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Lately I've come to notice I like orbital command much more as a extra feature compared to chrono boost. Both in power level as in from a design point.
Let me first compare the 2 on a power level.
The core part of this is their economic bonus as everyone will agree this is the major use of both abilities early on.
The OC takes 35 seconds to build and gives MULES which will give 270 minerals during their 90s stay. Energy generates at slightly more then 1/ sec if you calucate this all a OC will give slightly more then 3 minerals per second or about 200 minerals a minute. This is about 3.3 scv's which as the OC takes about 2 scv build times to make is a big plus (1.3 scv roughly ahead of normally building scvs). Hence we see everyone making a OC ASAP when the rax finishes. The cost of 150 is also less then that of 3.3 scv's so OC is always superior to making a scv if you got the money, this also leaves me puzzled why people often make scv's first instead of a OC at their expo.
Chrono boost boosts productionrate by 50% for 20 seconds. The new production time will thus be 66.6% of the original one. During one chronoboost one can produce 1,76 probes
while normally that is 1,17. Effectively thus a chronoboost leads to +0.588 probe per chronoboost. 2 chronoboosts thus lead to about 1.18 probe ahead of 'normal' building which about equals the OC in mineral income. Given the fact protoss usually used 2 chrono's by the time terran makes their OC this seems about fair, toss can use additional chrono's on production and even come out a bit ahead in 'scv/probe' count while terran can't get more then 1 OC early...
However you hit a ceiling very quickly. Saturation drastically reduces the effectiveness of extra probes while MULES suffer no pathing uses. Thus chrono boosts on economy hardly become effective after the first 4 without an expansion as you hit saturation effects after 22 probes (16 minerals + 6 on gas).
Saturation exactly is the point which makes the OC imo much better then the chrono boost:
- OC's are build INSTEAD of scv's so they LOWER the speed at which a terran base gets saturated -> terrans can expo slower
- chrono boost QUICKENS the production of probes -> protoss need to expo faster
As a result protoss needs a 2nd, 3rd and 4th way faster then terran as to keep their mining efficiency. This effect gets even worse as terran can balance out the mineral use over bases by using MULES at their newest bases so both deplete at nearly the same time. Games that go late thus give terran's a tremendous advantage in the expansion game.
Added to this is the fact that terran bases that are depleted can fly to new bases while nexi at depleted bases are nearly useless. Also terran has effectively a bigger supply cap as they easily have 10 scv's worth in OC's while toss actually have the probes taking supply.
Offcourse this is just the economic boosting part which is not the whole story, both abilities have other uses.
Terran have increase supply and scan, increase supply is basically a worse eco boost then MULE which should only be used in cases when you forgot to build a depot in time. Scan however is a very valuable tool for needed detection and scouting.
Toss can use chronoboost on 'military' buildings as well giving them a boost. Going from 100% to 66% isn't a huge difference though on building units as unit build speed can easily be addressed by building more of the production building unlike with probes (extra nexi is much harder). For 'key' structures you don't easily make more off as the robo bay and the forge chronoboost is decent, it still seems to be a bit weakish/irrelevant lategame.
The biggest problem I have with chronoboost just boils down to this I guess, lategame it's hardly relevant anymore as even with 100% perfect usage of it the boost in unit production is quite small. Small boosts in probe production can lead to big difference's in economy as any RTS player will know, small boosts in 'military' production don't do so much however. Money and not build speed is the limiting factor for military units afterall.
A extra use to nexus energy would be the perfect solution to this issue I think.
OC have lategame scans/MULES and queens have heal or creep colony as 'energy' outlet but toss has almost no such thing as boosting all the warpgates or anything like that tends to do little in a money tight game.
The extra function would only have to be usefull lategame though not too offset early strategies too much, it shouldn;t be too strong either merely by a output for those 100 energy nexi many toss have lategame.
Options I've seen from others or just think are good include:
- An area of effect shield regeneration. It would cost 75 energy for example and restore shields of protoss units in a area (that of EMP or storm) for 50 over 5 seconds for example. It would give you a slight combat boost lategame while being useless early on.
- Changing the mothership in that it would cost partially energy to make or too maintain. For example reduce it costs and let it cost 90 energy as well, it would be a far more cost effective unit then but hard to 'rush' out as you would need alot of energy on the nexus that makes it.
- (my favorite) Make chronoboosts stackable. Let 2 chronoboosts have double the effect so 2 chronoboosts would make a building function 100 + 2* 50 = 200% thus making build time 50% instead of 66% of the original. It would be ineffective to stack them early on in the game as it would waste chronoboosts slightly (2 separate ones would be more effective then 1 single) but you would get a better use for lategame saved energy.
A couple nexi on 100 energy could boost out a carrier or 2 from a single stargate really quick then, now all you can do is get that carrier at 66% of the original time.
It could make tech switches and army changes a bit more doable later on and make carries a bit better perhaps, without buffing toss early on reallly. The double boost could help against some cheese though, like doubleboosting a stalker against fast reaper for example.
I wonder if some people agree a slight addition would make the chrono boost more interesting instead of the somewhat dull mechanic compared to OC's and queens that in my opinion it is now.
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chrono boost can counter-act build/resource time nerfs to a certain extent as it boosts the unit's/ research's build time and can allow u to reach full saturation much faster than normal.
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I really like the chrono stack idea. I don't think a new ability needs to be added but I agree that their macro mechanic is very weak late game (making an extra production facility or two basically does the same thing, and you aren't THAT starved for cash).
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make chrono affect buliding build time.
And the big problem is that so many strategies are reliant on P being able to chrono units or upgrades faster. IMO this is an issue
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Chrono boost accelerates upgrades. This is a really powerful ability that might not have a direct comparison to MULE but nonetheless is still very good for Protoss.
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I dunno. The ability to speed up crucial upgrades or big units like immortal or collossi seem pretty major even late game.
I think CB is very powerful as it is.
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Chrono boosting an important unit or upgrade is amazing.
