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Poll: Did Blizzard overnerf the Void Ray in 1.1.2?No, I think they are well-balanced now (638) 45% Yes! Give me back my 40 dps! (395) 28% Yes, but they were a bit too buff in 1.1.1 (302) 21% No, and they are still too OP'd (94) 7% 1429 total votes Your vote: Did Blizzard overnerf the Void Ray in 1.1.2? (Vote): Yes! Give me back my 40 dps!
(Vote): Yes, but they were a bit too buff in 1.1.1
(Vote): No, I think they are well-balanced now
(Vote): No, and they are still too OP'd
Low ranking diamond player curious about the new changes to VR. Let me just repost the 1.1.2 changes to void ray for convenience
Void Ray
-Damage level 1 increased from 5 to 6 (+4 armored).
-Damage level 2 decreased from 10 (+15 armored) to 8 (+8 armored).
-Flux Vanes speed upgrade bonus decreased from 1.125 to 0.703.
I rarely get void ray as they were in 1.1.1 and now that they are nerfed, what role do they play in any match-up? I feel like Blizzard has completely destroyed the mechanics of the void ray as well as its role as an artillery unit vs armored.
- Less incentive to charge due to reduced level 2 damage in conjunction with increased level 1 damage
- Less effective vs armored units due to reduction in DPS from ~40DPS to ~25DPS. This makes them less useful vs bcs, carriers (2 units that are rarely seen), thors, and vikings (2 units you are likely to encounter in PvT).
For lack of better wording, I feel like this change has taken away the "essence" of the void ray. I can think of two good reasons why Blizzard would do this and some alternative changes without making VRs unviable.
1. Charged cheeserays slicing through unoccupied bases while the army is making a push: I'm sure everyone has encountered the rogue VR at some point in their SC2 carrier that sneaks out and wins the game with a faster base trade. I don't think that was the VR's intended role so Blizzard decided to drastically reduced the damage to armored units. It would be better if VRs had a building attack that does different DPS vs buildings.
2. VRs were so good that carriers played absolutely no role in the Protoss line-up: carriers aren't great for their cost and the fragility of the interceptors doesn't really help their case. Coupled with the mobility of VRs over Carriers, its easy to see why we rarely see carrier play at all levels of play. I don't really know how to fix carrier other than making interceptors stronger or cheaper, hopefully giving them some support/tanking role.
Please share your thoughts!
note: I am kind of in favor of the Flux Vane nerf. They were so ridiculously fast that if you didn't have aerial AA units, its very unlikely you could stop them.
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On October 15 2010 06:08 Mystgun wrote:
2. VRs were so good that carriers played absolutely no role in the Protoss line-up: carriers aren't great for their cost and the fragility of the interceptors doesn't really help their case. Coupled with the mobility of VRs over Carriers, its easy to see why we rarely see carrier play at all levels of play. I don't really know how to fix carrier other than making interceptors stronger or cheaper, hopefully giving them some support/tanking role.
Carriers are boss, blizzard is just nerfing void rays until next patch to teach us how boss they are.
Not even kidding, except about only nerfing void rays till next patch.
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They were pretty useless uncharged before so the thought is in the right place. 8+8 might be too big of a nerf though, will have to play around with it.
The speed upgrade nerf was definitely needed though. Not really for 1v1 but for team games and it won't really change anything in 1v1 so thats fine.
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I don't think 8+8 will be so bad, they'll probably still beat stalkers for cost, except they won't absolutely destroy stalkers any more. Honestly, probably nerfs them hardest in PvP, because of stalkers. Otherwise, looks like they're more combat-worthy units as opposed to purely building harass.
Turning them into more of a core army unit, I think, is good.
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VRs now lose badly to stalkers and queens on a cost basis. Any creative soul wanting to find a way to use them against 3 gate robo/colossus can let that dream die now. They are also now ineffective against ultras and most armored air units. VRs are now relegated to early terran harass, albeit a nerfed harass.
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On October 15 2010 06:14 DeckOneBell wrote:
I don't think 8+8 will be so bad, they'll probably still beat stalkers for cost, except they won't absolutely destroy stalkers any more. Honestly, probably nerfs them hardest in PvP, because of stalkers. Otherwise, looks like they're more combat-worthy units as opposed to purely building harass.
Turning them into more of a core army unit, I think, is good.
What role would a 250/150 slow-building fragile unit have in a core army?
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LoL @ the complain.
Did you read well ?
now when uncharged they deal 10dmg to armored units instead of 5.
and when charged they were absolutely imbalanced killing vikings at sight before being able to make 2 shots, or instantly killing marines.
They will be very usefull in battles instead of only using the when they are in masses or to make sneak attacks/cheese when charged.
With speed they can avoid being killed by marines, and kill armored units.
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I feel like this change has taken away the "essence" of the void ray.
This. Damage increasing by 60% from 10 to 16 when fully charged -- instead of 400% from 5 to 25 -- is a joke. From a spectator point of view, full charge used to be something to get excited about. It was cool to see people charging on pylons and trying to maintain it by hitting their own units, because it was a HUGE difference. Now, it's just not that serious. Void ray is kind of boring now (regardless of whether or not it is more "balanced").
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On October 15 2010 06:15 whoopadeedoo wrote:
VRs now lose badly to stalkers and queens on a cost basis. Any creative soul wanting to find a way to use them against 3 gate robo/colossus can let that dream die now. They are also now ineffective against ultras and most armored air units. VRs are now relegated to early terran harass, albeit a nerfed harass.
