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A speedy-harassment unit which doesn't require a huge commitment (like dts) and is accessable quite early in the game (like after the cybernatics core) would be indeed something to provide protoss a very much needed harassment potential (maybe also better early game scouting).
I like that you put effort into this thread talking about the possibilities a unit like the reaper could provide protoss without really needing to think if just adding the reaper itself to protoss would be balanced or not. The OP just tries to point out the possibilities a unit like the reaper would mean for protoss and takes it as granted that blizzard would take the necessary steps to balance it out.
However, whichever harassment unit the protoss might get in hots. I think they will need to fix high-ground warpins (like the OP also stated), which is not necessary for protoss and provides abusive strategies.
I especially agree about the fact that terrans don't need to leave anything at home vs a potential threat of protoss harassment, while it's absolutely normal that protoss has to leave stalkers behind vs drops (although protoss has warpins, they are often on cooldown or at early medivac timings protoss often times doesn't even have enough stuff to defend a 2 medivac drop with one single warpin or they get supply blocked because the drop snipes a single pylon ...).
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On October 21 2011 03:19 secretary bird wrote:
Not that they are useless but which Protoss or Zerg unit would you replace with reapers? And dont say Carriers , terran has BCs so deal with it.
Protoss and Zerg don't even have nearly as many units or upgrades as are available for terrans and new units and upgrades are going to be introduced in hots, so why would you need to replace an existing unit for it?
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On October 21 2011 04:41 secretary bird wrote:Show nested quote +On October 21 2011 04:31 kcdc wrote:On October 21 2011 04:26 Atreides wrote:
I do not know off the top of my head the exact relative timings and stuff, but I am pretty sure that a standard one gate fe is more economic than a concussive expand. Negative. Concussive expand gets more income than 1 gate FE because of MULEs. Protoss will have more workers, but less income. P has to find an edge elsewhere to win. Any proof for that? So it doesnt matter how much chrono you spend on probes or at what timing you compare the income,the existance of MULEs always means the terran has more income?
I don't have a study to link or anything, but I've played easily over 1,000 1 gate FE's against Terran at a pretty high level of play. Concussive expand starts the CC at about the same time as P starts the nexus (usually a little before), but they float it down to the natural shortly after the nexus completes. T has fewer workers (because P chronos probes and T has to pause building SCVs to make orb commands), but T has more mineral income.
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On October 21 2011 04:54 Fairwell wrote:Show nested quote +On October 21 2011 03:19 secretary bird wrote:
Not that they are useless but which Protoss or Zerg unit would you replace with reapers? And dont say Carriers , terran has BCs so deal with it.
Protoss and Zerg don't even have nearly as many units or upgrades as are available for terrans and new units and upgrades are going to be introduced in hots, so why would you need to replace an existing unit for it?
Zerg has less units , Protoss doesnt and the upgrades are pretty useless.
That wasnt the point though you wouldnt have to give up a unit but almost any unit is used at certain times and a good unit would really have to stand out in terms of utility compared to others.
I was trying to say that reapers arent such a unit and Zergs and Protoss wouldnt really want it that badly , just having an additional unit is always good of course.
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On October 21 2011 05:09 secretary bird wrote:Show nested quote +On October 21 2011 04:54 Fairwell wrote:On October 21 2011 03:19 secretary bird wrote:
Not that they are useless but which Protoss or Zerg unit would you replace with reapers? And dont say Carriers , terran has BCs so deal with it.
Protoss and Zerg don't even have nearly as many units or upgrades as are available for terrans and new units and upgrades are going to be introduced in hots, so why would you need to replace an existing unit for it? Zerg has less units , Protoss doesnt and the upgrades are pretty useless. That wasnt the point though you wouldnt have to give up a unit but almost any unit is used at certain times and a good unit would really have to stand out in terms of utility compared to others. I was trying to say that reapers arent such a unit and Zergs and Protoss wouldnt really want it that badly , just having an additional unit is always good of course.
This is another point I wanted to make with this discussion. Terran has so many harass options (drops, hellions, banshees, and to an extent, basic MM in the early game) that reapers fade into the background. Terran feels complete and versatile in this regard, and the reaper doesn't have much of a use.
