PvT way to deal with EMP - Page 10

On June 13 2010 17:50 space_yes wrote:
As a separate point I want to add I have seen (and executed) plenty of fail EMPs that completely miss the protoss army. Part of this is that if the ghost isn't properly positioned to immediately EMP it has to walk within range (other units are often in the way) and by the time it takes to get positioned (often just 1-3 seconds) the protoss units it wants to EMP have already moved out of the target location. Most of the time the protoss isn't doing anything special to move the units, it is more of a function of two armies meeting imperfectly so the units don't all come to battle at the same time and the players are positioning their forces as the battle occurs to get better firing arcs/position. It's basically the same reason you see fail psi storms that miss. Sure you can move out of the storm (after it has hit you) but it still lands instantly even if ends up doing little damage b/c you move out of the way.

Additionally I think the long range is to make it possible to EMP deeper into the protoss army without making your ghost too easily snipable. If it were easy to snipe the ghost you'd see them disappear from high level play. This is why I think Blizzard has it as an instant cast with 10 range. Nerfing the range or making it dodgeable would would significantly hamper its utility which is why the last nerf was a radius nerf.

On June 13 2010 05:29 Ghostcom wrote:




This is the reasoning behind the VR nerf Blizzard gave. Notice it says "trap the player in the base" and "too difficult to stop even if the player sees it coming" - NOTHING about ending the match in <7 minuts. Stop making up stuff.

Regarding your quotes:
1) They are old (1 from this month, the rest are 2 - TWO months old)
2) They don't say what you want them to say; i.e. chill is more about how we should approach the game as being fixed and the flaw is more realisticly due to the players. But the difference between what the attention required to use a ghost to its optimum and what it requires to work around it is without question VERY big.

I don't think I have said ANYWHERE that I wanted it to be hard-counterable. I want it to require the same attention as working around it does - which is why I advocate letting it stay as is, except giving it a projectile so it is dodgeable. One could argue that it would be too much of a hit or miss which I will partly agree with - thus the solution by making it "tick" sorta like storm is imho decent. Again, the reason WHY everyone in favor of a change is drilling on the "equal payout for equal work" is because that is one of the standards blizzard themselves uses.

On June 14 2010 01:00 MythicalMage wrote:
EMP has an animation, so I believe you can time it so you can feedback before the EMP hits.

On June 14 2010 01:09 Bibdy wrote:


What good does that do? You Feedback a Ghost who's already fired the EMP, so that he doesn't fire a second? Either way you just lost a buttload of energy and/or shield for a bunch of units and maybe killed (most likely just wounded) a Ghost.

All you can do is send HTs to Feedback Ghosts and hope he doesn't fire them at their range 10, before your slow-ass HTs close the distance to a range of 9 with the Ghost. There's no awesome, tactical micromanagement you can do.

And when you've got two massive armies colliding in a 'fair fight' Ghosts can EMP all of our shit (including casters), Siege Tanks get two full volleys of shots off, Vikings start battering our Collossi and the bio ball is Stimmed, all before we can get in range and fight back or Feedback those Ghosts to at least stop the EMP. The upfront burst of all of that is utterly retarded. You need to have an immense economic, terrain or unit-count advantage to take on a ball of Terran units in a fair fight. Intended or not the difference in skill required to beat it is mind-blowing. Something in that huge list of unstoppable upfront burst needs to get toned down, and the obvious culprit is EMP, since it only affects the PvT matchup.

On June 14 2010 01:31 Mensab wrote:
For starters, we are whining about T bioballs now? I thought whining about Terran mech was the whine de jour.

And second we are whining about T bioballs NOW? I coulda sworn that was already countered easily halfway into beta with any P who has a sufficient amount of colossi and sentries/meatshields?

Ghosts don't stop 2-3 colossi from turning your MM ball into a pile of burning organic matter.



All this tells me is that you believe T players can somehow conjure up the a few thousand gas (and minerals) out of no where while compelling P to sit there and do absolutely nothing. You also display a hilarious scenario where P does absolutely nothing while T gets everything into play. You say that there is no way to beat T unless you get a economic, terrain or unit count advantage. Which hilariously enough is something Toss can do courtesy of chronoboost, warp gates and proxy pylons.

