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Polls have been added to the OP! |
On September 24 2018 02:52 washikie wrote:Show nested quote +On September 23 2018 23:36 Charoisaur wrote:On September 23 2018 06:58 Morbidius wrote:On September 18 2018 03:11 Jerom wrote: I wouldnt say swarmhosts are a balance problem as many top players have shown how to beat them and I dont even think they are meta at the pro scene because they arent actually the best response.
Swarmhosts are just crappy from design perspective. Either you have a critical mass where you are getting in free damage every round or your waves get cleaned up easily and thus you will probably lose to a counterpush. The design of the unit allows for very little space in between and also doesnt really allow for much counterplay (either you push or you accept taking small losses to push a bit later). It just doesnt seem like a good design to have these low risk waves of units that are so extreme in terms of how they work out. In terms of actually salvaging them I like the suggestion someone posted about making them light so Helions counter them and can change them down. At least that would make them more interactive. Although I dont mind swarmhosts in general because they fortunately tend to be pretty mediocre anyways - if only they could be made even worse or be removed from the game. At least the redesign from hots to lotv made them less oppressive.
I honestly might dislike the design of broodlords a bit more because they are actually good. The fact that at any sort of mass of broodlords the free broodlings block all pathing just make them a very oppressive unit. It just means that any ground army is basically useless unless used defensively or as support. It generally seems to force the game into either turtling or into air deathball vs air deathball - two states of the game which generally seem unfun. The fact that corruptors/vipers are great in mass air vs mass air contributes even further to these annoying air fights. Air units are clunky to control because of both their stacking and the fact that you have to click where they go on the ground (instead of on the air). I feel like its better if armies generally stay ground based.
Maybe the broodlords would be a better unit if they spawned fewer broodlings (but generally keeping the dps the same). This way ground units might actually stand a chance versus broodlords. Broodlords are a huge design problem in my opinion, its the only unit that absolutely forces you to go air to deal with them. Carriers/Liberators? It might be fair to say that libs are a problem for the same reason, as for carriers you don't go air to beat carriers you kill them before they get there. Still if carriers were less devastating I honestly would prefer there unit interaction over broodlords. The way that broodlords in large numbers tamper heavily with ground based unit pathing, creating a force field of broodlings that prevents units from reaching them is just very irritating, balance wise I think they are fine but I'm not a fan of the unit and it's interactions. Banelings are a strong unit that's fun to play against because the counter play is to micro well and build ground based aoe units, broodlords are a strong unit that's not fun to play against because the counter play is to mass boring air units and turtle, granted counter attacking and dropping is a more fun answer but at some point you do have to engage them. Maybe its just me but I don't find massed air unit interactions with other massed air units to be fun or interesting with the way air units function in sc2.
Zergs feel the same about mass tanks. They are not fun, once Terran siege them. They have no micro potential, just siege and forget mechanics and interaction with this unit is boring. And hey, Terrab can get then much faster than Zerg can have his Broodlords.
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On September 24 2018 13:57 hiroshOne wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2018 02:52 washikie wrote:On September 23 2018 23:36 Charoisaur wrote:On September 23 2018 06:58 Morbidius wrote:On September 18 2018 03:11 Jerom wrote: I wouldnt say swarmhosts are a balance problem as many top players have shown how to beat them and I dont even think they are meta at the pro scene because they arent actually the best response.
Swarmhosts are just crappy from design perspective. Either you have a critical mass where you are getting in free damage every round or your waves get cleaned up easily and thus you will probably lose to a counterpush. The design of the unit allows for very little space in between and also doesnt really allow for much counterplay (either you push or you accept taking small losses to push a bit later). It just doesnt seem like a good design to have these low risk waves of units that are so extreme in terms of how they work out. In terms of actually salvaging them I like the suggestion someone posted about making them light so Helions counter them and can change them down. At least that would make them more interactive. Although I dont mind swarmhosts in general because they fortunately tend to be pretty mediocre anyways - if only they could be made even worse or be removed from the game. At least the redesign from hots to lotv made them less oppressive.
I honestly might dislike the design of broodlords a bit more because they are actually good. The fact that at any sort of mass of broodlords the free broodlings block all pathing just make them a very oppressive unit. It just means that any ground army is basically useless unless used defensively or as support. It generally seems to force the game into either turtling or into air deathball vs air deathball - two states of the game which generally seem unfun. The fact that corruptors/vipers are great in mass air vs mass air contributes even further to these annoying air fights. Air units are clunky to control because of both their stacking and the fact that you have to click where they go on the ground (instead of on the air). I feel like its better if armies generally stay ground based.
