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On October 19 2010 05:27 DreamSailor wrote:Show nested quote +On October 19 2010 05:26 crate wrote:On October 19 2010 04:30 DreamSailor wrote:
Taking 3 shots to kill one zergling is so bad. Where as taking 2 shots to kill a zergling is reasonable. Dragoons take 4 shots to kill one zergling.... (Explosive damage). Yeah I was comparing it as a direct translation to SC2. Where a Dragoon would deal 20 damage.
if your going to use a fact, dont change it first; once it gets pointed out that you changed it, your whole arguemnet is discreditable
On October 19 2010 06:16 sleepingdog wrote:
interesting idea I'd say
nevertheless the reason why earlier roaches were NOT better vs stalkers was easy to determine: force fields: put down force fields, move your army back a little and stalkers can hit while roaches can't;
range 4 has changed this quite significantly, nevertheless I haven't played enough games yet to see if this changed it indeed in favour of roaches; because the range-difference can theoretically (!!) still be exploited with force fields, especially in late-game where you should have enough sentries to force-field right through the whole army
if your bringing support units into this, fungal growth them back
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On October 19 2010 04:09 kcdc wrote:Show nested quote +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.
stalkers are cost effective against cruisers and unseiged tanks if they have blink.
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I completely agree with you, stalkers seem too weak for their cost, and it doesn't help if upgrades are useless for them.
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Wow Protoss whining like mad. Stalkers win vs hydralisks 1:1 without blink and with hydra range (although they are about even). Considering both units are similar costs this is fine. Stalkers win vs mutalisks 1:1 ratio also, (unless you get into unrealistic numbers of units, such as above 50-60)
Stalkers dominate roaches without speed, and do very well against roaches with speed.
Stalkers are not fragile at all because they have good movement speed, good health, and good range. Yes they will die to marauders, but definitely not roaches.
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In an ideal world, where the maps go on forever and you can just micro all day, Stalkers beat Roaches 100% of the time. This isn't the case. Like I said earlier, sometimes you are -forced- to engage, you can't run and skip around all the time when hes trying to take out your nexus with Roaches, you have to sit there and try to kill them, and Stalkers do poorly.
Standard Roach vs. Stalker. in a forced engagement situation.
You will have just slightly less then 2 Roaches per Stalker.
Stalkers deal 10+4 armored-1 for Roach armor being 13 a round.
Roaches deal 16-0 for the first 80 damage, then deal 16-1 for 15 for the remaining 80.
You will approximately get 3 attack from Stalkers for every 2 Roach attacks
In a straight up one vs. one. It should be a no contest the Stalker should win. 39 damage per "cycle" (3 attacks of 13) vs. 32 damage (2 attacks of 16), then 15 after the first 80 health. Cost for Cost its 125minerals 50 gas vs. a 75 mineral 25 gas unit. 145/39 = 3.7 Cycles of 3 to kill a Roach, 4 for arguements sake, and 160/31 (average damage of a roach per cycle) of 5.1 cycles of 2 to kill a Stalker, 5 for arguements sake, because a Roach costs a fraction of a Stalker. This just shows you how cost effective roaches are, yes they can't attack air, but in a straight up fight they will have severely weakened a Stalker.
But straight up -for cost- you will have 2 zerglings with that Roach, or just less then 2 roaches per stalker.
Since this thread is talking about weapon damage scaling lets see how well roaches do.
Roaches gain 16+2+2+2 for a grand total of 22/round, Stalkers deal 10+1+1+1 = 13 +4 Armored. for a grand total of 17/Round, against armored, and 13 against everything else. Pretty significant in favor of Roaches.
When upgraded just weapons:
(17-1)X3= 48 damage per "cycle" for Stalkers. 22X2 = 44 per first 80 Health, then (22-1)X2= 42 for remaining 80. Roaches scale much better than Stalkers do. This is also stated you will have more roaches per Stalker count. We will not be taking guardian shield into account as you will be at equal gas cost (or Protoss will be behind in gas)
Edit: Kinda missed some maths:
I don't think its needed to go into Armor upgrades because Roaches gain the full benefit, whereas Stalkers only benefit on armor for the second half of their effective health. Where shield can "equalize" the damage output throughout, it costs an absurd amount for level 3 shields.
