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Stalkers deal 10(+4 armored) base damage. While their 14 damage to armored units isn't great for cost, with micro, stalkers are intended to be a big part of Protoss's response to armored units. The obvious example is the roach where stalkers are THE early game Protoss response, and as the game continues, continue to be an important core of the army since you can't go mass immortal. Against marauders, stalkers are the primary damage dealers in the early game. And as the game continues, stalkers are intended to comprise a portion of the solution to the bigger armored units like siege tanks, battlecruisers, brood lords, collosi, carriers, and even for focus firing units like thors and ultralisks.
The problem is that stalkers are arguably unit that benefits least from upgrades in the entire game. Armor upgrades are of little use since half of their health is in shields, but the bigger problem is that their weapon upgrade only offers +1 damage to their base damage of 14 vs armored.
Consider the stalker vs roach match-up. The stalker deals 14 base damage and has 1 armor that applies to 80 of its 160 health (effectively 0.5 armor). The roach deals 16 base damage and has 1 armor that applies to the entirety of its 145 health. In the early game, the stalker is slightly weaker for cost in combat, but its greater speed and range makes it reasonably effective against the roach. In the later game, however, roaches will be fully upgraded giving them 22 damage and 4 armor while stalkers might be 3/3/0 or 3/2/1 giving them 17 damage and effectively 2 armor (since either armor upgrade applies only to half of their health). The early game matchup between the stalker's 14/0.5/160 (attack/armor/health) vs the roach's 16/1/145 is now 17/2/160 vs 22/4/145. In the early game, stalkers cede 2 points of damage and a half a point of armor to roaches. In the late game, however, stalkers cede a massive 5 points of damage and roughly 2 points of armor (depending how diligent you are with shield upgrades) to roaches. Late game roaches CRUSH stalkers regardless of micro because roach upgrades are so much more effective than stalker upgrades.
You might want be inclined to say that stalkers don't get matched up against roaches in the late game because immortals, collosi, forcefields, storms etc supplement the Protoss army, but Zerg of course has tech options open up as well. And more importantly, the stalker-vs-roach example is just one example. A similar pattern emerges with every armored unit the stalker would match up against. Before upgrades, stalkers do reasonably against every armored unit (including marauders with zealot meatshields), but as upgrades get factored in, the stalker falls far behind its counterparts.
Shouldn't weapons upgrades give stalkers +1(+1 armored) to keep them reasonably useful in the late game? It's not like Protoss has too easy of a time already against upgraded armored units like roaches, ultras, brood lords, battlecrusers, thors and tanks. They're all really freaking hard to beat in the late game....
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They're AA units, it's a little too much to make them too good against ground units lategame, their tier 1.5, I'd prefer giving them an upgrade other than blink to make them more viable than do the +1(+1). In PvZ stalkers are very viable lategame so I think it's strange to suggest they're not.
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for this very reason, i honestly cut stalkers from my mid-late game army. chargelots and immortals get HUGE boosts from upgrades (+2 and +5 respectively), with hts for support. against T for instance, i never make more than 10 stalkers the whole game (unless he goes air heavy of course). though i have been incorporating blink stalkers in my pvz play, but the roach range buff doesn't help the issue..
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Well, I agree adding just base damage to units may be a little off balance, but really upgrades are ment to add small amounts. Maybe a +0.5(+0.5) could be possible on units with bonuses, for an effective +1 against armor'd units, but then people would complain about it having just +0.5 normal damage.
But look at the units you're comparing, a roach +16 base damage, vs a stalkers +10(+4) base damage, very different. Blink and additional range is the only redeeming quality in the matchup. Individually yes, the roach will always be better than stalker if the units are standing right next to each other and not being microed. Simply adding forcefields to reduce range (or guardian shield to add an effective +2 armor to your own units can offset this greatly, without even having to micro anything). On top of that stalkers are faster, and can teleport away, or behind the enemy.
