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On August 26 2013 23:41 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +On August 26 2013 23:25 decemberscalm wrote:On August 26 2013 22:47 Foxxan wrote:Default SC2 eco isn't terrible in terms of versatility. Main problem with it is that you make too much money. mind explaining this? --------------- a big flaw, of sc2 economy is the second worker - 1/1~/? overall this means you rather have 16 workers on one base than 8workers spread on two bases (8min field) A reason additional bases is not taken for the minerals after the normal 3base is that supply = death or life. The normal is 65 workers on 3base, and if you take a 4th or 5th its for the gas purely. One big reason for this is not the economy initself though, its that supply needs for your deathball Ive said this before and i will say it again anyway: You have 16 workers Two bases 8 mineral fields on each If the income encourage that you spread the workers out (eight on each base), this adds a good depth for gameplay I feel this is very important! You are right about its flaws. But with SBOW economy you've got no income curve. It is 100% when you add first worker per patch. Second worker is always something like 64%. No third worker. Always 1:.64. With SC2 eco, once you reach 16 workers (yes you are correct, first two workers are 1:1) then you get a curve. Each worker brings less and less money. Optimal saturation for SC2 is roughly 24. Third worker brings less and less each one you add. This is similar to how in BW, past 1 per patch each added worker adds less and less each time, but you can still over saturate. You cannot over saturate in Starbow. Most you can do is make sure you've got 1 worker per patch, and then add on top of that. edit: @Economy Me and Xiphias have tried out many different methods. Nothing works for what we want due to smart pathing. Unless I can find anything better I am pretty sure we will need to resort to worker bounce to improve the economy. We played with tons of different methods. If you have a third worker able to mine, the second worker is always 100% efficient. (SC2) If you have a second worker mining under 100% efficiency, the third worker cannot mine. (Starbow). We played with harvesters that delay before returning their money, still no good. This method looked interesting. They experiment with different distances for the mineral fields to give different efficiency levels. I don't think I can properly test it when they don't have an explanation on how to set it up. http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=393800So in summary, worker bounce seems the way to go for now. Is there any downside to worker bounce? (sounds a bit like you would rather have used a different method). If I can avoid using triggers I will. It also means you are adding in a slight bit of randomness but I'm less worried about that part.
I try to avoid modifying too heavily if I can fix things without doing so. If I made a melee mod I probably wouldn't even use custom models.
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On August 26 2013 23:13 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +Buffing stalker damage and blink is playing with fire. If stalkers get better vs hydra then we will see blinktimings, no doubt about it, if the stalkerball is big enough lings wont do shit as they wont have the surface area, hydra's wont do shit because you can keep trading without losing stalkers, muta's obviously will not be the answer either => you're forced into a lot of lurkers => safeguard deals with that + you're really mobile, there are probably enough places on the map to go around the lurkers and surpass terrain unless we only have maps with chokes => map design limited. Well I don't think we ever were close to the stage where you could mass blink stalkers vs hydras. They have always been kinda bad vs them, and at the moment they just suck relative to zealots vs hydras. I think there is a middle ground. Sure if opponent chooses to mass blink stalkers, then you probably need lurkers, which IMO doesn't force reavers (if balanced correctly, this patch should be a nerf), but immortals (now that they are better). Or at least if opponent chooses to go reavers, then abduct can deal with that (immortals are prob a bit less vulnerable to abduct given its cheaper cost).
Yes, stalkers will either suck vs hydra or be abusable with blink, that's the big problem. They are bad to just mix in because their dps isn't really anything special, but once they start doing well enough vs hydra's, then come the timings where you just have too much for the zerg to deal with and keep on trading without losing anything. It's just the same as in WoL, stalkers are bad vs ling/roach cost-wise, but once you get some timing right and have an overwhelming amount there is just nothing the zerg can do.
Show nested quote +I will still take scouts over stalkers vs banshees any day, banshee can abuse terrain, bait out blinks, then you have to wait for blink cooldown, etc. While with the scout, i can just let it follow you so you actually never will be able to really harass anything.
I don't know why you think chasing banshee's is "fun micro", just like defending vs muta, blinking in and out of bases correctly and scouting the movements so you don't get caught offguard at some angle and meanwhile try to scout what the enemy's next move is, is one of the harder non fun things to do. Look at WoL pvz, big mutaballs were one of the lamest things to see, toss couldn't move out unless he went for the baserace. But well this is the exact type of harass where you can leave your base. You can run around the map with your main army, because your 10 stalkers that you send to deal with banshees can take care of that (it depends on your multitasking + micro though). I believe getting too many banshees isn't ideal (cus they aren't that good in battles), so I don't think you have to fear that you can't leave your base. I think most people will enjoy this kind of light harass play.