But in the Protoss aresenal, reapers would make a huge difference because it would fill so many roles where Protoss is currently left wanting. When you think about what the reaper would allow Protoss to do differently, you start to see a lot of holes in the Protoss force that could be filled in the expansions.
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On October 21 2011 05:09 secretary bird wrote:Show nested quote +On October 21 2011 04:54 Fairwell wrote:On October 21 2011 03:19 secretary bird wrote:
Not that they are useless but which Protoss or Zerg unit would you replace with reapers? And dont say Carriers , terran has BCs so deal with it.
Protoss and Zerg don't even have nearly as many units or upgrades as are available for terrans and new units and upgrades are going to be introduced in hots, so why would you need to replace an existing unit for it? Zerg has less units , Protoss doesnt and the upgrades are pretty useless. That wasnt the point though you wouldnt have to give up a unit but almost any unit is used at certain times and a good unit would really have to stand out in terms of utility compared to others. I was trying to say that reapers arent such a unit and Zergs and Protoss wouldnt really want it that badly , just having an additional unit is always good of course.
I'm a zerg and I'd trade the hydralisk for the reaper.
please?
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On October 21 2011 05:04 kcdc wrote:Show nested quote +On October 21 2011 04:41 secretary bird wrote:On October 21 2011 04:31 kcdc wrote:On October 21 2011 04:26 Atreides wrote:
I do not know off the top of my head the exact relative timings and stuff, but I am pretty sure that a standard one gate fe is more economic than a concussive expand. Negative. Concussive expand gets more income than 1 gate FE because of MULEs. Protoss will have more workers, but less income. P has to find an edge elsewhere to win. Any proof for that? So it doesnt matter how much chrono you spend on probes or at what timing you compare the income,the existance of MULEs always means the terran has more income? I don't have a study to link or anything, but I've played easily over 1,000 1 gate FE's against Terran at a pretty high level of play. Concussive expand starts the CC at about the same time as P starts the nexus (usually a little before), but they float it down to the natural shortly after the nexus completes. T has fewer workers (because P chronos probes and T has to pause building SCVs to make orb commands), but T has more mineral income.
You certainly have more experience than me and I cant prove the opposite either.
Its just that I would expect the terran to have mined more minerals and the Protoss to have mined more gas at the 10 minute mark for instance, its just a difficult thing to evaluate with all the factors involved thats all.
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On October 21 2011 05:19 kcdc wrote:Show nested quote +On October 21 2011 05:09 secretary bird wrote:On October 21 2011 04:54 Fairwell wrote:On October 21 2011 03:19 secretary bird wrote:
Not that they are useless but which Protoss or Zerg unit would you replace with reapers? And dont say Carriers , terran has BCs so deal with it.
Protoss and Zerg don't even have nearly as many units or upgrades as are available for terrans and new units and upgrades are going to be introduced in hots, so why would you need to replace an existing unit for it? Zerg has less units , Protoss doesnt and the upgrades are pretty useless. That wasnt the point though you wouldnt have to give up a unit but almost any unit is used at certain times and a good unit would really have to stand out in terms of utility compared to others. I was trying to say that reapers arent such a unit and Zergs and Protoss wouldnt really want it that badly , just having an additional unit is always good of course. This is another point I wanted to make with this discussion. Terran has so many harass options (drops, hellions, banshees, and to an extent, basic MM in the early game) that reapers fade into the background. Terran feels complete and versatile in this regard, and the reaper doesn't have much of a use. But in the Protoss aresenal, reapers would make a huge difference because it would fill so many roles where Protoss is currently left wanting. When you think about what the reaper would allow Protoss to do differently, you start to see a lot of holes in the Protoss force that could be filled in the expansions.
I guess blizzard agrees that Protoss needs better harass options, the warpprism buff seems to indicate that.
A ground harass unit for Protoss is one of the most likely new units I think.
Reapers are pretty much the opposite of a Protoss unit, a fast harass unit with low hitpoints so looking at it that way it could be nice for them but I would like a better solution.
And I have no idea how fast hallucinate works out because I never tried it but that seems like an early investment in scouting that Protoss dont like to use so I am not sure if reapers would be used much more in that regard but that all depends on how you would implement it as Protoss is just so much different.
