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Russian Federation216 Posts
@Viking change
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
@PF priority bug
fix it please? at least make non-attacking PF same as scv's priority
so i can clearly see WHAT coming to me, but have no idea how to beat it;
@Reaver
make it able to pass 1-square passage, please :<
13:00 here https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/19647338/Starcraft/sb1.SC2Replay
@DF Altas
fix minimap!
@stalker
make it E, no? 
@archon
could you buff AoE and his size a bit, in case of new pathing it deals not enough dmg (tested vs bio-terran)
now more global
lets talk about protoss observing and mapcontrol
By now protoss have:
- an observer
- scout reveal
- nullifier's drone
- pylons
which seems too much for me.
observer is very good scouting unit, so lets leave it
placing pylons are good and fun too
not sure about wards, played not enough with them
but! here comes the scout
i feel like scout is useless.. his role overlaps with corsair (A-A), with nullifier (light light Air-Ground) (or with nothing, since scout have very bad A-G dps) and also he is caster with strange feedback (that missile comes when all casters casted their spells) and reveal that shows me where enemy is. thanks mr. scout but i want not just watch enemy, but rape his forces
and also protoss have too much air
so here's a list of my suggestions:
remove scout
watch that corsair is able to be main A-A unit
add "Feed-Leach" ability to arbiter, making it a bit more useful:
Feedleach, 9-11 range with +2 extra range if unit moves out
channeled enemy unit targeted ability
arbiter starts takes 5hp/mp every 0.15 seconds (for totall to ~33mp per second) from target enemy unit
if unit doesn't have mana points then ability stops (or continue leaching hp, not sure)
arbiter receiving all hp and mp he leached instantly
so this is fast, microable feedback that requires micro from both players
and forget about reveal :D
so this is my proposition
also, @nullifier - i dont like it, but i'll leave this up to you, hope you know what you're doing.
i dont like it because its just one more harrasing unit, and this unit designed for pure harras/mapcontrol, like hider said to me - its a protoss vulture. Protoss have DTs, pylons with warp and observers, so i cant see a reason to add another harrasing flying unit, that you cant mass. i believe you can't mass nullifiers, just because - ok, they deal good dmg vs ultras and high hp units, if opponent lack detection - but you need to kill those forces, not look at them and weaken them by disabling their attack, or removing 15% of their HP :D
and there comes that you have zealot, stalker and archon only to kill. with supporting from HT and reaver. Again - im not sure, but i feel its better to add average hp/average dps/less mobily than stalker unit to robo, mb with spell (but may be not, im sure there's a way to add micro without "press to micro" spells)
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Show nested quote +The proposed changes would completely ruin Dark Swarm. You would only be able to have a single cloud per Viper, and it would never be able to get close enough to a mech ball to achieve it's purpose, not to mention it would be too similar to Arbiters Cloaking field for my taste What do you mean by single cloud per viper? Why can't you get it close enough to the mech ball. Have you done any testing in the unit tester? i mean viper has 150 HP, they really don't die very fast to goliaths. You probably need like 10 goliaths target firing the Viper before the battle in order to neglect the efficiency of Dark Swarm and in that case the Viper has already kinda showed its value (forced the terran into not getting tanks). Also I think this is very different from cloacking field. Cloacking field is IMO much more of a gimmick (as it can be countered by detection). Dark Swarm on the other hand has no counter besides focus firing (but instead it drains energy when used).
Single Cloud per Viper means exactly what it sounds like. You can't cast more than one if it's a channeled spell around the unit. You also won't ever be able to get it in the position you want it, and it'll last about 5 seconds at best - 150 HP is nothing, how does that even remotely sound survivable? It's only 30 more than a Mutalisk, on a slower and much more expensive unit. The extra HP Vipers have barely compensates for the fact that they cannot protect themselves with their own Dark Swarms like Defilers could.
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And we are back to back to my original viking argument...
The "role" of the scout is anti-armor Anti-Air(AAAA). To me the case is not whether a race needs AAAA. The case is that if we are even disussing having it removed for one race then heavy-armored air units are not treatening enough. The key about Broods Lords and collosus in SC2 have always been that you can beat them, but not with your ordinary army composition. I don't think Starbow Capital ships have managed to carry this part and there is something to work on.
Before we disarm another races counter to these units we really should discuss if we want these capital ships to be more treatening.