You missed the point, i probably should have started a topic about muta's separate from banshees. The fact remains banshee can abuse terrain harder than stalkers, you need a couple stalkers do deal with it and you need to babysit them. A single scout can do this job without much babysitting, I will always choose the most efficient unit for the job if the match allows me to => i choose the scout.
Show nested quote +
About turret rings: again, if someone doesn't want to be dropped, he will make sure he doesn't get dropped by all means, what you aim for is some trigger that makes you unable to make more than X turrets per base. And anyway, as said before, if a player makes many turrets, change your plan and abuse the fact that he spent a lot of minerals on base defenses, even if it means it is 'less exciting'. Showing players what you are capable of if they over-invest in base defenses will make them stop doing so, the power is in your hands.
New economy is an indirect buff to turtling. Since I thought the balance of turret rings prepatch was pretty good (it wasn't optimal to get it up too early), I think we should try to maintain that balance. The point is that while boring playstyles will always be optional, they shouldn't be the optimal way to play the game.
Ok, agreed, although i'd wait with such balancepropositions until we have the economy system worked out.
Show nested quote +Early zealot/stalker works because they both deal good enough with lings, the dragoon however is not good vs lings => clear weakness and with dec's awesome new attack system the zerg can micro his hydra's vs the zealots and chase dragoons with lings. Stalker sucks vs speedlings. Try it in the unit tester, its always better to get more zealots than stalkers vs lings.
The problem are the early pushes, when you don't have speed ready. 2gate opening with continuous production can force a zerg to not drone for a long time and this hurts the zerg a ton more than it hurts the toss. The point i was trying to make here is that lings without mass and speed don't counter stalkers and stalkers don't counter the lings. That i don't like, it means that you'd rather just fight the zealots with your hydra's and lings at the same time and then clean up the stalkers rather than hydra's to clean up zealots and lings to clean up stalkers. It has no clear weakness nor advantage which just makes it a numbers game instead of a microdance. Compared to the stalker the dragoon is much worse vs lings (they have slower attack speed, low damage vs them and they are fatter), i rather have that dynamic than a numbersgame where you just focus the zealots down because the stalkers are no threat.
Show nested quote +
You cannot give an extra ability to the stalker to be better vs small groups of tanks, then we are back at the problem where terran just died vs blink-openings, unless you require an extra upgrade that probable comes late enough for the P to choose better harassment options.
I think you can give it a mid/late game upgrade that buffs stalkers in lower numbers but doesn't reward mass blink stalker openings. Further, remember that blink stalkers will be indirectly nerfed with new econ as well. If they stay in the game with new econ, buffing them vs mech actually makes lots of sense.
A buff that comes late enough that makes you want to invest in 8+ stalkers and making it preferable to zealotdrops or warpins without making the stalker too strong again vs mech in a straightup fight. Also making sure the protoss can't just mass stalkers and attack everywhere with small squads over and over again (you want them to do well, so nothing stops the protoss from keep doing it), so there should be a counter to it (otherwise it would be imbalanced right?), what should counter it? stalkers ignore terrain when it comes to invading high grounds etc, so no wall offs or turret rings will help you => there should be a unit that counters it. It should be something available in the mechtree (like ghost is pretty good to complement your army as mech, but nobody does it), so what will it be? mines? can't be mines, otherwise you wouldn't be able to do the harassment in the first place. And above all, it shouldn't affect other unit-interactions.
This sounds really impossible.
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Personally I wanna see this type of balance;
Zealots > lings.
Zealots vs unupgraded hydras = depends on micro for both players (quite even).
Hydras with ups > zealots
Stalker + zealots = hydras (+lings)
Stalkers with blink (+zealots) > hydras and fares okay'ish vs hydra + lings.
Stalkers with blink (+zealots) < lurkers + hydra.
Gateway units + immortals = lurker + hydra.
Stalker + zealots = hydras (+lings)
Stalkers with blink (+zealots) > hydras and fares okay'ish vs hydra + lings.
here it goes wrong, with zealots you cannot use blink (it a defensive ability vs zerg) => so you do pure stalker => you just contradicted an earlier statement of yourself, regarding that blinkstalkers shouldn't be good vs ling/hydra. From the moment they become cost-effective it snowballs.
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The problem with these discussions about the Stalker's role, I think, is that everyone is still thinking of them as the primary Toss ranged ground unit, when what we should be doing is putting the Immortal back in the Gateway, modelling its stats after the Dragoon, and making the Stalker weak versus ground with a good, long-range AA attack - like a really mobile Zerg Queen in a way.