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On October 21 2011 05:28 Oboeman wrote:Show nested quote +On October 21 2011 05:09 secretary bird wrote:On October 21 2011 04:54 Fairwell wrote:On October 21 2011 03:19 secretary bird wrote:
Not that they are useless but which Protoss or Zerg unit would you replace with reapers? And dont say Carriers , terran has BCs so deal with it.
Protoss and Zerg don't even have nearly as many units or upgrades as are available for terrans and new units and upgrades are going to be introduced in hots, so why would you need to replace an existing unit for it? Zerg has less units , Protoss doesnt and the upgrades are pretty useless. That wasnt the point though you wouldnt have to give up a unit but almost any unit is used at certain times and a good unit would really have to stand out in terms of utility compared to others. I was trying to say that reapers arent such a unit and Zergs and Protoss wouldnt really want it that badly , just having an additional unit is always good of course. I'm a zerg and I'd trade the hydralisk for the reaper. please?
I dunno about that. Hydras are not what they used to be my favorite BW unit but they are used in ZvP and ZvZ by Koreans and against something like mass voids you would probably miss them lol.
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United States7483 Posts
On October 21 2011 05:48 secretary bird wrote:Show nested quote +On October 21 2011 05:19 kcdc wrote:On October 21 2011 05:09 secretary bird wrote:On October 21 2011 04:54 Fairwell wrote:On October 21 2011 03:19 secretary bird wrote:
Not that they are useless but which Protoss or Zerg unit would you replace with reapers? And dont say Carriers , terran has BCs so deal with it.
Protoss and Zerg don't even have nearly as many units or upgrades as are available for terrans and new units and upgrades are going to be introduced in hots, so why would you need to replace an existing unit for it? Zerg has less units , Protoss doesnt and the upgrades are pretty useless. That wasnt the point though you wouldnt have to give up a unit but almost any unit is used at certain times and a good unit would really have to stand out in terms of utility compared to others. I was trying to say that reapers arent such a unit and Zergs and Protoss wouldnt really want it that badly , just having an additional unit is always good of course. This is another point I wanted to make with this discussion. Terran has so many harass options (drops, hellions, banshees, and to an extent, basic MM in the early game) that reapers fade into the background. Terran feels complete and versatile in this regard, and the reaper doesn't have much of a use. But in the Protoss aresenal, reapers would make a huge difference because it would fill so many roles where Protoss is currently left wanting. When you think about what the reaper would allow Protoss to do differently, you start to see a lot of holes in the Protoss force that could be filled in the expansions. I guess blizzard agrees that Protoss needs better harass options, the warpprism buff seems to indicate that. A ground harass unit for Protoss is one of the most likely new units I think. Reapers are pretty much the opposite of a Protoss unit, a fast harass unit with low hitpoints so looking at it that way it could be nice for them but I would like a better solution. And I have no idea how fast hallucinate works out because I never tried it but that seems like an early investment in scouting that Protoss dont like to use so I am not sure if reapers would be used much more in that regard but that all depends on how you would implement it as Protoss is just so much different.
Hallucination is a big gas investment in something that isn't tech, and has the wonderful virtue of requiring sentry energy to use. Add into the fact that right when it comes out (you have to get warp gate first), you have it just in time to spot the all-in that's about to hit you in the face but have no time to react, and you see why.
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On October 21 2011 03:22 Krayze wrote:
Blink stalkers are amazing at harassment pvz, especially late game. It's like instant drops that recharge in 8 seconds. You blink up a cliff, snipe a hatch and blink back. Protoss are great harassment options with blink and warpin's. Adding reapers sounds like blink stalkers that don't need vision to jump up a cliff, they are very similar tho but I would prefer the stalker in most cases.
No, I agree with the OP more. Reapers on the Protoss team would truly be game changing in a good way with a few tweaks... maybe including not allowing high ground warp in.
Protoss need early game scouting against T more than anybody. Blink obviously not useful for scouting (or getting in and out). It comes too late.
P early scouting in PvP would be phenomenal!
Sure, super late game blink stalker armies can harass if they have a mothership for recall, otherwise they are spotted by creep tumors and flanked too easily.
