EPTAlso, Immortals are good vs lurkers without any hardened shield. They do 27 dmg vs armored and have 250 hp. (lurkers needs 10 shots to kill one immortal...)
[A] Starbow - Page 330
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Xiphias
Norway2223 Posts
Also, Immortals are good vs lurkers without any hardened shield. They do 27 dmg vs armored and have 250 hp. (lurkers needs 10 shots to kill one immortal...) | ||
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Zaphod Beeblebrox
Denmark697 Posts
Here's my thoughts (haven't checked the wiki for stats yet, so I just go with what I can sense from the discussion. The Immortal is a much needed addiition. As i pointed out in my lengthy post about range and mobility (here) The Starbow stalker could never be a core unit with the mobility and range it has and still be good design. The immortal on the other hand could be a great core army unit for Protoss. I see the Immortal as a more expensive tad slower but much stronger dragoon replacement. This means giving it a bit more effective health than other units with similar costs. the price for this buff to health (in ralation to dragoons) is the 5 range. They should still be core army units however, so they need a bit more speed than in SC2, and a bit more attack speed (core army units scare better with upgrades) and possibly a bit lower damage per shot. Also, while they could have a good bonus against armored, they should not be ineffective versus light units. I want to see BW style of balance, where a unit is not supposed to be artificially weak against certain other units (Marines in this case). Immortals should be countered by the fact that they are slowish, clumsy (big model) and are really expensive to replace. The Marauder is a unit I always hated in SC2. But when I looked at what the Marauder actually does as a unit in itself (also mentioned in my post on speed and range) I saw why its a unit that will never work: Its a tanky kiting unit with supirior range to most other mobile ground units... Concussive shells are just icing on the top of this glaring problem. This is what happens when you give a long ranged unit a big healthpool, and the only solutions are to lower its combat stats to near uselessnes, or to do the logical thing: LOWER THE RANGE. This is a simple fix that will do wonders for the Marauder. 3-4 range will make them naturally stand in front of the Marines and Medics rather than behind. It allows us to buff their damage, because they can no longer kite as well. The Marauder with lower range is also a more focussed design (no longer good at everything), allowng us to toy with other stats to make them more unique. I would suggest making them do less dps and more burst, bringing them more into a hit'n run style of gameplay. I could also see a modified version of concussive shells working on a low range Marauder - something like 10% slow on the unit hit only, stacking up to a 50% slow. This would make the ability good at preventing kiting if the opponant messes up (because the marauder has to get close and get several shots on the same unit), while providing a tiny bit extra protection against Zealots and Zerglings in large battles. EDIT: Oh, and Stim should cost more than 10 hp on a Marauder - its too good an ability to cost so little. | ||
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Big J
Austria16289 Posts
On July 17 2013 11:25 Fuchsteufelswild wrote: If anything, I think the immortals weren't good enough. If you're going to have marauders and immortals, immortals need to really f@#$ up the marauders. It's not like they even have their Hardened Shield. Instead, the 75/25 marauders were beating the 125/50 stalkers 1 on 1. The ratio of stalkers:marauders is almost identical to that of SC2 only 1 - They kill each other more slowly and 2 - The marauders cost 25 less minerals So comparing Immortal details, once you get to larger numbers, it seems you'll pretty much need 2 marauders per immortal...which means only 150/50 vs the 150/100 of immortals! Immortals probably need to be a fair bit better against armoured, although, as I've said, I really don't think we need marauders in the game, but I think immortals could possibly be good for the game. I don't understand why you think Protoss gateway should be capable of beating a bio mix. Bio play is much more commited:
Even more, 2marauders vs 1immortal is the typical 2*(1/2)>1*1 inequation that the whole starcraft design is built upon. 4zerglings beat 1zealot (=same cost) 5marines beat 1dragoon/1 SC2 stalker (=same cost) 2 BW hydralisks/roaches beat 1dragoon/1 SC2 stalker (=same cost) ... cost for cost on a-move it's usually the less compact units that come out on top. That makes sense, because you can pick them off one-by-one through harass and skirmishing. The more compact units shine through surviveability (2*(1/2) stalker would be much harder to poke with against marines, as you would lose a 80HP unit quite quickly), supplyefficiency and production efficiency (it usually takes shorter to produce one 2supply unit, than to produce two 1supply units of the same tier). 150/50/4 Barracks-Marauders beating 150/100/3 Gateway-Immortals makes perfect sense. (of course the detail "by how much" is discussable) I think there are good reasons why pure bio play must beat pure gateway play. Else bio won't even be used as support to mech or played on its own - it would be just straight up inferior to pure mech play. Generally I don't think gateway only should be an option ever, outside of rushes. It's way too easily combineable with robotics tech, so the question should always be: "can gateway+robo deal with this?". The Marauder is a unit I always hated in SC2. But when I looked at what the Marauder actually does as a unit in itself (also mentioned in my post on speed and range) I saw why its a unit that will never work: Its a tanky kiting unit with supirior range to most other mobile ground units... Concussive shells are just icing on the top of this glaring problem. This is what happens when you give a long ranged unit a big healthpool, and the only solutions are to lower its combat stats to near uselessnes, or to do the logical thing: LOWER THE RANGE. This is a simple fix that will do wonders for the Marauder. 