Fungal should only slow, not do damage. Give it the AAM treatment

Fungal Growth should be a debuff spell only, similar to the treatment AAM got.

Zerg already has Vipers for dealing with clusters of air units, Fungal combined with Parasitic Bomb makes fighting against Zerg late game in the air suicide unless you have nothing but T3 capitol ships since they have enough HP to survive PB+FG. Infestors also have infested Terrans which are great for AA.

The damage on Fungal Growth should also be removed so fighting late game Infestor-BL+base defense zerg is more manageable. Fungal would still be a very powerful debuff spell but now facing late game Zerg wouldn’t be as hard as it is since chain-fungals would be gone. Allowing you to keep units alive enough to get in range or stay in range of the broodlords.

Removing the damage on Fungal helps a wide variety of units. It helps vikings, stalkers, carriers(interceptors), voidrays, phoenix, mutalisk, etc

Fungal Growth without damage would be similar to BW’s Ensnare or Maelstrom.

31 Likes

Removing the damage on Fungal helps a wide variety of units. It helps vikings, stalkers, carriers(interceptors), voidrays, phoenix, mutalisk, etc

No mention of bio, of course.

10 Likes

Honestly your logic is sound zerg has more than enough anti air tools and it makes no sense for them to have fungal and parasitic bomb. Also chain fungaling damage feels very cheap in game.

4 Likes

I disagree. Terran already has the tools to deal with Infestors and Vipers, and I believe Protoss too. Come on, only 2 Zergs made it to the Round of 8, and 1 to the semifinals of GSL Code S. I’m unsure if that’s good indicator of balance, but I like the dynamic Infestors have with bio, regarding fungal, Ultralisks and stuff. It allows you to play with Infestors without being too reliant on Ultralisks or whatever.

11 Likes

I disagree. Terran already has the tools to deal with Infestors and Vipers, and I believe Protoss too. Come on, only 2 Zergs made it to the Round of 8, and 1 to the semifinals of GSL Code S. I’m unsure if that’s good indicator of balance, but I like the dynamic Infestors have with bio, regarding fungal, Ultralisks and stuff. It allows you to play with Infestors without being too reliant on Ultralisks or whatever.

A big reason why Protoss is doing so many strong 2 base all-ins(not just because of the power of the WP) in PvZ is that many protoss feel late game PvZ is extremely hard to play after a certain point(This goes back to how Protoss late game in the form of carriers and HT’s got toned down but Zerg late game did not). This goes back to the Infestor again since frequently in both PvZ and TvZ late game Zergs will build the “death comp” consisting of several broodlords, corruptors and a bunch of infestors. With some vipers or queens mixed in for good measure.

Protoss has 1 AOE killing spell, Storm.

Terran has 0 AOE killing spells.

Zerg has 2 AOE killing spells, PB and Fungal.

Fungal should be made into a AOE debuff spell, leaving PB to be Zerg’s AOE killing spell.

6 Likes

I’m just glad the forum balance experts are always on duty so I know what StarCraft should of been.

12 Likes

It’s always been very cheap going back to the rooting days of the spell. Since not only does it stop other player from moving his units, but it also damages and can kill the other players units. The more infestors you have, the more Fungal you can do.

For all the whining about Storm, Storm doesn’t also slow your units as it damages you.

The reason why Infestor-BL has always been so strong and frustrating to play against goes directly back to Fungal Growth doing damage. Since not only are you dying to the broodlings that are blocking your unit pathing on the ground, but you are also dying to Fungal which also stops you from getting close. If you try to fight off the Broodlords or Corruptors or pick off the Vipers from the air you just get chain fungal to death.

Debuff spells should not also do damage.

Timewarp(debuff spell, slow) doesn’t do damage.

AAM(debuff spell, reduced armor) no longer does damage.

If the balance team is reading this, keep with the theme when it comes to Fungal(debuff spell, slow).

4 Likes

Widow mines and tanks do plenty of area damage but Terrans have nothing good according to them. Give a Zerg unit Siege mode right. I want a unit I can Siege on high ground and wipe out an invading army. Make Widow Mines just blow up once and die for racial equality.

