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I find it hard to believe that people are actually complaining about gateway units doing too much damage.
Tier 1-1.5 DPS Numbers (with no bonuses/no armor/no stim): Zealot 13.33 Roach 8 Zergling 7.18 Marine 6.97 Stalker 6.94 Marauder 6.67 Sentry 6
Keep in mind during this that a Stalkers and Sentries are the two most expensive tier 1-1.5 units. If you're going to complain about stalkers/sentries, at least complain about them having too much health or something - their dps is pretty terrible.
Edit: Fixed numbers.
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Forcefields last too long. 15 seconds per forcefield means you can block a ramp for 14 years. Decrease the lasting time to 10-12 seconds and ramp-blocking won't be nearly as gamebreaking. As for open engagements, there are many things a player can do to beat force fields. This thread contains so many of them that I feel its unnecessary to repeat... IMO: nerf forcefield lasting time 3-5 seconds, and maybe nerf sentry damage from 6 to 5.
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On March 29 2011 06:17 Baeksucho wrote: Make FF Horizontal walls instead of round so the sentry has to be perpendicular to FF the ramp and spamming FF with a sentry ball less effective (could leave some hole on the sides)
I think that would be a huge buff, if I understand you correctly. A forcefield wall with holes in it would still hugely restrict movement and mess up the other army's concave while allowing the other army to commit suicide by pushing through it after the half on the side of the army is dead.
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On March 29 2011 06:29 Treehead wrote: I find it hard to believe that people are actually complaining about gateway units doing too much damage.
Tier 1-1.5 DPS Numbers (with no bonuses/no stim): Roach 8 Zergling 7.18 Marine 6.97 Stalker 6.94 Marauder 6.67 Zealot 6.67 Sentry 6
Keep in mind during this that a Stalkers and Sentries are the two most expensive tier 1-1.5 units. If you're going to complain about gateway units, at least complain about them having too much health or something - their dps is pretty terrible and everyone knows it.
Zealots hit twice so their dps is actually double that, making zealots freaking beasts.
@people saying set sentry energy at 75 to start and make FF cost 75 energy to cast: this would make it a lot harder to hold a 4 gate in pvp with 3 gates as your first sentry would not get 2 FFs. That's something that would be rather unfortunate, as 4 gate makes for already stupid PvPs.
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This thread clearly isn't "A thorough analysis of Force Fields". Unfortunately, it's degraded into "Let's come up with possible nerfs for the forcefield, assuming that it has to be nerfed in the first place".
The problem, of course, is that this axiom isn't true. Forcefields don't need to be nerfed at all, and sentries aren't overpowered. PvZ isn't broken, and neither is PvT. There are plenty of successful games where non-Protosses have done just fine beating their Protoss opponents. This is true all across the board, from the lowest level players to the pros. Multi-pronged attacks, constant harrassment, and not engaging in choke points are perfect examples of strategies that other races have used to counter the existence and mechanics of forcefields. This is probably why the current statistics of the match-ups show that the races are relatively balanced, as opposed to PvZ or PvT being overwhelmingly in favor of the Protoss.
The whining about forcefields, as well as the fixation about plausible nerfs, need to stop. Sentries and their abilities are fine just the way they are. Learn to deal with them as is.
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On March 29 2011 05:43 Mailing wrote: As someone said, remove or weaken sentry attack.
The reason these stupid ass sentry/stalker rushes keep happening is because sentries are actually damn strong. They have one less DPS than a stalker. They BEAT MUTALISKS in battle.
When you got 4 stalkers and 7-9 sentries firing, roaches even with their armor die quite quickly.
If you watch the Moon vs Squirtle games at IEM, Moon drops like 16 hydra in his base and 8-10 sentries are able to kill them quite fine -.-
Even before the stalkers...
6 sentries (300/600) that trap units will deal (per duration/round of FFs that keep the units trapped)...
-540 damage to 0 armored units. -450 damage to +1 armored units.
That's...
-385 minerals worth of zerglings -225/75 worth of roaches
Without having a single dps unit and P having the potential to take 0 damage in return.
The reason why I think sentry dps/hp is the best point to focus on is because it shouldn't drastically change PvT or PvP where the sentry isn't used in such high #s early on and is a much less significant part of a P's early game DPS compared to ZvP. It also allows for a P to hold 1 base almost as well vs early aggression vs Z (or anything really), but opens up a vulnerability if they try to move out or pump pure sentries early on.
