There are plenty of threads which discuss games specifics dealing with Protoss in lotv. Why make a dedicated thread to discuss Protoss design?
The perception that protoss is weak or poorly designed is a pressing issue that makes the game less fun. Thus, I created this thread how to address both quantitatively as well as descriptively the perceived protoss weakness and abusive play in LOTV. This may be one of the last time to address major issues if there is no continued game development from microtransaction revenue. (I discussed other rewards and community reasons to play beyond ladder rank in my last thread.) My goal here is to show what exactly changed in Legacy of the Void(LOTV), the effects of these changes, and proposed options to progress protoss multiplayer play in LOTV. One claim is that LOTV has seen increased win rates for terran and Zerg over Protoss.(lotus, Red bull archon tournament) This would seem to imply that in its current state, Protoss weakness is the most relevant item on the agenda in LOTV. What is the reasoning for the difficulty of adjustment of Protoss to lotv and possible ways to enhance lotv moving forward?
Abstract: The skinny is that the key problems for protoss are dealing with drop play, mineral fallout, and delayed tech response from adepts openers. My key solutions are to reduce mineral costs of adepts, decreased build times for gateway units that aren't warp gates, enhance the disruptor as an air unit, increase templar movement speed, decrease storm research time, and starting nexus with 50 energy. Mostly in this thread, I would like to see how players would deal with the three key isses here, or identify other issues which would be key moving forward. I will also review other proposals given up to this point and add them to this thread them throughout this week. More specifically, I'll review Buffing gateway units,Changing the adept shield upgrade,Changing the mothership,Disruptor catapult,Disruptor mobility,Zealot and immortal enhancements,Oracle and sentry ideas,And the state of the collossus.
General Race Design of Protoss. The design of the Protoss race led to several descriptors- Bandaids(Nathanias), P R O T O S S E D(twitch), Gimmicky(Myself, tastetosis, Magnet), broken(many pro Zergs), Deathball, 2 base allin all day(kaelaris,rotti), PvP the matchup where the better player maybe wins(Naniwa, Desrow), Proxy syka(Russian pros), oracle OpieOP(supernova), the race of the motherb*tch. These descriptors are about the race and don't necessarily reflect the players themselves, but have led to a negative opinion of the skills of a lot of protoss players. I think the players who play protoss play the race right and wrongfully get hate for what they do.
Morever, the job of pro-gamers is to abuse a race to its fullest potential to win games. The most common things that are abused by Protoss is warpgate, mass AOE, recall, nexus cannon, oracles, stalker mobility) Zerg and terran tend to have more fluid styles that enhance the races ability to be out on the map and take engagments more often in games.
Albeit the specifics, I really prefer to use very general terms to describe Protoss. The basic description I use in most games is you have an aggressor and a defender with weak and strong defensive positions. Most early game defense is around the mothership core or cannons and sentries. The msc is a slow low dps unit that is boring to micro and relies heavily on the nexus cannon. The nexus cannon is a click on a building with no micro. Sentries are also slow units with low damage. This composition fortifies and provides a very strond defensive position.
After the early defensive phase, a lot of games are decided with the first Protoss offensive phase. There are basically 2 styles of offensive play, harass (with an oracle, dts, or blink stalkers), or place a pylon on the map and abuse warp gate. Usually they are meant to do damage mostly by blind siding the opponent from ninja'd tech, super abusive mobile units, or unit warp abuse. After attempting or doing damage, the game usually results in either an allin or very defensive play with stacked mass aoe from collossus and templar.
A claim I make here which I'm working on statistics to demonstrate is that most Protoss games usually have one big engagement then end. They end either with Protoss losing everything and not defending or rolling the opponent. The only comeback scenario for Protoss seems to be dark shrine or blink harass. Thus, the negative abusive words often I believe come from lack of interesting defensive early play, types of harass styles and allins built around overly mobile units and warp gate abuse, and the game typically ending in a single engagement.
Notwithstanding Blizzard promised a change in lotv. One of the key goals emphasized by blizzard towards this end was to increase the number of engagements and increasing the reward from multitasking potential. This promise a lot of players(Nathanias, Naniwa) feel has not been met. Particularly as in the case of Nathanias rant about wanting something different.
Having something different is difficult to develop for Protoss in LOTV due to the traditional builds of the race expanding later and being more timing driven. I will to return then to goals in lotv against the design of the race later. But the truth is that so far from the games I've seen in lotv, I have not seen much deviation from the Protoss non-colossus playstyles in lotv from hots. The reason for this I believe is that the core mechanics about what is the most abusive aspects of Protoss play has not changed, where as it has for the other two races. + Show Spoiler +
(Zerg lurkers for sieging, parasitic bomb the air ability to rule them all, late game ultras, caustic spray the fastest building killing ability in the game. Terran-cyclone pressure to push mech lines, liberators anti-air aoe for muta control, tank drops for extreme mech harass)
The most notable item which leads to one and done engagements is the abuse and low risk involved from of warp gate.
I'll discuss these changes after discussing the perceived imbalance that is current in lotv. Particularly, i think that tech trees should use less minerals, adepts need to do more damage against armored, race design should have less reliance on warp gate abuse to win games, and options to transition within the same tech tree. Changes I believe that are needed in lotv to really get at the heart of the trends that blizzard has proposed of more engagements, more multitasking, and more reward for expanding. ----------------------------------------
Game breaking changes in Legacy
1. Key Economy changes- Surprisingly after much testing of comparable builds from hots to lotv and the builds that are used on streams like Crank, Vibe, or Nightend. There are a big set of patterns, which result in similar timings as would happen in hots up to a point(see supplementary data of my timings tables)
Disclaimer, I make most of my build orders with time, supply, and worker counts, then i build decision trees on top of the build orders to understand the major styles of gameplay. With that in mind, I've looked at the timings for Zerg, Protoss, and terran. I've found that the timings for Zerg and terran rarely change much, but Protoss changes once the game hits around the 8 minute mark of lotv. There is a fallout, the army value is not as high as it should be. This fallout changes a little bit when it happens so I've been trying to identify exactly why. My conclusion is that the mineral patches start to mine out much faster and much of the Protoss play is based of the mineral patches being consistent. So, a definition I make is called mineral fallout. Its the point when the mineral income begins to decrease from a base. Main base and natural base mineral fallout occurs at ~7:20 and ~11:20 respectively in Legacy of the void.
I use an approximation when i'm doing testing with build orders. Its a linear formula. I take the time in hots, subtract 1 minute and 20 seconds, convert the time to seconds, divide the time by 1.38 then convert back to an in game time. so 11:15 hots ~ ((11:15-1:20)/1.38) ~7:20 lotv. This works fairly well to estimate builds.
In other words, the initial 12 worker start gives about 1:21 seconds boost using hots time or about 60 seconds using LOTV time for builds that use the 3:55 nexus hots, 2:05 nexus lotv. Fallout occurs at about 17 minutes in hots vs (10:05+1:21) ~11:15 in hots, before maxing out and about 22 minutes from the natural. (this is similar in timing to when Protoss take a third in pvp. So in lotv taking a third at 12 minutes comparable build time to hots, is almost optimal for worker transfer.
The end result is that 3 base saturation in pvp, I think will be nearly non-existent because of a loss of income. In terms of PvZ and PvT, if you don't have a third by 7:20 hots time, you are starting to lose mineral income and going to 66 workers doesn't make as much sense as stopping at 60. Zerg and terran on the other hand still have similar optimal worker saturation. ~60 for terran ~74 for Zerg. I provide a sample build for comparable builds between hots and lotv I'm working on as well as in the supplementary the effective timings table I'm working on.
Sample timing of most common opener in hots- Example build order 1: WCS 06/25/2015 Lilbow vs Marinelord game 1 wcs premier season 2 LilBow wins 6 gate oracle blink allin
9 pylon 0:48 13 gate 1:41 15 assim 2:02 16 pylon 2:19 18 cybercore 2:46 18 assim 2:51 (put only 2 on when it finishes, third on @ 26 supply while building pylon (4:30) 21 Msc 3:38 rally worker to take nexus. 23 nexus 3:55 (scout with this worker) 24 stargate 4:18 (cut worker) 25/26 pylon 4:36 26 warp gate 4:40 29 oracle 5:18 (arrives in base at 6:20) 31 hidden pylon 5:20 33 stalker 5:30 38 twilight council 6:02 42 2 gates 6:40 45 4th/5th gate way 7:05. 7:15 45 blink 7:10 (chrono) 47 gate 7:40 make 3 pylons along path starting at 7:40 (47/52) 7:50 push out with single stalker and start making pylons Benchmark 9:05 40 workers, 11 stalkers, oracle, msc, blink finished, warp gates ready 8 pylons 9:20 blink into main 9:40 make 6 more workers/ 3rd and 4th gases
2. Nerfing of the colossus- The second major effect from the game is there are multiple styles of defending drops or dealing with mass marine/ling play. Mostly they are hard countered by the colossus in hots. Now that the colossus does less damage, players are less inclined to build them.
3. Dependancy on the disruptor- Since the major damage deal for unit heavy low upgrade styles is not featured by the colossus a lot of players are turning to the disruptor. This is good when the disruptor hits. Bad when it misses because the game basically sways very hard off a single action.
4. Punishing certain playstyles using adepts- Adept playstyles have emerged vs light units and help to fill the gap of of dealing with light units. The problem is that they are also very hard countered with roaches and marauders. Terran and Zerg have the means to punish adept usage from low tier units.
5. Adept oracle openers- this is probably the most interesting change in lotv. A bunker in the front with a turret was good at stopping stalker oracle, but the phase ability has made bunkers less useful and made oracle openers have multiple ways to counter marine heavy defense.
6. The death of forge openers vs Zerg- The ravager has enough range to kill cannons. forge openers basically cannot stop pushes with 3-4 ravagers which open the door and lings flood in.
7. adept damage dps vs tankyness- The adept is more tanky than a stalker, but it also is not as good vs armored units. Even a small number of marauders with marines make the adept nearly unusable.
8. Difficulty of pushing into choke points against lurkers- The lurker single-handedly has changed the base trade aspects of the ZvP matchup. It can zone and enhances mutalisk play, which was already very strong. Maybe mutalisks need to be nerfed to counterbalance the lurker play.
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The death of Protoss in Legacy The point here is to look at the most common causes of losses in lotv and compare them to HOTS. Based off the games in Redbull and LOTUS these are the trends that I'm seeing. I'll provide more references over the next few days.
1. Failed allin- Failed allins were common in HOTS and still are common in LOTV. The difference is that often protoss had 2 chances at an immortal allin or blink allin. With the mineral fallout, the possibility of this is nearly gone. A protoss player is more likely to lose if the first allin attempt failed to do damage than in hots.
2. Falling behind from adept openers Adepts use very low gas and give the ability to tech. The problem arises because going adepts reduces the early stalker counts. In PvP, this means the stalker which counters adepts is stronger and blink builds punish it very hard. In ZvP/ZvT high adept counts are easily countered by roaches and marauder counts. Adept Immortal is almost purely the only base composition, but the composition is not strong enough against the transitions which commonly come with lurkers and drop play. Adepts inherently seems to have a weakness which may need to be addressed since blink stalkers seem to be more stable against these transitions.
3. Failed drop defense- The traditional defense to drops in hots comes from the opener. The standard macro openers mostly in PvT are usually blink into colossus, or oracle into phoenix colossus. The reason why colossus are used so often is the ability to move between bases. Due to the colossus nerf, the other less common drop defense strategies must be used such as phoenix storm and blink/disruptor harass. These styles maybe players don't have much practice with or maybe they are weak. I do not have clear data on the matter so I will update this portion once i have the appropriate metric.
4. marauder heavy timings against air play- It seems when players have tried to go adept oracle into phoenix, they mostly die to low medivac count marauder timings. I'll add references on this soon. The question is if the immortal is effective enough with phoenixes to counter high marauder counts.
5. Difficulty getting 4 base gas to open tech transitions in the late game- In contrast to marauder heavy timings when the protoss goes air zerg just seems to drone up three bases then go for very heavy timings. It seems like the macro really kicks in hard and the mineral fallout becomes an issue for protoss. The game is lost since the zerg is free to transition over and over and the protoss struggles to keep up.
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Options to unbreak the Protoss heart There are choices here on what changes to be made to the game to either make the game more like hots, or something different. My suggested fixes are based on the ideas that mineral fallout, tools for dealing with drop play, and delayed tech response from adepts are the key problems from quantitative testing. This is where I focused in on in game adjustments.
Reduced Mineral costs on the Protoss Tech Trees Given that most of my testing concludes that protoss is pretty much identical in terms of macro equality until the mineral count decreases and the secondary tech tree kicks in. It would appear that one way to strengthen protoss to allow for taking more bases would be to reduce mineral costs on the tech trees.
Decreased Non-warpgate gateway unit build time- The decrease in gateway build time from gateways not warped into warp gates I love the idea. It makes its so that the protoss don't have so many strategies about snowballing to win while at the same time making their early game stronger and saving the amount of minerals spent on gateways. The choice of switching to and from gateways becomes a core mechanic in the game. A lot of the perceived gimmicky problems with the race are reduced. The strategic usage of pylons on the map changes.
Increased starting energy on Nexus to 50- Having every nexus start with 50 energy increases the strength of the nexus once they are build. It yields and instant reward for expanding. This is an alternative way to make Protoss more effective by requiring less gateways and getting up towards the mid game more quickly. The possible downside would be that warpgate abuse would become even more effective.
Reduced mineral costs on adepts- Since adepts tend away from blink play and towards tech play, reducing the mineral costs on adepts effectively makes it so that tech play allows more money to be saved towards expanding and reducing the effect of the mineral fallout.
Buff DPS of adepts against armored- Since adepts in larger numbers are strongly countered by mass roach and marauder play a small buff to the adept dps against armored would increase their capacity to take engagements more often and buy more time to tech. This is one of my biggest changes i want in the game.
Increased effectiveness against drops from the air tech- The stasis ward does not allow damage to air. I think its a bit of an oversight. The drop play is so strong when protoss goes air as can be seen from hots with nearly every game with phoenix PvT the protoss lost. (I'll provide more details on this claim.) I think 2 things need to happen. Air units cost less minerals and the oracles need to be more effective against drops. I think the stasis ward could have a smaller cooldown to make this change stronger.