3-4 range will make them naturally stand in front of the Marines and Medics rather than behind. It allows us to buff their damage, because they can no longer kite as well. The Marauder with lower range is also a more focussed design (no longer good at everything), allowng us to toy with other stats to make them more unique. I would suggest making them do less dps and more burst, bringing them more into a hit'n run style of gameplay. I could also see a modified version of concussive shells working on a low range Marauder - something like 10% slow on the unit hit only, stacking up to a 50% slow. This would make the ability good at preventing kiting if the opponant messes up (because the marauder has to get close and get several shots on the same unit), while providing a tiny bit extra protection against Zealots and Zerglings in large battles. EDIT: Oh, and Stim should cost more than 10 hp on a Marauder - its too good an ability to cost so little. Good burst damage, low dps, low range, can't kite, tanks damage. What you describe is a variation of the roach. I don't think this is needed - or wanted or balanced. And stim costs currently 20hp, just like in SC2. (unless it was changed in some sneaky little patch in the past few days) | ||
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Zaphod Beeblebrox
Denmark697 Posts
Also, I did write that I did not check the wiki for exact number yet, but I always thought Marauder stim seemed too cheap. | ||
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Kabel
Sweden1746 Posts
Banshee + Show Spoiler + I do enjoy the higher movement speed, since it seems to make room for more micro and hit-and-run attacks. But some players have reported the Banshee being broken/too good/too hard to deal with. So I consider to do this: - Banshee dmg lowered to 2x9, 2x12 vs armored. (It currently has 2x10, 2x12 vs armored) - Remove the Armored class and remove the 1 starting Armor - Increase Cloak cooldown from 15 seconds to 30 seconds. (The cloak still lasts 15 seconds.) This would make them 3-shot workers. The extra damage vs armored units is there to make them more useful vs Immortal, Lurkers, Siege tanks and other slow units. So it gains some more combat utility... (People said they sucked in combat.) I added the Armored requirement a while ago to make certain units better vs it. (Like Stalkers.) But that might not be necessary anymore since some unit bonuses are now different. So I consider to just let it be "mechanical." Gateway/Warp gate + Show Spoiler + Players seems to be annoyed by the fact that Gateways and Warp gates produces different units. Protoss wants to be able to have all buildings of the same kind, and not manage two versions of the Gateway. It is also a priority bug atm, which makes Warp gates have priority over Gateways, when both are selected in a control group. (That is probably easy to adjust.) IF I make Gateways/Warp gates normal again, I consider to move the Immortal to the Robitic facility. I really do not want Immortals to be Warped in, for a lot of reasons... Immortal + Show Spoiler + IF Immortal is moved to the Robotic facility, I will probably still let it remain as quite a simple core unit. These are changes I consider: - Reduce build time from 50 to 40 or 35 seconds, so P can get a decent number of Immortals out from 1-2 Robotic facilities. - Maybe make their stats a bit stronger, since they are arguably quite weak now. If Robotic tech suddenly becomes the "best" tech option, since it has so much important stuff, then maybe the Sentinel can be moved to the Stargate. Lurker + Show Spoiler + I added +4 damage vs armored units, when Marauder/Immortal were introduced in the game a week ago. The reason was to make sure these units were not OP vs Lurker fields. But that does not seem to be the case at all. In fact, Lurkers look insane atm. So I consider to remove this bonus damage vs armored units. Archon + Show Spoiler + Remove so it is not Armored anymore. This would make them stronger mainly vs masses of Hydras. Warp Prism + Reaver + Show Spoiler + Warp prisms seems to be made of paper. In a lot of combats, played by good players, the Warp prism and Reaver just dies.. Ofc it shall be fragile, and players must be careful, but isn´t the Warp Prism just too weak atm? 80 HP, 60 shield. (Same as in BW.) But since ground units like Hydras, Marines etc are more clumped up, smarter, and the DPS is more concentrated in a small area, it seems to be way easier to snipe it now, compared to how it was in BW. It is not even exciting to watch the Warp Prism die anymore.. It is so common and happens to all players all the time.. Additional stuff: + Show Spoiler + - Does Null ward seem decently balanced? Anything else that should be done with them atm? - Should I reintroduce something we had in Starbow Pre-HoTS: When geysers were depleted they still yielded 2 gas per trip forever. Or shall I just increase the maximum gas of each geyser from 4000 to 5000? (Atm, it seems like Geysers are depleted faster than mineral fields. In late game, it is common to see players mine minerals from many bases, but have a low gas income.) Thouhgts about this? - Anything apparent that should be done with the Marauder? Thoughts on all of this? | ||
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Hider
Denmark9390 Posts