Another thing to keep in mind, roaches are ground only units, stalkers can attack air. Simply having a single void ray, or carriers or whatever you prefer will turn the tide. If someone is going with a large ground force of roaches, it would make sense to counter with air.
Zerg is the king of late game though, their entire race is macro focused in general, it's obviously going to be a challenge to take out a large zerg army late in the game, for any race.
in terms of armor, we have immortals for a reason.
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I'd agree. But i try to remind myself in game stalkers have the lowest dps in the game for a reason. And that reason is blink.
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Literally every unit in the game benefits more from upgrades than the stalker. Armor upgrades benefit only archons and DTs less, but both of these units benefit much more from their weapons upgrades. Stalker's attack upgrades scale very poorly. They receive only a 7% increase in damage vs armored with their level 1 upgrade. For comparison, an attack upgrade increases a zergling's damage by 20%, a marine's damage by 17%, a zealot's damage by 12.5%, a roach's damage by 12.5%, a marauder's damage by 10%, and so on. There's no reason to make upgrades scale worse with the stalker than every other comparable unit. Protoss could certainly use a little more damage from their stalkers against late game armored units like ultras, roaches, marauders and battlecruisers.
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On October 19 2010 03:38 Roaming wrote:
I'd agree. But i try to remind myself in game stalkers have the lowest dps in the game for a reason. And that reason is blink.
That's true, but changing their upgrades from +1(+0) to +1(+1) wouldn't change the fact that stalkers have low dps. They'd just be slightly less awful vs ultras, battlecruisers, and 3/3 masses of marauders or roaches.
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Stalkers already had +1(+1) in the early beta, it was deemed too powerful and was nerfed in beta patch 6.
They're probably not going to revert that change.
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Theres not much I can say except /agree here. The switch from 8/+6 to 10/+4 in beta was a big boost to the stalker, but the loss of their +1/+1 from weapon upgrades was a big blow to their scaling. Sadly, the stalker is the only viable AA unit capable of threatneing armored air, which is really the problem. Phoenix don't do any meaningful damage, voidrays do less dps than stalkers as it stands until fully charged (and still suffer the same scaling issue), carriers take way too long and suffer massive penalties to armored targets due to their number of attacks.
Giving the stalker back their +1 armored scaling would be nice and help shore up protoss's stupidly weak AA. Why it even got removed in the first place is a mystery to me, given how bad stalkers were early on in the beta.
edit:
Stalkers already had +1(+1) in the early beta, it was deemed too powerful and was nerfed in beta patch 6.
They're probably not going to revert that change.
They weren't deemed to powerful, beta patch 6 buffed the stalker, by changing it from 8(+1)/+6(+1) to 10(+1)/+4(+0) as it is now. Before that change, stalkers took way too long to kill anything light on the ground - your talking about *5* hits to kill a zergling and an astounding 22 hits to kill a zealot! The small tweak significnatly improved the efficacy of the stalker on the ground, but it came at the cost of the unit scaling, which is frankly a problem. Keep in mind, many things have changed sense beta patch 6, including repeated nerfs to other viable AA armored units like the voidray.
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On October 19 2010 03:26 da_head wrote:
for this very reason, i honestly cut stalkers from my mid-late game army. chargelots and immortals get HUGE boosts from upgrades (+2 and +5 respectively), with hts for support. against T for instance, i never make more than 10 stalkers the whole game (unless he goes air heavy of course). though i have been incorporating blink stalkers in my pvz play, but the roach range buff doesn't help the issue..
Although I agree with you that I also like to incorporate more chargelots and immortals in my army than stalkers in the mid-late game army, I would like to point out that a zealot's +2 attack bonus is effectively only +1 because a zealot's attack is actually 2 attacks - 8 (+1) (x2).
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On October 19 2010 03:51 BlasiuS wrote:
Stalkers already had +1(+1) in the early beta, it was deemed too powerful and was nerfed in beta patch 6.
They're probably not going to revert that change.
