Neural Parasite Change

[Baneling]

What about keeping the it as it currently is in beta with the exception of making it small AOE. It would be pretty fun to use against groups of zeolots or terran M&M.

What do you think?

[Aldrius]

What about keeping the it as it currently is in beta with the exception of making it small AOE. It would be pretty fun to use against groups of zeolots or terran M&M.

What do you think?

Infester already has an anti-infantry spell in Fungal Growth. Which I really like. Neural Parasite should be it's anti-large unit spell.

Kind of like how the High Templar has Psi Storm and Phase Shift. One is good for groups of units, one is good for big units.

[Norfindel]

Nope. There were three classifications: Organic, Mechanical and Robotic. (The latter could be seen as a subclassification of Mechanical.)

An Organic/Mechanical unit existed; the SCV. However, Broodlings targeted Organic and Mechanical units. In lore terms, Mechanical units had biological components inside them.

For Neural Parasite to work like Spawn Broodling, it would have to target Mechanical but not Robotic units. (Robotic doesn't exist as a classification in StarCraft II, but could be easily added.)

Well it's true, how to assign the unit type to the Goon in SC2 is very open to interpretation, as their are fairly armored units, and has no exposed bio parts at all.

How a parasite could penetrate so easily something like a Tank's armor, and affect the people inside, is also a big question. I think that the way Corruption or Infest Command Center was used is much more intuitive: first weaken the armor, then affect the contents.

A Robotic type would be interesting to use in this cases, as a biological parasite shouldn't be able to control a robotic artifact at all, but as mentioned, even if the unit has a pilot, how does the parasite gets to him, if the unit has a fairly resistant NBC shielding, anyways?

Lore-wise, there would be no problem to accept that any fairly damaged unit isn't perfectly shielded anymore.

Gameplay-wise, it could be allowed to affect most units, by giving the other player some time to react. Changing the unit's color, and completely disabling the enemy unit for some instants before taking control of it should be enough to give the affected player the choice to finish it off, retreat, or take some other measures (like Phase-shift it), if he's fast enough to react.

I would try it by allowing any unit to be controlled, except Robotic and Massive.

Still, the Archon is a special case to handle, as the thing has no remaining biological brain to affect. Maybe a "manned" type is more convenient to determine what units have biological pilots inside, and the spell could be able to affect any Bio or "manned" unit, except Massive units.

[Baneling]

Infester already has an anti-infantry spell in Fungal Growth. Which I really like. Neural Parasite should be it's anti-large unit spell.

Kind of like how the High Templar has Psi Storm and Phase Shift. One is good for groups of units, one is good for big units.

Sorry, I'm not big on massive unit similarities between units of different races. Just because the high templar has an anti small and and anti massive unit ability does not mean the infestor needs those.

I would prefer that the unit had more generally useful abilities.. Fungal growth is nice, but the other two are very weak versions of previous abilities.

Maybe give the Infestor the line of sight blocker the overseer once had along with a modified Neural parasite ( it does the same thing it currently does with the same animation + if it can't mind control the target it does damage over time (same 10 sec.) to that unit), and leave the fungal growth.

[Nicol Bolas]

Just because the high templar has an anti small and and anti massive unit ability does not mean the infestor needs those.

But the fact that the Zerg don't have many AoE weapons to deal with clusters of units does.

[Aldrius]

But the fact that the Zerg don't have many AoE weapons to deal with clusters of units does.

What's your point, though? The Infestor already has Fungal Growth.

Anyway, what the Infestor lacks is a spell that's good against larger units right now.

An AoE mind-control that works against biological targets would just be cast onmost of the same targets that Fungal Growth are good against. They're both good against Ultralisks even.

Sorry, I'm not big on massive unit similarities between units of different races. Just because the high templar has an anti small and and anti massive unit ability does not mean the infestor needs those.

That's not what I said. I was just using the High Templar as an example. Not trying to imply that all the races should be equal or the same. Having two spells that serve mostly the same purpose against the same targets is counter-intuitive.

[Baneling]

But the fact that the Zerg don't have many AoE weapons to deal with clusters of units does.

Which is why I had initially suggested that neural parasite be AOE. This new version I suggested could be as well.

And remember my updated version did damage over time to units it could not control.

[Visions of Khas]

AoE Parasite? Hm, that might be pretty devastating, even if limited to infantry. I like it.

[SinsWage]

Yea that's a neat idea if it could be correctly balanced.

[Kimera757]

I don't see much point of an AoE parasite. While people might think it's too similar to the high templar, I think giving the infestor varied options is just good game design.

I'd rather see Neural Parasite be made more powerful and more useful against single expensive units like the thor.