On July 17 2013 11:25 Fuchsteufelswild wrote: I'm wondering whether it'll be better to have Immortals at Gateways or Robotics Facility, no personal verdict yet.  Immortals don't have any special shield it seems, so I'm not sure how good Immortals can really be against lurkers If anything, I think the immortals weren't good enough. If you're going to have marauders and immortals, immortals need to really f@#$ up the marauders. It's not like they even have their Hardened Shield. Instead, the 75/25 marauders were beating the 125/50 stalkers 1 on 1. The ratio of stalkers:marauders is almost identical to that of SC2 only 1 - They kill each other more slowly and 2 - The marauders cost 25 less minerals So comparing Immortal details, once you get to larger numbers, it seems you'll pretty much need 2 marauders per immortal...which means only 150/50 vs the 150/100 of immortals! Immortals probably need to be a fair bit better against armoured, although, as I've said, I really don't think we need marauders in the game, but I think immortals could possibly be good for the game. I don't understand why banshees are armoured and have 1 armour now when they're like helicopter gunships minus the rotor (to me), or basically lightweight stealth planes that shoot rockets. It feels so wrong and I think the anti-air flyers all still deal decent damage to non-armoured, even if less. Just for the sake of checking strength, value etc., let's see how marauders would do against banshees currently, if marauders could detect and shoot air units: 100÷22=4.545 (5); 5×1.25 cooldown = Banshee kills marauder in 6.25 game seconds 120÷15=8; 8×1.5 cooldown = Marauder would kill banshee in 12 game seconds. 12÷6.25 = 1.92, but that always supposes only 1× the unit hit rate. So if "1.92 marauders" faced 1 "banshee on wheels", but 1 of the "1.92 marauders" had its back turned (wasn't firing) until its fellow died, it would be dead even. Once you take the increased hit rate of the fellow into account it gets more complicated and isn't perfectly worked out with any simple formula I know, but I've always found that taking the "1.45 root" (or whatever it would be called) works well for estimations: 1.45√1.92, also known as 1.92^(1÷1.45) = 1.568123... 1.6 marauders cost a neat 120/40, so we'll go with that. 120/40 to beat 150/100. Banshee can fly, banshee can cloak, but the banshee also takes longer to build, only comes from more expensive, later tech starports and cannot use Stim Packs. Comparing Marauders to Hydralisks: - vs Light, hydras are a little better - vs Medium, pretty much even - vs Armoured, marauders are a little better - Hydralisks shoot air but marauders can stim ∴ On the ground, marauders get to be a lot stronger, but due to no AA attack, they are a little more specialised Marauders OP in Starbow, Immortals unsure of because of marauders, banshees may be a little too strong. If we keep marauders for longer, maybe buff Immortals (I would try ~35 versus armoured, personally, maybe something like 18+18 vs armoured) and ...I'm not sure zerg need anything to help out unless you made queens medium rather than armoured. 5-6 zerglings cost similar amounts minerals but no gas and, at least in a straight-up fight (with surround), should come out even. 8-12 in a worse situation for closer cost. ess 'H' on your queens more often. XD Thanks for the streams! On THAT MAP: + Show Spoiler + On July 15 2013 08:17 Fuchsteufelswild wrote: I don't know what size that map is and I can only assume the seemingly resource-free bases are the main bases and that they do actually have resources... but it certainly looks like the distances between other bases would be very close anyway. Everything looks extremely close by air, or by ground if you remove rocks. It would have to be a map with very large dimension to have a hope of working, but forcing something to work with close base designs and large map dimensions makes scouting even harder due to large map scale and empowers proxies/cheese by making them even harder to find. At a glance, without playing it, three thumbs down (one taken from the body of a warrior that fell to a proxy). Right, well, as well as base to base distances being too short, I forgot to point out what Xiphias stated: Stupidly long distance from the main to natural/any other base). It's just a terrible map. Despite your long post - Bio is still underpowered for two reasons; 1) Sentinels give completely map control for protoss vs bio in early midgame, and they syngergize very well with stalkers. 2) Mules reduces bio production significantly early midgame. Just test this vs the AI - When bio is supposed to be strong (10 min mark-13 min mark) it has significantly less stuff than the protoss opponent. Regarding maurauder beating stalker 1on1 (but just barely), IMO that sounds about fine, cus maurauders is really kinda bad vs every other unit. But in general, bio isn't supposed to be cost effective vs protoss gateway early midgame. Instead, it is suposed to have a mobility advantage and roughly the same amount of units out at the 10-13 min mark or a bit more. Below are the changes I would recommend to get the desired effect; Suggested changes - Remove marine upgrade and give them 5 range by default. 100/100 saved can be used for a faster 3rd rax which can increase production a bit. - Reduce BT of barracks, marines and medis by a couple of seconds, and compensate zerg with faster queen BT (to not make reapers OP). - Increase cost of sentinels from 50/100 to 75/100 and possibly compensate it in another way. The current cost of Sentinels provide protoss with a too good gas dumb, which probably will make it so that bio always will have less stuff than the protoss player (since they don't have any early gas dumb). Making it possible to turn off autocast when you place it in your opponents main will be a buff, and other ways of compensating it for higher mineral cost might not be needed. - Make matrix an upgrade that requires armory tech (this will make sure bio doesn't become too cost efficient early midgame). - Reduce marine damage from 6 vs everything to 5 vs light and 6 armored and normal. In PvZ stalker + zealot (+ immortal) synergizes well as hydras deal significantly reduced damage