XvP: do you have significant problems with PO?

On October 16 2015 11:51 redloser wrote:
But I heard the real problem with the PO is in the PvP matchup, so I don't know.

On October 16 2015 12:11 Beliskner wrote:


I've heard a few people been stating this, but have not actually heard any reason why. It seems like people are just regurgitating, because to me, logically it's actually the best change for PvP.

Simply because of the immortal and the adept. Pylon charge stopped the stupid adept vs adept where you simply shade into each other and kill as many probes, now you just PO your mineral line and the person who threw their adepts away is behind and usually gets punished by stalker pressure.

And with immortals it allows more 2 base attacks. Instead of nexus charge shutting you down 100%, you can push in if you have a higher immortal count and actually press your advantage(Immortals obviously kill pylons pretty fast, plus with the new shield tank a few shows), and getting pylon rushed getting an immortal out shuts it down pretty quick.

Pylon charge is better, it allows more variety and counter play than nexus charge. I've found the people vehemently against it, seem to want to just charge into a base without sniping the MC and are upset when they get shutdown.


And honestly I'm not seeing pylon rushes being that effective above silver/gold with a proper scout and response.

On October 16 2015 12:45 BabelFish1 wrote:


Interesting, I have a question for you regarding that since I'm a Protoss player.
In my PvP I frequently rush to chargelots to counter blink stalker and early robo play, PO in HotS does not stop the chargelots from winning the game what so ever.

Do you think the new PO would invalidate the 1 base 5 gate chargelot+whatever gas heavy units you decide to suppliment the chargelots with due to having more dps or would the short duration make it still semi viable vs non dark shrine openers?

On October 16 2015 12:56 Beliskner wrote:


I don't think 1 base 5 gate chargelots is that great in either expansion you'll win because of bad responses from your opponent. But yes, Pylon charge will shut it down a bit harder because if they have a simcity you can't do much(With PO or not).

On October 16 2015 21:59 The_Red_Viper wrote:
Gameplay wise i don't have problems against it, design wise i think it doesn't belong into the game though

On October 17 2015 19:58 Thezzy wrote:
My only issue is that it feels like an unneeded safety net in TvP.
Protoss can border-line hide behind it whilst doing pressure and with only 25 energy and the possibility of Recall, the MSC can be out and about with an army, do damage and then come home and use PO with the remaining energy in case of a counter-attack. At the same time, warp-ins and cannons that detect and shoot both air and ground are also still present for defense.

In HotS the one thing that annoyed me a lot in TvP were builds like proxy Oracle into a quick third (sometimes on the gold).
The threat of Oracles meant at least an Engineering Bay + Turret would be needed if I wanted to move out.
That in itself was fine but Protoss could just easily hide behind his/her Nexus with just an Oracle, a Sentry or two and the MSC and there was nothing I could really do to put pressure back with what little Bio I could bring out at that point.

Imagine if I could go for a no-cloak Banshee with twice the damage and speed and then hide behind a bunch of temporary PFs that can shoot air if it goes south and the Banshee can detect stealth as well.

The shorter range of PO does make it a little trickier for Protoss but I'm honestly still wondering WHY they need it when they already have such strong and versatile defensive options with warp-ins (that can warp-in what you need), photon cannons and Recall.

Primary it's just less fun because it feels (against just an opinion) that Protoss can get away with so much whilst having so little to defend themselves with.

It's always brought up that PO was brought in for PvP (I'm guessing to end the 4g vs 4g era?) but I still think that making TvP and ZvP less fun to play just to improve a mirror matchup wasn't a good call.

I mean honestly, what TvP early game has not been a Reaper opening since HotS came out?
Versus either one of the three aggressive openings (Oracle, DT or Blink) or a fast expand?
Like 95% of the TvPs I've seen and played were that. Compare that to the various openings in TvZ and TvT.

Without PO there would at least be a need to get some units out, Cloaked Banshees would become a threat again (now they're suicidal if Protoss opened Oracles) and Protoss could not play as greedy with as few units as they can right now.

Maybe I'm overstating things a bit, but the early game of TvP feels extremely stale.

On October 18 2015 18:56 JackONeill wrote:
The overcharge is a stupid spell that was a bandaid to help early game protoss against new metas. It's dumb as shit and makes protoss allins less risky with the same reward. Since the adept is here to help protoss defense early game, it needs to go.

On October 22 2015 16:56 KelsierSC wrote:
I remember reading/listening to a discussion about overlords and blizzard said that one of the reasons they couldn't put good spells on the OL is that you were going to get them anyway for supply so there was no downside and it would basically give you free access to powerful spells.

So why they have reversed this philosophy is beyond me , giving such a powerful ability to something that protoss is always going to have (supply unit) seems very silly to me.

On October 22 2015 20:11 Cyro wrote:


The main reason for overcharge existing was lack of defenders advantage in pvp destroying the matchup for 3 years. How do you expect adding a new gateway unit to fix this problem?

On October 22 2015 16:56 KelsierSC wrote:
I remember reading/listening to a discussion about overlords and blizzard said that one of the reasons they couldn't put good spells on the OL is that you were going to get them anyway for supply so there was no downside and it would basically give you free access to powerful spells.

So why they have reversed this philosophy is beyond me , giving such a powerful ability to something that protoss is always going to have (supply unit) seems very silly to me.

By introducing a gateway unit that is better defensively then it is offensively?

Highground warp ins and blink have negated the defenders advantage of force fields.

On October 22 2015 20:35 Cyro wrote:


The adept is the opposite; better on offense than on defense. Before this iteration of overcharge, the dominant strategy early game was to repeatedly throw small squads of adepts at your opponent because you could kill enough workers to set them behind even while they were on defense. When they patched PO to do like 5x as much DPS and be castable instantly from when the mothership core spawned, it went from fairly easy to get your moneys worth to really hard when doing stuff like that.

On October 22 2015 20:35 Cyro wrote:

They removed the ability to warp onto higher ground several years ago, AFAIK. Adept shade also walks through forcefields

On October 22 2015 20:25 Eiltonn wrote:



The MsC is the unit casting the spell no the pylon. This combined with the new warp in makes the protoss base layout more tactical i think, and that is obviously a positive thing.

I really dislike the concept of PO (since it was first introduced in HOTS) and i would have rather seen Blizzard buff toss somehow so this stupid spell is not needed. In the current iteration the biggest problems in my eyes are the spamability of this spell (the duration is nearly long enough to gain the energy needed to cast it again), its not really possible to starve the Msc out of energy by constant poking. The more dire problem is the DPS though. I think the DPS are way too high which can make u easily lose a lot of units if you fight on multiple fronts and dont pay attention for just a few seconds. This can be pretty frustrating, may not be as much of a problem for players with better multitasking though.