TeamLiquid.net Article: Zerg & Larva Injection

[Norfindel]

WOW! Wait a second! Do you realize that you can easily cast 4 psi storms in a larger aoe and it isn't as big of a deal as you're making it out to be?

Jesus, it's like you've never seen it happen in SC1 or something. Go watch Jangbi storm the shit out of a Terran player.

So???? That's why i'm saying that nerfing the AoE or the damage is a better option!

[Draco]

Oh yes this is an amazing argument for why the delay is BAD. /sarcasm.
If you're talking about the situational-ness of storm, arguing that this delay is bad is completely unrelated. Get it through your skull.

What the hell are you talking about, boy? First it's about the situational tactics, then it's about how everyone went HTs. How is this not related? It's really simple. ADDING A DELAY TO THE STORM DOES NOTHING TO THE NICHE IT OCCUPIES. Your exalted solution falls flat on its face and pisses off the player base in the process. It's entirely relevant, and just because you want to close your eyes and plug your ears doesn't change that.

Yet another blind claim that SC is just a guessing game. Because it's SO hard to see hydras walking in one direction, and storming in front of them. Guess what? If they're moving, meaning they're getting shot by your units. If they're attacking, they're not moving, meaning it's a chance to use storm. It's not that hard to understand.

Yes, because all the armies ever do when they see your army with those HTs is rush headlong into you. We're not balancing the game around retards here.

Responsive? This delay doesn't affect responsiveness at all, it's FIXED.

So the delay needs to be variable for it to be not as responsive? That doesn't even make sense.

Storm is ok as it is now, the damage intervals have been reduced from 5 seconds to 3 seconds and the storm now covers a much larger size.
If i would have to choose betwen a 5 second storm , or an 3 second storm with an 1 second delay(3+1), i will always take the one with the delay.
And lol at the guy who said that storm was weak in sc1

You know there's more choices than retarded delay + increased area of effect. Why not increased AoE and reduced damage, or more energy cost and increased area? Why settle for crap?

[Nicol Bolas]

Psionic Storm is situational

If by "situational" you mean "The enemy must be in front of my army with not very many of my own troops in the way," then yes.

However, since this situation occurs in every battle that isn't a complete surprise or involves dropping on your own units, no, it's not situational. If the situation is the normal, default state of affairs, if it's the situation you encounter 80% of the time, then it doesn't count as situational.

Psi Storm is generally useful in 80% of combat situations. Hell, most professional Protoss are perfectly willing to have a few of their units caught in it, just to be able to deal more damage to the enemy.

If adding a delay makes it less generally useful, then this is good. Generally useful AoE damage is not a good thing; it puts too much focus on one unit. HTs are still useful, just not as useful. Maybe you want to spend that gas on something else now.

Well why bother with HTs then

If the only reason to use HTs is instant-cast Psi Storm, then Blizzard has failed.

The removal of the delay brings back more correspondence of your decision making to the spell itself. "I want the storm here, now" is a much more definitive representation of your will than an artificial 1s cast time based on the projection of what the opponent's going to do in this omnidirectional field.

The exact same argument could be made for unit build times, building construction, Yamato shots, and anything else that takes time to do.

Hell, you could say the exact same thing for Dragoons in SC1: they had a non-trivial delay from being told to attack to the time they actually fired their shot. A delay that often gets them killed by mines.

Make use of the new improved hallucination?

Small point: Hallucination is on the Disruptor.

if you're spamming storms you're spamming them and not looking where you're casting, and delay time becomes mostly irrelevant because you're trying to hit all locations (wherever they dodge to, they will be hit by a storm).

The casting time is also a delay between casts. And it's very possible, particularly with smart cast, to spam storms accurately.

no but dodging doesn't cost you anything and you can dodge in any direction

Any direction that the terrain allows. If it's narrow terrain, Psi Storm is more effective than if it's open terrain.

i'll probably torrent them unless the game amazes me.

Then you're a douchebag. Pirating a game just because you don't like what Blizzard has done is decidedly immature, not to mention illegal. Just don't play it.

let's face it, masses of phoenixes will only get fucked up by corruptors

Which means you will have forced them to build Corruptors, and thus they will have fewer resources to build ground units and/or Mutalisks. If you're forcing your opponent to react to you, then you're winning the game.

And you don't need "masses" of Phoenixes to deal with Mutalisks.

i like changing mutalisks into corpses and this won't happen with a shitty storm

Oh, I see. This isn't an objective consideration or reasoned argument; this is you being butthurt over the fact that you can't just Psi Storm all your problems away anymore.