to zealots. But when you have a normal maurauder/marine mix, zealots doesn't do a particularly efficient job of tanking (esp not if they get stim kited) since marines deal full damage to them. Overall this change will be a significant buff to protoss gateway cost efficiency assuming the protoss player get the right unit mix. Compensate marines with 5 more HP (not a lot, but they do need a bit of compensation, otherwise I believe it would be extremely inferior to vultures). Lower damage vs light, will also give reapers a clear role in the midgame as the anti light unit. - Reduce starport cost and dropship cost to reward bio players for creating action by dropping the protoss player. Right now, you simply can't have enough bio production and still tech to dropships relatively fast. @ Immortal - Don't think any changes are needed for balance reasons for this unit if the above changes are implemented. However, I belive we could make it work a bit better in terms of game dynamics and rewarding micro by; 1) Reduce starting movement speed from 2.5 to 2.25 2) Increase range from 5 to 6/6.5 3) Give it a late game upgrade which increases it movement speed from 2.25 to 2.75. This would make sure that the immortal had a clear weakness in terms of mobility, but instead target firing became more microfriendly in battles which will increase its cost efficiency. In the late game (unlike early midgame) it doesn't really serve any purpose to be a very slow unit, and chances are that it will just increase deathball play. Could it be a robo unit? Maybe with the current stats of the stalkers and a signifciant BT reduction. But it will create a less sound fundamental as further balance changes become more complicated, and chances are also that it would lead to less build order diversity. Players will now be more likely to just stick with double robo in the midgame, and thus we will likely no longer see heavy gateway play as a viable option. Overall effect of these changes - Bio will have much more stuff out at the 10-13 minute mark. - Bio will be less cost efficient against a protoss player with good micro and the correct unit composition. This will reward terran players dropping instead of "a-moving", thus the game will become less "deathbally". | ||
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Zaphod Beeblebrox
Denmark697 Posts
It would basically make the Robotics Facility the "Factory" equivalent for the Protoss, producing the main army units of reavers and immortals, while the Gateway produces the lighter supplemetary units of Zealots, Stalkers and templar. This could lead to mass robo builds where the Protoss has a mix of 3 robos/4-5 gateways on 2-3 bases, or even semipure robo tech with Immortal Reaver with some stalkers mixed in for a powerful slowpush army. Protoss staying on gateway tech would be the equivalent of terran bio, being mobile and good for map control. Changing the Robotics facility to be a bit cheaper on gas but with longer build time would solify this movement if we desire this kind of playstyle. | ||
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Hider
Denmark9390 Posts
On July 17 2013 18:56 Zaphod Beeblebrox wrote: Moving the Immortal back to the Robo could have some interesting effects, especially coupled with a general buff to the unit. It would basically make the Robotics Facility the "Factory" equivalent for the Protoss, producing the main army units of reavers and immortals, while the Gateway produces the lighter supplemetary units of Zealots, Stalkers and templar. This could lead to mass robo builds where the Protoss has a mix of 3 robos/4-5 gateways on 2-3 bases, or even semipure robo tech with Immortal Reaver with some stalkers mixed in for a powerful slowpush army. Protoss staying on gateway tech would be the equivalent of terran bio, being mobile and good for map control. Changing the Robotics facility to be a bit cheaper on gas but with longer build time would solify this movement if we desire this kind of playstyle. Robo as a factory building isn't a particularly good solution IMO for two reasons; 1) Gateway units are much less allrond'ish than rax units. 2) It will increase learning costs of protoss as new players will get punished for not getting enough robos. Unless we believe something creates a lot of value to the gameplay, I think Starbow should be as intuitive as possible. | ||
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Zaphod Beeblebrox
Denmark697 Posts
On July 17 2013 19:01 Hider wrote: Robo as a factory building isn't a particularly good solution IMO for two reasons; 1) Gateway units are much less allrond'ish than rax units. 2) It will increase learning costs of protoss as new players will get punished for not getting enough robos. Unless we believe something creates a lot of value to the gameplay, I think Starbow should be as intuitive as possible. Stalkers are still very versitile, but good points apart from that. This is really a crossroad with no right or wrong, wherever the Immortal is built from will be the main army producing building for Protoss. What is chosen determines the future of the race, and further changes should reflect that. | ||
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Xiphias
Norway2223 Posts
Rest seems fine imo. | ||
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Hider
Denmark9390 Posts
