|
On June 09 2010 07:51 Anon06 wrote:
I have great beef with Hts they infuriate me, so I prefer collosi.
HTs move too slow meaning they are always out of position.
Example A: you move your army up ready to engage the enemy army, you troops move up and suffer heavy losses while your slow templar move up to cast storm late.
Expample B: you move your army up ready to engage the enemy army, you troops move up and suffer an EMP while your slow templar move up to cast feedback.
Example C: you move up realize the situation is unfavorable and order your troops back the high templar lag behind your army and get picked off.
Psyonic storm is negate-able.
example: you cast psystorm on mass hydras, using creep they immediately move out taking minimal damage. (zerg rarely engage full scale off creep)
HTs don't grant sight up cliffs.
HTs don't intimidate the enemy.
HTs don't reach critical mass, at least not permanently. (out of energy)
HTs can't reach siege tanks safely as opposed to collosi who can relatively.
HT tech tree does not provide access to observers, knowledge is power. (observer is posted twice because this line provides emphasis on scouting and the one below on number of options)
HT tech tree ops up only 2.5 units(HT DT archon), robo tree opens up four units(prisim, obs, immo, colloi)
HT do not synergize well with chareglots (aside from cost) as they hurt your chargelots with psystorm when they rush in.
So I highly recommend robo first and HTs as an after thought.
1) HTs are slow. It's annoying I agree. Micro can solve most of those issues. If you can't micro, I agree use colossi they are not as micro intensive. That's the bottom line. And in terms of mobility, the fact you can warp in HTs to defend expos means in some aspects they are more mobile.
2) Psi storm isn't really "negatable." It eats hydras up for breakfast, it doesn't matter how much they try to walk out it, on creep or not if you have enough HTs. I'm guessing you probably just don't have enough HTs. You can't go into battles w/ 2 HTs and think you're set. Same with colossi, you don't go fighting mass hydras with 1 colossus. Like I said above, HTs do reach a critical mass but in a different way than colossi do. When you get enough HTs, dodging storms is pointless, a new one will be casted on top of you until all your units are dead.
3) What does intimidation have to do with the effectiveness of HTs? Besides I'm pretty sure it gets pretty initimidating when players see the storms flying all over the place. They sure seem to run around like chickens when they see it anyway.
4) The amount of units each tree opens up is not that much big of a deal. Both are late game options which by the time you get enough to reach critical mass you should have all tech options available to you.
|
Yeah, it seems like a lot (not all) of the anti-HT arguments revolve around one HT vs. one Colossus. Obviously that's an exaggeration, but the point is that HT function as support for your army, whereas your army functions as support for your Colossi, making them better/worse than one another depending greatly on the situation.
Another thing to point out is that, since HT are so incredibly cheap on minerals and can be warped in anywhere, they are an absolutely perfect unit to get when you're getting ready to expand. 3/4 HT + a small force of gateway units can typically hold an expansion, or at the very least dissuade the attack long enough to bring in reinforcements. Then, after your expo is running, you have some extra storms with which to electrorape your opponent (as opposed to canons, which, of course, are stuck where you put 'em).
Just another point for HT in my book.
|
On June 10 2010 03:21 Skyro wrote:
1) HTs are slow. It's annoying I agree. Micro can solve most of those issues. If you can't micro, I agree use colossi they are not as micro intensive. That's the bottom line. And in terms of mobility, the fact you can warp in HTs to defend expos means in some aspects they are more mobile.
2) Psi storm isn't really "negatable." It eats hydras up for breakfast, it doesn't matter how much they try to walk out it, on creep or not if you have enough HTs. I'm guessing you probably just don't have enough HTs. You can't go into battles w/ 2 HTs and think you're set. Same with colossi, you don't go fighting mass hydras with 1 colossus. Like I said above, HTs do reach a critical mass but in a different way than colossi do. When you get enough HTs, dodging storms is pointless, a new one will be casted on top of you until all your units are dead.
3) What does intimidation have to do with the effectiveness of HTs? Besides I'm pretty sure it gets pretty initimidating when players see the storms flying all over the place. They sure seem to run around like chickens when they see it anyway.
4) The amount of units each tree opens up is not that much big of a deal. Both are late game options which by the time you get enough to reach critical mass you should have all tech options available to you.
