[nirvAnA]

What are your first impressions of HoTS?

Here are mine after about 10 games. They are likely to change a ton the more I play and it will be interesting to see how wrong i am now in a few days time haha!

Terran
warhound seriously op vs mechanical and in TvT.
terran battle hellion mode is good coz makes mech builds so much more flexible
spidermine bad way too expensive for what it does i rather have half a warhound!

Zerg
swarm host op, like infinity infested terrans and they even have a +10 second life upgrade lol!! the dps is way too high now.
defiler op, good bye any big unit! dunno how they gonna balance this mechanic. even with mothership recall frequency too low.

protoss
mothership core is ok
science vessel thing bad it needs a weak air to air attack at least like corsair
tempest bad is like a siege tank but worse and more exp and needs tier 3

so basically zerg got buffed hardcore, dont see how protoss can go collosi anymore lol. terran is really strong vs p cause of warhound. and P well axeltoss the root caster (his name so familar i had to google it to find out!) tried to do something cute with the tempest and vision to kill my hatch from far away.. i thought it was genius then i looked at my hatch life it wasnt even 20% dead at the end lol.

im playing random so trying to stay as impartial as possible!

Quick Comments

	TAEdgE:	no matter how hard i try my vipers die so easily still, the squishyness is the downfull (trade 600 gas for 2 collosus)
	x5.Revenant:	2 colossi should clear a locust wave
	Neblime:	You mean Widow mines, Vipers and mothership core, not spidermine defiler and sci vessel, right?

[TAEdgE]

Well going off the way you structured your list:

Terran
Warhound is incredible strong. It's amazing in TvT, and destroys face. It is amazing in TvP and destroys everything ever very cost efficiently, and vs Zerg it's ok. It's not bad, i lost to a pure warhound play and it can destroy 3-3 roach with it's own 3-3 pretty well, although i was hydra heavy .
terran battle hellion is great, particularly vs zerg. I vsed the modern Hellion/Shee opening and the battle mode hellions slapped my queens around, so i go roach/queen openings now and they cover the 1 base gimmicky things terrans do. TvP they are very nice if positioned properly, and TvT i haven't seen the most use for them yet. They are fearsome in mineral lines though
Widow mine is great but very hard to use properly or at least understand the proper use. I don't think it's bad, i think it's got great potential but if not used properly or countered correctly it sort of just always takes 1 unit with it.

*Haven't seen reapers yet, very sad about this. I haven't personally used them because i've been so mech minded, maybe might give it a go tomorrow!

Zerg
Swarm Host - At first i thought it was a bit average, but now i'm focusing builds and timings around it and it is so incredibly strong. /shamless brag time but i just beat whitera simply because 2 pronged attacks with swarm hosts just obliterating anything that tries to sit on top of them to snipe them. So, amazing ZvP, strong ZvT and potential ZvZ (haven't had many ZvZ)
Viper is good, binding cloud is a bit underwhelming at the moment mainly because no one goes bio and i haven't got many ZvZ, but abduct is the funnest thing ever and they look awesome. I had an amazing comeback game vs mech with Hydralisk/Viper and abducting tanks and forcing them to switch up composition, but it's hard to counter it with a single unit (although viper's are a bit squishy, a few vikings does take out them each fight and they take a LOT of gas). Also, so strong vs protoss Air and collosus. Hive tech is a fair way away for it on paper but you can get them quite fast

UPGRADES:
Ultralisk Burrow charge - haven't been able to use it vs a person but it seems very very strong, and also at times can **** up. I think it's so strong though for push breaking and will only be abused as the game evolves.
Hydralisk Speed - My life long dream was to use Hydralisks with a speed upgrade again after WoL took my baby from me. I am so unbelievable happy that Hydralisks are ACTUALLY USEFUL. You can use them vs Mech, you can use them vs Protoss at around 12 minutes on and in ZvZ i'm sure they are going to be awesome there with the speed boost. Besides being a glass cannon that had no speed or survivability, it didn't synergize with anything in WoL with anything really. In HotS, it combined with Swarm Hosts so well because you can use their range to protect the swarm hosts as they destroy (this legit works, wasn't just a battle report thing). Yeh, Hydra/Viper is the best thing in the world when mixed with lings or swarm hosts. Abducted tanks/collosus/archons/thors get melted.. sniping expo's, and actually splitting hydras! I think that binding cloud + hydra + something vs Bio will be viable too, as hydra range allows them to survive them much longer since binding cloud will restrict attacks.