Disruptor as an air units, which drops for purification nova. Increased mobility and decreased risk using the disruptors defensively- As Mentioned above, the nerf to the colossus made it so that the protoss army bouncing between the natural and the third is less effective. The drops between the main and adjacent bases were effectively buffed due to this change. If the robo tech was chosen as the tech of choice, the disruptors have too much of a risk. I think the most obvious change is to have and air units that hits air. The usage of the warp prism to position between the bases creates interesting micro but does not address one of the other issues. One of the consequences of the colossus was in dividing spending on upgrades into vikings. If the disruptor were an air to air unit that drops to attack an army, it strengthens air upgrades and increases survivability against zerg.
Buff the colossus, the aoe unit to rule them all- One possibilty would be to just undo what has been done. I don't really favor this idea. I do favor an upgrade to the colossus which takes 220 seconds to make the colossus back to similar damage and range to what it was. I think having longer upgrade times enhances the use of the disruptor as a harass unit into a colossus transition.
Decrease the research time of storm and give templar a move speed ability- Since storm is another major source of aoe, the limiting factor to its use to hold timings seems to be the research time for storm as well as the ability to land the storm. I think by decreasing the research time and giving templar a mobility buff, the units becomes more viable much earlier.
**Note i've tested a little over half of these and felt confident enough to post them. --------------------------------------------------- Timings Conversion tables. Hots Table from imba builds 3:40 – Unit-less 1gate FE starts Nexus (PvX) 4:00
5:00
5:05 – Earliest Proxy Oracle can hit your base (PvP/PvT) 5:30 – 2 Stalker + Mothership Core pressure hits your base (PvT) 5:30 – Trap’s 3gate All-in hits your base (PvP) 5:35-6:30 – Mothership Core can first scout your base (PvP/PvT) 6:00
6:00 – 4gate can hit your base (PvX) 6:30 – Gate Expand into 5gate pressure hits your base (PvZ) 6:45 – Early Dark Shrine finishes (PvP/PvT) 7:00
7:00 – 2 Base Oracle finishes (PvT/PvZ) 7:22 – Earliest DT Drop (PvT/PvZ) 7:30 – Warpgate will finish after a Forge Fast Expand (PvZ) 7:35 – Early Warp Prism attacks hit your base (PvP/PvT) 7:40 – 1 Base Blink All-in hits your base (PvP/PvT) 8:00
8:30 – 2 Base Blink hits your base (PvT) 9:00
9:30 – 1st Colossus will finish in standard play (PvT) 9:30 – Storm will first finish in standard play (PvT) 3rd base will try to be taken (PvZ) 10:00
10:30 – 1st Colossus will finish after Phoenix opener (PvZ) 11:00
Chargelot/Archon Timings can first hit (PvT) 3rd base will try to be taken (PvP/PvT) 12:00
2 Base Colossus Timings can hit (PvT) 13:00
Storm after Colossus-First can be finished (PvT) 3 Base Colossus Timings can hit (PvZ)
Lotv Version with numbers 1:58 – Unit-less 1gate FE starts Nexus (PvX) 2:45 – Earliest Proxy Oracle can hit your base (PvP/PvT) 3:00 – 2 Stalker + Mothership Core pressure hits your base (PvT) 3:00 – Trap’s 3gate All-in hits your base (PvP) 3:00 - 3:45 – Mothership Core can first scout your base (PvP/PvT) 3:22 – 4gate can hit your base (PvX) 3:45 – Gate Expand into 5gate pressure hits your base (PvZ) 3:55 – Early Dark Shrine finishes (PvP/PvT) 4:05 – 2 Base Oracle finishes (PvT/PvZ) 4:20 – Earliest DT Drop (PvT/PvZ) 4:30 – Warpgate will finish after a Forge Fast Expand (PvZ) 4:30 – Early Warp Prism attacks hit your base (PvP/PvT) 4:35 – 1 Base Blink All-in hits your base (PvP/PvT) 5:10 – 2 Base Blink hits your base (PvT) 6:00 – 1st Colossus/disruptor will finish in standard play (PvT) 6:00 – Storm will first finish in standard play (PvT) 5:10 - 6:15 3rd base will try to be taken (PvZ) 6:40 – 1st Colossus will finish after Phoenix opener (PvZ) 6:40 Chargelot/Archon Timings can first hit (PvT) 6:16-7:40 3rd base will try to be taken (PvP/PvT) 7:50 2 Base Colossus Timings can hit (PvT) 8:50 Storm after Colossus-First can be finished (PvT) 8:50 3 Base Colossus Timings can hit (PvZ)
----------------------------------------------------- Comprehensive List of Terran Timings by In-Game Clock
2:00
2:20 – CC First is initially planted (TvZ/TvP) 2:42 – 12 Barracks finishes (TvX) 3:00
3:05 – Gas First Factory starts (TvT) 3:10 – First Marine finishes after standard Barracks (TvX) 3:15 – First Reaper finishes after 8-8-8 Proxy Reaper (TvZ/TvT) 3:20 – First Bunker goes down with Proxy 2rax starts (TvZ) 3:35 – First Reaper finishes after standard Barracks (TvX) 4:00
4:40 – First Proxy Widow Mine finishes (TvP) 5:00
5:30 – 3rd CC can be started (TvZ) 6:00
6:10 – Gas First Banshee finishes (TvT) 6:20 – 1 Base Widow Mine Drop can hit your base (TvT/TvP) 6:30 – Barracks First Banshee finishes (TvT) 6:45 – First Hellions after CC First will reach your base (TvT/TvZ) 6:45 – First Proxy Thor finishes (TvT) 7:00
7:00 – First Hellions after Reaper opener will reach your base (TvZ) 7:40 – 2 Base Widow Mine Drop can hit your base (TvT/TvP) 7:50 – 2 Base Hellbat Drop can hit your base (TvZ) 8:00
8:00 – 1 Base Marine/Tank All-in can first hit your base (TvT) 9:00
9:30 – 2 Base Marine/Hellion timings can hit your 3rd (TvZ) 10:00
10:00 – 2 Base Bio pushes can first hit your base (TvX) 10:30 – 2 Base Bio pushes after Widow Mine Drop can first hit your base (TvT/TvP) 11:00
12:00
3 Base Marine/Medivac/Widow Mine pushes can first hit your 3rd (TvZ) 13:00
Ghost production can begin after standard Bio opener (TvP) 14:00
Bio+SCV Pull All-in (TvP)
------------------------------ Comprehensive List of Terran Timings by In-Game Clock LOTV (untested)
0:56 – CC First is initially planted (TvZ/TvP) 1:05 – 14 Barracks finishes (TvX) 3:00
1:16 – Gas First Factory starts (TvT) 1:20 – First Marine finishes after standard Barracks (TvX) 1:20 – First Reaper finishes after 8-8-8 Proxy Reaper (TvZ/TvT) 1:25 – First Bunker goes down with Proxy 2rax starts (TvZ) 1:40 – First Reaper finishes after standard Barracks (TvX) 2:25 – First Proxy Widow Mine finishes (TvP) 3:00 – 3rd CC can be started (TvZ) 3:30 – Gas First Banshee finishes (TvT) 3:35 – 1 Base Widow Mine Drop can hit your base (TvT/TvP) 3:45 – Barracks First Banshee finishes (TvT) 3:55 – First Hellions after CC First will reach your base (TvT/TvZ) 3:55 – First Proxy Thor finishes (TvT) 4:00 – First Hellions after Reaper opener will reach your base (TvZ) 4:35 – 2 Base Widow Mine Drop can hit your base (TvT/TvP) 4:35 - Tank drops can hit your base. 4:40 – 2 Base Hellbat Drop can hit your base (TvZ) 4:50 – 1 Base Marine/Tank All-in can first hit your base (TvT) 5:50 – 2 Base Marine/Hellion timings can hit your 3rd (TvZ) 6:10 – 2 Base Bio pushes can first hit your base (TvX) 6:35 – 2 Base Bio pushes after Widow Mine Drop can first hit your base (TvT/TvP) 7:40 3 Base Marine/Medivac/Widow Mine pushes can first hit your 3rd (TvZ) 8:30 Ghost production can begin after standard Bio opener (TvP) 9:00 Bio+SCV Pull All-in (TvP)
---------------------------------- Comprehensive List of Zerg Timings by In-Game Clock
3:10 – 3rd Hatchery started if going for a 3 Hatch before Pool (ZvT/ZvP) 3:12 – 7pool reaches your base (ZvX) 3:30 – 10pool reaches your base (ZvX) 3:55 – Earliest a 3rd Hatchery can go down when opening 14 Pool (ZvP) 4:00
4:45 – Metabolic Boost finishes in Speedling All-in (ZvP) 4:55 – Metabolic Boost finishes after 14gas/14pool (ZvP/ZvZ) 5:00
5:20 – Standard 3rd Hatchery Timing after gasless 15 Hatchery (ZvT) 6:00
6:30 – 2base Baneling Bust (ZvX) 6:45 – Metabolic Boost finishes after Hatchery First (ZvX) 7:00
8:00
8:00 – 2base Roach/Ling All-in can hit your base (ZvT/ZvZ) 8:45 – 2base Roach/Bane All-in can hit your base (ZvT/ZvZ) 9:00
9:00 – 2base Spire will finish (ZvX) 9:15 – Earliest a 2base Swarm Host/Queen Nydus can hit your base (ZvP) 10:00
10:00 – +1/+1 Roach Timing can hit your base (ZvT/ZvZ) 11:00
3base Speed Roach/Baneling Timing can hit your base (ZvT) 3base Spire will finish (ZvP/ZvT) 12:00+
Depending on the amount of aggression in the game, Zerg can finish Hive research around this time (ZvX)
Comprehensive List of Zerg Timings by In-Game Clock (LOTV)
2:00
1:20 – 12 pool finishes (ZvX) 0:56 – Hatchery First placed (ZvX) 1:14 – 3rd Hatchery started if going for a 3 Hatch before Pool (ZvT/ZvP) 1:54 – 12pool reaches your base (ZvX) 1:55 – Earliest a 3rd Hatchery can go down when opening 16 Pool (ZvP) 2:50 – Metabolic Boost finishes in Speedling All-in (ZvP) 2:55 – Metabolic Boost finishes after 14gas/14pool (ZvP/ZvZ) 3:05 – Standard 3rd Hatchery Timing after gasless 17 Hatchery (ZvT) 3:45 – 2base Baneling Bust (ZvX) 3:55 – Metabolic Boost finishes after Hatchery First (ZvX) 4:10 - 3 ravager timing 4:40 – 2base Roach/Ling All-in can hit your base (ZvT/ZvZ) 5:20 – 2base Roach/Bane All-in can hit your base (ZvT/ZvZ) 9:00 – 2base Spire will finish (ZvX) 5:35 – Earliest a 2base Swarm Host/Queen Nydus can hit your base (ZvP) 6:05 – +1/+1 Roach Timing can hit your base (ZvT/ZvZ) 6:50 3base Speed Roach/Baneling Timing can hit your base (ZvT) 6:50 3base Spire will finish (ZvP/ZvT)
Adepts are great and have made Core only gateway units viable. Reliance on Guardian Shield, Photon Overcharge, Recall (from a single unit,) is however devastating and could be made more fun. Eco change+focus on harassment and action everywhere on the map are crucial aspects of LotV. Guardian Shield, with Marauder double shot change (having Sentries in your scattered forces everywhere is too gas expensive) + Mothership Core disallow that for Protoss.
A thread asking for adept buffs, now i've seen everything. The unit is core in most openings, new allins, and mid-game compositions in LoTV. It completely outclasses the zealot and when shooting air is not a concern it outdoes the stalker too.
Im also quite surprised the community feedback always looks as though they are done with protoss. The disruptor and interceptor changes are certainly not enough to make protoss feel like a complete race. It just looks so half complete.
In my opinion, in addition to what youve said, protoss is the class that punishes expanding yourself the most. Additional nexi cost 400, and produce energy - which can solely be used on chronoboost and is the worst base recource. A mined out nexus, which happens more often in LotV, provides infinitely less value than a mined out orbital or hatchery. While this might not be an issue for 2 base timing attacks, i definitely think its an issue for the longer games blizzard is going for.
In addition to that, probes are the weakest to harass - considering certain units even do bonus damage to shields and they have 40 hp as opposed to 45 of other races. Probes also cost 50 minerals - against terran and mules, a protoss is considered on even footing, only if he has a significant lead in probes. If both players get harrassed stronly, it will end up with the terran ahead - since the loss of workers can usually be absorbed by mules. Also consider that 22 probes also cost 1.100 minerals - which is more than a 50% mineral patch of lotv.
Going even further, the mothership by design, is much more powerful at defending bases on lower base counts. Lotv wants to push you to expand - the mothership as a base defense mechanism is now less powerful.
Add all of these together and you get a race that does poorly when the game comes to more expanding.
Personally i would add another way to spend energy, give an incentive to shift between warpgates and gateways and finally remove the mothership as a base protector.
On July 12 2015 22:09 weikor wrote: Im also quite surprised the community feedback always looks as though they are done with protoss. The disruptor and interceptor changes are certainly not enough to make protoss feel like a complete race. It just looks so half complete.
In my opinion, in addition to what youve said, protoss is the class that punishes expanding yourself the most. Additional nexi cost 400, and produce energy - which can solely be used on chronoboost and is the worst base recource. A mined out nexus, which happens more often in LotV, provides infinitely less value than a mined out orbital or hatchery. While this might not be an issue for 2 base timing attacks, i definitely think its an issue for the longer games blizzard is going for.
In addition to that, probes are the weakest to harass - considering certain units even do bonus damage to shields and they have 40 hp as opposed to 45 of other races. Probes also cost 50 minerals - against terran and mules, a protoss is considered on even footing, only if he has a significant lead in probes. If both players get harrassed stronly, it will end up with the terran ahead - since the loss of workers can usually be absorbed by mules. Also consider that 22 probes also cost 1.100 minerals - which is more than a 50% mineral patch of lotv.
Going even further, the mothership by design, is much more powerful at defending bases on lower base counts. Lotv wants to push you to expand - the mothership as a base defense mechanism is now less powerful.
