|
First of all, I need to say that I am strictly a Zerg player and know absolutely nothing about playing Protoss other than just watching tourneys.
It occurred to me today that archons cost 100/300 if you make them out of high templar. I never really realized how cheap they were in minerals, and the first thing I though was "wow, that could free up a lot of money for zealots..." It seems that the Archon may be an extremely potent weapon against zerg, for the reasons I will list here.
I've always wondered why archons were considered so weak, considering they have 350 shield (which can be regenerated insanely fast), and 25 (+10 bio) damage attack that hits ground and air. Everything the zerg has is biological, including structures.
Compared to the immortal, they can take more abuse from zerglings and kill them faster, since they have a 35 damage attack. They can take the same amount of abuse from roaches - once the hardened shields go down, an immortal will have absorbed 60 damage, giving it an effective health of 360.
Compared to the colossus, they have roughly the same HP, and are not vulnerable to anti-air attacks. They do slightly less damage, but they are much cheaper and available slightly earlier.
Unlike both the colossus and the immortal, the archon can attack mutalisks. It takes 4 shots for an archon to kill a mutalisk, and 40 for a mutalisk to kill an archon (bounce effects aside).
So I started experimenting with a build that would go for fast gas, a few warpgates, and a templar archive. Using what limited knowledge I have of protoss early game (9 pylon 12 gate?), I made several attempts to mass an early army of zealots and archons. After several trials just against the computer, I was able to get an army of 8-9 zealots and 2 archons with an expansion on the way and charge just beginning at exactly 8 minutes. I realize things are different in a game with an opponent that will be harassing and whatnot, but with a zealot-blocked wall that shouldn't be much of a problem anyways.
If anyone has any thoughts on how this could be used effectively, please share. It's a shame these awesome units aren't ever seen on the field.
|
An army consisting of melee units PLUS melee units doesn't seem really well balanced to me.
Well, you never know... but I sure miss Archons  I hope this (or another) strat will work, since you definitely can't use them at all against T...
|
Interesting, i think this would be an effective timing push if you could get charge. Might be better if you used dark templar instead of high templar too, that way zealots can tank, dark temps deal lots of damage, and archons do splash. hmm i gotta try this.
|
Ya...plus that big ol' ball of energy just strongly reminds them to get a ghost...which for some reason a lot of T players forget about when going vs P. But seeing that boy rolling toward them tends to spark that reminder of the old BW days of "Crap! Where's my Sci Vessel? I need to EMP these marshmallows!!"
|
On May 02 2010 06:56 Nouar wrote:An army consisting of melee units PLUS melee units doesn't seem really well balanced to me. Well, you never know... but I sure miss Archons I hope this (or another) strat will work, since you definitely can't use them at all against T...
If you're going against ling/roach, what's the problem? Melee/melee vs melee/melee. Archons have a range of 2 and can attack air, so I wouldn't even really classify them as melee anyways, just "really short range."
On May 02 2010 06:58 Morayfire73 wrote:
Interesting, i think this would be an effective timing push if you could get charge. Might be better if you used dark templar instead of high templar too, that way zealots can tank, dark temps deal lots of damage, and archons do splash. hmm i gotta try this.
The idea behind getting the HT is to warp them into archons immediately. An archon built with DTs costs 250/250, which defeats the purpose. Also, the HT tech builds in like half the time that the DT tech does.
|
On May 02 2010 07:01 Dookie wrote:
Ya...plus that big ol' ball of energy just strongly reminds them to get a ghost...which for some reason a lot of T players forget about when going vs P. But seeing that boy rolling toward them tends to spark that reminder of the old BW days of "Crap! Where's my Sci Vessel? I need to EMP these marshmallows!!"
Ghosts? I'm talking about PvZ here. I specified that in the introduction.
|
played a game against the AI, this seems like it might work, i was able to do a good timing attack with 2 archons and charge lots.
|
problem I think is that they are just so much worse than BW archons lol. no splash (and really vs zerg you NEED splash)
|
they have severely decreased splash a lot slower attack speed and vs mostu nits lower damage output. Combine that with all the godly ranged units in SC2 it makes the archon useless unless your tempalrs are out of energy.
|
On May 02 2010 07:18 Morayfire73 wrote:
played a game against the AI, this seems like it might work, i was able to do a good timing attack with 2 archons and charge lots.
Ive tried archons before, and they just arnt viable vs much of anything anymore, they cant attack and move at the same time, and HTs with storm are much more useful. They really are only there to help a push once your HTs are out of energy, so you dont have fragile units that are dealing 0 damage.
the AI isnt anywhere near a challenge it builds no units or does anything at all really, this will get smacked down by anyone with a bit of knowledge about archons.
|
Against a relatively fast roach mass you would have to get cannons since you neither have immortals nor alot of stalkers in this build. But yeah if you do get past the early game I imagine it could be quite nice. The only problem is that roaches/hydra will probably demolish it and even just pure roaches. I think it might be worth trying to go for this without the zealot charge as its expensive.
I'm gonna try this on ladder a couple of times (random player bout 1500 plat europe) and see if it holds up against a decent plat player.
|
I do share your feelings towards the archon. I'm actually very happy when my HTs run out of energy, I still survive the fight and I haven't won the game outright - I might even field 3-4 archons as a supplement to my ~150ish army and they look quite cool there (even if they barely do anything  ).
I doubt that what you described is viable at all on higher levels of play, but since this is the first theorycraft topic that sparked my interest as a P player, I promise I'll give this a go in customs when I have the time (tomorrow perhaps), and get back to you with the results.