Protoss
mothership core is awesome. Love extra-chrono gate pushes and re-energizing sentries for defence or my oracles to entomb, and recall pushes are awesome as you save armies that are assured to die. Purify is also stronk defence, i like it overall!
science vessel thing is good, entomb is strong and the vision spell is helpful for composition sniping PvT and PvP, and the scan helps you not go robo. It is very expensive though and so light on health, it needs a health buff badly. It's a fast little bugger though, i think it has it's place!
Tempest is unfortunantly the worst thing. Aside from 2 awesome PvP's i won with void/tempest, i coulda also won the same games with void/carrier if carriers got a bit of help or WoL had the mothership core to strengthen early/mid game PvP.


MAPS:

Like them for blizzard maps actually. Having fun on them, and i especially love the Ice maps because i love Ice terrain very much.

RANDOM THINGS:

Noobified settings are alright, will only help more people play the game. Also, little things like:

- The queen attack being the same as before until a unit is 4 range away
- Where you select a unit to go staying when you select the unit (i.e like how you see your rally point, you see the inital click if you don't queue)
- Purple for a zerg building about to start
- Auto Split making up for laggy starts (helpful on other setups!)
- Creep tumor animation
- Infested Terran egg appearance change
- On higher graphics, units seem to splash out. At least when Spider played a ZvZ, a baneling made the lings splatter around after they died.

^ Are just cool. I love little things.

Quick Comments

Dox:

yeah the new physics are amazing!

[Dox]

I did a VOD of one of my ZvT's with a heavy emphasis on the Swarm Host & Viper - I gotta say, the Viper has really impressed me. It's going to change ZvT forever.

You Tube

You Tube

Gonna be doing more of these VOD's each day, if I can find the time.

I agree that the Warhound is ridiculous. I've experimented with various TvT/TvP timings and none of them have failed yet. I've done 3 rax + 1 fac Marine/Hound/SCV all-in's off 1 base, and I've done 1 rax FE into 3 fac Marine/Marauder/Hound and it always wins. I haven't been able to win Bio vs Mech once yet, but deth assures me that Tank/Marine still beats Mech when too many Warhounds are used.

The Battle Hellion is a true beacon of genius amongst all the new units. It's about as perfect as it gets. Suddenly Terran has a late game response to Zealots and Zerglings become much easier to manage. Frighteningly enough, I went Charge Ultras/Infestors/Hydras with 2-3 upgrades and lost to 0-1 Battle Hellion / Warhound. Even though their specialty is vs Mechanical, the Warhounds currently shine in every matchup. They'll be the first nerf.

Swarm Host really shines in ZvP, especially if they open with any sort of economic/greedy expand build. (ie. FFE or fast 3rd on that desert map ala Entombed) The constant pressure forces them to decide between trading units for essentially nothing, or exposing their front wall. As most people don't know how to respond in this scenario, we're seeing a lot of panic decisions and people throwing armies away to try and kill the Hosts. I don't think they're overpowered at this stage, people just need time to figure them out and come up with the right builds. People are still using WoL builds and not incorporating new concepts to counter them with. I don't know if the Swarm Host will be used much in ZvZ, I feel like they'll expose you to the same vulnerabilities as Muta play - your opponent will just make a billion Roaches and steamroll your base.