Add all of these together and you get a race that does poorly when the game comes to more expanding.
Personally i would add another way to spend energy, give an incentive to shift between warpgates and gateways and finally remove the mothership as a base protector.
I've said it dozens of times, free macrobooster is weak macrobooster... Standarize Protoss.
There are ton of benefits from standarizing protoss macro.
- Stronger macrobooster - Easier to balance additional nexus spells - Gateways can have short build times without being balanced by Chronoboost (Proxy gates). = Stronger early. - No inmediate dependance on Warpgate. - No need to band-aid with MSC.
Mothership Core is one of the enabling factors for Protoss deathballing. Along with warpgate, it allows Protoss to defend a number of bases without having to split up their forces as much as Zerg and Terran generally need to. Recall and Nexus Canon promote deathball play especially when taking into account that it is dependant on a unit that you can only create one of at a time. It's a bandaid unit that as you said doesn't also doesn't do as well in LOTV due to the need to expand more quickly.
So happy that Colossus is basically useless now and that Protoss have the Adept. However, I would vote for a buff to vs armored and a nerf to vs light so that it isn't such a hard-counter to light and isn't as strongly countered by armored units. My biggest vote goes to changing warp gate while my second goes to changing Mothership Core and allowing more than one to be created.
On July 13 2015 01:30 winsonsonho wrote: Mothership Core is one of the enabling factors for Protoss deathballing. Along with warpgate, it allows Protoss to defend a number of bases without having to split up their forces as much as Zerg and Terran generally need to. Recall and Nexus Canon promote deathball play especially when taking into account that it is dependant on a unit that you can only create one of at a time. It's a bandaid unit that as you said doesn't also doesn't do as well in LOTV due to the need to expand more quickly.
So happy that Colossus is basically useless now and that Protoss have the Adept. However, I would vote for a buff to vs armored and a nerf to vs light so that it isn't such a hard-counter to light and isn't as strongly countered by armored units. My biggest vote goes to changing warp gate while my second goes to changing Mothership Core and allowing more than one to be created.
I disagree about your statement on Nexus Cannon and Recall. These mechanics do not encourage Deathball by themselves, but because only 1 "heroic" unit (you cannot have more than 1) can cast them, so you end up with a MSC-Deathball.
- Photon Overcharge is simply a defensive spell to buff the weak base defense from Protoss, specially early game. You could have different spells or just give Nexus the option to activate it with 25 energy, and it's the same thing. It has nothing to do with the Deathball itself. It's like a long-range cannon, but tied to the Nexus, stupidly activated by MSC.
- Recall is in fact a very mobility-friendly mechanic and would encourage multiskirmishing, but only if you could cast it several times. If you only have ONE UNIQUE UNIT with SINGLE recall, that's a SINGLE group of units that can be moved around (=Deathball).
MSC was 100% a band aid. If you think it well, Photon Overcharge and Recall could be just given to the nexus with a revised energy cost, and Timewarp rebalanced or readjusted on the Oracle (like in HotS Beta).
MSC is, IMAO, an unnecesary unit was patched as a band-aid.
adept damage dps vs tankyness- The adept is more tanky than a stalker, but it also is not as good vs armored units. Even a small number of marauders with marines make the adept nearly unusable.
I disagree, if there are a decent number of marines with some marauder support, adepts would still be great. This is because that marines have a higher DPS vs adepts (per unit cost of course) than marauders do. Marauders will not get their boosted damage because adepts are light. The adepts can just be focusing marines and you just need other units to clean up the maruaders, or you can just run away after all the marines are dead. They are not usable vs compositions based on non-light units however.
Solution is to remove warp gates. It is such a powerful mechanic that you will have to make any unit produced in this manner weaker to balance stuff out.
Imagine giving all protoss units cloaking. Then, you nerf protoss until it get's a stable 50-50 winrate. Only after that is done you look at how games unfold and what is the quality of those games. What do you see?
This is what happens with warp gates, but to a far smaller extent.
On July 13 2015 03:45 Alcathous wrote: Solution is to remove warp gates. It is such a powerful mechanic that you will have to make any unit produced in this manner weaker to balance stuff out.
Imagine giving all protoss units cloaking. Then, you nerf protoss until it get's a stable 50-50 winrate. Only after that is done you look at how games unfold and what is the quality of those games. What do you see?
This is what happens with warp gates, but to a far smaller extent.
I disagree. Yes, Warp Gates are very very powerful, but not so powerful that they can not be reasonably incorporated into the game in some way. This is what I wrote in another thread, I am just gonna copypasta:
On July 13 2015 02:57 RoomOfMush wrote: Although Warp Gate rushes are a problem my bigger personal gripe with Warp Gate is that its a non-decision. Why would anybody ever not get Warp Gate in this game. There is absolutely no choice and no decision making involved. The rules are clear: Get Warp Gate you idiot!
It is Cyber-Core tech which you need to get anyways. Its cheap and it only brings benefits. There is no reason not to research it with 50/50 costs and no other useful early game upgrades at Cyber-Core. And there is no reason not to use it when you have it.
Instead, I would like to see a role for both Gateways and Warp Gates. Differentiate between these two and give us a chance to actually make a decision. Give us some reason to think instead of follow.
Thats why I suggest making Gateways produce units on mass faster then Warp Gates can. If you want to build a big army or remax after a fight you should have Gateways. If you want to reinforce during a fight or harass your opponent you should have Warp Gates. You can even have a mix of both and use them in parallel.
I think one of the most important things before getting into specific unit changes is to look at the big picture of what made Protoss design great in the past. I'm not saying "copy BW," but the basic design of Protoss seems to be altered in SC2, which in turn requires a lot of what people call "bandaids" and "gimmicks" (though sometimes those terms are used only abstractly, when they are used in the context of logically explaining bad design, they can be valid) to balance the game.
The basic Protoss design in BW went like this:
-- Gateway = backbone of the Protoss army -- Robo = general utility of the Protoss army -- Stargate = air dominance and positional utility of the Protoss army
You could use Carriers and Reavers as core units if you wanted to, but they were options, not requirements. And even in cases where it was hard not to use them, they didn't depend on so many other units that you had to keep your whole army clumped together as a deathball.
Compare this to the basic Protoss design in SC2:
-- Joint Gateway/Robo = backbone of the Protoss army -- Robo = general utility of the Protoss army -- Stargate = air dominance and positional utility of the Protoss army
Notice the part in bold. While Robo does retain its utility role, it also becomes part of the backbone as a necessity. The powerful, expensive, specific-weakness units of the Robotics Facility require the Gateway units and the Gateway units require them. It is this aspect that is the main cause of the deathball, and consequently is the key factor behind most of the "bandaid" design choices.
Warp Gate is a possible aspect of why this came to be about, but in LotV, I'm not sure if it still needs to be. Some have suggested improving static defense for retaining more of a defender's advantage against it, and the faster paced game allows other forms of production to more quickly match the early game power of Warp Gate.
I'm not against designing the game without it, but I think the best bet is to see what we can do to create a Gateway backbone while retaining it as I don't think Blizzard is going to consider removing it. They might consider giving Gateway production an advantage, while keeping Warp Gate as mostly a positional tool, but even that I'm not sure they would consider.
I think we do have a little flexibility in the form of the Immortal -- while it comes from the Robo, it is only somewhat expensive compared to the other Robo combat units, has consistent damage output, and could be designed around having a higher number of them rather than a few with a specific weakness that require a large army to protect them (like Colossi). This makes it the closest unit to a Gateway unit that doesn't need to be limited by Warp Gate.
Another option could be something along the lines of making one or some Gateway units unable to be produced by Warp Gates. While this design does seem rather clunky, it could allow more room for making a Gateway backbone.
adept damage dps vs tankyness- The adept is more tanky than a stalker, but it also is not as good vs armored units. Even a small number of marauders with marines make the adept nearly unusable.
I disagree, if there are a decent number of marines with some marauder support, adepts would still be great. This is because that marines have a higher DPS vs adepts (per unit cost of course) than marauders do. Marauders will not get their boosted damage because adepts are light. The adepts can just be focusing marines and you just need other units to clean up the maruaders, or you can just run away after all the marines are dead. They are not usable vs compositions based on non-light units however.
I do think you are spot on of this criticism. Many of the games though that open with 2 gate adept harass i feel put the player behind and they lose often to counter play. (its made me question whether the opener is even viable) I do feel that that 2 gate opener SHOULD be a core part of play. I personally think its more interesting to play and to watch. To be move viable, I think its necessary to have an increase of dps by a number say maybe 2 vs armored. There is another post which i also favor heavily, which think helps with this but using zealots and immortals. I agree 2 gate openers do NOT have to be viable.
Much like the changes i propose to warp gate decreasing build time for non-gates, having a warping building that could be sniped, or separating warp effectiveness between warp prisms and pylons.
They do NOT have to implemented. Notwithstanding, from a design perspective on the player experience, I would like to see it because I think the negative reaction from the community towards protoss primarily stems from the effectiveness of the mothership core/sentry defense and abuse of warp gate resulting in one and done engagements.
As far this, I have to say that its in progress, but not complete enough to be included yet. So this is actually, part or a larger criticism i have of my own post. I have claims and patterns I've been working on ever since I allotted time for this on my agenda starting on june 28th. This is what i have done every day since then.
------------------------------------------------ 1. Review every game i can on LOTV, Usually 4-5/day. 2. Play 3 games based on styles i have seen in lotv. I then identify how i lost with the build and compare to how the pros lose. 3. I look at a few gsl/ssl/wcs vods (usually 2 series) to add to my notes about how the games have played out. 4. Compare builds in HOTS to see if there was a hole in my knowledge or a game played out like that to look for a pattern. 5. Make approximate build orders to match any new things to try. 6. Revisit build orders to make into a build (not build order) decision tree. 7. Test and benchmark the style of the build. 8. Look for patterns ------------------------------------------------
So to define a timing, I have to run through the build order and test it 30-40 times before i feel its optimal. My pace at this is, I usually have completed do about 1 build other day, with 3-4 variants on the build order.
Upon doing this until July 10th, I noticed that some issues were arising with protoss that were not coming up with the other races in terms of benchmarking.(hence the timing tables at the bottom of the post) where the timings fall off for the protoss army starting at a time of a little after 10 minutes in lotv. (This is roughly comparable to when the nexus finishes in hots and workers have to be transferred from the main to the third from oversaturation) At around 7:20 mineral income falls off.
What ends up happening is that the army I have benchmarked I can test in a unit tester against the army of the other team, to determine the effectiveness of it. So my deliverable I'm working on is benchmarked army numbers. DPS, and odds of winning the fight.
The second thing i noticed was that the adept army with numbers higher than about 7-8 did not appear to be as effective as armies with higher stalker and zealot numbers. The problem I've had with testing is finding practice partners to test the composition and battles or that many of the zerg roach timings are so lopsided that the protoss player I question how much they can hold before enough of the tech kicks in. Adept counts seem to hit a limit rather quickly. I still have not made the screenshots, consolidated my data, and tested every major option yet.
On July 13 2015 01:30 winsonsonho wrote: Mothership Core is one of the enabling factors for Protoss deathballing. Along with warpgate, it allows Protoss to defend a number of bases without having to split up their forces as much as Zerg and Terran generally need to. Recall and Nexus Canon promote deathball play especially when taking into account that it is dependant on a unit that you can only create one of at a time. It's a bandaid unit that as you said doesn't also doesn't do as well in LOTV due to the need to expand more quickly.
So happy that Colossus is basically useless now and that Protoss have the Adept. However, I would vote for a buff to vs armored and a nerf to vs light so that it isn't such a hard-counter to light and isn't as strongly countered by armored units. My biggest vote goes to changing warp gate while my second goes to changing Mothership Core and allowing more than one to be created.
I disagree about your statement on Nexus Cannon and Recall. These mechanics do not encourage Deathball by themselves, but because only 1 "heroic" unit (you cannot have more than 1) you end up with a MSC-Deathball
- Photon Overcharge is simply a defensive spell to buff the weak base defense from Protoss, specially early game. You could have different spells or just give Nexus the option to activate it with 25 energy, and it's the same thing. It has nothing to do with the Deathball itself. It's like a long-range cannon, but tied to the Nexus, stupidly activated by MSC.
- Recall is in fact a very mobility-friendly mechanic and would encourage multiskirmishing, but only if you could cast it several times. If you only have ONE UNIQUE UNIT with SINGLE recall, that's a SINGLE group of units that can be moved around (=Deathball).
MSC was 100% a band aid. If you think it well, Photon Overcharge and Recall could be just given to the nexus with a revised energy cost, and Timewarp rebalanced or readjusted on the Oracle (like in HotS Beta).
MSC is, IMAO, an unnecesary unit was patched as a band-aid.
I didn't say that Nexus Cannon and Recall encourage deathball by themselves. But I feel they both do play a part, especially Recall. I agree with all the rest of what you said though.
The fact that Photon Overcharge was needed to fix the defensive problem is the biggest problem for me.. Instead of fixing the problem, they created another crutch for Protoss just like forcefield. The race should be strong enough with the a number of compositions of the units it has with a few well placed buildings and photon cannons. It shouldn't REQUIRE a certain unit(MSC) or the mechanics(WarpGate) or abilities(Forcefield,Photon Overcharge) just to survive and/or be aggressive.
They keep trying to fix the gimmicky, crutchy, most deathbally race with more crutches and gimmicks. If Blizzard wanted to make big changes to Protoss that properly solved these problems they would have done it already. I think they believe that adding the gimmicky Adept, Disruptor, Ravager, etc. that will solve a lot of these issues. But by giving us specific solutions to problems, they actually limit the choices we have because then we only have those solutions. If the actual underlying issues with Protoss are fixed then we have more defensive and offensive options that we can choose from.
adept damage dps vs tankyness- The adept is more tanky than a stalker, but it also is not as good vs armored units. Even a small number of marauders with marines make the adept nearly unusable.
I disagree, if there are a decent number of marines with some marauder support, adepts would still be great. This is because that marines have a higher DPS vs adepts (per unit cost of course) than marauders do. Marauders will not get their boosted damage because adepts are light. The adepts can just be focusing marines and you just need other units to clean up the maruaders, or you can just run away after all the marines are dead. They are not usable vs compositions based on non-light units however.
