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The Mothership is probably the least used unit in Starcraft 2. in fact the protoss got the most underused units in the game, Carriers,Archons,DTs and ofcourse the Mothership itself.
This is obviously bad since Zerg has the exactly opposed problem (fewer units, with only the ultra generally graded as underused) Terran is sitting comfortably in the middle with all of their units pretty much viable.
Back to the subject, the mothership was/is meant to be the lategame gamechanging knockout unit(whoah that was long)of the protoss. Initially it had an array of powerful spells like the planet cracker. The current abilities are not that bad but still kinda meh. The Cloaking field can prove a huge advantage if the enemy doesnt have detection and cant reach your mothership with AA fire. Still its really only availible for large battles since the tech is so high up and the build time length(havent seen a mothership rush/cheese since the first weeks of the beta)
However say the enemy has any kind of airbourne AA (vikings,corruptors,phoenixes) which is likely for the opponent to have some AA because of Colossi. This means that they often easily Snipe your mothership, removing your tactical advantage and costing you a whopping 400/400 minerals & gas. So Big No-No there...
...What else we got, Vortex and Mass Recall. Vortex can help you turn he tide of a battle or letting you retreat from an unfavorable encounter. Example if you manage to vortex a ball of tanks or MMM for the terrans. Or maybe the Hydra/roach ball in PvZ. Regardless this is incredibly hard to use efficiently, mainly because you can't hit the units in the vortex, The speed of the mothership and its vurnerability to Sniping.
So Mass recall then, in Sc1Bw the arbiter had this ability. Which was generally regarded as highly useful despite its heavy costs, This was because it was way nimbler and faster than the bulky mothership. The mass recall was used as a lategame harassment tactic. In sc2 its mostly useless for that purpose since the Low Speed. it Does have a potential use for rapidly reinforcing your army, This role could just as easily be filled by a proxy pylon however.
So Basicly the mothership the "ultimate protoss vessel"is the most useless unit in the game as of when phase 1 of the beta ended.
So what needs to be done to fix it.
People have posted many great ideas about this :
Speed Increase: Would make it less vurnerably to sniping and give increased usage to mass recall.
Cost Decrease: This could potentially encourage people to get the mothership. Regardless protoss rarely build the Fleet Beacon anyways.
Lower Tech reqs: If the Fleet beacon req was removed, then more people would probably dump resources into the mothership. This and the cost decrease would work better with balance changes.
Spell Changes: Giving the mothership a few more offensive spells like a time stop/stasis, Some kind of Shield recharge AoE spell( i know this was suggested for the archon but i believe it would make more sense with the Mothership)
Thats pretty much all i can think of at the moment. Please share your thoughts for the mothership, Carrier, archon or Dark templar and what you think about this post.
 
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Yes you've pointed out the exact same thing everyone else has. For a while in alpha, some screens where released of multiple mother ships being built from stargates, which make sense but for some reason was reverted. In any case, it definitely had to be fixed.
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there are threads in the sc2 forums about all these things. my thoughts:
mothership is very powerfull but all-in'ish. I dont think your right with it being useless at all. ive used it alot of times with success. its just that its way to vulerable against feedback, emp and mindcontrol. I think it should have something in addition (not an additional spell that requires energy ofc) to make it less risky.
templar tech lacks versatility. many people agree but nobody came up with something that would solve this problem besides merging the tech into one building. I dont support this idea because I think blizzard splitted the tech for a reason. maybe it should just be a plain buff for the archon.
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The mothership isn't meant for offense. It isn't an arbiter and if you use it like an arbiter you will be disappointed. Blizzard provided several clues, but somehow people fail to get it.
1 - it moves super slow.
Wow, sure is hard to use offensively, huh? Well, I'll just wait for it.
2 - it is made from a nexus, not a starport.
Almost like they want me to be able to build it at any base, no matter how remote. Also prevents me from proxying it... So silly. Probably just a random choice by dummy Blizzard.
3 - it cloaks my buildings.
So am I supposed to be building cannons when I attack with it? Why else would they have it cloak buildings? Just to be cool I guess.
4 - it is called mothership, not arbiter.
Hmm, maybe it isn't an arbiter after all. Nah I'm sure they just did that to be different.
5 - it costs a lot and i can only build 1.
OMG now we are just getting silly! How am I supposed to mass these?!?
The mothership is meant for late game defense. The cloak buys you time, they have to kill the mothership first. If you get attacked and your army is out of position you can vortex the enemy to buy some more time. If you are way out of position you can recall your army.
Stop trying to attack with the mothership. It sucks at it. If you don't need it for defense, don't build it.
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Who really wants to tech stargate and get a mothership? You just cant choose all the different tech options or you get overun.
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On June 15 2010 08:02 mucker wrote:
The mothership isn't meant for offense. It isn't an arbiter and if you use it like an arbiter you will be disappointed. Blizzard provided several clues, but somehow people fail to get it.
1 - it moves super slow.
Wow, sure is hard to use offensively, huh? Well, I'll just wait for it.
2 - it is made from a nexus, not a starport.
Almost like they want me to be able to build it at any base, no matter how remote. Also prevents me from proxying it... So silly. Probably just a random choice by dummy Blizzard.
3 - it cloaks my buildings.
So am I supposed to be building cannons when I attack with it? Why else would they have it cloak buildings? Just to be cool I guess.
4 - it is called mothership, not arbiter.
Hmm, maybe it isn't an arbiter after all. Nah I'm sure they just did that to be different.
5 - it costs a lot and i can only build 1.
OMG now we are just getting silly! How am I supposed to mass these?!?
The mothership is meant for late game defense. The cloak buys you time, they have to kill the mothership first. If you get attacked and your army is out of position you can vortex the enemy to buy some more time. If you are way out of position you can recall your army.
Stop trying to attack with the mothership. It sucks at it. If you don't need it for defense, don't build it.
No shit, the problem is that late game toss doesn't really have a problem with defending due to one sentry being able to block a ramp and mass warpgates instantly reinforcing. We know what it was supposed to do, but its niche just isn't very useful.
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![[image loading]](http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_GeRudVQL-zU/Ryui79YVpsI/AAAAAAAACOA/QxC88etMeBE/s400/55463000led_zeppelin__mothership_advance_2007.jpg)
The only mothership worth its cost..
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Mothership sucks because it doesn't fill it's role. I think Dustin said he wanted to think of cool unit ideas first and then balance it later. I think this is a result. It doesn't matter if it doesn't see a lot of play to him.
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Remove the supply cost so it's actually desirable.
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A vortex will make a huge difference in a battle! (just make sure your own units don't get sucked in :o)
Remove the supply cost so it's actually desirable.
+1
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EPT
