EPTYou see?
YOU SEE? Sentry IMBA!!!!!!
You see? Stalker! Blink No Micro PEW PEW PEW PEW PEW. * shoot laser beams with hands*
Are stalkers really useful? - Page 2
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Fdragon
United States96 Posts
You see? YOU SEE? Sentry IMBA!!!!!! You see? Stalker! Blink No Micro PEW PEW PEW PEW PEW. * shoot laser beams with hands* | ||
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OriginalBeast
United States709 Posts
finally, if you take a stalker with guardian sheild (and stalkers covered by guardian sheild happens all the time) you have a stalker with ~3 armor which is great none of the other races have something that has the option to instantly gain 2 armor and if you combine this with maybe an attack upgrade or something else viability of stalkers increases. Another post said "yeah marines with combat sheilds and stim do really well blah blah blah" well that is a marine that is upgraded to its fullest potential vs a regular stalker, obviously upgrades are important; a blink stalker vs a fully upgraded marine would definately be a better fight. Also if you need to do damage from high ground stalkers are basically your only viable option there. Im not going to run a zealot sentry ball down my ramp to engage a pack of whatever, nor am I going to fire at enemys trapped at the bottom of my ramp by a forcefeild; only stalkers serve that purpose. yes they are expensive, but you cant say they aren't useful when you say that you never use them; because obviously you haven't explored them enough. | ||
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foo
Australia109 Posts
On November 18 2010 12:36 SteveNick wrote: A stalker fighting against a roach survives with 20-35 health left out of a total of 160. A stalker costs 125/50. A roach costs 75/25. Put three roaches for 225/75 up against two stalkers for 250/100, and the roaches win. This is ignoring the fact that Zerg can also generally get their economy up faster and make more units than Protoss can. Stalkers are faster than roaches, and have more range, 6 vs 4, a little bit of micro will change the result of this fight phenomenally... Like i said in my edit, the armor scaling is the one change that i think should be applied to the stalker.. | ||
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RadicalEdwrd
United States53 Posts
On November 18 2010 12:35 GoldenH wrote: 9 stalkers: 1125 min, 450 gas 9 roaches: 675 min, 225 gas Equal resources, roaches absolutely destroy stalkers. And that's before they get burrow regen micro. Just a question -- Would throwing one or two Zealots in the mix (7 Stalkers 2 Zealots vs 9 Roaches) change the outcome at all? If the Roaches try to kite the Zealots then they take damage from the faster pursuing Stalkers without exchanging fire on a 1:1 ratio. If they ignore the Zealots and focus fire the Stalkers the Stalkers can micro away easily giving the Zealots a few extra shots. If they focus on the Zealots then they need to burn through the Zealots first before firing on the Stalkers, while the Stalkers are hammering them the entire time with their bonus damage to armored units. For some reason it just feels like throwing some Zealots into the mix would help a great deal, but that might just be me being a noob.  So feel free to school me, heh, it's just theorycraft after all. | ||
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Bull-Demon
United States582 Posts
On November 18 2010 12:36 SteveNick wrote: A stalker fighting against a roach survives with 20-35 health left out of a total of 160. A stalker costs 125/50. A roach costs 75/25. Put three roaches for 225/75 up against two stalkers for 250/100, and the roaches win. This is ignoring the fact that Zerg can also generally get their economy up faster and make more units than Protoss can. It also ignores every other factor in the game. Stalkers shoot up, that is where the extra cost comes from, versatility. | ||
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sjschmidt93
United States2518 Posts
On November 18 2010 12:41 Bull-Demon wrote: It also ignores every other factor in the game. Stalkers shoot up, that is where the extra cost comes from, versatility. Damn, I wish marines costed 100 minerals or something. | ||
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SteveNick
United States304 Posts