Warpins are OK, but zealots are the least efficient worker killer out of the low tech options. Stalkers are the worst units against workers in the game, save immortals. FFs in the worker line is something if you catch the guy who isn't watching his base closely... but long term those are going to be easily countered by just moving your workers as soon as you see the red dot in your base on the minimap.
I also don't think a reaper-type unit would need to be good against static defense for it to work on the Protoss team. Just needs to be able to cliff jump and kill a few workers if there is no defense in place. And having shields would be enough to make its recycle harass ability more than worth it.
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On October 21 2011 02:48 rpgalon wrote:
I can see a zealot reaper with upgrades being a good mix early game against marine/marauder.
zealots tank, while reapers kill the kiting marines.
you can use the reapers to harrass too. so you can have a mobile protoss army.
terran have so much shit, that they don't even need things like reapers or sensor tower.
protoss has to put like pylons+observers all over the map just to have a chance to spot a mediavec that can easily retreat, give us sensor tower!! =P
If anything could change, getting a reaper-sh unit and a sensor tower would be incredible for Protoss. They would get so much more mileage out of those two things, I can feel my mouth watering.
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This isn't game-breaking stuff. T makes missile turrets against Z. They leave marines and even tanks at home in TvT. Only against P, which has relatively little harassment potential, does T feel so little threat of harass that they don't preemptively defend their base. And the weird part is that they seem to think that they shouldn't have to.
That's why I like this discussion. Reveals a sense of entitlement to dealing with Protoss harass in the conventional ways. But but ... TvT and TvZ is different! ><
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I don't get it why protosses want a harass unit?
Phoenix, DT, warp prism and any proxy pylon?
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This might be a little off-topic. However, I would like to see reapers able to get a cloak upgrade. It makes sense to me. They are slow to build, and very weak, and designed to be harassing. Late game reapers simply cannot be used against a good opponent because the map is scouted for the most part. Cloaking would allow reapers to scale to late game IMO.
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I admire your way of thinking, I guess that's why Blizzard will add some sort of reaperish to the protoss army. But we can only hope still I feel that it only requires Cybernetics Core, to be honest I suspect this reaper from protoss either coming from Robotics or Stargate.
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On October 21 2011 06:01 decaf wrote:
I don't get it why protosses want a harass unit?
Phoenix, DT, warp prism and any proxy pylon?
Cheap and early to obtain harass unit. You harass early on, rest of game is sizeable battles. Phoenix, DT, WP are all investments that dictate what you as P player are going to do in the next 5 minutes of the game, just because you wanted a harass unit. DT is a solid tech unit used for harass, so is phoenix, they aren't pure "harass units" like the reaper is. You make TC, then shrine, then you make dt, and use it to harass. Now what? Hope you stalled them long enough to get sizeable robo force?
Reaper is nothing out of the way, you make rax as normal, tech lab as normal, then a reaper before getting standard units. It allows for a slight addition to your abilities at that point in the game without committing to a tech path like all the Protoss "harass" units.
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On October 21 2011 05:52 Whitewing wrote:Show nested quote +On October 21 2011 05:48 secretary bird wrote:On October 21 2011 05:19 kcdc wrote:On October 21 2011 05:09 secretary bird wrote:On October 21 2011 04:54 Fairwell wrote:On October 21 2011 03:19 secretary bird wrote:
Not that they are useless but which Protoss or Zerg unit would you replace with reapers? And dont say Carriers , terran has BCs so deal with it.