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On March 29 2011 06:30 Skank wrote: Forcefields last too long. 15 seconds per forcefield means you can block a ramp for 14 years. Decrease the lasting time to 10-12 seconds and ramp-blocking won't be nearly as gamebreaking. As for open engagements, there are many things a player can do to beat force fields. This thread contains so many of them that I feel its unnecessary to repeat... IMO: nerf forcefield lasting time 3-5 seconds, and maybe nerf sentry damage from 6 to 5.
Midgame it means you can block a ramp for a long time. Early game it means you have a chance of keeping your ramp blocked to a roach all-in until you can get yourself more than 2 units.
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"Every sentry can only have one forcefield active at a time" seems to be able to solve all the FF QQ. This change still allows forcefields to be used effectively on defense but less powerful overall in offensive pushes because to create perfect force fields, Protoss would have to have way more sentries. This would still allow perfectly placed force fields to be game changing but makes the standing army to be less devastating because it is comprised of sentries and not zealots/stalkers/other powerhouse units.
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ForceFields are Tearing up the Basics of the 12 year old GamePlay imo...
Making BuildOrders is an Art !!! Organizing to have a good unit composition against Every Timing Attacks, getting a Detector and a Scout in time. Sadly Protosses don't need to organize anything against Timing Attacks, it's enough to get a SentryMass EarlyGame, so 99,9% of them "play" this way.
I'm only at Platina Region Top 100 right now with my Alt, but Never made a Sentry !!! So NoOne is Allowed to Whine about Protoss cannot survive EarlyGame without ForceFields.
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This is one of the many ripple effects of the unholy trinity of Roach-Marauder-Immortal, among other Blizzard design decisions.
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On March 29 2011 07:17 marshmallow wrote: This is one of the many ripple effects of the unholy trinity of Roach-Marauder-Immortal, among other Blizzard design decisions.
Haha well-said sir.
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On March 29 2011 06:26 Mailing wrote: Sentries do enough damage to kill units fast. With Force Field, they can kill units without ever being hit, and it only costs renewable energy.
If you watch some of the MC pushes, he can go a far as killing an entire zerg defense without losing more than 2-3 units, it's that insane.
Correction: They can kill units with lower range without getting hit. There's a reason why you generally don't see tons of sentries in PvT, they're pretty crap vs armies with a decent attack range. This really has more to do with Roaches being such a weird early unit than Sentries being too good imo.
Although I'm not altogether opposed to a 15 second cooldown on FF, and maybe a Sentry energy upgrade on the TC (so we can use Hallucination and GS more instead of saving it all for a million FFs).
On March 29 2011 07:17 marshmallow wrote: This is one of the many ripple effects of the unholy trinity of Roach-Marauder-Immortal, among other Blizzard design decisions.
Why Immortal though? Because it's a counter to Armored? If you wanted "boring a-move units that screw up the game" then Colossus would've been a better choice.
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On March 29 2011 07:17 marshmallow wrote: This is one of the many ripple effects of the unholy trinity of Roach-Marauder-Immortal, among other Blizzard design decisions.
Oh please, are people still complaining about those units? They are all actually pretty easy to deal with.
Sentries, on the other hand, you really can't do anything against them if they are microed well
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On March 29 2011 06:32 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: This thread clearly isn't "A thorough analysis of Force Fields". Unfortunately, it's degraded into "Let's come up with possible nerfs for the forcefield, assuming that it has to be nerfed in the first place".
The problem, of course, is that this axiom isn't true. Forcefields don't need to be nerfed at all, and sentries aren't overpowered. PvZ isn't broken, and neither is PvT. There are plenty of successful games where non-Protosses have done just fine beating their Protoss opponents. This is true all across the board, from the lowest level players to the pros. Multi-pronged attacks, constant harrassment, and not engaging in choke points are perfect examples of strategies that other races have used to counter the existence and mechanics of forcefields. This is probably why the current statistics of the match-ups show that the races are relatively balanced, as opposed to PvZ or PvT being overwhelmingly in favor of the Protoss.
The whining about forcefields, as well as the fixation about plausible nerfs, need to stop. Sentries and their abilities are fine just the way they are. Learn to deal with them as is.
that is a horrible way to look at it... by your same logic anything that made a matchup very one-sided, but not completely unwinnable would be balanced. Let's use an extreme example and make fungal growth last the full 8 seconds, but with the dps it does now. This would make any game where zerg got infestors, and landed some good FGs utterly imba, but before infestors, or if the FGs don't land quite right, or w/e, then the zerg can still lose. This does not make it balanced! You claim everything is all awesome and perfect, but you are saying that from a very obviously protoss bias, which makes your arguments frail at best.