1: Fail, you can't micro something that slow. do you mean good positioning? because thats something else. warp-ins can be focus fired, also they require an upgrade to be useful immediately upon warp in.
2: as thelittleone says hydras are not a good unit off creep unit. good zerg will be on creep, good zerg will move their hydras. wrong you can fight mass hydras with one collosi + micro which further adds why collosi are better then HT.
3:w/e arguable, but collosi can force your opponent to change tech upon seeing them.
4:it's completely relevant to what the OP asks.
and no where in my posts or ops post does this mention late game. we are not talking about late game. just because i said they CAN reach critical mass doesn't mean that iIm talking solely about critical mass.
did i mention banelings > HTs aslo?
|
On June 10 2010 08:53 Anon06 wrote:Show nested quote +On June 10 2010 03:21 Skyro wrote:
1) HTs are slow. It's annoying I agree. Micro can solve most of those issues. If you can't micro, I agree use colossi they are not as micro intensive. That's the bottom line. And in terms of mobility, the fact you can warp in HTs to defend expos means in some aspects they are more mobile.
2) Psi storm isn't really "negatable." It eats hydras up for breakfast, it doesn't matter how much they try to walk out it, on creep or not if you have enough HTs. I'm guessing you probably just don't have enough HTs. You can't go into battles w/ 2 HTs and think you're set. Same with colossi, you don't go fighting mass hydras with 1 colossus. Like I said above, HTs do reach a critical mass but in a different way than colossi do. When you get enough HTs, dodging storms is pointless, a new one will be casted on top of you until all your units are dead.
3) What does intimidation have to do with the effectiveness of HTs? Besides I'm pretty sure it gets pretty initimidating when players see the storms flying all over the place. They sure seem to run around like chickens when they see it anyway.
4) The amount of units each tree opens up is not that much big of a deal. Both are late game options which by the time you get enough to reach critical mass you should have all tech options available to you. 1: Fail, you can't micro something that slow. do you mean good positioning? because thats something else. warp-ins can be focus fired, also they require an upgrade to be useful immediately upon warp in. 2: as thelittleone says hydras are not a good unit off creep unit. good zerg will be on creep, good zerg will move their hydras. wrong you can fight mass hydras with one collosi + micro which further adds why collosi are better then HT. 3:w/e arguable, but collosi can force your opponent to change tech upon seeing them. 4:it's completely relevant to what the OP asks. and no where in my posts or ops post does this mention late game. we are not talking about late game. just because i said they CAN reach critical mass doesn't mean that iIm talking solely about critical mass. did i mention banelings > HTs aslo?
1) Sure you can, like actually waiting so your HTs catch up to your army or get into a good position before engaging. If you can't handle that kind of unit management then don't use HTs I suppose. And yes they do require an upgrade to use psi storm on warp in, and everybody who uses HTs effectively gets it. And it's awesome and a huge advantage over colossi no matter how you slice it.
2) Yes zerg never fights off creep, that's why I never lose to zerg b/c I don't have creep in my base... your arguements are all based on generalizations. My point is that just because you fight on creep doesn't make psi storm useless vs hydras and that is completely true.
Yes you can fight mass hydras w/ 1 colossi. You can also fight them w/ 1 HT, and the HT will probably do more damage. But who cares b/c you're going to lose either way. You need a number of colossi or HT to hold up vs mass hydras as they eat up gateway units.
And white-ra uses HTs vs terrans and owns them in tourneys even when they use ghosts. I acknowledge it's viable vs terran bio but my micro is lacking.
3) That just means colossi are more counterable? Isn't that a bad thing? Vs Zerg you can't counter HTs, they just have to put up with it.
4) As I've said it's pretty much consensus opinion not to quick rush HTs, still build a robo eventually, etc. etc. The discussion has progressed further than the OP. Both colossi and HTs are both late gate options, and generally aren't really needed until late game anyway.
|
Somehow 80 damage doesn't cut it for me. I stopped going storm heavy once un-microed hydras stopped dying to a storm... I miss my BW storm damage lol, screw smart casting I have the apm to storm effectively without it lol...
Also, i have a terrible tendency to storm my own chargelots... especially when facing MMM.