On July 17 2013 19:08 Zaphod Beeblebrox wrote: Stalkers are still very versitile, but good points apart from that. This is really a crossroad with no right or wrong, wherever the Immortal is built from will be the main army producing building for Protoss. What is chosen determines the future of the race, and further changes should reflect that. I think the biggest argument for immortal at robo is that players don't really like this unit particularly much (not unexpected), and thus at robo it will be more of a niche unit. And chances are that at robo, it will be the unit you build 1-2 off in the midgame, but once you have reaver tech you will never ever get them again as reaver does a much better job of everything the immortal does. It is somewhat similarly in Sc2, though there are two differences for why we see more immortal play a times; - Collosus has an AA weakness. - Immortals are really good vs mass roaches (which isn't an option in Sbow). Overall, the more clean solution is to have immortal at gateway as the anti-armored unit. The stalker as the antilight, anti normal unit, and the zealot as the tank. Each unit have a very well defined role. With immo at robo, it will overlap a bit with the sentinel as the anti-marauder unit, and obv. it is dominated by the reaver late game. But the of gamedynamic in PvZ seems really awesome - It definitely has a lot more potential than prepatch and any imbalances are easily fixable. Prepatch we really couldn't fix the fundamental problems without making huge changes (such as introducing the immortal). But in TvP I see the fundamental problem as zealots being worse at tanking due to marines dealing full damage and stimmed bio being better at kiting, so protoss players are forced to go immo/stalker vs pure bio, and in those situations they are slightly cost ineffictive (even if matrix isn't used). With lower marine damage vs light, zealots will do a much better job of tanking and the bio vs gateway dynamic will likely work as inteded if bio's production is increased at the same time. | ||
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Big J
Austria16289 Posts
On July 17 2013 19:01 Hider wrote: Robo as a factory building isn't a particularly good solution IMO for two reasons; 1) Gateway units are much less allrond'ish than rax units. 2) It will increase learning costs of protoss as new players will get punished for not getting enough robos. Unless we believe something creates a lot of value to the gameplay, I think Starbow should be as intuitive as possible. gateway units are much more allaroundish than rax units. They just lack the punch of rax units. That's the actual difference between gateway and barracks philosphy. Terran rax can't deal with everything by design (need support vs certain units; mines, tanks, vikings, science vessel - depending on what the enemies strength actually is that you can't overcome), but are generally strong units. If you can eliminate the biocounters you are golden. Protoss gateway can deal with everything by design (huge variety of units featuring melee zealots to langrange HT, splash and singlefire, T1 to T3, no addons, cheap production, no special upgrades), but lacks the raw fighting power to deal with a standing army, as your "mix" of gateway units will generally be beaten by the "specialized" armies of bio/mech or a commited zerg push. If you can mix in enough power units, you are golden. | ||
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Hider
Denmark9390 Posts
On July 17 2013 19:31 Big J wrote: gateway units are much more allaroundish than rax units. They just lack the punch of rax units. That's the actual difference between gateway and barracks philosphy. Terran rax can't deal with everything by design (need support vs certain units; mines, tanks, vikings, science vessel - depending on what the enemies strength actually is that you can't overcome), but are generally strong units. If you can eliminate the biocounters you are golden. Protoss gateway can deal with everything by design (huge variety of units featuring melee zealots to langrange HT, splash and singlefire, T1 to T3, no addons, cheap production, no special upgrades), but lacks the raw fighting power to deal with a standing army, as your "mix" of gateway units will generally be beaten by the "specialized" armies of bio/mech or a commited zerg push. If you can mix in enough power units, you are golden. eh? Zealot/stalker just get owned by pure bio for instance or mech? Without the immortal, protoss gateway isn't allroundish. | ||
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Zaphod Beeblebrox
Denmark697 Posts
Just a random thought - what would happen if we changed stalkers to light armor type and reduced their health a bit more? I think this might give some really interesting interactions with eg. vultures and leave room for gateway compositions to be very personal and complex (mixing to the situation and playstyle) | ||
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Kabel
Sweden1746 Posts
You mention this as problems in PvT: - Sentinels are good at getting map control vs Bio since they are a gas dump. (So P can use his resources more efficently) - Terran has less stuff from Bio, compared to Protoss from Gateways, at the same point of time in the game. You also say that adding the Immortal to the Robotic facility makes the build orders less diverse and increases the learning cost of Starbow... While at the same time you praise mass Gateways as a diverse build order that should be viable... And Immortals should remain at the Gateway, since that is not as hard to learn/understand as Immortal at Robo.. (??) IF we add the Immortal to the Robotic facility, Protoss WILL have less stuff, compared to T, since they need more infrastructure. They can not dump gas in both Immortals and Sentinels as easily. However, Reavers might be the option players prefer over Immortals. But keep in mind they require a LOT more attention to control. We rarely see players have more than 5 Reavers at the same time anyway.. Without the immortal, protoss gateway isn't allroundish. If you are serious with this, I don´t know what you expect from a production building to make it be qualified as allroundish... But the of gamedynamic in PvZ seems really awesome - It definitely has a lot more potential than prepatch and any imbalances are easily fixable. Prepatch we really couldn't fix the fundamental problems without making huge changes (such as introducing the immortal). Not sure what you mean with pre-patch, since there are small patches often. Do you refer to the time before Immortals/Marauder got added? Imo, Immortals have not contributed anything to PvZ yet. (We almost never see them.) The only changes we have now, compared to the time before Immortals got added, is a complete Sentinel, and Stalker damage got adjusted. Small changes. And yet it made the match-up so much better. And I do agree it looks great! Regarding your suggestions; + Show Spoiler + + Show Spoiler + - Remove marine upgrade and give them 5 range by default. 