As a result protoss needs a 2nd, 3rd and 4th way faster then terran as to keep their mining efficiency. This effect gets even worse as terran can balance out the mineral use over bases by using MULES at their newest bases so both deplete at nearly the same time. Games that go late thus give terran's a tremendous advantage in the expansion game.
the races aren't all supposed to be played the same
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@ Boarding,
chrono affecting building build time could speed up some tech builds etc by too much in my opinion. Assuming you keep the 50% boost it could give you like 20 seconds faster immortals or air. Just in general boosting the gateway would be a really strong boost already, I dont think this is a good idea. It would in fact ONLY boost early protoss and still leave the 'problem' of lategame use for nexus energy.
@ machinus
This use is alright but the only upgrades I tend to be getting lategame are forge upgrades and unless I have 2 forge's that is only a use for 1 boost which doesn't do that much. It is the main source I use my lategame boosts on but it just feels tedious and fairly irrelevant to be honest. Especially given the fact toss upgrades are not that great anyway and going from 140 secs to 93 doesn't feel that gamechanging (if you can perfectly chronoboost).
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The chronoboost stack idea is cool and might lead to interesting strategies. For example, tech to starport as fast as possible off 1 base, then use all saved chrono boosts (energy should be close to 200 at that point?) to crank out a void ray in a matter of seconds. Another interesting use could be to FE, timing it so that a fleet beacon and 2 starports are up around the same time both nexus reach 200 energy, then dump all chrono on the starports to pump out 2 carriers super fast. With the way you did the math, 200 energy would net you 8 chrono boost, which would make the building function at "100 + 400%" = "500%", making build time 20% of what it is normally. Since carriers take 120 seconds to finish, and chronoboost lasts 20 seconds, you would be able to pop out 2 carriers only 40 seconds after the fleet beacon finishes (assuming you have the proper saved resources).
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Give Nexus Argus Link (Energy Recharge)
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On April 07 2010 10:04 Boardin wrote:
make chrono affect buliding build time.
This would break the crap out of pvp so bad and proxy gates would rule all, as well as proxy gates becoming way to strong in pvt and pvz.
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Chrono Boosting already adds such a ridiculous strategical depth to the Protoss race in the form of timing (something that will be of utmost importance not too far in the future) that I don't even see how you can compare it to OC, let alone feel that it needs an upgrade. Allowing Chrono to stack would cause all manner of problems, not the least that it would be more powerful early on than later anyway.
Furthermore, I don't see how mining out one base faster (and specific mineral patches faster than others), and having full saturation later than the other player are good things. It's not ideal to mine out your most secure and important base before the others, which is why Terran players will not usually MULE at their main post-expansion.
As for late game, I still don't see what the problem is. Protoss already has warp gates that allow them to macro up an army faster than ever. Having nearly constant boosts on your robo bays (or forges for upgrades - you're going to want 2 forges anyway) only makes it that much easier.
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Yeah I gotta agree that chrono boost has alot of depth to it and doesn't need any changes to it. Early game I don't think anyone disagrees that the ability can turn tides and affect strategies. Lategame I agree that dropping 5 mules and continuing production even when all your scv's were killed is insanely good, but I wouldn't call chrono boost bad in lategame. I'd rather say that most players haven't gotten used to it enough to use it lategame. They'll just add gateways or robo bays instead. Even lategame (with maybe 3 nexi?) chrono boost can give a great advantage I'm sure, it's just harder to measure its effect than the mule's.
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i dont think its possible to balance chrono-stack tbh. simply giving the nexus more abilities to match queen/OC would be nice. dont know why blizz felt that shield regen just had to go
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the only upgrade i whould like to see is this thread locked for being a strait foward answer, nothing needs to be changed. you may notice that only protoss players seem to suport the idea.
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Chronoboost is fine the way it is. If you're finding difficult ways to use it lategame, it's because you aren't playing at maximum efficiency. Chronoboosting reduces the number of gateways/other production required to produce at a certain rate. That's minerals you could be saving. Chronoboost also really speeds up upgrades which are so important in lategame. The reason people have 100 energy on their nexuses lategame is simple - it takes a lot of apm. Good protosses will be the ones to find uses for it.
If you change it to be any better protoss will become imbalanced. Chrono'd zealots from a proxy gate are already somewhat broken.
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I sorta feel like in certain situations chronoboost is completely outshined by OC. I first came to this idea after watching TheLittleOne vs Nazgul @ metalopolis during the TL SC2B invite. Basically it got to a point in the late game where both players killed off a large portion of each other's workers after mining out 3 or 4 bases (I think it was TLO with 3 vs nazgul with 3 and a half). TLO had about 10(?) SCVs left and Nazgul like 15ish. They both took the high yield expansions and had their whole army there protecting it. It looked like Nazgul was ahead when suddenly TLO called down like 6 MULEs at once and quickly got a HUGE economic lead and made being able to build a probe a few seconds faster look like complete garbage. After a few minutes completely crushed nazgul.
Now I'm not saying that this clearly means OC is completely better than CB or anything, but I think it's definitely something to think about in terms of late-game low-econ balance. Maybe it's just a situation a protoss should never get into just like how Zerg in SC1 always had to be an expansion up on the opponent or something, but it's definitely something that I think really gives Terran a new advantage completely different from anything seen in BW.
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United States47024 Posts
On April 07 2010 09:50 Markwerf wrote:
As a result protoss needs a 2nd, 3rd and 4th way faster then terran as to keep their mining efficiency. This effect gets even worse as terran can balance out the mineral use over bases by using MULES at their newest bases so both deplete at nearly the same time. Games that go late thus give terran's a tremendous advantage in the expansion game.
Added to this is the fact that terran bases that are depleted can fly to new bases while nexi at depleted bases are nearly useless. Also terran has effectively a bigger supply cap as they easily have 10 scv's worth in OC's while toss actually have the probes taking supply.
I would argue that this is intentional. Blizzard probably liked the dynamic in Starcraft 1 PvT where Protoss has to stay ahead on bases to match the Terran's army. Likely, this was Blizzard's attempt in part to preserve that dynamic.
