|
Hello everyone I am aware that there are many threads out there proposing we save the carrier however this thread differs from the other carrier threads because, with heart of the swarm beta being released we finally have been able to get a glimpse of the new units in action. I want to distinguish the problem with the carrier and compare it with its new replacement the tempest.
I would first like to address the role of the carrier which many people argue overlaps with the role of the colossus which is a long range siege unit. Though both these units are late game tier 3 units the carrier is more efficient at dealing with higher tier units from the other races such as the feared composition broodlord, corruptor, infestor. Or in the rare case of TvP BC, raven, Viking. Here is a replay in which I went carriers and was successful.
http://drop.sc/249269
![[image loading]](http://i1173.photobucket.com/albums/r598/jeribarela1/3517a543.png?t=1347330751)
Spine crawler walls are a nuisance to deal with late game PvZ but carriers make it easier to attack
![[image loading]](http://i1173.photobucket.com/albums/r598/jeribarela1/f19f488b.png?t=1347330776)
Carriers must be treated like colossus are in TvP. Don't let them get too far ahead of your army or they will get sniped. People complain that corruptors counter carriers too hard, but vikings counter colossus pretty hard but toss' have learned how to keep them alive.
Now I would like to explain my thought process and how the engagements went once I had my carrier tech. It took me a long time considering that I had to stay on even bases and continue harassing with warp prims all game to keep the Zerg from pushing me before I had my tech out. I put down double cybernetic core to get upgrades and 5 stargates. Now if I were to put more time into a general build order for a smooth transition to carriers I would say that around the time that a Protoss gets his fleet beacon he should throw down another cybernetics core. Once the toss gets a fourth base he has to start figuring out a way to sacrifice supply in a cost efficient manner so you can stay alive and get supply for carriers, while at the same time starting upgrades and putting down 5+ starports. Next is unit composition which I believe that 5 carriers is the magic number of carriers (including a mothership) along with Templar and stalkers for air support with a mothership if he does have a large number of corruptors, they can be vortexed and toileted which will leave the zerg with no AA for carriers. I do not believe that a maxed out carrier composition is the way to go which is where people go wrong. Now the way the current metagame is it is common for a zerg to make a lot of spines. Carriers have a much easier time dealing with them than colossus or any other unit do as can be seen by my engagement near the middle of daybreak. He does however have a large amount of corruptors halfway through the battle I lose many of my carriers but come out relatively even compared my opponent. I am not a pro but I believed I could have microed better had my Templar been in a more forward position they would have been able to storm them when they were coming to engage my carriers but I botched the engagement but came out even even when my opponents corruptors were 3/1 and my carriers where 1/1 had I microed better I could have pulled back the target fired carrier and used my stalkers and archons to pick off corruptors. People think that just because they a-move carriers and they die they are bad units. EVERY battle in starcraft takes micro. Take TvP for example Vikings shark ahead of a terrans main army for colossus if they overextend stalkers can kill them off or Templar can storm them leaving them very low on health. Thus Protoss players micro colossus and Terran players micro ghosts and Vikings. It is the same concept with carriers in PvZ.
Now the carrier and the colossus are both massive units that can be attacked by air, what makes carriers better at engaging opposing players tier 3 armies is they cannot be attacked by ground units such as roaches or marauders and they can attack from better angles than colossus can because they are not hindered by the ground. Take for example air space where broodlords have the superior position over other units where colossus or an archon toilet can’t reach them. However carriers can reach them when they are hovering over this space that is inaccessible to ground units. In a scenario where a Protoss player cannot blink forward under this area in fear of being fungaled, carriers can reach these threats. Here is a pro replay of STSquirtle vs MVPSniper in the tsl4 qualifier.
http://drop.sc/248962
![[image loading]](http://i1173.photobucket.com/albums/r598/jeribarela1/a716f6ea.png?t=1347330769)
![[image loading]](http://i1173.photobucket.com/albums/r598/jeribarela1/371fa5d1.png?t=1347331027)
+ Show Spoiler +At the end of the game Squirtle fends off the zerg army quite well despite his lack of mining bases and ggs with a handful of carriers left as he cannot make anymore units. Had been able to keep the bases on the right side of the map secure he might have been able to win the game. His loss was rooted back to the picture above where he could not engage the broodlords over his fourth which resulted in him losing the right side of the map and losing all income.
