This time, I tweaked on 2 things
No Upgrades were applied, only researches
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjOJSzr5vLg&feature=youtu.be
1. Zagara’s Baneling barrage (Hunter Killer ability was no used)
Enabled all Baneling upgrades on Baneling barrage
Centrifugal hooks increases range by +2
2. Zagara’s Infested Drop
Drop targets sky
Drop deal 75 damage (owing that there are two Roaches)
Drop Deal +50 damage to structures
Roaches are now Corpsers
Roaches now last for 45 seconds
Roach bonus are not applied on Roachlings
The result was staggering. 1. Zagara’s Baneling barrage Conclusion
as i have expected Zagara becomes far more deadlier than before, Roaches are killed in 2 hit and Ultralisks are finished in 5 shots with 1 to spare.
Personally, I am very satisfied and excited with this result and for a long time I thought it was strange why Zagara’s ability didn’t get the research even though they are same banelings but I understand why people don’t like this idea.
Zagara would gain greater destructive capability than Kerrigan’s Psionic shift with just 25 energy. And this video just proved it.
2. Zagara’s Infested Drop Conclusion
This improvement I personally think it has to be implemented (with some adjustments).
I find this ability strangely underwhelming compared to fury, because it didn’t have much destructive protential (Fury affects all allied units and have far greater potential).
I also find it strange why the drop pod still deals 50 damage when 2 roaches are inside the drop pod.
I also added Corpsers because lot of people (espeically in chatrooms) were asking for it, so I made one.
Their capability in my opinion is now as potent as Mengsk’s Dogs of War in 75~100.
So I can leave Zagara’s Baneling Barrage as it is, but I propose we can make some of my improvement for the Infested Drop.
Except they aren’t? Baneling barrage uses green banelings, while zerglings morph into purple ones.
I assume you mean banelings, not roaches
Edit: oh I understand now. Put a period there.
And that’s a good thing… how?
Because the whole point of it is to be used WITH frenzy. If you’re attacking a base as zagara+army, you’re either going to cast frenzy, if roaches are on cooldown, or cast roaches THEN frenzy. I don’t mind the changes, but it seems like this would scale a bit much when you throw them in with super frenzy mastery.
They are still banelings. And technically they are the same thing until Larvae-born Banelings become Splitterlings
I miscalculated, they are 110 (190 structure) damage = 80 (inc. Corrosive Acid) + 30 (mastery)
That’s a good thing its because its very powerful (personally I like it) but it is IMBA and I understand why people didn’t liked this idea. When I put it into practice, it does show.
I can let this improvement not be implemented though.
About Infested Drops, there are lot of things I personally really like and I strongly recommend, one of them is damage increase (due to 2 Roaches in a drop) and able to damage air.
We can take off Corpser Strains and Extra structural damage off the list.
I personally think All in Frenzy is better but it really depends on the partner commander.
The mastery really shines when you are partnered with commanders who has commands fast and numerous rush units like Raynor, Artanis, Kerrigan, Vorazun, Han Horner, Stettman, Fenix, Megnsk (?). More unit the explosive the result.
Allowing a bit air damage upon pod dropping is good.
Maybe the change was a bit much in terms of the overall damage. That one group literally died in its entirety due to pod drop damage. It seems way too OP. Aberration has high HP and dying straight to just the drop seems excessive.
You already mentioned in OP but yeah that Baneling change is unnecessary.
So, the total damage would be 750 without mastery, 1200 damage with full mastery.
To be truthful, I wanted to increase the pod number from 10 to 20 pods and have them each deal 50 damage but I couldn’t find a way to increase the number of the pod so I had to stick with 10 pods.
I actually the intended Pod damage was 100.
It was 100 because a pod contained 2 Roaches so naturally it was double the 50 damage I judged it was too OP so I only increased them to 75 damage.
Back then I activated the vision and paused the AI to stand still to show maximum damage it could do, that is why I could have eliminate a wave so easily. I’m sure they would be more harder to hit at actual battle.
With them being able to move, move more scattered and requires vision to accurately hit (aiming with mini map alone would be hard to pin point).
The Baneling upgrades don’t apply because of how OP it would be it they did. Your video proved exactly that; it can quite easily kill 2 Ultralisks and then some.
It’s no different to the video you did where Kerrigan wiped out a forward base with little to no effort with a 30% buff to her abilities.
Keep in mind that Baneling Barrage only costs 25 energy and has a 10 second cooldown. It’s makes no sense for a spell that has low requirements to be able to do such massive amounts of damage.
The infestation occurs as a result of the Zerg “infestation”, this leads to humans being infected and is known as “the infested”. The terms does get confusing but technically it makes sense, at least for me.