I do think you are spot on of this criticism. Many of the games though that open with 2 gate adept harass i feel put the player behind and they lose often to counter play. (its made me question whether the opener is even viable) I do feel that that 2 gate opener SHOULD be a core part of play. I personally think its more interesting to play and to watch. To be move viable, I think its necessary to have an increase of dps by a number say maybe 2 vs armored. There is another post which i also favor heavily, which think helps with this but using zealots and immortals. I agree 2 gate openers do NOT have to be viable.
Much like the changes i propose to warp gate decreasing build time for non-gates, having a warping building that could be sniped, or separating warp effectiveness between warp prisms and pylons.
They do NOT have to implemented. Notwithstanding, from a design perspective on the player experience, I would like to see it because I think the negative reaction from the community towards protoss primarily stems from the effectiveness of the mothership core/sentry defense and abuse of warp gate resulting in one and done engagements.
As far this, I have to say that its in progress, but not complete enough to be included yet. So this is actually, part or a larger criticism i have of my own post. I have claims and patterns I've been working on ever since I allotted time for this on my agenda starting on june 28th. This is what i have done every day since then.
------------------------------------------------ 1. Review every game i can on LOTV, Usually 4-5/day. 2. Play 3 games based on styles i have seen in lotv. I then identify how i lost with the build and compare to how the pros lose. 3. I look at a few gsl/ssl/wcs vods (usually 2 series) to add to my notes about how the games have played out. 4. Compare builds in HOTS to see if there was a hole in my knowledge or a game played out like that to look for a pattern. 5. Make approximate build orders to match any new things to try. 6. Revisit build orders to make into a build (not build order) decision tree. 7. Test and benchmark the style of the build. 8. Look for patterns ------------------------------------------------
So to define a timing, I have to run through the build order and test it 30-40 times before i feel its optimal. My pace at this is, I usually have completed do about 1 build other day, with 3-4 variants on the build order.
Upon doing this until July 10th, I noticed that some issues were arising with protoss that were not coming up with the other races in terms of benchmarking.(hence the timing tables at the bottom of the post) where the timings fall off for the protoss army starting at a time of a little after 10 minutes in lotv. (This is roughly comparable to when the nexus finishes in hots and workers have to be transferred from the main to the third from oversaturation) At around 7:20 mineral income falls off.
What ends up happening is that the army I have benchmarked I can test in a unit tester against the army of the other team, to determine the effectiveness of it. So my deliverable I'm working on is benchmarked army numbers. DPS, and odds of winning the fight.
The second thing i noticed was that the adept army with numbers higher than about 7-8 did not appear to be as effective as armies with higher stalker and zealot numbers. The problem I've had with testing is finding practice partners to test the composition and battles or that many of the zerg roach timings are so lopsided that the protoss player I question how much they can hold before enough of the tech kicks in. Adept counts seem to hit a limit rather quickly. I still have not made the screenshots, consolidated my data, and tested every major option yet.
Harass, in my opinion should not exist in sc2 without any form of risk. Getting behind while opening for a 2 gate adept harass play is perfectly acceptable if you don't do enough damage; or if its easily shut down by having armored units. The existence of the adept itself greatly helps protoss by giving the race an answer to light unit based compositions, (which are fairly common in early game), without the need of advanced tech.
I mostly agree with your other points; but when I look at legacy of the void, it merely takes away privileges that blizzard has given to protoss from before. Namely, these privileges are: "The failed all in" (If you go all in and you fail, you should lose the game or else its not really an all in) "Ability to turtle on 2 base" (Protoss 2 base play is significantly stronger than the other two races) "Complete terrain control with force field" (This ability is on par with fungle growth in that there use to be no counter play)
Unfortunately, since protoss was balanced around these privileges, removing them in legacy requires a huge rework. The only change that I would prefer instead of your suggestion is to instead of having nexus start with 50 energy, you allow protoss to cronoboost buildings in production (except photon cannons). This would allow protoss to expand quicker.
However, the starting with 50 nexus energy is also a good change because it equalizes the number of cronoboost per unit time protoss has in hots compared to legacy. I believe that protoss has 2-3 less cronoboost if you scale the two game modes together in terms of timings and such.
adept damage dps vs tankyness- The adept is more tanky than a stalker, but it also is not as good vs armored units. Even a small number of marauders with marines make the adept nearly unusable.
I disagree, if there are a decent number of marines with some marauder support, adepts would still be great. This is because that marines have a higher DPS vs adepts (per unit cost of course) than marauders do. Marauders will not get their boosted damage because adepts are light. The adepts can just be focusing marines and you just need other units to clean up the maruaders, or you can just run away after all the marines are dead. They are not usable vs compositions based on non-light units however.
I do think you are spot on of this criticism. Many of the games though that open with 2 gate adept harass i feel put the player behind and they lose often to counter play. (its made me question whether the opener is even viable) I do feel that that 2 gate opener SHOULD be a core part of play. I personally think its more interesting to play and to watch. To be move viable, I think its necessary to have an increase of dps by a number say maybe 2 vs armored. There is another post which i also favor heavily, which think helps with this but using zealots and immortals. I agree 2 gate openers do NOT have to be viable.
Much like the changes i propose to warp gate decreasing build time for non-gates, having a warping building that could be sniped, or separating warp effectiveness between warp prisms and pylons.
They do NOT have to implemented. Notwithstanding, from a design perspective on the player experience, I would like to see it because I think the negative reaction from the community towards protoss primarily stems from the effectiveness of the mothership core/sentry defense and abuse of warp gate resulting in one and done engagements.
As far this, I have to say that its in progress, but not complete enough to be included yet. So this is actually, part or a larger criticism i have of my own post. I have claims and patterns I've been working on ever since I allotted time for this on my agenda starting on june 28th. This is what i have done every day since then.
------------------------------------------------ 1. Review every game i can on LOTV, Usually 4-5/day. 2. Play 3 games based on styles i have seen in lotv. I then identify how i lost with the build and compare to how the pros lose. 3. I look at a few gsl/ssl/wcs vods (usually 2 series) to add to my notes about how the games have played out. 4. Compare builds in HOTS to see if there was a hole in my knowledge or a game played out like that to look for a pattern. 5. Make approximate build orders to match any new things to try. 6. Revisit build orders to make into a build (not build order) decision tree. 7. Test and benchmark the style of the build. 8. Look for patterns ------------------------------------------------
So to define a timing, I have to run through the build order and test it 30-40 times before i feel its optimal. My pace at this is, I usually have completed do about 1 build other day, with 3-4 variants on the build order.
Upon doing this until July 10th, I noticed that some issues were arising with protoss that were not coming up with the other races in terms of benchmarking.(hence the timing tables at the bottom of the post) where the timings fall off for the protoss army starting at a time of a little after 10 minutes in lotv. (This is roughly comparable to when the nexus finishes in hots and workers have to be transferred from the main to the third from oversaturation) At around 7:20 mineral income falls off.
What ends up happening is that the army I have benchmarked I can test in a unit tester against the army of the other team, to determine the effectiveness of it. So my deliverable I'm working on is benchmarked army numbers. DPS, and odds of winning the fight.
The second thing i noticed was that the adept army with numbers higher than about 7-8 did not appear to be as effective as armies with higher stalker and zealot numbers. The problem I've had with testing is finding practice partners to test the composition and battles or that many of the zerg roach timings are so lopsided that the protoss player I question how much they can hold before enough of the tech kicks in. Adept counts seem to hit a limit rather quickly. I still have not made the screenshots, consolidated my data, and tested every major option yet.
Harass, in my opinion should not exist in sc2 without any form of risk. Getting behind while opening for a 2 gate adept harass play is perfectly acceptable if you don't do enough damage; or if its easily shut down by having armored units. The existence of the adept itself greatly helps protoss by giving the race an answer to light unit based compositions, (which are fairly common in early game), without the need of advanced tech.
I mostly agree with your other points; but when I look at legacy of the void, it merely takes away privileges that blizzard has given to protoss from before. Namely, these privileges are: "The failed all in" (If you go all in and you fail, you should lose the game or else its not really an all in) "Ability to turtle on 2 base" (Protoss 2 base play is significantly stronger than the other two races) "Complete terrain control with force field" (This ability is on par with fungle growth in that there use to be no counter play)
Unfortunately, since protoss was balanced around these privileges, removing them in legacy requires a huge rework. The only change that I would prefer instead of your suggestion is to instead of having nexus start with 50 energy, you allow protoss to cronoboost buildings in production (except photon cannons). This would allow protoss to expand quicker.
However, the starting with 50 nexus energy is also a good change because it equalizes the number of cronoboost per unit time protoss has in hots compared to legacy. I believe that protoss has 2-3 less cronoboost if you scale the two game modes together in terms of timings and such.
My concern about the 2 gate harass stems mostly from punishing 3 base zerg openers. It simply does not do enough damage to be viable. There is no real chance the game does not result in being behind. I have yet to see any evidence against this in high level play.
As far as nexus energy, I did in fact spend time testing this exact thing. After doing testing, you don't have the initial chronoboost from 11-12, and you have a decrease from natural the nexus(1:52 vs 2:05)~1 chrono. The timings are within about 10 seconds for the builds i have tested until about the 8 minute mark lotv time mostly due to this single chrono lost.
As far as the statement, it(my redesign) merely takes away privileges that blizzard has given to protoss from before. Yes that is exactly the point of the redesign part of the post. The most abusive aspects of protoss play i believe also are the least fun (and the least like protoss in brood war). If they start with those changed, then i really think the game experience changes most positively in sc2 and the abusive styles would be more interesting. A lot of this means that the earlier gateway army must be buffed, more emphasis in playing vs protoss is not on protoss sitting in chokes but more open field engagements. It leads to viability of larger more open maps like iron fortress.
Core gateway compositions will never be as fast as zerg forces or terran's bio.
If Protoss is going to be balanced around a core of units from the gateway, then those forces have to have an advantage to actually force fights:
- mobility - damage - tanky-ness
In TvZ, mobility goes to zerg on creep or when using mutalisks well -- otherwise, it's terran's game. Damage goes to whomever has the right composition and numbers as well as micro. Tanky-ness goes to neither. The match-up is nuanced because the core units (LBM vs MMMWM) are comparable in strengths and weaknesses.
When comparing those compositions to Protoss' core, you see that the only way to gain at least 2 / 3 of the above advantages is by adding severely slow robotics (colossus for DPS) or stargate (voids / carriers in LotV) units to the Protoss composition (at least in a macro game) ... and then the opponent still always has the advantage of being able to run away.
If you want an exciting PvX set of match-ups, you've got to have reliable, consistent damage available at warp-gate. If you want, you can easily delay some of the power of the unit (HTs are a good example, having to wait upon energy before storm is available after warping-in) ... but I don't think it's really necessary.
Hopefully Blizzard will take some of the power they've removed from the Colossus (in consistency of damage) and apply it to the adept so that the core of Protoss will have some set of strengths to attempt to obtain in the mid-game, instead of just turtle-ing until the late game.
If something major isn't done soon, Protoss will continue to feel exactly the same as in HotS: all-in or turtle forever.
On July 13 2015 04:09 RoomOfMush wrote: I disagree. Yes, Warp Gates are very very powerful, but not so powerful that they can not be reasonably incorporated into the game in some way. This is what I wrote in another thread, I am just gonna copypasta:
I don't disagree with what you say, but if you keep warp gates as strong as they are and make normal gateways stronger, you need to weaken the base stats of the units themselves even more to achieve balance. My objection is, make the unit themselves strong. Not some fundamental mechanic that indirectly requires units to be weak.
But I guess you still play SC2, play protoss, and think they need a buff.
I like the second option in the OP, which is plain and simple. If you want gateway units to be balanced, just shortens the buildtime of all gateway units but make the cooldown relatively longer to warp one. For example, the current buildtime of a zealot is 38 second. With a 10% punishment for warpgate but 10% reward for gateway, it takes only 34 seconds to produce one in a gateway but 42 seconds to warp one into a power field, so obviously that will nerf P's warpgate rush but buff it's ability of defense at the same time.
I want to thank you for all the hard work preparing it. I understand you watched a lot of games and have made some statistics behind it to support your claims, rather than relying on your gut-feeling. I really like some of your ideas, such as the decreased time of non-warpgate build time. As JCoto points out however, this will work only if chronoboost is not available early game. Otherwise, we will see more proxy gateway all-ins. If you recall in early WoL building time was nerfed to compensate for chronoboost usage when proxying.
You are talking about buffing Adepts, but I think all gateway units should be buffed in some way to be able to withstand a frontal attack without resorting to force-fields. When that happens the slow sentry would become an option, not a must-have in early-to-mid gateway compositions. Naturally, it would have to be nerfed in some way as well so that sentry-based compositions are not plainily OP.
Your discussion will help tremendously on my project I started only recently (Starcraft Improved), but we seem to move in similar direction as some of the suggestions that I see in this thread. One thing we are currently trying is an added cost to each Gateway-to-Warpgate that you make. This, coupled with reduced cost from plain Gateway may convince Protoss not to rush to Warpgates in the first place.
There are however changes that I am torn about. For example: the templar usage. Templars are slow for a reason. They function (or should function) as a mild deny area unit (I have templars here, you shall not pass!). Similarly as Lurkers and Siege Tanks.
I'm fond of buffing the core protoss army and trimming back on the cost of key tech buildings
the way I see it:
-Buff zeolot shields by 10, increase movespeed -Increase Stalker damage/DPS
from some Community projects such as Starbow i've become a fan of moving the Immortal from Robo to Gate and Sentry from Gate to robo.
Immortals (with adjusted cost and stats) would serve to give GW armies real muscle and and would give P options for early armies (zeolots for frontline, adept for harass, Stalker for range/anti-air and Immortal for anti-armored) and it would be ok for them to be stronger early with the loss of Sentries. Sentries in the robo could be redesigned as, well, an actually sentry which could serve to provide territory advantages to allow protoss to spread out more and secure expansions.
I think with these kind of changes P would have a strong Core that can be built upon.
Protoss need to have their strengths and weaknesses tweaked. They rely on certain overly powerful abilities like forcefield, blink and warpgate, which scale exponentially. It's difficult to balance forcefield etc. so that it's not useless when you have only a couple, but not overpowered when you have a lot. I think this is occurring because these abilities don't have big enough weaknesses associated with them.