On November 18 2010 12:41 Bull-Demon wrote: It also ignores every other factor in the game. Stalkers shoot up, that is where the extra cost comes from, versatility. The problem in paying for this versatility is that we're basically paying a large amount to have a unit that is mediocre against everything. It's not GOOD against anything. Let's take for example a TvZ match. If Zerg makes Mutalisks, Terran can make Marines, and no matter how many mutalisks Zerg has, if terran has an even close to similiar number of marines, Terran will win the fight. The Protoss stalker is not like this. The Protoss stalker is only marginally effective against everything, rather than being truly effective at dealing with any one thing. Protoss just has to build them, because, well, we have to. If the Stalker was split into two units, one that was a REAL AA unit, and one that is a REAL ranged ground combat unit, then Protoss would have more options instead of just, "I have to build this ineffective unit.". Right now, Protoss does not have a cost effective ranged ground unit at low tier, such as the marauder and roach, and Protoss also does not have a cost effective ground AA unit such as the marine or hydralisk at low tier. Sure, we can build Phoenixes, but that requires a completely different tech path and is very hard to transition into. | ||
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Hobokinz
United States126 Posts
On November 18 2010 12:40 RadicalEdwrd wrote: Just a question -- Would throwing one or two Zealots in the mix (7 Stalkers 2 Zealots vs 9 Roaches) change the outcome at all? If the Roaches try to kite the Zealots then they take damage from the faster pursuing Stalkers without exchanging fire on a 1:1 ratio. If they ignore the Zealots and focus fire the Stalkers the Stalkers can micro away easily giving the Zealots a few extra shots. If they focus on the Zealots then they need to burn through the Zealots first before firing on the Stalkers, while the Stalkers are hammering them the entire time with their bonus damage to armored units. For some reason it just feels like throwing some Zealots into the mix would help a great deal, but that might just be me being a noob. So feel free to school me, heh, it's just theorycraft after all.4 Zealots and 5 Stalkers V 9 Roaches leave 3 Stalkers alive. But if we throw zealots in then we'd have to throw Lings in for the Zerg too. I can see where Toss are coming from with the Stalkers being so weak mid to late game now but I don't think it's as big as some make it out to be. | ||
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GoldenH
1115 Posts
On November 18 2010 12:40 RadicalEdwrd wrote: Just a question -- Would throwing one or two Zealots in the mix (7 Stalkers 2 Zealots vs 9 Roaches) change the outcome at all? If the Roaches try to kite the Zealots then they take damage from the faster pursuing Stalkers without exchanging fire on a 1:1 ratio. If they ignore the Zealots and focus fire the Stalkers the Stalkers can micro away easily giving the Zealots a few extra shots. If they focus on the Zealots then they need to burn through the Zealots first before firing on the Stalkers, while the Stalkers are hammering them the entire time with their bonus damage to armored units. For some reason it just feels like throwing some Zealots into the mix would help a great deal, but that might just be me being a noob. So feel free to school me, heh, it's just theorycraft after all.Well, think about it, if you take a stalker out and replace it with a zealot, assume they're getting the same micro. You're replacing a 80/80 meatshield with a 100/50 meatshield. (extra 10 hp for stalkers, extra 20 health with +1 armor for the zealot. No diff). Except that the 80/80 meatshield will get 1 shot off, while the zealot might not. They just shoot the zealot first. 2 Zealots mean the 2nd zealot will get a shot off. Zealots do 16 damage a shot but now that's 2 stalkers that didn't get to shoot, 20 damage lost. Still better to have stalkers. Ultimately you will find that instead of 6 stalkers and 2 zealot, you should get 6 zealots 2 stalker and a sentry, then if you use guardian shield and get a good forcefield you win! Stalkers are only there to prevent you from being kited. On November 18 2010 12:39 OriginalBeast wrote: finally, if you take a stalker with guardian sheild Stop right there, Sentries are not the marine shield/stim of the Protoss world, we just don't get that. They're the Medivac of the Protoss world. Forcefield/Drop - clearly drop counters forcefield. Heal/+armor - different sides of the same coin. Hallucinate/Fying - for scouting and feints, obviously. | ||
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RadicalEdwrd
United States53 Posts
I'm honestly not understanding the Stalker hate here. People are pitting mineral values against mineral values, but that's not all that's at stake here in these matchups. It was mentioned before that three Roaches beat two Stalkers while being less expensive, but the Roaches can't shoot up either, and they also can't catch the Stalkers without speed, so who is to say that the Stalkers are beaten by Roaches when the Roaches hypothetically can't even catch their intended target? This is an interesting thread. Certainly helpful for me since I'm having trouble with my TvP matchup. edit: Here's what I've put together -- Do you need map control with harassment potential? Stalkers or Phoenixes. Do you need anti air? Stalkers or Phoenixes. Do you need an early game DPS backbone against an armored infantry biased attack? Stalkers or Immortals. Etc etc. Stalkers do not fill a UNIQUE role, which is perhaps what is disturbing most Protoss players. However, they do fill MANY roles, which is where their value lies, and it should not be overlooked! To me, this makes it harder to catch a Protoss vulnerable while he's transitioning between techs since he has a halfway man of sorts to help bridge the gap in the form of Stalkers. I very well could be extremely wrong, though. | ||