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I did Ctrl + F "Burrow" but didn't find it mentioned once in the OP and am curious as to why. As a Protoss player it seems as though Zergs can pretty easily "counter" Force Field from a 2base push with mass Sentry by just burrowing and sitting underground until the Force Fields die, then rinsing and repeating until he's all out.
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On March 29 2011 07:37 Shiladie wrote:Show nested quote +On March 29 2011 06:32 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: This thread clearly isn't "A thorough analysis of Force Fields". Unfortunately, it's degraded into "Let's come up with possible nerfs for the forcefield, assuming that it has to be nerfed in the first place".
The problem, of course, is that this axiom isn't true. Forcefields don't need to be nerfed at all, and sentries aren't overpowered. PvZ isn't broken, and neither is PvT. There are plenty of successful games where non-Protosses have done just fine beating their Protoss opponents. This is true all across the board, from the lowest level players to the pros. Multi-pronged attacks, constant harrassment, and not engaging in choke points are perfect examples of strategies that other races have used to counter the existence and mechanics of forcefields. This is probably why the current statistics of the match-ups show that the races are relatively balanced, as opposed to PvZ or PvT being overwhelmingly in favor of the Protoss.
The whining about forcefields, as well as the fixation about plausible nerfs, need to stop. Sentries and their abilities are fine just the way they are. Learn to deal with them as is. that is a horrible way to look at it... by your same logic anything that made a matchup very one-sided, but not completely unwinnable would be balanced. Let's use an extreme example and make fungal growth last the full 8 seconds, but with the dps it does now. This would make any game where zerg got infestors, and landed some good FGs utterly imba, but before infestors, or if the FGs don't land quite right, or w/e, then the zerg can still lose. This does not make it balanced! You claim everything is all awesome and perfect, but you are saying that from a very obviously protoss bias, which makes your arguments frail at best.
No, it's not a horrible way to look at it. It's the right one, it's the one that made bw as successful as it is. It's not that the game should be changed when people are facing difficulties towards certain units / strategies, it's the players that should approach the game differently.
I don't want to say that everything is fine and balanced, but people are grossly overexaggerating. Guess what makes the game actually enjoyable. Right, spellcasters, multi pronged attacks and action. I can't believe how everyone want casters to be nerfed in this game. Some of them should get a heavy buff, so that 1a-ing isn't an option anymore.
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On March 29 2011 07:37 Shiladie wrote:Show nested quote +On March 29 2011 06:32 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: This thread clearly isn't "A thorough analysis of Force Fields". Unfortunately, it's degraded into "Let's come up with possible nerfs for the forcefield, assuming that it has to be nerfed in the first place".
The problem, of course, is that this axiom isn't true. Forcefields don't need to be nerfed at all, and sentries aren't overpowered. PvZ isn't broken, and neither is PvT. There are plenty of successful games where non-Protosses have done just fine beating their Protoss opponents. This is true all across the board, from the lowest level players to the pros. Multi-pronged attacks, constant harrassment, and not engaging in choke points are perfect examples of strategies that other races have used to counter the existence and mechanics of forcefields. This is probably why the current statistics of the match-ups show that the races are relatively balanced, as opposed to PvZ or PvT being overwhelmingly in favor of the Protoss.
The whining about forcefields, as well as the fixation about plausible nerfs, need to stop. Sentries and their abilities are fine just the way they are. Learn to deal with them as is. that is a horrible way to look at it... by your same logic anything that made a matchup very one-sided, but not completely unwinnable would be balanced. Let's use an extreme example and make fungal growth last the full 8 seconds, but with the dps it does now. This would make any game where zerg got infestors, and landed some good FGs utterly imba, but before infestors, or if the FGs don't land quite right, or w/e, then the zerg can still lose. This does not make it balanced! You claim everything is all awesome and perfect, but you are saying that from a very obviously protoss bias, which makes your arguments frail at best.
The way that many people are looking at forcefields on this thread is "How can we nerf them so that we don't have to directly deal with them... because I don't like problem solving?" Rather than looking at how people are solving forcefields, people want Blizzard to nerf them. That's ridiculous, because people will always have problems with different units or spells. It's going to be a slippery slope; when do we stop patching everything and begin to play the game that we're given?
Sentries do not make Protoss overpowered; this is proven by the fact that the PvZ and PvT win percentages are not completely skewed in favor of the Protoss. It has nothing to do with what race I play; I'm taking an objective stance on this, because I'm looking at the statistics.
