The problems with the oracle's spells from an enjoyment and spectating standpoint has been well explored. The single cast spell with a limited damage potential based more on your opponents inability to react vs your own micro ability is neither fun, not interesting. Entomb was an interesting idea, but ultimately very meh. The new structure harass is interesting, but also meh, and probably of limited effectiveness due to short range and low hp. [EDIT: Just saw that video posted below, and totally change my mind, that's a pretty good attack, not sure how well it'd work with just 1-3, but that ability can stay ] Ultimately the role of the oracle ws to be a harass unit, and I think I have an idea to improve its effectiveness and make I more interesting.
New attack: Desabilization cannon
Damage = 5 Attack speed = 1.5 Range = 4 Attack time = instant
Special attribute = when it strikes a worker carrying payload it causes it to explode, instantly killing the worker.
The reason I like the attribute is because by itself and unmicroed, the unit is not particularly effective. If a player were simply to park their oracle behind the mineral line, the oracle would auto target workers actively mining therefore would do minimal damage , however if the player were to actively target an fly closer to the mineral line the damage output could be huge, similar to that of a banshee. The attack timing is instant to ensure that the oracle has to target a unit carrying mins, not shoot at one while its mining and causing instant death while it walks away. Given the fast speed and low up of the oracle I think this could result in some interesting micro battles, while giving toss an effective harass unit that's also unique and feels toss-like.
I think this also would cause your opponent to have to make some interesting decisions, especially if caught off guard. What if your units are all the way across the map? Do you stop mining until they can get back? Sure you won't lose nearly as many units, but you've stopped mining until they can get it away. Anything that causes more decision making is a good thing imo.
Personally I think that without killing workers oracle harass is doomed to be kinda boring and a bit-unit. What do you think of the design decision between attack and single cast abilities?
The new structure harass is interesting, but also meh, and probably of limited effectiveness due to short range and low hp. Ultimately the role of the oracle ws to be a harass unit, and I think I have an idea to improve its effectiveness and make I more interesting.
I really disagree.
Here's DesRow showing Pulsar Beam in action
Does that look like its of "limited effectiveness"? He's sniping hatches in under 15 seconds, taking out gas in under 5 seconds. Pulsar Beam is damn strong, and enemies have to account for it.
But I like a few other things about it as well. Namely:
1.) it is a micro-heavy ability. If you shift-queue pulsar beam it casts at 3 range, which is total shit. If you cast it normally it casts range 5, and if you micro it further while channeling you can extend the range to 6. This means the difference between using it as "fire and forget" and actually microing it is literally double the range. On a unit as fragile as the Oracle, that extra range can be crucial in effective harassment without losing your Oracle.
2.) Because its so effective vs buildings, but can't hit units, it heavily incentivizes the opponent to defend it with units as opposed to static defense. This means that even though it can't attack units, its much likelier to force your opponent to split his supply up to defend expansions.
3.) because the energy cost is low, and the damage is front-loaded (i.e. you dont need to charge it up like you do Void Rays), you can stay active with Oracles throughout the game instead of periodically flying by, and you can snipe a small structure and get out and return in a bit. It isn't "all or nothing" like Entomb, but rather something the opponent must continuously worry about as long as Oracles are in play.
I like the Oracle's building attack. If you catch a Zerg off-guard you can kill off tech and their expansions. At the very least you force defense at the third, which is not always very easy. You don't need very many to destroy a building either. Only two or three, and then use their other abilities later on. I don't mind your idea, though. It could be interesting.
I would love to have the oracle able to actually kill workers, but be ineffective against pretty much everything else. Your suggestion solves this, and it allows protoss to truly damage an opponent's economy instead of stalling it. It also prevents oracles from being another "addition" to the death ball, nobody would make more then a few of them late game for Time warp anyway.
Another option could be to have it "steal" the resources of the unit with an ability if the worker is currently holding it and give it to the player controlling the oracle, but that idea would need to be expanded on.
Edit: I DO like the current oracle's ability to attack buildings, but I feel like it will be easily "figured out" how to efficiently defend vs the ability, and it will fall out of use. All you need is a few queens, a few marines, or a few stalkers to defend vs oracle harass. I'd also like to mention that they aren't that good as a lone unit, and easily deterred without the ability to shut down any anti-air units in order to harass.
