[D] Patch 1.4 and its implications - Page 17

On August 28 2011 17:18 firehand101 wrote:
I love how blizz has taken something and added something to each race, makes everyone happy

On August 27 2011 06:09 rmAmnesiac wrote:


the concept of quoting a post which you are responding to really isn't a difficult one. perhaps learn to engage your brain?

On August 28 2011 11:43 ScythedBlade wrote:


1) Stop whining
2) Yes, ravens could be considered pretty bad, but do realize that they are detector-spellcasters. This is why it is hard to equalize ravens.
3) Toss micro takes a lot harder than terran micro. What you have to do is make sure your vikings don't get raped too much before they rape the collosi. However, you shuld never have a problem if each ghosts' EMP was probably as good as each Protoss's Storm. In fact, you should be owning Toss armies if you do get EMPS off at the same skill level as the Protoss's storm.

The proper option for toss is then to usually not engage, because its not worth it at that point then.

On August 28 2011 11:29 Squigly wrote:


You deserve it: http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y73/MuzTx1/IDFP.jpg?t=1268104835


Hes being sarcastic about utilising zealots.


On another Note. The P colossus ball obv requires less micro than bio and are fairly A-move, noone is saying it otherwise. HT on the other hand are where P micro comes in.

On August 29 2011 05:28 Blizzard_torments_me wrote:



If you think that he's sarcastic then you are a fool. Even if he wants it to seem that way, that's 100% what he actually believes, and it's pretty obvious, considering how much he whines about Protoss in the previous paragraph.

On August 30 2011 00:28 eugalp wrote:
As a protoss player I like the changes more or less (infestor maybe not nerfed enough?).

But my general observation (not just this patch) is that it is mostly boring protoss units that get buffed (archon, immortal) and the more interesting, fun, micro-oriented units (void ray, high templar, stalker, mothership) get nerfed. Warp prism is the only exception.

I also feel like the new patch only reinforces the dominance of the robo tech tree over stargate and TC openings.

On August 30 2011 00:58 Morphling_ wrote:
Damage decreased by 16%. It will deal roughly a third of what storm deals over the same duration. Is it all about the root?

Mostly opinion. You say archon and immortal are "boring", while void ray is "fun" (all 3 are a-move units). Higher Templar and Archon are for the most part the same unit (you can always turn B into A). Mothership was actually buffed, oddly enough.

On August 30 2011 00:58 Morphling_ wrote:Blizz wants to strongly suggest the robo in PvP (instead of twilight or just no tech) to make the matchup less retarded. Observers make it less coinflippy, and immortals return defender's advantage to the equation. Something may need to be done about colossi however...

Against Z and T, Stargate Robo and TC are all viable tech paths so I don't know what you're talking about.

On August 29 2011 03:47 darklight54321 wrote:
He was kinda being an idiot in his thing about unnofical stats relating to the very highest level of play.

It's admitted that balance is different between levels of play. Imba in pro levels is related to actual abilities and dps of units, while imba in pre diamond is closely related to the "Less micro more imba". The magic area of diamond to med masters is the area where these two concepts collide, hence why you hear much more "this is imba" from that range and intelligent arguments presented to support their arguments, cause honestly, some things are imba in that range when taken on a case by case basis.

If you can't balance everyone, balance to the highest point. Balancing to the highest point makes small differences in the overall scheme of things. Balancing to the lowest or the medium can cause a huge issue in the other skill levels.

On August 30 2011 00:58 Morphling_ wrote:
You say archon and immortal are "boring", while void ray is "fun" (all 3 are a-move units).

On August 30 2011 03:08 eugalp wrote:
FG is only one ability out of 3, each of which is very powerful IMO. Infestor is an incredibly versatile spellcaster which pretty much allows zerg to mass it. You don't see protoss players walking around with 12+ HTs.

VR is not at "a-move" unit since you have to keep them alive. If you can a-move with VRs, you probably already won (or are in silver league).
The fact that many protoss players don't even bother with storm anymore and morph templars into archons immediately is bad IMO.
Acceleration buff for MS is very marginal compared to the previous nerf (and the overall expense of the unit itself).

Stargate tech can be used to exploit zerg's weak anti-air and force spores but not much more than that. Look at Tyler's game vs Haypro at MLG. Carriers are almost never seen.

On August 30 2011 07:13 galivet wrote:
You can't pull back units affected by concussive shells or fungal growth. Generally any short-range units that you put into a fight as protoss are committed to the death.

Storm is situationally good. Because it does not stack with itself, it's pretty useless against high HP units such as roaches, thors, and ultras. Even marauders with sufficient medivac healing can laugh it off unless you have colossus in the battle as well (especially because with stim it's easy to run out from under storm, usually kiting backwards so the zealots eat more storm damage than the marauders).

Colossus are generally better than templar for AOE damage for several reasons. First, colossus damage stacks. With ~5 colossus, every attack melts a row of marauders -- no medivac can heal fast enough to mitigate the damage. There is no way to achieve that effect with storm, regardless of the number of templar. Second, colossus AOE does not damage friendly units. Third, colosus can walk on top of your army; unlike templar you will never end up with a colossus unable to attack because it's trapped behind your other forces. Fourth, colossus AOE is direct damage, not a damage-over-time spell where the damage done depends on how long the enemy units stupidly stand still beneath it.

