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I realize right now that the Colossus is low on the priority list for both Blizzard and community. The impetus at Blizzard is to fix the Disruptor, the impetus for many of us is to substitute the Reaver and scrap the Disruptor. I just thought of something that might solve the current issues with the Colossus and make it a more fun unit to play with for all parties concerned.
As I see it, the main issue with the HotS Colossus is that it's a death-ball unit. Its range and its ability to walk over units, combined with the anti-air vulnerability, force it to sit in the middle of the stalker ball, laser-ing the enemy to death. LotV attempts to address this by nerfing the maximum range and damage of the Colossus. However, the effect is that Protoss' main source of continuous, reliable AoE damage is removed, which proves especially problematic in the late game.
Suggested Upgrade at Robo Bay: Hadronic (or whatever name Blizzard pleases) Protection Field
The Colossus gains an energy field that reduces any incoming attack damage from over 5 range by 50%. The field deactivates if any massive unit (friend or foe) enters the field, i.e. crosses within 5 range of the Colossus.
This upgrade has a passive effect that allows the Colossus to be more aggressive on the battlefield as long as it maintains the 5 range threshold. This could introduce a cool positioning battle as the Colossus edges up as far as it can to fire, while enemy Vikings, Corruptors, Marauders, etc. try to figure out when is a good time to jump within the 5 range and maximize their damage output against the Colossus. (Note that such units are not completely shut down; it simply takes longer for them to maintain poke range.) This upgrade also gives the Colossus a more viable escape option - most chasing units will have to run farther to enter the HPF and effectively snipe the Colossus.
The massive unit trigger to disrupt the field adds a further positioning element and limits the effectiveness of multiple Colossi. Colossi must be separated in order to maintain the HPF; unless the player is relying on the sheer damage output, there can be no more than two or three Colossi within the army. Archons would also have to maintain distance from the Colossus once the fight starts, forcing the deathball to further spread out. Opposing players can exploit the HPF if they can force the army to retreat into itself, i.e. balling up. The massive trigger also creates a list of hard-counter units that could charge the HPF to break it: Archons, Ultralisks, Thors (in Medivac). Compared to the Colossus' previous hard counters, this list would feel less gimmicky because the units are expensive and clunky on their own.
Because this upgrade favors using fewer, more spread out Colossi in an army, I would suggest buffing the damage (not the range) to compensate. I realize that my suggestion may appear gimmicky as it steers away from traditional unit design. However, I believe it is interesting enough and provides enough strategic thought on both sides that it would be worth testing in the LotV beta.
Thanks everyone for reading! Post thoughts, questions, suggestions below!
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I would rather if Colossus left burning AOE lines (the same as they fire) that would damage units walking over for a few seconds. This way Colossus would maintain it's reliable AOE and you would be encouraged to have one or 2 in the army, because more would stack the burn and ofcourse the damage shouldn't stack so it would be no use.
For this to work, the impact damage would have to be lowered in favor of the damage over time burn.Would also encourage micro on the opponent's side - not standing in the lines.
It's not that I don't like your suggestion, but I'm afraid if would create clutter with a new type of forcefield or visual ring.
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On July 25 2015 04:57 _indigo_ wrote:
I would rather if Colossus left burning AOE lines (the same as they fire) that would damage units walking over for a few seconds. This way Colossus would maintain it's reliable AOE and you would be encouraged to have one or 2 in the army, because more would stack the burn and ofcourse the damage shouldn't stack so it would be no use.
For this to work, the impact damage would have to be lowered in favor of the damage over time burn.Would also encourage micro on the opponent's side - not standing in the lines.
It's not that I don't like your suggestion, but I'm afraid if would create clutter with a new type of forcefield or visual ring.
I would be open to this suggestion as well; however I think the main issue is that it would begin to overlap with Psi Storm, which kinda does the same thing (AoE over time in an area, non-stacking).