I DO like the current oracle's ability to attack buildings, but I feel like it will be easily "figured out" how to efficiently defend vs the ability, and it will fall out of use. All you need is a few queens, a few marines, or a few stalkers to defend vs oracle harass. I'd also like to mention that they aren't that good as a lone unit, and easily deterred without the ability to shut down any anti-air units in order to harass.
I'm not sure this is true. Oracles are pretty damn fast, and they do enough damage that if units don't get to them quickly they can very feasibly snipe smaller buildings and tech structures and get out safely. It will be very difficult to spread one's units out over your bases well enough to fully prevent vulnerability to Oracles, especially once you have multiple expansions to defend. Plus, Oracles can slow units rushing to get to them.
I mean, think about it. Oracles swings by and starts Pulsar Beaming your 3rd base. You can either ignore it, or send units to defend...in which case the Oracle can Timewarp you once you get there, then use their superior speed to fly back to your now-undefended tech structures and start sniping stuff before you can get back. Or you park units at all your bases, and now your army is fucking tiny and can't do anything.
I actually think fully stopping Oracle harass on multiple bases is gonna be damn hard, due to their combination of extremely high-dps vs buildings, flight, high speed, and the ability to slow down defenders.
I DO like the current oracle's ability to attack buildings, but I feel like it will be easily "figured out" how to efficiently defend vs the ability, and it will fall out of use. All you need is a few queens, a few marines, or a few stalkers to defend vs oracle harass. I'd also like to mention that they aren't that good as a lone unit, and easily deterred without the ability to shut down any anti-air units in order to harass.
I'm not sure this is true. Oracles are pretty damn fast, and they do enough damage that if units don't get to them quickly they can very feasibly snipe smaller buildings and tech structures and get out safely. It will be very difficult to spread one's units out over your bases well enough to fully prevent vulnerability to Oracles, especially once you have multiple expansions to defend. Plus, Oracles can slow units rushing to get to them.
I mean, think about it. Oracles swings by and starts Pulsar Beaming your 3rd base. You can either ignore it, or send units to defend...in which case the Oracle can Timewarp you once you get there, then use their superior speed to fly back to your now-undefended tech structures and start sniping stuff before you can get back. Or you park units at all your bases, and now your army is fucking tiny and can't do anything.
I actually think fully stopping Oracle harass on multiple bases is gonna be damn hard, due to their combination of extremely high-dps vs buildings, flight, high speed, and the ability to slow down defenders.
This is the situation for each matchup when it comes to oracles and pulsar harassment:
PvZ: Zerg has a queen there, so you already have to micro 1 oracle away after it takes some damage, which additional queens on the way + a spore or 2 you are working with restricted space, time, and health. Zerg has spire access mid game as well, and making a few corruptors/mutas easily counter oracles.
PvP: Warp in 2-3 stalkers. Thats it. Mothership core can also help defend pretty easily with the nexus attack. Optional cannons at base as well. I find it much easier to harass protoss with Phoenix.
PvT: Easiest race to defend vs Oracle harass IMO. Marines/missile turrets/widow mines are very useful in deterring Oracles. I find it much easier to harass Terrans with the Tempest.
I feel like The pulsar ability is one of those things where it will be good if you catch your opponent with his pants down, but not something that is always reliable for harass.
I would also like to mention that the Oracle's attack animation requires you to channel it for 1 second before it does any damage. You can't micro them like you can void rays, I found this out the hard way!
I DO like the current oracle's ability to attack buildings, but I feel like it will be easily "figured out" how to efficiently defend vs the ability, and it will fall out of use. All you need is a few queens, a few marines, or a few stalkers to defend vs oracle harass. I'd also like to mention that they aren't that good as a lone unit, and easily deterred without the ability to shut down any anti-air units in order to harass.
I'm not sure this is true. Oracles are pretty damn fast, and they do enough damage that if units don't get to them quickly they can very feasibly snipe smaller buildings and tech structures and get out safely. It will be very difficult to spread one's units out over your bases well enough to fully prevent vulnerability to Oracles, especially once you have multiple expansions to defend. Plus, Oracles can slow units rushing to get to them.