The next point that I would like to point out and what I think is the major problem is the transition to carriers. This is a concern because carriers not only need the time to build (which is a ridiculous build time) but the infrastructure, the money, the supply but also the upgrades to be effective. Putting aside all of these requirements I think we can assume that if a Protoss can get to a maxed out on upgrades and a decent supply worth of carrier army that they will fight more cost efficiently against a Zerg. The problem is getting there while staying alive I cannot stress this point enough.
Because Zerg and Protoss play differently Zerg only needs one building to get hive tech (greater spire) where as a Protoss needs to put down 5+ stargate and double cybernetics core to transition to carriers tech. Air upgrades are imperative to get with carrier tech because most of the time when people go carriers it is not until further into the game where all ground units have 2+ attack upgrades. Carriers die very easily to 3/3 marines or corrupters. The Carriers upgrades must be researched beforehand to catch up to the upgrades of everything else as the are necessary in the late game . The Tempest slightly differs in the perspective of its role.
![[image loading]](http://i1173.photobucket.com/albums/r598/jeribarela1/13b5a469.jpg)
The Tempest fills and extremely specific role in the protoss army compared to the carrier which is to bait an engagement or to take out massive tier 3 units for the opposing players. However I believe that the tempest is exclusively “The broodlord killer” and nothing else. Though they may be good at taking out broodlords they are absolutely horrible when fighting in a direct engagement. They do have 22 range with their upgrade but to exploit that you need vision and every Zerg usually has overseers to snipe obs with their late game composition, which may hinder the tempest from using its 22 range at its maximum potential.
I would also like to bring to attention that there was a situation report recently released by blizzard saying that they were doing to make changes to the raven and creep tumor but decided to let the game evolve as the ever changing meta game changes from day to day.
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=365039
On Aug 31, 2012 9:00 AM PDT David Kim wrote:
A few weeks ago, we asked you to join us in testing a few proposed balance tweaks for StarCraft II. At the time, we felt like terran performance versus zerg (at the pro level) needed some attention. You responded with a lot of testing and good feedback.
Since we began this testing, we’ve also been paying very close attention to the major tournaments around the world, and we’ve noticed that terran performance in the TvZ matchup has improved. In analyzing tournaments such as Global StarCraft II Team League, Intel Extreme Masters, and Major League Gaming, we’re no longer seeing the same balance shifts that caused us to propose changes in the first place. The most interesting tournament in this context was the IEM at gamescom 2012 in Cologne, Germany, where we saw players such as Kas and MVP make use of Ravens in ways that held a lot of potential.
We feel that at this time, we should give players more opportunities to fully explore the slowly-shifting meta-game before we change the balance of the game. We’re seeing a lot more players starting to explore Ravens, and we’d like to see exactly how that goes before making any decisions on balance. The TvZ win ratio has somewhat shifted toward terran, calling a nerf to creep tumor into question.
This is the first time that we’ve planned for an adjustment, and then observed a change in the meta-game that could impact our decision. That doesn’t lead us to the conclusion that there is nothing that needs to be adjusted, but rather, it’s a chance for us to carefully consider other things. When we see that balance is changing on its own, we prefer to continue monitoring the situation and see where the performance of the different matchups settles before we step in.
Overall, the balance we’re seeing at the tournament level looks pretty good right now, and we will continue to watch the meta-game closely, and read your suggestions.
Why then take out the carrier preemptively? Why not take the same approach to the carrier as they did with the situation report? Work on the carrier and make it easier for Protoss player and let the carrier evolve as we are starting to see more carriers enter the meta game. Could this possibly be hypocritical of blizzard to not let the carrier evolve more in the meta game?
If many Protoss get killed while trying to tech switch to the 350/250 carrier (not to mention interceptors 25 each) what is going to stop Protoss from getting killed while trying to tech to the 300/300 tempest. However! The tempest has a build time of 75 seconds compared to the build time of the carrier which is 120! This is nearly a minute difference in build time. Tempests are supposed to be toss’s solution to broodlords but why do they have to be bad at direct engagements. The carrier is already good against broodlords as well as being better than the tempest at direct engagements. That being said what if the build time of carriers was reduced to something such as 90 to match the Battlecruiser which would lead to a cleaner more easy transition as well as giving toss a solution to broodlords. Zerg players may say that problems would arise if carrier build time was reduced, but with corruptors and Vikings being so abundant in Zerg and Terran armies carriers coming out sooner would not make a difference. Carriers as they are now take an extremely long time to build and what people complain about is once they are on the field they are instantly countered if they built faster this would not be a problem. Carriers are the only WoL units being removed in HotS when the reaper which is arguably used less than the carrier is getting revamped. Pros have been starting to use carriers more also. If nobody uses them why not just keep both the carrier and the tempest? I know STSquirtle has used them in the tsl4 qualifier vs MVPSniper on entombed valley where he tried going carriers but the transition was just so rough it killed him. He also used them vs Ret on metropolis where squirtle did get to a carrier composition but in my opinion mis microed his mothership and lost his army, had he microed correctly I believe he would have won the game. I found the game of Squirtle in the tsl4 qualifier but could not find his game vs Ret. I would like to ask you all what you think and if you can find some more replay or results of carriers being used please post them.
