• Log InLog In
  • Register
Liquid`
Team Liquid Liquipedia
EDT 11:08
CEST 17:08
KST 00:08
  • Home
  • Forum
  • Calendar
  • Streams
  • Liquipedia
  • Features
  • Store
  • EPT
  • TL+
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Smash
  • Heroes
  • Counter-Strike
  • Overwatch
  • Liquibet
  • Fantasy StarCraft
  • TLPD
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Blogs
Forum Sidebar
Events/Features
News
Featured News
[ASL22] Ro16 Preview: Holy Diver4[ASL22] Ro16 Preview: Rough Waters10[ASL22] Ro24 Preview: Siren's Call8[ASL22] Ro24 Preview: Summer's End9Serral wins HomeStory Cup 2915
Community News
Weekly Cups (Sep 7-12): SHIN, ByuN, MaxPax double down1StarCraft open world shooter announced at BlizzCon98Weekly Cups (Aug 30-Sep 7): herO thrives amid growing schism10Official StarCraft website teases new content ahead of BlizzCon?179Stellar Fest TWO the Moon (Dec 16-20)9
StarCraft 2
General
Weekly Cups (Sep 7-12): SHIN, ByuN, MaxPax double down How do you feel about the StarCraft shooter announcement at BlizzCon 2026? Blizzard Classic Cup @ BlizzCon 2026 - $100k prize pool StarCraft open world shooter announced at BlizzCon Balance hotfix patch 5.0.16b (July 16)
Tourneys
RSL Revival: Season 6 - Qualifiers and Main Event RSL goes to London! 2026 Offline Finals Nov 21-22 SC2 AI Tournament 2026 Fall Sparkling Tuna Cup - Weekly Open Tournament KSL Week #92
Strategy
[G] Having the right mentality to improve
Custom Maps
Nexus Wars 2021 GUIDE [M] (2) Industrial Park
External Content
Mutation # 543 Enhanced Defenses The PondCast: SC2 News & Results Mutation # 542 The Ascended Mutation # 541 Binary Choice
Brood War
General
Why Protoss Struggles on ASL (Ft. Shuttle, Tulbo) ASL22 General Discussion Syncronization issues and can't find games Remastered crash fix suggestions BGH Auto Balance -> http://bghmmr.eu/
Tourneys
[ASL22] Ro16 Group D [ASL22] Ro16 Group C KCM Race Survival 2026 Season 3 [Megathread] Daily Proleagues
Strategy
Replay Review Process - What do you do? Simple Questions, Simple Answers Odyssey Mineral Stack Saturation Game Theory for Starcraft
Other Games
General Games
Nintendo Switch Thread Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne Stormgate/Frost Giant Megathread EVE Corporation Diablo IV
Dota 2
Official 'what is Dota anymore' discussion
League of Legends
[TL LoL EUW IHs] Teemo shall perish
Heroes of the Storm
Heroes of the Storm 2.0
Hearthstone
Deck construction bug
TL Mafia
TL Mafia Community Thread
Community
General
US Politics Mega-thread Russo-Ukrainian War Thread Canadian Politics Mega-thread Post Your Watch! Artificial Intelligence Thread
Fan Clubs
MarineLorD Fan Club The Creator Fan Club The ShoWTimE Fan Club
Media & Entertainment
[Manga] One Piece Movie Discussion! Diablo Animated Series on Netflix
Sports
Football (Soccer) Thread TeamLiquid Health and Fitness Initiative For 2023 MLB/Baseball 2023
World Cup 2022
Tech Support
Computer Build, Upgrade & Buying Resource Thread
TL Community
The Automated Ban List Northern Ireland Global Starcraft
Blogs
[meme] I finally understa…
LUCKY_NOOB
Virtual Romance, Real-Life C…
TrAiDoS
Regacy Esports:Our Goa…
regacyesports
Dreaming of BW patches (mod…
c3rberUs
Customize Sidebar...