I can also see the point about visual clutter. I would hope the clutter won't be too bad if only 2 or 3 Colossi take the field at a time. I imagine it would be like the Shield Generator in Star Wars V - strong on the outside, can be broken by heavy artillery charging inside.
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On July 25 2015 04:47 starimk wrote:
I realize right now that the Colossus is low on the priority list for both Blizzard and community. The impetus at Blizzard is to fix the Disruptor, the impetus for many of us is to substitute the Reaver and scrap the Disruptor.
Whoa, speak for yourself. After trying out that Reaver mod, I most certainly do not want it back as a replacement for the Disruptor or the Colossus.
This is a pretty neat idea though. However, I feel that its "reliable, consistent splash damage" attack should be re-examined on a more fundamental level. One of the more interesting suggestions I've seen was to change the Colossus' attack to be similar to the OneGoal Void Ray's attack, seen here: + Show Spoiler +
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On July 25 2015 05:30 Pontius Pirate wrote:Show nested quote +On July 25 2015 04:47 starimk wrote:
I realize right now that the Colossus is low on the priority list for both Blizzard and community. The impetus at Blizzard is to fix the Disruptor, the impetus for many of us is to substitute the Reaver and scrap the Disruptor. Whoa, speak for yourself. After trying out that Reaver mod, I most certainly do not want it back as a replacement for the Disruptor or the Colossus.
Whoa, what Reaver mod?
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On July 25 2015 05:45 AmicusVenti wrote:Show nested quote +On July 25 2015 05:30 Pontius Pirate wrote:On July 25 2015 04:47 starimk wrote:
I realize right now that the Colossus is low on the priority list for both Blizzard and community. The impetus at Blizzard is to fix the Disruptor, the impetus for many of us is to substitute the Reaver and scrap the Disruptor. Whoa, speak for yourself. After trying out that Reaver mod, I most certainly do not want it back as a replacement for the Disruptor or the Colossus. Whoa, what Reaver mod?
Starbow probably, but trust me, he does not understand anything, Reaver is what Protoss needs.
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On July 25 2015 05:52 cSc.Dav1oN wrote:Show nested quote +On July 25 2015 05:45 AmicusVenti wrote:On July 25 2015 05:30 Pontius Pirate wrote:On July 25 2015 04:47 starimk wrote:
I realize right now that the Colossus is low on the priority list for both Blizzard and community. The impetus at Blizzard is to fix the Disruptor, the impetus for many of us is to substitute the Reaver and scrap the Disruptor. Whoa, speak for yourself. After trying out that Reaver mod, I most certainly do not want it back as a replacement for the Disruptor or the Colossus. Whoa, what Reaver mod? Starbow probably, but trust me, he does not understand anything, Reaver is what Protoss needs.
Nah, protoss needs super fast storm drops. And super bad pathing AI.
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On July 25 2015 05:45 AmicusVenti wrote:Show nested quote +On July 25 2015 05:30 Pontius Pirate wrote:On July 25 2015 04:47 starimk wrote:
I realize right now that the Colossus is low on the priority list for both Blizzard and community. The impetus at Blizzard is to fix the Disruptor, the impetus for many of us is to substitute the Reaver and scrap the Disruptor. Whoa, speak for yourself. After trying out that Reaver mod, I most certainly do not want it back as a replacement for the Disruptor or the Colossus. Whoa, what Reaver mod?
Yeah, could Pontius or anyone else post a link to further information about this Reaver mod? I've looked for it myself and came up dry.
Re Pontius: When I say "many of us", I'm referring to the high frequency of posts on the battle.net forums as well as several posts on the Team Liquid threads.