I have a feeling that any roach-centered build will crush this, as you have to attack and they'll have creep to help ezmode micro. However, let's hope I'm wrong oin that regard 
|
Sweden33719 Posts
I would imagine that in addition to not being as strong anymore, the new way gas works (basically, when a geyser is out, it's out, unlike in SC where you could still mine one or two gas per probe even when it was depleted), probably hurts them a lot.
|
they have no range and compared to most sc2 units archons attack really slowly. like ultralisks they just aren't very good at anything... gas is extremely difficult to acquire in sc2 compared to sc1 and because of that roaches are >>> archons. minerals are mined so much more quickly in sc2 that mineral cost by tier 3 is almost moot below 300 whereas gas is everything and actually limited unlike in sc1 where depleted geysers still gave you gas.
main problem vs zerg with archon zealot armies is that archons are too slow in sc2 to work at all against mutas as anti-air when you also need them to fight roaches which devour zealots.
|
ah yes, i would love to see the 4 gate 2 archon push in sc2. however, didn't the archon splash get reduced? itsn't that why they "suck" now?
|
I don't see this working.. first, archon is very slow. Put that in combination with creep, and that means that Z can move out roaches/hydras with minimal effort and spank your archons as they please.
They are big, which makes them easy to surround with lings. He's supposed to counter them, but the splash is so small it's barely noticeable. I think despite of his +bio, anything zerg can throw at archons is cost effective.
|
They are still good against mutas, splash and all.
|
Archons are simply not effective combat unit's for their costs. Against terran they obviously have huge flaws, and against zerg sentries are simply much more effective for anything. 3 sentries can do a ton of usefull stuff with their abilities and almost have a similar damage output.
From what I've heard blizzard intentionally made archon's a 'bad' unit as the HT and the colossus already fit the role of 'splash' unit in the protoss army. The archon supposed only serves a role in niche situations which 99% of the time is a couple of high templar being out of energy while in combat. Even this use isn't that fantastic considering they take quite a lot of time to merge.
Merging dark templar into a archon seems totally bad actually as even with detection around it feels like the dark templar do more.
I guess their coolness factor kept blizzard from removing them completely but they have virtually no uses.
|
How does 350 shield get regenerated insanely fast? They have to be out of combat for 10 seconds, then its 2 shield regenerated every second. That's almost 3 full minutes sitting there recharging if they get low.
|
pretty sure the bottom line here is that dustin browder is a piece of shit. and the idea that a game's concept should start with "we'll make a bunch of cool units and go from there" is not nearly as blizzard's pre-browder era concepts.
don't get me wrong, sc2 is still fun and i will continue playing it, but things like intentionally shitty units just because they overlap with other units is stupid.
|
I just dont get why the fuck you would intentionally design a unit to be so worthless. Like, what could possibly be a good enough reason to give the players fewer options in terms of army composition. Overlaps with psi storm and colossi too much? well just replace colossi with reavers in BW and there was still a perfect amount of diversity in protoss units...and BARELY enough splash damage lol.
|
On May 02 2010 08:38 dNo_O wrote:
pretty sure the bottom line here is that dustin browder is a piece of shit. and the idea that a game's concept should start with "we'll make a bunch of cool units and go from there" is not nearly as blizzard's pre-browder era concepts.
don't get me wrong, sc2 is still fun and i will continue playing it, but things like intentionally shitty units just because they overlap with other units is stupid.
nothing can make you people happy. first everyone was complaining that units were designed with too narrow a purpose and that blizzard shouldn't assign units specific roles. then when people figured out that blizzard just tried to design cool units and let the player figure out where they fit in people still find ways to complain about it. not every unit in the game will see regular use that's just the way it is.
|
what unit doesn't see a regular use in sc1? scouts and? queens are still used, just not often, but scouts could seriously be removed from the game and nobody would really notice.
however, browder's games all have units where it's like, "why the fuck would i ever build that?"
which is what the archon is now. <--- trying to go back to topic, sorry if i sort of derailed.
|
wait a minute, how did my thread get derailed so quickly...
|
On May 02 2010 08:46 mahnini wrote:Show nested quote +On May 02 2010 08:38 dNo_O wrote:
pretty sure the bottom line here is that dustin browder is a piece of shit. and the idea that a game's concept should start with "we'll make a bunch of cool units and go from there" is not nearly as blizzard's pre-browder era concepts.
don't get me wrong, sc2 is still fun and i will continue playing it, but things like intentionally shitty units just because they overlap with other units is stupid. nothing can make you people happy. first everyone was complaining that units were designed with too narrow a purpose and that blizzard shouldn't assign units specific roles. then when people figured out that blizzard just tried to design cool units and let the player figure out where they fit in people still find ways to complain about it. not every unit in the game will see regular use that's just the way it is.
the statement that archons with splash damage overlap with colossi and psi storm too much is just ridiculous though. I mean colossi are the exact same role as reavers in BW and they didnt overlap at all. They're fundamentally different enough IMO.
Not that I really agree much with dno_o though lol. honestly I dont think "we'll make a bunch of cool units and go from there" is too a design philosophy so long as theyre also different enough. Which I think archons w/ splash and colossi are lol
|
I addressed the issue of massed roaches in the OP. Technically, the Archon will take the exact same amount of damage from roaches as immortals, if the roaches don't have damage upgrades. Archons may not deal 50 damage to roaches, but archons are better all-around units, they take the same supply but cost less minerals meaning they can be supported by more zealots. Archons will also be warped in much faster, and if the push doesn't work, you're already set up for HT tech, which is very good against most zerg armies.
To the person that said archons are slow, I don't understand why you'd think that. They move ever-so-slightly faster than speed upgraded zealots, and much faster than non-upgraded 'lots or or roaches. Their attack isn't much slower than the immortals, and against anything but roaches and ultralisks, the Archon deals almost 50% more DPS (!!!). The more I study this unit, the more disappointed I am that it hasn't been used at all, especially when the reason seems to be "dustin browder sux lol"
According to SC2Armory, the archon's attack has a splash radius of 1. That's absolutely huge, despite all the complaining that seems to be going on... it's much larger than the thor's AA splash, which dominates mutalisks that are balled up. It also means that any zerglings surrounding the archon will get melted instantly.
|
archons aren't really cost effective anymore in sc2...
not only are their range decreased, their splash radius is also decrease, their attack speed is also decreased.......