To close I believe that the TRANSITION and BUILD TIME of the carrier is what hinders its use.
http://tv.majorleaguegaming.com/events/18-summer-scii-arena#1752/1767/1
Go to losers ro6 Game 2 Oz vs Stephano (this is a good example of carriers being used against arguably the best foreign zerg). WATCH THIS.
Other replays
http://drop.sc/249307 -Void carrier combo
http://drop.sc/240895 -MC vs Kas carrier rush
Thank you.
|
Good write up... I really wish Blizzard kept the Carrier in HOTS... and we've all heard all the arguments, especially the fact that Blizzard has done nothing with the Carrier pretty much since release...
Your analysis does point out one possible reasoning for the Carriers exclusion... by giving Protoss a weak direct engagement unit, are they attempting to break the deathball? Despite this seemingly welcomed strategic alteration, some may argue the 22 range positional battles will make games less exciting (although I find most games exciting... well not so much roach+infestor vs roach+infestor)... good write up, one again... you should probably advert this on the "We must save the Carrier" forum?
|
I agree with you completely.
--People don't pair a moderate number of carriers with storm and archons as they should, and their carrier heavy armies get murdered by corruptors. It's just like in PvT where you're asking for viking ass rape if you get more than 3-5 colossi. As for the "ridiculous gas cost" of a composition like this, I frequently see protoss players with 8 archons in the ultra late game. Why couldn't 5 of those archons (and 50 gas) be turned into 5 carriers and 2 high templar?
--Corruptors stack when they attack carriers. Storm them and attack with archons. The air splash is retarded.
--I'm only top diamond/low masters, but I play with carriers in most of my PvZ's, and I lose maybe 5% of games once I have carriers out. They trade -very- cost effectively against essentially every army when paired with a few (2-4) archons and feedback/storm.
--The 120 second build time on carriers is idiotic. If 75 seconds is okay for the tempest, why shouldn't a significantly shortened time be okay for carriers?
--People need to learn to use recall with carriers. Keep your mothership at home. Recall instantly out of every bad engagement (especially after zerg has dumped his infested terrans and fungal energy, and you've feedbacked a bunch of infestors and stormed his corruptors, but just before you lose a significant portion of your forces). If he has 15 infestors and dumps all of their energy without killing your army, just warpin and push immediately, and it's essentially GG.
I say cut the build time for sure. I think it could also use a boost of +1 to its armor. I don't see why the battlecruiser should have 3 base armor while carriers have been nerfed to 2 base armor (from their BW glory days of 4 base armor). That would help dramatically against marines. I wonder if that could change its viability in PvT.
|
I've seen the save the carrier thread but I wanted to make a thread with substantial evidence supporting the carrier and comparing it to the tempest. Plus I thought it was too long to post in another thread and I want to hear people opinions of proposed changes.
|
I do agree that people dump a large amount of gas into archons when it can be used for carriers but I think its because the archon toilet is the fast and easy solution to hive tech.
|
Nice analysis, basically spoke my mind and more. I use carriers in every macro PvZ and am still refining ways to safely tech to it, but once I get there the resulting composition is extremely powerful, at least at diamond level. I cry at night sometimes thinking about how much more situational and less robust the composition would become if you swapped the carriers with tempests.
|
Generally I make a lot of archons because I like zealot + archon better than zealot + stalker. But even if I build carriers, I try and have 5+ archons, because one thing that happens when going mass carriers is that a huge army or roach or whatever will come out and overrun your ground army while your carriers fail to DPS fast enough to save them. You can usually micro your archons around, but roaches are faster than archons, even off creep. Then a corrupter remax will leave me with no army while zerg has significant roach+corruptor, So I can bring a couple warp prism for the archon to hide in until the roaches run away, and try to kill off Zerg's mining bases. But ultimately you will have corruptors and roach on screen at the same time and then you will lose some archon so you need a lot of them.