The dynamics should be reading "Immortal + Zealots = Hydra (+lings)" etc. Stalker should be a support unit you unlock with Twilight Council. This could also help prevent rushing to Reavers too quickly, since Protoss will need to invest in either Stargate or Twilight tech to have any mobile AA units, pure Gateway/Robo will be a gamble.
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Yes, stalkers will either suck vs hydra or be abusable with blink, that's the big problem. They are bad to just mix in because their dps isn't really anything special, but once they start doing well enough vs hydra's, then come the timings where you just have too much for the zerg to deal with and keep on trading without losing anything. It's just the same as in WoL, stalkers are bad vs ling/roach cost-wise, but once you get some timing right and have an overwhelming amount there is just nothing the zerg can do.
Yes stalkers do that well in low numbers, however that isn't to say that they either will suck or be too good. I just think it will force lurkers, and then zerg is cost effective, so it isn't the same as in WOL as we have a new unit here.
You missed the point, i probably should have started a topic about muta's separate from banshees. The fact remains banshee can abuse terrain harder than stalkers, you need a couple stalkers do deal with it and you need to babysit them. A single scout can do this job without much babysitting, I will always choose the most efficient unit for the job if the match allows me to => i choose the scout.
Yeh some unit can abuse terran (?) I think that's a good thing (design wise of course. Whether banshee's are slightly too fast/too much HP is a balance issue though).
The problem are the early pushes, when you don't have speed ready. 2gate opening with continuous production can force a zerg to not drone for a long time and this hurts the zerg a ton more than it hurts the toss. The point i was trying to make here is that lings without mass and speed don't counter stalkers and stalkers don't counter the lings. That i don't like, it means that you'd rather just fight the zealots with your hydra's and lings at the same time and then clean up the stalkers rather than hydra's to clean up zealots and lings to clean up stalkers. It has no clear weakness nor advantage which just makes it a numbers game instead of a microdance. Compared to the stalker the dragoon is much worse vs lings (they have slower attack speed, low damage vs them and they are fatter), i rather have that dynamic than a numbersgame where you just focus the zealots down because the stalkers are no threat.
With current stats though, your always better off continuing zealot production than mixing in stalkers, so the strenght of the two-gate problem lies with the zealot, not with the stalker. Anyway, I think you will be surprised how poorly the stalker performes vs lings in any number with new sc2 pathing. It might be slightly better than dragoon still, but its not really an issue here. Please try it in the unit tester when you have time.
contradicted an earlier statement of yourself, regarding that blinkstalkers shouldn't be good vs ling/hydra. From the moment they become cost-effective it snowballs.
I don't think I ever said blink stalkers shouldn't be able to do well vs hydras? I like that some units with higher tech can be cost effective vs other types of units as it forces the zerg player to mix in Tier 2 nits of his own (vipers, lurkers) Isn't that desireable?
But your right. If the zerg is caught off guard with pure hydras in the midgame and perhaps has got slightly too greedy, then strong blink stalkers performes incredibly well vs hydras which indeed doesn't create a back and fourth game if zerg doesn't add in Lurkers in time. I don't see that as a realistic concern though, as I believe the metagame will just be too mix in tier 2 units pre 12 minute mark as zerg every game. Is that a huge problem?
A buff that comes late enough that makes you want to invest in 8+ stalkers and making it preferable to zealotdrops or warpins without making the stalker too strong again vs mech in a straightup fight. Also making sure the protoss can't just mass stalkers and attack everywhere with small squads over and over again (you want them to do well, so nothing stops the protoss from keep doing it), so there should be a counter to it (otherwise it would be imbalanced right?), what should counter it? stalkers ignore terrain when it comes to invading high grounds etc, so no wall offs or turret rings will help you => there should be a unit that counters it. It should be something available in the mechtree (like ghost is pretty good to complement your army as mech, but nobody does it), so what will it be? mines? can't be mines, otherwise you wouldn't be able to do the harassment in the first place. And above all, it shouldn't affect other unit-interactions.
This sounds really impossible.
Yes its a late game thing only. Often times with a mech player on 4 + bases or so he will have his units spread out and if he has a planetary with 2-3 tanks and a couple of turrets and mines, toss can't really engage that efficiently without commintg quite a lot. So that's where I see the blink stalkers role in the matchup as it will allow it to do something that other units can't (harass relatively weakly defended positiions with a planetary).