Website Feedback

Closed Threads



Active: 7900 users

A thorough analysis of Force Fields - Page 2

Forum Index > Closed
Post a Reply
Prev 1 2 3 4 5 37 38 39 Next All
Dommk
Profile Joined May 2010
Australia4865 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-03-19 12:31:41
March 19 2011 12:28 GMT
#21
On March 19 2011 20:54 DarkRise wrote:
Show nested quote +
On March 19 2011 20:23 NormandyBoy wrote:
There is a very simple way of nerfing FF without breaking the protoss early game (defending rushes), just make FF like in the Raynor Party's sentry mini-game. That is to say one sentry can only cast one FF at a time, if it casts another one, the first disappears. This way, protoss players would have to cast the spell more carefully, because if you cast more FF than you have sentries, you're being inefficient.


Whats the point of stacking energy??? 1 FF per sentry is kinda ridiculous, 100 gas is a lot of investment and the unit it self don't deal much damage.
There are a lot of ways to counter forcefields, Morrow/idra use tunneling claws to counter this
And if you know a sentry heavy 4 gate is coming you can have lings intercept these slow sentries or bait forcefields. Also you need skills to execute this and without them gateway units are pretty useless. Roach/MM play is basically soo good against gateway units and will delay your expandsion.

1 FF per sentry IS ridiculous. I dare anyone who says to make this change to play Protoss against heavy aggression with this change made in a custom map, it is quite ridiculous. DO you know why people get 7-8 Sentries with a 3gate expand? Because heavy roach aggression out right kills you if you don't have all those force fields, and even then it is possible to be overrun if you screw up a single force field.

Sentries aren't easy to replace either, just because you cut the army in half doesn't mean you have the DPS to compete sometimes, if you lose sentries early game (and it IS easy to lose them sometimes, or if you overstepped) then you would always be required to have 5-6 sentries making it super difficult to actually tech.

With 3gate expand, it is almost an instant loss if you lose your first 6sentries when you try to shark mode, imagine with this change how impossible it would be,
emc
Profile Joined September 2010
United States3088 Posts
March 19 2011 12:29 GMT
#22
what about sentries starting with 75 energy and force fields cost 75 energy? Therfore you can only use 2 forcefields per sentry with full energy and have to wait a bit longer to cast a 3rd. Maybe that would be too big of a nerf though, cutting forcefield usage from 4 to 2 would be pretty big.
ReketSomething
Profile Blog Joined November 2008
United States6012 Posts
March 19 2011 12:29 GMT
#23
PvP without forcefields...would be even more 1 dimensional...
Jaedong :3
Dommk
Profile Joined May 2010
Australia4865 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-03-19 12:36:09
March 19 2011 12:35 GMT
#24
On March 19 2011 21:29 emc wrote:
what about sentries starting with 75 energy and force fields cost 75 energy? Therfore you can only use 2 forcefields per sentry with full energy and have to wait a bit longer to cast a 3rd. Maybe that would be too big of a nerf though, cutting forcefield usage from 4 to 2 would be pretty big.

I think you would have to change EMP to compensate. EMP was reduced to 100 energy because early ghost pushes were too strong (assuming this from Naniwas leaked notes), imagine after, you would have energy for 1 force field with every banked force field. Force field may be too strong against Zerg but it is definitely not against Terran, it is almost a necessity to just stay alive. Imagine dealing with all those 1base all-ins from Terran with less force fields..
shadowboxer
Profile Joined November 2010
United States224 Posts
March 19 2011 12:39 GMT
#25
On March 19 2011 21:26 TheAwesomeAll wrote:
With a lot of sentrys made in the early game and good micro you can indeed stop your opponents ability to micro, but so does conc shell and FG with a far less investment.