I feel like tempest will result in the same kind of micro war, only once your ground army gets crushed by roaches, the tempests won't have the DPS to kill any hatcheries or make the roaches run away from the warp prisms, so it will be GG.
|
Why couldn't you apply use of the tempest to the situations you illustrated above?
|
@ClanRH because I believe that the carrier is better than the tempest it takes care of broodlords and is good at direct engagements as well as being the classic unit that all BW players loved and would hate to see go away.
|
the reason is that because after you get a good number of carriers, there is little you can actually do to stop it. Carriers have no room for micro, and they screw up the AI. Heck, even the collosus has more room for micro than the carrier, who just relies on positioning. Its better if there is less 1a move win. I'm not complaining about it, and it is difficult to get a carrier army, but once you do, there is little the opponent can do to stop it.
|
From the streams I've been watching, the Tempest is the new worst unit in the game; even more unusable than the carrier. The carrier has its place, and the Tempest (at the moment) doesnt seem to fit in the game. It costs a shit ton of gas, fires incredibly slowly, needs additional scouting for its range advantage, and does hardly any damage.
Take the tempest out and put back the carrier. No one ever complained and told blizzard to take the carrier OUT of the game, just needs adjusting.
|
United States8476 Posts
On September 11 2012 14:07 Umami wrote:
@ClanRH because I believe that the carrier is better than the tempest it takes care of broodlords and is good at direct engagements as well as being the classic unit that all BW players loved and would hate to see go away.
The difference between the tempest and the carrier boil down to 3 things imo:
Tempest has longer range
Tempest has lower dps
Tempest doesn't have interceptors
Blizzard, as they have stated before is really trying hard to break down the deathball. I believe the sole or a large portion of the reason the tempest was introduced was for this reason. Broodlord vs mothership/carrier battles in WoL is really boring and rather one-dimensional. You can get carriers, but even 4 of them won't dent the broodlord ball. If you try to attack with too few carriers, you can still get destroyed by spine/spore walls supported by infested terrans and the typical broodlord/corruptor. You need like around 8 supported by a mothership, archons, and templar, which some players are beginning to figure out.
Tempests, however, are more effective against the broodlord ball in smaller numbers. Since they outrange everything including broods, they can deter the massing of broodlords. (Previously with carriers, Zerg had no reason to stop making broodlords once they started.) Thus, Blizzard hopes that we won't have those big boring masses of air units and instead players will incorporate cool new stuff like vipers in late game, so that we get more of a dynamic BW PvZ late game feel instead of the turtling WoL PvZ late game feel.
So tl;dr:
I agree with your points:
Carriers need to be supported by ground units, something I've been telling people on these forums forever
Reducing build time would help Protoss a lot in PvZ
However, ignoring balance, Blizzard cares a lot about how the late-game plays out, and just reducing build time of carriers won't change that.
|
Reduce build time only will just make them a deathball unit which is exactly what blizzard is trying to avoid.
They need straight up buffs to armor, dps and interceptor mechanic to make them able to stay outside of protection of deathball
Suggestion:
- Build time reduced to 90s
- Armor: 2 -> 4
- Interceptor Damage: 5x2 (1 per upgrade) -> 8x1 (+2 per upgrade); Attack Cooldown: 3 -> 1.5
- Give Carriers Graviton Catapult without Research.
- Interceptors will return to Carriers for 1.5s for healing when their shield returns to 0
- Interceptors can attack while Carriers move
Now, before you say those buffs are too much, these things are mostly BW Carriers stats. In BW they were very well balanced and fun. I don't understand why Blizzard had to buff BCs and nerf Carriers so much.
|
Straight out buff on the Carrier will make the game severely imbalanced in the late game when transitions into air are very viable. And the reason why Blizz can't straight out buff the Carrier because it only contributes to high damage versus air units. While strategically, Carriers can be employed for pokes and prods by their air capabilities, they don't otherwise provide enough reason to supersede the Colossus and Templar combination. In fact, late game Terran will always have the infrastructure for mass AA, and the Z mechanic also allows for a round of AA production.
What I feel would be better for the Tempest is a damage formula dependant on range. Perhaps linear, perhaps exponential. Either way, let it be a long range seige unit. But at the range of 9, let it also have the same DPS as the Carrier. It could perhaps be worked out better for it to be exponential in growth so it wouldn't linearly punish indecisiveness of an army trying to break the seige. But it will provide the slight defenders advantage if they show indecisiveness in relative proximity to your army.