My suggested modified absorb ability could perhaps work I think (would need a lot of tweaking though). If it still takes splash damage then large amount of tanks will scale really well vs stalkers. So obv my idea is that the stalkers will kill the two tanks, plaentary mode activated --> then retreat (maybe lose 3 stalkers in the proces or so). This won't break the game in any way, but likely just add a bit more multitasking and aggressive options for protoss.
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So here is my suggestion for the modified absorb ability;
- Upgrade at twilight council (requires templar tech to be researched)
- Cost for upgrade: 100/100. 120 seconds research time.
- When activated the stalker can only take splash daamge for a period of 4 seconds.
- Cooldown: 40 seconds.
- When activated it reduces the HP/shield of nearby friendly units by 15% of remaining HP + shield.
The latter is quite an important addition as it makes the ability alot harder to use when you have lots of stalkers because you can't really split of all the stalkers, then press the absorb-ability and then engage with blink. And if you don't split the stalkers and still use the absorb button, alot of your stalkers will be left with barely any HP.
Instead, it will make stalker groups of 8-12 incredible powerfull in the late game in the hands of a protoss player with good micro and good multitasking. It will now work brilliantly out of the "deathball" and it has lots of offensive potential (rather than being good at preventing stuff).
So obviously the exact stats can be adjusted and refined. In a previous post, I outlined which scenarios I would test. In the scenario with 2 tanks + a planetary, I would try to create an outcome where 10 blink stalkers could kill of the two tanks, force planetary activation mode, and then retreat and "only" lose 2-3 stalkers in the proces.
My biggest concern with the ability is actually that it may punish misuses too big. Like if you have 10 stalkers in a clump and press the button, then the HP will be in the red or something (as it is 15% remaining * 10).
The solution/tweak could be to make the ability only reduce shield (not health) and if you don't have 20 shield left, then it won't activate.
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That kind of mechanic is too forced and will also simply mean it won't get used. Also it will be very hard to determen when you can use it.
I would like to resuggest something i suggested for the immortal a while ago. Resonance Shields. What it means is that the immortal or Stalker will only be able to take shield damage once per second, as opposed to Hardened Shield when limits how much damage it can take from one strike.
The micro part of this ability is quite simple, you wanna make sure that as few units as possible take damage as once, as their life is timed rather than meassured in quantity. 1 marine will break through absorb in X seconds. 2 marines will break the shield in same X seconds. But if 2 marines attack 2 different immortals then the shield will break in same X seconds. I think it could bring in some intresting relationships. It could also be broken. To the silly extreme. But the insentive to split isn't forced down the troat.
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On August 27 2013 05:47 Sumadin wrote:
That kind of mechanic is too forced and will also simply mean it won't get used. Also it will be very hard to determen when you can use it.
I would like to resuggest something i suggested for the immortal a while ago. Resonance Shields. What it means is that the immortal or Stalker will only be able to take shield damage once per second, as opposed to Hardened Shield when limits how much damage it can take from one strike.
The micro part of this ability is quite simple, you wanna make sure that as few units as possible take damage as once, as their life is timed rather than meassured in quantity. 1 marine will break through absorb in X seconds. 2 marines will break the shield in same X seconds. But if 2 marines attack 2 different immortals then the shield will break in same X seconds. I think it could bring in some intresting relationships. It could also be broken. To the silly extreme. But the insentive to split isn't forced down the troat.
What do you mean? Its too complicated?
I disagree if that's the case because remember it is just one unit you need to move around the map. Stuff gets complicated when you need to mix in several different units to accomplish stuff. For instance, previously there was talk about having to use matrix on dropships so you can fly behind turret wall offs, or nerve jammer the turrets so you can go in with the drop ship. That is something which is really complicated and comes with an extra risk (like having an SV in a position to neve jammer turrets is quite risk).
With stalkers in TvP mech (and other matchups as well due to recall abuse) you are acutally running around the map easily with them. However, you just can't do shit vs the 2-tank + planetary combo. If you have some APM you can now do it with this mechanics. It doesn't requrie any extra APM or any extra risk to get the stalkers into the position outside the planetary (since you have map control anyway. But it is only the exact execution which requires APM, and I belive that is a good thing. You shouldn't be able to A-move a defensive location (that would be OP), instead you need good micro to do it, which is exactly what this abililty rewards.
Thus, I think it is important to understand the difference between when harass is complicated (like the SV/matrix+drop thing) and when something is just challenging (as this is). The latter is something that is desireable, the former isn't.
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I mean exactly what it says. Too forced. The ability actively punishes you for not splitting. Punishing for not splitting should really come from the opponent. An ability that only hurts yourself would need to have a severe benefit or it will just not see use.