You realize they hardly do any less damage vs. queens? They actually do +1 uncharged, then -2 charged against queens.
If anything, this makes them better vs 3gate robo/collosus, for those times where your voids are hitting collosus before they're charged.
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They actually got very buffed when uncharged ... It´s like blizzard increased the damage to tanks unsieged ....
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The issue now is that BCs will be very tough to counter as Protoss. I think that there should have at least been a cost reduction with the nerf, like perhaps 200/125.
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Flux vanes nerf obviously a good idea.
On the damage nerf side, I definitely agree with the change in damage to light units -- charged void rays are way too strong against marines, hydras, and queens -- but I'm not sure how I feel about the big reduction in damage to armored units. Presumably this is about buildings dying too quickly. I will have to see how it plays.
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I'm confused, I was under the impression that void rays had 3 levels of charge, 1 and 2 have changes, but isn't level 3 the same? If that is the case, I mean what are people complaining about, you just have a harder time charging your void ray. I don't play protoss but thats what i thought was happening lol
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On October 15 2010 06:17 DeckOneBell wrote:Show nested quote +On October 15 2010 06:15 whoopadeedoo wrote:
VRs now lose badly to stalkers and queens on a cost basis. Any creative soul wanting to find a way to use them against 3 gate robo/colossus can let that dream die now. They are also now ineffective against ultras and most armored air units. VRs are now relegated to early terran harass, albeit a nerfed harass. You realize they hardly do any less damage vs. queens? They actually do +1 uncharged, then -2 charged against queens. If anything, this makes them better vs 3gate robo/collosus, for those times where your voids are hitting collosus before they're charged.
I actually ran it through the editor. VRs used to beat queens 1:1. They lose now. I'm not saying this is bad, but it does make VR harass completely unviable vs zerg.
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Before charging void rays used to do 5/0.6 = 8,3 dps now they do 10 / 0.6 17 dps UNCHARGED, meaning u can pretty much do constant damage to bc vikings thors and whatever is armored, they just eliminated the cheese-possibility of charging on rock and roflstomping everything ... This wasnt even a nerf (except for the speed ... )
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This is so reasonable, they're trying to make Void Rays a good unit and not a gimmicky one-trick-pony. The uncharged buff is huge and they also got buffed vs. armored. The only reduction is in charged damage vs light where it doesn't matter A TON. Maybe if you're playing a one base all in where you have to kill a lot of marines but if you do that you don't deserve balance changes in your favor anyway.
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Im torn. Personally I love the nerf just because I have trouble against sneak attack rays who get my base while my army has moved out and puts me in a very...strange position. Its not like drops which can be countered by 1 properly placed siege tank and 2 turrets, or like nydus worms which are countered by literally 2 marines+workers as long as you have sight on your base. (I'm not saying im good at those counters, but they do exist)
2-3 void rays can completely change the complexion of the game. The problem was not void ray rushes (which can be easily scouted) or mass void rays (same, and can be taken down by cheaper marines and vikings, and hey look you've got no ground anymore) it was that 2 or 3 void rays built while losing means you can put the terran, at least, in an awful position even if he had the game won.
But what do I know, I'm silver.
What I dont like about it is that it seems to play into the "power underwhelming" trope of SC2 (relative to BW) that was explained so well in another thread at TL. Siege tanks were nerfed so they dont decimate ground armies in a matter of seconds, high temps cant take out thors auto-instantly anymore, roaches went from being crap-your-pants to "oh, roaches. K." reapers have been rendered almost useless (I believe, don't quote me on this) except as scouts and now void rays.
It makes sense, kind of, but this seems to go against the grain of exciting matches. If you can predict the winner 9 times out of 10 by looking at the army count and composition before the battle thats...going to be a problem.
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On October 15 2010 06:23 whoopadeedoo wrote:Show nested quote +On October 15 2010 06:17 DeckOneBell wrote:On October 15 2010 06:15 whoopadeedoo wrote:
VRs now lose badly to stalkers and queens on a cost basis. Any creative soul wanting to find a way to use them against 3 gate robo/colossus can let that dream die now. They are also now ineffective against ultras and most armored air units. VRs are now relegated to early terran harass, albeit a nerfed harass. You realize they hardly do any less damage vs. queens? They actually do +1 uncharged, then -2 charged against queens. If anything, this makes them better vs 3gate robo/collosus, for those times where your voids are hitting collosus before they're charged. I actually ran it through the editor. VRs used to beat queens 1:1. They lose now. I'm not saying this is bad, but it does make VR harass completely unviable vs zerg.
i think that was on purpose because void teching is faster than banshee teching so zerg usually have less queens than the ones needed to kill the voidrays...
And the queen comes out of the hatchery so the voidray always charge the beam before hitting the queen and it was ridiculous.... just see how idra lost against a protoss in the GSL (it was tester ?).
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On October 15 2010 06:21 PeT[uK] wrote:
I'm confused, I was under the impression that void rays had 3 levels of charge, 1 and 2 have changes, but isn't level 3 the same? If that is the case, I mean what are people complaining about, you just have a harder time charging your void ray. I don't play protoss but thats what i thought was happening lol
Not since beta have they had 3 stages. Just the two.
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Guys I'm sorry for the silly question but I was under the impression VRs had 3 levels of charge? What am I missing? :E
**Edit: Sorry just say post above me, my red cheeks.
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EPT