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Alejandrisha
United States6565 Posts
Basically, they are pretty weak units but it's not as though we have any other units to fill the roles we need stalkers for. I want my dragoons back  | ||
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GangstaJim
United States36 Posts
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Mirror0423
United States175 Posts
Mutas, yes they do give me a bit of a problem, but at the same time, if i'm not making stalkers, i have extra gas/minerals to spend. My current favorite being, play a lot like BW toss do now days, get +1 leg up lots (usually 6~8 lots by the time both upgrades are done) to pressure, this causes #1 zerg to use larva in to roaches/lings/hydras #2 find out if zerg is going roaches, hydras, or mutas. If they're going roaches, pull back immediately, a couple cannons and add HT (if all the gas you spend is 1 stalker, and then the upgrades, by the time +1 is about half way done i can throw down the templar archive). If they seem to be going mutas, just rush in, lings will melt, and then just run past the crawlers as soon as you can. Queen/lings can't do much against +1 leg up lots. This usually buys me enough time to morph an archon. Suprisingly 1 Archon(yes they're bad i know) with 1, or maybe 2 cannons by each mineral line, deters zerg from using their mutals too aggressively. BTW, when i said "i don't build stalkers" doesn't mean i'm spamming zelot like a idiot troll..... I am getting AA.. just not in a traditional form... ALSO, Stalkers are actaully not even "Decent against everything", they just "don't COMPLETELY suck agianst anything" but they do kinda suck against everything. | ||
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Cyber_Cheese
Australia3615 Posts
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Mirror0423
United States175 Posts
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GoldenH
1115 Posts
On November 18 2010 13:04 RadicalEdwrd wrote: Good info Golden, thanks for the reply. It seems to me that Stalkers are a very versatile unit which is why they are so expensive for their apparent strength. They are the glue that helps keep the Protoss army intact. They are also a very agile unit, which, if I'm not mistaken, offers a great deal of map control early game if you go for a small pack of Stalkers which you use aggressively, since they can harass effectively with little repercussions due to their speed. I'm honestly not understanding the Stalker hate here. People are pitting mineral values against mineral values, but that's not all that's at stake here in these matchups. It was mentioned before that three Roaches beat two Stalkers while being less expensive, but the Roaches can't shoot up either, and they also can't catch the Stalkers without speed, so who is to say that the Stalkers are beaten by Roaches when the Roaches hypothetically can't even catch their intended target? Its true, Roaches can't shoot up, but think about it. Both Terran/Zerg get their armored anti-armored ground unit at T1. Protoss waits until T2 (IMMORTALS!). Immortals surprisingly, don't counter either of the other armored anti-armored ground units, and are worse in other ways, but they are even against those units. But one of Protoss' T1 units is still Armor. D: And actually, the roaches can catch the stalkers on Creep, its just, they can't really be aggressive with them until they get Roach Speed, then they're faster than stalkers off Creep too, but Stalkers have Blink so they can run away, but actually, that's not fast enough because the upgrade makes Roaches so incredibly fast on creep and late game they'll probably have a huge amount of the map covered in it.. This is a bigger deal than it may seem. If you're at your base, it doesn't really matter if you can chase them or not, you're not going to because you'll get flanked and lose. As long as you can keep up with them, you're good. If you're at their opponents base, and they run away, you just go "SWEET" and kill all their probes, gg. Ever seen 3 roaches in probe line, if they focus fire, they one shot probes. In the middle, before blink/roach speed stalkers are probably better, well, at least they WERE, until the range 4 upgrade. Now you can't kite them anymore so you just have to trade armies, guess that's better than trading probes. On November 18 2010 13:04 RadicalEdwrd wrote:This is an interesting thread. Certainly helpful for me since I'm having trouble with my TvP matchup. edit: Here's what I've put together -- Do you need map control with harassment potential? Stalkers or Phoenixes. Neither