And your analogy is flawed because you're purposely coming up with a hypothetical scenario where everyone would necessarily agree that fungal growth is imbalanced, due to already-viewed buffs and nerfs to the infestor. There is no such patch on the sentry, and there shouldn't be one. There is no reason to nerf the sentry, because people who have actually tried are able to counter forcefields effectively. Furthermore, the current status of the forcefield is necessary to protect the Protoss in the early stages of the game from fast rushes.
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On March 29 2011 08:02 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On March 29 2011 07:37 Shiladie wrote:On March 29 2011 06:32 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: This thread clearly isn't "A thorough analysis of Force Fields". Unfortunately, it's degraded into "Let's come up with possible nerfs for the forcefield, assuming that it has to be nerfed in the first place".
The problem, of course, is that this axiom isn't true. Forcefields don't need to be nerfed at all, and sentries aren't overpowered. PvZ isn't broken, and neither is PvT. There are plenty of successful games where non-Protosses have done just fine beating their Protoss opponents. This is true all across the board, from the lowest level players to the pros. Multi-pronged attacks, constant harrassment, and not engaging in choke points are perfect examples of strategies that other races have used to counter the existence and mechanics of forcefields. This is probably why the current statistics of the match-ups show that the races are relatively balanced, as opposed to PvZ or PvT being overwhelmingly in favor of the Protoss.
The whining about forcefields, as well as the fixation about plausible nerfs, need to stop. Sentries and their abilities are fine just the way they are. Learn to deal with them as is. that is a horrible way to look at it... by your same logic anything that made a matchup very one-sided, but not completely unwinnable would be balanced. Let's use an extreme example and make fungal growth last the full 8 seconds, but with the dps it does now. This would make any game where zerg got infestors, and landed some good FGs utterly imba, but before infestors, or if the FGs don't land quite right, or w/e, then the zerg can still lose. This does not make it balanced! You claim everything is all awesome and perfect, but you are saying that from a very obviously protoss bias, which makes your arguments frail at best. The way that many people are looking at forcefields on this thread is "How can we nerf them so that we don't have to directly deal with them... because I don't like problem solving?" Rather than looking at how people are solving forcefields, people want Blizzard to nerf them. That's ridiculous, because people will always have problems with different units or spells. It's going to be a slippery slope; when do we stop patching everything and begin to play the game that we're given? Sentries do not make Protoss overpowered; this is proven by the fact that the PvZ and PvT win percentages are not completely skewed in favor of the Protoss. It has nothing to do with what race I play; I'm taking an objective stance on this, because I'm looking at the statistics. And your analogy is flawed because you're purposely coming up with a hypothetical scenario where everyone would necessarily agree that fungal growth is imbalanced, due to already-viewed buffs and nerfs to the infestor. There is no such patch on the sentry, and there shouldn't be one. There is no reason to nerf the sentry, because people who have actually tried are able to counter forcefields effectively. Furthermore, the current status of the forcefield is necessary to protect the Protoss in the early stages of the game from fast rushes.
Espousing that the game is unbalanced and it's the only reason for your losses is a foolish statement, but I would say the same for saying that the game, a unit, or a race as a whole is 100% balanced and nothing should be adjusted in time.
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Please don't make this long of an OP, unless every sentence's brings something to the point. A tl;dr of 5 sentences would've been nice. Most people actually know what a sentry does. To completely defend a ramp with forcefields, and not only stall a bit, you need about 5-6 sentries. This is a 500-600 gas investment. It's not cheap. There are massive units to completely negate the effects of forcefields. Forcefields are there because a protoss gateway army isn't costefficient against anything (yeah, literally anything) unless forcefields are used. Let me give you an example. A marauder costs 100/25, and beats a stalker that's 125/50.
The statement that stalkers can kill infinite unupgraded hydras (when have you ever seen that in a pro game? people upgrade them instantly) when somehow forcefielded in a big immobile chunk is tbh more theorycrafting than I can handle. Infestors can do the same thing to stalkers, but the difference is that the hydras would actually win, regardless if they were upgraded or not. POW. If you somehow nerf the forcefield, you simply have to buff up the other gateway units to be on par with zerg and terran units, but in that case you'd face some pretty baller 4 gates.
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On March 29 2011 08:09 Oceaniax wrote:Show nested quote +On March 29 2011 08:02 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On March 29 2011 07:37 Shiladie wrote:On March 29 2011 06:32 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: This thread clearly isn't "A thorough analysis of Force Fields". Unfortunately, it's degraded into "Let's come up with possible nerfs for the forcefield, assuming that it has to be nerfed in the first place".