But yeah, I’d keep their damage as they are now but just enable air damage upon drop as an additional change. It makes sense that a space dropped pod, which goes through air… damages air units. Outside of that, I feel the damage of the drop pod is already pretty good as they are now.
There is already an entire mastery devoted to the Infested Drop ability, buffing roach life and damage. I feel like it would be a cool change to swap the dropped roach to a different strain (or even multiple strains). This would already drastically increase their power level without the initial damage impact boost. However, outside of that I don’t think it’s needed.
IMO Zagara’s other abilities have room for improvement.
Let’s say I want to increase Hunter Killer’s timer by 10 seconds whenever there are not more than 35 Zagara’s units near Zagara… Which validator should I look for? Or is it not validator?
The increased damage is only part of the equation.
Good spell / ability designs adhere to a “budget” that should prevent them from becoming OP. If an ability can be used frequently, it typically does relatively low damage. If an ability does massive damage, it would be restricted by a long cooldown or some other high cost. Baneling Barrage is somewhere in between. Abilities cannot have everything hence the trade offs.
I’ll note that when I consider to change an ability or unit in general.
What is your opinion about the Drop?
Hopefully man, hopefully.
I’m not sure. best you can do is compare with other units that may have similar ability, behaviour or effect and take note of it. That’s what I did when I tried to apply moving regen for Mutalisks.
Seen your shown tell videos again.
Yeahp I think lot of agree applying them Baneling upgrades into Zagara’s Baneling is to IMBA, Cybernetic is right in one regard, trade offs must be in balance to make a good ability.
Gotta love Roach Drops especially how it can tear air units apart. Though but they are maybe too powerful.
Seeing how the Drop tore Explosive zerg apart was awesome but admittedl too op
Just roll them damage back to 50 and maybe you can allow extra +25 to structures like you said.
I like how your replaced Corpser Roach with ordinary roach! It really fits its name as “Roach infestation” (courtesy of Cerebrate.)
Not to be nitpicking at the devs team but her Roach drop pod in their entirety is either weird or out of place.
There is absolutely no connection between Zagara and Roaches in the lore. She got that ability from a non-canon game that is not even in the franchise that is heroes of the storm.
As Fearr explained i kind of giving in to the the whole Zerg infestation thingy but we know infestation mostly from infestor or from human being turned into Zergs. The Roach itself isn’t even permanent to be called an infestation. If i have an ability called infested drop i would expect it to have some kind of infesting. The Corpser is the first thing i would think when it comes to any kind of roach. Here we don’t even have a temporary creep spread.
Beside, If we go with the Zerg infestation, Zag got all other kind of units that would be a more iconic infested drop. I would rather having 20 Zerglings and 5 Aberration instead of the Roach. The mastery itself is sh*t by itself already, changing it to something else would be better. Especially for a inflexible Commander like Zag, having a more specialised or more generalised ability would help her greatly not some half-baked unrelated weird wordplay.
The ability upgraded version is even worse. Darken the skies? The heck man. You increase the number of roaches in each pod and it’s not like the roaches are flying. The only thing flying is the pod. What darkens? What sky? Are you out of your mind or out of name? If so many thing are flying, i would expect some forms of aerial accident but you don’t even damage air Units.
Seriously, this is the worst thing, even worse than Karax’s interceptor cost 15 mineral.
What i would really want to see to change in this ages-old Roach weirdo thing is something proper.
If i have to say what I would want
_ creep turmoil coming out of each pod
_ the darken skies upgrade increase the drop pod instead of units inside. May be 15, I don’t know. I rather have 15 units in 15 pods than 20 units in 10. Those units are trash anyway and they don’t live long either.
_ darken skies damage air units.
_ mastery change: each pod have 2-60% chance of giving double the units. Damage increase by 2-60%.
I also didn’t get why Roaches are there in the Infested Drop.
I thought maybe, they were meant to have Corpser Strain but changed during the development.
Abathur has some of Corpser trait with “Inject locust” talent.
Hmm, seems appropriate since Drop pod can spill creep in Campaigns.
Her drops are OK but bit incomplete. I hoped that my tweaking helped in that aspect.
They used to have this, but they got rid of this thank god.
So you agree with Infested Drop changes in some aspect?
_ Creep spread Sounds fair, It would be better for it to spawn creep tumour as well.
_ I tried to increase the number of the pods (20 pods for me) but I couldn’t find it.
Let’s stay with 20 Corpser Strain Roaches.
_ Already have it covered, Drop pod can now damage air units
_ Minimum of 18 units to Maximum of 30 Units sounds a lot even with the Ordinary Roach.
_ In my version, their life span is increased to 45 seconds. Maybe Roach Lifespan can also benefit from mastery? (48 seconds)