EPTI don't have any replays, and my experience is limited to fifty or so games post patch, so I don't feel like this thread should be in the strategy forum yet. Thus, I just wanted to write a quick blog and get the community's opinion.
I find that decreasing unit vision up ramps has made it possible to defend a choke from the high ground with a much smaller defensive force than the attacking force. In fact, I think the high ground advantage is more important in Starcraft 2 than it was in Starcraft Broodwar in many situations. In brief, this is because in Starcraft 2 vision can be completely denied if a certain critical mass of DPS is reached, while in Starcraft at least damage was (randomly) guaranteed.
I'll give a short concrete example to explain. TvP on Antiga. Terran goes for a slightly unconventional Marine, Raven, Tank, Banshee, macro game. Mid game, T takes the center plateau. He spreads and sieges his tanks, and parks his Marines on the top of the ramp. P goes for Zealot, Sentry, Stalker, Immortal, with fast High Templars.
In this situation, clearing the center is almost impossible, because getting vision of the center is almost impossible. Observers are scouted by the raven, and because of the decreased unit range, attack moving up the plateau doesn't work.
First, it's impossible to storm without vision. And to prevent vision, Terran simply needs enough DPS to kill the first few units charging up the ramp, thus preventing all ranged DPS and spells. This leaves your stalkers, immortals, sentries, and immortals useless, while marines chew up the zealots.
While this is a specific example, in other situations the same principle applies. Essentially, I believe if you have enough units on the high ground to shred a few units which grant vision, the usefulness of ranged units will vacillate as they lose vision and the ability to attack. Because of this vacillation, they will not be able to decrease the DPS of the high ground units by getting a enlough shots off, leaving the high ground units to further shred any units which try to charge the ramp and give vision.
I'm curious whether I'm alone in experiencing this drastic change. I've been playing around in a unit tester, and it does seem to me that positional play in Starcraft 2 might become more important. Clearly, the same dynamic was present before to a lesser degree, but I find the small change Blizzard has made to have wide-reaching implications.
Ultimately, if maps use more small high ground chokes for expansions, I think Starcraft 2 could change for the better. But maybe I'm delusional. What do you think?