Widow Mines are cool. I don't think they need much tuning. Maybe a movement speed reduction, or range reduction, sight reduction, I dunno. They're difficult to control efficiently (ie shift queue + burrow as you would Banelings) so you don't really get to see them shine at the moment. Most people are just moving them in a ball and mass burrowing inside the opponents army during battles. Nothing spectacular.

Ultralisk charge is very underwhelming. It's awkward and clunky. There's no autocast feature, it does no damage, and more often than not, it spreads out your opponents army, reducing the effectiveness of Cleave. The cooldown timer is currently not functional either, so there's no way of knowing when it's off cooldown (30s) unless you just spam the hotkey. Having said that, I've only used it against Mech and Protoss deathball. Could be good against Bio. Unfortunately there's no reason to use Ultras vs Bio because Vipers are just so damn good.

Oracle is... kinda useless. Due to the strength of the Warhound and expensive gas investment, it's hard to justify these until you're at that point in your build where you've safely established your 2nd base and you're ready to rock. Throwing 200 gas into one of these guys with any sort of 3-gate opener is hard to justify. Preordain is BRILLIANT in PvT, and may very well replace the Observer entirely. Not only does it allow you to see a HUGE area around the targeted structure (bigger than Scan), but it allows you to see what unit/research is currently in production. Very cool for keeping tabs on a Terran and knowing when he's gonna move out. Entomb (mineral lock) kinda sucks. Even if you have nothing around to clean up your mineral line, workers handle it pretty quickly. Due to the fragile nature of the Oracle (pretty sure it dies in 4 hits to almost everything in the game) you rarely get in-and-out with more than 2 Entombs before your opponent finds a way to snipe the Oracle. Oddly enough, having 2-3 of these on the map in mid-late game scenarios tends to be more valuable than the early game, allowing you to chain-entomb multiples bases every single time you have enough energy. Their scan needs a larger radius. At the moment it's about the width of a Nexus, meaning if your opponent hits you with two Cloaked Banshees and spreads them apart, you have to choose which one you want to scan. I dare say this ability should be FREE and simply have a cooldown equivalent to the amount of time it would take to generate 50 energy. Because at this stage, it's a kick in the balls to have to waste limited Oracle energy on a scan when you want to be using their more valuable spells elsewhere.

The Tempest is great. A lot of people are whinging about them and saying they suck, but they're trying to rush to them on 2 bases and all sorts of awkward rubbish. You need to play the game out naturally, and have these in the back of your mind as your end-target, kinda like how Zerg inevitably ends up with Broods Lords in the later stages of almost every matchup. With 3-4 bases, you can support Tempest production from 3 Stargates, and when combined with Preordain + Recall, you can have these guys flying all around the map, harassing your opponents base + expansions from the safety of dead air, ready to recall them home if reinforcements are necessary. These guys are the perfect siege unit, truly punishing your opponent if they can't decide whether or not to commit to engagement. The 22 range is not very "spectator friendly" though, and I won't be surprised if they remove it. It's a cool gimmick, but it doesn't fit within the traditional Blizzard design.

Mothership Core. Only ever use it for Recalls, sadly. Energise has potential I guess if you keep an Oracle active/alive long enough to benefit. I dunno. That's the only unit I can really see myself using it on. Energising a single Templar would be a bit weird.

Reaper heal is really cool. They only need about 10 seconds out of combat to heal to full. Assaulting with 2-3 and keeping them live can be a huge pain in the ass to your opponent.

That's all I can really think of!

So far Protoss has changed the least. Deathball is still really common in PvZ. The only way I beat Warhounds in PvT is staying alive long enough (ie. use Void Rays & Forcefield ramp spam) to get Chargelot/Archon. Archons demolish them. If the opponent gets Battle Hellions, the Chargelots are useless though. It's rough. The Haywire Missile range is retarded too. You gotta keep your sentries WAAAAAAAY back from the ramp, or else they'll get 1 shot. No-one is using the new units in ZvZ yet, but I see potential in the Viper.