Maybe the broodlords would be a better unit if they spawned fewer broodlings (but generally keeping the dps the same). This way ground units might actually stand a chance versus broodlords. Broodlords are a huge design problem in my opinion, its the only unit that absolutely forces you to go air to deal with them. Carriers/Liberators? It might be fair to say that libs are a problem for the same reason, as for carriers you don't go air to beat carriers you kill them before they get there. Still if carriers were less devastating I honestly would prefer there unit interaction over broodlords. The way that broodlords in large numbers tamper heavily with ground based unit pathing, creating a force field of broodlings that prevents units from reaching them is just very irritating, balance wise I think they are fine but I'm not a fan of the unit and it's interactions. Banelings are a strong unit that's fun to play against because the counter play is to micro well and build ground based aoe units, broodlords are a strong unit that's not fun to play against because the counter play is to mass boring air units and turtle, granted counter attacking and dropping is a more fun answer but at some point you do have to engage them. Maybe its just me but I don't find massed air unit interactions with other massed air units to be fun or interesting with the way air units function in sc2. Zergs feel the same about mass tanks. They are not fun, once Terran siege them. They have no micro potential, just siege and forget mechanics and interaction with this unit is boring. And hey, Terrab can get then much faster than Zerg can have his Broodlords. wait, what? do you actually think you need brood lords to fight bio tank? you can just fight tanks with straight up hydra ling bane or muta ling bane, and the micro potential AGAINST them is actually quite high (splitting units to reduce splash, diving lings or roaches under the range of exposed tanks, attacking from larger arcs, etc.). i know you were trying to make a point, but it didn't really make sense
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On September 24 2018 13:57 hiroshOne wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2018 02:52 washikie wrote:On September 23 2018 23:36 Charoisaur wrote:On September 23 2018 06:58 Morbidius wrote:On September 18 2018 03:11 Jerom wrote: I wouldnt say swarmhosts are a balance problem as many top players have shown how to beat them and I dont even think they are meta at the pro scene because they arent actually the best response.
Swarmhosts are just crappy from design perspective. Either you have a critical mass where you are getting in free damage every round or your waves get cleaned up easily and thus you will probably lose to a counterpush. The design of the unit allows for very little space in between and also doesnt really allow for much counterplay (either you push or you accept taking small losses to push a bit later). It just doesnt seem like a good design to have these low risk waves of units that are so extreme in terms of how they work out. In terms of actually salvaging them I like the suggestion someone posted about making them light so Helions counter them and can change them down. At least that would make them more interactive. Although I dont mind swarmhosts in general because they fortunately tend to be pretty mediocre anyways - if only they could be made even worse or be removed from the game. At least the redesign from hots to lotv made them less oppressive.
I honestly might dislike the design of broodlords a bit more because they are actually good. The fact that at any sort of mass of broodlords the free broodlings block all pathing just make them a very oppressive unit. It just means that any ground army is basically useless unless used defensively or as support. It generally seems to force the game into either turtling or into air deathball vs air deathball - two states of the game which generally seem unfun. The fact that corruptors/vipers are great in mass air vs mass air contributes even further to these annoying air fights. Air units are clunky to control because of both their stacking and the fact that you have to click where they go on the ground (instead of on the air). I feel like its better if armies generally stay ground based.
Maybe the broodlords would be a better unit if they spawned fewer broodlings (but generally keeping the dps the same). This way ground units might actually stand a chance versus broodlords. Broodlords are a huge design problem in my opinion, its the only unit that absolutely forces you to go air to deal with them. Carriers/Liberators? It might be fair to say that libs are a problem for the same reason, as for carriers you don't go air to beat carriers you kill them before they get there. Still if carriers were less devastating I honestly would prefer there unit interaction over broodlords. The way that broodlords in large numbers tamper heavily with ground based unit pathing, creating a force field of broodlings that prevents units from reaching them is just very irritating, balance wise I think they are fine but I'm not a fan of the unit and it's interactions. Banelings are a strong unit that's fun to play against because the counter play is to micro well and build ground based aoe units, broodlords are a strong unit that's not fun to play against because the counter play is to mass boring air units and turtle, granted counter attacking and dropping is a more fun answer but at some point you do have to engage them. Maybe its just me but I don't find massed air unit interactions with other massed air units to be fun or interesting with the way air units function in sc2. Zergs feel the same about mass tanks. They are not fun, once Terran siege them. They have no micro potential, just siege and forget mechanics and interaction with this unit is boring. And hey, Terrab can get then much faster than Zerg can have his Broodlords. The argument presented against broodlords is that they can only be dealt with by an air army (due to the broodlings acting as forcefields) which is then countered by zerg by their own mass air army. Thus broodlords would lead to mass air versus mass, which is then argued to generally be unfun.