Roaches also fill the kind of "harassy" role if you choose to upgrade the tunneling claws and burrow. We won't get into that we also will not take into account blink.
This was never an "I mad" post, Stalkers are very good early game, but lose their luster a lot as soon as midgame starts. Then kind of make a comeback, not because they are excellent additions, but because you need something to take out air units. Phoenixes aren't nearly as readily available, and Stalkers are the only thing you can really pump out at a decent rate.
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Some of the arguments in this thread seem to neglect a few very important considerations. Stalkers require a significant APM investment to extract their added value compared to all other units discussed in this thread.
Comments about immortals I might agree with if robo facs cost significantly less gas, as it stands toss has to sacrifice significant resources if they want to produce anything besides immortals in a timely fashion from a robo fac.
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On October 19 2010 07:44 Hyperion2010 wrote:
Some of the arguments in this thread seem to neglect a few very important considerations. Stalkers require a significant APM investment to extract their added value compared to all other units discussed in this thread.
I hardly think thats a valid argument for the value of a unit, even if its true. Unit balance isn't based solely on 1a to see who wins.
Also as someone else had pointed out, comparisons between roach/marauder and stalker is hardly a fair comparison. Stalkers can attack air and this can't be taken for granted. They are not great against air, and they are not great against ground, but the fact that they can attack both types of units is value enough in itself to justify their relatively low damage. Most people who are complaining about stalkers being weak seem to use a stalker-only army composition. Honestly that's going to lose whether they have a +1 bonus upgrade to armored or not.
There has to be one ground unit that is the least cost-effective vs. other ground units. That just happens to be the stalker, which basically losses out to every ground unit out dollar for dollar. Toss players just live with the tradeoff that they are more versatile than most other units in the game.
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On October 19 2010 05:27 DreamSailor wrote:Show nested quote +On October 19 2010 05:26 crate wrote:On October 19 2010 04:30 DreamSailor wrote:
Taking 3 shots to kill one zergling is so bad. Where as taking 2 shots to kill a zergling is reasonable. Dragoons take 4 shots to kill one zergling.... (Explosive damage). Yeah I was comparing it as a direct translation to SC2. Where a Dragoon would deal 20 damage.
This is just silly. If they did a direct translation then they would still make it so that Dragoons do 10 (+10). Stalkers take 4 shots to kill a zergling, which is exactly the same as dragoons. Killing a zergling in two shots when a zealot requires 3 hits isn't reasonable; it's just stupid.
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On October 19 2010 09:14 koreasilver wrote:Show nested quote +On October 19 2010 05:27 DreamSailor wrote:On October 19 2010 05:26 crate wrote:On October 19 2010 04:30 DreamSailor wrote:
Taking 3 shots to kill one zergling is so bad. Where as taking 2 shots to kill a zergling is reasonable. Dragoons take 4 shots to kill one zergling.... (Explosive damage). Yeah I was comparing it as a direct translation to SC2. Where a Dragoon would deal 20 damage. This is just silly. If they did a direct translation then they would still make it so that Dragoons do 10 (+10). Stalkers take 4 shots to kill a zergling, which is exactly the same as dragoons. Killing a zergling in two shots when a zealot requires 3 hits isn't reasonable; it's just stupid.
The only big diffrence between Dragoons and Stalkers is the range upgrade the Dragoons had that made them so effective. Thats why Dragoons seemed better.
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I think the main thing is stalkers change their role late game from primary dps to support. basically once colossus and HT come out then you rely on those for big damage while the stalker is support, harass, and AA. A lot of people think the unit should have the same role all game but it doesn't need to.