EDIT: Summary - HotS is going in a great direction, but some things are due to be removed/replaced/redesigned entirely at this rate. Some things are perfect as they are (Viper/Battle Hellion) and others are out of place.

Quick Comments

	TAEdgE:	my game vs nerchio zvz - Roach/Infestor/Swarm Host vs Muta into Ling/Infestor/Viper then Ultras. amazing fun
	Dingobloo:	Energise your nexus imo.
	mGGDaedalus:	good points but I think swarm host is gonna become the backbone of zvz

[Hydroid]

I'm so jealous right now. ^^ I hope I get to see an e-mail in my inbox soon inviting me to HotS beta.

[ROOT`iaguz]

This screenshot properly describes my experience with HotS

Quick Comments

	Hydroid:	I'm not surprised, warhound seems like a pretty good unit atm.
	IcedTea:	Warhounds, Warhounds everywhere.
	nirvAnA:	LOL!!!!!!
	Pox:	love it
	TABjornbrandr:	The amount of warhounds in this match-up is too damn high!
	TheGentleman:	Looks like PvP a little...
	Montycarlo:	Which mech class? :D

[dippa]

shit reminds me of tvt in the beta when it was all tank/viking

[eCKo`Tazerenix]

WARHOUNDS!!!!

Here is a fantastic idea from the battle.net forums: Make widow mines come from reapers

Widow Mines cost 2 supply and barely do damage (total opposite of the warhound)
Early game - Requires armory and the reactor time spent on the factory is loss towards a more usefully early game battle hellion.
Late game - Too much supply out of late game death ball

Reapers are almost the exact same WoL

How about merge those two useless units and create:
Reaper.. with the techlab research that can enables the reaper to lay down mines (exact variation, 0 supply, 1 mine per reaper[similar to vulture]).
HOWEVER: The research requires a factory.

So you need to get a:
depot->barracks->techlab->build reaper->factory->research mines (TL)

You can use the reaper for early harass (like it always has) and in midgame, it has a purpose. Since reapers are not a deathball unit, the new mine laying reaper is a perfect unit for blizzard's new hots philosophy.

Edit: Mines could be ground only in its current form for balance. (Up for debate)

[Flamga]

I would write up a whole thing but everyone has covered what I think aside from the Mothership Core. It has a decent amount of early game potential I think, more as an OFFENSIVE unit, especially against zerg.

If you build it early enough, you can get it to your opponents base by 8-9 mins (which as you would have it is when about most protoss all-ins occur, or aggressions etc. By this point you have the force of your choice (personally immortal stalker zealot is good with some sentries ) and not only that you can recall into their base, and/or use the attack spell to do a decent amount of damage to cover AND assist your army.

I have used this to success in PvT and PvZ, where agaisnt T I was able to consistently hit my opponents and run into their base, then recall out as well. This allows a recall to the front of their base. You can also recall a warp prism for warp ins as well .

I will keep playing but I like how protoss feel atm

[whiterice]

first overall impression.

a game built for people too lazy to micro, and very noob friendly.

Quick Comments

Dox:

uhhhhhhh?

[Flamga]

Originally Posted by whiterice

first overall impression.

a game built for people too lazy to micro, and very noob friendly.

All the extra "noob freindly" features can be disabled, and honestly better off being disabled as they are as good as actually doing it yourself, IE worker splitting, worker counts etc. You just get an internal clock for that and its just more efficient.

I think props to Blizzard for doing this for newer/casual people, gets them a leg up and allows them to enjy the game more than the mundane mechanics.

[Dox]

Originally Posted by whiterice

first overall impression.

a game built for people too lazy to micro, and very noob friendly.

Care to elaborate?