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On July 25 2015 06:56 starimk wrote:Show nested quote +On July 25 2015 05:45 AmicusVenti wrote:On July 25 2015 05:30 Pontius Pirate wrote:On July 25 2015 04:47 starimk wrote:
I realize right now that the Colossus is low on the priority list for both Blizzard and community. The impetus at Blizzard is to fix the Disruptor, the impetus for many of us is to substitute the Reaver and scrap the Disruptor. Whoa, speak for yourself. After trying out that Reaver mod, I most certainly do not want it back as a replacement for the Disruptor or the Colossus. Whoa, what Reaver mod? Yeah, could Pontius or anyone else post a link to further information about this Reaver mod? I've looked for it myself and came up dry. Re Pontius: When I say "many of us", I'm referring to the high frequency of posts on the battle.net forums as well as several posts on the Team Liquid threads.
There's also a lot of people saying they prefer the disruptor over the reaver. Myself included.
A scarab that you can micro sounds way more interesting than a retarded scarab that doesn't go in the right direction.
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I'll be happy to get rid of the collosus.
It's one of the reasons why Protoss is so boring to watch as a spectator. It instantly kills most things when stacked, yet takes no micro.
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On July 25 2015 08:35 [UoN]Sentinel wrote:Show nested quote +On July 25 2015 06:56 starimk wrote:On July 25 2015 05:45 AmicusVenti wrote:On July 25 2015 05:30 Pontius Pirate wrote:On July 25 2015 04:47 starimk wrote:
I realize right now that the Colossus is low on the priority list for both Blizzard and community. The impetus at Blizzard is to fix the Disruptor, the impetus for many of us is to substitute the Reaver and scrap the Disruptor. Whoa, speak for yourself. After trying out that Reaver mod, I most certainly do not want it back as a replacement for the Disruptor or the Colossus. Whoa, what Reaver mod? Yeah, could Pontius or anyone else post a link to further information about this Reaver mod? I've looked for it myself and came up dry. Re Pontius: When I say "many of us", I'm referring to the high frequency of posts on the battle.net forums as well as several posts on the Team Liquid threads. There's also a lot of people saying they prefer the disruptor over the reaver. Myself included. A scarab that you can micro sounds way more interesting than a retarded scarab that doesn't go in the right direction.
My god, I thought I was the only one who felt icky about posts like this:
3) Starbow proved the Reaver can fit into Sc2
You can't deny this. Starbow is still superior compared to Starcraft 2 where deathballs do not exist anymore. They did not tweak the Reaver at all, comming to my point: Why does a untweaked Reaver work in Starbow but a tweaked Reaver does not work in Starcraft 2 ?
Sure Starbow is different but it still used the Starcraft 2 mechanics. If the Reaver work in Starbow why not TRY it out in Starcraft 2.
Source: http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/18300815152
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You're looking at the wrong part of the problem. Colossus power is a side effect of the design of weak core units that relies heavily on force fields or imba damage units like colossus. There is no meaning in doing anything to the colossus if we're not redesigning gateway units inluding sentries.
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On July 25 2015 08:35 [UoN]Sentinel wrote:Show nested quote +On July 25 2015 06:56 starimk wrote:On July 25 2015 05:45 AmicusVenti wrote:On July 25 2015 05:30 Pontius Pirate wrote:On July 25 2015 04:47 starimk wrote:
I realize right now that the Colossus is low on the priority list for both Blizzard and community. The impetus at Blizzard is to fix the Disruptor, the impetus for many of us is to substitute the Reaver and scrap the Disruptor. Whoa, speak for yourself. After trying out that Reaver mod, I most certainly do not want it back as a replacement for the Disruptor or the Colossus. Whoa, what Reaver mod? Yeah, could Pontius or anyone else post a link to further information about this Reaver mod? I've looked for it myself and came up dry. Re Pontius: When I say "many of us", I'm referring to the high frequency of posts on the battle.net forums as well as several posts on the Team Liquid threads. There's also a lot of people saying they prefer the disruptor over the reaver. Myself included. A scarab that you can micro sounds way more interesting than a retarded scarab that doesn't go in the right direction.
A scarab explodes at the end of its journey, I guess that's what the disruptor also does in your mind? Stop trying to equate a disruptor to a scarab, they're nothing alike.