The only reason I read and responded to this post is because void ray nerfs seems like toss has no effective anti-air versus armored. The Void Ray has become a joke, carriers take a long time to get out, and motherships are only used to get fans. Stalkers are great versatile units and the answer isn't "make this better", protoss needs more answers.
Stalker/Sentry/Collo deals with roach hydra due to not allowing the roaches to attack. Protoss isn't the warrior class its more of a mage that relies on spells rather than numbers or brute force. You don't need MASS immortal to fight ultras, you can abuse blink and cliff walk, add a few immortals, maybe void rays (not sure anymore), or even DT's if you can take out their overseers.
For Terran I am not sure... Marauders are pretty disgusting but zealot with armor upgrades and HT is good until they put down a PF which can't be broke.
Lets take a look at Protoss units which are rare/situational
DT
Archon
Carrier
Mothership
Void Ray
Warp Prism
These could be improved to offer some AA against armored. Interceptors need to NOT have 2 attacks and void rays need to do more damage in general now...
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the absurd level 3 shield cost is because it helps your air too, where air armour is its own upgrade
also, with current game mechanics, units with multiple attacks are better off en-masse, they wont overkill as much as say, mass thor vs mass ling
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Stalker's dont need to get buffed at the moment. They are no supposed to hard counter anything, and the reason for the cost is good range, good speed and blink research. Giving them +1 (+1) would not affect much, but i don't consider it needed as a balance change at all. (I play toss).
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On October 19 2010 09:20 Raiden X wrote:
The only big diffrence between Dragoons and Stalkers is the range upgrade the Dragoons had that made them so effective. Thats why Dragoons seemed better.
Dragoon range upgrade gave them 4+2 range, which is the same range that stalkers start with now. As I recall, dragoons were large and clumsy with terrible AI. i'd take stalker over them any day
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Agree with the OP. Stalkers do not scale well as the game goes on, not at all.
And as the void just got nerfed, they are the only late game option for anti heavy air, and they don't work that well. Maybe the void should have different air to air damage and ground damage like the battlecruiser.
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Stalkers are very bad late game. Not only for this reason but also because there so huge they have a lot of trouble forming a concave.
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There seems to be a lot of misinformation (or just bad logic) in this thread...
Firstly, if you compare roaches to stalkers, you have to consider the fact that they're completely different units (that generally fill different roles as the game moves on). Roaches don't hit air, and roaches are tanking units, NOT damage-dealers. Keep in mind that stalkers have a faster ROF than roaches, and so comparing scalability based on sheer +numbers on attack is moot (read: you have to factor in not only how much damage per shot a unit does, but how often it shoots)
So, a stalker shoots every 1.44 seconds for 10+4 damage against armored units, at 6 range. A roach does 16 damage every 2 seconds against all units, at 4 range. This means roaches do 8 DPS (everything here is in game-seconds) and stalkers do 9.7 DPS vs armored and 7 DPS otherwise.
In the end, the upgrade difference is actually very minimal; because stalkers have such a better ROF than roaches, they stay between 1.7 and 1.1 DPS better than roaches throughout. Lategame, when supply is crucial (and air units come into play) roaches stop being useful because they lack range and AA capabilities, not to mention the fact that their attack upgrade is separate from the melee and air ones, which are more crucial in PvZ than ranged, since hydras stop seeing use lategame. On the other hand, ALL protoss ground units benefit from weapons, so you see zealots, stalkers, sentries, colossus, and immortals ALL benefit from ONE upgrade, whereas the zerg player needs to upgrade air, melee, and ranged to buff his roaches, hydras, lings, and corruptors.
Protoss definitely is favored here.
EDIT: And keep in mind that those are the only units that a toss player really ever needs vs a Zerg. Phoenix are situational or build-based, and archons also benefit from weapons, so if the toss decides to go HT or DT instead of colossus, my point still stands.
Lastly, stalkers are already hard to deal with as Zerg. There is no easy answer to them early, especially when a few sentries are mixed in for FF. The only real "counter" zerg has to stalkers is mass lings, and a few zealots handle lings quite well. Stalkers are not underpowered nor do they scale badly.