For example, there is no reason not to get warpgates - they're clearly the best way for protoss to build gateway units. So protoss needs to get balanced around having a weak gateway early game, then a steady increase in power over the course of the game as warpgates are added and units can be built faster, and in more places as more pylons get built.
Most protoss units work in this way - the scaling is very strong. That's why protoss starts so weak then gets so powerful as the game goes on. I think that by tweaking things such that protoss don't scale so well into the lategame, you can balance both the early and late game (by flattening the power curve).
For example:
Stalker: get rid of the armor bonus on stalker damage and increase their attack speed slightly, so that they do more DPS to light units (i.e. the units you encounter early game), but less damage to the armored units that come out as the game goes on. You already have a very good anti armor unit (the immortal) which comes out in the mid game, so it's ok to trade armored damage on the stalker for added power against zealots, lings and marines.
Warpgate: make it take longer to warp-in units than to build them from a gateway. What warpgates do is shorten the resupply route, but at the moment they have no down-side. Making gateways build faster allows you to choose between getting units out faster (but having to reinforce from across the map), or getting units where you want them immediately (but less often). This change wouldn't effect a passive protoss, but would make protoss all-ins weaker.
Sentries: Make forcefield only last for 10 seconds, but increase sentry damage slightly, and make guardian shield work against melee units. This will make sentries better combat units at the expense of area control. 10 seconds is still enough time to cut an army in half, block a path, make a retreat etc. but makes it easier for an opponent to deal with. This change makes sentries better against zerglings - a unit protoss often has problems with in the early game - and weaker when massed (because it's harder to keep large sections of the map blocked off).
Of course there are more things that I think should change, and not just for protoss, but what do you think about this stuff?
On July 16 2015 15:04 Quineotio wrote: Protoss need to have their strengths and weaknesses tweaked. They rely on certain overly powerful abilities like forcefield, blink and warpgate, which scale exponentially. It's difficult to balance forcefield etc. so that it's not useless when you have only a couple, but not overpowered when you have a lot. I think this is occurring because these abilities don't have big enough weaknesses associated with them.
For example, there is no reason not to get warpgates - they're clearly the best way for protoss to build gateway units. So protoss needs to get balanced around having a weak gateway early game, then a steady increase in power over the course of the game as warpgates are added and units can be built faster, and in more places as more pylons get built.
Most protoss units work in this way - the scaling is very strong. That's why protoss starts so weak then gets so powerful as the game goes on. I think that by tweaking things such that protoss don't scale so well into the lategame, you can balance both the early and late game (by flattening the power curve).
For example:
Stalker: get rid of the armor bonus on stalker damage and increase their attack speed slightly, so that they do more DPS to light units (i.e. the units you encounter early game), but less damage to the armored units that come out as the game goes on. You already have a very good anti armor unit (the immortal) which comes out in the mid game, so it's ok to trade armored damage on the stalker for added power against zealots, lings and marines.
Warpgate: make it take longer to warp-in units than to build them from a gateway. What warpgates do is shorten the resupply route, but at the moment they have no down-side. Making gateways build faster allows you to choose between getting units out faster (but having to reinforce from across the map), or getting units where you want them immediately (but less often). This change wouldn't effect a passive protoss, but would make protoss all-ins weaker.
Sentries: Make forcefield only last for 10 seconds, but increase sentry damage slightly, and make guardian shield work against melee units. This will make sentries better combat units at the expense of area control. 10 seconds is still enough time to cut an army in half, block a path, make a retreat etc. but makes it easier for an opponent to deal with. This change makes sentries better against zerglings - a unit protoss often has problems with in the early game - and weaker when massed (because it's harder to keep large sections of the map blocked off).
Of course there are more things that I think should change, and not just for protoss, but what do you think about this stuff?
I think the stalker change would cause problems for terran in the early game. Sometimes I've won games PvT by merely sending a stalker and a zealot to the other side of the map.
On July 16 2015 15:04 Quineotio wrote: Warpgate: make it take longer to warp-in units than to build them from a gateway. What warpgates do is shorten the resupply route, but at the moment they have no down-side. Making gateways build faster allows you to choose between getting units out faster (but having to reinforce from across the map), or getting units where you want them immediately (but less often). This change wouldn't effect a passive protoss, but would make protoss all-ins weaker.
Totally agree with this. Some fundamental changes should be made on warpgate mechanic. In the early game, Z, when with a handful of larvas, has to choose between a round of workers and zerglings; to T, it's mules or scans. P shouldn't make an exception. It should make a similar choice between a passive style - with gateway - and an aggressive style - with warpgate. That could certainly diversify P's strategies throughout the whole game.
On July 16 2015 17:23 shin_toss wrote: Ive been playing like 60~70games and seriously haven't explored adept's usage..so how? What matchup? anyone can give me short answer
Adepts are used to harass in all 3 matchups. They are bad against stalkers, marauders, and roaches. They are often used to apply pressure and transition into tech.
I made a Video of tricks on how to micro adepts as well. If you have specific questions let me know. Some of the best games with adepts was Mana/Parting vs Puckk/pili in archon. Also, tt1 has explained quite a bit about adept usage and frequently post in the forums. (his name might be ttone on teamliquid.)
Most protoss units work in this way - the scaling is very strong. That's why protoss starts so weak then gets so powerful as the game goes on. I think that by tweaking things such that protoss don't scale so well into the lategame, you can balance both the early and late game (by flattening the power curve). ... what do you think about this stuff?
I've been thinking about this, and I'm not this is really a problem.
In PvZ, pros have been moving away from colossus because they are too easily countered with vipers. See this set, for example, especially the second game. Intense amazing game.
In PvT, check out how action packed this game is. What else would you really want from Starcraft?
PvP is super exciting as a mirror matchup if you understand build orders and counters. Later in the game, protoss players sometimes hide in their bases, trying to build up the best army they can, but it doesn't need to be that way. Check out the first game of this match as an example:
Most protoss units work in this way - the scaling is very strong. That's why protoss starts so weak then gets so powerful as the game goes on. I think that by tweaking things such that protoss don't scale so well into the lategame, you can balance both the early and late game (by flattening the power curve). ... what do you think about this stuff?
I've been thinking about this, and I'm not this is really a problem.
In PvZ, pros have been moving away from colossus because they are too easily countered with vipers. See this set, for example, especially the second game. Intense amazing game.
PvP is super exciting as a mirror matchup if you understand build orders and counters. Later in the game, protoss players sometimes hide in their bases, trying to build up the best army they can, but it doesn't need to be that way. Check out the first game of this match as an example:
Of course, these games are HOTS, not LOTV, but the beta isn't quite ready for balance testing yet in LOTV.
There are definitely good games involving protoss - heaps of them. But I feel that there would be even more good games, and less bad ones, if some changes were made.
I don't really like vipers. Blizzard acknowledged that the colossus was a problem, but chose to add a counter unit rather than fix the problem. If I were redesigning the colossus I'd experiment with lowering its movement speed and changing its attack. I think by lowering its movement speed you increase the difficulty of getting it into a good position, and make it harder to escape, "weakening" without removing its ability to kick ass when it's in the right spot at the right time.
I'd also consider lowering its attack speed and increasing its damage so that targeting the shot becomes more important. Both of these things would increase the micro necessary to get maximum use out of it.
These changes I wouldn't make in isolation though - colossus interaction with vikings would need to be looked at for example. But it's hard to make one change - I'd be making adjustments all over. The point is, I don't like the way starcraft is being developed. I think blizzard should be adding nuances to the game rather than adding blunt counter units to the biggest perceived problems. I mean, why put the ravager into the game to solve the force-field problem instead of just solving the force-field problem?
On July 16 2015 18:31 Quineotio wrote: These changes I wouldn't make in isolation though - colossus interaction with vikings would need to be looked at for example. But it's hard to make one change - I'd be making adjustments all over. The point is, I don't like the way starcraft is being developed. I think blizzard should be adding nuances to the game rather than adding blunt counter units to the biggest perceived problems. I mean, why put the ravager into the game to solve the force-field problem instead of just solving the force-field problem?
Ravagers do more than counter force fields.....killing forcefields is just one of their nuances.
I don't see forcefields as a problem. The have so many interesting uses.
I think warpgate is fine balance-wise, it's just that most players see it as glaringly-bad game design to have a building like the gateway which serves no purpose whatsoever in the game but to be clicked on and transformed (for free) to a much better building, the warpgate. It's like having that extra step where you have to turn every gateway you build into a warpgate is nothing but an unnecessary wasteful click which adds no depth of strategy to the game. And not getting warpgate research ASAP has never been an option except for the earliest proxy rushes which are complete all-ins anyway and aren't affected by warpgate.
I agree with the people on here saying the mothership core is a bandaid unit with no clear purpose but to fill in existing design cracks. I would go further to say that it damages the fantasy and identity of playing protoss to have the early-midgame revolve around a single flying unit called the "mothership core" <-- seriously what kind of name is that for a unit.
And that brings me to my biggest question: why is the mothership still in the game, why is it so unused, why doesn't it have any cool/useful abilities (wow cloaking field at the 30 minute mark). I know at one point Dustin Browder said it was cool to have units in the game that were never used in pro-level play and that would just be fun for a casual 4v4, but I've never liked that attitude and I've always thought it was wrong for SC since the game already has enough units that aren't useful and with the new expansion we're getting even more dumped in our laps.
On July 17 2015 02:38 cordellb wrote: And that brings me to my biggest question: why is the mothership still in the game, why is it so unused, why doesn't it have any cool/useful abilities (wow cloaking field at the 30 minute mark). I know at one point Dustin Browder said it was cool to have units in the game that were never used in pro-level play and that would just be fun for a casual 4v4, but I've never liked that attitude and I've always thought it was wrong for SC since the game already has enough units that aren't useful and with the new expansion we're getting even more dumped in our laps.
It's better to have units then not, eventually uses might be found for them. It took a long time for BW to become balanced, as people found counters to different units, and new uses for other units.
In HOTS, the mothership wasn't used much at first, but eventually made its way into pro games. Here's an example of Zest using it from last Blizzcon:
I don't know what changes should be implemented, but I'm worried because of two things: 1- Hero units are still there for the protoss and as long as there is a need for a hero unit, there is probably a big design problem that has been "band-aided". What is worrying is that it is very unlikely at this stage to have changes sufficient enough to be done with the need for hero units. 2- The new minerals economic will probably create a big problem for the protoss. Again at this stage in the design, I wouldn't expect changes to the economy nor can i see an overhaul to all protoss mineral costs so god knows how this will fix this.
In anyways I hope they make enough changes to the game so we don't end up seeing absurd deathball games like that Zest. vs. Life that was posted above.
On July 19 2015 09:42 Cloak wrote: What's the true harm of uncapping MsC? Multi pronged recall seems like an attractive goal. They also don't stack that well.
The MsC is already one of the strongest spell casters there is, having 1 Msc is already a lot, having more than 1 would be too broken. Specially recall, there shouldn't be a spell that allows for a player to take bad positions with just 1 button to save all his units.
I really hope they address and give protoss the big buff it need to survive with zerg and terran. I don't understand why remove FF's, buff collsi, nothing feels strong. Adepts are a harass unit. Terrans and zerg will have excuses to why protoss is 'ok'. There a big reason why you almost never see protoss in LoTV tournaments or being played much. I hope they fix the game. I know it's a beta but why are Zerg and Terran so strong? and Protoss is clearly weak. They never got buffs in HoTS and the community complain about 'power of protoss'. Feel like there alot of bias players out there being the most vocal. And not Open minded honest players that really want to see the race on a fair playing field as the other 2 races. It their own expansion. It's very disappointing to see.
On July 19 2015 09:42 Cloak wrote: What's the true harm of uncapping MsC? Multi pronged recall seems like an attractive goal. They also don't stack that well.
The MsC is already one of the strongest spell casters there is, having 1 Msc is already a lot, having more than 1 would be too broken. Specially recall, there shouldn't be a spell that allows for a player to take bad positions with just 1 button to save all his units.
Recall was added to T1 because Protoss doesn't have any retreat possibility. Both sentry and zealot are slower than marines or zerglings/roaches(on creep). And one of the 1st upgrades in the game is research of speed buff to these mentioned units(stim, speed bufs). (and not mentioning idiotic concussive shells)
Otherwise we would return to WoL level, where you could go only early game all in(especially in PvZ where you cannot retreat with sentries which are tons of gas).
It's a stupid fix and everyone knows it, there's a reason why recall was so far in tech tree in BW/WoL.
one thing about recall, that i think needs to be removed in lotv is after-recall-lag. I understand why it is in hots, but protoss need this to defend bases in lotv.
What if the colossus had a manual cast only attack that cost 25 gas to charge? Maybe a single laser that does 70 damage. 5 seconds to charge the attack with some animation for the opponent to see. I'm thinking something like this would help make them more effective in small numbers to help support a buffed gateway army, but not worth the expense to rely solely on colossi to smash through everything.
On warp gate. I have a vision of a warp gate that works more like nydus worm. Say you would turn only one gateway into a warp gate, and you would put units into it to be able to warp them around the map. Units would warp out in the order they went in. Would it be OP if this wasn't limited to only gateway units? Like you could put other non massive units in and warp around probes and immortals.
I also think it would be neat if it was possible to warp units out of a warp prism while it is immobile. Imagine being able to send colossus back home from a failed attack if you can warp them back to your base before the prism gets shot down. This assumes the mothership core and/or recall doesn't exist.
On July 16 2015 15:04 Quineotio wrote: Warpgate: make it take longer to warp-in units than to build them from a gateway. What warpgates do is shorten the resupply route, but at the moment they have no down-side. Making gateways build faster allows you to choose between getting units out faster (but having to reinforce from across the map), or getting units where you want them immediately (but less often). This change wouldn't effect a passive protoss, but would make protoss all-ins weaker.
Totally agree with this. Some fundamental changes should be made on warpgate mechanic. In the early game, Z, when with a handful of larvas, has to choose between a round of workers and zerglings; to T, it's mules or scans. P shouldn't make an exception. It should make a similar choice between a passive style - with gateway - and an aggressive style - with warpgate. That could certainly diversify P's strategies throughout the whole game.