Do carriers/liberators force the game into mass air vs mass air? And do tanks do that?
As for liberators, they seem to clearly be a ground support unit in practise. We never see Terrans transition to liberator/viking/raven really, unless it is to deal with another air deathball. While liberators are very strong against ground, they can still be countered or dealt with by other ground forces; broodlords are even more oppressive because at some point there are so many broodlings that a ground army cant even think of getting in range. Also, in the case that liberators are countered in the air terran generally cant respond with an air deathball. Unlike zerg's great options in corruptors/vipers vikings and ravens (especially zero damage seeker missile ravens) dont actually fare as well. So terran usually doesnt have the incentive to replace their bio with air. Instead, liberators act as air support which I think is a good role.
Similairly carriers dont force mass air vs air deathballs as much. Carriers are basically great against almost everything and dont really oppress land or air more. The only reason why you might go mass air against carriers is the fact that storms are oppressive against ground armies that have to charge in to touch the carriers. The combination HT Carriers might generally be an unfun composition that also leads to air deathballs (especially since zerg has to answer them with corruptors/vipers and are already inclined to go mass air broodlord deathball). However, carriers are also being nerfed - probably in part due to this.
Tanks really dont fit the argument. To begin with, they are ground units which dont have the generic downsides that mass air has. Also, tanks dont lead to air deathballs. In TvP tanks can easily be dealt with using immortals/archons/zealots. Although eventually mass carriers is a protoss answer to mech, that is mostly because mech cant really counter it. In TvZ generally the zerg can actually handle tanks with ling bane hydra or ling bane muta. Zerg then tends to have many options including ultras and viper support to deal with mass tanks.
Anyways, broodlords dont have to be massively nerfed, but it would be nice if it was possible to actually use ground forces like marines and stalkers more effectively against them. And thus my suggestion was to have the dps remain the same but reduce the number of broodlings. That would make the pathing issues much smaller.
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Marines and Stalkers can be used vs Broodlords. For example Mana deals withe them with Stalkers. But first, u must kill their support units. Only crazy player would leave Broodlords unguarded BECAUSE they die instantly from stimmed Bio if not protected. Same goes for tanks- if not protected , can be killed easier.
So basically your argument that BL needs to be nerfed to let Marines and Stalkers counter them is just false in definition as they do that even now. I would even say that Marines do that better than Stalkers.
Broodlords are fine. Leave them be.
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On September 24 2018 22:00 hiroshOne wrote: Marines and Stalkers can be used vs Broodlords. For example Mana deals withe them with Stalkers. But first, u must kill their support units. Only crazy player would leave Broodlords unguarded BECAUSE they die instantly from stimmed Bio if not protected. Same goes for tanks- if not protected , can be killed easier.
So basically your argument that BL needs to be nerfed to let Marines and Stalkers counter them is just false in definition as they do that even now. I would even say that Marines do that better than Stalkers.
Broodlords are fine. Leave them be. Can you really counter broodlords with marines? I dont think that is a thing. Marines can snipe them, if you have a ton of marines versus lone broodlords. However in reality as Terran thats a terrible gameplan. Broodlords with some amount of support will make any pathing impossible at all and actually also make it impossible to actually smoothly attack ground units. And thus, terran needs to either turtle hard or go for full air. Similairly, blink stalkers can work but are hardly cost effective and just die to the support army, which is too hard to pick off as other units cant even dream of getting close to the zerg army. Thus, protoss goes for carriers/tempests instead.