[AuXCoolpuff]

/sad face :C

[TABjornbrandr]

I haven't played the beta so I'm not going to comment on balance because I'm not retarded.
However, I really can't see why people are complaining about workers automatically being sent to mineral patches and a display for worker saturation. Completely ignoring the fact that you really want around 16 workers on your minerals, not the recommended 24, it really shouldn't have an impact on competitive play.
There's always the argument that people accidentally sending too many workers to gas (looking at you, IdrA) though when you're shitting bricks in the middle of an engagement, you aren't necessarily looking at the x/24 and x/3 display.
Furthermore, workers auto-rallying at the start means nothing. There's a number-crunching thread on TL from ages ago that demonstrates that moving them all to 1 patch is just as money-efficient as splitting them manually. There is literally nothing negative about this addition.
I'd be inclined to think that people who're pissing the bed over these tiny changes are simply looking for a reason to criticise the game. If you are actually going to complain about something, at least jump on the unit balance whinge-train because there's actually a sliver of substance to those arguments.

Quick Comments

Dox:

amen. elitists trying to stroke their pride somehow.

[TADivinity]

Originally Posted by TABjornbrandr

Furthermore, workers auto-rallying at the start means nothing. There's a number-crunching thread on TL from ages ago that demonstrates that moving them all to 1 patch is just as money-efficient as splitting them manually.

I think if anything the auto mine is a bit faster! If not that, it would definitely be even.

Also, its probably more important that you force the first few workers to mine on a patch when they spawn, rather than letting them 'bounce' around between patches (I bloody hate that AI haha. One bumps off, bumps another, bumps another. Stupid ******* drones. :P)

[syfCabracan]

When I play at my parents house I get a weird lag spike for about the first 10 seconds of the game and then after that it's completely fine. Atleast now I'll have been mining in that 10 seconds.

[Another]

has anyone read this?

http://www.reddit.com/r/starcraft/co...toss_a_broken/

I completely agree with him.

200 gas for a harras unit that doesnt do any real damage? it delays mining.... doesnt actually kill anything or do permanent damage. 200 gas. 200 gas is a LOT, especially for protoss.

I think everyone has agreed the tempest sucks, and im 95% sure vortex is gone, and the carrier. what in the name of god is toss to do about late game zerg? anyone found anything new? we already had to rely on gimmicks (archon toilet) or a SUPER late game (upgeraded mass carrier) now theres nothing. A ground army cannont beat maxed infestor brood.

Protoss atm is already all in based, its going to be even more so if there isnt anything to do vs broods.

mothershipcore sounds decent from what people have said, but 150 energy for recall is a lot, thats over 3 minutes, youre going to really struggle with energy control with this

EDIT: appears there is still vortex, i thought they changed it?

either way deciding late game PvZ on whether or not protoss can vortex most of the zergs army or not is horrible, regardless of balance.

Quick Comments

	fray`Alpha:	Been following it on the NA forums and they make some amazing points
	Dingobloo:	Vortex is not gone and mothership core takes 100/100 of the cost + builds energy before the mothership is out.
	FSDele:	Vortex is not gone. You obviously aren't in the beta, so should be quiet.

[ThatGuyDoMo]

I've actually found the game to be more about army management than anything else.

Reminds me a bit of broodwar were you needed a lot of hotkeys for your army with spell casters etc. (yes this is in sc2 WoL, but I feel it is less prevalent.)

Army compositions (as Zerg at least) feel way more complex and micro intensive with vipers and the constant burrowing/unburrowing on swarm hosts.

[ToR.Arnor]

Ok my first impressions, most people have already covered the main stuff ill look at it from a Noob Level


protoss

Mothership Core- Helps massively when facing early game pressure, It also counters 3rax allin forcing me to find new strats!

Tempest- Havent used it but find it kinda hard to deal with as Terran, the maps have quite a bit of space behind/beside the natural making the tempest hard to attack

Oracle- I find them fairly easy to deal with, just gotta make sure you have turrets up in time!

Zerg

Swarm Host- tough to deal with in high numbers, but you just have to be clever with stiming in a sniping it also makes me build ravens / scan more frequently and thus improves my play so I like them!