What I'd really like to see (although it would require a lot of rebalancing)
Gateways (and Stargates) give you a unit instantly and then cool down (similar to a warpgate), but it gives you the unit at the same location. To warp it in anywhere under Pylon power requires 1. a longer cooldown And/Or 2. an investment in each individual warpgate (ie 100 gas to change 1 Gateway into 1 Warpgate)
[Stargates could have the ability to warp a unit directly to the Mothership]
That way something uniquely Protoss (cooldown based production) could be expanded (mostly compensated for by longer time to build the buildings and advanced units coming out 'unready'..Templars need more energy & Carriers need more interceptors)
But it would avoid the advantage of 'location independence' being something you get easily and automatically
Tossing out another Colossus change idea, bringing back something I thought was interesting about its original presentation with the single target fire. The Colossus loses its auto-attack and gains an active ability instead. [Insert SC2 is not a MOBA arguments here]. The Colossus ability would have it scan an area, identify all enemy units present, and then it would fire on each one until it kills it.
Once the scan ability is off cooldown the Colossus can scan again to identify additional units but will keep firing on previously scanned units. New units entering would not be fired upon until scanned, and old units would not be fired upon if the unit previously disappeared (was picked up, runs outside of the Colossus' attack range, burrows, cloaks, recalls away, etc...), otherwise the Colossus does not stop firing until either it or its target dies (the lore does state it caused an accidental genocide afterall). This ability also gives multiple areas for balance like the cooldown duration, the scan radius, the speed of the scan, the cast range, the attack range, and the DPS.
On July 12 2015 22:09 weikor wrote: In addition to that, probes are the weakest to harass - considering certain units even do bonus damage to shields and they have 40 hp as opposed to 45 of other races. Probes also cost 50 minerals - against terran and mules, a protoss is considered on even footing, only if he has a significant lead in probes. If both players get harrassed stronly, it will end up with the terran ahead - since the loss of workers can usually be absorbed by mules. Also consider that 22 probes also cost 1.100 minerals - which is more than a 50% mineral patch of lotv.
Uh. No. Just no.
1) The drones have 40 hp. The 5 bonus hp for scvs barely changes anything. The bonus damages to shield isn't an issue. Indeed, if you didn't pay attention, whatever went in your mineral line, you're doomed. Mines or not mines. And I think that you shouldn't lose 3 probes every 40s when you let a medivac enter your mineral line without pulling the probes. You should take reasonable damages for this.
2) The MULE. PLEASE, stop arguing about how OP the mule is, just stop. The protoss is considered on even footing when is has more probes. WELL, that's the point of chronoboosting and the production time of the OC. The protoss is always ahead in probes.
"If both players get harrassed stronly, it will end up with the terran ahead - since the loss of workers can usually be absorbed by mules."
No. A : number of workers represented by mules : 3-4
Protoss worker count before harass : 50 Terran worker count before harass : 43 + 2A
I mean, that's basic maths here.. Mules DON'T absorb the loss of workers, it only works in late game when the terran reaches the protoss worker count, around 70 workers. However, the protoss will have faster upgrades and production thanks to the chronoboost. It is even.
3) Consider that 22 scvs and drones also cost the same that 22 probes.
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@tokinho
I appreciate your thinking here, it went way further than the basic stuff about how mules are OP (see above).
However, there is one thing I didn't understand. In the "Game breaking changes in Legacy" part. You explain a good number of changes, and most of them are seen as negative. However, the fifth part "adept oracle openers" seem to be the only one that is not. It seems that these openers are very strong, as they counter the classical defense against oracle.
What I don't understand is : How such builds could be dealt with as terran if the first adepts come earlier, the protoss don't have a mineral fallout, with a small boost on probes with the starting nexus, cheapers adepts, adepts stronger against their "counter", the colossus comeback, an already very strong storm boosted, a third source of AOE and... less effective drops ?
I mean, I'm okay with these, but terrans won't be able to do anything. As I recall, the cyclone is going to be nerfed and will lose its ability to attack without vision. You need two mines deal with oracles (a protoss should be able to see there's no marines in the mineral line, so if you can't see the one mine in the mineral line, it's probably hidden behind the vespene thing. Just go on top of the CC and kill every scv, if the mine doesn't move, it's lost, and when it does, you just have to move where it isn't burrow to finish the job..) But if you rush mines, can you defend the early stuff ? If you go full marines, how can you deal with adept/oracles ? More important, if you rush mines and your opponent go for an early expansion, what do you do ? He will be able to defend whatsoever, and probably scouted your early gas. Can you defend it without commiting too much with turrets/ebay ? (you will probably lose some workers anyway, if you spent as many ressources in the defense as the protoss, you're losing)
I'm afraid we can't really answer to these questions with such protoss buffs.
EDIT:
I forgot. If you go for marauders against adept with turrets against oracles. Say the protoss keeps producing oracles and adepts. How do you expand ? Mines would be pretty tough to use because of the adepts. Marines are obviously not the answer. Few adepts' shot will kill enough marines for oracles to kill the whole army. And turrets...Don't move. I hope I won't have to wait for fusion core + cylcone upgrade to expand.
On July 12 2015 22:09 weikor wrote: In addition to that, probes are the weakest to harass - considering certain units even do bonus damage to shields and they have 40 hp as opposed to 45 of other races. Probes also cost 50 minerals - against terran and mules, a protoss is considered on even footing, only if he has a significant lead in probes. If both players get harrassed stronly, it will end up with the terran ahead - since the loss of workers can usually be absorbed by mules. Also consider that 22 probes also cost 1.100 minerals - which is more than a 50% mineral patch of lotv.
Uh. No. Just no.
1) The drones have 40 hp. The 5 bonus hp for scvs barely changes anything. The bonus damages to shield isn't an issue. Indeed, if you didn't pay attention, whatever went in your mineral line, you're doomed. Mines or not mines. And I think that you shouldn't lose 3 probes every 40s when you let a medivac enter your mineral line without pulling the probes. You should take reasonable damages for this.
2) The MULE. PLEASE, stop arguing about how OP the mule is, just stop. The protoss is considered on even footing when is has more probes. WELL, that's the point of chronoboosting and the production time of the OC. The protoss is always ahead in probes.
"If both players get harrassed stronly, it will end up with the terran ahead - since the loss of workers can usually be absorbed by mules."
No. A : number of workers represented by mules : 3-4
Protoss worker count before harass : 50 Terran worker count before harass : 43 + 2A
I mean, that's basic maths here.. Mules DON'T absorb the loss of workers, it only works in late game when the terran reaches the protoss worker count, around 70 workers. However, the protoss will have faster upgrades and production thanks to the chronoboost. It is even.
3) Consider that 22 scvs and drones also cost the same that 22 probes.
Another reason that BLZ gave mule to T is that in the early game T always has at least two scvs working on construction of new buildings, so the overall worker count is always a bit lower and the mule is somewhat a compensation. Also, since MMM is mineral-intensive, that extra income that mules bring forth is well needed.
I don't think the uncapping of Mothership Core would be that imba, considering the recall can only be used to defend bases. Feels like it deserves some testing.
Maybe remove the slowing field thing (anti-micro and just boring), uncap the unit limit and give it faster speed so it can be used with faster units all over the place, instead of just one big slow deathball.
On July 19 2015 09:42 Cloak wrote: What's the true harm of uncapping MsC? Multi pronged recall seems like an attractive goal. They also don't stack that well.
Yeah, you know when you have 8 sentries, 20 stalkers and a msc, and youu can kill 50 roaches by cutting them off 10 at a time? But you die if there are 80 roaches? But you can only force field, blink AND slow time once, or at most twice, because you only have one msc. If you could bring like 4 msc, you could go FF, blink and slow time as many times as you want, so that the fight with the roaches and lings become a bit more fair also the fifth engagement. Yeah, that'd make more fair, fun and entertaining games.
Finnaly some discussion about the MSC and Mothership. I think they are some very iconic units, but fit in gameplywise poorly, especially in LotV. So to begin my thoughts, i'd like a replace of Photon Overcharge (for both) with Energy boost:
- Ability that quadruples the Energy regeneration of an allied unit for 30 seconds (hots time). It would cost 25 Energy and gives around 50 over that time. Note: can't be casted on the mothership or msc itself. This ability could be used on a nexus for more chrono boosts, sentries to defend or to increase potential of an oracle. I think it fits Protoss fine and there must be better ways to strengthen toss' defenses than Nexus Cannon.
To build on that, I would also like the Mothership to change its role drasticly. My proposals:
- Costs less (the morph maybe 150/150) - Requires only Stargate - Lowered stats (keeps MSC attack and lower Hitpoints to about 200/200) - Smaller Model - No more cloaking field (most deathball promoting passive there is)
Now let's talk about the abilities. It keeps timewarp and Energy boost from the MSC, it would feel inconsistant if you lose abilities. Replaces Mass Recall with Teleport Beacon:
- For 75 Energy you can create a 100 hp, 100 shield structure on a pylon field. Lasts 3 minutes. This Teleport Beacon may cast Recall once, teleporting a group of units from any point on the map to the Beacon. It dies after the cast. Because it must be cast on a pylon field it is harder to abuse than the old WoL Recall, but also it overcomes limitations of the MSC Mass Recall. There can be multiple Teleport Beacons on the map, which allows you to not only teleport one big army once. Also you can leave the Mothership behind to boost your macro.
Another ability I thought about to fit a different, more macro orientated role of the Mothership is a speed built Nexus. For a higher cost the Mothership creates (or "warps in") a Nexus in a few seconds, much like the Tiny Great Hall for Orcs in Frozen Throne. It seems like a bandaid to the hard impact of Mineral Fallout in LotV, but on the other hand it fits perfectly the role of a mothership lore-wise, right? Creating new homes, colonizing and stuff. Together with Teleport Beacon it allows Protoss to expand faster and more secure.
On July 21 2015 21:29 Insidioussc2 wrote: Finnaly some discussion about the MSC and Mothership. I think they are some very iconic units, but fit in gameplywise poorly, especially in LotV. So to begin my thoughts, i'd like a replace of Photon Overcharge (for both) with Energy boost:
- Ability that quadruples the Energy regeneration of an allied unit for 30 seconds (hots time). It would cost 25 Energy and gives around 50 over that time. Note: can't be casted on the mothership or msc itself. This ability could be used on a nexus for more chrono boosts, sentries to defend or to increase potential of an oracle. I think it fits Protoss fine and there must be better ways to strengthen toss' defenses than Nexus Cannon.
To build on that, I would also like the Mothership to change its role drasticly. My proposals:
- Costs less (the morph maybe 150/150) - Requires only Stargate - Lowered stats (keeps MSC attack and lower Hitpoints to about 200/200) - Smaller Model - No more cloaking field (most deathball promoting passive there is)
Now let's talk about the abilities. It keeps timewarp and Energy boost from the MSC, it would feel inconsistant if you lose abilities. Replaces Mass Recall with Teleport Beacon:
- For 75 Energy you can create a 100 hp, 100 shield structure on a pylon field. Lasts 3 minutes. This Teleport Beacon may cast Recall once, teleporting a group of units from any point on the map to the Beacon. It dies after the cast. Because it must be cast on a pylon field it is harder to abuse than the old WoL Recall, but also it overcomes limitations of the MSC Mass Recall. There can be multiple Teleport Beacons on the map, which allows you to not only teleport one big army once. Also you can leave the Mothership behind to boost your macro.
Another ability I thought about to fit a different, more macro orientated role of the Mothership is a speed built Nexus. For a higher cost the Mothership creates (or "warps in") a Nexus in a few seconds, much like the Tiny Great Hall for Orcs in Frozen Throne. It seems like a bandaid to the hard impact of Mineral Fallout in LotV, but on the other hand it fits perfectly the role of a mothership lore-wise, right? Creating new homes, colonizing and stuff. Together with Teleport Beacon it allows Protoss to expand faster and more secure.
What is so wrong about cloaking field? Arbiter was a fun unit and I would really appreciate its return and getting rid of stupid mothership hero unit. Mothership is just a hero version of arbiter(with a huge model) anyway.
Edit: I mean, the reason why you go deathball with mothership(core) is because it is only one and you must have it with you otherwise the recall is not working. Back in WoL where recall worked differently you could sent 2 killing squads of insanely expensive units to snipe 2 different bases and then recall them back to you. You could do really fun things with MS(MS rush with recall into base ) Now you cannot do this because recall works differently :/ The same applies to the cloaking field. it doesn't work unless you are with the one and only Chesney Hawks... oh, sorry,... with the one and only MS
On July 21 2015 21:29 Insidioussc2 wrote: Finnaly some discussion about the MSC and Mothership. I think they are some very iconic units, but fit in gameplywise poorly, especially in LotV. So to begin my thoughts, i'd like a replace of Photon Overcharge (for both) with Energy boost:
- Ability that quadruples the Energy regeneration of an allied unit for 30 seconds (hots time). It would cost 25 Energy and gives around 50 over that time. Note: can't be casted on the mothership or msc itself. This ability could be used on a nexus for more chrono boosts, sentries to defend or to increase potential of an oracle. I think it fits Protoss fine and there must be better ways to strengthen toss' defenses than Nexus Cannon.
To build on that, I would also like the Mothership to change its role drasticly. My proposals:
- Costs less (the morph maybe 150/150) - Requires only Stargate - Lowered stats (keeps MSC attack and lower Hitpoints to about 200/200) - Smaller Model - No more cloaking field (most deathball promoting passive there is)
Now let's talk about the abilities. It keeps timewarp and Energy boost from the MSC, it would feel inconsistant if you lose abilities. Replaces Mass Recall with Teleport Beacon:
- For 75 Energy you can create a 100 hp, 100 shield structure on a pylon field. Lasts 3 minutes. This Teleport Beacon may cast Recall once, teleporting a group of units from any point on the map to the Beacon. It dies after the cast. Because it must be cast on a pylon field it is harder to abuse than the old WoL Recall, but also it overcomes limitations of the MSC Mass Recall. There can be multiple Teleport Beacons on the map, which allows you to not only teleport one big army once. Also you can leave the Mothership behind to boost your macro.