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Hyrule19215 Posts
Regen shield? Seriously? That would make Immortals too godly. EMP wouldn't counter them anymore, and it would make Marauders more annoyingly required. Also, with 2 or 3 Nexi full with energy, you can chrono all your gates and replenish plenty fast. It's really annoying, actually. Not to mention Drop Supplies becomes literally useless.
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there is a whole thread of people tring to find uses for drop supplies beyond the "oh ____" moments.
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Chrono Boost doesn't need improvement, it's fine the way it is.
You can still use it late game on your robo facilities,
And it's extremely valuable to use it to boost upgrades and research.
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On April 07 2010 10:04 Boardin wrote:
And the big problem is that so many strategies are reliant on P being able to chrono units or upgrades faster. IMO this is an issue
I think this is THE issue. I'm not worried much about chrono's performance late-game, but the fact that our early-game HAS to be balance with chrono in mind is bothersome. The big nerf to warp-gates is probably the best example. It was coming out extremely fast due to chain chrono boost. That was killing potential probe boosting aswell, but since it made such a strong early harassment tool, the research was greatly extended.
I'm not trying to debate the nerf, but it is worth noting that our macro tool is probably the only one that directly leads to our units being nerfed because it allows us to get them out faster, and thus they have to get longer build times: which doesn't make us use chrono on them any less often.
I like the idea of chrono boosting building warp times. Though I don't think it would make tech swaps much easier since the biggest block to that is gas consumption.
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how about having everything same but adding optional auto chrono boost ? whereby it will automatically boost one building when boost is finish. Players would have to select the building they want to auto boost though.
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That would remove the need for Micro. We don't need less micro in SC2.
I do however agree that mutiple orbital commands do not lose use, as if u have 200 energy you could easily scan 4x or Mule 4x. With a nexus or 2 or 3 with 100 energy I'd have to CB x8 building for each Nexus with 100 energy. You can use them on Warpgates so that is a good way to Burn CBs, but being able to stack them on a single building would be nice to have. Remember they don't stack multiplicatively they stack additively so each one stack is less effective than spreading them out.
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Chrono-Boost is economically only better in the early stages of the game if you don't expand heavily, but it's just much more versatile than the Mule.
The only problem with the Mule is that it's just too good on high-yield-mins, in fact, both Zerg and Terran have a way easier time to abuse high-yield, because Z can take and defend expansions easier than any other race and Terran can fly CC's around and stack up Mules and call them down at the first second you've taken the high-yield to instantly get ridiculous amounts of minerals.
What I would think would be good is to give chronoboost the ability to also speed up the warp-in of buildings, that way, it would become a bit easier for Protoss to take an expansion and with basically all of the Protoss-Buildings having a very long time to warp in (look at Gateways, Dark Shrine etc. for example), things would IMHO get a bit more balanced. It wouldn't have the biggest effect on warping in buildings anyways, because most of them take way longer than 20 seconds to warp in, so if you take a Dark Shrine for example, 1 chronoboost would reduce the warp-in from a 100 seconds to 90, which is only 10% and therefore not a really big deal but it would get a more viable option to just techrush or FastExpand and therefore create more versatility. Also, it would make 6-pooling, Proxy-Reaper and Proxy-Marauder-pushes harder to pull off and they are instant-wins on certain Maps, even if the Protoss makes a 8-pylon, 10-gateway and chronoboosts the Zealot or get a Stalker as fast as possible.
Stacking up Chronoboosts is IMHO not that good of an Idea, because you wouldn't have to macro correctly anymore and use Chronoboosts constantly. Auto-boosting isn't the way to go IMHO, for the exact same reason.
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reminds me...
does CB, when cast on a nexus, improve the energy recharge, too? ^^
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T3 upgrade: Allows chronoboost to increase building warp in speed.
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United Kingdom2674 Posts
I think the OP makes some interesting points about chrono boost, although I am more dubious about the modification proposals.
The fact is it is extremely difficult to make effective comparisons between two thematically linked but functionally diverse game mechanics such as CB and OC. The versatility of CB is tricky to weigh against the raw but enduring economic power of OC, for instance.
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On April 07 2010 15:48 Gono wrote:
T3 upgrade: Allows chronoboost to increase building warp in speed.
Won't be very useful because you will have many tech buildings by the time you reach tier three. Of course, it could help rebuild your buildings much more quickly if your base gets wasted, but then you would probably rather be using CB on probes.
Anyway, I think Chrono Boost is fine as it is. The fact that it can be used on tech buildings allows Protoss to make timing pushes after a key upgrade much more quickly than the other two races. Also, as others have pointed out, the races aren't meant to be played the same. I agree that the Terrans have a better way of getting minerals, but since Protoss units have more vitality, Terran need the economic boost to keep up. I'm not saying that Terran is OP because of the OC because they need to split the energy between three spells. To keep their economic advantage low, it may be helpful to get a dark shrine in the midgame and sent them out one by one to force scans.
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I had a real hard time figuring out what the thread was about from the title..I thought it was something about overclocking and chronoboost.
Overclocking my video card with chronoboost? that would be pretty awesome.
Another apples and oranges comparison though...They're completely different and each has its own benefits and drawbacks.
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I actually like the idea of the mothership costing energy but being cheaper on minerals/gas. AS it is, no one makes one, because they are too expensive and die too fast.
How about an extremely expensive, but not so useful ability? Even if people CB perfectly non stop, I still think they will have energy stockpiling, because there simply aren't that many useful things to do with it late game. How about for 200 energy you get an extra 1 shield generation on all your units for 30 seconds? That would give the protoss an extra 30 HP on all units for long and big battles. I'm just playing with numbers, one would have to give the exact numbers some in depth thoughts.
One could do the same thing, but instead of extra HP, improve movement speed.
I just think it wouldn't hurt if protoss had a few more options on what to do with their late game energy. it doesn't have to be game changing, just something to actually use up stockpiled energy.
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About the shield refresh - like the batterie, it might be fun if it is a nexus spell and only works within pylon energy area.
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Lategame OC is better.. Land cc on new expansion and mass mule calldown = so much easy money..