MalVortex nailed this. Patch 6 was a stalker buff. And more to the point, can anyone name a unit that +1(+1) would be too powerful against? Late-game stalkers seem underpowered vs roaches, marauders, ultras, upgraded broodlords, upgraded battlecruisers, upgraded tanks, thors, collosi....pretty much every armored unit in the game. Maybe a case could be made for vikings or carriers. Maybe. On the whole tho, late game stalkers suck because their upgrades scale terribly.
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Stalkers have 1 armor and 1 shield armor...
Stalkers were too strong in beta late game, thereby discouraging any higher tech units in favor of blink tech/stalker play. Their upgrade is good because although they did too much to armored units, they still needed the +1s for the unarmored units, both on the ground and in the air
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Well stalkers are the weakest tier 1 unit, but its fast to make up for it.
But is that really a good, solid unit you can rely on in big battles? if you ask me no.
its the only viable AA toss has but its still a very weak unit and that is what worries me a bit gameplay wise.
What is really dumb about the stalker is that they are an early game unit and is really not the ideal lategame unit.
I think toss should get their dragoon back because they are more of a support fire unit rather than a harrass unit.(if you ask me stalkers does three things: early game dps, dealing with mutas and blink harras, which is great if you going for a harras ur enemy to death strat)
but the main reason is probably because dragoons are cooler 
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On October 19 2010 03:53 MalVortex wrote:
Theres not much I can say except /agree here. The switch from 8/+6 to 10/+4 in beta was a big boost to the stalker, but the loss of their +1/+1 from weapon upgrades was a big blow to their scaling. Sadly, the stalker is the only viable AA unit capable of threatneing armored air, which is really the problem. Phoenix don't do any meaningful damage, voidrays do less dps than stalkers as it stands until fully charged (and still suffer the same scaling issue), carriers take way too long and suffer massive penalties to armored targets due to their number of attacks.
Giving the stalker back their +1 armored scaling would be nice and help shore up protoss's stupidly weak AA. Why it even got removed in the first place is a mystery to me, given how bad stalkers were early on in the beta.
Protoss AA mainly has problems with battlecruisers, which has already been slightly offset by reduction to BC damage in the 1.1 patch. I don't think Protoss requiring stronger AA vs armored justifies increasing their upgrade damage to +1 (+1), but I do think that stalkers get weaker and weaker late game vs. armored and you are basically forced to incorporate Immortal to fight off ultras/thors. The problem is that +1 (+1) does seem a bit imba though given the mobility and versatility of stalkers, and you will just end up seeing mass stalkers rolling through a lot of match-ups. I think 10 (+5 armored) / +1 is good buff to stalkers for mid-late game, but has a high risk of making them too good very early game.
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On October 19 2010 04:12 tehemperorer wrote:
Stalkers have 1 armor and 1 shield armor...
Stalkers were too strong in beta late game, thereby discouraging any higher tech units in favor of blink tech/stalker play. Their upgrade is good because although they did too much to armored units, they still needed the +1s for the unarmored units, both on the ground and in the air
Except no unit in the game has any base shield defense value (shield armor), sooo you know, your wrong. Mass stalker was not a viable strategy by patch 6 in the beta, and instead you had far more abusive strategies, such as 40s build time immortal drops, and the old school 3 charge, 7 range voidrays. Or how about the colossus with 23x2 base damage?
Beta 6 buffed the stalker, the loss of scaling was random and inexplicable.
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I really dont like to discuss what should be changed, because players have no (concrete) influcence on these things anyways.
But from the current state I really dislike Stalkers. Low(est) dps, fragile (due to armored), expensive, scales horrible with Upgrades (as you mentioned).
Their Main Strength is their Mobility but due to the fact that I dont have the APM to micro them properly while doing other stuff and be not a fan of Blink-Play I take it as da_head and build as much as necessary and as little as posssible.
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On October 19 2010 03:53 MalVortex wrote:Show nested quote +
Stalkers already had +1(+1) in the early beta, it was deemed too powerful and was nerfed in beta patch 6.
They're probably not going to revert that change.
