To keep to my word, I’m beginning plans on an extension mod to test some of the ideas out there to see if they actually work. The main thing I want to test is making Microbial Shroud more like Dark Swarm, in that all ranged attacks against ground targets will miss (melee, spell and splash damage will still connect). However, I’ve found that if only one race has a change, it doesn’t get good coverage.
I haven’t got much for Terrans yet except allowing ground-mode Vikings to be built at Factories (requires Starport).
For Protoss, mainly because it’s my main race, I have a few suggestions, but only want to select one for now:
+25 energy upgrade for Sentries (Cybernetics Core).
+100% Feedback damage upgrade for High Templars (Templar Archives).
Interceptors are fully repaired when they return to the Carrier.
+100% energy regeneration upgrade for Mothership (Fleet Beacon).
Which one would you suggest? And if not the Terran suggestion, what would you propose?
P.S. I actually prefer the name “Microbial Shroud” over “Dark Swarm”, so the name’s staying!
Let me think, I will ediots this post. I need to think a lot. It’s afternoon in china but I feel tired I want to go sleep.
+100% Feedback damage upgrade for High Templars (Templar Archives).
If you do that, Diamond terran will say P IMBA and it’s real IMBA. Because they can’t control their transport plane energy and lose them. They won’t feel good, trust me. 150 energy, boom!!! Your transport plane disappeared. Should give their chance to win by multiline attack. Terran multiline attack needs transport plane. Terran is a multiline attack race. Terran main force army shouldn’t win protoss main force army. Protoss is hard to have main force army unless protoss can defend terran multiline attack.
Interceptors are fully repaired when they return to the Carrier
it’s OK. But I don’t know how to take my interceptors back? a new skill hotkey ? emmmmm. all right. I can try…I can try, I can control Orcale to counter lurkers. So I think one more hotkey is OK.
+25 energy upgrade for Sentries (Cybernetics Core).
how should I use this? Phantom Detect?
+100% energy regeneration upgrade for Mothership (Fleet Beacon).
emmmm, PVZ? I don’t know. I use mothership skill, and it’s good for counter lurkers. PVT? it’s useless because EMP can wipe your mothership energy in 1 second.
To answer your questions… the Feedback damage increase is an upgrade as described here - it’s still 0.5 HP per 1 energy initially, so early drops aren’t affected: [Suggestion] Feedback Upgrade
To recall the interceptors back to the Carrier, you have to pull the Carrier out of range of the current target - a new hotkey so they can do this without moving out of range (and moving the Carrier so they don’t instantly redeploy) is a nice thought though, and might make for some interesting play against Widow Mines.
The +25 Energy Upgrade allows warped-in Sentries to cast Guardian Shield right off the bat, so it is more defensive than anything else, but it might open up some sneaky Hallucination play - more details here: [Suggestion] Sentry Energy Upgrade
And the Mothership energy regeneration allows for more use of Time Warp and Recall, as well as allowing the unit to recover more quickly from EMP and Feedback.
The mod is in progress - for the first iteration, I’m going with the current buffs:
Terran
You can now build Vikings (in walker mode) at the Factory - requires Starport.
Zerg
MIcrobial Shroud causes all incoming ranged attacks to miss. Structures and Massive units under the cloud are not affected and will still get hit (also, ‘spells’, like the Cyclone’s Lock-On and the Widow Mine’s Sentinel Missile, are not counted and will do full damage).
Protoss
Recalling the Interceptors to the parent Carrier will fully heal them (either tell the Carrier to stop or move out of range of the target).
The mod isn’t ready yet because I’m having a few problems. Testing the interceptor heal is pretty difficult because you can’t select the interceptors to see their stats, and my first iteration ended up healing the Carrier instead! Fixed that one, but still need to double-check some things.
Microbial Shroud is proving more difficult because even if you set the incoming damage to zero, units will still take fractional damage over time. Splash damage also behaves strangely in that the target unit only receives fractional damage, but nearby units will receive unmodified splash damage. My intended behaviour is that regular ranged attacks miss completely and do zero damage, while splash damage, while technically missing the target unit, will still do the full splash damage to it. Still figuring it all out - I’ll get there! I’m trying to study the functionality of Zeratul’s Shieldguard unit from Co-op to see if it can be repurposed.
Other notes… building Vikings at the Factory may make it too easy for Terran to get anti-air out, although doing so cuts into production of other mech units, especially Widow Mines or Siege Tanks. Currently, Microbial Shroud still costs 75 energy, but given the utility of the ability, that might be too cheap and need increasing to 100 energy (the original cost of Dark Swarm), since it will have a very notable effect against bio (for Terran, only SCVs, Hellions, Hellbats, Siege Tanks, Cyclones (via Lock-On) and Widow Mines will be able to do damage to units in the cloud).
Good job! Take a rest if you are tired. We need you.
Seems like not bad ( I can only say ‘not bad’, if I sad ‘good’ someone would hate me)
I will try more strategy about VS start. Even this change may not apply finally.
Seems like Zerg has the new method to counter my carriers. It’s good. Make this game more fun. I don’t want to F2+A and TTTTT and win in PVZ. A little challenge is nice. ( Maybe I will be beat by zerg again and again but it’s nice. I’d like to try.)
A new problem: How can I counter lurkers when they are under the cloud?Oh…eh…
it’s good. If my carriers is stronger, Terran should have more vikings.More capacity is important for Terran.
I don’t know what will happen. I wait your mod, I will try with my friends.
Zerg - Ravagers, Ultralisks (if there aren’t too many Lurkers), Vipers (either to use Blinding Cloud or to Abduct them). I’m not certain what happens with Brood Lords - the Broodling attacks are melee and so aren’t affected, but I’m not sure about the initial impact.
OK, I didn’t see that just now. Seems like not bad. Disruptor is a good unit to counter lurker. Lurker doesn’t move if they are attacking protoss units. Genius! So I must make disruptors rather than use carriers and HTs to F2+A TTTTTTT. Finally, disruptor become useful unit not trash.
I think I will need that rest! Carriers still don’t recall their Interceptors as they should - they keep wanting to attack enemy targets! Working on a way to force the recall.
For Microbial Shroud… it’s a little tacky, and Blizzard can probably do a better job, but the fractional damage from ranged attacks still remains, and in a way it’s beneficial because if you don’t have units that can defeat Microbial Shroud, you can still kill a unit if you focus-fire on it, although it might take some time. Splash-damage units like Siege Tanks have a special exclusion now so they do full damage, but notably, Lurkers will miss when attacking into a Microbial Shroud, so you can theoretically defeat a Lurker under such a cloud with Zerglings (although a good Zerg player will use the Infestor to cast Fungal Growth on said Zerglings).
Also, one thing that is quite nice is that Hydralisks will do full damage if they attack at melee range because they use their talons rather than their needle spines. I need to double-check that the same applies to Roaches and Queens.
I’m just teaching my Terran friends and zerg friends creat a EU service to test it. Good job. And I need some time to teach my friends , don’t be dejected. https://i.imgur.com/wAcrUrA.png
And…maybe my group is too high. Ah~~~after they come back from school tonight. I will ask them again. It’s 9:52 AM in china.
No problem! And it’s not really a balance patch, but any master and grandmaster feedback would be beyond excellent. We can only hope Blizzard pay attention if people like it.