Chrono is too micro oriented late game.. Boosting upgrades and research is not that easy.. You must come back and do it to every building every 20 sec.. Most people do it just once and forget about it.. It saves around 7 seconds every time you use it so its not worth dedicating the time to do it most of the time.. Now if you could cast 2 chronos for 40 sec or 2 chronos for 100% faster that would make it better.. Maybe tier 2 nexus upgrade
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United Kingdom2674 Posts
There seems to be a general feeling here that CB is more advantageous early game and OC in the later game but I am not so sure. I was just watching a replay of my most recent loss to marine/marauders and once the terran player's OC was up he was netting between 200 and 350 more minerals per minute than I was without fail from that moment. He was only running one gas but then he only needed one to keep up a continual stream of marines and marauders from three barracks and expanding while I was trying to defend. Interesting.
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Mule is good and all. But I'd rather have chrono boost for twice as fast stim or thors or whatever. The strenght of chrono boost is that it makes all protoss units fast build time. Atleast the first time.
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On April 07 2010 10:07 machinus wrote:
Chrono boost accelerates upgrades. This is a really powerful ability that might not have a direct comparison to MULE but nonetheless is still very good for Protoss.
!! good research will lead toss to the top imo
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Sounds like you don't use Chrono Boost enough late game.
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Stacking might be allowed if you use two nexuses at once on the same building, but it will not be possible to save max energy on a single nexus then use 4x boost from it. Seems OK to me this way, though i wouldn't care anyway. I don't think it is a needed change.
About it not being as useful late-game - I don't care. It came free with the nexus instead of costing you 150 more minerals, so it should be less useful no? And it still isn't useless too - it is effectively half a production building - whatever one you chose it to be.
I think it would make sense to make it simpler to manage though.
Make it autocast, where you just assign which building should be boosted.
Also make it channeled instead of instant with fixed duration - this way you will not waste energy if you do not have production queued up far enough in the future.
It should regen energy exactly as fast as it is spending it (as it is now i think), so any actual saved energy will be a result of missed production time. Then this saved energy allows you to make up for that missed production time by manually pointing it to a second building that it should boost, or even several other buildings (draining the saved energy faster)
I know this suggestion will anger a lot of people here who value their "leet skillz at marco". It's the old argument about adding pointless complications to force the players to pay more attention. For me pointless is pointless though.
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new idea:
have an option of "increases probe gather/movement speed by x% on the selected Nexus" while costing 1 energy/sec. Basically, this would allow a protoss to have more than the normal 16 probes on 8 mineral patches in order to maximise mining efficiency. Depending on the "x" (I don't know which numbers would be needed) one could make it, that maybe 20 probes would saturate a base at full mining efficiency, while the 1 energy/sec would make it a lasting effect.
I feel that protoss are at full mining capacity very quickly when CB the nexus. This idea would allow protoss to effectively stay on their base count longer, while keeping mining effeciency high.
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It's pretty obvious OP is toss player (and biased).
Chronoboost your tech. It's extremely good.
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Russian Federation85 Posts
I'm not sure, but there could be a complete other mechanic for the nexus, which could allow to to warp in anywhere with sight on the map one Gateway unit for 75-100 energy + you need tech for the unit.
Would synergy pretty great with the current Protoss mechanics and would give you mid-late game options instead of boosting whatever 
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If Blizzard is designing Protoss unit production speed, upgrades etc with chrono boost in mind so they adjust the build times to be slower without boost then there is a problem. If not then a good buff will be for boosts to stack.
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The big problem with chrono boost is that is was easy to rush with it. So now all Protoss production is balanced around you chrono boosting to get units out in time. Hence the Chrono boost itself is nearly useless, as the build time was nerfed to compensate.
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On April 07 2010 10:04 Boardin wrote:
make chrono affect buliding build time.
And the big problem is that so many strategies are reliant on P being able to chrono units or upgrades faster. IMO this is an issue
and get 12 zealot rushed in like 8 seconds? no wai bro
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Mule is 50 energy vs chrono boosts 25 though, important note
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On April 07 2010 15:30 kickinhead wrote:
Chrono-Boost is economically only better in the early stages of the game if you don't expand heavily, but it's just much more versatile than the Mule.
The only problem with the Mule is that it's just too good on high-yield-mins, in fact, both Zerg and Terran have a way easier time to abuse high-yield, because Z can take and defend expansions easier than any other race and Terran can fly CC's around and stack up Mules and call them down at the first second you've taken the high-yield to instantly get ridiculous amounts of minerals.
What I would think would be good is to give chronoboost the ability to also speed up the warp-in of buildings, that way, it would become a bit easier for Protoss to take an expansion and with basically all of the Protoss-Buildings having a very long time to warp in (look at Gateways, Dark Shrine etc. for example), things would IMHO get a bit more balanced. It wouldn't have the biggest effect on warping in buildings anyways, because most of them take way longer than 20 seconds to warp in, so if you take a Dark Shrine for example, 1 chronoboost would reduce the warp-in from a 100 seconds to 90, which is only 10% and therefore not a really big deal but it would get a more viable option to just techrush or FastExpand and therefore create more versatility. Also, it would make 6-pooling, Proxy-Reaper and Proxy-Marauder-pushes harder to pull off and they are instant-wins on certain Maps, even if the Protoss makes a 8-pylon, 10-gateway and chronoboosts the Zealot or get a Stalker as fast as possible.
Stacking up Chronoboosts is IMHO not that good of an Idea, because you wouldn't have to macro correctly anymore and use Chronoboosts constantly. Auto-boosting isn't the way to go IMHO, for the exact same reason.
Does chronoboost wear/burn off on a gateway even if a unit isn't currently building? If it is still in effect and you are not building a unit then it would be wasting energy, and I'm thinking it would still be hard to macro so you don't waste that energy... I don't have the beta, so I'm just asking...
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I don't think anyone has mentioned that 3-4 OC's have a significant mineral cost. The mules will make up for it, but it's a balancing factor to consider.
Chrono Boost is really strong already, i don't feel like it needs a buff. If it didn't work on research, that'd be different. But the ability to boost upgrades and ability research is amazing.