I feel the Tempest isn't TERRIBLE in idea, but Protoss needs a more reliable way to deal with mass air units especially if fungal isn't going to be changed to allow for blink activation. Carriers could be the way, and perhaps some epiphany will come to Blizz or perhaps TL can convince them with an epiphany ourselves. But I feel the Tempest is just as viable.
|
On September 11 2012 17:09 etherealfall wrote:
Straight out buff on the Carrier will make the game severely imbalanced in the late game when transitions into air are very viable
How can you know if it is severely imbalanced as you said?
Just compare Carrier to BC, they're both capital ships, DPS attackers and BCs are better in EVERY way except range, but they have Yamato to make up for it. Now BCs is getting another buff, and Carriers got removed.
With those buffs I mentioned above, Carriers will be able to neutralized most damage taken from marines, hydras and stalkers, but still take noticeable damage from vikings and corruptors. They will have enough DPS to fight with vikings and corruptors quite effectively with Stalkers support. Interceptors healing will make them not die in seconds, and the ability to attack while moving will add versatility to air play.
|
I don't think tempests necessarily bad but I think their role is TOO specific. With mech on HotS looking as strong as it is I don't see the tempest looking very effective against it and I don't see them fitting into the PvT meta as well as they do PvZ. The reason for this imo is their extremely specific role.
|
On September 11 2012 23:13 Umami wrote:
I don't think tempests necessarily bad but I think their role is TOO specific. With mech on HotS looking as strong as it is I don't see the tempest looking very effective against it and I don't see them fitting into the PvT meta as well as they do PvZ. The reason for this imo is their extremely specific role.
Killing shit from long range is too specific of a role now?
Think of what the tempest could do to the PvP matchup with a couple of tweaks, it could finally provide for some interesting lategame PvP matches instead of the excruciatingly boring "well imma make some colossus and upgrade em some and then throw them towards you to check if you did the same".
Carriers are only exciting to see because nobody ever builds them. If they were buffed and were used more frequently i can assure you people would dislike them every bit as much as they dislike broodlords, regardless of nostalgia feelings. Carriers are boring, a-movish units that don't offer anything exciting to spectators nor players other then the fact it looks kinda rad. The mechanics behind them are so silly and mindbogglingly impractical that the carrier would have to be borderline overpowered in stats to make up for them, which is probably why blizzard hasn't fidled around with them yet. I think the carrier should stay removed, or be redesigned in such a way that it would probably not even be a carrier anymore. I welcome the tempest with open arms because even though it might suck right now, it shows that blizzard is willing to think outside of the box and bring us a unit that would flourish in the hands of a proficient player. Sc2 needs more of that.
|
i actually like the hard work involved when going carriers against broodlord infestor. And I don't think the tempest will do anything away from the deathball (just being a bit further in the back). The carrier does the same but a bit more risky, but it can do so much more apart from this.
So the tempest for me will just be a bad carrier that got optimized to fill just one role.
But i agree, blizzard is trying hard to fix some issues. But the tempest might force maps to become more boring because of its range. Tanks range 13 forced alot of things on maps, the tempest flies and has 22 ... hope t3 is enough to have maps not bother with it to much.
|
Anyone else think it's just waaaaaaaaay too early to start talking about this shit...? I mean, 90% of us haven't even played 1 minute of the beta... the beta.... Most have just seen what the pros are doing, but the great part is not even the pros KNOW know what they're doing, they have ideas but their still figuring out the game, er beta too.
Just seems like talking about the changes that HAVE to be made to the tempest, or the viability of the tempest in PvX is silly and leads to nowhere. Please, please... please for the love of god just let the game be officially released for like... idk.... 5 minutes before claiming the tempest should be changed... or the swarm host is poorly designed.... it's insanity...
|
The Tempest will be used for space control and baiting out armies. It is not a direct engagement a move autowin unit. God knows Protoss has enough overlapping units that it doesn't need another DPS machine between storms, archons, colossi and zealots. As for going mass Tempest - well that's kind of why their DPS is shit.
|
"With ground support carriers can trade cost effectively with corruptors"
Same goes for probes and warp prisms. They trade well with corruptors when corruptors are getting stormed...
|
Killing shit from long range is too specific of a role now?
Think of what the tempest could do to the PvP matchup with a couple of tweaks, it could finally provide for some interesting lategame PvP matches instead of the excruciatingly boring "well imma make some colossus and upgrade em some and then throw them towards you to check if you did the same".