How in the world is fungal growth less of an investment than building 8 sentries early game and never having to build anymore if you play correctly? Reliably teching to infestors is a much bigger investment, it's not like Zerg gets the ability to make infestors from a reliable tech patch against protoss like protoss gets sentries from the cybernetics core. You don't have to go out of your way to get sentries and you don't have to get an energy upgrade for them to reliably use forcefield. Terrible comparison.

Baneling play would be an answer if the counter to it wasn't already figured out. You just turtle as much as you physically can and keep expanding. Sim city every base on your side of the map and don't move out until you're maxed. Zerg currently has no answer to a late game Protoss deathball with proper upgrades and saturated 3rds/4ths anyway, so forcing protoss into the late game only benefits Toss. If you really wanted to get creative with it you could get a few warp prisms and lift your sentries until the banelings are dead and then wall off their army and retreat.
"Hear that? That's God laughing at your plans."
mutantmagnet
Profile Joined June 2009
United States3807 Posts
March 19 2011 12:41 GMT
#26
It was more than godly. MC showed off how easy it is to abuse forcefields.

Everyone knew about blocking the ramp but noone ever built up so many sentries where it can certainly be done with zero risk to the initially weaker protoss army killing off a hatch. "Initially" is an important term here because while a sacrifice is made building so many sentries it only takes a short window of time for the protoss army to switch over to dedicated attacking units and just crush whatever army is thrown at them because overtime the sentries are cutting forces in half.

I think such a situation is more of an anomaly at higher level play. If July had clued in faster to the situation he would've had more of his army already at the bottom of the ramp.


But when MC wasn't abusing a ramp he simply built more sentries to just gratuitously seperate the zerg army with contemptuous ease.

In that situation I think forcefield mechanic needs to change where it acts like a combination of stasis, dweb and the current forcefield. Thus it prevents units from attacking into and out of it, it prevents units moving into the field but any unit under it can move out of it and special abilities still function against units under the forcefield.

Forcefield eesentially needs more tradeoffs in the same manner darkswarm provided tradeoffs even though zerg stat wise was better off taking advantage of dark swarm.
Dalavita
Profile Joined August 2010
Sweden1113 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-03-19 12:43:46
March 19 2011 12:43 GMT
#27
I think zergs need to use their lings to snipe sentries, probes and pylons, and for the zerg to do flank attacks against heavy FF usage, and research burrow early and always burrow units when they get separated by force fields. Am I clueless?
emc
Profile Joined September 2010
United States3088 Posts
March 19 2011 12:43 GMT
#28
On March 19 2011 21:35 Dommk wrote:
Show nested quote +
On March 19 2011 21:29 emc wrote:
what about sentries starting with 75 energy and force fields cost 75 energy? Therfore you can only use 2 forcefields per sentry with full energy and have to wait a bit longer to cast a 3rd. Maybe that would be too big of a nerf though, cutting forcefield usage from 4 to 2 would be pretty big.

I think you would have to change EMP to compensate. EMP was reduced to 100 energy because early ghost pushes were too strong (assuming this from Naniwas leaked notes), imagine after, you would have energy for 1 force field with every banked force field. Force field may be too strong against Zerg but it is definitely not against Terran, it is almost a necessity to just stay alive. Imagine dealing with all those 1base all-ins from Terran with less force fields..


yeah you're right, what about bringing back burrow on hatchery tech? I think the best way to deal with heavy sentry play is with baneling mines because a lot of sentries usually means no robotics. Just a thought, but perhaps early baneling mines at hatch tech might break ZvT?