I've seen the TLO replay and it seems like a bit of a corner case where you will gain a huge advantage late-game just because of that. It's nice to be able to Lift in a CC with 5 scv's loaded to an expo, convert to PF, and drop 5-6 mules in... But this is the most mobile terran gets. Protoss have warp gates and zerg have nydus/creep highway.
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What a long winded joke. I'll take chrono + obs and you can have my OC that basically puts me back on par with a toss econ when it finishes.
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I like it stacking, just because of the diminishing returns from it stacking. If you have like 8 chronoboosts and you use it to pump out a single carrier that much faster... that's fine to me. I can't see it having drastic impacts on balance at all, early or late game. Only thing it could do would make all-ins that much more "all-in" that it previously was, if that makes sense.
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Chronoboost I think, helps a lot for cramming out counter units in a timely fashion. Like if you went for collusus/sentry/lot and see a mass marauder army, CB makes getting 3 immortals out a lot easier. And althrough OB's can peform multiple tasks, all the energy is spread out, and must be "rationed" between the different abilites. Essentially, protoss in lategame has CB on tap, literally. Going for some 3/3 carrier transition might be useful, or rebuilding an army quickly if some production buidlings have been destroyed. I see no immediate problem with the abilities as is atm.
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It would be pretty nice if protoss could chronoboost building a new nexus, so protoss has a better crack at gold minerals.
Boosting pylons would be really bad.
Another neat option would be if you could chronoboost units for a speed/attack upgrade - zealot rage rush :D
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I´m not much for 2v2, but wanna learn it. But i know you can Chrono boost your teammates aswell, his uppgrades and production. So if your teammate is Terran you can be very creative what to Chrono Boost ^^.
That does sound amazing to me. I wonder if Queen can make larvas to his partners hatchery or if MULE can harvest for his teammate (tho that would be silly because you can just send resourses ingame)
So yeah Chrono boost is great!
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Wow I did not know i could CB a terran's research or unit production.
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On April 08 2010 23:44 Daerthalus wrote:
Wow I did not know i could CB a terran's research or unit production.
It probobly work to chrono boost zergs aswell but have only seen it be done with the terrans. but should be the same  otherwise its lame
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On April 08 2010 23:23 Trollfar wrote:
I´m not much for 2v2, but wanna learn it. But i know you can Chrono boost your teammates aswell, his uppgrades and production.
They patched that in one of the earlier patches. Its not allowed anymore. Was way too over powered for that reason.
Here's an idea, what if you could use 50-75 energy to create a "Planetary Fortress-esk" Nexus for X amount of time. Or maybe create the immortal's hardened shield affect on itself and its surrounding probes or something again for X amount of time. Just throwing out a random idea.
I do like the shield battery effect though. Maybe increase the energy to 150-200 for the nexus and allow it to shield regen on selected targets as it was in sc1. This would help deal with early game cheese's and help keep your more valuable units alive longer. Similar to the Terran's mass repairing of their Thor's but not as annoying do to the fact your unit needs to be near the nexus for the shield regeneration to take effect.
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w00t did they remove the chrono boost your friends ability? xD Doh I did never got the chance to try it out hehehe but yeah it probobly was to awesome.
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Chronoboost is very weak and it is supposedly balanced by the fact that it's free. Using CB on anything cuts the duration by 10 seconds, which may seem nice but in reality isn't much. If you take probe construction for example every chronoboost you use basically gives you 10 minerals and that's it (probes generate about 1 mineral per second). Later in the game you can upgrade faster or build faster but the advantage is so small that it's basically not worth the apm. I have seen chrono used so many times for faster upgrade and then upgrade still doesn't get used for minutes after it's finished (so CB was completely worthless). If you want to use it to achieve faster +1,2,3 upgrades you need a lot of money to make it worthwhile and be able to research again as soon as the first one finishes (which is unrealistic), otherwise it will still end up worthless.
Aside from a slight early game economy advantage (still weaker then both mule and queen),currently the only concrete uses are a slightly faster robo production (requires constant building or the advantage disappears), easier rushes or some tech rushes (almost always all in strategies), or sensitive timing strategies (but the advantage is so small and so easily disappears).
Theoretically, CB can be used to achieve multiple small advantages (very dependent on metagame) that may lead to more advantages later but I would not expect those strategies to get refined until at least a few years.
Anyway, my quick suggestion: Make it stackable but only in duration. That is, using a chronoboost on already chronoboosted buildings will extend the duration of the first boost by 20 seconds. This will at least make it easier to use late game, since currently it is not worth the APM.
EDIT: Actually I retract my statement that it is 10 minerals per boost(it would be if you made only one probe). It is actually 10 minerals + 10 minerals for each probe that you get after it (assuming, constant probe production). So if you go standard boost at 11 supply, you will get around around 140 minerals from the first CB, 130 from the second (maybe less this is just a guess). For later boosts I will make a wild guess of 110, 90 and 70, where you stop building probes (I'm not sure about the boost timings, and this is assuming constant probe production until 26 probes are reached). Now assuming that this is roughly correct, this is like 2 mules, after that mules start to outdo CB (when you get expo CB catches up slightly).
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When watching a PvT, one can't help but notice the income panel. Protoss being able to sneak out extra probes makes it so the MULE ends up helping the Terran just keep up on 1 base. Yes, there are specific situations where having MULES can be really sick - like dropping 8 on a high yield. But chrono boost used well is at least as potent.
You can chrono boost immortals to have them build faster than marines.
You can use two chrono boost on a colossus and have it build faster than a reaper.
You can use chrono boost on upgrades, on mothership, and so forth.
And when you're not using it on those things, you can always use it to build probes twice as fast. Terrans who rely on MULES heavily are always bad in a long game - they don't have enough SCVs to saturate additional bases and they don't have energy for scans. Protoss can smartly and easily abuse the crap out of both those things.
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You can no longer chrono allies, it was changed a few patches ago. You can chrono boost the buildings of other races, but only if the buildings are your own(i.e. by stealing a worker with an infestor or in a custom map).