Also, Im not saying the broodlords should be nerfed. Im saying it might be more fun if they were changed. If ground units arent blocked as much by broodlings and that turns out to be a big nerf to zerg and broodlords because ground forces then counter them too well, then I wouldnt oppose a health buff or cost/supply reduction or a small speed buff. I would personally just prefer if the unit was slightly more interactive and wouldnt result in turtling/defensive play and air deathballs as much.
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The votes on the neosteel upgrade are killing me (love it)
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On September 24 2018 22:59 Jerom wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2018 22:00 hiroshOne wrote: Marines and Stalkers can be used vs Broodlords. For example Mana deals withe them with Stalkers. But first, u must kill their support units. Only crazy player would leave Broodlords unguarded BECAUSE they die instantly from stimmed Bio if not protected. Same goes for tanks- if not protected , can be killed easier.
So basically your argument that BL needs to be nerfed to let Marines and Stalkers counter them is just false in definition as they do that even now. I would even say that Marines do that better than Stalkers.
Broodlords are fine. Leave them be. Can you really counter broodlords with marines? I dont think that is a thing. Marines can snipe them, if you have a ton of marines versus lone broodlords. However in reality as Terran thats a terrible gameplan. Broodlords with some amount of support will make any pathing impossible at all and actually also make it impossible to actually smoothly attack ground units. And thus, terran needs to either turtle hard or go for full air. Similairly, blink stalkers can work but are hardly cost effective and just die to the support army, which is too hard to pick off as other units cant even dream of getting close to the zerg army. Thus, protoss goes for carriers/tempests instead. Also, Im not saying the broodlords should be nerfed. Im saying it might be more fun if they were changed. If ground units arent blocked as much by broodlings and that turns out to be a big nerf to zerg and broodlords because ground forces then counter them too well, then I wouldnt oppose a health buff or cost/supply reduction or a small speed buff. I would personally just prefer if the unit was slightly more interactive and wouldnt result in turtling/defensive play and air deathballs as much. There's been plenty of games where broodlords alone simply die to stimmed marines as long as there are enough marines to just out dps the broodlings. Sure you have to kill some support units, but where are your own? It doesn't actually take that many marines to just instantly vapourise broodlings and move into range.
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On September 25 2018 01:40 Dangermousecatdog wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2018 22:59 Jerom wrote:On September 24 2018 22:00 hiroshOne wrote: Marines and Stalkers can be used vs Broodlords. For example Mana deals withe them with Stalkers. But first, u must kill their support units. Only crazy player would leave Broodlords unguarded BECAUSE they die instantly from stimmed Bio if not protected. Same goes for tanks- if not protected , can be killed easier.
So basically your argument that BL needs to be nerfed to let Marines and Stalkers counter them is just false in definition as they do that even now. I would even say that Marines do that better than Stalkers.
Broodlords are fine. Leave them be. Can you really counter broodlords with marines? I dont think that is a thing. Marines can snipe them, if you have a ton of marines versus lone broodlords. However in reality as Terran thats a terrible gameplan. Broodlords with some amount of support will make any pathing impossible at all and actually also make it impossible to actually smoothly attack ground units. And thus, terran needs to either turtle hard or go for full air. Similairly, blink stalkers can work but are hardly cost effective and just die to the support army, which is too hard to pick off as other units cant even dream of getting close to the zerg army. Thus, protoss goes for carriers/tempests instead. Also, Im not saying the broodlords should be nerfed. Im saying it might be more fun if they were changed. If ground units arent blocked as much by broodlings and that turns out to be a big nerf to zerg and broodlords because ground forces then counter them too well, then I wouldnt oppose a health buff or cost/supply reduction or a small speed buff. I would personally just prefer if the unit was slightly more interactive and wouldnt result in turtling/defensive play and air deathballs as much. There's been plenty of games where broodlords alone simply die to stimmed marines as long as there are enough marines to just out dps the broodlings. Sure you have to kill some support units, but where are your own? It doesn't actually take that many marines to just instantly vapourise broodlings and move into range.
