Will you get heart of the swarm?

I didn't really wanna make a thread just for this, coz it's just a small comment so i added a poll


But for the longest time HOTS did not impress me, because they added very few units and feature, plus they were only just adding Wc3 features and were like OMG THIS IS REVOLUTIONARY!!!! ITLL CHANGE YOUR GAMING EXPERIENCE SO MUCH!
But the changes they show in this video seem really awesome and somehwhat ambitious
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zn3-O4jYO7g

On another note, since this is a a thread might as well add more random stuff about starcraft.
the player Dust.Semper is a friend from school and i thought he was pretty awesome (even though he forgot widow mine upgrade...) but heres an awesome game with him casted by HD or Husky
HD
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlYhMioGZsw
Husky
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxrURNPBNRs&list=UUZ8D7Qvm0YHm0vZKFl-AFdA&index=3

As soon as my friends cousin buys it I'm going to start playing.

(I have his battle.net account and pass that he never changes lul, whatafucking dumbass)

I was thinking about it since i have a gift card that i could use to bring the price down to $15
But im not sure yet, im going to wait until at least a few days after its out before i decide

They added a lot of those features to wol, the group replay and all that extra side stuff is in wol, with the exception of that exp thing
Hots really only adds/changes units and has a new story mode so i dont know if i really want it
The units they added are pretty underwhelming


The tempest is weird, like a sky reaver that doesnt need ammo, i guess it gives toss a viable answer to muta, and a real siege option (cause less face it colossus is terrible when attacking a building)

The oracle reminds me of the old bw queen, the old queen could fly and had an ability called parasite, which is like revelation
The 60 second detection is pointless because observers are far better
And the activatable attack is just weird, i dont see myself ever really using it, i guess you could use it to harass workers, so theres no need for voidray anymore
Im glad they got rid of entomb and those other crappy abilities that were just annoying

The mothership core is basically a hero unit that is required since its so useful, i hate how they added something like that, though the stuff it can do is nice

The swarmhost is similar to the lurker in bw, except far far more effective because it spawns actual units that can block units, the lurker is a better unit to fill this role

The viper is the defiler from bw, but able to fly with a weaker cloud and the ability to pull units in, seems like a decent unit

The hellbat is a firebat that cant be healed by medivacs and that can transform to move faster, i dont think people will use the hellion anymore, they will always keep it in hellbat mode unless they are moving a long distance

Widowmines look extremely OP, they are burrowed which makes them invis without detection, they deal massive aoe damage, they are better than tanks at defense since they can attack air with that massive aoe, and they have an upgrade that lets them burrow faster so they can be used aggressively

You dont need to research siege mode on tanks anymore, which i dont like

Medivacs have afterbuners which i dont like, terran drops were already annoying, now they will be super annoying

You dont need to research hallucinate for sentries anymore, which i dont like

The mothership is even more useless now since they took away vortex and made the core so good that upgrading it to a mothership would just be a stupid idea

Phoenix got an increased attack range buff, maybe now they can actually deal with mutas, the 1 thing they are supposed to do

Voidray charge was changed to be an ability, so you get full charge for 20 seconds instead of having to charge up, it looks like they tried to fix the problem with this unit, but 20 seconds of full charge isnt enough, it still doesnt really fill the role its supposed

Burrow no longer needs a lair, which i do like (same for overlord speed)

Hydras have a speed upgrade available now, maybe they wont be so bad anymore (they need the range upgrade they used to have in bw)

Mutas got 2 buffs, an hp regen upgrade that is OP, and a slight movement speed increase (not an upgrade, just a straight up speed increase), mutas really didnt need buffs, maybe now that the tempest is in and phoenix has a range increase they needed it, but i really dont think the tempest or a slightly buffed phoenix is going to be cost effective to deal with mutas

Infestor got a huge nerf with infested terrans, they no longer gain armor or attack upgrade bonuses, also they have less hp in egg form
And fungal growth is a projectile with almost near instant travel time, i dont see the point in making it a projectile since it moves so fast, but it does look cooler i guess

Ultras do 35 flat damage, it used to be 15(35 to armored), which is good cause ultras sucked in wol because of that 15 damage