PS: +2 collossi kill zerglings in 1 shot and +3 collossi kill zerglings in one shot regardless of how many carapace upgrades they have. +3 collossi also 2 shot hydas.
PSS: It takes longer to get HT because you have to research storm and wait for energy. Collossi aren't that good without range, but at least they're usable...
|
On June 10 2010 00:38 shimpoe wrote:Show nested quote +On June 09 2010 14:29 DEVIANT wrote:
I've always been really slack with HTs. I've used every single other unit in the game, with varying degrees of success, but not the HT's (except in AI games for training).
This thread has been really helpful in making me think of using them more, however whenever I hear someone say something about morphing archons, I skip to the next post right away.
Seriously, this is the worst unit in the whole game. I really hope they give it a big armour buff or damage buff, or even better, shield buff. Units that cost that much and take up two previously useful units and some extra time should have more usefulness than the two they replaced. Not less usefulness than one of those two units... Yeah it's posts like this that are just hilarious to me. You'd actually rather just throw away energy-less HTs at your enemy for free kills, than warp them into a unit that can at least take some damage, and do some damage. Right. If you think people are just making HTs and immediately morphing them into archons, then you're completely missing the point of them and doing it wrong. We get that archons aren't the best unit, but they're a lot better than a complete dead weight.
hahaha, just saw this reply to my post. My comments were about the same time they reduced the archon's meld time. Before that, it was like a minute of your two HT's sitting there doing nothing, completely vulnerable. You're saying I missed the point, but you missed mine three times in a row...
You should NEVER throw potentially useful units at the enemy- that statement shows you have no idea how to micro your units. Units low on shields, health, or energy should be pulled back out of range to replenish or fire from a safe distance (look up Idra vs Drunk Bobby on Youtube, the infamous stalker blink micro where Drunk Bobby pre-empts Idra's BM departure without gg ).
Secondly, if you are going to meld those units into an archon, why not pull them back to safety first. In the time they are retreating, they are gathering energy. When they are out of danger, melding them into a useless archon takes 12 seconds plus retreat time, vs recharging the energy of your two Templars over about a minute or less, which will provide two units with actual value.
Thirdly, nobody who's been in the beta and hangs out on TL should be at the level of making Templars then insta-morphing to Arcons... that you would think so suggests that you think there are very bad players hanging around here- the home of SC2's English speaking champions.
I'm sure there are one or two, but calling someone out like you did, on this forum, is a very noob thing to do. It's like walking into a biker bar and shouting at a random stranger that they don't know sh*t about harleys or rock music.
|
if i'm running on 1 or 2 base, definitely colossi, if i'm running on 3 base or more, then mix HT with colossi. but otherwise always colossi before HT. reason being is colossi isnt as squishy as high templars. high templars also walk slow which means youre also losing mobility at the same time.
and if you leave your HT's lagging behind, we'll good luck seeing them get picked off by mutas since there's now a huge major animation delay in storm.
|
colossi in big numbers rape everything, no matter how much anti air they have, you will destroy his ground forces before your colossi die.
|
I find that colossi are more reliable because their usage isn't as reliant on your opponent's micro-skills. They are more easily countered through anti-air and they require a critical mass to really reach maximum effectiveness.
I have been trying to utilize templar tech (HT and DT) more often and I find that although it's harder to pull off due to tech paths and the importance of micro, it's more satisfying in terms of the impact it has on the game. In addition, HTs without storm/energy (or DTs when your opponents have detection) aren't completely useless. Warp in archons! They are underappreciated. Archons still do really nice damage, are excellent tanks due to high total HP (shields no longer take full damage), and are good for absorbing splash because they're so fat.
|
Yeah, it seems like a lot (not all) of the anti-HT arguments revolve around one HT vs. one Colossus. Obviously that's an exaggeration, but the point is that HT function as support for your army, whereas your army functions as support for your Colossi, making them better/worse than one another depending greatly on the situation.
Post of the thread IMO. Really like your comment regarding your army supporting Colossi vs HT supporting your army.
|
I always throw down with HT now adays. I never even use Colossi, not even in PvP.
In PvZ and PvT HT are exceptionally effective if you can get them out. However, you CANNOT rush to them. You need to take it slow, get some scout in to make sure they're going for mass units and get lots of gateway units supported by blink/charge.