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On May 23 2013 14:54 SmileZerg wrote:Show nested quote +The proposed changes would completely ruin Dark Swarm. You would only be able to have a single cloud per Viper, and it would never be able to get close enough to a mech ball to achieve it's purpose, not to mention it would be too similar to Arbiters Cloaking field for my taste What do you mean by single cloud per viper? Why can't you get it close enough to the mech ball. Have you done any testing in the unit tester? i mean viper has 150 HP, they really don't die very fast to goliaths. You probably need like 10 goliaths target firing the Viper before the battle in order to neglect the efficiency of Dark Swarm and in that case the Viper has already kinda showed its value (forced the terran into not getting tanks). Also I think this is very different from cloacking field. Cloacking field is IMO much more of a gimmick (as it can be countered by detection). Dark Swarm on the other hand has no counter besides focus firing (but instead it drains energy when used). Single Cloud per Viper means exactly what it sounds like. You can't cast more than one if it's a channeled spell around the unit. You also won't ever be able to get it in the position you want it, and it'll last about 5 seconds at best - 150 HP is nothing, how does that even remotely sound survivable? It's only 30 more than a Mutalisk, on a slower and much more expensive unit. The extra HP Vipers have barely compensates for the fact that they cannot protect themselves with their own Dark Swarms like Defilers could.
You can't compare a mutalisk to a Viper. A mutalisk needs to engage with its 3 range. The task you say my suggested Viper can't do is to make sure that the meele units around it gets close to the battle before the Viper gets shut down. I recommend you to do that experiment in the unit tester. You will see that there is no way 3-4 goliath's can kill a viper if it immediately retreats after it has entered into its effective range of 4 of the goliaths.
Anyway, I found some unintended consequences with my suggestion, and thus I am preffering a return to the Defiler.
I would like to know the logic is behind the switch to the Viper. The only advantage I can see of that switch is a cooler visual model.
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Anyway, after the Defiler has replaced the Viper  , I want to start a new discussion which Fen1kz started. I don't really have any strong opinions on this matter, bucause I feel like this is less of a "what is good design", and more of a "how do the play-testers feel about the protoss race". I am quoting him below.
now more global
lets talk about protoss observing and mapcontrol
By now protoss have:
- an observer
- scout reveal
- nullifier's drone
- pylons
which seems too much for me.
observer is very good scouting unit, so lets leave it
placing pylons are good and fun too
not sure about wards, played not enough with them
but! here comes the scout
i feel like scout is useless.. his role overlaps with corsair (A-A), with nullifier (light light Air-Ground) (or with nothing, since scout have very bad A-G dps) and also he is caster with strange feedback (that missile comes when all casters casted their spells) and reveal that shows me where enemy is. thanks mr. scout but i want not just watch enemy, but rape his forces
and also protoss have too much air
so here's a list of my suggestions:
remove scout
watch that corsair is able to be main A-A unit
add "Feed-Leach" ability to arbiter, making it a bit more useful:
Feedleach, 9-11 range with +2 extra range if unit moves out
channeled enemy unit targeted ability
arbiter starts takes 5hp/mp every 0.15 seconds (for totall to ~33mp per second) from target enemy unit
if unit doesn't have mana points then ability stops (or continue leaching hp, not sure)
arbiter receiving all hp and mp he leached instantly
so this is fast, microable feedback that requires micro from both players
and forget about reveal :D
I want to ask the protoss players, how they feel about them only having 2 core units but a lot of air units instead. As a terran player I feel like I have 4 core units; Vulture, tanks, marines and medi's. Zerg have speedlings, banelings, mutas and hydras. All of those units are units you can mass into a unit composition and work pretty well.
The protoss air units feel more like you need to get them as a response to something the opponent does. For instance:
- The opponent gets Scicence vessels --> You get scouts.
- The opponent goes turtle heavy mech --> Arbiters/carriers (and maybe tempest)
- Opponent goes mutalisk --> Corsairs
The Nullifier was (too some extent) supposed to fill out the whole that the removal of the immortal and sentry produced. However, at this point the Nullifier feel very similar to the above air units. While you don't get it as a response to something, it doesn't feel like a core unit at all, which may be due to the fact that it is so expensive relative to its utility in battles so you can't really afford more than a couple.
So my questions are;
- How do protoss players feel about all these various air units?