Tempest are good at killing shit from a long range what im saying though is that possibly one of the only things they will be effective against is broodlord as they do not have the dps to be good against anything else. Blizz showed that they were specifically meant for broolords when they stated their damage is + to massive maybe they should just make it a base damage stat like roaches so they are decent vs broodlords and everything else I mean with what you pay for with its expensive cost I think it could be justified.
|
Void rays are better at doing everything you said.
|
when you fungal the interceptors, the dps of a carrier-based army goes to zero. (btw: why can you fungal interceptors and not the hsm?)
in scenarios where the map is mined out and the zerg constantly trades energy für interceptors. there is a point where you simply dont have enough minerals to rebuild them and you have to gg with an army of carriers without interceptors.
thats why i dont like what bliz did to the carrier in wol.
but tempest?
cmon.
they showed us the tempest as an aoe air solution to muta harass.
now mutas arent used as much anymore because zerg learned that they can just mass roaches, and bliz thought "ok problem solved" and made the tempest a long range, overprized, low dps siege weapon, because the model was there already -.-
seems quite random to me, and plays random, too
|
They do have 22 range with their upgrade but to exploit that you need vision and every Zerg usually has overseers to snipe obs with their late game composition, which may hinder the tempest from using its 22 range at its maximum potential.
Oracles can now give you vision with a scan-like spell. There's also Hallucination which, while it won't last long, is at least free vision as well. Haven't seen either of these tried yet. It's too early to say.
|
United States4883 Posts
Agreed. I've been saying all along that the problem with carriers was not the actual unit or their utility, just that the game, as it stands now, makes it impossible to make a tech switch to carriers. The tempests are going to be interesting, but I honestly think blizzard should be focusing elsewhere and letting the carrier work itself out.
|
On September 12 2012 00:45 Umami wrote:Show nested quote +Killing shit from long range is too specific of a role now?
Think of what the tempest could do to the PvP matchup with a couple of tweaks, it could finally provide for some interesting lategame PvP matches instead of the excruciatingly boring "well imma make some colossus and upgrade em some and then throw them towards you to check if you did the same". Tempest are good at killing shit from a long range what im saying though is that possibly one of the only things they will be effective against is broodlord as they do not have the dps to be good against anything else. Blizz showed that they were specifically meant for broolords when they stated their damage is + to massive maybe they should just make it a base damage stat like roaches so they are decent vs broodlords and everything else I mean with what you pay for with its expensive cost I think it could be justified.
As if what blizzard thinks it should do well against is the end-all of a units potency. Still, i think Tempest's stats need to tinkered with, and nothing more. It's a fun, new and interesting concept and it's exactly what we need in sc2 right now.
|
I'm actually starting to like the Tempest. Perhaps people are afraid of change or they haven't explored how to work with the new unit but i think it has potential.. It needs some buffs though. Even a research upgrade that, for example, allows the Tempest to deal splash damage.
|
On September 11 2012 17:20 Xerxes Wrath wrote:Show nested quote +On September 11 2012 17:09 etherealfall wrote:
Straight out buff on the Carrier will make the game severely imbalanced in the late game when transitions into air are very viable How can you know if it is severely imbalanced as you said? Just compare Carrier to BC, they're both capital ships, DPS attackers and BCs are better in EVERY way except range, but they have Yamato to make up for it. Now BCs is getting another buff, and Carriers got removed. With those buffs I mentioned above, Carriers will be able to neutralized most damage taken from marines, hydras and stalkers, but still take noticeable damage from vikings and corruptors. They will have enough DPS to fight with vikings and corruptors quite effectively with Stalkers support. Interceptors healing will make them not die in seconds, and the ability to attack while moving will add versatility to air play.
I don't think you can compare BC to Carrier like that. In fact, you seem to solely complain about the Carrier given the BC buffs - which mind you, also has to account for dealing with TvX, with the only interaction with Carrier being the PvT. Now I don't particularly understand TvZ and TvT at a high level, so I can't say what justifies such a buff. But the problem has also been shown that Carriers are not PARTICULARLY effective in dealing with BL infestor. I actually like the idea of a long seige unit that the Tempest can fulfil the role as. But what I don't like is - so you're forcing reaction and he decides to attack you, but you have 20 supply locked in a useless direct engagement unit. 
|
you know blizz is aggront. naive, bold. they made the tempest specifically to counter mutas. then you see what they did? they gave pheonix a buff, changed the role of tempest to a shit ass one, then removed the carrier because that was their original plan? wtf is that.
|
On September 11 2012 17:20 Xerxes Wrath wrote:Show nested quote +On September 11 2012 17:09 etherealfall wrote:
Straight out buff on the Carrier will make the game severely imbalanced in the late game when transitions into air are very viable How can you know if it is severely imbalanced as you said? Just compare Carrier to BC, they're both capital ships, DPS attackers and BCs are better in EVERY way except range, but they have Yamato to make up for it. Now BCs is getting another buff, and Carriers got removed. With those buffs I mentioned above, Carriers will be able to neutralized most damage taken from marines, hydras and stalkers, but still take noticeable damage from vikings and corruptors. They will have enough DPS to fight with vikings and corruptors quite effectively with Stalkers support. Interceptors healing will make them not die in seconds, and the ability to attack while moving will add versatility to air play.