The other kind of solution is to make hydras faster off creep either default or through an upgrade. Hydras destroy gateway units but get crushed with proper forcefields.
Rain.cz
Profile Joined July 2010
Czech Republic227 Posts
March 19 2011 12:44 GMT
#29
i would make it on cooldown instead of energy
I'm in Golden league, don't take my opinions seriously
Cabinet Sanchez
Profile Joined February 2011
Australia1097 Posts
March 19 2011 12:47 GMT
#30
As others have stated, maybe FF is too harsh against Z - but there just so happens to be a race which we're fucked against without them. Maybe look there first and we'll discuss fiddling with FF. Especially 2 units which start with M.
Dalavita
Profile Joined August 2010
Sweden1113 Posts
March 19 2011 12:49 GMT
#31
On March 19 2011 21:47 Cabinet Sanchez wrote:
As others have stated, maybe FF is too harsh against Z - but there just so happens to be a race which we're fucked against without them. Maybe look there first and we'll discuss fiddling with FF. Especially 2 units which start with M.


Force fields are to strong against zerg, nerf terran.

What? if anything zerg should get some ability to stay alive against force fields.

Burrow at hatch tech for instance.
perestain
Profile Blog Joined July 2010
Germany308 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-03-19 12:51:55
March 19 2011 12:49 GMT
#32
thanks for spoiling gsl finals.
on another note, protoss could be taken out of the game without ff, since t and z early pushes are not defendable without them.
No matter how hot it gets, sooner or later there's a cool breeze coming in.
Owii
Profile Joined July 2010
United States357 Posts
March 19 2011 12:50 GMT
#33
The main issue that I see with force fields, as has been pointed out by others, is how one-sided the ability is compared to spells from BW. Dark Swarm, Irradiate, Storm, etc are interesting abilities because they pit the ability of the caster vs the ability of the defender. The defender has to react properly to them or they get rolled. That's why in some games these spells would seem completely unstoppable, and in some they would be a wasted investment. The defender's ability to micro out of them determined their effectiveness.

In SC2, each race has a spell that the opponent cannot react to. Fungal Growth, EMP, and FF can all be negated before they are cast (with good units spread, getting burrow, etc etc), but they can't be dealt with on-the-fly at all. That's just bad game design imo. There's no give and take, no reactionary response, it's just "I hope I scout it in time so I can prepare".
Cabinet Sanchez
Profile Joined February 2011
Australia1097 Posts
March 19 2011 12:53 GMT
#34
On March 19 2011 21:49 Dalavita wrote:
Show nested quote +
On March 19 2011 21:47 Cabinet Sanchez wrote:
As others have stated, maybe FF is too harsh against Z - but there just so happens to be a race which we're fucked against without them. Maybe look there first and we'll discuss fiddling with FF. Especially 2 units which start with M.


Force fields are to strong against zerg, nerf terran.

What? if anything zerg should get some ability to stay alive against force fields.

Burrow at hatch tech for instance.


Hey look I agree it's a horrible spell against Z and I play P - I feel for Z players, I really do.
However we need FF vs T, that's just how it is. If they can make positive changes for all parties that doesn't make me angry.

I think the queen should be able to cast a spell on the FF to drop it - costing energy of course. I think that might be fair.
Willes
Profile Joined April 2010
Germany199 Posts
March 19 2011 12:54 GMT
#35
Just look at progames and compare expanding speed beetween P and Z, you know the answer, the P simply can safeexpand as fast as the Z can, because of FF.
FF is a really great feature which makes the game fun to watch, but early FF combined with warpintech is just so strong in the earlygame.
Z has hard times with trying to expand faster then the P, the 1st expand is pretty safe because of FF, and while expanding as fast Z the P can pressure alot because he isnt cutting eco, and all this results from FF and warpin.

Suggestions to reduce this problem:
- reduce the earlygame quantity of FF
- higher techtime for FF
- higher techtime for warpins


mfg
Immanis
Profile Joined October 2010
United States21 Posts
March 19 2011 12:57 GMT
#36
I do agree that there is a trend that any time one race wins there is immediate QQ... now i'm not saying that this thread is exactly that but on the bnet forums it is rampant.