- How would you feel about removing one of them and giving its utility to one of the other units (for instance remove scout and give feedback to HT, Nullifier or something 3rd).
- Do you feel like you lack a 3rd core unit?
The reason I use the removal of scout as an exampe is that Scout is probably the most boring unit in the game currently. Right now its a bad battle unit with two secondary spells. Who gets an oracle due to envision, and who gets an HT due to feedback? The same question is something we need ask our self regarding the Scout. While it isn't UP per se, it is simply underused due to the fact that people have a bias to build "cool" units. Building a unit which only has secondary spells isn't very fun. And regarding envision, Blizzard only gave it to the oracle because they didn't really know which secondary ability to give to the Oracle, and as Fen1kz it really overlaps a lot with the oracle. Removing the scout and giving feedback to another unit isn't gonna take anything valuable out of the game I think.
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@ Scout.
It got a reduction in cost and a speed upgrade. Right now it works well with crossairs ealry mid-game vs zerg (make 2-3 corsairs + 1 scout and pick off zerg stuff). I'd rather see a further change to the socut and remove the tempest.
I do not think scout is used much for its spells and I'd rather see it as a good AA air unit (corairs deals with muta / scout deals with carriers / BC's,) and with its reduced cost it sohuld be quite cost-effective for its purpose.
@ Nullifier range. It is 5 atm, and marines have 4. Nullifier also have low dmg point (it attacks right away) and is faster than marines. It should manage to kite them.
@ Other stuff. Let's keep things as they are for a bit now and see if it stabalizes. Things to keep an eye out for:
- The new viking. Does it work? Is it too good / bad? I know this will be hard as it is used in rare instances.
- Nullifier: Is it usefull?
- General timings and strats, anything seems imba?
If someone have time, I would like to get some strategy on the wikia page (http://starbow.wikia.com/) I think all with an account can edit.
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I feel that toss is so complete race its gonna be hard to add something. Honestly, starbow toss design is briliant. Only issues left are scout (+oracle), some ugrades polishing and balance.
Just look how toss units are useful trough whole game.
Im not sure if we really should add more instead of finishing stuff we already have.
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I don't think many people are trying to add more units at this point, rather better define their roles, or even maybe remove some. I think finished Starbow should only have tempest or scout, not both.
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On May 23 2013 20:02 Xiphias wrote:
@ Scout.
It got a reduction in cost and a speed upgrade. Right now it works well with crossairs ealry mid-game vs zerg (make 2-3 corsairs + 1 scout and pick off zerg stuff). I'd rather see a further change to the socut and remove the tempest.
I do not think scout is used much for its spells and I'd rather see it as a good AA air unit (corairs deals with muta / scout deals with carriers / BC's,) and with its reduced cost it sohuld be quite cost-effective for its purpose.
@ Nullifier range. It is 5 atm, and marines have 4. Nullifier also have low dmg point (it attacks right away) and is faster than marines. It should manage to kite them.
@ Other stuff. Let's keep things as they are for a bit now and see if it stabalizes. Things to keep an eye out for:
- The new viking. Does it work? Is it too good / bad? I know this will be hard as it is used in rare instances.
- Nullifier: Is it usefull?
- General timings and strats, anything seems imba?
If someone have time, I would like to get some strategy on the wikia page (http://starbow.wikia.com/) I think all with an account can edit.
Please upload a video where you manage to kite marines with Nullifier. I can't do it. Honestly it feels like its effective range is 4. Sc2 Banshee's at 6 range you can easy kite marines at 5. With Nullifier I feel like i can't get a single shot off without marines attacking it. Secondly Nullifiers effective range shouldn't even be 5, it should be 5.5-6 because it needs to kite Stalkers without range, Hydras and stimless marines without range. So I suggest a 1.5-2 range buff to the Nullifier (yes it is that terrible at the moment).
On May 23 2013 20:39 Xiphias wrote:
I don't think many people are trying to add more units at this point, rather better define their roles, or even maybe remove some. I think finished Starbow should only have tempest or scout, not both.
Yes I am questioning the design of having some units which fulfill a very small role. I wonder if it would be a better game if we simplified Starbow a bit by integrating the strenghts of the "niche" units with other units. For instance.
-Having both tempest and carriers is probably a bit confusing. Tempest could easily be removed I think.
- I wasn't aware that scout was the counter to armored units, but is it entertaining in that role? We have long discussed how the old viking feels kinda boring. What about the scout?