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Give terran CB and give toss OC... then toss will know just how suck OC actually is compared to CB or queen.
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I no this is an old thread but is there any way u can chrono boost when u are away from ur base.?? I always have to double tap hotkey for say robo then hot key for nex and hit c.It would be a lot easier sometimes if i could do it without having to go back to base.
I no i can do it in the left mini map but its very hard to find the right building to do it on.
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As a protoss user, I approve of any buff to protoss. Chronoboost should be able to recharge unit energy/shield at an increased rate, like recharging templar energy. Also, mothership should cost energy only, should be cloaked, and also have a temporary psi field as one of its abilities.
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I really like chrono boost. I like the versatility it has in the early game. Instead of focusing it on economy like you see the terrans doing constantly with MULES you can use it to get early upgrades, or units if you're planning some sort of 2 gate build. Chrono boost is always kicking ass for productions.
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Unless you plan to stay on 2 bases forever and never expand more than that then there will always be a use for chrono boost. When you have 4 bases they are never fully saturated. You can chrono boost upgrades every 20 seconds and finish them extremely fast. If you never reached 3/3/3 protoss than there is still room for chrono boost to work.
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On April 09 2010 02:48 kme wrote:
Chronoboost is very weak and it is supposedly balanced by the fact that it's free. Using CB on anything cuts the duration by 10 seconds, which may seem nice but in reality isn't much. If you take probe construction for example every chronoboost you use basically gives you 10 minerals and that's it (probes generate about 1 mineral per second).
That math is extremely flawed. You're also clearing the queue so another probe can be made faster, earning you more resources because every single probe thereafter will be made ahead of when it normally would be. You're actually increasing the rate of your gathering which will increase the amount of your gathering every second the game continues on.
For example, if you chronoboosted 3 probes, and probes take 30 seconds to make (don't know what actual value is), you now at all times have 1 more probe. If you play for an additional 5 minutes afterwards, that is going to make you an additional 240 resources.
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Saturation exactly is the point which makes the OC imo much better then the chrono boost:
- OC's are build INSTEAD of scv's so they LOWER the speed at which a terran base gets saturated -> terrans can expo slower
- chrono boost QUICKENS the production of probes -> protoss need to expo faster
I don't agree with that. Mules mines 30 per cargo trip, Terran is going to mining out faster than Protoss IMO. Especially since when P reaches saturation he can stop chrono boosting his nexus and use it on his other buildings, but T is constantly putting energy in to his economy because the Mules are constantly dying off, and as long as he had a decent number of SCVs(maybe 1.5 per patch) those 30 mineral cargo trips are going to dry out the minerals very fast, assuming you use it evenly on the mineral patches. No matter how many probes Protoss has, he is still taking 5 minerals per trip.
Protoss will reach saturation quicker, but when Terran catches up he is going to run dry faster.
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Good example of "the grass is always greener" syndrome. As a Terran player, I would KILL to trade my OC for a chronoboost. Just getting an OC costs 150 minerals and the additional cost of tying up your base, and then all mules do is catch you back up and mine you out faster. Mules are also pretty much worthless once you're saturated. Scan is expensive to use in place of a mule.
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On April 09 2010 03:42 Lz wrote:
Give terran CB and give toss OC... then toss will know just how suck OC actually is compared to CB or queen.
this
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I'm sure someone has suggested this already (+ don't play beta) but being able to "power surge" toss buildings would be awesome... except it would make one of your pylons explode. That would be cool + help your warpgates out.
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On May 26 2010 18:32 ~ava wrote:
I'm sure someone has suggested this already (+ don't play beta) but being able to "power surge" toss buildings would be awesome... except it would make one of your pylons explode. That would be cool + help your warpgates out.
what do you mena by power surge? Is this the stacking chronoboost idea again?
Whatever you do to balance it stacking chronoboost is always going to suck cos it would make stuff like 6-gate double boosted zealot rushes possible
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CB is stupid because they also nerf build times to equalize..
They nerfed gateway build time because chrono zealots come fast.. nerfed observers, immortal times because of chrono..
And also this:
carrier build time : 120sec
battlecruiser: 90sec
is there a reason for this? Yes there is.. P player can come back 3 times every 20sec to that stargate and use chrono on that carrier and it will be 90sec..
Orbital gives you money, chrono gives you what - equal build times?
By the midgame my nexuses are full of energy.. I just dont know what to use them on.. I dont want to boost warpgates as I miss their cooldown anyway, I just build more of them..
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Once you reach saturation MULEs are much better since you're just getting bonus income that protoss can't possibly get without expanding again.
And chrono boosting production doesn't make up for the fact that they have less units.
not imba or anything though.
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(noob question) what is the effect of chrono boosting a warpgate? reduce time to warp in by a second or two? or reduce cooldown??
I was under the assumption that it didn't have any effect once you upgraded the gateway since there isn't a blue bar on the building.
Thanks for dispelling my ignorance.
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imo main strengths of cb are the ability to get early tech advantage (e.g. upgrades, fast voidray), ability to techswitch and to get fast counterunits (e.g. some immortals against roach or stalker, some aa against muta or banshee) and ability to replenish ur army very fast, so u can do one very concentrated and sustained push, so u are able to overpower an enemy with better eco than u, because for small amount of time u can produce faster.
if u can cronoboost buildtime of buildings it will be like getting fast carrier or colosses instead of fast voidray, or dt timingpush at 4th minute. u will get t3 units before zerg gets t2. and it will make cannonrush unstopable!
stacking cbs? i dont know if that makes sence if u can for some time spit t3 units out faster then t1. it will tend toss to funy tactic like build 6 nexusses and to make unstoppable pushes till enemy is broken.
one thing i think would be nice for cb. and it where qeueing of cb. so if u put second cb on the same building, then cb will last 20 sec longer instead of 20 sec from now on.
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On May 26 2010 19:58 mlbrandow wrote:
(noob question) what is the effect of chrono boosting a warpgate? reduce time to warp in by a second or two? or reduce cooldown??
