Heart of the Swarm is still a work-in-progress as they make sure to say before each battle report they release, but from the ZvP and ZvT matches we've seen so far it looks semi-solidified the way it is currently. So what are your thoughts on this expansion?
Personally, the five things that I think are just a little ridiculous are...
- Ultralisk burrow-charge. I mean... Really? Ultras + fungals can engage well enough as it is, you don't really /need/ the burrow-charge and I think it overpowers them slightly
- Swarm host's locusts attack air as well as ground. This seems a little silly to me as well - why aren't they like beefier broodlings instead?
- Oracle... 'Pre-ordain' grants vision of anywhere on the map, like a scan. But isn't the point of protoss that they have to use observers while terran gets scans? It just seems unnecessary. Also, 'Entomb' has a much lower energy cost than it should and disrupts the economy too much, I feel.
- Tempest... With a maximum upgraded range of 20... And the ability to deal a lot of damage per shot to air and ground. Well. So much for mass void rays, I suppose, but this does seem a little much. 20 range is just under double that of a siege tank, and is over double that of a viking's air attack.
- Widow mine. This thing can attack air units as well as ground units? And it can be produced two at a time from a reactored factory... And it has a rather large range with what it can latch onto. Terran might benefit from a way to get control of zones easily, I suppose, but I don't think this is the solution for it - mutalisk harass can be shut down by this completely, for example, which seems about as silly as locusts shooting up. Spidermines played a large role in Broodwar, and I'm happy to see a mine unit making a resurgence, but one that hits air units as well with AoE is a little overpowered, in my opinion.
The rest of the units seem decent, although there are a few minor things (like how /quickly/ reapers regen their hp... It goes like a toss' shields, lol), and the rest of the changes seem fairly good to me. The Viper's 'Abduct' ability could potentially be quite overpowered, but then vipers cost a lot to create and take a lot of energy for the spell, so I'm of two minds on that one.
But yeah, what do you guys think?
Personally, the five things that I think are just a little ridiculous are...
- Ultralisk burrow-charge. I mean... Really? Ultras + fungals can engage well enough as it is, you don't really /need/ the burrow-charge and I think it overpowers them slightly
- Swarm host's locusts attack air as well as ground. This seems a little silly to me as well - why aren't they like beefier broodlings instead?
- Oracle... 'Pre-ordain' grants vision of anywhere on the map, like a scan. But isn't the point of protoss that they have to use observers while terran gets scans? It just seems unnecessary. Also, 'Entomb' has a much lower energy cost than it should and disrupts the economy too much, I feel.
- Tempest... With a maximum upgraded range of 20... And the ability to deal a lot of damage per shot to air and ground. Well. So much for mass void rays, I suppose, but this does seem a little much. 20 range is just under double that of a siege tank, and is over double that of a viking's air attack.
- Widow mine. This thing can attack air units as well as ground units? And it can be produced two at a time from a reactored factory... And it has a rather large range with what it can latch onto. Terran might benefit from a way to get control of zones easily, I suppose, but I don't think this is the solution for it - mutalisk harass can be shut down by this completely, for example, which seems about as silly as locusts shooting up. Spidermines played a large role in Broodwar, and I'm happy to see a mine unit making a resurgence, but one that hits air units as well with AoE is a little overpowered, in my opinion.
The rest of the units seem decent, although there are a few minor things (like how /quickly/ reapers regen their hp... It goes like a toss' shields, lol), and the rest of the changes seem fairly good to me. The Viper's 'Abduct' ability could potentially be quite overpowered, but then vipers cost a lot to create and take a lot of energy for the spell, so I'm of two minds on that one.
But yeah, what do you guys think?