TL is really the only place for decent discussion. With that said, FF are needed by Protoss in the current meta game... Terran stim would really break any Toss gateway army with absolute efficiency. I'm certain that most of us have seen how Idra has dealt with them with burrow and tunneling claws... as the game evolves and even with the upcoming expansions... we will, hopefully, look back and see that FF are really not OP.... well hopefully
mczbot
Profile Joined October 2010
Germany70 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-03-19 13:03:07
March 19 2011 13:01 GMT
#37
well i bashed my heads about this skill so much time already, and i only came to one valid conclusion that makes sense (in my brain that is):

1) forcefields arent able to block ramps. so you need lets say at least 2 or 3 forcefields up to build a concave around your or the oponents ramp
2) sentrys need to research a energy upgrade in order to forcefield right after warpin (shouldnt cost much, lets say 50/50 or 100/50 as sentrys are a gasheavy investment)
3) zerg needs a way to deal with the energy units in general (such as ht/sentry). solution: fungal'd units are unable to cast spells (but that might be too powerfull of a skill with the upcomming patch)
Hollis
Profile Joined January 2011
United States505 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-03-19 13:10:50
March 19 2011 13:07 GMT
#38
I just really think Zerg needs some unambiguous BUFFS, to NUMBERS ie damage, hp, movement speed, -unit cost, etc etc. And not all these weird "philosophy" changes that just shuffle around the specific applications for abilities, changes no one asked for or wanted.

Forcefield seems ridiculous vs Zerg partly because Zerg already struggles with Protoss just based on unit cost inefficiency and the fact that Protoss+micro is far, far more powerful than Zerg+micro.

You need FF against Terran? Fair enough. But it's way too good vs Zergs.

What I mean is, I get really irritated when people scream that someone has really amazing Forcefields, or whatever else. Why? Because I ask this question: What does a Zerg player have that can turn amazing micro into such a crazy advantage?

Like Blink. Yeah it takes some crazy micro to pull off, and it's certainly impressive, but the better micro the stronger your army, to the point where you become nearly unkillable. How is your opponent supposed to deal with it? If you can get sufficient micro are you supposed to be unbeatable? How is that fair, or interesting?
Dalavita
Profile Joined August 2010
Sweden1113 Posts
March 19 2011 13:08 GMT
#39
On March 19 2011 22:07 Hollis wrote:
What I mean is, I get really irritated when people scream that someone has really amazing Forcefields, or whatever else. Why? Because I ask this question: What does a Zerg player have that can turn amazing micro into such a crazy advantage?


Ling speed, spreading your mass ling group up and individually targeting different sentries, using burrow to burrow all of your trapped units, attacking from flanks.

Those are some micro things you could do.
sleepyguy
Profile Joined March 2011
United States272 Posts
March 19 2011 13:08 GMT
#40
Just throwing these out there:

1. What if FF duration was lowered from 15 to 10 seconds? 15 seconds seems way too long.

orand

2. Have FF become a channeled ability that drains energy (for example 15 energy per second) and the sentry can't attack while channeling

or/and

3. Make FF an aoe ability that surronds said sentry at it's current position? Sort of like a static field that makes the sentry immune to damage, but also takes the sentry out of the battle for the duration? This way they are still viable defensively as the sentry must be in position, say ramp, to turn on or cast it's FF. Offensively the sentry would be need to get in position before opponents notice and opponents would have to snipe or retreat accordingly, making it more of a micro race?