Reduces the cooldown.
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On April 07 2010 16:16 zomgzergrush wrote:
I had a real hard time figuring out what the thread was about from the title..I thought it was something about overclocking and chronoboost.
Overclocking my video card with chronoboost? that would be pretty awesome.
Another apples and oranges comparison though...They're completely different and each has its own benefits and drawbacks.
So what are the drawbacks of an OC? In fakt, none of these abilities (Quenn, OC, CB) do have drawbacks, they are only different usefull in different circumstances.
I like the Mothership idea, because I think it would be fun to see more Motherships. But I think the best idea would be to stack it like other described (just adding the time, not macking it even faster). So in lategame u should put all your CB's an your Robos und use your APM for something more important (or even build a Mothership relatively fast )
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On May 26 2010 19:02 shawabawa wrote:Show nested quote +On May 26 2010 18:32 ~ava wrote:
I'm sure someone has suggested this already (+ don't play beta) but being able to "power surge" toss buildings would be awesome... except it would make one of your pylons explode. That would be cool + help your warpgates out. what do you mena by power surge? Is this the stacking chronoboost idea again? Whatever you do to balance it stacking chronoboost is always going to suck cos it would make stuff like 6-gate double boosted zealot rushes possible
I just thought it would be neat if you could use a pylon to "power surge" so that buildings in its range "power up" for a short time. Except the pylon explodes, maybe damages your buildings/units too. It would only be useful in late game because once the pylon is exploded your buildings would be unpowered unless there were others near by.
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Russian Federation4235 Posts
On April 07 2010 11:35 TheYango wrote:Show nested quote +On April 07 2010 09:50 Markwerf wrote:
As a result protoss needs a 2nd, 3rd and 4th way faster then terran as to keep their mining efficiency. This effect gets even worse as terran can balance out the mineral use over bases by using MULES at their newest bases so both deplete at nearly the same time. Games that go late thus give terran's a tremendous advantage in the expansion game.
Added to this is the fact that terran bases that are depleted can fly to new bases while nexi at depleted bases are nearly useless. Also terran has effectively a bigger supply cap as they easily have 10 scv's worth in OC's while toss actually have the probes taking supply. I would argue that this is intentional. Blizzard probably liked the dynamic in Starcraft 1 PvT where Protoss has to stay ahead on bases to match the Terran's army. Likely, this was Blizzard's attempt in part to preserve that dynamic.
Ironically, PvT in SC2 has nothing to do with PvT in SC1 at all.
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You could also argue that queens are useless late game.
You got enough hatcheries and drones already and you build more high cost units anyway, so you don't need spawn so much.
The creep is already all over the map, so you don't need that either.
And transfusing at the front line, where it is needed, is cumbesome at best with the queen speed.
The strongest aspect of chrono boost, apart from kick starting your economy, is it can speed up upgrades. Something that is not as easily accomplished by adding more research buildings, especially the first upgrades on a specific building.
But, Queens and Chrono Boost help you with both sides of the game: bolstering income, and making use of it.
The OC helps only with the income side. But that it does better than the other two.
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Don't forget the edge you get by mining your base faster. More units and more expansions.
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On April 08 2010 00:46 mathemagician1986 wrote:
new idea:
have an option of "increases probe gather/movement speed by x% on the selected Nexus" while costing 1 energy/sec. Basically, this would allow a protoss to have more than the normal 16 probes on 8 mineral patches in order to maximise mining efficiency. Depending on the "x" (I don't know which numbers would be needed) one could make it, that maybe 20 probes would saturate a base at full mining efficiency, while the 1 energy/sec would make it a lasting effect.
I feel that protoss are at full mining capacity very quickly when CB the nexus. This idea would allow protoss to effectively stay on their base count longer, while keeping mining effeciency high.
Lots of talk about shield regen and mining mechanic changes...
Its called an obelisk, and it was removed from the game:
http://starcraft.wikia.com/wiki/Obelisk
Though I am a terran player, I love all the races, and I wouldn't mind seeing the obelisk come back, at least for the shield/energy regen.
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I had a random, amusing idea - what if you chrono boosted PYLONS instead of research/unit producing structures? The pylon would distribute its speed enhancement evenly among all the active buildings in its radius, and you'd be able to stack chronos if you had multiple pylons powering the same structure(s). Protoss base construction would be far more intricate.
Anyway, I expect Chrono Boost for economy will be more impressive (PvT) when Protoss establish safe, quick-expanding strategies. (This may require better timing, or larger maps, or maybe it already exists and I'm just ignorant.) Chrono Boost is also quite useful for fast research/upgrades, and on expensive productions facilities such a Robo or Stargate that you'd rather not buy an extra copy of.
Please note there's a hidden efficiency in chronoboosting gateway/robo/stargate units (although NOT in chronoboosting warpgates) instead of buying an extra gateway/robo/stargate: not only do you save the cost of the second production facility (duh), but you also don't have to pay for that extra unit in the queue. If I have two robos + chrono building colossus, instead of three robos without chrono, I'm building colossus at the same pace but I saved 200/100 on the robo and 300/200 on the third colossus in the queue, for a total of 500/300 (and also 6 food). That's not chump change.
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On April 08 2010 23:23 Trollfar wrote:
I´m not much for 2v2, but wanna learn it. But i know you can Chrono boost your teammates aswell, his uppgrades and production. So if your teammate is Terran you can be very creative what to Chrono Boost ^^.
That does sound amazing to me. I wonder if Queen can make larvas to his partners hatchery or if MULE can harvest for his teammate (tho that would be silly because you can just send resourses ingame)
So yeah Chrono boost is great!
I tested this when I was zerg and my ally was protoss - he could *not* chrono my hatchery to speed my queen. I think this is false information, though I will try to test again when I get home, since this was months ago when the beta was still new.
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What if a chrono could be stacked, but each stack above the first is only half as effective?