- Firebat is still unmicroable as its attack is too wide. Flanking/surrounding doesn't matter against it, and frankly it doesn't add any element extra to the game besides being good vs dark swarm. This unit could imo be removed without any noticeable consequences to gameplay. SO IMO a larger redesign is needed (see my suggestion for inspiriation) or it just needs to go away. Secondly it may also be needed to give it a stronger role by for instance reducing the HP of marines (as that will make having a "tanky" unit more important), or by making zealots stronger vs bio (right now they kinda suck vs bio IMO).
- Viking I guess is good vs mutas and too some extent carriers. But that is still a very small role for the unit. Is that really good gameplay? Would the game be better if we simpified the game by removing "niche"-units from the game, for instance by integrating the viking with either the banshee or the goliath?
So my question to the game designers (xiph and Dec) are; What are your general thoughts on having lots of "small-role" units? Are you completely fine with that or do you have a goal of increasing niche-units overall utility while still keeping them severely differenatied from other units?
Xiph, you previously said you very much appreciated that the Nullifier was put into the game as toss was kinda boring atm. I interpret that as a sign you feel that protoss lacks "core" units right? Because protoss already has lots of small role air units and I guess you don't want to see the Nullifier as a unit you just build once in a while right? But instead it should be a unit you produce in most games and throughout the majority of the game (?). Maybe like a combination between a sentry (it has battle micro utility with wards instead of forcefield/guardian shield), vultures (for map control with wards instead of spider mines) and a banshee (as both of them can air harass - Nullifiers DPS should be a bit lower though).
That will definitely require quite a buff on its main attack. At this point I am not even sure if a range buff is enough. It's also possible that it needs either a cost reduction (followed by small nerfs of its wards) or a straight up damage buff.
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The Nullifier vs marine scenario got me thinking. Shouldn't banshee also be able to kite unstimmed/4 range marines like they do in Sc2?
Right now both of them have 4 range so you can only micro against marines by abusing their immobility/pulling banshee's back as they get into red life. While this is definitely lots of fun to do, its also very similar to how you micro reapers and vultures, so I feel like the "outrange-kiting" could add a new interesting element to Starbow.
A 5 range banshee will probably require some kind of nerf of the banshee in another way as they are already really really good. I would suggest to reduce their damage per shot a bit so they just 4 shot workers/marines instead of 3-shotting.
Anyway, for the Nullifier this would be my suggestions:
- "Effective range" increased from 4 to 5.5
- Cost reduced from 125/100 to 100/75
- Ward ability 1 now destroys 15% of remaining HP rather than Max HP
- Ward ability 2 AOE reduced a bit.
The cost reduction will accomplish 3 things;
1) Makes opening up with the Nullifier on 2 bases more accessible. Right now this is very inefficitive as you need to do quite a bit of damage. Even with a range buff it won't be effective enough IMO. With banshee you can do that as it has higher DPS, however with Nullifier the reward/cost isn't there currently.
2) To overall make them feel a bit more similar to Vultures placing spider mines. The nice thing about Vulturues is that because they are so inexpensive you can afford to be a bit "spewy" with how you place your Spider Mines, and I would like to see a bit of the same concept applied to Nullifiers. But I think that if you only can "afford" 2-3 Nullifiers in the game, the optimal way to spend your energy will be to place wards in front of your army just before a battle. I want to see more wards placed all over around the map. Lower price of the Nullifier will mean that you can afford more Wards.
3) Make it feel more like core-unit (like mutalisks are) rather than an expensive air unit/spellcaster (which protoss already has enough of).
I think the 15% of total HP is kinda broken as 7 wards in the same place can destroy anything. I really don't wanna see 7 ultras die instantly or Nullifiers killing a planetary instantly. At the same this will be a fair nerf given its price reduction.
The same logic is applied to the second ability, which also needs a nerf if the cost reduction goes through.
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I think the 4 range is intentional (It was in my suggestion), making Banshees shine as a hit and run unit rather than a direct engagement unit. 5 range would mean that their dps can contribute better in a big battle, since they will shoot from behind marines/vultures rather than float in front of them.