Terran is not Protoss. If Carriers have 4 base armor, how exactly does Terran EVER kill them? With 4 armor, 1 Carrier will beat 4 Vikings, and it only gets worse as the number of Carriers vs. Vikings increases and the Vikings either waste tons of shots on interceptors or all focus fire and massively overkill their targets. Battlecruisers and Marines will both be reduced to doing 2 damage a shot. Carriers can kite BCs pretty much forever too.
BW Carriers had these stats because the AI was absolutely horrific, and Terran had Goliaths to counter. In SC2 the targeting AI is far superior and Terran doesn't have Goliaths.
Also, Carriers are very problematic in PvZ. They're very hard to switch to, but if you do manage to switch to them you pretty much automatically win. Nothing Zerg has can beat Carrier/Archon/Zealot/HT. That army will just obliterate any Zerg composition and two or three remaxes without losing much of anything.
I think the Tempest will be fine, it snipes Broodlords very well, but you know what it snipes even better? Infestors. 22 range means they can't bring their infestors anywhere near your army without losing them. All you need is 3 Tempest and you can start 1-shotting their Infestors. It's also excellent for defending expansions, just put up 30 cannons and dare the Zerg to try and attack it. They can't whittle the cannons down slowly with their Broodlords because the Tempests will kill them all.
|
I think the tempest is good in concept, and I trust Blizzard to be able to balance it if it's necessary.
|
I think it has not been mentioned that another problem with Carriers is that you need a lot of them in play to be effective.
From my own experience, you need at least 6+ carriers for them to start being effective, that is why it is very hard to transition to them.
I mean once you get the first two Colossi it immediately gives you a formidable army. But, 2 Carriers wont give you anything, add up the fact that it needs a few upgrades and another build time of interceptors to be fully operational.
I don't see the tempest having the same problem though, once you get 2-3 of them, they already have utility. They are not supposed to be part of your deathball or to be massed imo. I see the meta-game shifting to Protoss getting about 3 and then moving on to other units.
Although, 3 tempest wont give you the damage output 3 colossi can,1-3 Tempest could:
1. Harass the hell out of a mineral line
2. Provide good base defense against medivac drops, covering multiple drop locations.
3. Provide support to Warp Prism drops (normal drops or speed prisim colossi, tempest on hold position just outside the base)
4. Someone will think of a crazy proxy stargate build for this.
It has utility in low numbers. Think it has lots of potential and will find its own niche in some match-up countering some build because it can reach effectiveness earlier than a Carrier can.
We just have to get past the fact that its bad en masse. Its a unit that should slowly nip at an enemy not win games outright.
|
On September 11 2012 12:01 Umami wrote:Show nested quote +On Aug 31, 2012 9:00 AM PDT David Kim wrote:
A few weeks ago, we asked you to join us in testing a few proposed balance tweaks for StarCraft II. At the time, we felt like terran performance versus zerg (at the pro level) needed some attention. You responded with a lot of testing and good feedback.
Since we began this testing, we’ve also been paying very close attention to the major tournaments around the world, and we’ve noticed that terran performance in the TvZ matchup has improved. In analyzing tournaments such as Global StarCraft II Team League, Intel Extreme Masters, and Major League Gaming, we’re no longer seeing the same balance shifts that caused us to propose changes in the first place. The most interesting tournament in this context was the IEM at gamescom 2012 in Cologne, Germany, where we saw players such as Kas and MVP make use of Ravens in ways that held a lot of potential.
We feel that at this time, we should give players more opportunities to fully explore the slowly-shifting meta-game before we change the balance of the game. We’re seeing a lot more players starting to explore Ravens, and we’d like to see exactly how that goes before making any decisions on balance. The TvZ win ratio has somewhat shifted toward terran, calling a nerf to creep tumor into question.