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intrigue
Washington, D.C9935 Posts
added thread tag for you - please familiarize yourself with the strategy forum guidelines here for any future threads you make
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In the mid-late game I use Chrono Boost almost exclusively on upgrades. As Protoss is a very upgrade-dependent race I find it useful in that regard. Using it on Robotics Facilities significantly increases the production rate of Immortals and Colossi which take forever to build. Ditto on Stargates for Void Rays (or Carriers lol). Not to mention Chronoboosting a Mommaship if you decide to go that route - otherwise she will take forever to build!
TLDR: If you are using Chronoboost on your warp gates, you're doing it wrong.
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On May 26 2010 18:17 iEchoic wrote:Show nested quote +On April 09 2010 02:48 kme wrote:
Chronoboost is very weak and it is supposedly balanced by the fact that it's free. Using CB on anything cuts the duration by 10 seconds, which may seem nice but in reality isn't much. If you take probe construction for example every chronoboost you use basically gives you 10 minerals and that's it (probes generate about 1 mineral per second). That math is extremely flawed. You're also clearing the queue so another probe can be made faster, earning you more resources because every single probe thereafter will be made ahead of when it normally would be. You're actually increasing the rate of your gathering which will increase the amount of your gathering every second the game continues on. For example, if you chronoboosted 3 probes, and probes take 30 seconds to make (don't know what actual value is), you now at all times have 1 more probe. If you play for an additional 5 minutes afterwards, that is going to make you an additional 240 resources.
If you read my whole post you would have seen the section after "EDIT:" that addresses that part. But it should also be noted that while it makes you earn more money faster, it also forces you to spend it faster, and thus reducing you benefit even further.
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I didn't want to start a new thread for this, but can you chrono boost like a zerg ally in a 2v2?
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Braavos36400 Posts
On May 27 2010 08:18 nihlon wrote:
I didn't want to start a new thread for this, but can you chrono boost like a zerg ally in a 2v2?
No.
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Takes T a lot longer to get natural saturation, and up to that point, the MULE only helps them break even. The effect is amplified in games where both players expand early. Additionally, the faster income through MULE simply leads to faster depletion of minerals in a base, requiring Terran to expand earlier than their counterparts who use only natural saturation on a base.
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On May 27 2010 08:38 Louder wrote:
Takes T a lot longer to get natural saturation, and up to that point, the MULE only helps them break even. The effect is amplified in games where both players expand early. Additionally, the faster income through MULE simply leads to faster depletion of minerals in a base, requiring Terran to expand earlier than their counterparts who use only natural saturation on a base.
I think you've got it backwards. The faster rate of mining for Terran forces the OTHER player to expand faster than the Terran (before the Terran is at risk of mining out) to keep pace with the Terran economy.
Terran will eventually have to match expansion count since they'll mine out of their main/natural faster, but until they do, N-base terran should be better than N-base Protoss/Zerg, unless the Protoss/Zerg units are more cost effective, which I doubt.
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I like the shield battery idea, I think that with zerg being able to transfuse and terrain repair and heal that this type of ability would be great for protoss, allowing hit and run attacks with shield regeneration in between ex. Immortal drop, then chrono shields to keep up harass.
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i started protoss and switched to terran recently to try it out and I have to say that mules + scans are waaaaaaay better than being able to chrono boost abilities. Yes I can chronoboost warpgates and get 90 sec gateways, but that only helps in the initial game. Mules are effective at mining all game long and scans are invaluable. Also they are significantly easier to use as terran since the decision is already made. Mules go on minerals, scans are used for scanning, supply is only useful maybe once per game or if you are suddenly supply blocked with 10 barracks and don't have an svc building a depot, but with protoss, every time i use chronoboost I have to make a conscious decision about what i'm using it for and that diverts my attention from other things and since I only have around 40-50 apm, it is significantly more difficult, especially since I have to focus on constantly building warpgate units, using an observer to scout, etc. With terran, I can litterally watch my army almost the entire game while macroing using the minimap to do mule drops during a battle, using f1 to quickly build more supply depots (when the guy stops building the previous supply depot), use a hotkey to quickly mass up a huge army. The only thing I go back to the base for is building a new barracks or factory once in a while or to click on a something to research (since I can't find a shortcut to quickly bring up the tech labs, but probably I should just hotkey it). This means more time microing = better chance at winning. With protoss, I have to constantly return to a pylon to build warpgate units, constantly go back to my base to use chronoboost, i have to invest in a robo bay just to be able to scout effectively (compared to scans). With a low APM player like myself, this means that i spend waaay more time at my base, meaning that I can't react nearly as quickly to enemy attacks or if i do, i take way more harm to my macro then i should have.
Also when experimenting with zerg (i've only played maybe 3-4 games with them) i'm starting to find truly how easy it is to macro with zerg as well, although zerg have the problem of having to decide between drones and units all the time whereas the other two can produce either.
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this thread is hilarious..chrono boost/mule/larvae inject is pretty much balanced at this point in the game, so don't expect to see anything new pop up, though these ideas will be great in some UMS games. maybe in the future expansions as the races "evolve", there will be some late tier upgrade to chronoboost (stackable/shield regen); as well as some improvements to OC /larvae inject just to balance it out.
balance people- you can't throw out opinions about how chronoboost is weaker compared to other races, when the win/loss ratios are pretty much even.
the CB makes up for its weakness late game, cause protoss can effectively GET to late game sooner than terran (upgrades/units) as a rule, toss should have 1 more base than terran, due to the terran's defensive/turtle capabilities- toss just has to have more units to throw at him.
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Orbital Command vs. Chrono --> Terran gains less from early, rapid expansion than Protoss, as they're slower to saturate and saturation has less impact because of mules. So Terran should opt for 1-2 bases early, while Protoss should opt for 2-3. Seems intuitive, and only imbalanced if both races are very limited in expansion count (Terran-favoring), or both races can expand with absurd ease (Protoss-favoring).
Chrono boost is much harder to macro, particularly in the late game, but that's not necessarily a problem; it just necessitates getting good. And although they don't require as much screen switching, Terran have to macro from as many as 12 different structures (three kinds of CC, three kinds of Barracks, three kinds of Factory, three kinds of Starport) which I certainly wouldn't want to deal with >_<
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EPT