I mean, think about it. Oracles swings by and starts Pulsar Beaming your 3rd base. You can either ignore it, or send units to defend...in which case the Oracle can Timewarp you once you get there, then use their superior speed to fly back to your now-undefended tech structures and start sniping stuff before you can get back. Or you park units at all your bases, and now your army is fucking tiny and can't do anything.
I actually think fully stopping Oracle harass on multiple bases is gonna be damn hard, due to their combination of extremely high-dps vs buildings, flight, high speed, and the ability to slow down defenders.
This is the situation for each matchup when it comes to oracles and pulsar harassment:
PvZ: Zerg has a queen there, so you already have to micro 1 oracle away after it takes some damage, which additional queens on the way + a spore or 2 you are working with restricted space, time, and health. Zerg has spire access mid game as well, and making a few corruptors/mutas easily counter oracles.
PvP: Warp in 2-3 stalkers. Thats it. Mothership core can also help defend pretty easily with the nexus attack. Optional cannons at base as well. I find it much easier to harass protoss with Phoenix.
PvT: Easiest race to defend vs Oracle harass IMO. Marines/missile turrets/widow mines are very useful in deterring Oracles. I find it much easier to harass Terrans with the Tempest.
I feel like The pulsar ability is one of those things where it will be good if you catch your opponent with his pants down, but not something that is always reliable for harass.
I would also like to mention that the Oracle's attack animation requires you to channel it for 1 second before it does any damage. You can't micro them like you can void rays, I found this out the hard way!
This sums it up pretty well. It isn't hard countering some oracles, the easiest is just by air units which aren't affected by time warp as far as i know. You kind of need multiple oracles to actually do some damage with the beam which are completely useless for anything other than harass like that because stacking time warps really isn't useful. Still building up a bunch by surprise can be pretty good, also a 1-of oracle is fine for denying some creep and preventing the fourth base.
I'm curious how the buidling attack precisely works though, especially with it's range as the other poster already said. Sometimes it works at range 3 and sometimes at 5 but how and why I don't exactly understand yet.
the range is 3, but animation can spread all way to like 5 due to the cell sizes of some buildings (aka it looks like it shooting longer range) but that from my own use, someone need to verify
I DO like the current oracle's ability to attack buildings, but I feel like it will be easily "figured out" how to efficiently defend vs the ability, and it will fall out of use. All you need is a few queens, a few marines, or a few stalkers to defend vs oracle harass. I'd also like to mention that they aren't that good as a lone unit, and easily deterred without the ability to shut down any anti-air units in order to harass.
I'm not sure this is true. Oracles are pretty damn fast, and they do enough damage that if units don't get to them quickly they can very feasibly snipe smaller buildings and tech structures and get out safely. It will be very difficult to spread one's units out over your bases well enough to fully prevent vulnerability to Oracles, especially once you have multiple expansions to defend. Plus, Oracles can slow units rushing to get to them.
I mean, think about it. Oracles swings by and starts Pulsar Beaming your 3rd base. You can either ignore it, or send units to defend...in which case the Oracle can Timewarp you once you get there, then use their superior speed to fly back to your now-undefended tech structures and start sniping stuff before you can get back. Or you park units at all your bases, and now your army is fucking tiny and can't do anything.
I actually think fully stopping Oracle harass on multiple bases is gonna be damn hard, due to their combination of extremely high-dps vs buildings, flight, high speed, and the ability to slow down defenders.
This is the situation for each matchup when it comes to oracles and pulsar harassment:
PvZ: Zerg has a queen there, so you already have to micro 1 oracle away after it takes some damage, which additional queens on the way + a spore or 2 you are working with restricted space, time, and health. Zerg has spire access mid game as well, and making a few corruptors/mutas easily counter oracles.
PvP: Warp in 2-3 stalkers. Thats it. Mothership core can also help defend pretty easily with the nexus attack. Optional cannons at base as well. I find it much easier to harass protoss with Phoenix.
PvT: Easiest race to defend vs Oracle harass IMO. Marines/missile turrets/widow mines are very useful in deterring Oracles. I find it much easier to harass Terrans with the Tempest.