It also tells me that you believe in throwing your units at fortified position. In which case good for you. I hope blizzard never listens to people like you (unfortunately they probably will considering the number of OMG HOW2BEET NURF players there are).

Fuck it.

I hope blizzard moves EMP to ravens and makes it the "crappier" BW version that some people insist it is. Then we can have the old sci vessel.

Then you can whine when 3/3 Terran Mech destroys the toss army you and others so gleefully suicide into. It happened in BW and having porting this over to SC2 won't be a bad thing.

On June 13 2010 01:09 zhul4nder wrote:


What if FF was automatic? What if 250mm was automatic to massive stuff? What if storm was auto-matic? what if any energy ability was autonmatic? I sense overpoweredness in automaticness.

On June 14 2010 01:37 Hidden_MotiveS wrote:
Ughh... starcraft 2 strategy forums. I find that people don't ever read what you write, or if they do, they don't bother understanding it. The quality of people's arguments is also rather lacking of objective evidence.


Just one example, not enough to prove anything: notice how I say that feedback will only work on a unit in the area that you cast. It's not autocast. You still have to choose to use the ability, it's just easier to aim at a specific unit.

Not to be a grammar police either, but your argument would be more convincing if you checked for spelling... "autonmatic". Another common theme in starcraft 2 forums is the lack of spell-check.

Finally, you're all just theorycrafting. These kinds of discussions get nowhere unless people put in concrete evidence such as videos of tests. Imagine if scientists tried to prove things like this. If you like these kinds of discussions that go on for twenty pages, don't prove anything, and then are forgotten, then go to the bnet forums.

On June 14 2010 01:34 Bibdy wrote:

At what point did I say the Protoss is doing nothing, and doesn't have everything in play, too?
At what point did I say the Protoss isn't trying to bust in?

And when you've got two massive armies colliding in a 'fair fight' Ghosts can EMP all of our shit (including casters), Siege Tanks get two full volleys of shots off, Vikings start battering our Collossi and the bio ball is Stimmed, all before we can get in range and fight back

all before we can get in range and fight back

At what point do you actually consider Chrono Boost a massive advantage over say, Reactors and the MULE? Hi, two different production abilities for two different races.

At what point does a Protoss player have to say "fuck it" to a massive blob of Siege Tanks and Vikings sitting outside his expansion?

Get some basic comprehension before you try and complain.

I'm glad when Terrans go mech. Makes Void Rays that much stronger. Too few Terrans haven't got a clue how badly their beloved Vikins get raped by Flux-Veined Void Rays that snuck into their base and charged to full off a building.

On June 14 2010 01:48 Mensab wrote:






Blink stalkers? Phoenixes? Both? Or anything in general? Or how about not running headlong into his army? I mean I heard (and just heard you know) that any T with a big tank line is pretty vulnerable when a number of them have to unsiege to leapfrog. And if he doesnt have a strong tank line then the bulk of his DPS is with his range 5 and range 6 units?

Nevermind that there is a big assumption that the T player has to somehow amass all this heavily expensive mineral AND gas heavy army. I mean fuck you have the T have a large bioball (presumably with a heavy marauder count to boot) along with a tank line that actually means something and sufficient vikings to threaten colossi?

Whine about 24 3/3 battlecruisers next? Oooh how about throw in some thors into that mix you described earlier too, I mean why not throw a couple of 300/200 units into the already massively expensive army.




Gee I don't know being able to nearly double the worker count that T has and being able to cover 3/4 of the map by minute 10 would count as an advantage, I dunno.

And if you want to argue that you are going to be saving to chronoboost something other than probes the vast majority of the time, then I say "scan".



I dunno you kinda answered your own question right there buddy. Unless vikings and tanks somehow aren't mech.

