( EDIT: Apologies retrospectively. I didn’t see the patch confirmation when I made this post. That changes quite a bit. Also, I see everyone’s comments about the Viper, so I concede that maybe I just think it’s a strong ability. I’ve gone in and tested the ability nerf anyway and it breaks Vipers to near useless, so point taken.
As for the Infestor, thanks for the feed back. I think I saw the changes around late in the day (not observant, my bad) but yeah, seems like that’s a step in the right direction. I guess my concern was something I’d been researching which was how Zerg players, when using infestors are essentially using a macro button on their mouse generally so that the cast functions as a drag tool instead of a click, causing the number of IT to come out to be exponentially more and quicker than an actual click or shift click cast. It’s a minor edge, and I was trying to think of ways to curb the mechanic to make Infestors able to not be as overwhelming. That being said, I am going off of complaints and second hand stories from pros complaining about it and some of my lower rank casual friends not understanding how to react. )
So, Abduct is what I feel is the biggest issue when it comes to late game Zv(T/P).
So a couple of changes that would help that meta, while keeping Viper Viable:
Abduct cannot pull Massive Units.
This would nerf Viper significantly, so it would need to be a trade off. Making Parasitic bomb stronger might help curb this, along with making Blinding cloud cheaper.
Viper supply increased. Logic behind this is simple, less vipers, less abducts. I’m not sure of the math, but I feel like this would need to be combined with a corruptor buff of some sort to make it balanced and not totally kill off vipers.
Abduct range decreased, Parasitic bomb range increased. A trade off, making Vipers more vonurable for their best move, while safer for helping whittle down air units HP.
As for the Infestor:
Infested Terrans life span cut in half. This would be a drastic change that would primarily function to redefine them as a reactionary spell or extra damage during a push. In exchange I’d propose that burrow speed and unburrow speed be be increased for the Infestor. This would on theory give players more opportunity to stealth fungal with some more efficiency at higher levels, while the mid to lower level play isn’t bombarded with late game infested Terrans destroying a Terran or Protoss fleet.
Option 2: Infested Terran has a burst cast of 3 Infested Terrans, with a 1.25 sec cool down before it can be cast again from the infestor(This does not remove energy cost). This might be a bit of a larger nerf, but it would also help ween off reliance of infested Terran as part of the main army and it really would need to be fine tuned and tested though and through before implemented.
Again, this would help keep the infested Terran manageable if you’ve out played your opponent to that point. If he has 6 infestors you’ll get a batch of infested Terrans but it acts like a buffer rather than a ful fledged army, allowing for retreat, or if your dps is good enough, to remove them before the next batch is ready.
Lastly, the other idea I’d like to throw out is increase incubation time, but increase egg armor to 5 (Ajustable number). This means if your stick around, you’re going to have to deal with those infested Terrans in full force, or give the opponent counter play opportunities. This in junction with Abducts, fungals, or pincer attacks would help not invalidate the infested Terrans, but this could open up a lot of mineral harassment with Infestor hit squads. This also would be a huge nerf in combat, but it would have the potential issue of relegating them to phenomenal harassment units, which is not something I’d want per say, but longer incubation would mean they’d have to be in plain sight for much longer, allowing you to move your probes/SCVs.
I know these are superficial suggestions that would require testing, but I’d be curious what the community as a whole would think of these changes, or which changes combined could help curb two very powerful casters to be efficient, but not over powering at lower or higher levels? Again, not saying these are the only changes that are acceptable, but I think that Abduct and Infested Terran really hurt late game in Zv(P/T) and I’d like to see that meta see more variety in late game units from all sides feel as powerful as they are.
Feedback is appreciated! Working on Swarm Host changes as well.
Intent is to keep the gameplay as true to their intended design while keeping more options available for counter play.