I feel like The pulsar ability is one of those things where it will be good if you catch your opponent with his pants down, but not something that is always reliable for harass.
I would also like to mention that the Oracle's attack animation requires you to channel it for 1 second before it does any damage. You can't micro them like you can void rays, I found this out the hard way!
This is right... and to add to that...
the damage it does has no immediate effect except to lower a building's HP. It has no effect until the building is actually destroyed. At that moment, the damage can suddenly becomes extremely impactful.
For example... a few oracles fly in to your base and attacks your expansion. They take it down to about 50% HP before the you defend. Has any damage actually been done? Not... really...? Let's say they fly in again and finally destroys your expansion. Suddenly, you are down one expansion and you have been severely damaged. This is called "harassment". What if the harassment fails and all the oracles are killed? You spent all that time and money "harassing" but in the end there is no impact. Sure, maybe you can snipe the expansion later, but you are investing even more into a harassment that has no immediate results!
Of course, you can use it to target supply depots/pylons if they are out of position, which would be a legitimate and gradual form of harassment, as well as tech structures. Still... it's kind of a silly way to harass. They removed entomb because it was too one-dimensional. You can only target minerals and the effect was the same regardless of who used the spell. This spell is slightly better... you can target different structures... and takes a bit of micro... still doesn't allow for creativity.
Blizzard needs to stop making spells that tells the player how to use it (such as entomb, pulsar beam, purify on nexus, anti-mech missiles for warhound, etc...). They're too restrictive and that makes them boring.
well the beam is not weak at all, as already decided, but it just feels a little awkward seeing this little thing that doesnt look angry at all sniping the fuck out of any building. now THIS is "surgical strike aircraft". i guess the unit is kinda fine now although it steps on the ray, but it looks totally wrong! it looks like some utility caster, like a fat ass DT observer.
The oracle is going to change how PvP is played. Expect at least two to be built at the beginning of PvP for the sole purpose of scouting for and eliminating proxy pylons.
Some one once said that the answer to the Stargate is the Hatchery, and Pulsar Beam is exactly what the Stargate needs vs Hatcheries in order to be viable. Aside from the weak vision spell, I think the Oracle is exactly where it needs to be, because a Stargate opening with 4 Phoenix into Oracles is no joke right now as long as you have the units to defend against a counter all in.
On November 02 2012 16:38 cywinr wrote: For example... a few oracles fly in to your base and attacks your expansion. They take it down to about 50% HP before the you defend. Has any damage actually been done? Not... really...? Let's say they fly in again and finally destroys your expansion. Suddenly, you are down one expansion and you have been severely damaged. This is called "harassment". What if the harassment fails and all the oracles are killed? You spent all that time and money "harassing" but in the end there is no impact. Sure, maybe you can snipe the expansion later, but you are investing even more into a harassment that has no immediate results!
"What if my super-fast flying units that have a spell to slow down any pursuit all get killed?"
I'd say you screwed the pooch and don't deserve to gain any advantage.
Leaving aside the case where they get killed, which can realistically only be the fault of the player controlling them, Oracles don't need to damage a single building to impact the game. They're a threat. If you manage to shut down my Oracle harassment, it'll have come at a cost - be it economy, map control, multitasking, static defence...
On November 02 2012 17:12 Evangelist wrote: The oracle is going to change how PvP is played. Expect at least two to be built at the beginning of PvP for the sole purpose of scouting for and eliminating proxy pylons.
Wrong, Phoenixes counter them pretty well and they can do actual economic harassment, AND are cheaper. With allins being stoppable by mscore I believe phoenix into tempest openings will become quite common. Don't expect much oracles in pvp.
This ability is awesome and it's just lol how people say OHHHHH TIMEWARP SOOO OP and PULSAR BEAM MEH without using them. timewarp is really super situational and as a pure support spell its a bit expensive. Pulsar beam is really cheap to use AND it totally changes how people play vs protoss.
If even one oracle was scouted that totally forces your opponent to react. This is something that protoss was lacking before and that's why it's the best protoss change in HotS so far (+ maybe the tempest in late game vs zerg)