Regarding Scout: They really need some combat/snipe ability if they are to be as beefy and expensive as they are. Wraiths, Corsairs and Mutalisks worked in BW because they were cheap and fast - balanced with being somewhat fragile. Devourers, Valkyries and especially Scouts were hidered by being costly and somewhat slow. Valkyries still saw use because of their massive utility, and the Capital ships made up for being slow by having range and firepower.
If the Scout is to be more than the BW unit in usefullnes, it needs speed and utility. A speed upgrade has one downfall - It means that the Scout will be suppar before it is upgraded. This was one of the major flaws with the BW Scout. I suggested a passive ability that gave extra range to consecutive shots on the same target, but base stats could also be tweaked to make it better.
Ideally it will be like the BW Wraith and Mutalisk - not cost effective due to a major weakness (low HP for Wraith, range and HP for Mutalisk), but fast enough to build and use to be attractive to players that have good unit control (Not nessesarely a fast unit, but one thats easy to gain local superiority with).
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On May 23 2013 21:01 Hider wrote:
Yes I am questioning the design of having some units which fulfill a very small role. I wonder if it would be a better game if we simplified Starbow a bit by integrating the strenghts of the "niche" units with other units. For instance.
-Having both tempest and carriers is probably a bit confusing. Tempest could easily be removed I think.
- I wasn't aware that scout was the counter to armored units, but is it entertaining in that role? We have long discussed how the old viking feels kinda boring. What about the scout?
- Firebat is still unmicroable as its attack is too wide. Flanking/surrounding doesn't matter against it, and frankly it doesn't add any element extra to the game besides being good vs dark swarm. This unit could imo be removed without any noticeable consequences to gameplay. SO IMO a larger redesign is needed (see my suggestion for inspiriation) or it just needs to go away. Secondly it may also be needed to give it a stronger role by for instance reducing the HP of marines (as that will make having a "tanky" unit more important), or by making zealots stronger vs bio (right now they kinda suck vs bio IMO).
- Viking I guess is good vs mutas and too some extent carriers. But that is still a very small role for the unit. Is that really good gameplay? Would the game be better if we simpified the game by removing "niche"-units from the game, for instance by integrating the viking with either the banshee or the goliath?
So my question to the game designers (xiph and Dec) are; What are your general thoughts on having lots of "small-role" units? Are you completely fine with that or do you have a goal of increasing niche-units overall utility while still keeping them severely differenatied from other units?
Well not one of the game designers but ill give my answer anyway.
My argument for "boring AA Units" like Scouts existing is that this existence is part of a broader design for the capital ships. It may sound strange but let me take an example. Imagen SC2 TvT without Vikings. Where does that leave the design of BCs. Well either they beat marines at which point it becomes a game of "who gets the most BCs" or Marines beats them at which point they have no reason to exist at all.
Vikings however exist to create this middle ground where you can have a strong(ish) BC without making TvT the lamest thing ever. Right now in Starbow the Goliath serves the same role for Terran and this design model is the simplest way to design very strong and Awesome capital ships. Because of that All races should have the "need" to have an Anti-Armored-Air unit if we wanted to design strong and Awesome Capital ships. All races currently have a unit with that role we just havn't really gotten around to making Capital ships strong and Awesome.
On to the firebat. I don't think there really is a point to trying to design a "flankable" firebat. The rules of phalanx will always stay true and thus with such a massable unit there will always end up with the case where each firebat cover the other ones side. Plus if its damage is too directional the damage output it will need to have will be all the more stronger. Fighting the firebats with Zealots or Lings will always be a losing battle and it should.
But the apprauch of making lings and Zealots stronger is something i can agree with. If firebats always makes Lings a losing battle for Zerg then not having firebats should be a losing battle against Lings for Terran. Seems like a fair design.
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On May 23 2013 23:39 Zaphod Beeblebrox wrote:
I think the 4 range is intentional (It was in my suggestion), making Banshees shine as a hit and run unit rather than a direct engagement unit. 5 range would mean that their dps can contribute better in a big battle, since they will shoot from behind marines/vultures rather than float in front of them.
Regarding Scout: They really need some combat/snipe ability if they are to be as beefy and expensive as they are. Wraiths, Corsairs and Mutalisks worked in BW because they were cheap and fast - balanced with being somewhat fragile. Devourers, Valkyries and especially Scouts were hidered by being costly and somewhat slow. Valkyries still saw use because of their massive utility, and the Capital ships made up for being slow by having range and firepower.