Reavers are more interesting because they're just a solid unit with two core weaknesses, their mobility and fragility. Using speed shuttles solves both problems (whilst relying on skill) and creates another interesting dynamic especially in ZvP where you would have to dodge scourges.
The disruptor so far has required invulnerability, speed boosts and extended warp prism pick-up to walk a thin line between being OP or completely useless. What an amazingly designed unit /sarcasm.
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On July 25 2015 10:21 B-royal wrote:Show nested quote +On July 25 2015 08:35 [UoN]Sentinel wrote:On July 25 2015 06:56 starimk wrote:On July 25 2015 05:45 AmicusVenti wrote:On July 25 2015 05:30 Pontius Pirate wrote:On July 25 2015 04:47 starimk wrote:
I realize right now that the Colossus is low on the priority list for both Blizzard and community. The impetus at Blizzard is to fix the Disruptor, the impetus for many of us is to substitute the Reaver and scrap the Disruptor. Whoa, speak for yourself. After trying out that Reaver mod, I most certainly do not want it back as a replacement for the Disruptor or the Colossus. Whoa, what Reaver mod? Yeah, could Pontius or anyone else post a link to further information about this Reaver mod? I've looked for it myself and came up dry. Re Pontius: When I say "many of us", I'm referring to the high frequency of posts on the battle.net forums as well as several posts on the Team Liquid threads. There's also a lot of people saying they prefer the disruptor over the reaver. Myself included. A scarab that you can micro sounds way more interesting than a retarded scarab that doesn't go in the right direction. A scarab explodes at the end of its journey, I guess that's what the disruptor also does in your mind? Stop trying to equate a disruptor to a scarab, they're nothing alike. Reavers are more interesting because they're just a solid unit with two core weaknesses, their mobility and fragility. Using speed shuttles solves both problems (whilst relying on skill) and creates another interesting dynamic especially in ZvP where you would have to dodge scourges. The disruptor so far has required invulnerability, speed boosts and extended warp prism pick-up to walk a thin line between being OP or completely useless. What an amazingly designed unit /sarcasm.
A scarab's weakness is that you're at the mercy of its shit AI. The projectile is also invulnerable, whereas the Disruptor is looking like it's going to get some sort of shield/speed buff to retreat to safety but make it killable. A scarab is a cheaper, suicidal disruptor.
I don't want to have to have my harass go wrong not because I misclicked or the enemy caught me in a trap, but because the conditions are the correct ones for the computer to turn on me. Or have a unit that's either too destructive (with fixed AI) or nerfed into oblivion to make it useless.
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Oh Gosh, I loved the idea lol, passive ability, anti-deathballing with other units of same type... it is incredible interesting, and plays a lot with positioning the units.
But it is too good to be a possible thing Blizz is going to do hahaha, so sad tho...
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Replace with Reaver. There, fixed.
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On July 25 2015 09:41 i)awn wrote:
You're looking at the wrong part of the problem. Colossus power is a side effect of the design of weak core units that relies heavily on force fields or imba damage units like colossus. There is no meaning in doing anything to the colossus if we're not redesigning gateway units inluding sentries.
Perhaps. I think it's been made clear that sentries, at least, aren't up for a redesign any time soon. And I think whether or not Protoss armies are reliant on damage-dealers like the Colossus, my suggested changes would make the unit more interesting to play with and against. Even if the Protoss core does remain unchanged, would it not at least be more fun to see a Protoss deathball where the Colossi actively have to spread out?
It's true that a Colossus rework likely won't solve all the current issues with Protoss gameplay. My post was not intended to be a holistic fix to Protoss; it was intended to present the brainchild of a few hours of theorycrafting.
On July 25 2015 11:27 Sogetsu wrote:
Oh Gosh, I loved the idea lol, passive ability, anti-deathballing with other units of same type... it is incredible interesting, and plays a lot with positioning the units.