1 zealot + 3 sentries for the price of an archon will do far far far more damage than a single archon, even if mixed into a zeal/sentry army
it's true that shields recharge much quicker now, but honestly, i'd rather have the battery back, it would take ages to wait for even 100 shield on the archon.
if archons get changed at all in the near future, 1/0/1 would need to be tested out instead of 1/1/0
|
primarily it comes down to gas being so much more important and that one unit that costs 300 is equivalent to so many more units that have more mobility and react faster to commands than archons do. archons aren't very quick to respond and when they stop to attack you can move most zerg units out of range faster than the animation allows archons to actually do their damage. =\
|
i don't play z or p but the issue with the archon may just be that zerg doesn't actually have that many melee units. zerglings and ultras are both used less and making archons vs ranged units was never a great idea.
|
Russian Federation396 Posts
archons arent what they used to be
|
They aren't cost effective. That's really the end of the story. They need a slight tune-up in splash, perhaps a little longer range, but really, the devs seem content with the archon as it is. I don't think we can change their mind
|
On May 02 2010 10:32 WorkersOfTheWorld wrote:[...] I don't think we can change their mind that'd be the beginning of the end tbh...
i can understand if they dont want to buff a protoss unit as long as the race performs ok...ish...ly...
but the archon does not exactly stack with the effects of HTs as it s produced out of them.
and even if the archon became a popular unit, there's always the option to increase morph time if the transition from psi storm to archon would hurt the matchups.
|
Make archons have larger splash or do 100% damage in their tiny splash radius and perhaps we will see them become more used.
|
On May 02 2010 10:41 roemy wrote:Show nested quote +On May 02 2010 10:32 WorkersOfTheWorld wrote:[...] I don't think we can change their mind that'd be the beginning of the end tbh... i can understand if they dont want to buff a protoss unit as long as the race performs ok...ish...ly... but the archon does not exactly stack with the effects of HTs as it s produced out of them. and even if the archon became a popular unit, there's always the option to increase morph time if the transition from psi storm to archon would hurt the matchups.
The race performs well according to their stats, and that's what they base most decisions on. If anything, people using archons would cement their position as "fine," as is. Reality, however, is that archons are almost never used, and when they are morphed they either die (close battle), or join the army as a mediocre unit that does little more than take up space. In PvZ, the archon is scary-looking, but an intelligent zerg will know that they have little to fear from the big ball of gas. They are essentially a trash-can where you put two spent templar, and blizzard believes that means it's ok that nobody actually wants the archon, but rather, they want the templar, and for reasons unknown also find themselves compelled to push the morph archon button rather than just let the templar regen or suicide them for a more effective chunk of supply.
They offer a semi-immidiate gain (morph time is stupid long) for energy-less templar, but i think that's one of the biggest gripes with HT vs. something like the colossus. They're spent quickly, and unless you have something to feedback (spending storm energy), they're highly un-impressive. They're quickly becoming "that aoe unit for when the enemy has infestors." Which is a wonderfully stupid niche in and of itself.
/rant off
|
they should at LEAST make the morph time nearly instant then so they can help in the fight after you storm instead of die in the next fight afterward.
|
The nerf to their splash amount and the fact that mutas spread out when attacking makes them near useless versus them. In SC1 they were mainly used vs zerglings and mutas, and since zergs don't usually make many lings any more. And vs protoss, the collossus does a fine job of evaporating zealots where archons were used before. In its current situation, it's not really a unit that can be balanced by just changing numbers (which seems to be blizzard's approach to everything in SC2 i.e. there not being a critical mass of phoenixes vs mutas).
|
On May 02 2010 11:02 Ideas wrote:
they should at LEAST make the morph time nearly instant then so they can help in the fight after you storm instead of die in the next fight afterward.
totally makes sense. you should be able to carpet storm you opponent's army then immediately get a 350hp unit.
|
so just did some testing...
0upgrade on archon does 1shot to targetted zergling
2archons vs 8 roaches (8 food 8 food) well, target fired 1 roach, archons dead.
tested shield upgrade as well, yea...200/200 for lvl 1(crossed fingers for pure awesomeness) same effect as +1 armor, end of story.
1 archon couldn't clean up a drone surround fast enough, had to micro through a hole and kite (funny right) and the archon almost died.
splash sucks, fine, morph time sucks, fine, but for fuck sake, increase the attack speed, an archon will probably only get off 2 or 3 hits before a small marine ball focuses it down and refill their zippos with it.
|
On May 02 2010 11:30 Conris wrote:
so just did some testing...
0upgrade on archon does 1shot to targetted zergling
2archons vs 8 roaches (8 food 8 food) well, target fired 1 roach, archons dead.
tested shield upgrade as well, yea...200/200 for lvl 1(crossed fingers for pure awesomeness) same effect as +1 armor, end of story.
1 archon couldn't clean up a drone surround fast enough, had to micro through a hole and kite (funny right) and the archon almost died.
splash sucks, fine, morph time sucks, fine, but for fuck sake, increase the attack speed, an archon will probably only get off 2 or 3 hits before a small marine ball focuses it down and refill their zippos with it.
Yea, it's quite depressing. Thanks for the laughs at the end though, lol.
|
Troll topic, archons are fail
User was warned for this post
|
it is sad, useless units that server no purpose.
|
It's pretty sad that an awesome unit gets so few showtime in all P matchups... I definetively think Blizzard will make something about Archon splash damage, because really at this moment Archon has no role in P army other than give 0 energy HT's attack.
|
i thought the reason archons suck now is because they are basically melee.. so they cant attack over top of zlots (which they should imo) and they don't do splash damage anymore. so pretty big reasons why they are bad and should be fixed considering how gas expensive they are i think they need to have range 3 or 4 and splash damage and then they will be extremely effective again.
|
I think the main problem is that if toss really has "excess gas" (which happens, I suppose), they already have a very effective way to use that gas in the form of sentry. Archons are 100/300, but you could get 3 sentries for 150/300 and get much higher dps + FF in return for fewer hitpoints (but not that much... 3 sentries = 240 pts of damage taken, and half of that benefits from armor ups)
|
On May 02 2010 08:29 febreze wrote:
They are still good against mutas, splash and all.