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On August 27 2013 07:05 Sumadin wrote:
I mean exactly what it says. Too forced. The ability actively punishes you for not splitting. Punishing for not splitting should really come from the opponent. An ability that only hurts yourself would need to have a severe benefit or it will just not see use.
Why? If the benfit of splitting and then using it outweighted the APM cost then it would see use.
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On August 27 2013 03:59 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +Yes, stalkers will either suck vs hydra or be abusable with blink, that's the big problem. They are bad to just mix in because their dps isn't really anything special, but once they start doing well enough vs hydra's, then come the timings where you just have too much for the zerg to deal with and keep on trading without losing anything. It's just the same as in WoL, stalkers are bad vs ling/roach cost-wise, but once you get some timing right and have an overwhelming amount there is just nothing the zerg can do.
Yes stalkers do that well in low numbers, however that isn't to say that they either will suck or be too good. I just think it will force lurkers, and then zerg is cost effective, so it isn't the same as in WOL as we have a new unit here.
Yes that was my original point:
On August 26 2013 23:03 SolidSMD wrote:
Buffing stalker damage and blink is playing with fire. If stalkers get better vs hydra then we will see blinktimings, no doubt about it, if the stalkerball is big enough lings wont do shit as they wont have the surface area, hydra's wont do shit because you can keep trading without losing stalkers, muta's obviously will not be the answer either => you're forced into a lot of lurkers => safeguard deals with that + you're really mobile, there are probably enough places on the map to go around the lurkers and surpass terrain unless we only have maps with chokes => map design limited.
It will make stalker/reaver better, and i know you're not a fan of that.
So in short, it will be really hard to not have any blinktimings be really good (and this usually means end of the game, if you can trade a bit to start, then it just snowballs out of control), especially because blink can't be too far in techtree because you need it to defend vs mutarushes. And second the possible maps that will be decent for starbow will be very narrow.
Show nested quote +You missed the point, i probably should have started a topic about muta's separate from banshees. The fact remains banshee can abuse terrain harder than stalkers, you need a couple stalkers do deal with it and you need to babysit them. A single scout can do this job without much babysitting, I will always choose the most efficient unit for the job if the match allows me to => i choose the scout. Yeh some unit can abuse terran (?) I think that's a good thing (design wise of course. Whether banshee's are slightly too fast/too much HP is a balance issue though).
quoting you:
5B) With the current balance, protoss can just rape banshees by researching speed on Scouts, but if that ability is removed, he will instead prefer to mix in blink stalkers to try and defend vs the banshees.
6b) Assuming the protoss player stabilizies/kills the banshees with his stalkers, they become quite oboselete with current balance. However, with some kind of offensive small squad threat to them, they will be usefull for harassing relatively weakly defended outer expos. Thus they can now function as an anti deathball unit.
I believe this type of balance/dynamic is a lot more fun, and rewards scouting/reacting/decisionmaking, harass, "fun micro" (rather than spamming) and anti-deathball play too a larger extent.
I was explaining to you why one would not do the stuff you would predict them doing which would lead to 'fun gameplay'
Show nested quote +The problem are the early pushes, when you don't have speed ready. 2gate opening with continuous production can force a zerg to not drone for a long time and this hurts the zerg a ton more than it hurts the toss. The point i was trying to make here is that lings without mass and speed don't counter stalkers and stalkers don't counter the lings. That i don't like, it means that you'd rather just fight the zealots with your hydra's and lings at the same time and then clean up the stalkers rather than hydra's to clean up zealots and lings to clean up stalkers. It has no clear weakness nor advantage which just makes it a numbers game instead of a microdance. Compared to the stalker the dragoon is much worse vs lings (they have slower attack speed, low damage vs them and they are fatter), i rather have that dynamic than a numbersgame where you just focus the zealots down because the stalkers are no threat.
With current stats though, your always better off continuing zealot production than ling production, so the strenght of the two-gate problem lies with the zealot, not with the stalker. Anyway, I think you will be surprised how poorly the stalker performes vs lings in any number with new sc2 pathing. It might be slightly better than dragoon still, but its not really an issue here. Please try it in the unit tester when you have time, and I think you will be surprised how bad stalkers actually are.