Creep tumors can be put on ramps which is really nice, i hated not being able to put them on ramps because it would sometimes result in creep being half way down a ramp but you had to put the tumor slighty further back from the front since the ramp stopped you
They also have a build time of 3 seconds, i dont know the reasoning behind that, i really dont think it will change anything

Carriers are back in the game again apparently, the interceptors can change targets without having to return to the carrier, which is a huge buff if it works the way i think it does, hopefully the carrier wont suck anymore, it probably will though just because of how easy they still are to counter

The thor can change its AA attack from an aoe light armored damaging attack to a single target 24 flat damage attack, which makes the viable against all air units now



I think thats all the changes for multiplayer that hots has, i may have missed a few small one like changes to energy uses on certain abilities
Overall i think toss is still lacking while zerg and terran are pretty good, wol had terran as the most powerful, hots seems to balance terran and zerg, and i guess we will have to wait for lotv for toss to get some good stuff, in 2016
I may be underestimating the tempest and oracle though so i could be wrong, and hallucinate without upgrading is a nice buff for sentries, can be used for scouting before you get robo by hallucinating a phoenix and flying it over the enemy base without having to spend any resources at all

Most of the stuff here could be patched in with normal balance patches
The new units arent impressive, they are altered versions of old units from bw

Heart of the Swarm	Broodwar	Differences
Tempest	Reaver	Tempast can fly, attack air, and doesnt need ammo
Oracle	Queen	Oracle can attack while an ability is activated, but cannot insta-kill a single ground unit, can detect with ability
Widowmine	Spidermine	Widowmine isnt destroyed on detonation, can be built directly, can be transported with medivac, can attack air
Hellbat	Firebat	Hellbat can transform for a speed boost, can be repaired but not healed
Viper	Defiler	Viper can pull units, cloud is weaker then the defilers cloud
Swarmhost	Lurker	Swarmhost spawns units, cannot deal splash damage

The mother ship core is the only completely original new unit, and even that is based on the mothership from wol
So basically its like $35 for the singleplayer, and $5 for the multiplayer since it seems very little work went into the multiplayer for hots
The bnet features that they added are good, but like i said, they patched almost all of those into wol so the stuff patched to wol doesnt count as things in hots

this is incredibly underwhelming

2 people voted yes to this, who has it so far
Knight got it, i talked to him for a bit while i was trying to see if there was a semi-legit way to play it without buying it since i was having trouble sleeping (i failed to find a way to play it)

Knight was playing the campaign, he said it was good, im still undecided but i do want to play the campaign so i might end up getting it despite all i said above
Also i suggested he check the forums so maybe he will post something


EDIT: I played hots as terran (using the starter edition, which you can do by going into the options going to the gameplay section and changing wings of liberty to hots starter without having to dl anything new) against AI just to see new terran units
I was wrong about the hellbat, you can heal it with medivacs, which makes no sense

Windowmines are more OP than i thought, i played an easy comp and won with 4 widowmines, now i know an easy comp isnt the best way to judge how powerful something is but they deal 125 direct damage and 40 splash damage, its the highest damage output of any unit for 75 minerals and 25 gas, storm deals 80 damage over 4 seconds but you can get away from storm where as with widowmines, once they lock on your done, the ability to burrow makes them invisible (requires detection to see them) and you can get an upgrade that has them burrow almost instantly, and you can carry 4 per medivac, which is 160 splash damage, it decimates worker lines


Also im still trying to find a way to play the campaign for free
I know the hots files are there, including everything for the campaign, the only reason it cant be played is because the account isnt flagged to use it so there must be a way to bypass that
The things ive tried have failed so far

As far as ive seen HOTS looks like a far superior game. Almost all the units are now used and it makes for more interesting games

I watched a few mlg games, its not that much better
The match with bomber was pretty much wol with fast medivacs (which makes bombers "strategy" insanely OP)
The best part was the medivac nuke that killed more than half an army: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjEkgCBMJ0Y

Hots is more balanced than wol (with some exceptions) but it still needs work, hopefully they get it right in legacy of the void