The splash was completely removed.
|
Archons do 14.7 DPS against non-bio and 20.6 DPS against bio. By contrast, a Zealot does 13.3 DPS against all.
A Zealot costs the same as an Archon minus 300 gas.
Why would you ever spend 300 gas for less than 200 extra hps and a slight DPS increase against bio? The only answer I can see, besides building Archons out of HTs that are out of mana, is air.
But given that every air unit has longer range than Archons and can fly over obstacles, how do you plan to ever get your Archons into combat with them?
For this reason, if you're going to do a timing attack with an Archon, wouldn't it be better to just do it with three more zealots instead?
|
On May 02 2010 15:26 Kakisho wrote:Show nested quote +On May 02 2010 08:29 febreze wrote:
They are still good against mutas, splash and all. The splash was completely removed.
I was testing this with a friend who was playing as the Protoss. The splash was absolutely NOT removed... if it was, it was added in a recent patch. it has a splash range of 1, much larger than the thor AA splash radius, and his archons were completely dominating mutas that weren't micro'ed and scattered out.
|
creep + ranged units >>> zealot/archon.
|
On May 02 2010 15:36 MoNoNauT wrote:Show nested quote +On May 02 2010 15:26 Kakisho wrote:On May 02 2010 08:29 febreze wrote:
They are still good against mutas, splash and all. The splash was completely removed. I was testing this with a friend who was playing as the Protoss. The splash was absolutely NOT removed... if it was, it was added in a recent patch. it has a splash range of 1, much larger than the thor AA splash radius, and his archons were completely dominating mutas that weren't micro'ed and scattered out.
splash was never removed, but the radius is small, 3 marines lined up if you target the middle one you'll hit all 3.
easiest example at closest range, a drone surround, you'll hit 3 drones at a time, end of story.
thor AA splash is...no where near less than archon splash, not to mention air units stack at points, ground does not. the natural scatter range of mutas (click move idle) to an archon means, no splash for you. not about to invest such high tech and cost of building archons to scare off a couple mutas, if the zerg pays any attention to the mutas at all, an archon will def not kill them.
having an archon in your army is no different than having HTs as a part of your composition (it's your clutch, and it eats away the numbers in your army) however HT still pulls a little weight if you can afford to get storm fast enough, but archons do not. PvT, archons should rape atleast 1/4 of the bio ball, but it doesn't because it hits too damn slow, 350/50 is nothing honestly. Immortals have hardened shield and marauders focus them down how fast?
and like i said before, tested 2archons vs 8 roaches, 2 archons perished, 1 roach went to heaven, unless the guy decides to charge lings at you, but seriously, not that many ppl use lings as meatshields anymore.
it doesn't matter if the archon dies within the first 5 seconds of the engagement, but if they can do worthwhile damage, it'd be ok. once again their attack speed is just saddening, can you imagine a corsair from sc1 attacking at half the speed it does now? yes, it would be totally useless. that's where the archon stands.
also a sidenote, though the archon took FULL damage from everything minus upgrades, wtf does psionic type unit mean in terms of damage mitigation?
redesign the archon, or give templars 10 extra energy when they finish building so they're not completely useless unless you research the energy upgrade, and if they run dry, then they run dry.
then again this is SC2 not SC1, archons don't need to be as intimidating as they were in SC1, but honestly, make them useful in anyway please? right off the bat would be when they die they cause damage to enemy units around them, kind of like a lesser baneling, or whatever, but change the damn unit mechanics
|
It's amazing how much made up facts there are in this thread.
Archons have roughly the same splash areas.
Units do not appear to be smaller in size considering the in game unit used for measurement, and ground units clump a lot more.
The big difference here is that mutas do not stack in the same way - in BW an archon would often hit all mutas with 100% damage, while in SC2 he is very likely to hit only one muta with 100% damage.
That doesn't have anything to do with archon splash, and increasing the splash area also wouldn't make it the same as in BW.
They also have the same range as in BW.
The second big difference is that they attack way slower.
Attack cooldowns:
BW: zealot - 22, Archon - 20
SC2: zealot - 1.2, Archon - 1.754
|
On May 02 2010 09:01 MoNoNauT wrote:
I addressed the issue of massed roaches in the OP. Technically, the Archon will take the exact same amount of damage from roaches as immortals, if the roaches don't have damage upgrades. Archons may not deal 50 damage to roaches, but archons are better all-around units, they take the same supply but cost less minerals meaning they can be supported by more zealots. Archons will also be warped in much faster, and if the push doesn't work, you're already set up for HT tech, which is very good against most zerg armies.
To the person that said archons are slow, I don't understand why you'd think that. They move ever-so-slightly faster than speed upgraded zealots, and much faster than non-upgraded 'lots or or roaches. Their attack isn't much slower than the immortals, and against anything but roaches and ultralisks, the Archon deals almost 50% more DPS (!!!). The more I study this unit, the more disappointed I am that it hasn't been used at all, especially when the reason seems to be "dustin browder sux lol"
According to SC2Armory, the archon's attack has a splash radius of 1. That's absolutely huge, despite all the complaining that seems to be going on... it's much larger than the thor's AA splash, which dominates mutalisks that are balled up. It also means that any zerglings surrounding the archon will get melted instantly.
I think you are a troll.. Archon is a cool unit but when you factor the price of 100m 300g its a terrible terrible unit..
It doesnt deal 50% more DPS then ultra (!!!)
Ultra does more then archon with its bonus.. Where did you get your numbers troll..
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=115345
Ultras also have more hp and some real splash.. Archons have splash when units overlap.
Blizz has said that archon is meant to be something you can do with templars out of energy, not a unit you would want to get normally..
|
The archon has a role but it is not a unit you build as a specific counter (at least from blizzards perspective), accept it.
|
Never seen a protoss do Archons in any game i've played even when we've been TPvsZZ
|
Archon's had 2 purposes: 1. as a tank, and 2. as a splash damage unit. the immortal has tanking covered and archon's no longer have splash. All this means archon = not worth it, aside from making use out of energyless HT in an pinch.
|
You should play against real people first before you propose radical new strategies.
