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I also really hate the Hellbat's design. The Firebat was so loving cool and then it became... that.
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# ? Dec 30, 2023 14:21 |
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# ? Jun 6, 2024 06:05 |
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Is the hellbat less of a poo poo unit at least?
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# ? Dec 30, 2023 14:36 |
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Fajita Queen posted:Is the hellbat less of a poo poo unit at least? Yeah, the broad arc makes Hellbats genuinely useful, mostly against zergling-based armies.
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# ? Dec 30, 2023 14:48 |
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Fajita Queen posted:Is the hellbat less of a poo poo unit at least? The hellbat was busted as poo poo on launch because you could fit four of those bad boys into a medivac and do absolutely devastating drops with minimal investment and high sustainability (hellbats count as bio, they can be healed by medivacs) Blizzard nerfed that by making them take twice as much cabin space as hellions, lol
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# ? Dec 30, 2023 15:11 |
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Valerian is reading this LP.
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# ? Dec 30, 2023 15:16 |
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Fajita Queen posted:Is the hellbat less of a poo poo unit at least? Significantly: Firebats cost 100 Minerals, 25 Vespene, and take 2 Supply. They have 100 HP, 1 Armor, 5.71 DPS, and +2.86 vs Light. They can also get +2 Armor from Juggernaut Plating. Hellbats cost 100 Minerals, 0 Vespene, and take 2 Supply. They have 135 HP, 0 Armor, and 12.6 DPS. They can also get +8.4 DPS vs Light from Infernal Pre-Igniter and also transform into Hellions to scoot around at high speed and otherwise do Hellion things. All Firebats have going for them is 3 more Armor (+1 from base stats, +2 from Juggernaut Plating (if available)). Which, while that's not an insubstantial amount of Armor, Hellbats also have more Health and over double the DPS and cost no Vespene.
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# ? Dec 30, 2023 15:26 |
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Felinoid posted:Frankly I'm starting to get a read between the two stories of people yearning for times past (or outright stuck in them) to a destructive degree. Combined with the time between SC1 and SC2, it feels like an almost-subtle push to put SC1 behind and have players focus on SC2. Hell, they even made it fewer years in-game than in real life. SC2 also does a better job of having interesting missions than SC1. There are very few missions in SC1 that aren't "wipe out the enemy base", "defend your base", or "dungeon". SC2 has a bunch of missions with interesting and different objectives, and even in the ones that boil down to basically "wipe out the enemy base" or "defend your base" there's usually at least some bonus objective or scripted event that livens things up.
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# ? Dec 30, 2023 16:34 |
Wait, why did they decide to count the Hellbat as bio?
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# ? Dec 30, 2023 17:37 |
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Because nobody is going to use a frontline anti-swarm unit that can't be healed by Medivacs. Without the Bio tag, players continued to only use Marauders.
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# ? Dec 30, 2023 17:42 |
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gohuskies posted:SC2 also does a better job of having interesting missions than SC1. There are very few missions in SC1 that aren't "wipe out the enemy base", "defend your base", or "dungeon". SC2 has a bunch of missions with interesting and different objectives, and even in the ones that boil down to basically "wipe out the enemy base" or "defend your base" there's usually at least some bonus objective or scripted event that livens things up. For me that's a mixed bag. I personally prefer "here's a map full of enemies, make there be no more enemies" to the point where that's how I play any WoL mission where the soft timer can be delayed indefinitely (like Welcome to the Jungle) or raced (like Zero Hour or The Dig). The bonus objectives, however, are just pure gold. Some of my favorite missions from SC1 are the things like Norad II where you have two things to worry about (Zerg 8 annoys me just because it goes up to four, and the three added spots to pay attention to are all insta-fail), so particular extra things to be thinking about are absolutely my jam. Unrelated, why are the creep tumors cloaked? It seems a bit much, especially considering they're now basically free. Does this change continue into LotV or skirmish?
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# ? Dec 30, 2023 18:18 |
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Felinoid posted:Unrelated, why are the creep tumors cloaked? It seems a bit much, especially considering they're now basically free. Does this change continue into LotV or skirmish? Creep colonies had actual HP, tumors have like 40. During skirmish, creep tumors compete with inject larva for Queen energy so they're anything but free. During the campaign, like 90% of the enemy waves have detection and/or splash anyways.