Robo only has the observer advantage, IMO. You can always grab hallucinate though to get that scout. If he's going burrow or cloak, though, you have to do robo 
The reason is that Collossi just get raped by a decent player. Vikings can snipe them out at ridiculous ranges and corruptors have decent range and LOTS of bonus damage (both with corruption AND massive damage).
You simply cannot get a robo bay, collossi and thermal lance out fast enough without tipping your hand that your opponent needs air. Sure, if you can catch him with his pants down collossi are better, but that shouldn't really be something you rely on. Conversly, if he knows you are going templar.... what can he even do to stop that? Blinking stalkers really combo well here.
In PvP my games just devolve into mass stalker/immo. Every time I've seen a collossus either my opponent invested too much into it and got raped too hard anyways, or they've cut their regular army back enough (especially immo production) that I could just blink in and snipe them while my superior numbers of immos raped his army. In the rare situations I saw zealots I just warped in a handful of my own to tank his long enough/run interferance for my immos with good micro to keep his zealots from engaging my ranged units.
|
On July 07 2010 10:58 FreeZEternal wrote:
colossi in big numbers rape everything, no matter how much anti air they have, you will destroy his ground forces before your colossi die.
Anti-air can be things that fly in air. You know, stuff that colossi can't touch.
On topic, HTs just seems to flow better with a strong number of gateways. Templar Archives not only unlocks upgrades but allows for the research of charge and blink which with micro is a pain in the ass to deal with. HTs also cost a lot of gas and little mins, this meshes well with zealots and to some extent stalkers. I fear HTs as a terran because they can feedback my medivacs and ravens. THis is not to say Colossi aren't good.
For example, ghost's EMP won't make them completely useless. Then again, anti air will kill then.
Both are very dependent on your opponent and are situational.
|
Once the midgame colossus attack gets completely figured out and ultralisk tech becomes standard, high templar will become the proper tech choice. To deal with ultralisks you really need archons to tank because everything else is pretty bad at it. Stalkers get killed at a ridiculous rate by a few ultralisks and zealots will die to your range damage units (roach or hydra) while getting splashed.
Once ultralisks are utilized effectively in the late game, protoss will start forcing midgame attacks on zerg. They will be big for a while then die out because all zergs will learn how to easily deal with them. Protoss will probably whine at this point that they can't win in the midgame and ultras dominate late. Soon they will realize you can use HT immortal much more effectively. At this point it should be pretty interesting having to balance roach hydra ultra armies versus ht immortal stalker sentry zeal. It's actually kind of funny how I'm slowly reverting back to my HT immortal play that I used in the beginning of beta.
edit: I guess I just talked about PvZ.
For PvT I never use colossus and have not since way early in the beta. Vikings are just too affective against them and feedback is huge.
PvP I've never used templar tech. Trying to storm a colossus to death is retarded and stalkers have a pretty easy time dodging. Maybe I'll experiment with it sometime
On July 07 2010 10:58 FreeZEternal wrote:
colossi in big numbers rape everything, no matter how much anti air they have, you will destroy his ground forces before your colossi die.
So I feel this basically is the mindset behind current protoss play. Once you get a mass of colossus you just don't die in PvZ so why even go down HT tech? Until ultralisks are utilized properly this is not going to change because no other ground army is cost effective.
|
The only similarity HT and collosus have is the splash damage, to some that may appear as an overlaping niche, but I hightly disagree with that.
I took the freedom of using some mspaint skillz to illustrate my point about those two units:
![[image loading]](http://img707.imageshack.us/img707/7121/htandcolosus.png)
What's evident is the shape of the splash area by both units. HT have a wide circle while collosus are more like a line. If the storm's circle is full of units and the storm hits from start to finish, the damage output is highter than the collosus.
From this simple observation, let's see it in 2 diferent situations, when it's a clash of small or big armys.
So from my pictural representation of the situation, we can see that in small army sizes, the storm doesn't hit to it's full potencial, since the units are relatively spread out and well arcqed thanks to the AI. Meanwhile this AI effect plays right into collosus hands who maximize their damage output. As a final interpretation, it is arguably "easy" for the opponent units to get out of the storms and engage again when the effect vanished.