I do hope archons and ultras get buffed.. they're simply too weak.
On May 02 2010 08:38 dNo_O wrote:
pretty sure the bottom line here is that dustin browder is a piece of shit. and the idea that a game's concept should start with "we'll make a bunch of cool units and go from there" is not nearly as blizzard's pre-browder era concepts.
don't get me wrong, sc2 is still fun and i will continue playing it, but things like intentionally shitty units just because they overlap with other units is stupid.
Right now my biggest problem with the hellion is it isn't fun enough to use. (It should be even more fun). I like browders approach.. and redundancy should be avoided at all costs in a game about balance.
|
Somebody do a test of 2 archons vs. however many mutas to get 8 food. How about archons vs. equal food in hydras?
I don't think proving that 2 archons loses to 8 roaches proves in itself that archons are useless.
|
On May 02 2010 20:26 suejak wrote:
Somebody do a test of 2 archons vs. however many mutas to get 8 food. How about archons vs. equal food in hydras?
I don't think proving that 2 archons loses to 8 roaches proves in itself that archons are useless.
Muta are more mobile and have more range. No test is needed. Archons would fail if both players micro.
|
On May 02 2010 20:38 DeCoup wrote:Show nested quote +On May 02 2010 20:26 suejak wrote:
Somebody do a test of 2 archons vs. however many mutas to get 8 food. How about archons vs. equal food in hydras?
I don't think proving that 2 archons loses to 8 roaches proves in itself that archons are useless. Muta are more mobile and have more range. No test is needed. Archons would fail if both players micro.
You can't outmicro archons with mutas, not on this battle.net.
|
I found one more use for the archon!
It's the most effective unit to hallucinate if you are looking for something to soak up damage.
1 archon has 350 shield + 10 hp, 2 zealots have 200 hp and 100 shield, 1 colossus has 200 hp 150 shield and a immortal has 200 hp 100 shield (with hardened shield though evne on illusion).
Offcourse a armor upgrade even nullifies this if those work on hallucinations.
Besides this archons are only good when high templars are out of energy, there is not a reason ever to forge two dark templar into a archon it seems. Even the high templar merging is only good when you are sure your templar otherwise just die because with the 17 sec merge time the archon will come too late too really help in the battle usually.
|
United States22883 Posts
On May 02 2010 06:48 MoNoNauT wrote:
First of all, I need to say that I am strictly a Zerg player and know absolutely nothing about playing Protoss other than just watching tourneys.
I think this is by far the most important part of your post.
I would love a chance to go against a player doing your build. As a zerg player, you should understand what roach/hydra would do to zealot/archon. In fact, the P's only chance would be Storm.
|
I've only seen one terran player use archons effectively. He used psi storm with high templar against my Hydra/Roaches blob, so i focused the templars. Just before they were about to die, he combined them in battle to Archons.
|
Kill rate: one Archon will kill 2 Roach(s) without dying (10 health left) **
Cost efficiency: for every Archon you can get 6.2 Roach(s) ***
compare that to a zealot
Kill rate: one Zealot will kill 1 Roach(s) without dying (70 health left) **
Cost efficiency: for every Roach you can get 1.4 Zealot(s) ***
its not hard to see why archons don't work out.
(1 Gas is equal to 2.5 Minerals for the calculation.)
|
On May 03 2010 01:23 milly9 wrote:
Kill rate: one Archon will kill 2 Roach(s) without dying (10 health left) **
Cost efficiency: for every Archon you can get 6.2 Roach(s) ***
compare that to a zealot
Kill rate: one Zealot will kill 1 Roach(s) without dying (70 health left) **
Cost efficiency: for every Roach you can get 1.4 Zealot(s) ***
its not hard to see why archons don't work out.
(1 Gas is equal to 2.5 Minerals for the calculation.)
whaaat?
1 gas = 2.5 minerals? :S. Also, roaches rape zealots, because they have range, so that doesn't really make sense.
|
On May 02 2010 08:46 mahnini wrote:Show nested quote +On May 02 2010 08:38 dNo_O wrote:
pretty sure the bottom line here is that dustin browder is a piece of shit. and the idea that a game's concept should start with "we'll make a bunch of cool units and go from there" is not nearly as blizzard's pre-browder era concepts.
don't get me wrong, sc2 is still fun and i will continue playing it, but things like intentionally shitty units just because they overlap with other units is stupid. nothing can make you people happy. first everyone was complaining that units were designed with too narrow a purpose and that blizzard shouldn't assign units specific roles. then when people figured out that blizzard just tried to design cool units and let the player figure out where they fit in people still find ways to complain about it. not every unit in the game will see regular use that's just the way it is.
The two ideas actually go hand in hand, and aren't contradictory. Niche units are a byproduct of adding new units just to add new units. "Cool" units crowd out functional units because they have to steal some of that functionality or not get used.
In any case, bashing on Dustin Browder in a thread that's not about Dustin Browder is pointless. Maybe dNo_O or other posters like that need to take a step back and not let their seething anger about the developer interfere with the ability to discuss the game as it exists.
|
my biggest problem with archons is how short the range is, hydras/roach can just ktie and mutas can fly around them and continue harrassing, while the only chance zerg has of losing is if hes laughing so hard at the pitiful attempt by archons that he falls out of chair and hits powercord
|
i think if they brought back their splash damage then they would be a viable choice against mutalisks, especially with a couple sentries for guardian shield
|
On May 03 2010 01:31 Kiarip wrote:Show nested quote +On May 03 2010 01:23 milly9 wrote:
Kill rate: one Archon will kill 2 Roach(s) without dying (10 health left) **
Cost efficiency: for every Archon you can get 6.2 Roach(s) ***
compare that to a zealot
Kill rate: one Zealot will kill 1 Roach(s) without dying (70 health left) **
Cost efficiency: for every Roach you can get 1.4 Zealot(s) ***
its not hard to see why archons don't work out.