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# ? Dec 30, 2023 18:22 |
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Poil posted:Third mission and still stuck with zerglings as the main unit. Counterpoint: Transformers instead of Macross.
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# ? Dec 30, 2023 18:51 |
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Sorry, I've no idea what a Macross is. But a giant robot transforming into a car with a flamethrower would be much cooler than a hellion/hellbat. It wouldn't fit at all with the terran style and aesthetic however.Omobono posted:Creep colonies had actual HP, tumors have like 40. Poil fucked around with this message at 19:04 on Dec 30, 2023 |
# ? Dec 30, 2023 19:00 |
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After murdering all the cerebrates I wonder if Kerrigan created the Brood Queens just to have something smarter than a dog to talk to.
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# ? Dec 30, 2023 19:19 |
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This is unironically the most difficult mission in HotS, at least on Brutal. Also to me, Kerrigan's character arc comes across very much as going for "I used to be a bad person, but now I'm embarking on a redemption arc by taking my capacity for anger, pain, and ruthlessness and using it to protect the people I love!" which has gotta be my least favourite trope. The good news is that IMHO these first three missions are also by far the weakest part of HotS mechanically. Now we start getting into the fun stuff. Story and characterization won't get any better, but gameplay's gonna pick up a lot. Or at least, it does for me. YMMV.
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# ? Dec 30, 2023 19:31 |
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Omobono posted:Creep colonies had actual HP, tumors have like 40. Fair enough. And I guess Protoss have earlier access to observers than Terrans did to scanner sweep or Ravens/Science Vessels in WoL.
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# ? Dec 30, 2023 19:42 |
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Regalingualius posted:Wait, why did they decide to count the Hellbat as bio? They wanted to make mech viable compared to just building 30 Barracks, setting a rally point to your enemy’s spawn point, and putting a paperweight on your Build Marine hotkey They did not succeed
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# ? Dec 30, 2023 20:35 |
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Regalingualius posted:Wait, why did they decide to count the Hellbat as bio? for the sake of quicker triage and easier treatment, Hellbats are only armored on the front and completely naked on the back
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# ? Dec 30, 2023 20:42 |
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Poil posted:Sorry, I've no idea what a Macross is. But a giant robot transforming into a car with a flamethrower would be much cooler than a hellion/hellbat. It wouldn't fit at all with the terran style and aesthetic however. SDF Macross is an ancient anime, featuring insanely cheesy writing and mechs that transform into fighter jets.
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# ? Dec 30, 2023 23:22 |
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silentsnack posted:SDF Macross is an ancient anime, featuring insanely cheesy writing and mechs that transform into fighter jets. It's also a time-honoured classic.
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# ? Dec 31, 2023 01:52 |
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Intermission 1 Cinematic: Transmission Kerrigan looks at some science gizmos to see if she can find any trace of Jim. Something is trying to sneak up on her. I'll give this scene some points. Because on one hand, Kerrigan has spent pretty much every moment Jim isn't on screen asking where Jim is. But on the other, she does have a good bit of self-reflection here. She knows she's hosed up and that she was on the verge of becoming a monster of her own free will. Kerrigan hears footsteps. She's sad, but she's not careless. And from the shadows... A single Zergling emerges. Little guy must have snuck aboard when Kerrigan was fleeing Naktul's brood. Now we, the audience, can tell in an instant that this is bullshit. There's no way Blizzard would kill off Kerrigan's love interest just to give her more emotional trauma! The genders are the wrong way around for that. Also I wouldn't trust Blizz to kill off a major character without showing every gory detail with a full prerendered cinematic. Kerrigan, however, is not part of the audience. So yeah, Kerrigan's reluctance to control the Swarm, now that Jim is 'dead'? Out the loving window. Sarah Kerrigan is now officially on the warpath. And she is not stopping until she shoves an entire Ultralisk up Mengsk's rear end. No matter how many people she has to kill to get there. And now, the first vote of Heart of the Swarm! A broodmother named Nafash took her brood to the frozen moon of Kaldir. Recent reports indicate a protoss presence there. There is a high likelihood that Nafash is fighting the protoss for control of Kaldir. Her brood is believed to contain highly evolved, dangerous zerg organisms. One of the lessons the devs learned from Wings is that the fully freeform mission system was an absolute pain in the rear end to deal with, narratively speaking, as we saw with Haven being delayed to the last possible moment. She is fighting a running battle against General Warfield's Dominion forces. So from here on out, mission chains now lock you in when selected, and you can't back out partway through. No dipping into Kaldir for the Roach then taking it to Char, for example. There shall be no repeats of Haven. BisbyWorl fucked around with this message at 03:34 on Jan 6, 2024 |
# ? Dec 31, 2023 05:08 |
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GIVE THE ZERGLING PETS, YOU MONSTER.