If the Scout is to be more than the BW unit in usefullnes, it needs speed and utility. A speed upgrade has one downfall - It means that the Scout will be suppar before it is upgraded. This was one of the major flaws with the BW Scout. I suggested a passive ability that gave extra range to consecutive shots on the same target, but base stats could also be tweaked to make it better.
Ideally it will be like the BW Wraith and Mutalisk - not cost effective due to a major weakness (low HP for Wraith, range and HP for Mutalisk), but fast enough to build and use to be attractive to players that have good unit control (Not nessesarely a fast unit, but one thats easy to gain local superiority with).
The problem with making the scout more similar to Wraith/mutalisks is that the protoss already has such an unit: The Nullifier. I am considering though if it wouldn't be better to make the Nullifier a ground unit instead (with same role) as that would make it possible for the scout to become more Wraith/mutalisk'ish.
A ground Nullifier would probably need a movement speed of like 4.5 (so they don't just die to speedlings for instance) and better DPS relative to its cost.
Regarding the banshee: Is it really bad if the banshee becomes slightly better in a straight up fight? I mean terran already has the reaper as the hit and run unit which due to its cliff-jumping makes it feel somewhat similar to an airunit.
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On May 24 2013 01:14 Sumadin wrote:Show nested quote +On May 23 2013 21:01 Hider wrote:
Yes I am questioning the design of having some units which fulfill a very small role. I wonder if it would be a better game if we simplified Starbow a bit by integrating the strenghts of the "niche" units with other units. For instance.
-Having both tempest and carriers is probably a bit confusing. Tempest could easily be removed I think.
- I wasn't aware that scout was the counter to armored units, but is it entertaining in that role? We have long discussed how the old viking feels kinda boring. What about the scout?
- Firebat is still unmicroable as its attack is too wide. Flanking/surrounding doesn't matter against it, and frankly it doesn't add any element extra to the game besides being good vs dark swarm. This unit could imo be removed without any noticeable consequences to gameplay. SO IMO a larger redesign is needed (see my suggestion for inspiriation) or it just needs to go away. Secondly it may also be needed to give it a stronger role by for instance reducing the HP of marines (as that will make having a "tanky" unit more important), or by making zealots stronger vs bio (right now they kinda suck vs bio IMO).
- Viking I guess is good vs mutas and too some extent carriers. But that is still a very small role for the unit. Is that really good gameplay? Would the game be better if we simpified the game by removing "niche"-units from the game, for instance by integrating the viking with either the banshee or the goliath?
So my question to the game designers (xiph and Dec) are; What are your general thoughts on having lots of "small-role" units? Are you completely fine with that or do you have a goal of increasing niche-units overall utility while still keeping them severely differenatied from other units?
Well not one of the game designers but ill give my answer anyway. My argument for "boring AA Units" like Scouts existing is that this existence is part of a broader design for the capital ships. It may sound strange but let me take an example. Imagen SC2 TvT without Vikings. Where does that leave the design of BCs. Well either they beat marines at which point it becomes a game of "who gets the most BCs" or Marines beats them at which point they have no reason to exist at all. Vikings however exist to create this middle ground where you can have a strong(ish) BC without making TvT the lamest thing ever. Right now in Starbow the Goliath serves the same role for Terran and this design model is the simplest way to design very strong and Awesome capital ships. Because of that All races should have the "need" to have an Anti-Armored-Air unit if we wanted to design strong and Awesome Capital ships. All races currently have a unit with that role we just havn't really gotten around to making Capital ships strong and Awesome. On to the firebat. I don't think there really is a point to trying to design a "flankable" firebat. The rules of phalanx will always stay true and thus with such a massable unit there will always end up with the case where each firebat cover the other ones side. Plus if its damage is too directional the damage output it will need to have will be all the more stronger. Fighting the firebats with Zealots or Lings will always be a losing battle and it should. But the apprauch of making lings and Zealots stronger is something i can agree with. If firebats always makes Lings a losing battle for Zerg then not having firebats should be a losing battle against Lings for Terran. Seems like a fair design.
I agree that capital ships should require a reaction from the opponent, but that doesn't imply that the scout/viking can't be made interesting at the same time.
Regarding Firebat, the Flanking thing was (I think) dec's intention with the latest patch. If you watch the video he talks alot about how position now matters when Firebats are in play. But if you test Firebats in the unit tester vs lings you'll likely come to the conclusion that nothing actually matters. Its just 1a vs 1a.