Colossus are the superior protoss AOE, probably the best AOE in the game.

What about other races' AOE units? Tank damage stacks and is direct damage. Fungal growth does not damage friendly units and opponents cannot run away from it. EMP stacks, is direct damage, and does not damage friendly units -- hp-wise, anyway. It also decloaks enemy units. HSM is direct damage that most units cannot escape; it stacks and the raven will never be trapped behind your army.

Storm is good because it's an AOE ability and AOE is good. But Storm is probably the worst AOE ability in the game. So protoss get the best and the worst. This is why protoss strategy considers the templar to be a transition or back-up unit: If you start gateway heavy, you use templar as a stop-gap caster to bridge your way to colossus. If you go robo-heavy from the start, templar are your fallback once too many vikings or corruptors get out...but ultimately you're just scraping by until you can manage to start building colossus again.

Stargate plays are only useful so long as you can leverage void rays and phoenix to keep the enemy's unit count low and thus avoid needing AOE. No successful protoss air strategy can allow the opponent to get a large ground or air army before transitioning into colossus. So stargate plays are either transitional or they're all-in; it's not a viable "end game goal" tech tree because it has no AOE.

Starcraft 2 is all about AOE damage.

On August 30 2011 05:22 Morphling_ wrote:
(Infestor is the only unit in the game that requires energy to have an impact on a battle).

On August 30 2011 03:29 BlackW0lf wrote:
This is so good post, untill the last section where conclusion is pretty amazingly false.

At no point this game should have gone to point, where balance is compensated by players need to be better. This is the worst thing that has happend and is affecting this game. At highest level of play being able to multitask, micro and macro same time is so far ahead of normal level of play, that those players are compensating the lack of balance by being faster and better, as such making races looks like balanced. Every time we see for example huge blink micro, we should ask is that something that normal player can do, if not is the game balanced without such skill. Or we see guy doing 3 drops simultaneously, or making almost perfect injections while fighting with main army and rebuilding, the question should be the same.

This raises the question, is it truly so that game should be balanced by top pros, or should game actually be balanced by something in between. Where the lack of skills compensation wouldnt be such huge deciding factor. After that balance would be achieved, all the skills taht players would be able to gather, would be their weapons to be better than their competitors. Instead of normal playing being huge amount of balance compensation and trying to get upper hand, by puttin enemy to situation where balance lacks for that race and theirs is more powerful.

By this I dont mean race v same race matches, cause there balance is always neglecting each others and even players need to overcome race weaknesses and real race problems, both are at even ground. I talk about stuff that makes playing certain race without huge expertiese, micro and macro, at level where no matter what race is played those would be "same" (not same same, but hope you get the point). If player can at top of that play superb micro or do insane 3 drops at time, then they should and must be better than their enemies, currently it just isnt so and guys who play worse are able to win at situations, where they should not, at least as long as we base discussion to races and not players skill.

On August 30 2011 00:58 Morphling_ wrote:
Damage decreased by 16%. It will deal roughly a third of what storm deals over the same duration. Is it all about the root?

On August 30 2011 07:13 galivet wrote:
You can't pull back units affected by concussive shells or fungal growth. Generally any short-range units that you put into a fight as protoss are committed to the death.

Storm is situationally good. Because it does not stack with itself, it's pretty useless against high HP units such as roaches, thors, and ultras. Even marauders with sufficient medivac healing can laugh it off unless you have colossus in the battle as well (especially because with stim it's easy to run out from under storm, usually kiting backwards so the zealots eat more storm damage than the marauders).

Colossus are generally better than templar for AOE damage for several reasons. First, colossus damage stacks. With ~5 colossus, every attack melts a row of marauders -- no medivac can heal fast enough to mitigate the damage. There is no way to achieve that effect with storm, regardless of the number of templar. Second, colossus AOE does not damage friendly units. Third, colosus can walk on top of your army; unlike templar you will never end up with a colossus unable to attack because it's trapped behind your other forces. Fourth, colossus AOE is direct damage, not a damage-over-time spell where the damage done depends on how long the enemy units stupidly stand still beneath it.

Colossus are the superior protoss AOE, probably the best AOE in the game.

Storm is good because it's an AOE ability and AOE is good. But Storm is probably the worst AOE ability in the game. So protoss get the best and the worst. This is why protoss strategy considers the templar to be a transition or back-up unit: If you start gateway heavy, you use templar as a stop-gap caster to bridge your way to colossus. If you go robo-heavy from the start, templar are your fallback once too many vikings or corruptors get out...but ultimately you're just scraping by until you can manage to start building colossus again.

Stargate plays are only useful so long as you can leverage void rays and phoenix to keep the enemy's unit count low and thus avoid needing AOE. No successful protoss air strategy can allow the opponent to get a large ground or air army before transitioning into colossus. So stargate plays are either transitional or they're all-in; it's not a viable "end game goal" tech tree because it has no AOE.

Starcraft 2 is all about AOE damage.