But it is too good to be a possible thing Blizz is going to do hahaha, so sad tho...
Here's hoping! 
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edit: nevermind
Anyways I dont really like it. Too complicated and I dont think it really addresses the core problems with colossus.
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On July 25 2015 16:26 alexanderzero wrote:
edit: nevermind
Anyways I dont really like it. Too complicated and I dont think it really addresses the core problems with colossus.
Sure it's complicated, but I feel that more simple suggestions may not cut it anymore. With the way unit formation and army engagements happen in SC2, I don't think we can expect effective unit design to be as simple as it was in BW. I did also put a lot of time to 1) make sure it was a passive ability that relies on positioning, and 2) encode more interesting counter-play than what it has currently.
Another thing is, of all the different abilities in this game, how many have an anti-stacking effect? We've had stacking abilities (Parasitic Bomb) and non-stacking abilities (Psi Storm), but I can't think of an ability that actively punishes you for clumping units or target areas.
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Maybe instead of cancelling the effect when a friendly massive unit entering the field（which I think will be really difficult to avoid when you have the typical archon/colossus composition) just increase colossus's collision size when the skill is active
the effect would be like positioning FFs around colossus thus forcing the army to spread out.
Edit: this means this skill will simply increase colossus's survivability at the cost of de-deathballing the entire protoss army and causing trouble with units pathing. Potentially make it a interesting choice for Protoss player to decide whether to active it or not.
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I think you missed one of the biggest problems with the Colossus. One is the death ball, but as others have suggested I think this problem is by necessity, not by convenience of the colossus.
The second is that colossus introduce a rather binary relationship. Let's look at PvT, where the terran has a bio force and some vikings that are trying to snipe colossi beforehand and the protoss is trying to pick off the vikings with stalkers that need to stay away from the bio ball and a bio ball that needs to stay away from colossus/sentry/zealot/archon/whatever.
In HotS, In many of my games the terran player either has enough vikings to kill the colossi, and then the rest of the protoss army gets completely shredded like it's funny, or they don't and can defend their colossi as they shred the bio to pieces. This interaction is almost entirely a numbers game. It can sometimes feel like a positional game, but positioning buys you maybe 30 seconds, and an extra volley or two from the colossi/vikings. But one or two volleys is not the difference between victory and defeat. The battles completely snowball, and whoever wins that fight wins by a huge margin of supply and wins the game. How often do you see a protoss and terran army trade equally?
How often do you see two protoss armies trade equally? It's a similar issue.
So perhaps this problem could also be fixed by a stronger gateway force, and protoss would be less reliant on AOE.
The disrupter introduces a little bit of a difference because it has such strong burst. One or two extra hits or one or two fewer hits from a few disruptors is a MAJOR difference. So that might make positioning and repositioning and posturing more powerful, but disruptors do so much to mess up the positioning of the terran that this becomes an even more volatile relationship.
Blizzard's solution thus far has been to decrease the effectiveness of the disruptor, but I think that this will introduce similar problems that the HotS colossus had, namely that it becomes entirely a numbers game and dramatically reduces incentive to trade armies.
The adept, by being so tanky, might enable the leftover protoss ground force to go head to head with the bio, as might the buffs to the zealot. People talk about disliking zealot charge, and I think one major reason for this is because it so heavily tips the zealot towards attacking. With ling/baneling vs bio you can pull back and decide to engage later, particularly on creep, as can stimmed bio (unless they're deep into creep). This enables a wonderful positioning game with series of trades.
I think charge is here to stay... so I'm not sure what else to do about this. It does mean that I think their call to have the zealots be the damage dealers is very intelligent. Since you're going to commit them to a fight anyways, and it's a terrible decision to pull them back, making them be the damage dealers almost turns them into something like banelings, where once you commit past a certain point you need to keep trying, but would pull back as soon as all of them are used up and proceed to create more (morph vs warpin, both localized production).