[Pandonetho]

What the hell are you talking about, boy? First it's about the situational tactics, then it's about how everyone went HTs. How is this not related? It's really simple. ADDING A DELAY TO THE STORM DOES NOTHING TO THE NICHE IT OCCUPIES. Your exalted solution falls flat on its face and pisses off the player base in the process. It's entirely relevant, and just because you want to close your eyes and plug your ears doesn't change that.

Who said Blizzard is trying to change its niche? Why do you even want to fucking change its niche? All spells have a Niche, retard.

Yes, because all the armies ever do when they see your army with those HTs is rush headlong into you. We're not balancing the game around retards here.

Then how are you going to attack huh? While moving at the same time? Give me a break, do you even know how Starcraft is played? Clearly, you don't. By your definition then, if people aren't supposed to run headling into a battle with HTs in the back, that means people don't ever battle AT ALL in SC.

So the delay needs to be variable for it to be not as responsive? That doesn't even make sense.

First of all I don't know why you're comparing this delay to lag or latency, because clearly it's not meant to screw up a player like lag or latency, which is inconsistent, it's FIXED and controlled. YOU don't make sense.

You know there's more choices than Retarded Delay + Increased Area of Effect. Why not increased AoE and reduced damage, or more energy cost and increased area? Why settle for crap?

And here we have another post frm you showing that you make shit for sense. First you're talking about expanding on the current niche that storm is in, and with this post your "solutions" don't do that at all. Secondly, you must be a professional to say that the introduced delay is "crap," yes we should all listen to you.

Or more like you're just a cry baby who can't handle a little change.

[Draco]

If by "situational" you mean "The enemy must be in front of my army with not very many of my own troops in the way," then yes.

However, since this situation occurs in every battle that isn't a complete surprise or involves dropping on your own units, no, it's not situational. If the situation is the normal, default state of affairs, if it's the situation you encounter 80% of the time, then it doesn't count as situational.

Psi Storm is generally useful in 80% of combat situations. Hell, most professional Protoss are perfectly willing to have a few of their units caught in it, just to be able to deal more damage to the enemy.

If adding a delay makes it less generally useful, then this is good. Generally useful AoE damage is not a good thing; it puts too much focus on one unit. HTs are still useful, just not as useful. Maybe you want to spend that gas on something else now.

Yes, I'm all for nerfing the storm's niche and nerfing it as the predominant choice against mass armies, but that's easily achievable by less frustrating means. You must make an argument why forcing us to predict the movements of an army with such an extreme disparity (relative to the other delays that are fractions of a second) would provide more varied gameplay and a better experience for everyone.

[deadlock]

So what? You can dodge in any direction, YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE ALLOWED TO DODGE, IS THERE A PROBLEM WITH DODGING?

no, but there's a problem with a shitty storm that favors the dodger exponentially.

When he attacks, you storm it's that simple. Player reaction isn't slow unless you plain suck hard at this game. Adding a delay or removing the delay does nothing to change player reaction speed or "probable lag" this point is moot.

attacking only takes a moment. if the delay is of any significant length at all (to "balance" whatever the hell it is they're trying to balance) and mutalisks are still speedy they'll be on the outskirts of the storm by the time the damn thing actually casts. and adding a delay doesn't change player reaction or lag, but they are cumulative--meaning that after a certain time the dodger will dodge the storm entirely. and adding delay makes it easier for him to do this

lol are you just trolling or are you really out of a valid argument? I think your post speaks for itself. I don't think you should ever try to debate again because "lol clumsy delayed storm won't be owning anbody" is hardly a valid point. Second of all, you don't send HTs by themselves are you stupid or something? It's called an army.

yeah and what exactly is in this mythical "army" we're supposed to be building. and if storm sucks it won't kill any units, that's pure logic

Because as I just mentioned, your ARMY is going to be attacking those units which are doing nothing productive but moving randomly.

yeah and maybe the zerg has a dozen banelings burrowed under your army. we're talking about storm here don't bring other units into it. besides mutalisks can run away from anything that isn't a phoenix. they're like zombies probably, you have to kill them outright with psi-storm (otherwise they'll corner you in a shopping mall lateR)

Glad you think you're the all deciding player who decides what's fun or not, give me a break.

Let's face it i am a typical internet user and gamer, i would say i'm fairly representative of the SC2 sales base. basically blizz has to please people like me or their product will fail. simple as that

Why are you even in this debate if you don't even know simple things such as these? Christ I don't even know why I'm talking to you, convincing you is like trying to convince a pile of flaming shit.

i do know what smartcast is (no idea what a magic box is) but i don't really see how i've demonstrated a poor understanding of smartcast in my arguments

You're meant to hit them by placing storms in the proper place, like how storms were ALWAYS used. It's not based on chance, I can only facepalm at your stupidity.

except now the proper place is completely unknowable except to Nostradamus.

