They could always nerf storm.
2 Likes
Microbial Shroud is one of the biggest jokes in the history of Sc2. There are two ways to deal with it:
1) Buff LITERALLY EVERYTHING about it since the spell is useless to the point where it helps your opponent more than you (by providing a giant “place storm here to win game” target.
- Radius
- Duration
- Energy cost
- Damage reduced
- Appearance
- Need for research
- Ability to affect spells
Nothing short of major buffs to literally every single one of those parameters is needed to maybe (just maybe, but that’s stretching it far) turn Microbial Shroud into a spell that can, maybe under the absolute perfect conditions (like your opponent forgetting HTs or other major mistake), possibly give a positive result to Zerg. In its current state, Microbial Shroud is not gonna have any positive effect for Zerg under ANY circumstances.
2) Remove Microbial Shroud from the game. That’s honestly my favourite course of action. Removing Microbial Shroud would be a buff to Zerg because investing ANYTHING in it is absolutely 100% wasted. Whether it’s Infestor energy, research cost and time… or even just the APM of looking at your Infestation Pit, clicking on it then remembering how garbage Microbial Shroud is, ANYTHING put towards that spell doesn’t give anything useful and is absolutely wasted for the rest of the game. Removing the spell should be seriously considered. The game will be simplified. Infestors will essentially remain the same: a two-spell unit (since Shroud will never be used anyways). It will prevent other players the embarrassment of losing a game to Shroud in case the Zerg makes the mistake of teching to it or the embarrassment of the Zerg throwing “manner shrouds” in your base to tell you to leave the game (best use of Microbial Shroud in its current state).
8 Likes
ITs were a band aid fix for zerg having unplayably bad ground based anti air. They were stupid and needed to go a long time ago, but microbial shroud is useless. We need Dark Swarm, plain and simple.
2 Likes
I’d rather see a buff for hydras so Zerg’s midgame wouldn’t be so trash too
2 Likes
Edit: No buff besides making it op would make zerg use it since broodlord, corrupter, viper, and infestor don’t benefit much from its change. ultra ling bane would but that is more risky than going BL, C, V, I.
Not true at all.
Just removing the Hive Tech requirement alone would be great.
3 Likes
I think that will never happen, or at least not to a detrimental effect. The game needs an amount of splash damage to make it interesting / give the game more facets on the battlefield.
– Again, don’t ask me why they got rid of Infested Terrans as a unit. I think it stinks that they aren’t in the game now </3.
Stretch:
I’d rather see a buff for hydras so Zerg’s midgame wouldn’t be so trash too
I think I would probably weigh the pro’s opinions on that one.
I don’t know why balance team is having such a hard time with this, you just bring back dark swarm instead of this chinese knockoff of it.
1 Like
queen/infestor/viper is better vs. voidrays now or at least similar (better survivability)
I can beat 50-60 voidrays with that army comp if it’s on a-move and if they micro a lot, idc. Because the VR dps is less but also takes less splash damage but more single target damage so fine, too.
Dark Swarm would be a “counter the whole Terran” spell in SC2, and is one of the few things from BW that I would never want to see ported over.
Protoss would at least have Zealots, Archons, Dark Templar, Storm, Oracle (it is spell damage) and Disruptor against it; but Terran would just auto-lose, as they do not even have Firebats and Spider Mines anymore.
2 Likes
I don’t believe that shroud was implemented in order to enable zerg to fight mass air with hydras but to make lurkers last longer/be more difficult to be dealt with tempest/carriers/liberator
It does a beyond pathetic job at that. Zerg’s Lurker army can sit in a Shroud and Protoss can straight up A click his air army, go make himself a sandwich and still win. That’s without Disruptors, a super hard counter to a style like that.
Now, if Zerg is smart and doesn’t use Shroud, and instead uses Fungal, Neural and makes some Vipers, then Protoss actually has to be careful… Teching to Shroud is the absolute worst thing to do in the entire game in this situation.
Microbial is so flawed and straight up terrible in every single situation that going for it is a bad mistake literally 100% of the time.
1 Like
So then how would you deal with air units?
3 Likes
fungal,viper,corruptor? There isn’t a single air composition that you can’t deal with if you have better army control than your opponent.
I think you come a bit too hard on the skill, i think it has it’s uses if used offensively like sieging protoss 4th with lurker,hydra,infestor before there is a critical mass of carriers, also i am sure sooner or later we are going to see a timing attack involving shroud.
The “it is a storm there” argument is a bit weak in my opinion since lurkers make quick work of inc templars past upgrade.
Also while disruptor on paper hard counters lurkers, it is a real awkward interaction and quiet tricky to control.
This is the absolute last place to talk about zerg being weak. This place has an extreme anti-zerg bias.
2 Likes
Even though I think this patch was really good this was a pretty meh change. It was basically giving up on balancing the IT. But the worst change was the observer speed nerf, lol.
I am just really thankful we didn’t get the first version of the patch notes. Now that was bad.
Lurkers more or less destroy Protoss ground, and Protoss air cannot compete with Hydralisks at less than half damage.
It should also be pointed out that Microbial Shroud has 2x the radius (4x the area) of Storm; so Protoss has to throw a lot of Storms down to really prevent Zerg from using a shroud.
what would this change?
the problem is, that this spell is designed to counter a single playstyle (mass air). so beside that, there will never be use of it. if you wanna make shroud viable, you have to give it something, so it would be benificial at every stage of the game and especially good against most unit comps. atm, its like out of 10 scenarios, you could use it against one and even in that case, there would be better options (vipers).
the spell is useless, because a) its to damn easy countered and b) it has usage against one certain playstyle. remove hive requirement would change nothing on that. heck, you could remove that upgrade completely and still noone would use it.
1 Like
Late game against Terran libs and Protoss air would be when you need to use it.