Viper- N/A (Im yet to deal with these)

Burrow Ultra- I think its a clever new ability it makes me recognize the need to micro in engagements and ensure I have detection when moving out

Terran

Warhounds - awesome unit, I find myself turning to mech builds now, yes they are a little too good atm, but for now Im liking it! Pro Tip currently have a completely uneconomically viable build that is super greedy where I get 1-1 vehicle insanely then attack with 2-2 when the opponent usually still has 1-0 lol

Widow Mines- Only tried them a couple times, I felt they required a higher skill level then I currently have, they seem like a cool unit, kinda like the baneling Id love to see someone like YoonYJ (or Rossi who has freaken sick micro) convert the "TargA Banes" build into a Terran Strat. havent had too much trouble dealing with them, make sure you have detection!

Noob friendly additions- I like these, for one its a reminder to keep building scvs, the pre split thing at the start is good because I usually have delay connecting to the game

Really enjoying HoTS atm ^_^

Quick Comments

	Dingobloo:	"It also counters 3rax allin" and nothing of value was lost.
	Dox:	cant targa bane with mines, they don't detonate when mobile :P

[Dox]

Originally Posted by IrisAnother

has anyone read this?

http://www.reddit.com/r/starcraft/co...toss_a_broken/

I completely agree with him.

200 gas for a harras unit that doesnt do any real damage? it delays mining.... doesnt actually kill anything or do permanent damage. 200 gas. 200 gas is a LOT, especially for protoss.

I think everyone has agreed the tempest sucks, and im 95% sure vortex is gone, and the carrier. what in the name of god is toss to do about late game zerg? anyone found anything new? we already had to rely on gimmicks (archon toilet) or a SUPER late game (upgeraded mass carrier) now theres nothing. A ground army cannont beat maxed infestor brood.

Protoss atm is already all in based, its going to be even more so if there isnt anything to do vs broods.

mothershipcore sounds decent from what people have said, but 150 energy for recall is a lot, thats over 3 minutes, youre going to really struggle with energy control with this

The beta exists for a reason, the Oracle will be improved.

The Tempest is an amazing unit. The people complaining about it are either:
1) Rushing to them on 1 base and getting owned, just like they would with Carriers/BC's/Broods.
2) Not even playing the beta.

Freaking bandwagon man! Protoss is fine. People just aren't exploring options. The beta has been out for 5 freakin' days and people are already hopelessly throwing their hands in the air and giving up. I've played around 100 games of Random and I feel comfortable with the direction all 3 races are headed. Time and testing will yield perfect balance. It always does.

Quick Comments

FSDele:

thank you.

[Another]

Originally Posted by Dox

The beta exists for a reason, the Oracle will be improved.

The Tempest is an amazing unit. The people complaining about it are either:
1) Rushing to them on 1 base and getting owned, just like they would with Carriers/BC's/Broods.
2) Not even playing the beta.

Freaking bandwagon man! Protoss is fine. People just aren't exploring options. The beta has been out for 5 freakin' days and people are already hopelessly throwing their hands in the air and giving up. I've played around 100 games of Random and I feel comfortable with the direction all 3 races are headed. Time and testing will yield perfect balance. It always does.

I dont think the discussion is about protoss being bad or about balance, balance will be achieved, people are saying that the design of protoss makes for bad/boring game play.

Force fields, warp gates and collosus quite frankly are poorly designed. People find protoss boring to watch. I find it fairly enjoyable to play, but people prefer TvZ and hate PvP, and most people find protoss match ups boring to watch. Also nothing new strategy wise is in protoss play, the mothership core will be used, but oracle isnt exactly game changing, its gonna be the same builds with the same style just with a little harras. and tempest is super late game which we dont see as often

Quick Comments

	Maynarde:	Calling oracle non-game changing 5 day into beta is silly, people havent had time
	Dox:	but... forcefields are one of the most exciting spells o_O