This is the first time that we’ve planned for an adjustment, and then observed a change in the meta-game that could impact our decision. That doesn’t lead us to the conclusion that there is nothing that needs to be adjusted, but rather, it’s a chance for us to carefully consider other things. When we see that balance is changing on its own, we prefer to continue monitoring the situation and see where the performance of the different matchups settles before we step in.
Overall, the balance we’re seeing at the tournament level looks pretty good right now, and we will continue to watch the meta-game closely, and read your suggestions. Why then take out the carrier preemptively? Why not take the same approach to the carrier as they did with the situation report? Work on the carrier and make it easier for Protoss player and let the carrier evolve as we are starting to see more carriers enter the meta game. Could this possibly be hypocritical of blizzard to not let the carrier evolve more in the meta game?
The reason is because it doesn't belong to Terran. If it belongs to Terran, the approach is to promise you'll do something, then do nothing. Or if you're Zerg, you automatically get random ass buffs (apparently whether you QQ or not).
I think the biggest issue is simply the build time. If it didn't take years to get a few Carriers out, 2 base Carrier builds might come back. The damage output of Carriers aren't so bad, and they are reasonably good in large numbers. Also, maybe increasing the durability of Interceptors would help. As it is, I feel they are too easy to kill, as you can just get a large group of Stimmed Marines and literally have them sit there until all the Interceptors die. You should have to focus fire Carriers to beat them cost efficiently (which is significantly easier than getting under Broodlords to do the same).
|
heh tempest...we wont be seeing this much either
but oracle in other hand....
|
Also, Carriers are very problematic in PvZ. They're very hard to switch to, but if you do manage to switch to them you pretty much automatically win. Nothing Zerg has can beat Carrier/Archon/Zealot/HT. That army will just obliterate any Zerg composition and two or three remaxes without losing much of anything.
From all I've seen recently even a well-balanced composition with a lot of Carriers and a sufficient amount of HTs is not exactly able to just overrun the appropriate Zerg-counterpart. The standard spine-walls make it hard for the Protoss ground support to do anything. Especially Feedbacks and Storms are just too important to risk losing your Templars to static defenses. The Zerg usually should have a good amount of Infestors and at least the tech to reinforce with a lot of Corrupters. The usefulness of Spore Crawlers against Interceptors should also not to be underestimated.
One example would be one of the games of Curious vs. Squirtle in TSL4.
I think the Tempest will be fine, it snipes Broodlords very well, but you know what it snipes even better? Infestors. 22 range means they can't bring their infestors anywhere near your army without losing them. All you need is 3 Tempest and you can start 1-shotting their Infestors. It's also excellent for defending expansions, just put up 30 cannons and dare the Zerg to try and attack it. They can't whittle the cannons down slowly with their Broodlords because the Tempests will kill them all.
So true. As we all know, taking the Infestors out of the Broodlord-Infestor equation can make it look really weak. And feedbacking or Blink-sniping Infestors might not always be the best option. Or at least it can be quite risky.
The only thing I don't get about the Temepst is its cost and HP-count. The current 300/300 Tempest might be useful in some functions, but with such a high cost and low Dps it will probably only be used in late-late-game. And the high HP-count doesn't really make sense on an Artillery-unit. I believe it would make sense to get rid of some of the hitpoints and reduce its resource cost to 200/200 and its supply cost to 4 or something along those lines. Leave the range-upgrade on the Fleet Beacon. This should help to make the Tempest a bit more of a flexible choice, that might be usable in the mid-game. Coupled with the Oracle and some changes to the Carrier this might actually make Sky-Toss a less risky, more harass-oriented playstyle.
Edit: Sorry, forget to mention, that the Tempest should be available on plain Stargate, but the Range-upgrade only on Fleet Beacon.
Also, can somebody tell me what Blizzard is trying to achieve by removing the Carrier ? I mean, the Tempest and the Void-Ray both fill completely different roles. It's not like removing the Carrier will add anything to the game.
|
I think that on last nights inside the game Incontrol made a great statement on the carrier. (i think it was incontrol) the colosi is countered by corrupter/vikings, this just si happens to be the same counter for carriers aswell. The reason this sucks so badly is that if the terran or zerg are building to counter colosi they just accidentally countered your carriers. In BW protoss had great splash damage in the reaver which meant that aa was not used to kill the reaver so when carriers came out their army comp was not aa heavy already. the carrier is a pretty strong unit when your opponents army isnt already aa based. i know that statement seems pretty easy to understand but colosi are essentially used almost everytime you go past the early midgame in any matchup so terrans and zergs will get that aa as a blind counter quite often.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