On June 13 2010 14:51 D3lta wrote:
Player A says "EMP" is overpowered.
Player B says "show my a replay"
Player A says "Brat vs toss in the zotac cup"
Player B says "Brat won the first game I saw after 30 mins of out-econing the toss, and lost the second in 9 minutes to an immortal push"
Player C say s"Replays don't mean anything guys, you'll just bring up what matches support your point"
As for the ridiculous statements about storm being ineffective vs micro (and of course, also hard to land), and the same old broken "blizzard changed VR so they'll change ghosts"argument. there's plenty I've already stated on this thread.

On June 13 2010 17:25 space_yes wrote:
Where would you get the idea that the protoss has to macro at a higher level at the terran? Was that a typo? Micro is debatable but you think macro is harder for the toss? Seriously? I don't want to derail the thread on this point but I can't help but point it out b/c I think it undermines your credibility

The lack of a direct protoss EMP solution isn't evidence of imbalance. If T > P statistically on ladder and in most tournaments/pro-leagues b/c of substantiated EMP usage then that would be evidence of imbalance but we really haven't seen that (as a result of EMP). I think the whole point of EMP is to help the terran compensate for the general strength of the protoss army and other MU nuances. Blizzard wants the protoss to get EMP'd.

I can see why you would think making it dodgeable would add micro to the game (it would) but it would be at the cost of balance and strategic diversity. One of the tricky things about balance is how it affects different skill levels. For example, if EMP were hard to dodge, but dodgeable most gosu protoss would consistently dodge it and ghosts would disappear from high level play. Sure, this scenario is great for the casual gamer but bad for the high level terran. Without reliable EMP bio builds become much less viable and the general strategic diversity of high level play suffers. How much fun is Warcraft 3 to watch? Is this what we really want for PvT everyone doing the same build? This is what I was getting at with my comment about skill ceiling and balance adjustments. I want SC2 to succeed as an e-sport and things that further newbify an already too-easy game I'm strongly against.

I'm open to being convinced but I from all of the games I've played and the replays I've watched (most Zotac, ESL etc.) I just don't see any evidence that EMP is imbalanced in high level play so I don't understand why its need more nerfing (it was nerfed once if you recall). It kind of reminds me of irradiate from BW in TvZ. There was literally nothing the zerg could do about but try and snipe vessels (which can be very difficult). The reason late game TvZ wasn't completely imba was b/c other factors besides irradiate. Specifically dark swarm and ultralisks. If irradiate was directly counter-able (dodgeable, removable in some way) late game zerg would always overrun the terran. I can't help but feel EMP is vaguely analogous in some regards.

EDIT: I'll point out too that we're ignoring the economic costs of ghost play for terran. These are not insignificant and can't be debated by just adding up the gas cost and being like "oh wow it only costs X gas, that's really not very much." Gas costs are relative to build orders, production capabilities, and stage of the game. They can only be understood in the union these contexts. If it were demonstrated (it hasn't in this thread at least) EMP was imbalanced one potential nerf would be a cloak nerf or slight range nerf. That would make ghosts easier to snipe which would add a tactical element to game play. Other possible nerfs include decreasing the rate ghosts recharge energy. But again, I don't think Blizzard should mess with EMP without evidence of PvT imbalance as a result of EMP. Who knows, maybe their internal statistics prove me completely wrong. Idk.

On June 13 2010 21:29 Tump wrote:
I had problems with EMP, until I stopped being lazy and actually took the time to use Observers, keep track of the Terran army, and spread myself whenever engagements were going to take place. This allows for minimal energy drain from my Sentries, and all of my units as a whole's shields. I keep my Templar spread further and behind/to the sides of my army even, and when the engagement begins I reveal them and begin Storming as usual, they just come in from all different which ways and are harder to EMP.

On June 14 2010 03:48 MattDamon wrote:



This is exactly why EMP is not over powered in my opinion. If both players have a similar army and the protoss spreads out with a heavy zelot/high templar composition, then the protoss army in my experience destroys a Terran bio army.

I also think it is weird that there is a topic on TL about just about every Terran unit being OP. From my experience most of my opponents that complain about something being OP lost the game because I expanded several minutes before they did, or I killed a bunch of their workers early game.