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On May 07 2012 12:39 Goolpsy wrote:
As for damage as charge-up, you could always use 'Pre-mitigation damage' and the armor problem is solved.
As for the expoential damage increase, think of it like this:
DPS for VR = %Of-time-Attacking-while-lvl1*BaseDmg + %Of-time-attacking-while-lvl2*Charged-upDmg
The funny thing is; if you try doing the math of how large a reduction in charge-up time you need to skew the DPS the wanted 5%, it's along the lines of 20% charge-up reduction per upgrade !! (The key thing is to identify how often it is attacking as lvl1 and how often it is attacking while charged up)
If by 'Pre-mitigation damage', you mean the damage it does while ignoring armor and weapon upgrades (basically use base damage), you have just described the mechanics of the original Voidray  If the threshold is at 78 damage for light units, and you ignore all upgrades, you will always get 78/6=13. 13 attacks, just like the current Voidray 
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On May 05 2012 03:04 theBOOCH wrote:
This doesn't show anything. First of all, 126 unupgraded void rays will kill 120 upgraded voidrays with left overs, as will 126 upgraded voidrays kill 120 upgraded voidrays. If you watch closely, the upgraded voidrays kill more unupgraded ones early in the battle. At the end of the battle, there are just about as many fully charged upgraded voidrays as there are unupgraded ones. Also, this is only one, poorly controlled experiment. There is an element of randomness to any battle. If severl voidrays from either side end up focussing on the voidrays from the other side, you get wacky results. Also, you can queue voidrays to attack and they won't lose their charge between changing targets even vs zerglings or marines. I honestly just think this is a matter of chance and numbers advantages outweighing one measly upgrade.
one poorly contolled experiment lol. What about slightly upgraded void rays?
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442 Posts
I think there's a point to be made with the test either way:
Either, Unupgraded Void Rays do MORE damage than Upgraded ones on certain units
Or, Upgrading void rays is essentially worthless because an upgrade can't even offset 6 additional voidrays out of 126.
Is there any other unit in the game, which, if you have 126(+0) vs 120(+1) that the 120 doesn't win handily?
That said, this is actually really easy to Theorycraft. Think about it. Could there be a situation where a +1 Void ray would kill a unit too quickly for it to charge up. I'd say, yes, there obviously could be a certain amount of HP where a +1 Void Ray kills it too quickly and doesn't charge, therefore lowering its damage on the next target.
I don't think that is deniable, so the testing is really just to find the extent to which the void ray is affected in-game.
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I did a whole bunch of tests with numbers from 20-50, with the +1 attack group always having one less number (to account for the cost of the upgrade) and the +1 attack group won EVERY SINGLE TIME. Now perhaps void rays don't get as much of a boost from attack upgrades in some circumstances as other units (as I'm sure 120 +1 marines beat 126 normal marines easily, for example), but in all of my testing +1 attack makes void rays better. Every, single, time.
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I don't understand, do attack upgrades not carry over to the charged phase of the ray?
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No, the void ray with +1 damage sometimes kills units too fast, making him unable to charge. See my post on page 4. The unupgraded void ray does less damage, getting more hits, which will then be able to charge.
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To boil down the hypothesis of the argument:
Getting your Voidrays Charged is more important than getting your Voidrays Upgraded.
In theory the voidray charge mechanic is a cool idea, but in practice it just doesn't work for a number of reasons.
1. The more voidrays you have, the more difficult it is to charge them. Microing 3-6 voidrays to charge is easy, microing 15+ to charge is extremely difficult.
2. A voidray requires significant charging time on a single unit to charge. However, it is extremely rare for only 1 unit to be attacking 1 unit. A voidray in your army could charge against a hydra, but if a single other unit attacks it, the voidray does not fully charge up anymore. This makes voidrays not very good to include as part of your army composition. Your army will keep the voidray from charging and being as effective as it could be, meaning other options will be more effective to actually include in your army. If a voidray is part of your army, everything dies too fast for the charge to be of use.
The mechanic is interesting, and definately difficult to balance. For instance, the fact that a lvl2 charge still exists that doesn't do extra damage is interesting. A Voidray can charge on 2 scvs, but not 2 probes. However this can also make upgraded voidrays worse in some situations and better in others. A voidray could normally fully charge on a hydra, but if it is upgraded, it charges only to lvl 2 and not lvl 3. This would make a voidray spend far more time in its uncharged state than it's charged one; if the battle lasts long enough and the upgraded voidray spends enough time in charged mode, than it will have done more damage than if it was upgraded. In a short battle though, the voidray will not have spent a lot of time in charged mode to make up for the lost charging time (which makes the voidray stay uncharged longer), and will actually do worse than an unupgraded voidray.