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# ? Dec 31, 2023 05:16 |
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habeasdorkus posted:GIVE THE ZERGLING PETS, YOU MONSTER. Seriously. Is a single headpat too much to ask when it's trying to nuzzle you to cheer you up? I bet she doesn't even like terran dogs.
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# ? Dec 31, 2023 05:26 |
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You should start the next mission with one free extra zergling from the guy in the ship with you.
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# ? Dec 31, 2023 05:28 |
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Voted Kaldir, let's let op have their bread and butter units early this time. When I was playing this I'm pretty sure I was able to beat most of the campaign building almost exclusively zerglings rallied to Kerrigan. There is no stopping the tide when you have more critters than the enemy has bullets. This is not a complaint. What is a complaint is that we're seeing now how the character assassination of our heroine is going to go. The cool, calculating mastermind always in control of the situation and taking advantage of Raynor's guilt to play him like a sweet fiddle is doing TROO WUV RAGE. Old Kerrigan wouldn't force choke valerian, she'd have tricked everyone on the bridge into shooting each other while she slipped away and played innocent, knowing jimmy would totally buy it later. aniviron posted:The one thing I am willing to give Kerrigan/Blizzard here: Sure, she's a POS for reaching for the murder button first, but I'm glad she's pissed. Not just because it's Jim, but because all this started for her when she was abandoned by Mengsk pulling his forces out and leaving her behind to die, and now Mengsk's son is pulling his forces out and leaving Raynor behind to die. The symmetry is nice. That would actually have been an interesting and clever thematic callback if the writers had done it intentionally.
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# ? Dec 31, 2023 05:32 |
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habeasdorkus posted:GIVE THE ZERGLING PETS, YOU MONSTER. See: me, one day ago posted:Sarah Kerrigan is a horrible, horrible person.
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# ? Dec 31, 2023 05:34 |
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And this is the exact point where the game goes to complete poo poo. At no point does Kerrigan consider that the state propaganda station might be lying.
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# ? Dec 31, 2023 05:42 |
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Go to Kaldir. As broken as Kerrigan is, Roaches and Hydralisks are still two of the most dependable units in the Zerg arsenal. We'll need them.quote:At no point does Kerrigan consider that the state propaganda station might be lying. Doesn't matter. If they're lying, they've proven themselves to be the greater monsters by fridging Raynor and sending Kerrigan into a vengeful frenzy for no reason. If they're telling the truth (which they are), they've shot themselves in the foot by not allowing Kerrigan to be distracted by looking for Raynor (instead of marshalling the troops and laying waste to the Dominion like she will soon be doing). Either way, UNN made a terrible, terrible mistake. GrandTheftAutism fucked around with this message at 05:54 on Dec 31, 2023 |
# ? Dec 31, 2023 05:48 |
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In some ways I actually appreciate how quick the turnaround is to "I will do literally anything to get rid of Mengsk". At least we're not waffling around for half of the campaign unsure of the main goal like Wings was.
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# ? Dec 31, 2023 05:50 |
In some slight fairness to her, the last time she saw him, he (a regular dude) was facing down the psychic operative who was second only to pre-infestation Kerrigan herself in sheer power and skill. She was probably already mentally bracing for the likelihood that he was gone, and this past mission was her holding out hope that he'd somehow pulled off a one in a million shot.