I feel like that, while engaging Firebats should almost always be ineffective, there should be an optimal way to deal with them that rewards micro. With my suggestion the optimal approach is to avoid them as it has a relatively low DPS relative to its HP. At the same time it is actually possible to run away from them with lings and zealots in an open field since the new Firebats are very slow.
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@ Niche units.
I don't mind SOME units existing to counter others. Basic units should not be niche (in the sense that they are only made to counter other units) but I don't mind the viking being almost solely for countering flocks of mutalisk. Each race should have a unit designed to counter capital ships, I have no problem with that. Scout for protoss, Devour for Zerg (kinda.... this one might need some rework sometime) and Goliath (Viking vs interceptors) for terran.
@ Firebat.
The purpose of changing the firebat was to make it more effective to surround it so if that is still a problem, we can change the attack even further. I'll try and get Dec on it as changing attack animation is too complicated for me to do in the editor atm.
@ Banshee we'll discuss range and dps. I don't mind it 4-shoting workers but that requers a very seroius dmg nerf. (6 dmg per rocket, it is 9 now) (6x2x4=48, 7x2x3=42...) so it will have to be compensated for something...
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On May 24 2013 01:31 Xiphias wrote:
@ Niche units.
I don't mind SOME units existing to counter others. Basic units should not be niche (in the sense that they are only made to counter other units) but I don't mind the viking being almost solely for countering flocks of mutalisk. Each race should have a unit designed to counter capital ships, I have no problem with that. Scout for protoss, Devour for Zerg (kinda.... this one might need some rework sometime) and Goliath (Viking vs interceptors) for terran.
@ Firebat.
The purpose of changing the firebat was to make it more effective to surround it so if that is still a problem, we can change the attack even further. I'll try and get Dec on it as changing attack animation is too complicated for me to do in the editor atm.
@ Banshee we'll discuss range and dps. I don't mind it 4-shoting workers but that requers a very seroius dmg nerf. (6 dmg per rocket, it is 9 now) (6x2x4=48, 7x2x3=42...) so it will have to be compensated for something...
Ok lets stick with 4 range for now then. I don't wanna make huge changes to the banshee as it definitely is quite fun now.
The firebats problem is that it shoots fire out of two hands which means it has a much wider attack than the hellion for instance.
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@Scout
This can be a nice unit because make sinergy with corsair:
Corsair is an anti air light unit, and scout is an anti air armored unit. With using gravitonic beam, these units can destroy few / a certain amount of ground units, and scout with "phase missile" can counter energy units. Reveal ability, I do not know if you should make detection. I would suggest adding a button to scout, to enable / disable the ground attack.
I am of the opinion that air units should not easily destroy ground units. That's why I never liked carrier.
Without carrier, to complete the air protoss, it would take an anti build units.
In the past I have proposed a sniper tempest, strong in few quantity (with a good micro), and less efficient in large quantity (becomes unmanageable, too hard micro: for very pro). Builds and units with a lot hp are favorite victims. However, this does not please Xiphias
Maybe can be a good idea, move "phase missile" from scout to nullifier, and add at scout ability to envision. In this way
scout has very scout ability
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On May 24 2013 01:37 JohnnyZerg wrote:@Scout This can be a nice unit because make sinergy with corsair: Corsair is an anti air light unit, and scout is an anti air armored unit. With using gravitonic beam, these units can destroy few / a certain amount of ground units, and scout with "phase missile" can counter energy units. Reveal ability, I do not know if you should make detection. I would suggest adding a button to scout, to enable / disable the ground attack. I am of the opinion that air units should not easily destroy ground units. That's why I never liked carrier. Without carrier, to complete the air protoss, it would take an anti build units. In the past I have proposed a sniper tempest, strong in few quantity (with a good micro), and less efficient in large quantity (becomes unmanageable, too hard micro: for very pro). Builds and units with a lot hp are favorite victims. However, this does not please Xiphias Maybe can be a good idea, move "phase missile" from scout to nullifier, and add at scout ability to envision. In this way scout has very scout ability
But scout abilities aren't really fun, right? And the observer already functions as a scout, so per definition the scout will always overlap with other units.