(1 Gas is equal to 2.5 Minerals for the calculation.) whaaat? 1 gas = 2.5 minerals? :S. Also, roaches rape zealots, because they have range, so that doesn't really make sense.
right, they do. So imagine how badly they rape archons? do you think an archon would get a single kill before the big ball of roaches blows it up in 1 volley?
|
On May 02 2010 20:26 suejak wrote:
Somebody do a test of 2 archons vs. however many mutas to get 8 food. How about archons vs. equal food in hydras?
I don't think proving that 2 archons loses to 8 roaches proves in itself that archons are useless.
should do it yourself 
but nevertheless, there is honestly no point in testing it, hydras have range upgrade, if you micro the hydras at all off creep, the archon will probably kill 2? or 3 at most, and maybe put some in the yellow area.
you have to understand that the archon was nerfed when it was brought from SC1 to SC2 dps wise, however it's survivability has not changed (350shield 10hp) where as the AI in SC2 for ranged units is much much better(and the fact that units are packed so tight multiple layer arcs are formed so easily)
the point of testing archon vs roaches instead of hydras is as follows:
1. a hydra heavy army will always have roaches, or even a massive amount of zerglings, or even mutas if your econ is just that good. so 2 out of the 3, archons will not support efficiently.
|
On May 02 2010 18:50 iounas wrote:Show nested quote +On May 02 2010 09:01 MoNoNauT wrote:
I addressed the issue of massed roaches in the OP. Technically, the Archon will take the exact same amount of damage from roaches as immortals, if the roaches don't have damage upgrades. Archons may not deal 50 damage to roaches, but archons are better all-around units, they take the same supply but cost less minerals meaning they can be supported by more zealots. Archons will also be warped in much faster, and if the push doesn't work, you're already set up for HT tech, which is very good against most zerg armies.
To the person that said archons are slow, I don't understand why you'd think that. They move ever-so-slightly faster than speed upgraded zealots, and much faster than non-upgraded 'lots or or roaches. Their attack isn't much slower than the immortals, and against anything but roaches and ultralisks, the Archon deals almost 50% more DPS (!!!). The more I study this unit, the more disappointed I am that it hasn't been used at all, especially when the reason seems to be "dustin browder sux lol"
According to SC2Armory, the archon's attack has a splash radius of 1. That's absolutely huge, despite all the complaining that seems to be going on... it's much larger than the thor's AA splash, which dominates mutalisks that are balled up. It also means that any zerglings surrounding the archon will get melted instantly. I think you are a troll.. Archon is a cool unit but when you factor the price of 100m 300g its a terrible terrible unit.. It doesnt deal 50% more DPS then ultra (!!!) Ultra does more then archon with its bonus.. Where did you get your numbers troll.. http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=115345Ultras also have more hp and some real splash.. Archons have splash when units overlap. Blizz has said that archon is meant to be something you can do with templars out of energy, not a unit you would want to get normally..
ultra vs archon has also been tested. archon at 0/0/1 takes down 1 single ultra, however when upgrades kick in (and i mean full full upgrades) an archon dies when the ultra is at around 60% hp.
before this gets flamed, yes i do realize that archons are cheaper relative to ultras, and the fact that it actually won in a 1v1, we should be happy already. however, the point in this is not that they can go toe to toe, but their effectiveness in any army composition.
1. because shield is so expensive to upgrade and that we never really get to 3/3/0 anyway, archons don't have an edge over ultras.
2. ultras have speed upgrade, and they are damn fast, archons do not (i believe any melee unit with movement speed upgrades multiplies their effectiveness by insane degrees.)
3. ultras do as you say, real splash damage at an insane attack speed, not to mention they do ridiculous damage to buildings.
4. ultras have 600 hp with 1 armor, archons have 350+10 with 0 armor or any shield bonus. so to be honest, you can't or won't upgrade archon defense unless you're messing around and started upgrading shield. and shield upgrade lvl 1 is 200/200 where as weapons and armor are 100/100.
5. ultras cost 100 minerals more, and ok, requires hive tech, but then again, HTs are tier 3 as well, so no QQ about you don't need a hive, if you don't need it and you win the game, good on you.
ultras all in all is a much better designed unit than the archon, it still gets focused down by antiarmor units quite fast, but the amount of damage they can do at melee range is ridiculous, also that even if there's a couple of antiarmor units in the opposition mix (excluding mass roflauders) it'll probably live through the fight as the rest of the army demolishes them.
i apologize for this long post, but before anyone points out that archon is anti bio, and almost every tier 1~1.5 are bio and that if they were buffed in anyway they would rape too hard.
lets sit and indulge in this argument.
first of all, archon is tier 3, and the only bios that are really that scared of archons are marines/zerglings/maybe zealots but they do enough damage to even out. so a ball of marines without stim, will need to be microed and ok lets say at the worst situation, you lose like 4 marines, archon dead. that's a tier 1 vs a tier 3 and even if you lose some, you still win economically. with stim, i don't even want to talk about it.
zerglings, ok fine, this is the one unit archons rape hard, but it was also tested that an archon can't break out of a mass drone surround, and it nearly died, so 1drone=2zerglings, if you honestly wish to kill an archon with lings, you will, and you won't lose as much lings as you think you would. (archon 1shots the targetted ling and damages the 2 lings next to the targetted to 50~55%. you might say wow that means lings just get raped easy, yes, but with SC2 zergling AI, they don't just...sit behind each other giving you the maximum splash, no, they run around and you usually only get into a single layer surround, or double if you have that many lings.
i understand that archons should be thought of as a bonus when HTs run out of energy, but the morph time makes it useless in a fight after storm, what, you gonna take on the remaining army with 1 archon and 2 stalkers after the rest of your army's gone?
it's nice to have a bonus, but this bonus is near useless, and honestly immortals aren't that great of tanks...the shield gets raped faster than you probably cared to notice. and midgame zealots get raped even with speed by any ranged blob, so yes, the one possible costly meatshield is labeled as a "bonus" so even if it sucks shit, toss players should be happy with it?
sidenote: 350/10 that's what, 9 probes? i'll sacrifice 9 probes to soak the damage than 1 archon's cost, probes block better too, so why do we have archons again?
|
Archons make decent tanks, I think. For the same food you get something about as tough as an Immortal, without having to put your Immortals at the front-line. Good for holding back Ultras and Zerglings without letting them do damage to the real meat of your army.