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Alright, so I think that a couple people have said it here pretty much to a tee, and that is that stalkers can attack both ground and air, and roaches can attack ground only! so trying to compare roaches to stalkers is like apples to oranges. I really like what wherebugsgo said and he hit the nail on the head with the hammer.
Now in my own strategies/games I usually only have stalkers to back up the colossi, where they cannot defend against air, or if the going gets ruff throw them in front if I know I am going to "win" the battle. now on maps where it permits stalkers are like protosses mutalisks, they can go anywhere fast and harass the sh!t out of a turtleing opponent. Which is really fun on maps like Delta quadrant, or jungle basin where you can very easily blink into their natural. So IMO if your "afraid of mass roaches you should've scouted it already and been prepared with void rays, or a ground army consisting or lots and immortals to tank the damage and stalkers to attack from a "safe " distance.
Now I am no SC2 pro but that is just my own experiences
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I have no problem with a mediocre unit being versatile, however, nothing else attacks air better. Since Protoss has the hardest time swapping to deal with an air threat (Terran have reactors to double production on a building, Zerg have larva), they tend to err more towards Stalkers. If Protoss falls behind, they simply cannot recover with a strong counter unit. For example, Terran might swap a reactor over to a Starport to pop out Vikings to deal with Collosi, just as Zerg might spend a production cycle making Corruptors. If Protoss want to stop Muta with Phoenix, it's one at a time (arguably with Chrono Boost that's 1.225 at a time).
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I think the stalker is just fine as it is, the problem is the total lack of good anti-heavy-air that Protoss has seeing as the Void Ray is, to be honest, totally useless now. The Void Ray needs a total revamp if you ask me. It should charge-up super-fast for each individual attack whilst dealing no damage until charged and deal a good amount of burst damage after that cool-down. Burst damage along the lines of the Immortal but probably with a lower firing rate.
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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. Blizzard doesn't make random balance changes for no reason, so statements like this: Show nested quote +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.
Oh and a 75 minerals 25 gas unit that has 22 damage is faster than any other races' gateway/rax units offcreep even and can also harass expos using burrow is not too strong right ? The fact that zerg nabs whine about it doesnt mean its actually strong it means zerg nabs dont know how to deal with it YET.
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I see your point... but right now Protoss is fairly balanced as a whole. If you add dps to the late game Protoss core units, you'd have to reduce something somewhere. +weapons is very strong in the protoss army... I did a breakdown awhile back:
+ Show Spoiler +Here's a breakdown of the pros to each.
Armor:
-There's a chance the Terran will have EMP, so by fortifying the HP you are soft countering ghosts.
-Stim increases attack speed, making more hits faster and increasing the effectiveness faster.
-Armor helps Templar and probes.
-DPS increase on stalkers is very minimal with +Attack.
-Synergy with gaurdian shield.
-Terran generally have more units attacking faster but for less damage.
Attack:
-Armor only effects the HP part of the units, which is generally around half of their total life.
-Marginal DPS increase for Zealots and Collosi and Immortals
-Shield are ineffective on Archons, and less effective on stalkers and sentries due to their low hp:shield ratio.
-DTs one shot SCVs with armor.
-Attack is best for blink stalkers, they are best when used to harrass the enemy base, they mostly avoid engaging in head on battles until needed, meaning they attack while not being attacked.
Overall I vote attack. While terran does attack more times in a battle than protoss, protoss shield don't get the benifit from armor. This mixed with the bonuses immortals, zealots, and collosi get make attack generally the better upgrade imo.
There will be times it would be best to go for armor. When playing versus a lot of stimmed marines or early ghosts. In most cases I beleive attack is the best option.
At the same time, immortals get +5 damage to armored units with each upgrade, and void rays are supposed to be the alternative response to armored units for protoss. Sadly, void rays are weak right now, but that's no reason to buff an already strong unit imo.
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EPT
