Things that may have been overlooked.

[Nicol Bolas]

Wow, no wonder units seem to just melt away in SC2 - weapon upgrades shoot damage through the roof.

Except for the Zerg, of course, since most of their units:

1: Don't have a damage mod > 1.

2: Don't have multiple attacks.

3: Don't have damage bonuses.

Honestly, I don't see what the point of the ranged attack upgrade is. Roaches and Hydras benefit from it, but the difference between 16 and 17 damage isn't even 10%. Whereas Zerglings get a 20% boost. Banelings have a damage mod of 2, so they get +4 vs. their primary targets.

[Pandonetho]

The Queen is listed as "Psionic, Biological". Notice anything missing? That's right: she is neither Light nor Armored. That means most damage bonuses never apply to her.

The ghost too.

[Islandsnake]

I've spread creep across the entire map before or at least half....it makes hydras very sexy units!

[Rake]

I'm not in Beta so I don't know how common this is but I have seen people use phoenix to lift queens and snipe them. Very cool.


Also, I would like to see a grudge match between Archer and Dsquid! Whoever wins the bo5 wins the giant macro thread.

[Pandonetho]

Also, I would like to see a grudge match between Archer and Dsquid! Whoever wins the bo5 wins the giant macro thread.

That wouldn't even be fair. Archer loves macro and would quite obviously enjoy the repetition of it, which would give him a massive advantage because if you don't macro you'll lose.

[Todie]

The thing to do to make Spawn Larva compete with Creep

1. Stop this "Creep Tumors" From Creep Tumors...make ALL Creep tumors have to come from the Queen
2. Make Creep tumors Cheap... say 3-7 energy per creep tumor (possibly make them neutral as well, or at least reduce their sight)

me no like. havnt played to know but ppl seem to think its rather cool as it is, there are other better ways to provide more tension for queen use ( see below)

3. Limit the Creep from Hatcheries/Lairs/Hives (give them a shorter range just slightly more than needed for a Spawning pool ie 3-5), and to some degree from Overlords as well (slightly bigger but not pylon-sized)

wouldnt this kinda be to make the creep-spreading a no-brainer apm sink?

4. Allow 'Inactive' Creep tumors to be placed off the Creep... when they get covered by creep they become Active. (so the Queen can 'prebuild' that Creep bridge, and have it slowly get filled in)

this, i like. they should have reduced vision before they get nourished by creep though.

There is the Bigger problem of how to solve the fact that you can just make more Queens.

one per hachery. if it becomes a problem i think increased supply cost would "fix it" nicely.

Best one I can think of.... Give the Queen a version of Drain Life... but she can only use it on friendly buildings...but she can use it on Multiple friendly buildings at once.

Then eliminate the Queen's natural energy regeneration.

This way the Zerg player has to build more buildings if they want to have more energy for Transfusion/Spawn Larva/Creep Tumors.

she eats the buildings for energy? no thx.


my suggestion: (first posted in the macro thread earlier today)

spawn larva also kind of looks like an apm sink, even though its your choice what you use the extra larva for, there's no reason not to get the larva.

so how about an ability to increase a units vision for a couple of minutes? i can think of a few variations of this:

increase affected units vision only when it stands still or lays still - burrowed (like old overseer ability)

and / or :

gradually increase the units vision for the next 1-2 minutes, and then gradually decrease it (back to normal) again. (could work with the one above : gradual increases, but only while standing still)

Edit: one more unrelated thing:

Spawn Larva, it doesnt have a cooldown, correct? so you can include this in a queue of orders?

this shoudld mean that you can, in theory, spawn larva on your hach, then make a move queue back and forth in base that takes almost 40 sec, then queue the queen to cast it again on the hachery! similar if you have several hacheries.

.. it should work similar to how you can tell an scv to build a new one (or to do wahtever really) after hes done building...

the only thing i can see standing in the way of this working is the queens energy pool.. but with one queen per hach im sure you can make it happen. somoene confirm it works? discuss!

[Norfindel]

That wouldn't even be fair. Archer loves macro and would quite obviously enjoy the repetition of it, which would give him a massive advantage because if you don't macro you'll lose.

Not to mention that you can know the game very well, and be able to judge what is fun or not for at least a part of the gaming population without being good at execution.

There are probably people out there that don't minds to do repetitive tasks that involve no decisions, so both of them could be right for some % of the gaming population.

I think that if some meaningful amount of the people playing the game would hate to use the macro mechanics, they should be optional. A macro player and a micro player should be tied if both have the same skill in their area of expertise. Otherwise, the game is biased towards a playing style. BW was very macro biased. Reducing that bias could lead to richer gameplay.

[Aldrius]

Spawn Larva, it doesnt have a cooldown, correct? so you can include this in a queue of orders?

The ability itself doesn't. But the Hatchery can only have it cast on itself every 45 seconds or so.

Spawn Larvae certainly doesn't feel like an APM sink to me by any means. There are just too many other things your Queen can do in the interim, while it's casting. And buying multiple queens isn't really worth it because her abilities are so cheap. Generally speaking, it'll depend on what your opponent is doing.

Plus while you always WANT more Larvae you don't always NEED more Larvae. Especially in the late-game where you'll have lots of Hatcheries, you won't need to cast Spawn Larvae as often.

[Todie]

The ability itself doesn't. But the Hatchery can only have it cast on itself every 45 seconds or so.

hence you should be able to do what i said:

presume you have a queen with 100 energy. Using cued move commands in between, you should be able to build an order queue that effectively executes spawn larva just a often as is "required" ... if you do this you can focus on micro completely for that period of time, and not feel like your missing out on macro too much (since you can still make units without even glancing at your base)


.... just sayin'

Spawn Larvae certainly doesn't feel like an APM sink to me by any means. There are just too many other things your Queen can do in the interim, while it's casting. And buying multiple queens isn't really worth it because her abilities are so cheap. Generally speaking, it'll depend on what your opponent is doing.

"many other things" ? you can make some tumors, thats it. unless shes needed for defence.

tell me then. in what situation other when at times you are under attack is it rational to NOT spawn larva at your hatchery? (once the timer from the last one runs out).. you know, one could argue that if you have so many hatcheries that "you dont need to" you have wasted too much money on hatcheries.

[Blazur]

That wouldn't even be fair. Archer loves macro and would quite obviously enjoy the repetition of it, which would give him a massive advantage because if you don't macro you'll lose.

I'd love to see that as well. Perhaps SCL could arrange it and upload the vids to YouTube?

My money is on Archer.