100/100 saved can be used for a faster 3rd rax which can increase production a bit. - Reduce BT of barracks, marines and medis by a couple of seconds, and compensate zerg with faster queen BT (to not make reapers OP). - Increase cost of sentinels from 50/100 to 75/100 and possibly compensate it in another way. The current cost of Sentinels provide protoss with a too good gas dumb, which probably will make it so that bio always will have less stuff than the protoss player (since they don't have any early gas dumb). Making it possible to turn off autocast when you place it in your opponents main will be a buff, and other ways of compensating it for higher mineral cost might not be needed. - Make matrix an upgrade that requires armory tech (this will make sure bio doesn't become too cost efficient early midgame). - Reduce marine damage from 6 vs everything to 5 vs light and 6 armored and normal. In PvZ stalker + zealot (+ immortal) synergizes well as hydras deal significantly reduced damage to zealots. But when you have a normal maurauder/marine mix, zealots doesn't do a particularly efficient job of tanking (esp not if they get stim kited) since marines deal full damage to them. Overall this change will be a significant buff to protoss gateway cost efficiency assuming the protoss player get the right unit mix. Compensate marines with 5 more HP (not a lot, but they do need a bit of compensation, otherwise I believe it would be extremely inferior to vultures). Lower damage vs light, will also give reapers a clear role in the midgame as the anti light unit. - Reduce starport cost and dropship cost to reward bio players for creating action by dropping the protoss player. Right now, you simply can't have enough bio production and still tech to dropships relatively fast. @ Immortal - Don't think any changes are needed for balance reasons for this unit if the above changes are implemented. However, I belive we could make it work a bit better in terms of game dynamics and rewarding micro by; 1) Reduce starting movement speed from 2.5 to 2.25 2) Increase range from 5 to 6/6.5 3) Give it a late game upgrade which increases it movement speed from 2.25 to 2.75. This would make sure that the immortal had a clear weakness in terms of mobility, but instead target firing became more microfriendly in battles which will increase its cost efficiency. In the late game (unlike early midgame) it doesn't really serve any purpose to be a very slow unit, and chances are that it will just increase deathball play. Could it be a robo unit? Maybe with the current stats of the stalkers and a signifciant BT reduction. But it will create a less sound fundamental as further balance changes become more complicated, and chances are also that it would lead to less build order diversity. Players will now be more likely to just stick with double robo in the midgame, and thus we will likely no longer see heavy gateway play as a viable option. Your proposed changes to the Marine/Bio will mess up TvZ. (Or rather, we must rebalance that match-up more.) It could work for TvP, but I am concerned it would affect TvZ too much. Sentinel increased cost sounds resonable. Make Matrix be an upgrade that requires Armory... It might be needed for balance, but it is also incredible boring. Matrix is one of the funniest aspects of Bio, and one of the reasons to combine Bio with other units, like early Tank pushes etc. I would prefer another solution... Do you want free Dropships? How much cheaper shall I make the Starport and Dropships..? If I have missunderstood you, please clarify. | ||
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Big J
Austria16289 Posts
On July 17 2013 19:32 Hider wrote: eh? Zealot/stalker just get owned by pure bio for instance or mech? Without the immortal, protoss gateway isn't allroundish. With allroundish I mean that the T3 gateway features useful units against every other unit in the game. The barracks isn't allroundish by design. E.g. it lacks a real splash unit, which becomes evident when combating banelings for example (you need mines, tanks, vessels for that), in SC2 it lacks a healer that makes it more than a one-stim-combat-composition (medivacs are a starport unit), it lacks artillery to fight artillery (like Vikings or siege tanks to combat broodlords, infestors, tanks, colossi; though the ghost is an artillery against Protoss in SC2). It counters those units with extern units and then wins by beating everything else. --> the main army is a hardcounter to the enemy main army --> the opponent gets options to hardcounter that bio main army The T3 gateway (so mass gateway + cybercore tech + twilight tech + templar tech) on the other hand has all the options by design. For each of your opponents units you can make one of your own units and you will counter it in an isolated scenario. But together and in the longrun (where you are forced to build the wrong gateway units like zealots blindly, as the gameplay does not allow you to start countering marines with templar/archon or mass stalkers right from the start against mutalisks, as your opponent is not forced to open that way) they are just not strong enough to pull you through on their own. You need to mix in some commited techs like robo or stargate that are more costefficient (like colossus/reaver is the more costefficient option to counter marine/marauder). --> the gateway army is slightly weaker than the enemy army, because you can't always build the right units --> the supplement techs/units (robo/stargate) are slightly stronger than the enemy main army, but have to be chosen carefully | ||