The problem, of course, is that this axiom isn't true. Forcefields don't need to be nerfed at all, and sentries aren't overpowered. PvZ isn't broken, and neither is PvT. There are plenty of successful games where non-Protosses have done just fine beating their Protoss opponents. This is true all across the board, from the lowest level players to the pros. Multi-pronged attacks, constant harrassment, and not engaging in choke points are perfect examples of strategies that other races have used to counter the existence and mechanics of forcefields. This is probably why the current statistics of the match-ups show that the races are relatively balanced, as opposed to PvZ or PvT being overwhelmingly in favor of the Protoss.
The whining about forcefields, as well as the fixation about plausible nerfs, need to stop. Sentries and their abilities are fine just the way they are. Learn to deal with them as is. that is a horrible way to look at it... by your same logic anything that made a matchup very one-sided, but not completely unwinnable would be balanced. Let's use an extreme example and make fungal growth last the full 8 seconds, but with the dps it does now. This would make any game where zerg got infestors, and landed some good FGs utterly imba, but before infestors, or if the FGs don't land quite right, or w/e, then the zerg can still lose. This does not make it balanced! You claim everything is all awesome and perfect, but you are saying that from a very obviously protoss bias, which makes your arguments frail at best. The way that many people are looking at forcefields on this thread is "How can we nerf them so that we don't have to directly deal with them... because I don't like problem solving?" Rather than looking at how people are solving forcefields, people want Blizzard to nerf them. That's ridiculous, because people will always have problems with different units or spells. It's going to be a slippery slope; when do we stop patching everything and begin to play the game that we're given? Sentries do not make Protoss overpowered; this is proven by the fact that the PvZ and PvT win percentages are not completely skewed in favor of the Protoss. It has nothing to do with what race I play; I'm taking an objective stance on this, because I'm looking at the statistics. And your analogy is flawed because you're purposely coming up with a hypothetical scenario where everyone would necessarily agree that fungal growth is imbalanced, due to already-viewed buffs and nerfs to the infestor. There is no such patch on the sentry, and there shouldn't be one. There is no reason to nerf the sentry, because people who have actually tried are able to counter forcefields effectively. Furthermore, the current status of the forcefield is necessary to protect the Protoss in the early stages of the game from fast rushes. Espousing that the game is unbalanced and it's the only reason for your losses is a foolish statement, but I would say the same for saying that the game is 100% balanced and nothing with sentries, protoss, or any race for the matter should be adjusted in time.
I agree, and I think Blizzard does a fantastic job of staying on top of its games as far as patches go, even years after the games have been released. With so many units, multiple races, and such a new game, it certainly isn't the case that SC2 is perfectly balanced or able to stop being patched yet.
However, I think that too many people are trigger-happy when it comes to what should be buffed and nerfed. It seems that people come across problems, and instead of analyzing them and trying to find solutions, they recognize that a buff or nerf to certain units would get rid of the problem much more easily than trying to find a solution based on the current status of SC2.
Let's take the forcefield scenario as an example of this. There was no serious whining about forcefields until MC stomped July in the finals of the GSL. Then there were half a dozen QQ threads on TL, a hundred people jumping on the bandwagon, and people not even noting that MC's overall strategies and execution were tiers above July's throughout the entire series, whether MC used forcefields or not. In essence, the forcefields played a very small role in the big picture. However, his forcefields were fantastic as well, and that was icing on the cake.
People love to cherry-pick games and ignore counterexampls. MC used forcefields very well when he needed to, but July's responses were never good in the first place (no roach burrow, no mutas, etc.). But why not look at other games and series in ZvP where the Zerg played well enough to overcome any sentry abuse? Why not, for instance, take a look at Sen vs. Naniwa in the GCPL ace series, on Metalopolis (game three), where Sen's constant harrassment made even great forcefield pressure irrelevant, since Sen was everywhere, playing the way a Zerg should play? Or why not check out game two of IdrA vs. Cruncher in the TSL, where IdrA's constant dropping and aggression made Cruncher's walls and any chance of defense useless?
That's the way Zerg should be played. These are all solutions to forcefields, and this is why the statistics show PvZ and PvT being relatively balanced. Protoss isn't kicking everyone's butt, because some people are finding in-game solutions to problems, instead of just calling for immediate nerfs.
If you play your Zerg the way you play your Protoss and Terran, then you're going to lose.
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