of upgraded lurkers and a few vipers on the field now (which is entirely doable and something we see a lot), there's not really many compositions on the ground that can fight them.
On August 30 2021 01:54 BronzeKnee wrote: I think comparing to Tanks to Lurkers is a fools errand. Terran lacks a lot of great counters to Lurkers, while Zerg can just Abduct and Blinding Cloud their way through fights, and Tanks are a joke in TvP... in both cases Tanks are often a liability.
I think a point of comparing lurkers and tanks as units is more that, traditionally, lurkers and tanks fill similar roles (space control, zoning, etc.) but with the current upgrades, lurkers suddenly retain strengths similar to those of tanks (dangerous to attack into when sieged/burrowed, good at controlling areas, very strong in larger numbers, each attack can potentially hit multiple units, long range) but have essentially none of the weaknesses of tanks (slow siege/unsiege, no short range attack when sieged, friendly fire, low mobility, mediocre health). With the upgrades, lurkers go from being a unit that is situationally strong like tanks to being universally strong in pretty much every situation against other ground armies other than against mass ghosts with scans.
But yes, with vipers, lurkers become even stronger than they already are. One of protoss's only actual ground-based counters to the lurkers, the disruptor, becomes useless once vipers are on the field since they can be yanked into the lurkers and killed instantly. With the lurker range upgrade, immortals no longer counter lurkers because they will usually be taking hull damage before they can ever attack and they're slow enough that they can either be chased down by lurkers when retreating or yanked by vipers. Blinding cloud allows lurker-based armies to run up on tanks and wipe them out with little ability to counter while every other mech unit can be yanked into lurker range and killed instantly. Once there's a double digit number of upgraded lurkers and a few vipers on the field now (which is entirely doable and something we see a lot), there's not really many compositions on the ground that can fight them.
I mean the OP described the infested Terran as an iconic unit.
If Starcraft(s) have a singular iconic unit it probably is the siege tank.
It’s big plus is range and damage, it’s big negative is having to switch modes, and friendly fire offering interesting counter-plays to it
It’s a super cool unit.
Lurkers have all of its pluses now with few of its negatives. What is the Zerg counter to lurkers? why it’s vipers. Also happens to be the hard counter to Protoss anti-lurker measures on the ground, also is the counter to Terran siege lines.
Be it burrow speed or range, the combo of those upgrades makes the Lurker way too strong.
EPT