I like how Archons work at the moment, as a way to make useless units useful. HTs turning into Archons are more common, since you can pretty much always find a good use for DTs, unless the guy is spamming Spine/Spore crawlers left-right-and-center.
Fundamentally, I don't want Archons to be so good that they're a counter to something. When I have to depend on Archons as a counter to something, I'll cry, because 300 gas is a HUUUUUUGE investment.
|
Singapore147 Posts
i think the build is too gas intensive to work out. even if you're just spamming zealots you'd want to save some of that gas for our good friend the imbalanced sentry.
|
Has anyone seen the Archon with chain lightning attack in the Galaxy Editor thread? That'd be really cool.
Or, for being so shield dependent, they should get an ability similar to Hardened Shields or they should just be flat out immune to EMP. Archons need something radical to justify 300 gas.
|
|
|
|
|
On May 03 2010 02:29 Conris wrote:
2. ultras have speed upgrade, and they are damn fast, archons do not (i believe any melee unit with movement speed upgrades multiplies their effectiveness by insane degrees.)
WHAT?! Ultras are fucking SLOW SLOW SLOW even with the Speed upgrade.
|
Nobody is forcing you to compare the Archon with the SC:BW unit. It still has a lot of uses, and in some ways making it less cost-effective increases the importance of the decision to morph an archon.
To explain: Archons have specific uses against more powerful biological units, they can help get a better combat unit/caster unit ratio after a fight, they can help deal damage when your high templars have low mana, but all at the cost of a weaker unit afterwards. It doesn't need to be too cost-ineffective since then the decision is overly punishing and makes the unit barely usable, but it's not that bad is it?
|
On May 03 2010 03:58 Cloak wrote:
Has anyone seen the Archon with chain lightning attack in the Galaxy Editor thread? That'd be really cool.
Or, for being so shield dependent, they should get an ability similar to Hardened Shields or they should just be flat out immune to EMP. Archons need something radical to justify 300 gas.
well immune to EMP is...not necessary, it only takes off 100 anyway, so it's fine(or something like that). i agree with the hardened shield similarity, but not as effective as immortal's. however with 350 shield and a % reduction...that might be kinda too insane, hence maybe we should change the hp/shield ratio.
I know we're attuned to the 10 hp archons, but honestly, maybe it's time to change the hp/shield ratio? because ranged units is not how they were before, hence melee units need to be changed correct?
ling-increased speed
zealot-charge(i really can't say whether it's better or were speedlots better)
marauders-well it's the primary unit for T that has a huge impact on melee, so since they change the melee game so much it'll be mentioned as well.
so what happened to archons..?
can you imagine how sad they were when the stepped through the Warpgate from BroodWar to find marines with shields, ghosts with emps, enormous cockroaches that spit acid, lings on crack(but with running speed this time), dragoons with mounted artillery, zealots with megaman style jetpack shoes, and archons...not only did they not get anything, but they of all the sudden can only use 1 hand to zap at a time now? (i use this as an analogy for it's decreased attack speed).
lets go a little off topic now. a list of all the end-end game units of each race and their production speed.
Zerg:
Ultras: 300/200/6 (70 sec)
Broodlords - 300/250/4 (74 sec)
Terran:
Thors - 300/200/6 (60 sec)
Ravens WITH seeker researched - 100/200/2 + 200/200 was it?
Protoss:
Archon - 100/300/4
Mothership - 400/400/8 (160 sec)
Carrier - 350/250/6 (120 sec)
Ultras as said before, are very well designed, and it only takes 70 seconds to build one, on par with the rest of the mondo units. but at a 3 to 4 base game, do you not even consider ultras? i believe you do.
Broodlords are just rape, no other words for it, 9.5 range air to surface artillery with decent damage and a free meatshield, 74 seconds from larva to corrupter to broodlord, on par, even on a 3 base game with any muta herass, really? you wouldn't even consider broodlords? of course you would.
Thors are nice because they're supposed "anti-air" however do 100 per shot to ground units...idk, just pure awesome all around? however for them to be effective against air they need to reach a critical number, of merely 3. T uses thors anyway, so there's no discussion here of their effectiveness.
Ravens are becoming more used for PPD, however seeker missile is still every T tries to squeeze out in every mid/long match up no? the effectiveness is recognized.
now to protoss finally.
alright so with the info listed, it seems like Toss has more options for late game, really?
a pair of carriers is not the most effective thing in the world, but lets say you get them out (because in a normal ladder 1v1 you probably can't support more than 1 stargate)
700/500 so to me that is what, 5 sentries and 4 zealots? i think it is agreed that the trade off is not worthit, not to mention the 2 minute build time.
Mothership are awesome, even without tp, even with the massive movement speed nerf, even with the skill nerfs, even if it's air and you normally never get a chance to upgrade air weapons or armor, it is still awesome right? ok, notice in the info above, none of the building costs were included, it's because there's always a 2nd use to it other than ultralisk cavern. But it's only 150 200/65, where as fleet beacon is 300/200/60. so that is debatable, but then again, motherships are slow...and costs a lot more.
so motherships is like that poster of a hot girl on your wall, you'll never meet her, you'll never know her, but you know OF her. so we can cross motherships out (and seriously, arbitors did suicide recalls, who the hell you gonna call with that movement speed and that kind of recall time delay?)
so now we're at archons. let's get past the idea of, archons are empty HTs put together, HTs had no use anymore anyway. false, i can make them wait for energy for all you know, or simply do 50 energy feedbacks since people are starting to abuse casters more.
but lets get past that, let's say archon is a FUCKING UNIT, and we use it for the sake of it being a unit in the starcraft2 universe.
i assume it's role is for lategame melee dmg sponge, but we know this isn't true.
fine, lets make it a lesser tank, with enormous dmg, we know this isn't true either.
so are you telling me unless i throw down my storms, SOMEHOW manage to have my HTs survive (they should be sniped with or without energy) and then WAIT another 17 seconds for them to fart on each other into a ball of gas, and that's supposed to help me in what way?
i apologize for this wall of text, but it seems like specific info is needed.
on the sidenote, the reason why toss is pulling through in the current ladders is because they have a strong early and mid mid game, anywhere after that, they really start to dwindle versus the two other races. please non of the junk about "you shouldn't allow your opponent T or Z to get to that point, or it's gg" no, then that means the races aren't balanced, it's not about the timing of the game, but about the stages of the game that decides it's balance. at any stage of the game, with equal micro and food count, and equal level in tech and tier, things should break out somewhat even, that's what balancing means, not how you pressure or mess with your opponent.