Another ability I thought about to fit a different, more macro orientated role of the Mothership is a speed built Nexus. For a higher cost the Mothership creates (or "warps in") a Nexus in a few seconds, much like the Tiny Great Hall for Orcs in Frozen Throne. It seems like a bandaid to the hard impact of Mineral Fallout in LotV, but on the other hand it fits perfectly the role of a mothership lore-wise, right? Creating new homes, colonizing and stuff. Together with Teleport Beacon it allows Protoss to expand faster and more secure.
What is so wrong about cloaking field? Arbiter was a fun unit and I would really appreciate its return and getting rid of stupid mothership hero unit. Mothership is just a hero version of arbiter(with a huge model) anyway.
Edit: I mean, the reason why you go deathball with mothership(core) is because it is only one and you must have it with you otherwise the recall is not working. Back in WoL where recall worked differently you could sent 2 killing squads of insanely expensive units to snipe 2 different bases and then recall them back to you. You could do really fun things with MS(MS rush with recall into base ) Now you cannot do this because recall works differently :/
And nonetheless, heroic unit is not a thing of Starcraft, even for Protoss of which the basic conception is "quality over quantity".
On July 21 2015 21:29 Insidioussc2 wrote: Finnaly some discussion about the MSC and Mothership. I think they are some very iconic units, but fit in gameplywise poorly, especially in LotV. So to begin my thoughts, i'd like a replace of Photon Overcharge (for both) with Energy boost:
- Ability that quadruples the Energy regeneration of an allied unit for 30 seconds (hots time). It would cost 25 Energy and gives around 50 over that time. Note: can't be casted on the mothership or msc itself. This ability could be used on a nexus for more chrono boosts, sentries to defend or to increase potential of an oracle. I think it fits Protoss fine and there must be better ways to strengthen toss' defenses than Nexus Cannon.
To build on that, I would also like the Mothership to change its role drasticly. My proposals:
- Costs less (the morph maybe 150/150) - Requires only Stargate - Lowered stats (keeps MSC attack and lower Hitpoints to about 200/200) - Smaller Model - No more cloaking field (most deathball promoting passive there is)
Now let's talk about the abilities. It keeps timewarp and Energy boost from the MSC, it would feel inconsistant if you lose abilities. Replaces Mass Recall with Teleport Beacon:
- For 75 Energy you can create a 100 hp, 100 shield structure on a pylon field. Lasts 3 minutes. This Teleport Beacon may cast Recall once, teleporting a group of units from any point on the map to the Beacon. It dies after the cast. Because it must be cast on a pylon field it is harder to abuse than the old WoL Recall, but also it overcomes limitations of the MSC Mass Recall. There can be multiple Teleport Beacons on the map, which allows you to not only teleport one big army once. Also you can leave the Mothership behind to boost your macro.
Another ability I thought about to fit a different, more macro orientated role of the Mothership is a speed built Nexus. For a higher cost the Mothership creates (or "warps in") a Nexus in a few seconds, much like the Tiny Great Hall for Orcs in Frozen Throne. It seems like a bandaid to the hard impact of Mineral Fallout in LotV, but on the other hand it fits perfectly the role of a mothership lore-wise, right? Creating new homes, colonizing and stuff. Together with Teleport Beacon it allows Protoss to expand faster and more secure.
What is so wrong about cloaking field? Arbiter was a fun unit and I would really appreciate its return and getting rid of stupid mothership hero unit. Mothership is just a hero version of arbiter(with a huge model) anyway.
Edit: I mean, the reason why you go deathball with mothership(core) is because it is only one and you must have it with you otherwise the recall is not working. Back in WoL where recall worked differently you could sent 2 killing squads of insanely expensive units to snipe 2 different bases and then recall them back to you. You could do really fun things with MS(MS rush with recall into base ) Now you cannot do this because recall works differently :/ The same applies to the cloaking field. it doesn't work unless you are with the one and only Chesney Hawks... oh, sorry,... with the one and only MS
If you look at its place in hots right now, the only reason to build it is the cloaking field in ultra late game. Sure timewarp is nice, but you don't build multiple 400/400 units (or even just cores at that time) for this. Also I want the MS to be more of a macro unit, on which the limit of one would hurt less than a fighting unit I think. They changed the recall mechanic after WoL because it was too easy and too effective, used just the ways you mentioned. But I also think it was pretty fun and thats what I try to archieve with Teleport Beacon. You'd need a energy field, and maybe some time to set it up, but with a warpprism you could use it aggressively again >
I get that the cap seems very arteficial, but as long as it doesn't level up or earn xp I'm fine with the mothership
On July 20 2015 12:42 TedCruz2016 wrote: Both Mass Recall and Photon Overcharge should become nexus's abilities, then the MSC could be removed from the game.
That would also give some interesting tension with Chronoboost (give Nexus a higher energy cap)
On July 20 2015 12:42 TedCruz2016 wrote: Both Mass Recall and Photon Overcharge should become nexus's abilities, then the MSC could be removed from the game.
That would also give some interesting tension with Chronoboost (give Nexus a higher energy cap)
On July 19 2015 09:42 Cloak wrote: What's the true harm of uncapping MsC? Multi pronged recall seems like an attractive goal. They also don't stack that well.
Yeah, you know when you have 8 sentries, 20 stalkers and a msc, and youu can kill 50 roaches by cutting them off 10 at a time? But you die if there are 80 roaches? But you can only force field, blink AND slow time once, or at most twice, because you only have one msc. If you could bring like 4 msc, you could go FF, blink and slow time as many times as you want, so that the fight with the roaches and lings become a bit more fair also the fifth engagement. Yeah, that'd make more fair, fun and entertaining games.
And if all of that fails by some weird happenstance, you can always mass recall. Twice.
That's also the problem with putting MSC spells on the Nexus, Mass recall becomes way too powerful. Probably would have to be under some global cooldown for it to be handleable.
On July 19 2015 09:42 Cloak wrote: What's the true harm of uncapping MsC? Multi pronged recall seems like an attractive goal. They also don't stack that well.
Yeah, you know when you have 8 sentries, 20 stalkers and a msc, and youu can kill 50 roaches by cutting them off 10 at a time? But you die if there are 80 roaches? But you can only force field, blink AND slow time once, or at most twice, because you only have one msc. If you could bring like 4 msc, you could go FF, blink and slow time as many times as you want, so that the fight with the roaches and lings become a bit more fair also the fifth engagement. Yeah, that'd make more fair, fun and entertaining games.
Can you explain what you mean by that? You have stuff to kill an army but you die if he has more than you do...?
I propose a simple but elegant way of balancing Protoss slightly. Make a warped in unit start without shield, but buff gateway units. The main grouse of many here is that warp in mechanic is too strong offensively, and thus gateway units must be weak to counter this. It makes gateway timing attack weaker with units warped in without shield and gets thrown into combat immediately. It force the Protoss to 'macro' normally like terran. The percentage of units without shield drop with each warp in cycle.
On July 12 2015 22:09 weikor wrote: In addition to that, probes are the weakest to harass - considering certain units even do bonus damage to shields and they have 40 hp as opposed to 45 of other races. Probes also cost 50 minerals - against terran and mules, a protoss is considered on even footing, only if he has a significant lead in probes. If both players get harrassed stronly, it will end up with the terran ahead - since the loss of workers can usually be absorbed by mules. Also consider that 22 probes also cost 1.100 minerals - which is more than a 50% mineral patch of lotv.
Uh. No. Just no.
1) The drones have 40 hp. The 5 bonus hp for scvs barely changes anything. The bonus damages to shield isn't an issue. Indeed, if you didn't pay attention, whatever went in your mineral line, you're doomed. Mines or not mines. And I think that you shouldn't lose 3 probes every 40s when you let a medivac enter your mineral line without pulling the probes. You should take reasonable damages for this.
2) The MULE. PLEASE, stop arguing about how OP the mule is, just stop. The protoss is considered on even footing when is has more probes. WELL, that's the point of chronoboosting and the production time of the OC. The protoss is always ahead in probes.
"If both players get harrassed stronly, it will end up with the terran ahead - since the loss of workers can usually be absorbed by mules."
No. A : number of workers represented by mules : 3-4
Protoss worker count before harass : 50 Terran worker count before harass : 43 + 2A
I mean, that's basic maths here.. Mules DON'T absorb the loss of workers, it only works in late game when the terran reaches the protoss worker count, around 70 workers. However, the protoss will have faster upgrades and production thanks to the chronoboost. It is even.
3) Consider that 22 scvs and drones also cost the same that 22 probes.
---------------------
@tokinho
I appreciate your thinking here, it went way further than the basic stuff about how mules are OP (see above).
However, there is one thing I didn't understand. In the "Game breaking changes in Legacy" part. You explain a good number of changes, and most of them are seen as negative. However, the fifth part "adept oracle openers" seem to be the only one that is not. It seems that these openers are very strong, as they counter the classical defense against oracle.
What I don't understand is : How such builds could be dealt with as terran if the first adepts come earlier, the protoss don't have a mineral fallout, with a small boost on probes with the starting nexus, cheapers adepts, adepts stronger against their "counter", the colossus comeback, an already very strong storm boosted, a third source of AOE and... less effective drops ?
I mean, I'm okay with these, but terrans won't be able to do anything. As I recall, the cyclone is going to be nerfed and will lose its ability to attack without vision. You need two mines deal with oracles (a protoss should be able to see there's no marines in the mineral line, so if you can't see the one mine in the mineral line, it's probably hidden behind the vespene thing. Just go on top of the CC and kill every scv, if the mine doesn't move, it's lost, and when it does, you just have to move where it isn't burrow to finish the job..) But if you rush mines, can you defend the early stuff ? If you go full marines, how can you deal with adept/oracles ? More important, if you rush mines and your opponent go for an early expansion, what do you do ? He will be able to defend whatsoever, and probably scouted your early gas. Can you defend it without commiting too much with turrets/ebay ? (you will probably lose some workers anyway, if you spent as many ressources in the defense as the protoss, you're losing)
I'm afraid we can't really answer to these questions with such protoss buffs.
EDIT:
I forgot. If you go for marauders against adept with turrets against oracles. Say the protoss keeps producing oracles and adepts. How do you expand ? Mines would be pretty tough to use because of the adepts. Marines are obviously not the answer. Few adepts' shot will kill enough marines for oracles to kill the whole army. And turrets...Don't move. I hope I won't have to wait for fusion core + cylcone upgrade to expand.
From what I gather there are two main points to address. First is adept openers and second is the purpose of listing possibile changes to lotv. ------------------------------ If you go full marines, how can you deal with adept/oracles ? ------------------------------ I agree with this point. Marine openers its soo hard to deal with adept oracle. It seems like your point is that adept oracle gives such a strong advantage early on against terran and its viewed as a negative. I don't think its necessarily negative. I have spent quite a bit of time looking into this since i relayed the build earlier in a post about the adept oracle openers. It feels fun and fresh to have a non-allin tech with a harass heavy style.
The way that lotv feels for protoss, in contrast to HOTS, is that they are on a timer to get the third and have to keep harass up to do that. Many of the openers that were viable before I believe have become less viable.(I.e. builds which were even before can put them behind now.) I still think protoss can win games in lotv. The adept is one of the tools to do that. The reality is the thing that i noticed was once the adept numbers were going past 4-5 protoss lost nearly every one of those games. what happened was roach hydra or standard mmm were difficult to deal with because the adepts shoot the closest units, which terran micro the marauders forward, and zerg naturally has the roaches in front of the adepts.
This led to my interest in testing adepts in the unit tester. In a sense, the moment the battle starts the adepts have to be positioned differently, then moved around the disruptor attack to be effective. (For a reference about how i see the micro happening see my adept video.) In the end, even with some adept micro tricks, when testing large army fights with comparable army value using the LOTV unit tester, even with the shield upgrade and descent micro comparable compositions to the lotus matches showed similar results. It seems that when the shield upgrade comes and the fights start to happen, the adepts are too easily countered by standard compositions from the other two races. Even adding enough adepts to make the army values comparable. I am working on a video showing this.I'll try to get the video out soon so that you can see my tests in the unit tester. I think though that blizzard has expressed interest in changing the Force Fields, Warp Gates, and Gateway unit strength which leans more towards what i think would help the game.
In regards to the second part, about the purpose some common changes which were mentioned by protoss players. -------------------------------------------------- What I don't understand is : How such builds could be dealt with as terran if the first adepts come earlier, the protoss don't have a mineral fallout, with a small boost on probes with the starting nexus, cheapers adepts, adepts stronger against their "counter", the colossus comeback, an already very strong storm boosted, a third source of AOE and... less effective drops ? --------------------------------------------------
I agree that adding adepts to the protoss in hots would be game breaking. The majority of the problem comes from the timing tables which are hidden in the spoiler at the end of the post. Since units transfer sooner for the other races for taking their third, their timings relative to hots do not change much, but they do for protoss. I don't think its so severe protoss cannot take wins, but if they fall behind at all I don't feel like there is much of a chance of a recovery unlike the other races. The point of the post is to offer small changes to be testable internally which deviate from the protoss style in hots with many times being a light poke into a midgame timing which usually decides the game. The purpose of the points listed there was to compare and contrast i think the reasoning for the changes maybe not being ideal. (I.e. I don't particularly want to see storm buffed, the return of the heavy dependence on the colossus. I would like more of an interest way of stabilizing the game.) If there was something else you want to comment on please let me know.
On July 21 2015 21:29 Insidioussc2 wrote: Finnaly some discussion about the MSC and Mothership. I think they are some very iconic units, but fit in gameplywise poorly, especially in LotV. So to begin my thoughts, i'd like a replace of Photon Overcharge (for both) with Energy boost:
- Ability that quadruples the Energy regeneration of an allied unit for 30 seconds (hots time). It would cost 25 Energy and gives around 50 over that time. Note: can't be casted on the mothership or msc itself. This ability could be used on a nexus for more chrono boosts, sentries to defend or to increase potential of an oracle. I think it fits Protoss fine and there must be better ways to strengthen toss' defenses than Nexus Cannon.