Like you say, they are not good vs lings but also not bad, they 3shot lings atm. they are a middleground unit which, lings don't counter them hard enough early on for them to choose to fight the stalkers alone while hydra's deal with zealots, this is the problem. You're rewarded for ignoring the stalkers and fights the zealots with both lings and hydra's because they are the real threat. => it's a number's game with little micro involved, you either have enough to kill the zealots and push back the stalkers after or you don't have enough. Compared to where you can send your lings around the zealots chasing the dragoons while you micro your hydra's versus the zealots (dragoons have a slower firing rate and only do 10 damage vs lings) while the toss can try to catch the lings with his zealots while the dragoons chip away at the hydra's. These engagement become much more versatile and you want to do different things if the ling/hydra ratio varies (i don't think i need to explain this much more than i already have, you either don't want to see the point or you ignore it). Also not that toss now has a reason to mix in dragoons because it's worth to micro them vs hydra's, their attack speed is slower, so going in and doing one shot and backing off is worth it, with stalkers that is not the case as hydra's do the same or more damage with each volley. So the protoss will not go only zealots.
Show nested quote +
contradicted an earlier statement of yourself, regarding that blinkstalkers shouldn't be good vs ling/hydra. From the moment they become cost-effective it snowballs.
I don't think I ever said blink stalkers shouldn't be able to do well vs hydras? I like that some units with higher tech can be cost effective vs other types of units as it forces the zerg player to mix in Tier 2 nits of his own (vipers, lurkers) Isn't that desireable? But your right. If the zerg is caught off guard with pure hydras in the midgame and perhaps has got slightly too greedy, then strong blink stalkers performes incredibly well vs hydras which indeed doesn't create a back and fourth game if zerg doesn't add in Lurkers in time. I don't see that as a realistic concern though, as I believe the metagame will just be too mix in tier 2 units pre 12 minute mark as zerg every game. Is that a huge problem?
misread something probably, thought you had said that.
Show nested quote +A buff that comes late enough that makes you want to invest in 8+ stalkers and making it preferable to zealotdrops or warpins without making the stalker too strong again vs mech in a straightup fight. Also making sure the protoss can't just mass stalkers and attack everywhere with small squads over and over again (you want them to do well, so nothing stops the protoss from keep doing it), so there should be a counter to it (otherwise it would be imbalanced right?), what should counter it? stalkers ignore terrain when it comes to invading high grounds etc, so no wall offs or turret rings will help you => there should be a unit that counters it. It should be something available in the mechtree (like ghost is pretty good to complement your army as mech, but nobody does it), so what will it be? mines? can't be mines, otherwise you wouldn't be able to do the harassment in the first place. And above all, it shouldn't affect other unit-interactions.
This sounds really impossible. Yes its a late game thing only. Often times with a mech player on 4 + bases or so he will have his units spread out and if he has a planetary with 2-3 tanks and a couple of turrets and mines, toss can't really engage that efficiently without commintg quite a lot. So that's where I see the blink stalkers role in the matchup as it will allow it to do something that other units can't (harass relatively weakly defended positiions with a planetary). My suggested modified absorb ability could perhaps work I think (would need a lot of tweaking though). If it still takes splash damage then large amount of tanks will scale really well vs stalkers. So obv my idea is that the stalkers will kill the two tanks, plaentary mode activated --> then retreat (maybe lose 3 stalkers in the proces or so). This won't break the game in any way, but likely just add a bit more multitasking and aggressive options for protoss.
dropping speedlots is always better for such things, also, you'll ahve to come up with something that completely ignores mines as they are the stalkers biggest nightmare when blinking up a cliff. Gonna be hard to not make em too good to soak up mines before engagements.
edit: your suggested solution sounds really weird and not something i'd bother myself using.
first split your stalkers then activate ability then blink in and hope there aren't more than 2 tanks because the ability only gives you 4 seconds (which will be about 1 volley of siege shots).
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@hider
it's fiddly and too complicated. it makes no sense from a lore or flavor perspective that stalkers would hurt your own units. compare your proposed ability to stim, which makes perfect sense the first time you read it. Dangerous, ability enhancing drugs. Take damage, increase speed. Simple, flavorful.
Whats your ability named, why does it allow you to avoid damage, but why can't you avoid splash? why does it hurt your other units? It could possibly be a great ability, but it's not elegant, it's not simple, and it was designed to force a certain playstyle.
more than that, you're insisting that stalkers be able to fight a defended position by themselves. maybe they shouldn't be able to.
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I think we should use the Starbow Wikia as a compendium for spell, ability, upgrade, and units ideas.
We've had tons of different suggestions for basically just about everything. It is almost impossible to find anything in this thread older than a few days.
I think we could use a wikia section on Starbow ideas categorized by race and then unit type.
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On August 27 2013 07:53 Fishgle wrote:
@hider
it's fiddly and too complicated. it makes no sense from a lore[ or flavor perspective that stalkers would hurt your own units. compare your proposed ability to stim, which makes perfect sense the first time you read it. Dangerous, ability enhancing drugs. Take damage, increase speed. Simple, flavorful.