Very new to RTS and sc2 in general, would love some feedback
WE FOKKEN LOST BOYS
Prev 1 2 3 4 5 37 38 39 Next All
Please log in or register to reply.
Live Events Refresh
Next event in 8h 52m
[ Submit Event ]
Live Streams
Refresh
StarCraft 2
ProTech127
StarCraft: Brood War
Bisu 2614
Horang2 1288
Soma 656
Snow 482
Light 455
Soulkey 443
Larva 270
actioN 266
Stork 241
ZerO 200
[ Show more ]
Rush 162
hero 119
Zeus 90
Pusan 73
910 65
Sea.KH 48
Dewaltoss 43
Sexy 42
Trap 31
Hm[arnc] 28
Terrorterran 28
ToSsGirL 25
Sharp 20
HiyA 19
scan(afreeca) 11
sorry 11
Shine 10
Noble 4
Britney 0
Dota 2
qojqva2033
Dendi911
Counter-Strike
byalli1603
x6flipin92
Super Smash Bros
Mew2King37
Other Games
singsing2188
B2W.Neo1137
hiko822
Lowko417
FrodaN370
Hui .272
RotterdaM224
DeMusliM188
Liquid`VortiX149
ArmadaUGS92
TKL 66
SteadfastSC57
KnowMe50
QueenE28
ZerO(Twitch)12
ceh97
Organizations
Other Games
gamesdonequick858
StarCraft 2
WardiTV635
Other Games
BasetradeTV39
[ Show 14 non-featured ]
StarCraft 2
• StrangeGG 60
• mYiSmile115
• intothetv
• AfreecaTV YouTube
• Kozan
• IndyKCrew
• Migwel
StarCraft: Brood War
• BSLYoutube
• STPLYoutube
• ZZZeroYoutube
Dota 2
• WagamamaTV422
League of Legends
• Jankos2040
• Nemesis1997
• TFBlade1129
Upcoming Events
Replay Cast
8h 52m
IntoTheTV X SOOP
19h 52m
Cure vs SHIN
herO vs Solar
Percival vs Classic
ByuN vs Rogue
OSC
1d 6h
Replay Cast
1d 8h
IntoTheTV X SOOP
1d 19h
Replay Cast
2 days
GSL
2 days
Replay Cast
3 days
GSL
3 days
Shopify Rebellion Sundays
3 days
Spirit vs Mixu
[ Show More ]
Replay Cast
4 days
Afreeca Starleague
4 days
Shine vs Rush
WardiTV Weekly
4 days
Monday Night Weeklies
5 days
Sparkling Tuna Cup
5 days
Afreeca Starleague
5 days
Light vs EffOrt
PiGosaur Cup
6 days
Kung Fu Cup
6 days
Liquipedia Results

Completed

Acropolis #5 - TRS
Blizzard Classic Cup 2026
Big Dog Cup 2026 Div 1

Ongoing

KCM Race Survival 2026 Season 3
K-JUNGMAN
ASL Season 22
Super Anchor Qualifying S3
CSL 2026 AUTUMN (S22)
Acropolis #5
Calamity Invitational
FISSURE Playground #3
BLAST Open Fall 2026
Esports World Cup 2026
BLAST Bounty Summer 2026
BLAST Bounty Summer Qual
Stake Ranked Episode 3
XSE Pro League 2026

Upcoming

Acropolis #5 - GSA
Acropolis #5 - GSB
Acropolis #5 - GSC
SC4ALL II: Brood War
HSC XXX
Stellar Fest 2: Lunar Cup
SC4ALL II: StarCraft II
Kung Fu Cup 2026 Grand Finals
RSL Offline Finals
Copium Cup
PGL Major Singapore 2026
Stake Ranked Episode 6
BLAST Rivals Fall 2026
IEM Beijing 2026
Stake Ranked Episode 5
PGL Masters Bucharest 2026
1win Private Club #2
Thunderpick World Champ. '26
ESL Pro League Season 24
Stake Ranked Episode 4
1win Private Club #1
Logitech G Play Connect 2026
SL StarSeries Fall 2026
TLPD

1. ByuN
2. TY
3. Dark
4. Solar
5. Stats
6. Nerchio
7. sOs
8. soO
9. INnoVation
10. Elazer
1. Rain
2. Flash
3. EffOrt
4. Last
5. Bisu
6. Soulkey
7. Mini
8. Sharp
Sidebar Settings...

Advertising | Privacy Policy | Terms Of Use | Contact Us

Original banner artwork: Jim Warren
The contents of this webpage are copyright © 2026 TLnet. All Rights Reserved.