Protoss and Zerg don't even have nearly as many units or upgrades as are available for terrans and new units and upgrades are going to be introduced in hots, so why would you need to replace an existing unit for it? Zerg has less units , Protoss doesnt and the upgrades are pretty useless. That wasnt the point though you wouldnt have to give up a unit but almost any unit is used at certain times and a good unit would really have to stand out in terms of utility compared to others. I was trying to say that reapers arent such a unit and Zergs and Protoss wouldnt really want it that badly , just having an additional unit is always good of course. This is another point I wanted to make with this discussion. Terran has so many harass options (drops, hellions, banshees, and to an extent, basic MM in the early game) that reapers fade into the background. Terran feels complete and versatile in this regard, and the reaper doesn't have much of a use. But in the Protoss aresenal, reapers would make a huge difference because it would fill so many roles where Protoss is currently left wanting. When you think about what the reaper would allow Protoss to do differently, you start to see a lot of holes in the Protoss force that could be filled in the expansions. I guess blizzard agrees that Protoss needs better harass options, the warpprism buff seems to indicate that. A ground harass unit for Protoss is one of the most likely new units I think. Reapers are pretty much the opposite of a Protoss unit, a fast harass unit with low hitpoints so looking at it that way it could be nice for them but I would like a better solution. And I have no idea how fast hallucinate works out because I never tried it but that seems like an early investment in scouting that Protoss dont like to use so I am not sure if reapers would be used much more in that regard but that all depends on how you would implement it as Protoss is just so much different. Hallucination is a big gas investment in something that isn't tech, and has the wonderful virtue of requiring sentry energy to use. Add into the fact that right when it comes out (you have to get warp gate first), you have it just in time to spot the all-in that's about to hit you in the face but have no time to react, and you see why.
I will take your word for it. Sadly the warp gate research increase cancels out the decrease for hallus. The sentry and upgrade remain useful long term though while the reaper is a one time thing.
It somewhat depends on the allin you're worried about but something like 8 min(?) is a lot later than a reaper thats true, you could always just change the upgrade in some way that could be a good idea.
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I find it interesting that the protoss and zerg seem to desperately want a reaper (or reaper type unit) while the terrans all pretty much are saying why would you want an almost useless unit. I do agree that Protoss would benefit from some sort of fast early game harass unit for more options... except in a way Toss already has in Stalkers. Only problem is that they are relatively expensive and cannot cliff walk compared to the reaper. I don't want this to be taken incorrectly but the races are supposed to be unique and different. Having a reaperish unit at the same tech time (about) to both Zerg and Protoss merely because Terran has one seems to head toward an every race must be very similar. In fact the new Toss unit seems to me to be a Banshee type harass unit that only attacks ground (just my prediction)... I do agree that perhaps some more options should be opened up for Zerg and Protoss in some way to allow for more strategies. But to try to fine-tune balance the game, just by giving races units because other races have these types of units... I dunno just seems like a cop-out on Blizz's part and make SC2 not the great RTS it is and can be.
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Hmmm... I think PvP would be slightly inoperable. Imagine, one player attempts to play defensively... they would need to invest in reapers and sentries to survive. Why? Because reaper 6 gates (on one base) would be utterly overpowering. Sentries, as light units get splattered by reapers, and so a completely sentry base defense would be idiotic... though sentry stalker would also give your opponent a mineral advantage with aggressive reaper play. If you're thinking that stalker sentry could beat pure reaper, or even reaper stalker, you're probably right, but early game reaper/zealot would be utterly overwhelming. Almost like making reapers with 200 base HP.
That's why I think the metagame would progress into a reaper vs reaper fest that would early expand with mineral surplus... or degenerate into reaper/zealot(with one seriously protected guardian shield sentry) fests... Also, reapers have a long build time for a reason... and warp tech reverses the production cycle... imagine having 7 reapers by the 6:00 mark O.o
Protoss doesn't really fit with serious poking harass units... It just feels hella weird... Imagine LiquidHero playing vZ where he warps in three tank zealots and four reapers from a warp prism into a zerg base.... It would completely nullify spinecrawler defenses (also, seeing as Protoss gets attack upgrades the quickest of the three races reaper building snipes would be ludicrous)... could you fathom how Zerg would have to learn to play? Completely surround every base with overlords and either go for heavy air play or... well, I guess it would almost be like playing ZvT... except that the drop can just never end... and the dropship outruns your mutalisks O.O
I don't think it would really change much in PvT.... i mean, the zealot stalker poke would become the zealot reaper poke... and Terrans would likely need to techlab first every game for fear of a reaper 4 gate or even a zealot reaper push killing any defensive marines and sniping buildings so quick. Hmm... I guess it does change a lot. And similarly warp prism harass would be mega buffed... imagine 12 idle gateways... suddenly 12 reapers in your base with 12 more to follow in 25ish seconds! The moment a warp prism would show up Terrans would just lift all their buildings xDDDD
Oh man... I hate you Cecil... you have me dreaming of viable Protoss reaper double expands...
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EPT