of which give you map control, they give you a pin to the opponents base for about ~3 minutes, which is enough to get an expo up or some tech out (actually, the other tech you NEED TO SURVIVE, since you already paid tech time to get Stalkers or Phoenix out in the first place. If your harassment was predicted, you die instantly.) Do you need anti air? Stalkers or Phoenixes. Yup, though phoenix is actually terrible against battlecruiser/viking with marine support/corruptiors/brood lords. So you gotta get Stalkers in some situations, Carrier/Void Ray can be as good, but its pretty risky. Do you need an early game DPS backbone against an armored infantry biased attack? Stalkers or Immortals. Etc etc. Yup. Stalkers do not fill a UNIQUE role, which is perhaps what is disturbing most Protoss players. However, they do fill MANY roles, which is where their value lies, and it should not be overlooked! To me, this makes it harder to catch a Protoss vulnerable while he's transitioning between techs since he has a halfway man of sorts to help bridge the gap in the form of Stalkers. I very well could be extremely wrong, though. Yeah, you're wrong in the point where you think they actually fill any role. It's easy to say, "Well, Stalkers prevent you from being kited," but that only works if the opponent thinks they're being prevented from kiting, if they just kite anyway, you lose. "Stalkers protect you from Air." Not if they actually commit to it, 2 port banshees or 3 base muta will crush any number of Stalkers. "Stalkers harass the opponent." Only for an amount of time it takes to get blink, and even then, only if they weren't ready for it, and unlike most harass options Stalkers don't make a good addition to your army. Stalker's one saving grace is that they can be built from warpgates and you need them for zealot/sentry. So if your opponent just pushes into your base with 1 too many air unit you can make it even with a round of stalkers. That's it tho. | ||
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GoldenH
1115 Posts
On November 18 2010 13:17 Cyber_Cheese wrote: despite everything mentioned here about how bad they are, at least stalkers are better than hydras No question, hydras need a buff. | ||
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Seam
United States1093 Posts
On November 18 2010 12:35 GoldenH wrote: 9 stalkers: 1125 min, 450 gas 9 roaches: 675 min, 225 gas Equal resources, roaches absolutely destroy stalkers. And that's before they get burrow regen micro. And now throw them in a choke. Suddenly not all Roaches are even fighting, while all stalkers are. And that's before they get Blink micro. On November 18 2010 13:28 GoldenH wrote: Both Terran/Zerg get their armored anti-armored ground unit at T1. Protoss waits until T2 (IMMORTALS!). Immortals surprisingly, don't counter either of the other armored anti-armored ground units, and are worse in other ways, but they are even against those units. Immortals devastate Roaches o.o Not trying to discredit you, but it's true. Also, Zerg don't have an anti-armored ground unit till Ultras, Roaches don't do +armored damage, only Marauders and Stalkers do at T1  | ||
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57 Corvette
Canada5941 Posts
You need something in front of them though, or they will get rofflepwned by swarm units (zerglings, marines, possibly zealots) or stomped by anti-armour. If stalkers are supposed to be an anti-armour T1.5 unit (aka poor man's immortal) , then why do they only do +4 damage to armoured over their regular attack. | ||
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Mirror0423
United States175 Posts
Any good player knows that with charge being used zelots are considerably faster than stalkers. So just run away for about quarter of the map, then zelots are quite a bit ahead of stalkers (all they need to be is like 4~5 range away from the stalkers since you yoursefl will be using 3~4 range to hit the zelot) and you can start kiting then. If you're terran. AWESOME those zelots can't even run away!! If you're zerg. AWESOME roaches eat zelots before they CAN run away!! I agree with golden H that Realistically stalkers are there incase your opponent has a few air units to hit you. The other "usefulness" seems to be if you happen to be holding a ramp with sentries against zerg (yeah, a very specific case which supports that stalkers are not very useful) you need the ranged unit to find them off. Then again this happens pretty much only if zerg is cheesing/half cheesing quite early. Though if you were going for the +1 zelots (which is what i usually do) you have the forge anyways, why not build a cannon or two, and use that time you didn't spend making 2 stalkers and make more sentries? (yeah i know the math doesn't work out, but hey, toss is short on gas early on, not minerals, and if you're short on minerals early just cut probes for a while. Zerg's semi cheesing anways) | ||
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