To build on that, I would also like the Mothership to change its role drasticly. My proposals:
- Costs less (the morph maybe 150/150) - Requires only Stargate - Lowered stats (keeps MSC attack and lower Hitpoints to about 200/200) - Smaller Model - No more cloaking field (most deathball promoting passive there is)
Now let's talk about the abilities. It keeps timewarp and Energy boost from the MSC, it would feel inconsistant if you lose abilities. Replaces Mass Recall with Teleport Beacon:
- For 75 Energy you can create a 100 hp, 100 shield structure on a pylon field. Lasts 3 minutes. This Teleport Beacon may cast Recall once, teleporting a group of units from any point on the map to the Beacon. It dies after the cast. Because it must be cast on a pylon field it is harder to abuse than the old WoL Recall, but also it overcomes limitations of the MSC Mass Recall. There can be multiple Teleport Beacons on the map, which allows you to not only teleport one big army once. Also you can leave the Mothership behind to boost your macro.
Another ability I thought about to fit a different, more macro orientated role of the Mothership is a speed built Nexus. For a higher cost the Mothership creates (or "warps in") a Nexus in a few seconds, much like the Tiny Great Hall for Orcs in Frozen Throne. It seems like a bandaid to the hard impact of Mineral Fallout in LotV, but on the other hand it fits perfectly the role of a mothership lore-wise, right? Creating new homes, colonizing and stuff. Together with Teleport Beacon it allows Protoss to expand faster and more secure.
What is so wrong about cloaking field? Arbiter was a fun unit and I would really appreciate its return and getting rid of stupid mothership hero unit. Mothership is just a hero version of arbiter(with a huge model) anyway.
Edit: I mean, the reason why you go deathball with mothership(core) is because it is only one and you must have it with you otherwise the recall is not working. Back in WoL where recall worked differently you could sent 2 killing squads of insanely expensive units to snipe 2 different bases and then recall them back to you. You could do really fun things with MS(MS rush with recall into base ) Now you cannot do this because recall works differently :/ The same applies to the cloaking field. it doesn't work unless you are with the one and only Chesney Hawks... oh, sorry,... with the one and only MS
If you look at its place in hots right now, the only reason to build it is the cloaking field in ultra late game. Sure timewarp is nice, but you don't build multiple 400/400 units (or even just cores at that time) for this. Also I want the MS to be more of a macro unit, on which the limit of one would hurt less than a fighting unit I think. They changed the recall mechanic after WoL because it was too easy and too effective, used just the ways you mentioned. But I also think it was pretty fun and thats what I try to archieve with Teleport Beacon. You'd need a energy field, and maybe some time to set it up, but with a warpprism you could use it aggressively again >
I get that the cap seems very arteficial, but as long as it doesn't level up or earn xp I'm fine with the mothership
Don't forget that they gave the recall to T1 unit. And since they "do not want to confuse people" they changed the spell for MS too. If you give a Yamato cannon to marauders you would need to balance it the same way ,-)
This doesn't change that we need to remove this heroic unit and replace it. That's why I want the return of arbiter and we can left the MS just for the campaign where this type of unit belongs(and to the arcade section ).
In the end we can balance it, give the recall research time, give it smaller radius and finally BUFF the early game of Protoss! Do NOT give Protoss some gimmicks like force field or band aids like time warp/nexus overcharge. Give us back the arbiter(please note that arbiter in BW costs 350 gas, that's 2 templars and a stalker!!!(who cares about minerals when playing Protoss anyway ). The limitation of the unit will be in a gas cost(And research time/cost of its abilities). Arbiter was and will be late game(or more super late game) caster with so huge investment that you cannot just rush it and "hey, I am safe, because... wait a minute, I no longer have a MSC!".
I propose (and intent to implement in my mod - you know which one) a change to MSC to be more like a flying Queen. Give it chronoboost, remove or nerf some of the defensive abilities and make the unit massable. Recall has to go to the actual Mothership as well. With it we can buff Gateway units as well as reduce their construction time. This gives Protoss a fighting chance early game without relying on gimmics, while not buffing the proxy tactics (which cannot be chronoboosted). It also makes Protoss less relying on Warpgate tech in order to be in the game, both defensively and offensively. Finally, by adding additional cost to Warpgates, an early warpin-based aggression is that much weaker. Protoss is better off attacking in the traditional way - by building units at home and moving out.
Ultimately, I believe it aligns with many things that have been said here.
I'm gonna be honest here, things don't look good for protoss at all. Much changes are needed and I don't see the devs WILLING to make a true overhaul for the protoss design. From my perspective here is what's wrong:
1-With the exception of stalkers, the protoss army has lower mobility than other races. 2-The bulk of that lower mobility army is also weaker than other races bulk army units.. 3-The already low mobility and weak army relies on very few critical units to balance the fight, albeit these units (HT, sentry, MSC, Col) are even SLOWER, very fragile, snipable and are only really effective when used with the presence of the bulk army. 4-The two mobile sky units (phoenix and oracle) are BOTH harrass/support based and can't be used as a sky army that can kill you if you don't respond to it (muta for instance). 5-Even the low mobility captial ships are not anywhere near as effective as mutas for the simple reason that other races anti air units are very strong (marines, vikings, new liberator??, corruptor, infestor, vipers) and their anti air defense building are also very strong compared to toss.
So overall everything about protoss is absolute shit except for: 1- Force Fields. 2- Warp Ins. 3- One army deathballs.
And that's why, unsurprisingly, protoss mostly either win with all-ins(that utilize their first two strengths: forcefields and warp ins) or that utilize deathballs (their last strength).
I really wish all the luck to the Blizz folks but in all honesty, do they really wanna fix every unit out there? I doubt that.
On July 19 2015 09:42 Cloak wrote: What's the true harm of uncapping MsC? Multi pronged recall seems like an attractive goal. They also don't stack that well.
Yeah, you know when you have 8 sentries, 20 stalkers and a msc, and youu can kill 50 roaches by cutting them off 10 at a time? But you die if there are 80 roaches? But you can only force field, blink AND slow time once, or at most twice, because you only have one msc. If you could bring like 4 msc, you could go FF, blink and slow time as many times as you want, so that the fight with the roaches and lings become a bit more fair also the fifth engagement. Yeah, that'd make more fair, fun and entertaining games.
Can you explain what you mean by that? You have stuff to kill an army but you die if he has more than you do...?
Exactly, and removing the MSc cap is a simple and elegant way to fix that design flaw. I think you understood it right.
On July 22 2015 05:47 i)awn wrote: So overall everything about protoss is absolute shit except for: 1- Force Fields. 2- Warp Ins. 3- One army deathballs.
Adepts actually hold quite well on their own and make little gateway armies quite strong. They're arguably too strong in all-ins but I'm pretty OK with the idea to make Protoss rely more on gateway units than on high tech in every match-up.
On July 19 2015 09:42 Cloak wrote: What's the true harm of uncapping MsC? Multi pronged recall seems like an attractive goal. They also don't stack that well.
Yeah, you know when you have 8 sentries, 20 stalkers and a msc, and youu can kill 50 roaches by cutting them off 10 at a time? But you die if there are 80 roaches? But you can only force field, blink AND slow time once, or at most twice, because you only have one msc. If you could bring like 4 msc, you could go FF, blink and slow time as many times as you want, so that the fight with the roaches and lings become a bit more fair also the fifth engagement. Yeah, that'd make more fair, fun and entertaining games.
Can you explain what you mean by that? You have stuff to kill an army but you die if he has more than you do...?
Exactly, and removing the MSc cap is a simple and elegant way to fix that design flaw. I think you understood it right.
PvZ is going to be a fun match up alright, but not for the zerg, multiple recalls, time warps and photon overcharge.
I would expect a lot of zerg players to just quit the game if that happens.
That is not an elegant solution at all, having multiple recalls is probably the worst way to fix protoss, not to mention PO is already very strong, now with 2-3 MsC you barely won't need any units to defend multiple bases, maybe a few cannons, and then multiple time warps on top of force field.... I'm shivering just thinking about it.
On July 22 2015 05:47 i)awn wrote: So overall everything about protoss is absolute shit except for: 1- Force Fields. 2- Warp Ins. 3- One army deathballs.
Adepts actually hold quite well on their own and make little gateway armies quite strong. They're arguably too strong in all-ins but I'm pretty OK with the idea to make Protoss rely more on gateway units than on high tech in every match-up.
I'm gonna be honest and say I haven't seen replays in LotV utilizing adepts except with some 4gate builds. I doubt though that the protoss army will ever hold vs any mid game composition without the use of slow fragile support units which would severely limit its mobility and its ability to do multi pronged attacks. I wish they start considering significant changes for the FF and Warp ins, but that will also lead to balancing pretty much every other unit.
On July 22 2015 05:47 i)awn wrote: So overall everything about protoss is absolute shit except for: 1- Force Fields. 2- Warp Ins. 3- One army deathballs.
Adepts actually hold quite well on their own and make little gateway armies quite strong. They're arguably too strong in all-ins but I'm pretty OK with the idea to make Protoss rely more on gateway units than on high tech in every match-up.
I don't think it's worth discussing the possible impacts of buffing gateway units on Protoss early aggression--this often comes up when people suggest buffing zealot/stalker, which would obviously make early 1 gate pressure vs. terran a lot stronger. This is a natural side effect and can be dealt with...after gateway units get stronger, without nerfing them.
On July 19 2015 09:42 Cloak wrote: What's the true harm of uncapping MsC? Multi pronged recall seems like an attractive goal. They also don't stack that well.
Yeah, you know when you have 8 sentries, 20 stalkers and a msc, and youu can kill 50 roaches by cutting them off 10 at a time? But you die if there are 80 roaches? But you can only force field, blink AND slow time once, or at most twice, because you only have one msc. If you could bring like 4 msc, you could go FF, blink and slow time as many times as you want, so that the fight with the roaches and lings become a bit more fair also the fifth engagement. Yeah, that'd make more fair, fun and entertaining games.
Can you explain what you mean by that? You have stuff to kill an army but you die if he has more than you do...?
Exactly, and removing the MSc cap is a simple and elegant way to fix that design flaw. I think you understood it right.
PvZ is going to be a fun match up alright, but not for the zerg, multiple recalls, time warps and photon overcharge.
I would expect a lot of zerg players to just quit the game if that happens.
That is not an elegant solution at all, having multiple recalls is probably the worst way to fix protoss, not to mention PO is already very strong, now with 2-3 MsC you barely won't need any units to defend multiple bases, maybe a few cannons, and then multiple time warps on top of force field.... I'm shivering just thinking about it.
POs attack quickly drops in usefulness once a Nexus snipe is trivial. Recall is the desired effect. The only worrisome spell is the snare which has been sufficiently nerfed over its history.
I'm a zerg, so I can't speak for PvT, but in PvZ it seems like toss have a problem whenever they want to go for any expand build at all. They just can't keep up zerg with all the minerals they need to put in structures. They either need to be able to force units / hurt zergs economy very early, or push all-in early. I'm only diamond Z, but.. I just can't see tosses winning unless I mess up badly or lose to an unscouted all-in. I guess I play against a lot of players who are not too experienced yet, but to me it seems like this simply just does not add up.
I'm guessing faster build-up on chrono-boost could help? Something to let them either get more probes out, or have some sort of aggression. I'm fine with tosses forcing a roach warren early against adept-threats and forcing some units without toss needing to commit too much, to get into a fairly even mid-game. I think a way of balancing economy with toss aggression might be an answer.
On July 13 2015 13:34 DemigodcelpH wrote: Make Protoss like BW Protoss. Seriously.
That would fix every major design issue that makes Protoss gimmicky and bandaid-like right now.
I agree with this pretty much. But more specifically I would love to see the following:
1. Remove forcefield. 2. Remove mothership and mothership core. 3. Make warp-in worse than regular gateways in most aspects. 4. Reaver instead of the disruptor. 5. Either remove the colossus or leave it nerfed so people rarely make this terrible/boring unit. 6. Buff gateways units across the board to make up for all of these nerfs.
The goal would be to make protoss a fun race to play and play against. Not some cheesy/gimmicky trash race like it is now in Hots. I love playing as both terran and zerg, but protoss is completely unplayable for me. It just feels terrible.
On July 13 2015 13:34 DemigodcelpH wrote: Make Protoss like BW Protoss. Seriously.
That would fix every major design issue that makes Protoss gimmicky and bandaid-like right now.
I agree with this pretty much. But more specifically I would love to see the following:
1. Remove forcefield. 2. Remove mothership and mothership core. 3. Make warp-in worse than regular gateways in most aspects. 4. Reaver instead of the disruptor. 5. Either remove the colossus or leave it nerfed so people rarely make this terrible/boring unit. 6. Buff gateways units across the board to make up for all of these nerfs.
The goal would be to make protoss a fun race to play and play against. Not some cheesy/gimmicky trash race like it is now in Hots. I love playing as both terran and zerg, but protoss is completely unplayable for me. It just feels terrible.
i'd like protoss to be the weakest race (just by a tiny little inch on top pro Level).
during hots it was the zerg race who always fought a battle of survival, and for all the balance whining - especially after last terran buff and sh removal - every time a zerg won something relevant it felt like christmas plus bday.
but i think i'm bored of my own zerg bias. i'd like to have a new favorite race, and it would be cool if terran or protoss could be the underdog race from now on. and since terran gets uber-loved by dk atm there's only the protoss left. imagine: we could be sincerely happy for a protoss, winning a big tournament against all odds. and all the honor people could switch to protoss and we'd hate the zergs and especially the terrans of course.
I think it would be interesting if gateway units benefited more from each forge upgrade. That way they could scale better into the mid and late game without breaking the early game.
On July 13 2015 13:34 DemigodcelpH wrote: Make Protoss like BW Protoss. Seriously.
That would fix every major design issue that makes Protoss gimmicky and bandaid-like right now.
I agree with this pretty much. But more specifically I would love to see the following:
1. Remove forcefield. 2. Remove mothership and mothership core. 3. Make warp-in worse than regular gateways in most aspects. 4. Reaver instead of the disruptor. 5. Either remove the colossus or leave it nerfed so people rarely make this terrible/boring unit. 6. Buff gateways units across the board to make up for all of these nerfs.
The goal would be to make protoss a fun race to play and play against. Not some cheesy/gimmicky trash race like it is now in Hots. I love playing as both terran and zerg, but protoss is completely unplayable for me. It just feels terrible.
Agree with 1,2,3. Design changes first, balance after