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# ? Dec 31, 2023 05:55 |
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Regalingualius posted:In some slight fairness to her, the last time she saw him, he (a regular dude) was facing down the psychic operative who was second only to pre-infestation Kerrigan herself in sheer power and skill. She was probably already mentally bracing for the likelihood that he was gone, and this past mission was her holding out hope that he'd somehow pulled off a one in a million shot. Only the player saw Jim's encounter with Nova. The last Kerrigan saw of him was right before fighting the Archangel.
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# ? Dec 31, 2023 05:58 |
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She's just so used to getting kicked around at this point (since she never got the empowerment of the Queen of Blades because that was a different person ) that she's ready to believe anything going wrong for her. If you even joke she's got six months to live because of the whole zerg thing, she'd probably race to rip Arcturus's throat out inside the first month, just in case there's a deterioration period where she wouldn't be able to anymore. Full-on suicide rush.
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# ? Dec 31, 2023 06:10 |
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GrandTheftAutism posted:Go to Kaldir. As broken as Kerrigan is, Roaches and Hydralisks are still two of the most dependable units in the Zerg arsenal. We'll need them. I never really used the Zerg arsenal much, playing on Normal difficulty, you can handle close to everything just with a swarm of appropriately upgraded Zerglings. It's probably the easiest Normal I've ever encountered in an RTS game.
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# ? Dec 31, 2023 06:23 |
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Voting Charr. It's probably the wrong choice given the thread votes but I haven't played HoTS (thanks for saving me the trouble, Bisby!) and am curious what the Aberration is. Where I am in agreement with the thread however is that the sneaky zergling totally stole the scene. Pet him Kerrrigan, you rear end in a top hat. I want to see John Wick but with a zergling instead of a dog.
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# ? Dec 31, 2023 06:37 |
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that zergling is the best character in this game. it followed her and is doing it's best to comfort the Queen of Blades
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# ? Dec 31, 2023 06:44 |
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Kaldir is probably the tactically-correct choice, but my vote’s for doing Char first to meet my favorite HotS character. e: Take a drink every time the Zerg try to do something cool and Kerrigan just ignores them in favor of whining about her stupid human problems. megane fucked around with this message at 06:51 on Dec 31, 2023 |
# ? Dec 31, 2023 06:48 |
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I think Kerrigan was going to end up going back to the Zerg regardless of what UNN did or didn’t say. Either way, she would have needed to regain her power so she could get Mengsk’s head hanging on the wall. The only thing different if UNN hadn’t broadcasted this is that Kerrigan might have spent a little more time searching for Jim before going “back to Zerg space since I need the Swarms back for my vengeance”.aniviron posted:Voting Charr. It's probably the wrong choice given the thread votes but I haven't played HoTS (thanks for saving me the trouble, Bisby!) and am curious what the Aberration is.
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# ? Dec 31, 2023 06:50 |
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Regalingualius posted:Wait, why did they decide to count the Hellbat as bio? Because it's literally an attempt to create something that takes the strengths of hellions (mobility, cheap) and firebats (tanky-ish, AOE, healable) and put them together in the hope that the result is better than the sum of its parts, both of which are middling at best. Does it succeed? Honestly, yeah, kinda. Hellbats being trainable from Factory means that they're not a huge investment more for bio (which is already going to have a factory tooling around as it techs to medivacs) and they're theoretically a cheap wall unit for mech play. But, well, Starcraft 2 multiplayer unit design post-WOL gets loving weird, in some pretty divisive ways.
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# ? Dec 31, 2023 06:51 |
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Regalingualius posted:Wait, why did they decide to count the Hellbat as bio? I want you to think about what the clearly human pilot of the Hellbat/Hellion must physically go through when they transform. Also I'd assume that's why they're Bio, the Hellbat clearly has a human in a suit design, same as all the other bio marines etc. Ignoring the mechanical reasons.
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# ? Dec 31, 2023 07:43 |
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# ? Jun 6, 2024 06:05 |
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Lord_Magmar posted:I want you to think about what the clearly human pilot of the Hellbat/Hellion must physically go through when they transform. Hey woah it just says biological and maybe the unit portrait and responses are three zerglings in
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# ? Dec 31, 2023 07:55 |