Whats your ability named, why does it allow you to avoid damage, but why can't you avoid splash? why does it hurt your other units? It could possibly be a great ability, but it's not elegant, it's not simple, and it was designed to force a certain playstyle.
more than that, you're insisting that stalkers be able to fight a defended position by themselves. maybe they shouldn't be able to.
I think you will have a difficult time designing a game if you want to have realism into it. This is mostly about creating a fun game.
Absorb was previously on immortal but it was removed. Not for realism reasons but becasue it didn't add anything besides one extra click to the immortal. This ability though is quite different for two reasons;
1) It solves (if it works as I believe it does) the Stalker role in TvP mech.
2) It isn't spammy as it comes at a cost. Thus you need to have intelligent micro to use it effiicently.
Further remember that we can have abilities in the game that isn't neccesarily intuive as long as they aren't neccesity/basic units/abilities. This upgrade is purely optional as great experienced Starbow players can take advantage of it. New players doesn't get punished for not using it (you can still win without it).
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Stalker Resolute Shields.
The stalker drains a small amount of shield power from friendly units around it in order to modify its own shields with an extra shield layer.
This extra but thin layer temporarily prevents glancing fire to the main shields before it dissipates. A direct hit to the stalker will penetrate the extra layer with no problem dealing damage directly to the main shields.
This is similar to sloped tank armored in that shots that don't penetrate will not be effective. You need a solid shot not a glancing blow.
There I lored it for ya.
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you're forced into a lot of lurkers => safeguard deals with that + you're really mobile, there are probably enough places on the map to go around the lurkers and surpass terrain unless we only have maps with chokes => map design limited.
I think its quite unnuanced to say safeguard + blink stalkers just beats hydras + lurkers. Its really just a micro battle with sentinels being vulnerable to target firing (at least it should be balanced that way).
dropping speedlots is always better for such things, also, you'll ahve to come up with something that completely ignores mines as they are the stalkers biggest nightmare when blinking up a cliff. Gonna be hard to not make em too good to soak up mines before engagements.
Not in the specificed scenario with turrets + planetary + two tanks. Warp prism can perhaps suicide on top of one of the tanks and unload 2-4 zealot before it dies, however, then you can unsiege quite easily activate plenatary mode, repair tanks while microing it away. From my experience your really quite safe (in terms of efficiency) against anything but a recall with two tanks + planetary + turrets.
edit: your suggested solution sounds really weird and not something i'd bother myself using.
first split your stalkers then activate ability then blink in and hope there aren't more than 2 tanks because the ability only gives you 4 seconds (which will be about 1 volley of siege shots).
One volley is quite good though when you blink on top of tanks. Regardless, you always need to know roughly how many tanks the terran player has at his expansions as this is an important factor when you choose how/when to engage with your main army. So I am quite sure that your not flipping coins here with the stalkers.
Taking out the tanks at an outer expo + forcing planetary mode is a good win for the protoss. If the terran doesn't back it up/send new units to defend it within 30 seconds you can go in against with the stalkers, and if he does try to to send new units to defend it, then chances are that he becomes vulnerable in another location. Regardless, I believe it will be a really powerfull way that good protoss players can open up the game (without recall) vs a mech'ing terran.
You could argue that this anti-deathball role of the stalker is being occupoed by air units at the moment, but air units gets countered by turrets. Stalkers on the other hand counter someone who has overinvested into turrets, those it simply creates a unique way of harassing that requires a different type of response from the mech'ing terran. I believe this type of design gives the matchup a lot more depht.
Dragoon is indeed the easier solution, but are you sure you aren't being too narrowminded/bias'ed at the moment?
I was explaining to you why one would not do the stuff you would predict them doing which would lead to 'fun gameplay'
Your argument was that you would use scouts to counter banshees? Yeh thats possible as well, however I think that will be quite ineffective for two reasons;
1) Against a fast reactive terran player you should never be able to kill a banshee with a scout due to movement speed advantage. At least blink stalkers can blink in and maybe pick off one banshee before the terran retreats .
2) You want your Scouts with the main army to Emp vessels. If the terran knows your chasing his banshees with the Scouts, then he can get greedier with his expansion taking. Stalkers though are different, they are not really necceasary in the battle, and the protoss can still threaten an attack with 10 stalkers chasing banshees around.
At the moment though it could very well be optimal to get even more Scouts (like 10-13 or so) vs banshee + SV combo and take half of them to chase banshees and half of them to threaten main army. However, that is likely a consequence of stalkers being bascially dead weight in terms of offensive potential vs mech. But I believe that if stalker gets a new offensive ability, then your much more inclined to get 10 stalkers rather than 6-7 extra scouts, as the stalkers then will have utility after you have cleaned up the banshee harass.
