New Units for HotS

This first question can only really be answered by people who have played that weird HotS multiplayer thing that Ahnaris played with Husky.

Anyone else giggle like a school girl when that massive Thor somehow climbed out of the factory with tychus sat in it?

The viper isn't going to be as good as it seems. The weird detection spell only works on one unit, the pull thing takes up waaaay too much energy for one or two to be useful in a fight and then there is the cost. It's too much for what it's worth imo.

MY basic opinion of HotS balance so far is that there are going to be too many spellcaster units for zerg and not enough raw power. The same goes for toss too but terran has far too little. There is EMP, stim and uhhhh 1, A click.

I think that people who were good at the whole multi pronged attacks and basically excessive amount of micro like TLO will still do well, especially with the new units.
However the rest of us will probably have to pull an idra and stick with roach hydra for 20m years and just lose a lot more than we need to vs toss.

This is a broad first impression of it but I doubt my opinion will remain this way for very long especially regarding zerg and toss. Though my opinion of terrans lack of useful spellcasters has been around for a while so that probably wont change until they add more essential spellcasters.

Btw the swarm host is a cool unit but against tanks and collosi it does splash to itself. That's a bit dumb to me. Sure it can take down the collosi easily enough because the splash isn't powerful enough but against terran they're useless against anything but a purely bio army and against that the terran just drops a lot to take advantage of the lack of mobility.

If anyone has made it this far well done. You may now make arguements. If I think they're good, I'll probably change my mind.
If it's something like "you're wrong *insert race here* is and always will be OP" then you shouldn't be here.

BigGWesty wrote:
The viper isn't going to be as good as it seems. The weird detection spell only works on one unit, the pull thing takes up waaaay too much energy for one or two to be useful in a fight and then there is the cost. It's too much for what it's worth imo.

The viper seems to me to be a very powerful unit, if you have enough of them. The ability to pull tanks from the siege line is very useful combined with the normal ling/bling/muta vs Terran. The cloud ability too can be useful.

BigGWesty wrote: MY basic opinion of HotS balance so far is that there are going to be too many spellcaster units for zerg and not enough raw power.

I think this is true but remember the Ultralisk has received an upgrade in HotS, with the burrow charge ability.

Most people are saying that the swarm host is OP, but in my opinion zerg have always been facing a siege line vs Terran. TO break this, many units had to be sacrificed, this made the zerglings very useful as they're cheep units. Now the terran might have to sacrifice some marines to break a zerg siege line and they're complaining? Marines are also cheep and quick to make, so it isnt much of an issue.
As for Ptoss, the replicant seems a little expensive, but can be used very well to justify it's cost. The oracle to me is the most interesting unit and I think better multitasking can be used very well with them, eg A battle is happening + macro up units and rally them + block mineral fields with the oracle to prevent opponent harvesting. This could prove to be a turning point in a battle, loss of mining time etc..

Those are my thoughts, thanks for yours:P

I should ass, the only unit im worried about being 'OP' is the baneling with the burrow move ability. I have had a little play around with it and well, it seems very good vs terran, to the point of impossible to play against, forcing constant scans when holding a siege line mind map to prevent surprise baneling explosions:P

Hodgee wrote:(Baneling burrow movement) it seems very good vs terran, to the point of impossible to play against, forcing constant scans when holding a siege line mind map to prevent surprise baneling explosions:P

It's actually not that bad tbh. I had a match with my friend and I made these things called turrets =P. Then in the next game I lowered my tank production in favour of a raven and it was fine. There are lots of things that each race has that's going to completely counter that upgrade. What I could see happening against really bad players is banelings made in the main/nat, burrowed and then moved to kill underground later on.

They use a massive investment on the banelings and then it doesn't necessarily do anything. They suck really if the opponent is smart enough to make turrets or a raven.

In low level play though, yes, it'll be OP. They wont be able to make the turrets or know when to get the raven without sacrificing waaay too much eco. That sort of thing. The highest level of players will time it so that the raven(s) appear just as the burrow movement kicks in so that they don't have a low tank count at the time it comes. TLO used to do it against roaches and used seeker missile on them for fun.

Surely you cannot build more turrets every time you move your siege line forward though, that would make for a very slow push and make a game quite boring to play let alone watch. Ravens yes are the only realistic option I can see (When the siege line moves forward, mutas can easily pick off stray turrets left behind)
We'll have to wait and see, like you say if you dont change your play style and try and fight a new build, it wont work out well for you:P

The game is only imbalanced because people want to stay with one build and not go for another to counter and army. Think of what unit(s) would best counter (Unit) and build it/them.

Ravens will be really good against banelings. It can hunter seeker them too.

I have 2 issues with hodgee's earlier comment (I hadn't noticed that comment).
1) Ultra's cost a lot and still wont be all that good even with this addition.
2) Lings may seem cheap when you look purely at late game cost but really they cost an extortionate amount. They have little dps against a seige line with marine support. It's why you shouldn't move against a seige line with more than 5 tanks until the mutas take it down and you have a bajillion banelings. Lings are good but they aint that good.

I think the viper may help in PvZ with those ridiculous colossi, pulling them in so you can kill them much quicker, nullifying their dps and making the army much weaker against the second unit rally. Burrow-move banelings could counter mass marines, forcing them to tech up to ravens, or at least forcing scans before moving out. the ultralisk charge sounds extremely fun, and maybe i'll try ling/bling/ultra now. I don't see the swarm host getting a ton of useage imo, because the locusts take so long to spawn.... possibly if they nerf the locust itself and decrease build time, they would be more useful.

I feel like the protoss replicator is much less effective for its cost however. I'm guessing the cost will be 100/150, which will render it useless in PvT, where protoss needs the most help, as most bio units that are used vs protoss will not be worth replicating, however, I couldsee replicating a ghost being very powerful by draining their energy. The one new harass unit looks interesting, and I would definitley invest in those for stargate play. I do feel like the new anti-air unit, the tempest(right?) will be very OP against all non-capital air units, because of the incredible splash, I feel like the magic box will be even more necessary for air play now.

I don't even really want to talk about terran.... they're getting more attacking units although they have the most in the game? What they need is a better spellcaster, like Westy said. the new whatever its called, battle hellion thingy better be a damn costly upgrade for a mineral-only cost-effective harass unit, as without a surround, lings will get decimated even more than they did by hellions. the warhounds seem like they would compliment mech play, with the light ground attack, but better AA,which mech has always lacked. the thor seems a bit ridiculous in price, but after I looked at the damage that thing does, I'm thinking 800/600. :P

Anyways, these are VERY subject to change, but these are my first impressions.

One thing I really don't get though is: why didn't they just call it the Odin and call the warhounds thors? Or is that the unit avatars and voices are actually just taken from the campaign and the BW things but with the abilities programmed in?

why and why not can be gained from this vid

http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1014488/The-Game-Design-of-STARCRAFT

A vid of why everyone hates anything and everything!!!!

As for burrowed banelings against terran, it's hive tech. Get a raven. Nuff said.

Burrowed ultralisk charge + viper's cloud thing = epic.