Unfortunately I have to leave, otherwise I'd likely write a giant wall of text, but TL:DR this is not as simple of a mechanic as people make it out to be.
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On May 07 2012 22:48 Darkomicron wrote:
No, the void ray with +1 damage sometimes kills units too fast, making him unable to charge. See my post on page 4. The unupgraded void ray does less damage, getting more hits, which will then be able to charge.
No I understood grubby's thesis, but I don't understand how the upgrade scales the void rays charge mechanic i.e if it goes from 6 to 8 (+2) to 7 to 10 (+3) etc.
The peculiarity seems restricted to scvs, probes and the like, once charged this cannot matter. The other lesson is that there might be an optimal number of void rays to make to snipe colossi and the like, just enough to permit all of them to charge while focus firing.
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When the battle is still larger, where unupgraded voidrays are killing without charge, then upgrades win out. There is a window where unupgrades will build a charge, and upgrades won't. Depends on army size, health of units. Voidrays have alot of health, so not the best example. And units dying at the hands of gateway units; whether their ground weapons are responsible for inhibiting charge must also be considered.
But if we're talking large battles which end quickly, the charge damage occurs toward the end of the battle, where damage at the beginning of the battle counts for more since it has the exponential effect of killing units off which reduces damage received over a longer period of time. This is increasingly true for lower health units, as charge takes longer and the battle is decided earlier.
And the reduction in charges will not be so great on account of only weapon upgrades; depends more on unit count and on how the unit composition focus fires. Focus fire is probably the greatest place to examine for increasing charge. Separating voids into a flank will help with this problem.
Voidray vs voidray is probably one of the most complimentary examples for demonstrating this mechanic as true. Real examples of army matchups will be much less favorable, as there are smaller units whose deaths result in great loss of damage output; not the same as in void vs void where charge is the deciding factor for both ends.
So in real game I think upgrades are much better.
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Sample size too small.
But really, I can bet running 120 unupgraded VRs vs 126 unupgraded VRs can also produce this kind of results in favor of one or the other side, depending on early causalities. Since VRs damage is so variable I'm not too suprised this is also happening with 1/0 VRs.
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@chebhe
Overall it's clear that upgrades are better. Against most units upgraded void rays will still be able to charge. But it's about those cases that a +1 actually makes them worse. I think that should not be. It makes no sense that a general +1 upgrade makes a unit worse. That's never the case for any other unit.
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I think that maybe if Void Rays just lost, say, 2 charges when they switched targets it might solve the problem.
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I think it just adds another dimension to voidray micro, don't focus down units, split your voidrays' attacks amongst many units in an attempt to have as many charge up as quickly as possible
EDIT: I know this will never happen... but what if they made Voidrays do level 3 charge damage for only the first click of damage or two and then had them "overheat"? It would add a different dimmension to the micro, making sure the Voidrays LOST their "Full power charge" in the first place instead of GETTING a charge during the battle? It would also make voidrays make more sense during battle...
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I think it would be nice if Void Rays actually worked as the pre-game tip says: the Void Ray does more damage the longer it remains in combat. Let the charge build up and fall off gradually rather than having it be so binary.
At present, trying to get your void rays charged in any medium or larger sized battle requires anti-focusing their fire, which means losing the battle horribly.
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A unit getting WEAKER with upgrades is completely unacceptable. The Void Ray's mechanics need to be reworked.
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grubby is always right
but noone actually uses mass voidrays anyways so it doesn't really matter
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On May 08 2012 05:38 sVnteen wrote:grubby is always right but noone actually uses mass voidrays anyways so it doesn't really matter
Why does nobody use mass void rays? Because they're not good enough
Why are they not good enough? Because of bugs like this.
Why aren't bugs like this fixed? Because nobody uses void rays? That doesn't make sense :D
Also, http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=333403¤tpage=12#233.
He uses mass voids.
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On May 08 2012 05:38 sVnteen wrote:grubby is always right but noone actually uses mass voidrays anyways so it doesn't really matter
Why does nobody use mass void rays? Because they're not good enough
Why are they not good enough? Because of bugs like this.
Why aren't bugs like this fixed? Because nobody uses void rays? That doesn't make sense :D
Also, http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=333403¤tpage=1#1.
He uses mass voids.
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So is it safe to assume that getting +1 voids in pvz wouldn't add to my cause huh?
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I also like the charge based on damage.
This would be a buff to voids as it would essentially be making charge time decrease with each air upgrade, although the decrease in charge time could be upset by armor upgrades from the other side (as they reduce damage taken).
The other issue is that it would mean voids charged even faster, and were thus even better, against massive units where they have the 30% increased damage or whatever it is.
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EPT
