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If this topic belongs elsewhere then please move it to the appropriate board.
Hello TL! I noticed something rather interesting related to Brood Lords, tested it to be true and finally checked that there wasn't already an established topic or mention inside a thread about the issue before making this thread. Please be gentle as it's my first post. ;D
Firstly, a bit of preamble so everyone is on the same page. Starcraft 2's high ground system works thusly: if an army is positioned on the high ground, it can fire upon units positioned on the low ground with impunity, that is the units on the low ground cannot fire back at the units on the high ground. However, the player controlling the low ground army will be able to see the units attack from the high ground, slightly darkened and non-selectable.
This high ground bonus does not apply to air units positioned at a high ground location firing down on units on the low ground; the unit is revealed as soon as it attacks and can be selected/attacked by the player commanding the low ground army.
Of course, all high ground advantages are negated with the sight of an aerial unit or a map revealing mechanic such as scanner sweep, which kind of makes the mechanic a moot point beyond the early and mid-game, but that's another discussion altogether.
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Now, I would like to direct everyone to the following image:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/v9rl8.jpg)
In the top left image, we see a demonstration of the high ground mechanic at work; the Mutalisk is revealed upon attacking the left-most Stalker, allowing our Protoss player to attack the Mutalisk on the high ground.
In the example of the Brood Lord, we should expect similar results as with the Mutalisk, as they both share the property of being aerial units. But it turns out that the Brood Lord is not revealed upon attacking, but only its Broodlings, which cannot be targeted as the Broodlings are invincible until they have executed the Broodling Strike attack. The left screenshot shows the vision of the Protoss player, while the right image shows the vision from an observer.
If we think about it, this result is only natural as the Brood Lord itself does not attack, and technically should not be revealed when its Broodlings attack. But before we can conclude that this is working as intended, we should compare with a unit that has a similar attack characteristic: the Carrier.
For those of us who don't know, the Carrier launches Interceptors to remotely attack its targets, much like how the Brood Lord launches Broodlings instead of directly attacking. However, if we look at the top right screenshot, the Carrier is revealed as its Interceptors attack and is heavily damaged by the Hydralisk on the low ground.
The first question to ask upon stumbling on something like this is whether or not this is working as intended. If it is working as intended then why does it not apply for the Carrier and vice versa.
The second, and perhaps more relevant to general gameplay, is if this is of any use in a real match? Sadly, most late-game armies have some sort of air unit support, most commonly Medivacs/Vikings and Observers/Colossi. The only real implication this could have is against a Protoss player going blink Stalkers into Templar and they have yet to put down the Robo when you have the Brood Lords out or even more rarely heavy Terran mech play.
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High ground is so gimmicky. It's not difficult to get vision, I doubt this has any real effect on gameplay.
edit: good find.
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Don't really see it making a difference (unless protoss misplaced his observer or something). Nice find nonetheless!
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On August 09 2011 09:45 obesechicken13 wrote:
High ground is so gimmicky. It's not difficult to get vision, I doubt this has any real effect on gameplay.
In some situations, perhaps. However, I could imagine Brood Lords besieging an expansion from high ground while Turrets and Cannons are unable to fire back due to this high ground vision bug. I often see units abusing the high ground overlooking the low-ground expansions on Tal'Darim, and I can imagine a lone Brood Lord or two abusing that cliff while the main army is out of position.
It's a very interesting find, and I imagine a lot more players and casters may start experimenting with this bug before Blizzard inevitably patches it... eventually.
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On August 09 2011 09:42 Clairvaux wrote:
If we think about it, this result is only natural as the Brood Lord itself does not attack, and technically should not be revealed when its Broodlings attack.
The broodlord has a 20 base dmg attack http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/Broodlord
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Great find, and great first post!
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im going to assume its because broodlord has longer range then the stalkers(carrier has the same range as broodlord but is closer to the edge).
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This definitely does have an impact on gameplay. Broodlord strategies are a lot stronger when couple with an overseer to snipe the observer.
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Nice find, although it may not affect that many games it does seem like a bug that should be fixed. Perhaps post this in the Blizzard forums letting them know about this bug.
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On August 09 2011 09:49 Falcor wrote:
im going to assume its because broodlord has longer range then the stalkers(carrier has the same range as broodlord but is closer to the edge).
But the Broodlord is clearly just as close to the cliff in that example. It's definitely within the range of the Stalkers. And that's not even relevant, as even if it's out of Stalker range, it should still at least be revealed to the Protoss player even if he can't shoot at it, as the OP explained.
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Broodling is a ground unit, unlike the Interceptor which is a Air unit. So your comparison may or may not be accurate.
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On August 09 2011 09:53 GentleDrill wrote:Show nested quote +On August 09 2011 09:49 Falcor wrote:
im going to assume its because broodlord has longer range then the stalkers(carrier has the same range as broodlord but is closer to the edge). But the Broodlord is clearly just as close to the cliff in that example. It's definitely within the range of the Stalkers. And that's not even relevant, as even if it's out of Stalker range, it should still at least be revealed to the Protoss player even if he can't shoot at it, as the OP explained.
my bad for some reason i thought that the broodlings when fired were ahead of the broodlord.
edit: i will say by the pictures you can see tho you can see the broodlings(so im going to assume that the 20 base dmg is actually the broodling doing the dmg and not the actual broodlord) But it should be fixed
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Wait a minute.
If I had a flying unit on high ground, and they had no vision up the high ground, they can hit back if I attack? I swear I've managed to harass with Mutas on high ground and people couldnt attack back without vision.
About the BL thing, I'm thinking this is probably a glitch though. The BL is still technically shooting stuff down at the units on the low ground, it should be shown. I think the Carrier actually has the better argument for being left unseen, but considering how it is visible, the BL should be too.
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This isn't really something that can be negligently discarded. One BL can basically shut down an entire expansion as other races rely a lot on static defense later on in the game (for their 4th and even 3rd).
Even if it dies eventually to an air unit, it would still be a decent trade.
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actually, even though this is not something really big, i think it needs changeing (unless it is intended). I can even recall one game where this annoyed me alot and did change the course of the game.
it was on tal'darim altar and i got to mass gateway army with blink and the Z managed to get out broodlords together with his roaches. my macro was better and when i attacked, he just positioned his broodlords at the "high-ground-island-of-trees" that is between your natrual and the third exp with rocks and i couldn't attack either his natrual nor third as he had his roaches to block and i would have taken too much dmg if i tried. so i couldn't break him because of this, not sniping his broods, and it was actually a real problem.
what happend though was that i took 3 more exps and made a ton of gateways so i won either way but i should have been able to win erlier.
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While I think this should be fixed, I don't really see this as a very big deal, especially shutting down expansion with this. I mean the BL outranges the static defenses anyway.
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Huh, kinda strange, never really noticed to be honest.
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Very interesting find. I think this will likely get patched.
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EPT
