TeamLiquid.net Article: Zerg & Larva Injection

[Santrega]

Right, so instead of actually arguing my points you just pull 1 thing out of my post.

So exactly how is it so different that causes you to dislike it so much?

As I pointed out, the application of it is exactly the same as it is in SC1.

Storm moving opponents, guess what, you have to predict where they go in SC1!
Storm opponents that are not moving but attacking, guess what, a half a second or a second delay isn't going to change anything!

I can't really speak about Terran or Protoss, other than that storm was incredibly hard to cast against fast moving units because it doesn't execute instantly. Against Zatic's mutas I must have lost 4+ Templars without even landing a storm (often dying before the animation finished). If you land one it deals a ton of damage, but its like a guessing game, I have to predict where he'll fly 1+ second in advance. It seemed near impossible to hit his muta flock, and Zatic is no Jaedong.

He clearly says 1+ seconds, he also says its incredibly hard against fast moving units, and its like a guessing game. The guessing game part is where I still believe the luck factor comes into things...

If they kill your HTs before the animation is finished, how in the hell can you blanket an area with smartcast?

[Nicol Bolas]

I highly doubt the "perfect" balance is there for casuals.

No need for doubt; it simply isn't there. That's what rules like "no rush" and so forth are for. Rushing is something that takes far more skill to defend than to execute. As an asymmetric technique, it tends to both push people to get better and keep people from bothering to play the game. One kind of person goes one way, the other kind goes the other.

Well you'd be assuming wrong, as its clear from all of nicol's arguments that he knows absolutely nothing about the pro scene.

Yeah, don't bother to present any evidence for that or something. Just make the claim; that's good enough

He clearly says 1+ seconds, he also says its incredibly hard against fast moving units, and its like a guessing game.

The reason we even bother to play games is due to uncertainty over what the opponent is going to do. IE: Guessing Games. Imperfect knowledge of the outcome is crucial to making a viable game.

Being hard to use against fast-moving units is perfectly legitimate. Fast-moving units are also the ones most likely to have lower HP, and thus are more susceptible to Psi Storm.

Yes, you will need to learn to predict where your enemy's units will be. If you can't learn this skill, to quickly predict where to place your storms based on an enemy's movement, then you can't use Psi Storm.

As to the specific number, what matters more than anything is that the delay is there. That it was put there (ie: wasn't there before); it is a designed element added to the game. Which means that it is subject to balance. It will be tweaked as time passes. The delay is a feature; how big of a delay is negotiable.

There were some bad things about the SC1 macro system but there were also allot of good things. Being able to out compete the opponent economically definatly equals good.

This is starting to get off topic (though technically, the Psi Storm topic is off topic), but my point is that you can rely on real mechanisms rather than route busywork to achieve the ability to out compete the opponent economically.

[Draco]

The delay for Psionic Storm is unnecessary. I'm assuming the intent of Blizzard is to enable all abilities enough to where they see fair use in a sizeable amount of games, so they must play the balancing act of making the niche for these support abilities large but nonencroaching. Since this 1s delay is neither adding gameplay nor creating space for additional niches, its balancing properties are no different than that of changing the area, damage, or energy cost, but has the added side effect of reducing player input. The spell already is a commitment of energy to a location, adding a delay neither makes the commitment more valuable, nor does it help with the pacing of the game.

There's a difference between predicting the actions of your opponent and being clairvoyant of them. Prediction is more nested in general strategy where you've already predicted the opponents moves by making the vulnerable HT in the first place, why should every skirmish and tactic revolve around more prediction? Because SC2 wants to move beyond what SC1 had to offer, enabling all abilities to see substantial use would be an achievement worth striving for, and anything that compromises the use of an ability on the professional level with nothing to give back in return doesn't seem like the best idea for their design philosophy.

[Norfindel]

Don't forget that with smart casting you can easily blanket large areas with storm.

WOW! Wait a second! Do you realize that Psi Storm costs energy, and that HT cost a shitload of gas??? Seriously guys, you act like smart casting allows you to just bath all the enemy forces in Psi Storm. Even if you can do that once (using all your HT's energy), adding a delay won't stop that from happening, while needing more time to deal the same damage (or less) would help a lot to dodge it.

Also, Storm always had a small cooldown. Even with smart casting, that cooldown could be a much more happy balancing element than crippling the player's ability to hit something.

[Pandonetho]

WOW! Wait a second! Do you realize that Psi Storm costs energy, and that HT cost a shitload of gas???

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.

[Iceman_jkh]

I heard that you had to cast Psi-Storm while you were still in the pre-game chat lobby for it to take effect in the 19th minute of the demo games @ blizzcon. Let's everyone take a deep breath and wait to see some footage/confirmation. Seems like the naysayers are of the impression that this delay is very very very long. How about we wait till we get some more info - then start throwing rocks again.

[Draco]

I heard that you had to cast Psi-Storm while you were still in the pre-game chat lobby for it to take effect in the 19th minute of the demo games @ blizzcon. Let's everyone take a deep breath and wait to see some footage/confirmation. Seems like the naysayers are of the impression that this delay is very very very long. How about we wait till we get some more info - then start throwing rocks again.

Well regardless of whether the delay is 0.1s or 20,000s, there is no advantage at any point to implement it. Different is not better, better is better.

[deadlock]

Yes, you will need to learn to predict where your enemy's units will be. If you can't learn this skill, to quickly predict where to place your storms based on an enemy's movement, then you can't use Psi Storm.

Bro if they're clicking randomly to dodge it's not something you can predict.

[RamiZ]

Bro if they're clicking randomly to dodge it's not something you can predict.

Yeah but they cant predict either where will you cast the storm, beside 2 HTs can cast 8 storms(or 6), and Let me see if you can dodge that when it takes about half of the battlefield or more...

My point is, 1 sec delay is bad only if you have very little of HTs with no energy, but when you are able to cast more then 4 Storms, that are even stronger then in SC1, with smart casting, 1 sec delay isnt big deal at all.

[Santrega]

Yeah but they cant predict either where will you cast the storm, beside 2 HTs can cast 8 storms(or 6), and Let me see if you can dodge that when it takes about half of the battlefield or more...

My point is, 1 sec delay is bad only if you have very little of HTs with no energy, but when you are able to cast more then 4 Storms, that are even stronger then in SC1, with smart casting, 1 sec delay isnt big deal at all.

Lets for this example say there are only 8 directions a person can run to dodge. That gives the dodger a 7/8th(87.5%) chance of not getting hit, while there is a 1/8th(12.5%) chance of you choosing the correct direction casting psi-storm.

I think I like the odds of being able to dodge a lot better than the odds of being able to hit.