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Yeah i'm biased as fuck, i'm doing the same thing you are on purpose, giving random reasons why A should work and B wouldn't work. But i don't have the stamina you have to keep this up as long as you do.
I think its quite unnuanced to say safeguard + blink stalkers just beats hydras + lurkers. Its really just a micro battle with sentinels being vulnerable to target firing (at least it should be balanced that way).
i also think it's quite unnuanced to say that terran gets a huge profit when i have 2 scouts going on a solomission following banshees, anyone in his right mind would agree that having 2 scouts following a couple banshees is better than chasing them with 10 stalkers.
Against a fast reactive terran player you should never be able to kill a banshee with a scout due to movement speed advantage. At least blink stalkers can blink in and maybe pick off one banshee before the terran retreats .
You don't need to kill them, you just gotta make sure they can't harass, if fact i'd say you're much better off with a scout because banshees can hide behind ledges where toss can't follow him with stalkers, then the banshees might go around and hit somewhere else, abusing the stalker immobility compared to banshees.
I could use the same weird argument: if terran makes 4 banshees to harass, then his army is weak because he has less vessels and i can just break him. It's bullshit, there's a small chance that is it like that, so you cannot prove that it's wrong. Yet you use this constantly in your arguments.
But I believe that if stalker gets a new offensive ability, then your much more inclined to get 10 stalkers rather than 6-7 extra scouts, as the stalkers then will have utility after you have cleaned up the banshee harass.
Nigga please, scouts have way more utility than stalkers when fighting vs mech, case closed.
From my experience your really quite safe (in terms of efficiency) against anything but a recall with two tanks + planetary + turrets.
Another thing "from my experience". From my experience, you aren't safe vs speedlots running in.
And again, what you're trying to add is just a weak form of what other units can do better (arbiter), and your ability being available maybe 2 minutes earlier doesn't justify that. You're also gonna have hell of a time balancing it out + make it realistic. having to isolate your 10 stalkers from each other before using that one ability is just bullocks.
One volley is quite good though when you blink on top of tanks. Regardless, you always need to know roughly how many tanks the terran player has at his expansions as this is an important factor when you choose how/when to engage with your main army. So I am quite sure that your not flipping coins here with the stalkers.
Like you said, you'd do this IF there are many turrets, this means you have to be really lucky to have your observer get through there without being sniped, counting on you enemy not looking there => the scouting alone is already flipping a coin.
You try to hard to make this ability work, but it is unrealistic and forced.
+ It goes too much against the notion of area control, if you wall off an area and put siegetanks behind that + some turrets then you should be safe against basic units or at least be able to hold out long enough for reïnforcements to get there.
Unless it lategame and you scout arbiters coming in => now you can put a vessel at possible recall locations and emp the arbiter before it's able to cast. The protoss can again try to counter that with having 2 scouts as escort. Etc..
With your ability, terran has to counter it before it's coming, just having enough tanks there and that will easily become the norm when toss starts doing it. Then there are 2 possible outcomes:
-terran is not taxed by leaving enough siegetanks at his expo's/toss can not abuse it the terran spreading himself thin:
nobody will bother to do the stalker thing
-terran is spread too thin and toss can abuse it by doing deathball attacks:
we're gonna have more whineposts from you about terran having to spread himself too thin.
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The idea of a temporary defensive boostin exchange for damaging nearby allies is interesting, but Hider's version would be broken.
The problem is that defensive boosts are not that interesting (read: secondary positive attribute), so they need to be overwhelmingly stong to be of any use (matrix anyone?). To balance this out they need an impressive couterbalance to not make them broken.
My take on this (for Stalkers) would be something like this:
Void shift/meld/whatever fits - The stalker phases out of existance for 2 seconds becomming untargetable (but can still be damaged indirectly) and unable to blink or shoot. Once the ability ends the stalker rips back into reality dealing 30 damage (less to armored?) to all units in the nearby area including the stalker itself.
It will be hard to balance, but fits better thematically and allows more counterplay and decisionmaking.
When that is said, I still prefer to balance Stalkers with speed and more focus on offense than defence.
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My internet is down at home, so I can not look at the files/stuff some of you have PMed me. (At a library atm)
XiA is currently working on fixing bugs. As soon as he is done, the file will be sent to December so he can implement the micro stuff, and potentially a new economy.
I will not have time to reply to any of your stuff now. I will probably log in tomorrow again since I work the rest of the evening.
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EPT