20 minutes into the game terran is pumping marauders out of what, 7~9 racks? and/or pumping out thors. Zerg is pumping out if not massive anything, broodlords or ultras. so what does toss have not to counter, but to respond to that? a 2 minute build time carrier? a mothership that does 30 damage per volley? or do toss find themselves still warping in zealots at 20 minutes in the game, and have them melt as zergling melted against m/m/m in BroodWar, but this time, melting to everything that has 2+range (yes roaches i'm talking to you)
So please, turn your mind away from thinking archons is just a jumbled up trash from 2 washed up HTs, because the role that archons SHOULD serve is very important in a toss's late game army composition.
again i apologize for the wall of text.
Blizzard, it takes 2 of toss's tier 3 clutch unit to form an archon, you don't need to make them special, just make them work
|
Archons should be used when your HT have no energy (or your DT get obliterated), that is their niche as blizzard seems to want them.
But to make that really useful they should make them merge faster.
So I vote for a simple buff : faster merge to make it really useful in combat situation : either both template jump instantly on each other or faster merge.
And/Or make the create archon intelligent and automaticly choose your lowest energy templars.
|
adding my 2 cents in:
archons aren't really worth it because that archon could be 2 Templar, which can storm the crap out of units.
besides, when comparing archons to colossi, the colossi will just win out because of the ability to climb up to higher ground, and the fact that it has a huge AoE.
Also, when comparing archons to immortals, the immortals have the damage reducing shield for things that do large amoutns of damage, whereas an archon takes full damage from hits, so immortals are capable of taking more.
And if the opponent does happen to go muta/anti-air, that's what you make stalkers/sentries for.
edit: the point im trying to make here is that archons aren't really worth the cost of gas, which has become a valuable resource in sc2
|
Well I'll add something to the discussion that I haven't seen anyone mention yet. Archons are pretty good at tanking, but not only because of their 360 total hp. Archons only have the psionic modifier, so they don't take bonus damage from any units in sc2 (compared to taking full damage from everything in BW). This makes them generally better at tanking than immortals (unless hardened shields is absorbing very high damage hits like tank/thor). I still think their offensive abilities are lacking though. Honestly I think a higher attack speed would help the archon out quite a bit.
|
On May 02 2010 15:26 Kakisho wrote:Show nested quote +On May 02 2010 08:29 febreze wrote:
They are still good against mutas, splash and all. The splash was completely removed.
expiriment with it the splash is still there just very small.
|
5 pages and still not a single replay?
|
It seems like for the most part it's better to save your HT's and regen energy. Most time I've seen people merge them is in desperate situations, meaning they'll get taken down pretty fast anyway or when a players has such a massive advantage that they can safely merge them, but they would still have won the game. It's seems like it has a very small niche at the moment.
|
Save them if you've just blown up their army and don't feel like you have sufficient remainder to make a final push to kill expansions etc. If you feel like you do? Start makin' bacon and add them to your army.
|
Archons are fucking incredibly good right now. One protoss did this archon timing attack thing after a clash. I have to break my clump a couple of times while engaging just to deal with them
|
Im really liking the archon, splash really makes them good. It's just that people haven't been using them enough nor found a good way of implementing them into standard play.
|
I tried out archon/zealot in a game and it worked alright. The guy 1-based mutalisked & tried to expand at gold minerals on blistering sands. His mutas tried to harrass but an archon in the mineral line and another in my base stopped him from doing anything really.
He expanded at the gold mineral patch and build tons of zerglings which zealot archon handled just fine and i was happy to have several archons vs mutalisks instead of stalkers.
When he switched to hydra/roach though that was pretty much the end of the archon's effectiveness. He did go brood lords in that game though and my archons took our the brood lords rather well, but if BL's were micro'd properly and kept over cliffs or something, I do not believe that would've happened.
My conclusion is that while zealot/archon does okay at warding off a lot of annoying strategies like... 3-6 mutalisk harrass, or mass zergling, after it goes later than that you should just save up energy for psi storm, and keep your templar alive. Also against any other race you're better off having feedback.
|
archon splash
old: 0.093 (100%); 0.40 (50%); 0.80 (25%) -- originating at the edge of unit
new: 0.25 (100%); 0.50 (50%); 1.00 (25%) -- originating in the center of the unit
now... considering a ling, zealot, marine, e.a. filling a 0.375 radius, none but the target receive full damage except for perfectly stacked air units.... the smallest unit is the broodling with a 0.25 radius
it may have made more sense when it originated at the edge: with range 2, one could've attacked the second row of units. alas, that's now how the target priority system works.
so now, it is actually possible to scratch every target-neighbouring zergling with
50% -> 17.5dmg (+ 1.5 per upgrade)
25% -> 8.75dmg (+ .75 per upgrade)
however... armor values get substracted from that as well...
that said, the thor also deals splash damage: 100% across 0.5 - no declining steps. that's 4x12dmg over 3 seconds = 16dps against mutas.
archon does 50% across a 0.5 radius: 50%* 35dmg over 1.754seconds = 9.977 dps against mutas
less range, some more radius for 25%dmg etcetc yaddayadda.
... but maybe it helps gauging the archon's potential
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