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I think the colo we have in LotV could be fine... if it was less expensive. The unit in itself doesn't feel that useless tbh, but it's just not worth the price.
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On July 26 2015 01:27 [PkF] Wire wrote:
I think the colo we have in LotV could be fine... if it was less expensive. The unit in itself doesn't feel that useless tbh, but it's just not worth the price.
Yeah I agree
A simple "smaller"(lower cost, lower damage output) colossus might be a more elegant solution than adding yet another active skill
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On July 26 2015 01:46 Yiome wrote:Show nested quote +On July 26 2015 01:27 [PkF] Wire wrote:
I think the colo we have in LotV could be fine... if it was less expensive. The unit in itself doesn't feel that useless tbh, but it's just not worth the price. Yeah I agree A simple "smaller"(lower cost, lower damage output) colossus might be a more elegant solution than adding yet another active skill
It's not active 
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On July 26 2015 01:57 starimk wrote:Show nested quote +On July 26 2015 01:46 Yiome wrote:On July 26 2015 01:27 [PkF] Wire wrote:
I think the colo we have in LotV could be fine... if it was less expensive. The unit in itself doesn't feel that useless tbh, but it's just not worth the price. Yeah I agree A simple "smaller"(lower cost, lower damage output) colossus might be a more elegant solution than adding yet another active skill It's not active
I was referring to what I wrote earlier actually ><
It goes something like this:
A shield-like skill, when active, decrease incoming range damage but give colossus a collision size with ground unit(like placing force fields around colossus), thus give colossus more survivability at the cost of de-deathball the army
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I think it's mostly the Colossus's attack that's boring, especially compared to other aoe units. Redesign the attack to something more exciting, then rebalance the unit around that new attack.
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On July 26 2015 04:13 eviltomahawk wrote:
I think it's mostly the Colossus's attack that's boring, especially compared to other aoe units. Redesign the attack to something more exciting, then rebalance the unit around that new attack.
Maybe slow down it attack animation a little to allow opponent to dodge its line of fire? Like the way Lurkers work.
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On July 26 2015 04:13 eviltomahawk wrote:
I think it's mostly the Colossus's attack that's boring, especially compared to other aoe units. Redesign the attack to something more exciting, then rebalance the unit around that new attack.
At first I thought so too, but I've started to think a bigger issue is its static positioning within the army. Regardless of whatever attack shape or path of motion the Colossus beam takes, if it has to fire at the same cooldown with the same total area of effect for the same damage, the net result probably won't be very different. Realistically players will have about the same chance of dodging and playing around the new Colossus beam as they did before. In WoL beta the Colossus attack was actually changed from a larger burst and longer cooldown to what we have today; Blizzard must have decided that its current attack speed/damage/other stats were optimal for providing a dynamic player experience.
So I don't think changing the Colossus attack will be as productive as changing its defensive stats and positioning. Because really, at the end of the day, the goal is to kill the Colossus before it does too much damage. So I think creating mechanisms that force both the Colossus and the opposing army to make a cost-effective analysis on how far they want to charge forward to inflict maximum damage to each other - such as the one I've created  - is the optimal line of design thought.
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wait... didn't know Collo was nerfed lol. whats the diff from the HotS collo?
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On July 26 2015 08:47 shin_toss wrote:
wait... didn't know Collo was nerfed lol. whats the diff from the HotS collo?
I believe that it has 1 less range and has its damage reduced by 20%.
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On July 26 2015 09:00 IntoTheheart wrote:Show nested quote +On July 26 2015 08:47 shin_toss wrote:
wait... didn't know Collo was nerfed lol. whats the diff from the HotS collo? I believe that it has 1 less range and has its damage reduced by 20%.
oh lol thats why lurkers are killing my collo all the time -__- wtf
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Colossus should be removed and the disruptor should be replaced with more reliable and less gimmicky unit. We don't need 2 AoE on Robo.
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EPT