I mean, yeah if its just bls but its rarely just bls, running marines forward into the banes and other units underneath the bls while having broodlings constantly destroying the unit pathing is a death sentence, and the siege units that terran builds to deal with those units are countered by the bls, so really unless you have a very large lead your never going to be able to take your marine tank army and smash past the broodlings and kill the bls, not necessarily that you should be able to crash through a late game zerg army in this manner in the first place But I would prefer that the bls were a threat more do to stats like, dmg hp, armor, speed ect, and less due to the fact that they are a huge anti micro unit that make all ground units behave in a very clunky way. I'm not really referring to the transition period where zerg has like 3-4 broods and yeah marines can get under them and kill them, but the ultra late game where they have 10-14 broods and a big number of banelings underneath them. I would like it if the bls did not create such a huge impediment to literally all ground units that you have to go into mass air to contest them while still maintaining there role as a strong siege unit for zerg that lets them convert there lead to a win by pummeling a turtling terran or protoss. I'm hoping that the new thor and ultra upgrades will help this issue in the tvz mu by giving terran a better answer to broods while buffing alternative win conditions for zerg like ultras and mutas. we will see, but in pvz I can only see it getting worse on this new patch.
I find it odd that the way bls work now is they are a siege breaking unit that forces your opponent to turtle because they are to difficult to contest without a huge air transition but can be stalled out for a very long time by a turtling player, In my eyes the purpose of offensive siege units should be to force an opponent to come out and fight your army or risk losing there units or buildings, not to force your opponent to sit in there base turtling while you siege them until they can amass a giant army of air units and spell casters to contest your siege units. Moving your siege units to the edge of your opponents base should be a move that says, either fight my army or give up this base, It should not be a move that says, camp in this base im besieging behind a huge wall of static d and siege units of your own while you mass an answer to my siege units that your army is unable to contest in the open. It would be nice if units like lurkers and ultras on the ground were what you had to be concerned about and the broods were mostly there to force a response rather than, these ground units being relatively easy to deal with but the brood lords being the real threat because if this were the case it would be more dynamic since protoss and terran could continue to do things like look for positioning on the map and move out to contest a zerg army or threaten multiple bases, rather than the best response being to have almost all your army bar a few harassment units camping in one spot and all there army camping right outside that spot and the game ends in one huge air vs air deathball fight after a very long period of turtling. I think this could be fixed by nerfing the number of broodlings per broodlord to just 1, or 2 and reducing the time they last but buffing the dmg of the brood lords and either there range, or survivability, if it turns out zerg is to week after that kind of change than some buffs to other "finishing units" that let zerg take a lead from earlier in the game and convert it to a win vs an entrenched opponent could be buffed like ultras, lurkers, or mutas.
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the counter to brood lords is to walk around them!
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If Zerg has Broodlords with support army for example Hydras, corruptors, vipers and Infestors and u have only Marines without support, that means that something went terrible wrong with you in this game. As i said earlier, Broodlords can be successfully countered by Marines and Stalkers. Of course u nust deal with support units, but that's the case in almost every composition. If i want to deal with tanks, I must have an alternative to deal with BIO that's protecting them. And so on.
Second thing is that Broodlord army is very, very immobile. BIO and Stalkers too, are the opposite. U can use that in your favor too. Again. There is no problem with Broodlords. It was a thing back in dark ages of WOL.
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On September 24 2018 22:59 renaissanceMAN wrote: The votes on the neosteel upgrade are killing me (love it) Blizzard got intimidated by a threatened boycott of BlizzCon if they didn't do something about the NeoSteel upgrade in the engineering bay.
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On September 25 2018 13:58 hiroshOne wrote: If Zerg has Broodlords with support army for example Hydras, corruptors, vipers and Infestors and u have only Marines without support, that means that something went terrible wrong with you in this game. As i said earlier, Broodlords can be successfully countered by Marines and Stalkers. Of course u nust deal with support units, but that's the case in almost every composition. If i want to deal with tanks, I must have an alternative to deal with BIO that's protecting them. And so on.
Second thing is that Broodlord army is very, very immobile. BIO and Stalkers too, are the opposite. U can use that in your favor too. Again. There is no problem with Broodlords. It was a thing back in dark ages of WOL. In a real TvZ by the time hive tech starts coming in terran does have marines, tanks and medivacs. That cant deal with broodlords at all. Against broodlords tanks arent even actually beneficial if you're trying to charge in, as they'll just splash on the marines.
And of course you can make things that 'deal' with broodlords. You can turtle with ghosts (cant push with ghosts at all because snipes will just get cancelled) or you can get an air deathball. But wait, that was the entire thing about broodlords: they force turtling or air deathballs.
Of course there is no real problem with broodlords from a balance pov. However, there is nobody here that is arguing that to be the case. Instead, people here think there is a design/gameplay problem with broodlords.
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