They weren't deemed to powerful, beta patch 6 buffed the stalker, by changing it from 8(+1)/+6(+1) to 10(+1)/+4(+0) as it is now. Before that change, stalkers took way too long to kill anything light on the ground - your talking about *5* hits to kill a zergling and an astounding 22 hits to kill a zealot! The small tweak significnatly improved the efficacy of the stalker on the ground, but it came at the cost of the unit scaling, which is frankly a problem. Keep in mind, many things have changed sense beta patch 6, including repeated nerfs to other viable AA armored units like the voidray.
If it wasn't deemed too powerful, then why did they remove the + damage from upgrades? Why didn't they just change it to 10(+1)/+4(+1)?
Because it would be too strong that's why. Blizzard doesn't make random balance changes for no reason, so statements like this:
On October 19 2010 04:16 MalVortex wrote:
Beta 6 buffed the stalker, the loss of scaling was random and inexplicable.
don't really make sense. It wasn't random, and it wasn't inexplicable. I just gave you the explanation.
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On October 19 2010 04:21 BlasiuS wrote:Show nested quote +On October 19 2010 03:53 MalVortex wrote:
Stalkers already had +1(+1) in the early beta, it was deemed too powerful and was nerfed in beta patch 6.
They're probably not going to revert that change.
They weren't deemed to powerful, beta patch 6 buffed the stalker, by changing it from 8(+1)/+6(+1) to 10(+1)/+4(+0) as it is now. Before that change, stalkers took way too long to kill anything light on the ground - your talking about *5* hits to kill a zergling and an astounding 22 hits to kill a zealot! The small tweak significnatly improved the efficacy of the stalker on the ground, but it came at the cost of the unit scaling, which is frankly a problem. Keep in mind, many things have changed sense beta patch 6, including repeated nerfs to other viable AA armored units like the voidray. If it wasn't deemed too powerful, then why did they remove the + damage from upgrades? Why didn't they just change it to 10(+1)/+4(+1)? Because it would be too strong that's why.
You do realize that 10(+1)/+4(+1) is the same vs. armored as the old 8(+1)/+6(+1), right? And that stalkers were really pretty bad around that time? As I recall, blizzard basically said something like "stalkers are now a bit better vs. light, but in exchange they now scale poorly against armored" as justification for the change. Was it the right decision for the time? Who knows, thats like 8 months ago. Whether that decision is still an appropriate one is the question, and I'm having a hard time imagining a whole +1 extra damage per stalker/upgrade destroying any strategies out there.
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On October 19 2010 04:23 MalVortex wrote:Show nested quote +On October 19 2010 04:21 BlasiuS wrote:On October 19 2010 03:53 MalVortex wrote:
Stalkers already had +1(+1) in the early beta, it was deemed too powerful and was nerfed in beta patch 6.
They're probably not going to revert that change.
They weren't deemed to powerful, beta patch 6 buffed the stalker, by changing it from 8(+1)/+6(+1) to 10(+1)/+4(+0) as it is now. Before that change, stalkers took way too long to kill anything light on the ground - your talking about *5* hits to kill a zergling and an astounding 22 hits to kill a zealot! The small tweak significnatly improved the efficacy of the stalker on the ground, but it came at the cost of the unit scaling, which is frankly a problem. Keep in mind, many things have changed sense beta patch 6, including repeated nerfs to other viable AA armored units like the voidray. If it wasn't deemed too powerful, then why did they remove the + damage from upgrades? Why didn't they just change it to 10(+1)/+4(+1)? Because it would be too strong that's why. Was it the right decision for the time? Who knows, thats like 8 months ago. Whether that decision is still an appropriate one is the question, and I'm having a hard time imagining a whole +1 extra damage per stalker/upgrade destroying any strategies out there.
yes it was the right decision for the time, and it's still an appropriate one, for reasons already explained.
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Wow, really? I had no idea stalkers got so bad late-game. I shall have to explain this to my Protoss buddy, who plays a pretty stalker-heavy style.
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EPT