Btw, why is it neccesary that the Scout counters armored air? Doesn't stalkers do a fine enough job of that? And secondly, doesn't the current role of the scout hard counter BC's too badly? Feedback + good AA vs armored seems to be too strong. I am of the opinion that we should make a game of soft counters (goliaths vs carriers is a pretty decent example of that. Just because you have goliats out doesn't mean you instnatly own all carriers. It depends alot on the unit control of both players).
So this is why I want to have some feedback from protoss players? Do you actually enjoy controlling the scout? AS a terran player I enjoy units like vulutures, medi's, marines, goliaths, tanks, banshee's, sv's, reapers etc quite a bit. But I kinda find BC's a bit boring and ghosts without any second abilitiy is probably not that fulfilling either.
When looking at the protoss race, most of the units seems quite interesting with the Scout as the exception. With its mediocore movement speed and secondary abilities (feedback and envision are the secondary abilities of the HT and the oracle), it just doesn't seem that fun to use.
If the Nullifier became a ground unit it will open a space for the scout to be a Wraith type of unit which I think would make it really cool to use. Thoughts?
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I agree with moving Nullifier to ground so we can expand on the Scout some more. Protoss currently has too many combat air units - Corsair, Scout, Nullifier, Tempest, Carrier, Arbiter. Compare to Muta, Scourge, Devourer and Guardian or Banshee, Battlecruiser (wow Terran is looking a bit sparse with no combat ability on flying Vikings).
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On May 24 2013 02:59 SmileZerg wrote:
I agree with moving Nullifier to ground so we can expand on the Scout some more. Protoss currently has too many combat air units - Corsair, Scout, Nullifier, Tempest, Carrier, Arbiter. Compare to Muta, Scourge, Devourer and Guardian or Banshee, Battlecruiser (wow Terran is looking a bit sparse with no combat ability on flying Vikings).
Yeh, I guess we can think abit about how the Nullifier should work then if it became a ground unit. Below is my idea:
Movement speed: Increased from 3.8 to 4.5 (it can now kite small groups of speedlings, and it can almost always escape from them if you have good reaction).
Cost reduced from 125/100 to 100/75 (they were already UP at 125/100 as an air-unit, and as a ground unit this change is definitely also needed).
Effective range: Keep it at 4 (the stalker is the ground unit which is supposed to be able to kite marines. Nullifier should be more vulture'ish IMO, so it doesn't need a range buff if it becomes a ground unit.
Damage: Increased from 10 to to 10 + 5 vs light (neccesary adjustment to keep it useful as a ground unit. It now 3 shots workers which seems somewhat fair given its price tag compared to a vulture. Relative to a vulture, however, the ward has a lot more utility than spider mines. The + damage vs light will also help to differenatie it relative to stalkers (as they actually are quite bad vs marines + medis in a straight up fight). Obviously Nullifiers aren't gonna be cost effective in a straight up battle vs bio, however they will have a bit more utility in that regard than previously.
Both of the abilities of the wards gets adjusted as I suggested in a previous post.
An interesting dynamic that will be created with Nullifier at ground will of course be against vultures. Vultures are slightly faster, but to their weak damage against non-light units they don't kill the Nullifier very fast, and if the Nullifier(s) are severely outnumbered they can win the battle by luring the vultures into one or two wards. This change, I believe, will create a whole new kinda interesting dynamic in the matchup.
Below is my Scout redesign suggestion:
- Movement speed increased from 2.85 to 3.4 (no upgrade needed. It needs to be slightly slower than a Banshee in order for it not to hard-counter banshees too badly).
- Armor type light (the point is that if you go mech, and don't have enough goliaths, then a decent group of scout's can outright kill you. However, if you add in just 1 viking then you can deal with the scouts. This change will therefore also help in increasing the utility of the Viking).
- Effective range = 5, with similar moving shot as the Nullifier had.
- Damage = Vs anti-air its damage is down from 7+7 vs armored to 7+5 vs armored It actually works as a hard counter currently to BC, and I don't see BC's ever really becomming viable without some kind of adjustment to the Scout. With a lower damage, using Feedback on the BC is now important in order for Scouts to be cost effective vs BC's.)
Vs ground units: Its damage is changed from 7+7 vs armored to 12 vs everything. This will make it more useful at worker-harassing and at kiting marines for instance.
I feel like these changes (if they work as intended) will provide a clear differentiated role for each unit and at the same time make the Scout more fun to use. Thoughts?
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EPT