Terran should have everything equal to other races but the other races can’t have anything Terran. Let me burrow all my buildings and stall out the game like Terrans can when they float buildings. Protoss buildings should be able to warp to other places on the map as well. We want everything equal right?

Queens should auto heal like medivacs. ECT ECT.

Wait wait, my broodlord has zero abilities but BC has tactical jump and a cannon! We need to balance Brood Lord’s by dreaming up 2 energy abilities and making it available at 5 mins for racial equality right.

The Zerg Terran and Protoss should all be the same because who wants a game with variety!

8 Likes

Yeah considering the last pro results, what we need to talk about right now is definitely Zerg nerfs.

Please post the replay where you lost to Infestors.

5 Likes

Protoss recent streak of GSL domination is because of two things:

  1. Strength of the warp prism.

  2. Late game Zerg in PvZ being progressively harder to fight as the infestor count goes up because of the chain fungal damage that is possible. This encourages ending the game early to avoid late game.

Also many Pro players are talking about both sides of the ZvP story right now.

Every single debuff spell that has also done damage has been shown to be broken or not a good gameplay experience both as a player or a spectator.

Fungal when it was root because of the chain damage.

AAM when it did damage.

Current Fungal as a slow because of the chain damage.

Massing spellcasters to spam debuff spells that also do damage is bad for gameplay.

-> Protoss is overperforming
-> As a response to this, Zerg needs to be nerfed

#logic

14 Likes

Protoss PvZ 2 base all-ins are stronger because of the warp prism pick up range.

Protoss is doing more 2 base all-ins in PVZ to avoid facing the infestor-BL deathball in late game PvZ. That deathball is strong because of mass infestor chain fungal.

Also AOE debuff spells should not also deal damage. It promotes mass spellcaster play, AOE spell spam and boring gameplay for both the players and the viewers.

So both the WP needs to be nerfed somehow(likely the pick up range) and Fungal Growth needs to be nerfed by removing the damage.

I really don’t understand why this needs to be repeated, but people do all-ins and other early game things like that because they win games. That’s really all there is to it. Especially at the professional level, the most commonly used strategies will be the most successful ones. It doesn’t matter if the late game is made easier if the early game cheeses are still strong.

4 Likes

That’s why we see so many spores in late game when air is involved.

1 Like

You see that to deal with the interceptors if they go carriers. You fungal the interceptors and the spores do the rest.

Also Zerg can just use NP or Abduct and take the other players air units into the spores to kill them.

What I mean is that Zerg requires to add static deffence to the army to actually fight the opponent army and have the line to withdraw to without dying. In both ZvP and ZvT late game. It means the actual Z army is weaker (Z wins be means of better late game production). And you want to make it even weaker.

1 Like

Zergs build extra static D because it’s a great mineral dump that also helps in combat. If the enemy doesn’t have any siege range units that can kill the spores or what’s being protected by the spores you can just spore push across the map.

Spamming AOE debuff spells that also do damage is bad gameplay and bad balance design. This has been shown with AAM and the previous iteration of Fungal.

Zerg has Vipers and Infestors(even with the damage removed on fungal) as strong spellcasters with strong spells for the late game.

Protoss late troubles in PvZ has nothing to do with Fungal (that has been there a long time before), and WP range the same has been around for years. Balance of forces changed recently and the reason is that the soft/hard counter that kept the Viper/Infestors in check (both energetically and numerically) is no more…

Take the simple case of an Infestor, Carrier and HT.
Before the Infestor NP’ed the Carrier and died immediately (releasing the Carrier) to the FB (Infestor remaining energy 100 > 90HP), now that it is not the case…
MyOh tries to make a bad situation worst (it will ruin further the ZvT) by inventing things, just to obfuscate the real issue at hand.

You are not wrong Kelt, however another reason why players will frequently do a 2 base timing is to kill the enemy before they get to the late game because they don’t want to play a long late game macro game against that particular race.

So while yes PvZ Protoss 2 base all-ins are strong right now(because of the warp prism specifically), it’s only half of the story that everyone is focusing on and the other half is being drowned out by the “Protoss OP, nerf Protoss”.