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Kabel
Sweden1746 Posts
Another important question, since you are arguably the most pro-Marauder player around: How is Bio vs Gateway units supposed to lead to fun and exciting combats, and in the longer run, to exciting and varied game play? You seem to talk mainly about unit compositions. Protoss shall lose/be punished if they have the "wrong" Gateway units, in a straight up fight vs bio. Bio should also be able to drop much more and have a mobility advantage over Protoss. I can only base it on the games we´ve seen the last week, but Bio fights vs Protoss looks quite lame and unexciting.. I decided to give the Marauder a try, and I will let it remain in the game some more time. (I know it takes time to reach a good game state.) I am just not convinced that the gameplay is funnier/deeper/etc with this new unit. (Yet.) You suggest many balance changes for Bio vs Protoss. But what will all of this lead to? Ps. I know we have talked about this a lot already, but I still think it is important to clarify it some more. | ||
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Zaphod Beeblebrox
Denmark697 Posts
Look at my suggestion to lower the Marauders range and sharpen its design to destinct it more from the Marine. It could even be given some form of concussive shell if it has a range of only 3-4 (I would also suggest nerfing SC2 concussive to single target stacking slow instead of AOE to promote micro) | ||
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Kabel
Sweden1746 Posts
But in the longer run, what will the effect be on the match-ups and the gameplay? I raise this question again as remainder regarding what we try to reach. | ||
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Hider
Denmark9390 Posts
On July 17 2013 20:06 Kabel wrote: @Hider You mention this as problems in PvT: - Sentinels are good at getting map control vs Bio since they are a gas dump. (So P can use his resources more efficently) - Terran has less stuff from Bio, compared to Protoss from Gateways, at the same point of time in the game. You also say that adding the Immortal to the Robotic facility makes the build orders less diverse and increases the learning cost of Starbow... While at the same time you praise mass Gateways as a diverse build order that should be viable... And Immortals should remain at the Gateway, since that is not as hard to learn/understand as Immortal at Robo.. (??) IF we add the Immortal to the Robotic facility, Protoss WILL have less stuff, compared to T, since they need more infrastructure. They can not dump gas in both Immortals and Sentinels as easily. If you are serious with this, I don´t know what you expect from a production building to make it be qualified as allroundish... Not sure what you mean with pre-patch, since there are small patches often. Do you refer to the time before Immortals/Marauder got added? Imo, Immortals have not contributed anything to PvZ yet. (We almost never see them.) The only changes we have now, compared to the time before Immortals got added, is a complete Sentinel, and Stalker damage got adjusted. Small changes. And yet it made the match-up so much better. And I do agree it looks great! Regarding your suggestions; + Show Spoiler + + Show Spoiler + - Remove marine upgrade and give them 5 range by default. 100/100 saved can be used for a faster 3rd rax which can increase production a bit. - Reduce BT of barracks, marines and medis by a couple of seconds, and compensate zerg with faster queen BT (to not make reapers OP). - Increase cost of sentinels from 50/100 to 75/100 and possibly compensate it in another way. The current cost of Sentinels provide protoss with a too good gas dumb, which probably will make it so that bio always will have less stuff than the protoss player (since they don't have any early gas dumb). Making it possible to turn off autocast when you place it in your opponents main will be a buff, and other ways of compensating it for higher mineral cost might not be needed. - Make matrix an upgrade that requires armory tech (this will make sure bio doesn't become too cost efficient early midgame). - Reduce marine damage from 6 vs everything to 5 vs light and 6 armored and normal. In PvZ stalker + zealot (+ immortal) synergizes well as hydras deal significantly reduced damage to zealots. But when you have a normal maurauder/marine mix, zealots doesn't do a particularly efficient job of tanking (esp not if they get stim kited) since marines deal full damage to them. Overall this change will be a significant buff to protoss gateway cost efficiency assuming the protoss player get the right unit mix. Compensate marines with 5 more HP (not a lot, but they do need a bit of compensation, otherwise I believe it would be extremely inferior to vultures). Lower damage vs light, will also give reapers a clear role in the midgame as the anti light unit. - Reduce starport cost and dropship cost to reward bio players for creating action by dropping the protoss player. Right now, you simply can't have enough bio production and still tech to dropships relatively fast. @ Immortal - Don't think any changes are needed for balance reasons for this unit if the above changes are implemented. However, I belive we could make it work a bit better in terms of game dynamics and rewarding micro by; 1) Reduce starting movement speed from 2.5 to 2.25 2) Increase range from 5 to 6/6.5 3) Give it a late game upgrade which increases it movement speed from 2.25 to 2.75. This would make sure that the immortal had a clear weakness in terms of mobility, but instead target firing became more microfriendly in battles which will increase its cost efficiency. In the late game (unlike