When the game goes on and the armys get larger, it is no longer possible to arc perfectly with every units, cause their simply is so much, not talking about forcefields too. In this case, storm's power duplicates: the amount of units it hits increase and it is alot more dificult for the opponent to get his stuff out of it. Of course, a large quantity of collosus are still very powerfull but in pure DPS storm is better.
SO do I say early game -> collosus; late game -> storms? of course not.
I advocate going with a good number of colosuses (colusii?) and incorporate relatively few HT. Colosus, as said before have really hard counters while HT don't really (ok, exept EMP, but that shit counters everything) and HT works well against colosus counters. What's great about colosus is with a good number they abuse punctual superiority where they can just melt anything that comes close to it before the counterpart can even fire. that requires of course a very large amount of collosus. And storming HT make this critical number be lower by softening enemy units, and they help the colosus to live longer by giving a hard time to colosus's counters.
So yeah, I feel it's more a transition business than a pick one task. when I see a toss attack the other and storm the opponent, storming like 20 of his own zealots on the progress I think "mm this guy wanted to use splah to achive punctual superiority, he should have chosen collosus", and when you see a toss doing hit and run shooting some cooking beams and imediatly retreating, trying to soft down the opponent's army, well yes, storms would have worked alot better.
I lost my train of thought somewhere in my last statement but I think I'm done more or less. To conclude, the question is not HT vs Colossi, but how to articulate them and transition
|
To me, the biggest distiction between the two is which scouting method do I want to us? If I want observers ill go robo and often go collosus after that. If I go templar I need to either use hallucinated phoenix or real phoenix out of a stargate. My PvZ build is stargate into templar, my terran is collosus, my protoss is stargate or blink stalkers.
I think the biggest difference is that collosus do better in large numbers while high templar and zealots do better in small numbers. Your lone collosus wandering off into the wilderness will die without doing much damage but your lone high templar will often pay for itself in 2 well placed storms. You can also reinforce expansions easily with the # of warpgates you have going templar, but you dont have the brute force of collosus. I don't know which is better. Mostly a stylistic choice.
|
The answer's not easy to see
And really, this thread will just be
A sloppy big mess.
But you must confess
You just want to name it "HD."
|
I go colossi because it was just easier. Phase 1 I wanted to learn the game and understand my first RTS. Phase 2, I'm planning on focusing on Templar tech and hoping to Storm a bunch. Both are really good, but they are really different in play styles.
|
One thing I do hate about storm that makes me favor colossi is roaches in PvZ. Those buggers have so much hp and tank storms so well that going storm against a mass roach or roach/hydra army is usually not very effective at all. That's pretty much the only scenario I can imagine where Colossi are definitively better than HT. However, after the roach supply nerf, storms are much better against roaches simply because there are less roaches to storm. Even so, in PvZ I am still quite wary in using HT.
|
On July 07 2010 12:56 SagaZ wrote:
This right here. Colossus are better in the early-mid game, but once armies get past a point, or in small chokes, HTs will dominate.
|
Just my take on the situation. I have no idea which tech choice is superior, or even if one is, but as much as I love HTs, I find myself leaning towards Colossi first.
1) At my level, upper-middle diamond, well executed cheese/all ins prevail. I got DT or banshee rushed disproportionately often and if you don't have a robo in time for those, you die. Also, mass marauders and blink stalkers are fairly common, and the robo allows immortals to fend these off. Obviously, obs are far less important in PvZ, so it's worthwhile to be more variable in that matchup.
2) Colossi are stronger in smaller numbers. If you get one Colossus, your opponent has to stay wary of it if making an attack. If you have 2 or 3 HTs with a storm each, if your opponent can cleverly micro and cause you to waste those storms, they can easily use the situation to overwhelm you. This becomes less important as you get more HTs and can essentially always have some storms in reserve.
3) I like going Colossi -> HT because, if you have a number of Colossi with a typical gateway army, once you get the tech to get HTs, you can spam out a half dozen of them instantaneously. On the other hand, going HT first requires you to build 3 or 4 robos to get an initial force of Colossi. In this way, HTs make a better sudden, later addition.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT![[image loading]](http://img707.imageshack.us/i/htandcolosus.png/)