A shitty storm? Is that what you call it now? You know nothing about SC1 or SC2 I think I'm through talking to you.

i think i've demonstrated pretty clearly why sc2 storm is shitty/

If I were Nicol I would just stop talking to you. Your arguments and points are hardly valid and you should be immediately banned for even attempting.

well before the mods get all Dirty Harry on me (which lets face it they probably won't, why would they) hopefully they'll send me a warning or somehting first

edit: oh yeah and if you just claim victory and walk away you don't win the argument that stops working when you're nine years old

[Pandonetho]

I won't even waste the effort of replying to each retarded point in your post of failure.

There's one point though, that's so exceedling stupid that I have to comment on it.

yeah and what exactly is in this mythical "army" we're supposed to be building. and if storm sucks it won't kill any units, that's pure logic

we're talking about storm here don't bring other units into it.

Are you seriously telling me that you build high templars without anything else? So what you're basing your example off of is "giant zerg army vs high templars without army."

Wow, I'll just leave it at that, maybe you'll eventually figure out what it is that's so stupid about yourself.

[Draco]

Who said Blizzard is trying to change its niche? Why do you even want to fucking change its niche? All spells have a Niche, retard.

Jesus Christ get some reading comprehension. You're saying the problem is that HT was too good of an answer to everything. That means that the niche it occupies is TOO BIG. You must change the niche by MAKING IT SMALLER, not removing it.

Then how are you going to attack huh? While moving at the same time? Give me a break, do you even know how Starcraft is played? Clearly, you don't. By your definition then, if people aren't supposed to run headling into a battle with HTs in the back, that means people don't ever battle AT ALL in SC.

They bounce back and forth to avoid eachother's seige and abilities and then they attack when the enemy's at their most vulnerable.

First of all I don't know why you're comparing this delay to lag or latency, because clearly it's not meant to screw up a player like lag or latency, which is inconsistent, it's FIXED and controlled. YOU don't make sense.

A controlled and fixed delay is still a delay. That's my point. It doesn't matter to the end user that they're delayed 1s because of lag or delayed 1s because Blizzard put it in the programming. They both have a debilitating effect on the ability. You both come to expect them too, if it's a laggy game.

And here we have another post frm you showing that you make shit for sense. First you're talking about expanding on the current niche that storm is in, and with this post your "solutions" don't do that at all. Secondly, you must be a professional to say that the introduced delay is "crap," yes we should all listen to you.

I never said to expand the niche, that's counterproductive. I just think you skim over my sentences or something and write whatever you want. And yes, any form of delay is negative. Lag and high latency has never been a positive experience, so I'm perfectly justified in saying that a nontrivial delay is frustrating.

[deadlock]

Any direction that the terrain allows. If it's narrow terrain, Psi Storm is more effective than if it's open terrain.

yeah but what if the units can fly

Then you're a douchebag. Pirating a game just because you don't like what Blizzard has done is decidedly immature, not to mention illegal. Just don't play it.

yeah but i'm a poor student on welfare and i would like to check the game out. blizzard won't miss my sale, let's be real here. besides we have an obligation to throw a spanner in the works, if the game's good i'll pay for it properly

Which means you will have forced them to build Corruptors, and thus they will have fewer resources to build ground units and/or Mutalisks. If you're forcing your opponent to react to you, then you're winning the game.

well their mutas have forced you to build phoenixes so you're back to square one.

And you don't need "masses" of Phoenixes to deal with Mutalisks.

Probably don't need that many corruptors to own phoenix either

Oh, I see. This isn't an objective consideration or reasoned argument; this is you being butthurt over the fact that you can't just Psi Storm all your problems away anymore.

yeah i always enjoyed psi storm. btw Thank you nicol for being somewhat polite in your posts unlike that Pandontheo guy

[deadlock]

There's one point though, that's so exceedling stupid that I have to comment on it.

WOW you can't just take a point out of context to criticise that's unfair to your opponent?

Are you seriously telling me that you build high templars without anything else? So what you're basing your example off of is "giant zerg army vs high templars without army."

no i'm basing it on mutas vs. hts which i think is fairly reasonable.

Wow, I'll just leave it at that, maybe you'll eventually figure out what it is that's so stupid about yourself.

it's like that nirvana song except "you know i'm right"