early midgame) it doesn't really serve any purpose to be a very slow unit, and chances are that it will just increase deathball play. Could it be a robo unit? Maybe with the current stats of the stalkers and a signifciant BT reduction. But it will create a less sound fundamental as further balance changes become more complicated, and chances are also that it would lead to less build order diversity. Players will now be more likely to just stick with double robo in the midgame, and thus we will likely no longer see heavy gateway play as a viable option. Your proposed changes to the Marine/Bio will mess up TvZ. (Or rather, we must rebalance that match-up more.) It could work for TvP, but I am concerned it would affect TvZ too much. Sentinel increased cost sounds resonable. Make Matrix be an upgrade that requires Armory... It might be needed for balance, but it is also incredible boring. Matrix is one of the funniest aspects of Bio, and one of the reasons to combine Bio with other units, like early Tank pushes etc. I would prefer another solution... Do you want free Dropships? How much cheaper shall I make the Starport and Dropships..? If I have missunderstood you, please clarify. Well if marine upgrade gets removed and matrix upgrade implemented without armory upgrade, nothing is "fixed" as bio will still be cost effective early game. But we are at a crossroad now; 1) Do we want bio to have relatively slow produciton but cost effective vs protoss gateway units?. This will reward various 4-5 rax "deathball'ish" timings rather than dropbased play. 2) Do we want to make bio slightly cost ineffective/equally cost effective vs protoss, but increase its production speed instead? This will reward dropbased play and multitasking. If we choose the latter, matrix cannot be an early game ability as it is too good early game. At least not with its current stats. Instead, we need to find ways to make protoss gateway more cost effective vs terran army, and the indirect buff to zealots as a tanky unit is one solution as it doesn't mess up with the PvZ dynamic which seems to work atm. @ TvZ Chances are that bio play without reapers or vultuures will be pretty bad. Thus looking more into the reaper could fix the problem for that matchup. But I would argue that it is fundamentally unssound game design that we have one matchup where zealots only takes 60% damage from the normal unit compostiion (hydra/lurker) while only roughly 80% damage reduction from marine/maurauder/medi compostion. It simply becomes a mess to balance the game accordingly with these assymetries. So I think either we make a change here now, or this problem is likely to haunt us in the future. But obv. balancing bio TvZ around the reaper is debateable as well (and won't be that easy either). The other type of solution is to increase hydra damage vs zealots and instead give zealots a +HP buff upgrade. This will likely be the more simple fix to remove assymetries. While at the same time you praise mass Gateways as a diverse build order that should be viable... And Immortals should remain at the Gateway, since that is not as hard to learn/understand as Immortal at Robo. Well a gateway heavy style (maybe mixed with a few sentinels) is one option you could opt for as protoss. Then there are various kinds of variations. I fear that with immortal at robo, the optimal midgame playstyle would revolve around getting 2 robos on 3 bases and teching to reavers. It is important to note that immortal at sc2 has a different role than immortal in Sbow (at least in TvP). In Sc2 it isn't neccesary to get them vs bio as the game isn't designed around the immortal. Thus, new players will expect that their gateway composition (stalker/zealot) can hold ground against bio as long as they play somewhat defensively (as zealot, stalker, sentry can). But if the immortal/sentinel are neccesity-units, then the game will be balanced around players getting quick robo facilities and building units from that facility before reaver tech is ready. Immortal at gateway is different: It sends clear signals; - Get immortals vs maurauder - Get stalkers vs marines - Get zealots for tanking But obv. this whole learning-costs isn't my biggest concern. The real problem is it just overlaps too much with Sentinel/Reaver in every way, except being easier to control. So if it gets properly balanced, then chances are that bad players will still use it, but top players will skip it as they have the APM to use Sentinel/Reavers instead. Do you want free Dropships? How much cheaper shall I make the Starport and Dropships..? I don't want to come with specific numbers, because it depends on how much stuff bio can have at the 10-13 min mark and how cost effective we want them to be in a straight up fight. But I would suggest you use the below approach; - Outline the desired outcome (e.g. bio should be 10% cost ineffective, but should have equally as much stuff out as the protoss player at the 10-13 minute mark). - Tweak stats in the editor - Run the scenarios w/ standard builds and an equal amount of battle micro from both players. - Evaluate - Tweak various stats further untill we get there. IF we add the Immortal to the Robotic facility, Protoss WILL have less stuff, compared to T, since they need more infrastructure. They can not dump gas in both Immortals and Sentinels as easily. You don't really need immortals if you mass sentinels from my experience. Though obviously having a couple doesn't hurt. But yes - In terms of production - If protoss needs two robos in the midgame, this would definitely help to even out production. That's definitely a great argument I hadn't thought of before. But I still don't like it there, mainly for the "cleanness"-reasoning. Perhaps if Sentinel and Reavers were further differentiated from the immortal, it could possibly work. But likely that would require a lot of work. | ||
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